As part of the “Playstation 2 Greatest Hits Collection,†Shadow of the Colossus can be bought new for $19.99 or used on Amazon for less than $10.00
The Japanese video game developer, Team Ico, has been around for 13 years and have released only two games. Their third release will be The Last Guardian, hopefully sometime this year.
Though a small developer whose games are largely unknown, their second effort released in 2005 for the Playstation 2, Shadow of the Colossus (Wander and the Colossus in Japan), is one of the finest adventure games on the system and holds up remarkably well today.
Despite the simplicity of the story and minimal cutscenes, Shadow of the Colossus creates an intriguing world for the player. As Wander, you travel to the Forbidden Land with your horse Agro hoping to resurrect Mono, the girl you seemingly love. The only thing known about Mono is that she was cursed and therefore killed. Upon reaching the Shrine of Worship in the Forbidden Land, Mono is placed on a stone altar. Behind the Wander, several shadowy figures rise from the ground, but disappear when he brandishes his sword.
Then from the top of the Shrine, Dormin, a shapeless shadowed entity speaks and is surprised at the ancient sword Wander has. Wander asks Dormin to bring Mono back to life. Dormin agrees to do so, but only if Wander can destroy the 16 idols within the Shrine. However, Dormin says that no man can destroy the idols, and that the only way for them to be broken is to defeat each the 16 Colossi that represents each idol. To do that, Wander must travel the land and slay each of the giant colossi that inhabit the Forbidden Land with his sword.
After the lengthy opening scene, the game finally begins. It quickly becomes apparent that Shadow of the Colossus isn’t like anything you’ve played before. The world is gigantic, it feels like it goes on forever. All you have with you in the vastness of the Forbidden Land is your sword, a bow and arrow, and your trusted steed Agro. At least in the first play through, there are no power ups for your weapons, you don’t get any new weapons, Wander doesn’t gain any abilities, it remains a very minimalistic game in that respect.
The other thing that is strange for an adventure game like this is number of enemies. The 16 Colossi are the only enemies Wander fights in the entire game. There are no hordes of minions you fight to get to the Colossi and there aren’t any after. There aren’t even any puzzles to solve in the game, although the battle with some of the Colossi could be considered puzzles themselves.
Before fighting each Colossus you have to find them in the massive landscape. Having to search for them with no clue where to go would literally take forever, but thankfully, your ancient sword does a lot of the work. When in sunlight, Wander can raise his sword in the air which will reflect the light and point in the direction of the next Colossus. For the most part this system works well, but there are some very frustrating Colossi to find. The first few are pretty straight forward and near the Shrine of Worship so the ride isn’t that bad. As you advance in the game, there are four or five that are just a pain to find. If you take a wrong turn you can get lost pretty easily and after 20 minutes of riding around, you lose interest.
This is a Playstation 2 game, so the graphics are nowhere near the level of what you get today. For a 2005 game though, the graphics are pretty good, not God of War good, but the scenery is still nice to look at. When put in context, the seemingly limitless landscape of the game was probably more fun to travel through when the game’s graphics were considered top notch.
Once you finally reach the Colossus, the fun begins. The gigantic beasts are intimidating and at first glance look almost impossible to defeat. The key is to find the weak spots on each Colossi as drive your sword into that area to do damage. There are a variety of Colossi, some are like giant people, others fly, one is underwater, but the goal is still the same, find the glowing weak spot and stab them until the fall at your feet.
For most of the Colossi, you’ll have to climb up to its head. They’ll of course try and shake you off, but you’ll have to hold on as best you can until your strength meter finally empties and you fall off. The battles are all pretty intense and a lot of the time you have to use the environment around you to get on top of them, or use your bow and arrow to temporarily knock them down to get a chance to drive your sword into them. The music in encounter adds to the tension, speeding up as you get closer to brining down the Colossus, and mellows if you back away to regroup. Each Colossi is unique and it really feels like fighting 16 individual boss battles.
Besides the aforementioned problem of actually finding where you need to go, the only other part that somewhat takes away from the fun is the inaccuracy of the controls. Not a huge complaint, but sometimes when running on foot or riding on Agro you don’t move as fluidly as you’d like. It can be a little frustrating, especially when you fall because you missed a jump, but it’s not very often where it comes into play in the middle of a battle.
By the time Shadow of the Colossus is over, it feels like you’ve slain 16 Goliaths. It is a very satisfying game epic in scale, especially for the time it was released. Few adventure games match the thrill of Shadow of the Colossus or the sense of accomplishment at bringing down a foe. The seven or eight hours it takes to beat the game are well worth the price, and the extras you can gain on a second play through add some replay value to the game. In a day where a new game costs $59.99, this modern classic gives all the excitement you could want for one-third the price.
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