More Games Should Let You Climb Giant Creatures

ign.com:

I’ll never climb a 20-foot ogre in real life. That’s something I’ve had to contend with for a while but now, in Dragon’s Dogma 2, I can do just that. It’s a thrill not limited to ogres but a whole host of mythical monsters found inside Capcom’s latest. Griffins, golems, chimeras… I’ve scaled the lot. Each one I ascended really got me thinking that more games should let you climb giant creatures. It’s a feature that’s not only an incredibly tangible way of conveying that feeling of taking down a fearsome beast, but also cleverly transforms towering threats into walking puzzles that require dexterity, smarts, and of course, brute strength to take down. It really is something other action games should look to replicate.

Of course, Dragon’s Dogma 2 isn’t the first of its kind in this regard. Some of my formative video game memories were created when clambering up the skyscraper-like giants at the centre of Team Ico’s Shadow of the Colossus. To say that taking down these colossi was enjoyable would perhaps be a stretch given the mournful tone that weaves through its world like the swirling black souls that leave their bodies, but it was a sense of pure spectacle I hadn’t seen before, and arguably haven’t since – until one late game encounter in Dragon’s Dogma 2, which has you scale a colossus of its own.

Fumito Ueda’s PS2 classic conjures images of the films I grew up on, ranging from the wonderfully sculpted creations of Ray Harryhausen in Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans, to scenes from more modern masterpieces like Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, such as when Legolas slides down the trunk of a hulking Oliphaunt. Scale can be used to stunning effect in cinema to place our heroes in danger, but games can take this one step further, by actually placing you on the furry backs of your foes and tasking you with their demise.

It’s a sensation Shadow of the Colossus captured perfectly, with each mammoth encounter being its own puzzle across multiple