Team ICO are responsible for arguably two of the best games ever created, ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, though these games weren't met with bank busting sales records both games offered something very unique to the gaming industry and amassed a huge cult following and share some of the highest review scores on the PS2. You may recall in my review of ICO that I adored the game in every shape and form, it had its flaws but these flaws were vastly outweighed by greatness but can Shadow of the Colossus follow in its footsteps?
You play as Wander, a man who adventures into a place known as 'The Forbidden Lands' with the hope of resurrecting his dead girlfriend, Mono, by consulting a being known as Dormin. Dormin agrees to bring Mono back to life so long as Wander hunts down and kills 16 colossi that roam the Forbidden Lands. As Wander begins to slay the giant beasts he begins to change and Dormin's plan is revealed.
Shadow of the Colossus, as a story, is something very different in the gaming market however it never delves into its story too deeply which stops it from becoming something amazing. You begin to notice slights changes to Wander's appearance with each passing colossi but you are never told anything besides Wander's story up until the final 3 or 4 colossi and even then it is only truly seen in the final cutscene at as shallow a level as possible. Depth is what was needed in this story because it is far too thin on the ground. However though the game feels short, around 4-5 hours in length, it never overstays its welcome. Any more colossi and the game would have become tedious and absurd, any less and it wouldn’t have been enough.
The gameplay to SotC is something unlike anything in the industry. Though the game comes across as an action-adventure it is actually a 3rd person puzzle platformer. This is because there is no actual gameplay besides climbing, jumping and stabbing glowing weak points. The game is 16 boss battles strung together with open world horse riding. The puzzles consist of finding your way to the colossus, finding out how to take down a colossus and then actually taking the colossus down; this process is repeated 16 times however it never gets repetitive because each colossus is so different from the last. The challenge also gets greater with each colossi beginning with a pretty slow, dumb and easy to kill colossus up to a colossus that will kill you in one shot and requires a very precise, perfectly timed set of actions in order to climb & kill it. It is worth mentioning though that, especially with some of the early colossi the A.I is a bit dumb and can often get sidetracked or forget your existence mere seconds after getting its attention making it difficult to kill.
The game does a very very good job of making you feel small compared to everything else in the world. The map itself is probably among the largest on the PS2 spanning miles upon miles of highly detailed and simply beautiful natural environment & ancient architecture. Buildings & cliffs tower above Wander and the colossi are simply astounding in size, if I was to define a 'big' game, SotC would be that definition even if its lacking in length and overall content.
That is another large gripe of mine. The world is so damn huge, yet it is completely empty besides save points, lizards, trees and of course the 16 bosses. Yeah the place is forbidden and all but why make a place so damn big and not put anything in it?
For a PS2 game, SotC is visually impressive for its sense of scale not for its graphical standard. Things could be a lot smoother and textures could be more varied but in all fairness the game is pushing the PS2 to its limits with the amount of world to generate. Lighting has a large roll to play in SotC too, in order to find the colossi you must hold your sword up to the sunlight and it will point in the direction the colossus lays, in darker areas this is not possible. The light also gives the PS2 graphics a bit of a facelift and makes them look nicer than that actually are.
The musical score is among the best in the business, I could honestly listen to this all day and all night because its so good. There is very little in terms of voice acting though, there are very few characters and each one only has a line or two of dialogue in the entire game, not to mention none of it is in English. This makes the game feel more authentic however those of you who don't like subtitles may be put off.
In short Shadow of the Colossus is a masterpiece and one of the best games available for the PS2...however it is not up to the standard of that set by ICO or many other great PS2 games.
I feel that the community, as with many cult classics, over-hype the game into becoming something godly when in reality it isn't. There are many improvements to be made such as tweaking the A.I, making the world have more textures and adding things into the world to do on the side.
But these things are minor offsets, the score I give the game could be seen as too low for many people but the reason why I give this is because the game needs work, and a lot of it. But that doesn't mean you should pass it up, SotC is a game every PS2 owner should have, and with the Team ICO HD collection PS3 owners will be able to own it too.
Shadow of the Colossus: 8/10
+Truly Unique
+The Scale
+The Artistic Design
-The Shallow, Undeveloped Story
-Wonky A.I
-Much In Need Of A Graphical Overhaul
