Well, I violently disagree with you, but I can't really fault any of your points. I guess it depends on how much stock you put in the issues you brought up, and for me the answer is: not much.

Every single thing I read from you is negative. Do you like anything? Do you even like yourself?

These hipster nerds are always funny 

Every single thing I read from you is negative. Do you like anything? Do you even like yourself?

@FourWude said:

5/5 for SoTC.

My review says fuck you.

Bah, whatever, say what you want, the game's great. The atmosphere in the game is a-ma-zing. The visuals are astonishing. The gameplay is pretty damn good. Doing the same thing over and over again? Ha. You could say the same thing about every game ever. Good effort, but this doesn't seem like a fair and balanced review.

@FourWude said:

5/5 for SoTC.

My review says fuck you.

This.

@Icemael: This game is one of the best games I've ever played ... and I played a lot of games over the last 20 years. Deal with it.

5/5 for SoTC.

My review says fuck you.

@Icemael said:

@GuyIncognito: That is the best reply in this thread.

The best reply is the one that demonstrates how you purposefully trolled the SoTC fanbase with your shitty 'review'. I agree.

@Icemael said:

@SeriouslyNow: Yes, the supposed troll review that no one has managed brought up an even remotely valid complaint against. Keep shitposting, dude.The comic is great because it demonstrates what most of the naysayers are: an angry, frothing mass of rabid fanboys tripping over their own feet trying to catch up with me. And also because the faces are funny. I especially like the one with the cleft chin.

You really see other people who actively disagree with your obvious trolling attempt like that don't you?

You're a cartoon.

I never really cared for SoTC..i am enjoying all the people getting pissed off though. "ZOMG! His opinion isnt exactly mine!11 i MUST KILL."

I can't believe the amount of idiots in this thread. Icemael is seemingly the only one whose posts haven't made me facepalm yet.
 
If any of you artsy fartsy people would just for a moment pull yourself out of team Ico's ass and see what SOTC is as an actual game you would realize how one might have an opinion like this about the game. You are the same folk who think Limbo is deep and one of the best games ever because artstyle. A game needs to be a good game first, and if Icemael didn't like the part where you play SOTC that much then he has no obligation to give the game a high score because it's  art.

It's more about atmosphere rather than Gameplay, thinking otherwise will lead to you thinking exactly this.

an angry, frothing mass of rabid fanboys tripping over their own feet trying to catch up with me

Yes, I really outdid myself there, didn't I? I really should save these quotes in a text file or something.

@Icemael said:
☆☆  (out of five) 
 
Shadow of the Colossus is, essentially, one long action-adventure boss rush. The only enemies in the game are sixteen gargantuan colossi the main character has to kill in order to resurrect a dead princess, and the only times at which you aren't fighting one of them of is when you're riding to the next. It's a great concept. A particularly well-designed boss fight is often the highlight of an action title, and an entire game with nothing but bosses should in theory be an amazingly challenging, incredibly intense non-stop adrenaline rush -- the kind of experience video game enthusiasts dream of.

Shadow of the Colossus is not that. Each boss battle has some sort of trick to it. A puzzle, if you will. Solve that puzzle, and you get an opportunity to mount the boss. From there all you have to do is climb the creature's furry parts until you get to a shiny part, which you then need to stab a couple of times. After a couple of stabs the boss' life bar will be depleted, and he will fall to the ground. That's it. That's every boss in the game.

"But Mr. Reviewer," you say. "Surely these puzzles are complex affairs that require a great deal of creative thinking?" Nope. They're all incredibly simple, and solving them is as easy as finding a single standout feature in the environment or on the colossus and exploiting it. "But Mr. Reviewer," you say. "Surely the furry parts you need to climb offer amazing platforming challenges?" Nope. All you do is hold down the R1 button to stick to the fur, move with the analogue stick and jump with the triangle button if necessary (in most battles, it's not, and when it is it requires no skill of any kind). "But Mr. Reviewer," you say. "Surely the stabbing of the shiny parts requires immaculate timing?" Nope. The colossi will occasionally try to shake you off, but all you need to do is keep holding the R1 button until they stop -- which they usually do long enough that you can wait a couple of seconds and still have time to attack -- and then start stabbing. Should you happen to fall off, you can just climb up again right away to try once more.

