Shadow of the Colossus / Wanda to Kyozou Review (PS2)

By Tikipod
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Updated: 1st Jan, 2006

Age rating: 12+

What is it?

An unconventional fantasy-based BOSS-ATTACK game, with a huge sombre and barren landscape to traverse by horse. Set in the same game universe as ICO (also PS2 only) you have to climb big hairy monsters and stab ‘em where it hurts!

Is it fun?

Yes but not in the instant-adrenaline-hit way of GTA, the world may be a comparable size, but this isn’t Vice City by horse. The Colossus look fantastic and battling them are fun puzzles in themselves, yet a deeper enjoyment requires the player to let the whole game experience slowly wash over them.

Is it worth the money? Â£29.99

Yes but £25 would be preferable. Most of the pleasure of fighting the Colossi resides in trying to work out how to kill them and after that, replaying the normal game has little point. However once the game is completed there is a HARD mode to tackle and two timed boss-attack modes which are a tough challenge.

Why?

Well, my first impression of the Shadow of the Colossus is that it isn’t really all that pretty. Watching the game intro, each shot is well composed but many textures shimmer and seem to have no more than 4 colours in some of them. Both the bridge crossing scene and the initial entering of the temple are clear examples of very nasty looking textures.

“Hands are used for climbing big hairy Colossi.”

This is a shame because the game has a subtle underlying beauty (which takes time to fully appreciate), and the majority of the game art is fantastic, especially the Colossi themselves, their design and animation is excellent. I’ll talk more about the art later, first a simple explanation about the game itself.

A lifeless girl is being carried by a boy on the back of a horse to a temple in a barren land. There a deal is struck with the temples mysterious voice. The sixteen Colossi that roam the land must be destroyed in exchange for her revival.

You start the game with your horse (name sounds like Ah-go, or Aggo) and three weapons. These are your hands, a sword and a bow with infinite arrows. They are easily switched between using the L/R on the Dpad. Hands are used for climbing walls or big hairy Colossi. The sword is needed for both navigation and causing critical damage to the Colossi. Holding the sword up in the air whilst in direct sunlight, you must rotate to focus the beam emitted from the sword, which will lead you to your prey. Finally the bow and arrow are used for causing light damage at a distance.

As you first ride out you can appreciate the vastness of the game world, its huge and very open. But hang on; there isn’t much to do there, so at first it seems a bit of a missed opportunity, all this space but nothing going on! Onwards to the first Colossus and you are given a brief gameplay tutorial of how to jump and climb, essential for when you have to tackle the Colossus.

“…you do get slowly drawn in to the landscape’s subtle beauty and calmness…”

These huge beasts have one or more critical wounding points which show up as glowing symbols on the body when you are holding the sword, they must be stabbed deeply and repeatedly. Some have other weak points that must be attacked to help you gain access to the critical ones. There are other Colossi subtleties that I won’t explain, as much of the enjoyment of tackling them is how you personally work it out; what might seem obvious to one person won’t to another.

Now that’s the basic nuts and bolts of the game, seek out the enemy and then kill them. The lack of something else to do in the world feels odd at first, it exposes the games simplicity. For example I could go and explore that high cliff ridge, but I know there is nothing there to do… so why bother? A lot of the game seems initially empty and a wasted opportunity in that way, as you are traditionally more used to games that fill the world-space with as much interactivity as possible. The game is not consistently good looking enough to treat it like an interactive postcard; it’s more like a wonderful hand drawn sketch that has been painted into in certain parts (area locations), and given enough time (about four or five battles into the game) you do get slowly drawn in to the landscape’s subtle beauty and calmness, as you race along to the next frenetic Colossus encounter. You see, as you begin to get your bearings in the world, then you stop looking too closely at every detail and just let it wash over you, and you appreciate the bigger picture.

When you complete the game there are some fun modes that get unlocked which increase value for money. Hard mode is the same game again, but harder of course. Boss time attack is most fun. Pray in the temple in front of the statues and you enter this mode, every couple that you manage to complete and you get extra weapons (a different set can be unlocked when trying hard time attack). Also there is a way to climb up the outside of the temple tower; keep your eyes peeled for vines and kill a few Colossi first to get your grab strength high enough.

So in summary this is a great game, which tries to do something a little different and increases in enjoyment more and more overtime.

The only real negatives are as follows: