A Gaming Experience That Challenges Your Perceptions of What Games Should Achieve.
Knowing the dangers, how far would you go to save the one you love? This is the question raised in Shadow of the Colossus: a video game that critics and enthusiasts claim to be a work of art. In terms are visual arts, video games are almost akin to some of the best canvas paintings out there. However, there’s a moral depth beyond the great visuals Shadow of the Colossus brings, and it could not have been presented better.
The story follows a boy named Wander, whose girlfriend was sacrificed for having a “cursed fate” as the game puts it. He brings her body to a Shrine in the Forbidden Lands in order to find a way to bring her back to life. It is in the shrine where Wander meets Dormin, a mysterious entity who claims to know the secret of resurrection. However, there is a catch: in order to perform the ritual, Wander must slay the sixteen colossi that live in the Forbidden Lands. Willing to risk everything, Wander accepts the challenge, amid the warning Dormin gives him that “the price you pay may be heavy indeed.”
Upon learning of this task and venturing towards the unknown, the gamer is in for a visual treat unrivaled by even the best-designed Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy title. The landscape may not be much in the way of flashy colors or fantastic creatures (apart from the colossi), but the atmosphere it creates among the detail is simply breathtaking. Mountain walls are skillfully placed and designed, down to the last crumbled bit of rock. Forests are eerily grim, yet subtle. Lakesides are so realistic that a feeling of nostalgia may be inescapable for those who live near one. The lighting is also unbelievable. The same team that made Ico—another skillfully made game—used all their tricks and then some for this beautiful and bleak environment, and players may often find themselves wandering around the Forbidden Lands just to take it all in.
The focus of the game is right on the cover of the game box—one of them, at least. Colossal creatures ready to be taken down by Wander. There are sixteen in all and not one of them the same as the other. One is designed as a feral beast able to climb walls, another looks like a dragon floating through the sand, and one might remind a gamer of a wild horse at a ranch. Majestic as these creatures may be, they must be taken down to progress the game. This is the shining star of the game, if only one could be stated. Being that these are the only fights in the game, each of them has a unique weakness and approach to beating them. Using the environment around you and even the colossi themselves, the puzzle is trying to reach and take them down from their weak spots. Of course, the colossi fight back—some with roaring vigor—but nothing comes free.
With all this talk about climbing colossi and roaming around the world, how does the player have Wander manage all this? For one thing, he’s an excellent climber, even if he looks a bit clumsy while doing so—again, it adds to the realism of the game, such as it is. However, climbing takes the wind out of him after a time, and so he must take breaks in order to restore his stamina. He wields only two weapons: a sword and a bow. Both can be used advantageously against the colossi, as well as for gaining power-ups for his health and stamina gauge. However, some terrain is just too vast for Wander to walk across, and some colossi too fast or too enormous for Wander to handle by himself. That’s where Agro, his horse, comes in. Admittedly, the controls for Agro do veer on the stiff and unpredictable, and she doesn’t respond as well as she should. However, there’s not really much of a need for control as she does well enough without your interaction.
Stunning as this game is in terms of scale and visual beauty, it is a bit on the short side, taking only six to eight hours for the standard gamer to complete (ten to twelve on Hard mode). However, nothing can prepare the gamer for the emotional wallop its story delivers. Throughout the game, a moving and incredible soundtrack—one which puts most movie scores to shame—captures the emotions felt while traversing the Forbidden Lands and facing the colossi. The soft, gentle melodies heard whenever you approach a colossus are quickly drowned by the menacing brass and string sections that serve to show you that these beasts mean business. The victorious tones as you climb them make you feel as though you're climbing a massive moving mountain as well. Few other soundtracks come close to giving you feelings of triumph and anguish all at once.
Right up to the end, the gamer is left with a sense of doubt, fear, and anxiety as they follow an unknown voice’s orders in order to save the girl. Without revealing too much, the ending serves to show the consequences of Wander’s actions and how he is rewarded for those actions at the end of a brutal and long journey. In doing so, what began as a standard, yet beautiful adventure puzzle game turns into a moral fable about the dangers of authority and the price paid for disobeying it. With few words spoken throughout, emotions run high, stakes are claimed, and the game transcends beyond entertainment and into the world of art, as controversial as that might seem.
Video games are often debated as to whether or not they are a new form of art, much like cinematic film in its infancy. Games like Shadow of the Colossus serve to try to shift the debate in favor of having well-made video games become aesthetically important to human society and culture. The game itself is pleasing to the eye, stimulating for the mind in terms of its puzzles, and emotionally overwhelming as the plot progresses with the killing of each colossus. It raised the standard for which games of the future should be made, and it serves to answer difficult life questions, like whether or not it’s wise to disobey authority for one’s own gain. Games that followed have included similar morals and questions into their stories, but none have matched the magnificence that Shadow of the Colossus holds. Short it may be, and less-than-perfect horse AI it may have, this is a must-play game not only for gamers, but also for any non-gamer wanting to be proven wrong about the artistic merit of video games.