The only thing that saves this game from being a complete failure is the presentation. The orchestral soundtrack is powerful (though the way it fades in and out as your distance to a colossus changes can, at times, be jarring), the vast, empty landscapes are quite beautiful, and the colossi are some of the most imposing enemies ever seen in a video game. Some clump around on two legs carrying enormous weapons, some walk on four as wild beasts, some swim in the depths of dark lakes and some soar through the skies, but they all have one thing in common: they are, as their names suggest, absolutely colossal monstrosities of fur and ancient stone. The ground trembles with their every step, and approaching them -- not to speak of climbing them -- is quite the audio-visual experience.

Unfortunately, even the aesthetic side of the game isn't without its issues. The game runs very poorly, and it's rare to see anything resembling thirty frames per second. It never ventures into the realm of the unplayable, but the poor frame rate can when it's at its worst be fairly distracting and take away from the experience quite a bit. Also, the use of bloom and blur (presumably to conceal the primitive environmental textures) is excessive, and hurts the presentation more than it helps it.

Hopefully, one day other, better developers will try their hands at making boss-only games. Hopefully, those games will be amazing. Sadly, all we have for the time being (that I know of, at least) is Shadow of the Colossus: a failure in many ways, and a success only in one. 

I'll bite.

@Icemael said:
☆☆  (out of five) 
 
Shadow of the Colossus is, essentially, one long action-adventure boss rush. The only enemies in the game are sixteen gargantuan colossi the main character has to kill in order to resurrect a dead princess, and the only times at which you aren't fighting one of them of is when you're riding to the next. It's a great concept. A particularly well-designed boss fight is often the highlight of an action title, and an entire game with nothing but bosses should in theory be an amazingly challenging, incredibly intense non-stop adrenaline rush -- the kind of experience video game enthusiasts dream of.

Complete and utter straw-man. Not every video game enthusiast dreams of non-stop adrenaline rushing boss battle action.

Neither do they -- as a whole group, which is a fallacy in and of itself -- believe games should simply be some kind of ludological experiment in pure gameplay.

As countless examples found in genres as broad as Action, RPG & Adventure games, people also like immersion through thematic implication. Game worlds & how they interact with the player, whether it be through dialogue, a codex or verisimilitude & the mise-en-scene of an FMV can form an integral piece of the enjoyment atrifact in a persons mind. Want examples, see Indigo Prophecy, Shenmue, Yakuza, Half-Life, Dreamfall, Mafia, The Elder Scrolls, KoTOR, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Jade Empire, Fallout & about a hundred more.

Anyways, I won't dally on this non-sensical and biased first paragraph any longer. Suffice to say, it is your opinion and you're trying to claim all gamers share it. That is a fallacy.

Shadow of the Colossus is not that. Each boss battle has some sort of trick to it. A puzzle, if you will. Solve that puzzle, and you get an opportunity to mount the boss. From there all you have to do is climb the creature's furry parts until you get to a shiny part, which you then need to stab a couple of times. After a couple of stabs the boss' life bar will be depleted, and he will fall to the ground. That's it. That's every boss in the game.

By distilling a formula or mechanic, often times you can make it sound this simple. Not to mention, the use of words/phrases such as "all you have to" and "that's it" explicate the idea that you're purposefully creating a negative view of the game to propel your own ulterior motives/opinion. I'll give an example of how imprecise this rhetoric is below with KoTOR;
 
"You simply walk around talking to people and either get into boring turn-based/real-time combat based around random die rolls. Eventually you fight some dark jedi or Sith. That's it. That's the entire game."

