Since we saw a release of a Shadow of the Colossus Remaster
earlier this year, I thought it would be fun to go back and do a review of the
original game on the PS2. Shadow of the
Colossus has been hailed as a masterpiece and I will concede that it is a
masterpiece, but it is a flawed masterpiece.
Saying this might get all the fanboys after me with their torches but
this is my opinion and they can get over it.
The story of Shadow of the Colossus is told in a rather
minimalist fashion. You, the Wanderer, are
led by an unknown being on a quest to slay colossi in an effort to perform a
ritual to bring a girl back to life.
Beyond that, it is up to you to piece together the story from the bits
and pieces that you learn over the course of the game. I personally like games that utilize
minimalistic story telling because it encourages the player to use their
imagination to fill in the blanks which creates a bit more personalized
experience.
Graphically, this game was awesome for its time. The environments, while a bit empty and
devoid of life, matched the setting perfectly and were a rather breathtaking
view to take in. The character models
themselves, from everything from the Wanderer to Agro and even the colossi
themselves, are well designed with the tiniest details taken into consideration
in their creation.
For the most part, the game performs admirably but there are
times when, in some of the battles with the colossi, that there were some
framerate drops. Due to the size of the
environments and the detail when it comes to the colossi models, I can’t say
that I am surprised given the limitations of the technology back when it was
released.
Musically, the game is a bit minimalist as well, choosing
only to use music when it is the most effective in setting the mood for the
fights as they are about to begin. The
rest of the sound in the game is fairly high quality as well, though the calls
for Agro, the Wanderers horse, and the grunts in the battles can get a bit
repetitive.
The gameplay is where this game both shines and fails at the
same time. I say that it shines because
the intricate designs of the colossi themselves creates clever puzzles that the
player must figure out in order to take down their massive prey and that was
one of the things that brought me the most joy.
I also said that it fails as well because of the horribly clunky
controls for the Wanderer. The Wanderer
controls about like a greased watermelon and you can never tell if he is
actually going to follow the commands that you input into the controller. On top of that, sometimes the hitboxes are
off so that you miss that ledge that you clearly should have grabbed or you die
when you clearly weren’t close enough to get smashed by your prey.
All in all, Shadow of the Colossus is a wonderful game that
is a work of art but it has a few deeply flawed issues that can, at times, be
close to game breaking. That said, I
love this game just as I loved Ico before it and I look forward to one day
playing the remaster if I can find a good enough deal on it.
(The scores take the standards of the games at the time of
release into consideration as opposed to today’s standards)
Graphics – 10
Performance – 8
Sound – 10
Gameplay – 6
Story – 8
Replayability – 8
Total – 8.3
out of 10
- Arylin Michelle
No comments:
Post a Comment