"16 Colossal Boss Battles and They're Amazing..."

Okay, picking up Shadow of the Colossus is just a breath of fresh air. With all of the games coming out today, this just screams out originality.

This is a game made for that little kid inside of you. :)

Shadow of the Colossus is essentially David and Goliath.
It works out perfectly too.
We'll start off with the story:

BTW, there will be some minor stories, but they shouldn't ruin anything for you...

STORY ----- 8/10
Okay, I'm not gonna lie, there's not much to the story. A young man (whose name I believe to be "Wander") comes across a giant bridge into a vast, deserted landscape, to a temple, on his trusty steed, Agro with a dead woman. There are 16 massive idols set aside in the main chamber of the temple and an altar up front. *MINOR SPOILERS* Through a disembodied voice, we learn that an entity know as Dormin might be able to revive the woman if Wander is able to slay the sixteen idols' counterparts (i.e., the 16 colossi). Using only a sword, a bow, and his horse, "Wander" must find and slay all 16 colossus in the landscape.

That is the primary story of the game. Your knowledge of the story doesn't really further until much later in the game, when some more is revealed. In all honesty, the story is sort of simple and sweet compared to other games, and the game makes it work. It's a game where you may be left wondering things, but in a good way (atleast I think....).

In my opinion *MINOR SPOILERS*, the story is somewhat sad. There'a a lot of loss and a big feeling of desolation due to the fact that it's really only you, your horse and the 16 colossi (with the occasional lizard, bird or turtle...). It's a bit tragic, I think, but maybe I've said too much. On to the Graphics!

GRAPHICS 9/10
Wow. People say that this game is a so called "next-gen game on a current-gen system". They weren't lying. The scale of this game is amazing and I don't think there's another game on this scale out there. I mean, the landscape is HUGE! Plus being the only human being there will add to your sense of awe. I was blown away once I got onto the horse and started riding off. I mean, it's amazing to think that this is done on a PS2. And that's just the land...

Once you get to the colossal battles, you get a whole new feeling of awe. You really get a feeling of how big the colossi are and how small you are once you see them. All of the action occurs during these battles and the graphics don't really fail. There's an occasional framerate problem (didn't bother my experience), but overall everything looks nice. the colossus' are covered in rock, fur, armor and it really looks good. The world comprises of grassy fields, mountains, ruins, deserts, lakes, beaches, there's a lot... I swear to god, I was riding on the horse at one point and I reverted back to childhood when I noticed that the valley I was in made me think of the stampede scene from The Lion King. It's really amazing what they are able to accomplish here, though the only reason that it's posisble is due to the fact that there's literally nothing else going on besides you riding or fighting a colossus...

That being said, the only real problem with the graphics that I can think of, is the Wander, I guess. The character sometimes looks like crap up close, but it's okay. I lived through it. To the main course and what the game is all about!

GAMEPLAY 9/10
I almost gave this a 10, but that would mean it's perfect, and I can't say that. You get some fun here. First of all, your horse, Agro, is quite a thing. It really feels like a horse, right down to pulling on the reins to stop. And you can pull off all sorts of manuevers while riding him, like riding side-saddle, standing ontop of him while riding, shooting your bow (which you can do while standing up), jumping off of him. It's really fun.

In order to find the colossi, you aim you sword to the sun and pinpoint what direction they are in, and then you follow that. It takes some time because the land is so huge, and that might take away from some people's fun, but you'll survive. The fun lies in once you find a colossus and the battle begins...

See, now this game has no real enemies but the colossus. It's a really empty game. The game lies within the battles with the colossus, and it's essentially to me, a game comprised of 16 boss battles. And let me tell you, they are extremely fun.

Okay, once you find a colossus, the main idea is to find it's weak points and get onto the colossus to stab the weakpoint till the monster dies. That's the basic idea for all of them. The fun lies within figuring out how to get to those weakpoints. See, you can only grab onto a colossus' fur, which happens to be spread out over certain points of the colossi. It's your job to figure out how to get from the fur to the weakpoint. And it differs with all of the 16 battles. You'll find yourself using the environment, your horse and you sword and bow to take down these huge beasts who try to shake and rip you off of their body...

The colossi all differ in size, detail and initial shape, so don't be afraid, there's a lot of variety. There's so much fun in the battles, it's really hard to explain. I'll give one example from my experience...*MINOR SPOILERS*

"You can't beat standing up on your horse and jumping off of him while he's moving, Indiana Jones style, onto the colossus before the monster takes off into the air and flies a to the height of a 20 or 30 story building, while you struggle to not only hang on when it flips totally upside down, but to climb this monster and kill it."

I mean, the battles are so much fun. There just that much fun...

REPLAY VALUE 6/10
There's not much here. You can go through the game again, with what you finished the main game with, stamina and health wise, and then choose to compete in a time attack mode, hard mode, or hard time attack mode. Or you could juct traverse the land, looking for easter eggs and secrets, which are going to be by the plenty (the place is freakin' huge, there could be so many that haven't been found), but once again, the fun of the game lies in figuring out how to take down these huge monsters, so the game isn't as fun the second time around.

In my opinion, everyone should try this game. It's just that good of an experience. This is one of those games that I hope spawn a series of copycat like games that try to do the same thing, just so I could play those.
It makes me think of the power the next-gen consoles will have and what a game of this calibur will look like on those....

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/14/05