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Another great game by the Ico team

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game has the same beautiful rendering style as Ico as well as their emphasis on smart combat. You have to use your head to beat the colossi. The controls are simple and effective and the atmosphere is engaging and urges you to find out more and resurect your love. It's nice to be challenged.

Ah, Incredible!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Nothing prepared me for my experiences with "Shadow Of The Colossus" The graphics are absolutely breathtaking and the story is heart wrenching and captivating. I bought the game about a week ago and I haven't been able to stop playing it. It's my favorite game right now.

Everything from the graphics, to the game play, to the boss fights is stellar and will leave you floored. The ambience of the game is so surreal. It actually feels like you're right there, exploring the mysterious terrain, forests, and mountain sides. I just finished destroying the 4th Colossi and it gave me butterflies in my stomach because it's so realistic. You owe it to yourself to play this game. It's truly an experience that you'll never forget.

For intelligent gamers looking for something new...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

It took me a long time to finally decide whether or not I wanted to pick up this game, but I'm glad that I did. Its one of my favorite game experiences of all time - this is an adventure that captures you like the best of the genre (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for PS1 or God of War for PS2 are two great examples, not in terms of gameplay but the overall experience). However, it is very unique in its setup.

Unlike most games, this is not a game where you battle smaller enemies, building up stats and items over time, and then tackle a boss. Shadow of the Colussus is all about minimalism, in both its story and its gameplay. During the course of the game, you have to defeat 16 giant Colussi so that the God Dormin will resurrect a woman with a "cursed fate" whom you have carried into a shrine. You have an ancient sword, who can detect a colussus as well as its weak points. You also have a bow, and your horse, Argo. The world of the game is giant and fully realized, which is what makes it so spectacular. It is full of small touches - wind, rain, fog, birds, clouds, lizards, lakes, deserts - that make it feel real, more so than any other game I can think of. Over the course of the game, there were several times that I climbed up one of the broken ruins scattered throughout the world just to gaze out over the world below me. Its that beautiful and majestic.

As you ride around the world, you hold up your sword, which focuses a beam of light to lead you from place to place. Every time you find a new colossus, you get a short cinema of the colossus emerging, and then have to battle it. These battles are a battle of wits as much as anything, as you are obviously over-powered by the giant colossus, needing to climb it, manipulate it, have it break and interact with its surroundings, and so on. Basically, if you think about 16 of the coolest boss battles from any games you've played and pack them into one game, you get Shadow of the Colossus.

This game also impressed me in the area of graphics, really squeezing power from the PS2, a system I thought developers had maxed out by now. Although the frame rate takes hits now and again, it really is barely noticable.

You also get an interesting storyline that leaves you with as many questions as it answers, and beating the game unlocks several new modes (harder difficulty, time attack), giving you incentive to play again.

I would point out, though, that this is definitely not a game for everyone. You can't get farther away from a game like GTA or the Warriors than this game - its all about slow-building tension, a sense of interaction in a totally interactive (but at the same time, essentially unpopulated) world - this is an action/adventure game, but not at all in the Metroid or Zelda sense. Many people will probably beat one colossus and get bored riding around to find the 2nd one. You also have to master riding your horse, Argo. He sort of has a mind of his own, and you have to learn to trust where he is riding and relinquish some control to him. Otherwise, you end up constantly fighting him and riding in circles. This game requires patience as well - patience in waiting to get more of the story, patience in finding the colossus and then figuring out his weaknesses, patience with some tricky multi-button platforming and occasional camera issues. With that said, I encourage you to at least rent this game and see if it is for you. Using a strategy guide or Gamefaqs FAQ, you can beat the first quest in about 10 hours, so this isn't the longest game I've ever played... but I think its among the 10 best Playstation 2 games ever released, and it has so many moments where you just shake your head in disbelief that a game can be so moving and emotionally engaging... I can't recommend it enough to gamers looking for something new.

Truly unique, epic, and beautiful. A rare and unique gaming experience.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

THE SHORT: With high production values and minimalist storytelling, this game takes on the feeling of an art movie. Not that it isn't exciting- the battles are exhilirating and different than anything I've played before. I have 2 complaints and 2 only- The replay value isn't terribly high, and the game's 10-20 hour length leaves me wanting more. But it's honestly so great, I'd want more anyway. There is nothing else like this game, though it borrows a bit from Zelda and sets a new standard all its own.

THE LONG: I'm honored to be the 100th person to review this game. Playing it was almost everything I expected it to be, and it's great to leave my mark on what felt more like an immersive experience than a simple game.

I've never played Ico, the first game by this company, so I went in fresh. The game was, at its simplest, billed as 16 boss battles with not much more in between other than traveling the countryside tracking them down. While this is technically true, it's all done so well, and at such a great pace, that it feels like an extremely satisfying adventure similar to something you'd find in a Zelda game.

