A Simply Memorable, Emotional and Breathtaking New Experience.
After releasing one of the greatest early Playstation 2 games, ICO, Team ICO, has released yet another masterpiece for Sony's console, Shadow of the Colossus.
Shadow of the Colossus takes a really new and fresh way of storytelling. You won't hear one English word spoken in the whole game. Instead, the creators created a fictional language for use in the game, and you'll have to read the subtitles. This fictional language will pretty much be spoken Dormin, the person you obey throughout the game. So, why do you obey him? Because you are trying to save your love. Dormin tells you, Wander, to take your horse, Agro, out and defeat all 16 ancient giants, called Colossi. If you do this, your girlfriend (wife? partner?) will be revived. Each and every character, Agro, the horse you'll be so attached to by the end, Wander, who you will really feel sorry for having to go through all that he does just to save Mono, the name of his love.
Each of these giant but gentle beasts must be taken down by you, with only three things. A bow, a magical and powerful sword, and of course, Agro. The game is more or less just 16 boss fights. This may seem odd, but that's exactly what it is, and it's amazing. The first few boss fights will act as tutorials, teaching you the main game mechanics and controls. Speaking of controls, that is one of the games weakest points, having awkward controls that can easily be forgiven, but may not go over well with some people, the way Agro runs and the way you control the horse are both rather awkward. One of the main gameplay mechanics is platforming. That is what you need to climb the up the Colossi, but you won't just use it to reach the Colossi weak points but you'll also use it to just reach the Colossi. You will raise your sword into the air, showing a beam of light showing you where the Colossi you need to defeat. I mentioned weak points on the Colossi. What I mean buy this is that there are huge marks on the Colossi body that you must reach. In order to reach these you'll need to be rather clever. Near the beginning of the game you can pretty much just jump onto the Colossus your fighting, but once you get to probably the third Colossus, it'll become much more complicated, and each of the Colossi battles will feel like one giant puzzle game, and you'll feel really good when you finally defeat the Colossus. And watching the giant beast slowly falling to the ground is possibly one of the greatest, but emotional moments you'll ever experience in a video game.
After you beat each of t he 16 Colossi you will unlock time trial mode, where you race to defeat the Colossi as fast as you can, trying to beat the time given to you. Also, the game is full of plenty of easter eggs, some of them being completely ridiculous and hard to find.
As I mentioned, when you see the Colossi fall to the ground with a huge thud, it'll be a pretty amazing sight for you. Well, on top of that is an amazing song. That song plays every time the Colossus falls, and the song is simply a piece of work, along with every other song in the whole game.
Final Decision
Basically to some it up: Go buy this game, and play it till you beat it. Go buy Shadow of the Colossus' soundtrack and listen to it completely through, you won't regret it.
Note: I wrote this review like Shadow of the Colossus was just released.
