Back in 2006, I played the original release of Shadow of the Colossus. The game enthralled me due to its visuals, impressive horse mechanics (you read that right) and the amazing soundtrack. The game was slightly remastered for the PlayStation 3 and while I downloaded it I never played much of it. Earlier this year the game was released again, however, this time there was a massive overhaul to the game's visuals. I knew when I saw the trailer for the latest release of Shadow of the Colossus I just had to play it.
I have mixed feelings about McDonald's, I like their burgers for the most part, but no matter how many times I eat them I'm always left with a feeling of emptiness. Let me rephrase, I feel there is something missing like they could have been a lot better. Playing Shadow Of The Colossus I found myself asking, was this my dream burger or did I feel there was something missing from it?
Story
The opening scene shows the protagonist riding in on his horse Agro (who I thought for years was called Arrow) with a dead woman in his arms. It's never made clear whether she is his girlfriend, sister or BFF. The starting point of the game is in a temple, you lay the woman on an altar and at this point, a voice speaks to you. The voice instructs you to kill 16 colossi and in doing so you will be able to revive the woman.
Playing through the game you are provided with little story or explanation, however, once you get to the end of the game things become a lot clearer...kind of. There is a certain amount of interpretation when it comes to the story, and while that in itself is not a bad thing I found the pacing rather odd. Basically, you start by being given almost no story, and then once you have essentially completed the game you are given 95% of it. Overall I felt the game would have had a lot more impact had the story been paced a little better.
Visuals
The game was visually impressive when it was originally back in 2006, (or 2005 if you lived in Japan). The visual overhaul carried out for Shadow Of The Colossus 2018 is nothing short of spectacular. It is a mostly open world filled with lush forests, magnificent mountains, cascading waterfalls and that is just some of what's on offer. The Clossi themselves are lumbering and often majestic, one of my favorites being the 5th Clossi who flies and whose home is a lake.
Overall the visuals are fantastic and in my time exploring the world I never got tired of admiring it.
Music
I don't want to oversell the soundtrack, but it's fantastic. It blends beautiful string and wind instruments, along with a choir to produce a sound that has a distinctly Asian and sometimes anime feel. The score is created by Japanese composer Kow Otani who has been producing music for games, anime, and movies since the eighties. Some of Otani's work includes; Sky Odyssey, Ultimate Teacher, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Zoids: New Century Zero, and Tenchi The Movie 2: The Daughter of Darkness.
Overall a brilliant soundtrack that is one of the highlights of the game.
Gameplay
The gameplay is rather interesting in Shadow Of The Colossus, you use your sword to shine a light to a Colossi, follow it until you reach it and then work out how to defeat it. The difficulty will come in two parts, getting onto the Colossi and then finding the two weak spots. I always felt triumphant taking one down, but I also always felt a pang of guilt, like I was killing the last of a species.
While you can reach your destination by walking using your faithful stead Agro is an easier way. Agro has a lot of personality, and will sometime get a little grumpy when you are trying to direct him, gets scared when you find new colossi and his general movements as a whole are quite impressive.
There are a few issues I had, sometimes grabbing onto a colossus just wouldn't work, I had to check a video once or twice just to check I wasn't completely wrong in my strategy. It seemed more an issue with later colossi. Outside of this, the camera angles could make things difficult, most of the time they were fine but when you really needed them to be perfect this is when it would screw you.
Overall the gameplay was good, but with later colossi, there were issues and it did remove a little of the enjoyment. It's worth noting this is the only game I have played this year that didn't need any kind of update.
Final Thoughts
So, after nearly 7 hours how did I feel? Not bad, the visuals were impressive as was the music. The story pacing was a bit odd and the gameplay was slightly problematic for the final third of the game. This one was tough to score as it was great in many ways but just it just fell short for me, this one gets 3 out of 5
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