The plot is basic- your character arrives in a vast and beautiful landscape, carrying with him a woman who he wishes to revive with the help of an ominous voice in the temple. The voice agrees to assist him, should he hunt down the 16 beasts and bring them down. The character accepts regardless of consequence, and it's time to begin.

The land is absolutely huge. Even if traveled entirely on horseback, it would take the player hours to actually investigate every gully, waterfall, desert, forest, ruins, and mountain. Thankfully your character has a strangely powerful sword- one the voice in the temple seems to recognize- and in the sunlight this sword emits a beam in the basic direction of the next foe. It's up to you to find the colossi using your horse and this sword.

On average it seems to take as little as ten minutes to find a foe if you really know what you're doing or as long as half an hour or more when figuring out how to navigate the landscape, grapple over rocks and whittle down the hiding places.

The battles themselves are grand contests of wit and skill. Once you track them down, you then have to find their vulnerable spot or "vitals", and then figure out how to access them. Fortunately every beast has something to grab hold of, and it's a matter of reaching it. This takes the form of, again, Zelda-like imagination: Get it to raise its foot, shoot it from underneath, then jump onto the injured foot when it falls- climbing up its side, running along its back, then finding the vital and stabbing it while holding on for dear life.

That's not the trick for every Colossus- just one. Each of the 16 has a particular strategy to figure out, specific weaknesses to exploit. By the end, you'll have gone through battles where you have NO idea what to do- strategies that require usage of not only the creature but your very surroundings- and when you figure it out, it's immensely satisfying as you smile in triumph, looking forward to each new beast.

And what beasts. With the exception of 2 surprisingly small (and in my opinion disappointing) creatures, these Colossi really live up to their name. To watch one stand high above, slowly craning its monstrous head to gaze at you, the invading pest, is a unique gaming experience. Without giving away their forms (seeing what they look like is half the fun), rest assured that you'll crawl atop towering heads, be pulled and thrashed through the water, and soar through the air. You'll ride your horse, Agro, past flying blasts of lightning, and be thrown about as you cling to the bellies, arms, and backs of thrashing monsters the size of roller coasters. The battles are intense, immersive, and very well executed- they move with the slow speed and powerful strength you'd expect, and the vast landscape around you looks a lot different when you're dozens- sometimes hundreds- of feet above it. A gaming website got it right when they said that these battles are so exciting that you want to tell the next player how much cool stuff is waiting for them- battles that get better and better- but can't because you know how great the discoveries were. So you instead wait eagerly and watch as they experience the same awe you got to feel.

The music is fantastic as well. Ambient, natural sounding tunes of pleasant wandering and sweeping action carry over the proceedings. It's always satisfying when you find that weakness and leap onto the Colossi's back and hear the heroic theme acknowledge your achievement and spur you on. Sounds effects and voice (especially the Temple God) are sparse but well done.

Since the battles are complex, it's a good thing the actual control isn't. There's a jump button, grab button, and attack button. No combos to figure out here, you just need to get the hang of charging your moves to full strength and when to leap and when to hold down that grab button. The trip to the first Colossus gives you a good basic glossing over of the controls. By Colossus 3, I was really getting the hang of how to move around more capably and quickly. Good thing, since things get more intense. Thankfully switching weapons and targeting the Colossi are a breeze.

One thing I wanted to address is the game's graphics and performance. I kept hearing that the game suffers some slowdown and the richly detailed graphics can't keep up for some parts of play. Whether I got lucky or just don't hold such perfectionist standards I don't know- the game played perfectly fine for me, and there was never a moment where I actually noticed things bogging down or screwing up a maneuver because of any kind of hiccup. I was consciously waiting to experience what seemed like the most commonly mentioned problem, and it just didn't happen, what can I say.

The one problem I do have is that, since much of the game is focused on discovery, experimentation, and exploration, once you finish the game you've pretty much seen it all. It should be noted that I was so taken by the game, and had so much fun fighting, that the next day I started right back up and played through again. And though much of the allure and mystery was exhausted, I still had a good time. You'll unquestionably develop favorite Colossi (mine are 7, 9, and 12), and probably want to fight them several times. If you continue a finished game, you can do time challenges for each beast and try to win special items, which adds some replay but in truth doesn't change the fact that it just means more battling.

Time is another thing- 10 to 20 hours is great for just "16 boss battles", but still not greatly lengthy. It's worth playing, without question, but some may be done once they've seen it through the one time, and in all fairness they're pretty correct.

But for me, I just wanted to go right back through. Learning the late story developments and lengthy ending (which to me was interesting and a pretty satisfying conclusion) just left me with a feeling that I'd participated in a grand tale, one I knew I'd revisit much like a favorite book I've already read. And if a complaint can be leveled against the game because it leaves the player wishing for more, then that's a pretty admirable fault to have.

