"Different doesn't always mean better"

If any of you are like me, you bought Shadow of the Collosus after reading reviews or seeing the hype raging about how different the game is from others you might have played, and broadly speaking the game is pretty much unique. However, ultimately the game becomes quite repetitive after the first few hours, and by the final boss you may find yourself feeling underwhelmed and unimpressed by the whole affair.

GAMEPLAY:

The basic premise of the game is simple. You are a guy, armed only with a sword, a bow and a loyal horse for company. With these ample weapons you must first seek out, and then slay 16 collosi in a barren world; these of course becoming progressively more dangerous and complicated to slay as you go along.

The way this basically works is that the game is split into 16 giant boss fights, with the time inbetween being spent mainly just hunting down the individual collosi. For some reason I never quite grasped, holding your sword into the sunlight will reflect the light towards your next target collosi, showing you the way to go. You then go there, get treated to an introductory cinematic/scene presenting the collosi, and then set to killing the thing.

And how do you do this? Again, by reflecting light - onto the collosi's body "weak points" can be identified (which are shown by flashing symbols). Once found the only difficulty is working out how to climb up the collosi's body to get to these points - you can cling onto fur but on all but the very first few bosses some additional steps are required to get to these kill points.

Admittedly at times these puzzles can be quite innovative and enjoyable. For example, for one boss you hide from view in a cave, eventually causing the collosi to bend over to look for you inside allowing you to exit by a different route, sneak up behind it and jump onto it's back, to promptly find it's weak point and kill it. Others involve manipulating the collosi to destroy large swathes of the fighting arena, allowing you access to higher areas and then onto the collosi's head to finish the fight.

The problem is, these fights can also be incredibly frustrating, and equally unrewarding. There's one collosi I remember that will charge you like a rhino, knock you over and then, just as you're getting back to your feet, charge you again, preventing you from ever getting up (and after about 5 minutes, it will finally have killed you). Quite a few others involve working your way into a position to jump onto the head/a platform, and if this is missed you'll have to go through the entire process again - which really isn't a fun thing to be doing once you know exactly how you're meant to kill the thing.

As I've said, the first few collosi are enjoyable, but as the game progresses they become more and more frustrating, and as there really is little joy to be had with the movement and controls, by the end, at least in my case you'll just want to kill the last collosi and put the game away for good.

But wait! All of this is actually the best (some might say only) part of the game! Aside from hunting down and killing the collosi, there's very, very, very little to do. There's a huge map, but, alas, it is ENTIRELY vacant apart from the collosi (who will only appear one at a time) and a few fruit trees and a few lizards. By finding and eating the fruit from the fruit trees, you can increase your maximum health substantially, and by finding and killing the white-tailed lizards, you can improve your stamina (which dictates how long you can hold onto the collosi's fur in the boss fights). Both these "side quests" are remarkably tedious, are largely unnecessary as the game can comfortably be completed without them and, at least in the case of the lizards pretty frustrating as well. (believe me, running around a building to get a clear shot at a lizard that won't stop moving for a reward which is pretty unnoticeable for several minutes is not my idea of fun)

As a final complaint, your horse (which at least makes navigating the huge world possible) has a perverse habit of stopping as soon as the terrain under foot has any kind of gradient, and frequently makes random turns which can be a bit of a pain it has to be said.

However, despite all the above it has to be said that the controls are quite effective and the boss fights considerably epic, and even if the whole thing becomes boring and repetitive (it is after all just 16 bosses back to back), for a while at least it's quite diverting.

I should also mention that after completing the game once you obtain access to a time trial mode against the bosses, and a hard mode, and then a hard time trial mode. Apparently these allow you to unlock some improved weapons - I don't really know, I genuinely couldn't be bothered playing the game again after completing it once.

GAMEPLAY SCORE - 5/10

STORY:

Some might describe this as minimalist, I'd describe it using several words that might be misconstrued as being offensive.

So what is the story? As I said previously, you're a guy alone in a desolate, vacant world... you're there in a vain attempt to resurrect your dead lover, using the power of a god who resides in a temple at the centre - indeed it is this god who directs you to kill each of the 16 collosi. Once the 16 collosi have been defeated, the god has kindly promised to cure your lover... although if I was that fellow I'd be wanting that one in writing.

Anyway this delightfully complex story is shown in a lengthy opening cinematic, and then that's it.

No really.

Well until you've completed the game and get a fairly crap ending with a "twist" that you should see coming a mile off if you've bothered to stop and think about things.

Generally I don't mind a fairly weak story as long as it's still enough to drive what you're doing, and make you interested in what might happen later on. This does neither of those, and is really quite astonishingly weak.

STORY SCORE - 1/10

GRAPHICS:

Graphics is one of the areas where Shadow of the Collosus does shine. The world is beautifully rendered, and during the first few hours of play it is conceivable that you will literally just wander around randomly sight seeing. The collosi in particular are at times spectacular and the whole art style and implementation screams "epic" at every turn.

That said, there are a few faults: Animation can become a bit choppy, especially when climbing collosi and being shaken about. The hero also moves, well, like no kind of person I've ever seen before and this can be a bit off putting when you're jumping around trying to take down some gigantic monster. The final issue is, after a while - you just don't care! The world is there only really to provide some diversion between the 16 boss fights and eventually you'll just be treating it as a rather tedious maze to be negotiated, rather than a thing of graphical beauty. Equally the collosi quickly cease seeming so amazing, particularly because (with the honourable exception of the final boss) they generally don't really differentiate themselves in terms of epicness from previous collosi - several of the later ones are EXTRAORDINARILY similar in appearance to earlier bosses and I personally found this rather disappointing.

Still the graphics are impressive and this game well wortha brief look just to have a wander around the map.

GRAPHICS SCORE - 9/10

MUSIC:

The music tries hard to be epic and equal to the boss fights and indeed almost succeeds. Each collosi has two pieces of well composed music - one for the initial confrontation and another, more energetic piece for when you're on the things back and moving in for the kill. - And these are definitely well composed and appropriate, and should earn the music a high score.

The problem I found was that after a few collosi, the music all seemed to be repeating, and in fact after enough hours really became quite irritating. Epic music is all very well, but once the game stops feeling epic, the impact of the music stops being one of "wow look at this" to "who exactly are you trying to kid?". I was also pretty disappointed not to find any of the final bosses having new (and more spectacular) tunes to go alongside them... although it's quite possible they did and were so average I never noticed.

The music isn't bad, but it's certainly not great.

MUSIC SCORE - 6/10

Overall, this is a seriously flawed game that is burdened by high expectations and it's failure to deliver. Initial play suggests it could be great, and that's quite right, it really could be.

Unfortunately, 10 hours later the game is done, you're bored ****less and you'll probably feel like you want the last 8 hours of your life back.

Still, the first 2 hours are pretty enjoyable! - My advice, rent this, complete it ina couple of days and never play the thing again!

OVERALL SCORE - 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/22/06