Now, ignoring facets of the world that allow people to enjoy the game is neglectful and once again preaches the fallacy that all gamers are ludologists above all else. This is incorrect and borderline naivety.

"But Mr. Reviewer," you say. "Surely these puzzles are complex affairs that require a great deal of creative thinking?" Nope. They're all incredibly simple, and solving them is as easy as finding a single standout feature in the environment or on the colossus and exploiting it. "But Mr. Reviewer," you say. "Surely the furry parts you need to climb offer amazing platforming challenges?" Nope. All you do is hold down the R1 button to stick to the fur, move with the analogue stick and jump with the triangle button if necessary (in most battles, it's not, and when it is it requires no skill of any kind). "But Mr. Reviewer," you say. "Surely the stabbing of the shiny parts requires immaculate timing?" Nope. The colossi will occasionally try to shake you off, but all you need to do is keep holding the R1 button until they stop -- which they usually do long enough that you can wait a couple of seconds and still have time to attack -- and then start stabbing. Should you happen to fall off, you can just climb up again right away to try once more.

Once again, negatively lamenting the mechanics. An example -- "ALL you do is hold A to jump in X game". Distilling the mechanics to the control method chosen is often not the best way to criticise a game. Especially when the controls aren't an overt or explicit problem in and of themselves (although I'll admit that is open to interpretation). Sure, it's fine if you don't like the mechanics and ultimately thought the puzzles were easy, but this excludes everything else surrounding the mechanics & the boss battles. Exclusionary arguments often lack context and this isn't any different. It can be a problem with professional game reviews so it's not surprising that you've made it here.

The only thing that saves this game from being a complete failure is the presentation. The orchestral soundtrack is powerful (though the way it fades in and out as your distance to a colossus changes can, at times, be jarring), the vast, empty landscapes are quite beautiful, and the colossi are some of the most imposing enemies ever seen in a video game. Some clump around on two legs carrying enormous weapons, some walk on four as wild beasts, some swim in the depths of dark lakes and some soar through the skies, but they all have one thing in common: they are, as their names suggest, absolutely colossal monstrosities of fur and ancient stone. The ground trembles with their every step, and approaching them -- not to speak of climbing them -- is quite the audio-visual experience.

 
Yes, but as suggested above, why does this not impact on the action or have any effect on your overall views of the game?

Surely, combining this with the lacklustre ludo play would still create an average to decent experience, not below that.

Hopefully, one day other, better developers will try their hands at making boss-only games. Hopefully, those games will be amazing. Sadly, all we have for the time being (that I know of, at least) is Shadow of the Colossus: a failure in many ways, and a success only in one. 

I'll be candid, SoTC isn't even close to being one of my favourite games, it's a solid 7 or 8 out of 10. With that said, I can understand, as a man with a mind for critical analysis, the implications of it's design with regards to themes and dynamical meaning. Instead of writing some wishy-washy "review" that doesn't actually explain why the mechanics fail, it would be preferable if you educated yourself on the ways in which mechanics & themes can intertwine and co-exist, as opposed to assuming that video games and SoTC need to have tight mechanics & some kind of action fest.

@Icemael: Give it up. Your cute little troll review here won't change the apprectiation that millions of gamers have for this masterpiece. You just didn't get it. Too bad for you but no one blames you. Carry on.

I can't believe the amount of idiots in this thread. Icemael is seemingly the only one whose posts haven't made me facepalm yet.
 
If any of you artsy fartsy people would just for a moment pull yourself out of team Ico's ass and see what SOTC is as an actual game you would realize how one might have an opinion like this about the game. You are the same folk who think Limbo is deep and one of the best games ever because artstyle. A game needs to be a good game first, and if Icemael didn't like the part where you play SOTC that much then he has no obligation to give the game a high score because it's  art.

