Some more videos:
I'm torn about this - it looks good (the foliage in particular from some of the other videos looks really good), but at the same time it just feels like it's definitely missing... something. It's like a more typical kind of looking good. Getting more of a look at the world in general, not just the colossi areas/fights, makes this more apparent, I think. Not to be that person, but it really does look like the atmosphere took a pretty noticeable hit. Admittedly, there is a nostalgia factor and it does get a bit hard to tease out the "intended" look from the influence of the limitations of the PS2, but, even beyond the bloom and mist, the color palette looks to be sometimes
significantly different in the remake. Like, almost cool to warm different in some areas, because of that green tint that's especially noticeable in the field/sunlight leading up to the first colossus' area. There was some purple-ness to the sky that's not really in the remake, so the third colossus fight looks a bit too gray. What you can see of the desert area (near the shrine, not where you fight the thirteenth colossus) looks less distinctive because of the green, too. It's kind of like when you look at a photograph of a painting online or in a book and then when you see it in person the colors are different. Again, I'm sure some of the charm of the original came from having to mentally fill in the details that were lacking, but I just recently played through The Last Guardian and I never felt that lacked the sort of ethereal atmosphere that the PS2 Team Ico games had.
It's hard to judge the new HUD from what little of it is shown, but that's an aspect of the original where change is welcome, IMO (that pink can go).
The new character model's face looks bad, good lord. Edit: Maybe it's the just the specific shot or angle/lighting, I dunno. Hard to judge, but I just hope it looks better in cutscenes.
I'll still definitely get this, though. Shadow of the Colossus is my favorite game ever, and, not to be hyperbolic, but it's so good that it really should be available, in some form, on every console generation (until the end of time
). If only they could invent a way to selectively erase your memory so you can experience it again for the first time, because, when it comes down to it, that's really what I want and no amount of shiny new graphics can really do the equivalent of that.