Shadow of the Colossus PS4 Review

Originally published 28^th Febuary 2018

Something that which very much be described as a ‘love it or hate it’ piece of media, Shadow of the Colossus (SotC) can be summed up wholly as art in the format of a video game. You play as a guy who brings a dead female companion to an altar, tasked with the job of killing 16 ‘Colossi’ spread across the land to revive her back to life… And that’s it, the game focuses tremendously on this minimalist approach. You down one target, travel back to the central temple, and move on to kill the next beast.

The ingenuity of SotC is that this minimal aesthetic encompasses the entire game’s design. Ss you wander through the vast empty fields, soaking in the beautiful atmosphere travelling to your next target. There are no enemy mooks to fight, no friendly travellers to encounter, just you and your horse wandering through the wilderness for a good ten to fifteen minutes or so between each encounter. These long travel times between boss fights help reinforce the suffocating feeling of dread and isolation to what you will battle next, allowing you to think and ponder the deeper meanings implied within the game. I am of the position though where I found these long purposely travel times excessively tedious, and just wanted to skip to the next enormous boss fight than trudge through fields in the meantime.

Once you do get to one of the bosses the game is both a treat with is gorgeous visual design and orchestrated music, and also incredibly frustrating with its wonky climbing mechanics and stamina bar. At times it can feel like your main character just helplessly flails around on the floor after the smallest nearby tremor on the ground. In a game where you must climb up a huge monsters’ body to stab its weak points with your sword, it genuinely feels like you’re fighting against the controls more than the giant boss in front of you, ruining the immersive aspect of the game somewhat. It is just a shame how cheap and cryptic some of the puzzles in the game feel, such as one of the bosses being scared of fire as their way to defeat them... Despite being in a room surrounded by lit torches which don't seem to phase it in the slightest.

Personally though, despite its huge critical acclaim the game simply didn’t resonate too much with me, so seeing all of the mass media hype surrounding it continues to baffle me further. SotC is a game that focuses on its story despite not having very much of one, with the few aspects it does well like its gigantic boss fights being over within the 6 or so hours it takes to complete. It’s understandable that this is a complete remake of SotC originally released on PS2 in 2005, however the game in my opinion has aged very poorly in comparison to the gaming landscape we live in today. When video games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are currently available at a similar price-point, doing absolutely everything better: from the horse controls to climbing through a vast and open landscape, it certainly begs the question as to whether or not SotC should have been left behind as a relic of its time.

Overall score:

6.5 / 10

Pros:

- Gorgeous visuals as you climb these colossal beasts

- A lot of replayability due to its short length and unlockables which span multiple playthroughs

- Powerful, orchestrated soundtrack which physically impacts you emotionally as a player

- Your horse is a fantastic companion to have behind your side

Cons:

- Clunky controls with many disasters happening in battle which don't feel like your fault

- The game can be finished in 6-8 hours, yet still somehow felt tedious to slog through

- Difficulty in terms of the fights is non-existent, and the game's truly tougher sections were due to cryptic puzzles that are cheap in terms of their design