Gaming Signal: PS2 REVIEW: Shadow of the Colossus

PS2 REVIEW: Shadow of the Colossus

REVIEW SUMMARY: Like it's predecessor Ico, Shadow is a premiere adventure.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A boy is given a quest by the gods to slay 16 giants. Upon completion of this mission, they will bring his dead girl friend back to life.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Satisfying puzzles that were, for the most part, able to be completed by mere mortals.
CONS: I wanted more cutscenes between giants; the last colossus was VERY difficult.
BOTTOM LINE: This is one console game I enjoyed far too much to use as a trade-in.

Shadow is set in the same universe as it's predecessor Ico; a tribal culture somewhat reminiscent of Aztec, but with a strong magic presence.

Also like Ico, there are really just two characters in Shadow (outside of cutscenes.) Ico had the boy and the princess he was rescuing. Shadow has a boy and his horse Agro.

The game's formula is simple:
1) Get enigmatic details on the next colossus
2) Get on your horse and ride through the land to find the colossus
3) Slay the colossus

Pretty straightforward, to be sure.

To find the colossus, you have a sword that, when you're in sunlight, will glint, shining a ray of light in the direction of the colossus. The landscape is very attractive, and varied. I found Agro the horse a little difficult to control, but fortunately that wasn't a necessary part of the game.

Once you find the colossus, you need to figure out how to kill it. Again your sword will point out 'weak' points on the giant. When hit, these weak points will drain life from the colossus. Most of the early colossi have one easy-to-access weak point on their heads, while the later ones have hidden points and you must break off armor, etc. before you can kill the beast.

Climbing on a colossus is (in my opinion) the neatest part of the game. Your character uses the giant's fur to climb, and hangs on for dear life while the monster shakes and rolls to get rid of you. That whole experience feels very realistic.

The colossi are varied. Some fly, some walk on four legs, some on two, some are underwater and there's even one humungous sand worm. And the method for killing each is also very different.

On the downside, I was was a little dismayed while playing the game that there were no substantive cutscenes between giants. The game makes up for it, though, with a tremendous cinematic at the end which must last 40 minutes. It's even somewhat interactive, though it doesn't appear you can affect the outcome.

The game really encourages experimentation, and in most cases this tinkering led to the solution for killing a colossus. However, we had to use cheats to beat a couple of the giants. Even then, though, more often than not we had just missed some critical terrain feature that made it obvious how to approach or defeat the giant.

The last colossus was HARD! Even knowing how to kill it (gamespot.com has a video walkthrough) didn't keep us from spending 3+ hours killing it (a normal colossus took us maybe 30-40 minutes.) Fortunately there's no real penalty for failing (falling from the colossus or just plain dying while trying) except maybe a minute or two it takes to get back to the point you just were.

Overall I don't enjoy this quite as much as Ico, primarily because this game requires you to be a bit more of a joystick jockey than it's predecessor. Still, this is one I'm sure the boy and I will go through again in a year or so.