Shadow of the Colossus Review

Game Reviews
Shadow of the Colossus Review
By Jonathan Mills
January 17, 2006 - 00:43

Sony
Platform: Playstation 2

Let's go ahead and get it out of the way, Shadow of the Colossus is a ground breaking game, there's never been anything like it. The game was developed from the same team that brought you ICO and took nearly 4 years for them to complete.

You begin the game by bringing a fallen love to a forbidden temple in the hopes of reviving her, a presence tells you that it can be done but you must hunt down and destroy the 16 colossi that surround the temple. They give you very little story to go by, who is the girl, your sister, your wife or someone else? Why is this land forbidden and who is this presence that want's the colossi dead? Very little of this matters to the hero, the only thing that does matter, is that you finish this task, at any cost.

The entire game is basically a succession of boss fights, one after the other, their is very little in the way of exploring and their are no random enemy's that pop up in the overworld. Their are no items to collect and no inventory. This may sound a little strange, and it is, but by no means is this a bad thing. You have the most basic of weapons, a bow and a sword and you can travel the world on your horse Agro. Your sword doubles as a compass, holding it up into the light creates a shimmering marker that points you in the direction of the next colossus. Getting to the colossus usually isn't a big deal, their may be an instance where you'll need to climb a cliff or navigate through the woods but other then that, it's more or less a straight shot.

Saying thease guy's are huge, is an understatement

The meat of the game is fighting the colossus. These beasts are huge, easily the size of skyscrapers when compared to your hero, the challenge is solving the puzzle to first mount the beast, then climbing it, to destroy it with your sword. While this is happening, the beasts will try as hard as they can to shake you off, if your not hanging on or your grip meter runs out (a meter that displays how long you can grab something) you'll be sent falling to the ground, oddly enough though, even if you fall from a great height, you'll only take a small amount of damage. These battles are among the most exciting fights I have ever experienced in a game.

The music in this game, is some of the best music I have ever heard in my life (don't get to say a line like that very often) as you figure out how to defeat them, the music changes to set the mood. The sound effects deserve just as much praise, from the crashing as the colossi walk to the wind blowing, it's all just perfect.

The forbidden temple

Their are a few technical problems that should be mentioned, first is the shaky framerate, this happens usually during moments in battle and borders just on the edge of playable. The other problem is the hectic camera, sometimes I think it has a life of it's own, this is one of those things that after a few hours of playing, you learn to adjust to.

Overall, Shadow of the Colossus is a truly amazing game that will be talked about 10 years from now, with it's amazing graphics, incredible story and truly original design. Whatever you do, don't let the few technical problems stop you from playing this game, if you did, that would be doing yourself a great injustice.

Overall score is not an average

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