@Icemael: Give it up. Your cute little troll review here won't change the apprectiation that millions of gamers have for this masterpiece. You just didn't get it. Too bad for you but no one blames you. Carry on.

@Icemael said:

@CptBedlam said:

@Icemael: Give it up. Your cute little troll review here won't change the apprectiation that millions of gamers have for this masterpiece. You just didn't get it. Too bad for you but no one blames you. Carry on.

After everything that's been written in this thread you people are still left at square one. Jesus Christ.

I didn't know you want to lead people somewhere. All you get is a bunch of Fuck you's while nothing changes.

Let me ask you this: If someone says "woman X has the kind of curves men around the world dream of", do you think he means that literally every single man around the world dreams of said curves? Do you think any person of average or above-average intelligence would interpret his sentence that way?

And neither do I. Good thing I didn't write that.

See the above.

No, you are intentionally misinterpreting it to make it seem that way.

 
 
Also, the reason I mention this is because of it's specific importance with regards to SoTC. The minimalist story-telling and huge traversal elements, which by proxy impact on the game as much if not more than the basic mechanics of a colossi battle (opinion but I'd say Fumito Ueda would agree). Once again, perhaps re-wording your last sentence and this wouldn't make me "mis-" interpret what you wrote.

 
Yes, I am purposefully creating a negative view of the game (which is only complete when you read the entire review -- this paragraph is fairly useless on its own and mostly serves to set the next one up, something it does precisely by distilling the formula). No, I do not have an "ulterior" motive or opinion. My motive is to convey my negative opinion, which I explicitly do in the entirety of the review.

Except my review is neither for everyone nor meant to speak for everyone. It is primarily for people whose tastes in games are similar to mine, as it is most useful to them for obvious reasons. What is naive is to assume that a review must cater to everyone.

Of course I exclude things. One has to unless one wishes to write an essay of tens of thousands of words, describing and criticizing every single fraction of the game. Here I am cutting to the chase, describing what I find important (and as you will see when you read the next paragraph, I do not exclude everything but the mechanics -- I am simply not talking about everything at the same time).

If it didn't I wouldn't have written this paragraph.

No. Especially not when it's marred by serious performance problems.

I did explain why the mechanical side of the game is a failure (it is too simple and easy, and therefore boring), and I don't assume shit. What I write (which is not what you think that I write), I know from experience, and what I don't write I don't find important. For example, I didn't write about the game's themes because I didn't find them interesting, and they didn't impact my experience in any way worth mentioning. 

I disagree. This is all I have to say.

PEACE!

Disagree with this review 100%. I personally think SOTC is one of the best games ever made, easily.

So this whole thread was TL:DR but this is the basic vibe I got from it.

Icemael: I HAVE AN OPINION THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM YOURS, COME AT ME BROS.

Everyone else: THIS IS AN OUTRAGE.

Can't everyone just chill and respect each other's opinions?

@Ventilaator said:

I can't believe the amount of idiots in this thread. Icemael is seemingly the only one whose posts haven't made me facepalm yet.
 
If any of you artsy fartsy people would just for a moment pull yourself out of team Ico's ass and see what SOTC is as an actual game you would realize how one might have an opinion like this about the game. You are the same folk who think Limbo is deep and one of the best games ever because artstyle. A game needs to be a good game first, and if Icemael didn't like the part where you play SOTC that much then he has no obligation to give the game a high score because it's  art.

You realize that many people enjoy Shadow of the Colossus for its gameplay and not just for its artistic merits, right? No, we should generalize an entire fanbase and audience, just like we gamers always do.   Anyway, I don't think this review is bad as many here make it out to be. He makes some valid points, but his review does come off as a bit condescending, nit-picky and he seems to exaggerate the game's flaws. It's still better than most of the negative reviews I read off from Metacritic and gamefaqs.

lol dis op is da wurst

@greenygrey said:

@Ventilaator said:

I can't believe the amount of idiots in this thread. Icemael is seemingly the only one whose posts haven't made me facepalm yet.
 
