Shadow of the Colossus

The reason why the title says Shadow Of The Colossus is a hit or miss game is because a lot of people hate platformers. A lot of people hate boss battles, and a lot of people hate the concept of using your platforming skills to win the boss battles. If any of these apply to you, then Shadow Of The Colossus (referred to as SotC for now) is definitely not for you. Even then, it is still a good idea to actually try the game out. It's not like your normal platforming game like Prince Of Persia, but is something much more unique. SotC gives you one objective, and that objective alone will be your only one throughout the game. There won't be any side missions or other enemies to kill, as that would get you off track of what you are supposed to be doing. The story is pretty basic, and the game is somewhat short, that is, depending on your skills to think during the heat of a dangerous situation. And it'll certainly help you to have this skill, because you are going to need it throughout the entire game, and for every boss battle.

So what about these boss battles then? What am I going to be fighting? Words cannot simple explain these battles, because you have never seen anything like them. The story is what drives the main character, Wander, to his objective and to keep on fighting till the end. Okay, so Wander is a determined person, but what is his objective?

The main character, named Wander, arrives at a giant temple with his horse, named Agro, and a dead body. The body belongs to a girl named Mono, and it seems that she was sacrificed by her village, but Wander is determined to bring her back. Within the temple is the knowledge of how to bring back the dead. Wander enters and places Mono on an altar, asking to bring her back. A creepy voice, speaking a different language, comes from the ceiling. The voice tells Wander that it may actually be possible to bring her back to life, but it'll be extremely challenging and dangerous. He points out the many tall idols surrounding the inside of the temple. Each one represents a real and living Colossus that resembles it. Destroying the statues will give the power to bring back the dead, but they cannot be destroyed by simply walking over to one and smashing it to pieces. They are basically the Colossi's health bar. Destroying the Colossus will destroy the statue corresponding to it. There are 16 of these statues all together, meaning there are just as many Colossi out there. The voice let's Wander know that he can use his special sword to show him where each beast is. All he has to do is point it into the light, which can be done by holding the circle button, and than heading to the point where the light gathers. Simple enough. But how do you destroy these beasts with only a sword and a bow and arrow?

Once you finally manage to get to the spot where the Colossus is, you'll see a cutscene showing the Colossus coming out. Once the cutscene is over, the battle begins. To start, you'll probably be standing on the spot for a while, gaping at the massive size of these things. Some of them walk on two feet, some on four, some swim, some fly, and some “swim” through the sand. Each one is incredibly unique, with different sizes, shapes, heights, and lengths. The first part of every battle is trying to figure how the hell you are going to take down the beast. And believe me when I say this: The first part is always the hardest part! A lot of the Colossi will seem almost impossible to tackle, because you'll have no idea as to what you have to do. After a while, however, the voice will speak up and give you a hint. These hints are actually pretty useless, because for the first 15 minutes you'll be running around trying to figure out what to do, and five minutes into the investigation, you realize what you have to do. “Oh, I have to get to higher ground so I can jump and get on him.” Ten minutes later, you get the hint. “A fight on the ground is unfavorable, get to higher ground where thou hast an advantage.” So most of the time, you'll already know what to do, but how to do it is the next tricky part. What's really aggravating is trying to figure out how to do whatever it is you have to do. I can't tell you how many times I've had to resort to a FAQ on GameFAQS because I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do. Once I get the answer, I'll think, now how the hell was I supposed to know to do that?

The previous paragraph might have made the game seem terrible, but once you figure out what to do, the game becomes insanely fun. Using the hairs on the beasts body, you have to climb up and down and left and right until you find their vital point, which is shown as a symbol on their body, and then press the square button until the strength meter fills up, and then press the button again to stab the vital point. Some of the Colossi have more then one, while others have just one vital point, usually located on their head or other vulnerably spots on their body. While climbing the beast, he will constantly be trying to shake you off his body in some way, either by rocking back and forth or something similar. To hold on, though, you must hold down the R1 button, but as you are holding on, the grip meter will drain, and if it does drain completely, you'll fall. Each boss battle is, like I said, unique, and every one has a different method to defeating it. Of course, every one of the Colossi has some attacks, either stomping on you with their building size feet, or whacking you with a weapon that they might be holding.

The games interface is pretty basic. The pink circle represents you grip meter, breath meter, your horses stamina, etc. You also have your health meter, which can be increased by killing a certain type of lizard and collecting it's tail. You can also switch weapons by pressing one of hte directional buttons.

And now we get to the horse, Agro. He is one of the parts I dislike most about SotC. He is extremely hard to control and runs around erratically most of the time. If he runs into a small rock, he'll go flying into a stop and won't move until you press the X button, which gets him going, about a hundred times. He always seems unresponsive to some of the controls. Of course, you can always push down on the left analog stick and push X at the same time to make him go into an automatic run, but a lot of times it won't work, because in certain areas around the world, he moves slowly, like when crossing over a ravine or something like that.

The world itself is huge, with many different features, like plains, desert, beaches, forests, mountains, and water. Wander can swim in the water, but he swims extremely slow and in order to move faster through the water, you must hold the R1 button so Wander goes underwater and swims just a little bit faster. Of course, the breath meter will drain, but it's impossible to drown because when it's empty Wander will automatically surface. The world also looks very good, as explained in the next paragraph.

What really helps with the gameplay is the fact that the graphics are excellent. For being and old game, the graphics are very well. What the developers did, was not try to make them extremely realistic, but make them look good. Sure, the visuals can be sort of grainy here and there, but what's really good about that is that is helps bring out the feeling of isolation, because you and your horse are the live humans out there. What's really cool is the beast's interaction with the environment. If they are walking along on sand, then the sand will get disturbed and rise up off the ground, swirling around the spot, sometimes making it harder to see. The same goes with a beast walking on regular ground. They'll leave craters where their humongous feet landed, and such. The Colossi themselves look excellent. Each hair on their body is visible and has been giving an animation. So basically, everything looks very good, much better then I even expected.

What's left now is the music, which is so well done it makes the game a lot more fun. While batting a Colossus, the music will pick up and get dramatic, and the same goes for when you are climbing up their body. Each tune is different for each one. If there is a flying colossus, there might be graceful music playing. Once you kill one, there will be a cutscene of them dying, and somber music will be playing, because Wander had just killed an innocent living thing that didn't want anything to do with him to begin with.

All in all, SotC is such a wonderful it's hard to pass up, no matter what your taste in video games is. It's a wonderful platformer that shouldn't be missed by anyone, even though sometimes it can get somewhat aggravating, and even though the frame rate might get somewhat choppy here and there. I am very happy with my purchase, and the only reason this game didn't get a 5/5 from me is because of the extreme difficulty of the game, mostly coming from the fact that a lot of times you'll have no idea what you were doing or supposed to be doing. Like I said in the beginning, if you don't like platforming or boss battles, then SotC is probably not for you, because that's what you are going to be doing throughout the entire game. Keep in mind though, that you should never judge a game by it's cover, or what the gameplay is like, until you have actually played it for real and witnessed a battle with one of these beasts.