Game review: Shadow of the Colossus

GAME REVIEW:

 SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS

 When I stood in front of the first colossus my heart started to pound faster. He was a few times my size. Enormous. Slow, but lethal. 

I have to make a confession here – I don’t feel comfortable next to animals bigger than me. Even though my parents own a farm and there are always plenty of horses but I have never got close to them unless I had to. 

So why the hell I was playing a game where the main focus is on defeating giant creatures?! Hell, I literally bought PS2 to play this game! 

Well, I think it was because of the style and atmosphere of the game. It looks like Lord of The Rings had a child with Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Marvellous landscapes, epic fights and sensation of ancient culture. 

Shadow of the Colossus takes place in Forbidden Land, a fantasy realm separated from the rest of the world by mountains and sea. Despite of PS2 clumsy graphic I was enchanted with the beauty of that place. I spent a lot of time just wandering around, appreciating breath-taking sights, huge caves and timeworn temples. Also the atmospheric effects like fog and sand storms only magnified the climate.

So what the game is about anyway? It’s about a boy who tries to resurrect a girl, but to do that he has to slay sixteen colossi. I won’t lie- I have no idea what the characters names are or what is the relationship between them. The game gives very little detail on them and the backstory is rather vague. Only plot building elements and interactions between characters occur in short cutscenes separating fights with colossi, although during these clips I was only thinking ‘ok, ok! Give me the next foe!’. 

And it was not only because I wanted to fight it, I was just really curious how it’s going to look like. Developers of this game did a really great job and I’m a big fan of each colossus design.

They vary in shape and size; some of them resemble deadly animals while the others have humanoid forms, still, all of them have some things in common. Their stony faces don’t express any emotions so colossi feel more like objects than the creatures, yet they all emanate with dignity. It’s easy to believe that they are extremely old and that they settled in the Forbidden Land long time ago. Even though my aim was to overcome these ancient beings I almost felt respect for them. 

At first I was a little bit disappointed when I found out that there’re only sixteen opponents in this game. But as it turned out that was enough to keep me busy for many, many hours. The sword and bow that our hero is equipped with seem to only tickle colossi, unless they hit vulnerable spots. And it’s not an easy task to hit these spots. You would be surprised how many swear words it takes to figure out how to reach flying colossus back…

To summarize I will say that Shadow of the Colossus is a wonderful, one of its kind piece of gaming. Although I know that some people may be scared away by imperfect PS2 graphic and obscure story, but for me it’s one of the best game I’ve ever played.