If any of you artsy fartsy people would just for a moment pull yourself out of team Ico's ass and see what SOTC is as an actual game you would realize how one might have an opinion like this about the game. You are the same folk who think Limbo is deep and one of the best games ever because artstyle. A game needs to be a good game first, and if Icemael didn't like the part where you play SOTC that much then he has no obligation to give the game a high score because it's  art.

You realize that many people enjoy Shadow of the Colossus for its gameplay and not just for its artistic merits, right? No, we should generalize an entire fanbase and audience, just like we gamers always do.   Anyway, I don't think this review is bad as many here make it out to be. He makes some valid points, but his review does come off as a bit condescending, nit-picky and he seems to exaggerate the game's flaws. It's still better than most of the negative reviews I read off from Metacritic and gamefaqs.

Yes, I realize people enjoy SOTC for it's gameplay, the problem is that people don't realize that some people don't.  I'm not generalizing the entire fanbase, I'm generalizing the people in this thread. I WANT to believe that the people bitching here are those diehard artfreaks, because they are the only ones who should have a problem with someone saying that they though SOTC wasn't a good game.

Nice. You explicitly state something, give an erroneous analogy to prove I'm wrong, then insult my intelligence. Doesn't make your argument any less of a strawman and doesn't change what you've typed either -- regardless of original intention.

You said video game enthusiasts would enjoy the concept of action oriented boss battles?

Neither do they -- as a whole group, which is a fallacy in and of itself -- believe games should simply be some kind of ludological experiment in pure gameplay. As countless examples found in genres as broad as Action, RPG & Adventure games, people also like immersion through thematic implication. Game worlds & how they interact with the player, whether it be through dialogue, a codex or verisimilitude & the mise-en-scene of an FMV can form an integral piece of the enjoyment atrifact in a persons mind. Want examples, see Indigo Prophecy, Shenmue, Yakuza, Half-Life, Dreamfall, Mafia, The Elder Scrolls, KoTOR, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Jade Empire, Fallout & about a hundred more.

Also, the reason I mention this is because of it's specific importance with regards to SoTC. The minimalist story-telling and huge traversal elements, which by proxy impact on the game as much if not more than the basic mechanics of a colossi battle (opinion but I'd say Fumito Ueda would agree). Once again, perhaps re-wording your last sentence and this wouldn't make me "mis-" interpret what you wrote.

Yes, you do convey the negative opinion you have on the game. The problem is, the way it's done isn't particularly sophisticated or in-depth. Ergo, instead of calling it a review & lambasting anyone who hasn't agreed with you in this thread, call it a rant and you're golden.

Except my review is neither for everyone nor meant to speak for everyone. It is primarily for people whose tastes in games are similar to mine, as it is most useful to them for obvious reasons. What is naive is to assume that a review must cater to everyone.

No, you've simplified the mechanics to make your argument favourable. This simplification is the main problem in my response, not necesarily the last sentence I wrote.

A review should aggregrate as much of the game experience as possible. I feel you've neglected a big part of the SoTC experience, hence the gripe. I don't mind opinionated articles about a game, but I'd much prefer them to be well written.

I wouldn't say you did. Instead you explained how they work (this does this, by pressing this it does that), added negative descriptors and down-played the game with no insightful reasoning or anything worthy of a well-written review. Why is it too simple, why is it boring? I guess I'd prefer more in-depth commentary, especially on a game from 10 years ago.Of course, words can be misintepreted and changed, as we all put our own spin on every word anyone ever says/types et al.

@greenygrey:  You could counterpoint literally any opinion of anything ever, the question I'm wondering here is why would you. It's an opinion. If he were here calling us all idiots for appreciating the game, then there's the need to defend yourself, but as far as I can tell, he isn't attacking anyone. He said that he didn't like the game that much.

You didn't like. I don't care.