Action_Snark's Full Review: Shadow of the Colossus for PlayStation 2
Shadow of The Colossus (SoTC) is one of those ultra-cinematic games. As a general rule of thumb, I don't like these types of games. Final Fantasy X was probably the worst offender, as it was basically a poorly done version of The Joy Luck Club with weird costumes and monster fights shoehorned in around the sides. SoTC on the other hand, is a polar opposite. Take the gorgeous scenery and breataking grandeur of the Lord of The Rings trilogy, combine it with the forlorn hoplessness of Atreyu's journey through the swamps in The Neverending Story, and you've got SoTC's world. Anyway, on to the full review:
Plot: Masterfully understated is the name of the game here. The game starts with the main character and his trusty horse depositing the obviously lifeless body of a girl on an altar in a mysterious temple, and making a deal with an unseen deity to bring her back from the dead. The player's end of the bargain is to journey through the forbidden lands surrounding the temple and slay 16 colossi. In return, the Dormin (the deity), will maybe bring your dead lady friend back to life. And that's it, until the end of the story, which I won't spoil.
The plot is really not advanced or explained at all throughout the game, and there are no NPC interactions whatsoever. While this would seem like a recipe for a crappy plot, what it really does is open it up to the player's imagination. Riding through miles of desolate wasteland on your trusty horse, you have time to meditate on the meaning of what you're doing, as well as the morality...
Overall, plot scores a 9.5 out of 10, for a marvelous story that gives you just enough to keep you guessing and second-guessing the motivations of your character and the Dormin.
Gameplay: Sticking with the ICO philosophy of 'less is more', the mechanics of the game are really simple. The player is armed with their magical sword, a stout bow, and their trusty steed Agro. The game's formula is very simple: Hunt down your assigned colossus, engage it in battle, lather, rinse, repeat. No random NPC villagers or hostile MOBS roaming the countryside, just a sometimes tense ride out to find the colossi, and several minutes of white-knuckle action during the battle. While this sort of extremely simple model seems like a waste of time, it has been polished to near perfection, and makes the game incredibly addictive.
Combat is really comprised of jumping and climbing puzzles. Your average colossus is an awe-inspiring giant, the smallest of which is about the size of a medium office building. To topple one of these monsters, it's necessary to scale them like a breathing mountain, and repeatedly strike their weak points with your sword. To put the size difference into perspective, imagine a GI Joe trying to kill you with a pushpin. Each colossus requires a different combination of skill and strategy to scale and beat, though it almost always revolves around climbing to the vulnerable point without getting bucked off. Normally I absolutely loathe jumping and climbing puzzles, but I found them quite enjoyable when the puzzle was embodied in a skyscraper sized tower of fury.
The other area of gameplay that really surprised me with it's depth was the horse, Agro. I've seen horses implemented in various genres of games, but none so well as SoTC. It's pretty obvious that the developers took great pains to make Agro a realistic horse, instead of just a vehicle that looked like a horse. He displays an actual personality, and the kind of initiative and thoughts that a real animal would.
Gameplay scores a 9 out of 10 for being a great example of how minimalist game mechanics can be polised to the point where they're incredibly enjoyable. I think the one gripe I've had with gameplay is the occasionally balky camera system, but that was more a problem with me fighting the camera instead of learning how to use it properly.
Graphics and Sound: SoTC is probably one of the most impressive games on the PS2, bar none. While it doesn't have the kind of mega detailed shiny eye candy that the Final Fantasy series displays, SoTC is still stellar.
Agro and the player are both very well rendered, and there are a ton of little graphical touches that really bring the player and horse to life. Not just the models either, but the animations and walk/run cycles for the horse and player are really realistic looking, and only serve to draw you further into the experience.
The landscape is excellent, and fits the mood of the game perfectly. Trudging through blasted wastelands or the rare forest dell, I really felt like I was the first person to set foot in the forbidden lands for hundreds or even thousands of years. SoTC's visuals do an excellent job at driving home just how majestic and ancient the game world is.
There are also lots of little touches as well. The color pallete is very muted, and there are some really excellent particle and psuedo-bloom effects coded into the game that make the overall look much closer to something you'd see in a theater than in a video game. SoTC also supports progressive scan output, and both 4:3 and 16:9 screen ratios. While the progressive scan doesn't actually increase the rendering resolution, just upsamples it to 480p, it's still nice to get a little extra crispness. The 16:9 screen ratio is a boon though, as this game is so epic you'll want to take in as much as you possibly can.
The real stars of the graphics department are the colossi themselves. Each has it's own personality, and it's movements and model reflect it well. The sense of mass is almost palpable as your character doggedly tries to work his way up the flank of one of these beautifully rendered monsters.
The sound track is also top notch. I believe the composer was Koi Otani, who's pretty well known for scoring quite a few animes. I won't gush about the soundtrack too much, but suffice to say that while it's sparse and recycled in places, it really drives home the emotional feel each part of the game is supposed to convey.
Overall, Graphics and sound get a 9 out of 10. My only gripes were some occasional problems with slowdown, but in a game this lush and detailed, I can't realistically expect a PS2 to push it at a solid framerate 100% of the time.
Overall: Overall, this is probably the most enjoyable PS2 game I've ever purchased. It's longevity is a bit questionable, as one can rip through normal mode in about 12 hours, and all that are left are the hard difficulty, and normal/hard speedrun modes. However, one nice thing is that after beating the normal mode, your character's gains in strength and stamina carry over to the next game mode, which lets you explore some previously unreachable areas.
While the plotline is beatable in under 15 hours, I've gotten a lot more out of the game. The world is absolutely huge, and you'll miss a ton of it if you just go from Temple A to Colossus B all the time. There are a lot of stunningly beautiful areas that were never meant to be visited within the course of the colossus slaying adventure, but instead exist as a reward for taking the time to explore the game's world.
Basically, everything about SoTC is epic. The story is epic, the world is epic, and the battles are definitely epic. The final colossus battle is probably the most jaw-droppingly, devastatingly, pants-soilingly massive fight I've ever had in any videogame, ever. Final Fantasy Omega Weapons pale in comparison to the sheer massiveness of the final colossus and the battle to take him down. If you're looking for a game that will grab you by the head and heartstrings, suck you in, and then leave you disappointed because it ended, SoTC is the first place you should look.
Overall, I'll give Shadow of The Colossus a perfect 10 out of 10. It's hands down the most engrossing, enjoyable game in my PS2 library right now, and I don't think it's going to get dethroned any time soon.
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