Beautiful

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

you can't help but be struck by the total emptiness and beauty of the game. it plays like no other and is much more of a work of art than anything else. i have been greatly impressed with the sheer creativity of the game. other games i have enjoyed have been GT3 and 4, the GTA series and burnout 3, as well as your typical sports games like Madden, but this game almost feels like the first Simons Quest but with much less killing. This is hands down one of the best games i've ever experienced. if you buy this game, don't run through it, seriously take your time and check everything out. and take care of Argo, (basically Silver) this is by far the most loyal character ever created for any game.

Time well spent!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have played this game up through the 6th Colossus. The game just keeps drawing me in. I want to see the next colossus, find out what happens next.
As other reviewers have said, these colossi are ENOURMOUS. Finding out how to kill them can be a challange but the game will give you hints if you get stuck.
I can't say it's a terribly difficult game, but for me, spending TONS of time to figure out how to advance in a game is a turn off.
Definately worth buying!!!

New Heights

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Everyone who plays 'Shadow of the Colossus' says pretty much the same thing -- this is a game that defies description or categorization. It is simply like nothing else you've ever played. And while these words may sound trite, I find myself agreeing whole-heartedly with them.

Though it looks like a fantasy role-playing game, it doesn't follow that same formula at all. There is no opportunity to 'level up,' no upgrades to new and better weapons and equipment, no magic spells, no mini-bosses or side-quests. Just a young man, armed with a sword and a bow, wandering a barren land with his horse Agro in search of 16 colossi to destroy. Some of these creatures are massive ground-dwellers standing hundreds of feet high, others are smaller and faster and heavily-armored, others swim under the water, others fly through the air. All of them are, in their way, majestic and starkly beautiful.

Visually, 'Shadow' is a stunning game, perhaps the most cinematic game I have ever played, with camera angles tailored to highlight the drama and sweep of your progress. The graphics of the colossi are particularly detailed, with cracked stone armor and glowing eyes and patches of fur where every hair is visible. You can be holding onto a scaled wing as the creature rolls through the air with you on its back, or hanging on for dear life to a massive finger as its owner raises a hand to gaze at you, or leaping down to the top of a ridged head to deliver a final stab -- the images never fail to convey the scope and the scale of what you are doing. If anything, they accentuate the experience in a dramatic style that works throughout the game.

Similarly, the music builds in a layer of drama and tension perfectly, responding to player actions. It may start out as something quiet and understated, then building as the creature reveals itself and attacks, then a crescendo of a triumphant theme as you find its weak points and attack. The music is worthy of its own attention, and is one of the best game scores I have heard since 'Homeworld.'

To put it simply, 'Shadow of the Colossus' is a hauntingly beautiful game. It will draw you into its strange, beautiful world again and again, and the ending will take your breath away. 'Shadow' impressed me with its originality, its graphics, its music, its attention to detail, its surprises, and most of all, with how well it took a familiar story and made it brand-new. There really is nothing like this game.

Hands down the greatest video game ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Pure artwork. The visuals, the sounds, and the emotionally capturing story are stunning. I, like many of you, have played video games until my eyes became sore since I was old enough to hold a controller, and this is unlike anything else that has ever existed in the video game world. I became entrenched in the world this story creates from the very begining. Such a beautiful experience I did not realize was possible from a game. You absolutely owe it to yourself to play this game, it is the best video game ever made. ....yes, even better than The Ledgend of Zelda! :O

A Great Chance from Mindless Killing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Just about everything I have to say about this game has already been said in the stared reviews. You end up splitting your time between exploring the country side and searching out the next colossus and bringing it down. The idea of a game where you don't level up or get better equipment was intriguing to me because it implies a puzzel solving game, though here your puzzel is where is the weak spot and how do you get there. The designers were very creative in how they used the limited control mechanics to let you get to where you need to go.
My favorite part of this game is that it tries to have you think about what you are doing. Sure you are on a quest to save a girl, but you have to go pick a fight with each colossi. They are majestic and each time I bring one down I am a little sad to know that it isn't around any more. I haven't finished the game yet, but I suspect that the final price for saving the girl will be very high indeed.

Colossal Success!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

These monsters are massive and intimidating, especially when you encounter the first one! By the 16th monster, you get used to their size and just work on the strategy to defeat them.

Basic premise of the game; boy loses girl (because for reasons unknown to us, she's dead), boy goes to an ancient temple with said dead girl to have her revived, the 'spirit' in the temple tells our hero that the girl can be revived, but only if our hero can destroy the 16 "colossi."

Each monster is a puzzle that needs to be unraveled. Some are simple puzzles that are figured out almost instantly, others are very elaborate and require strict attention to detail to reveal just how to defeat the particular foe.

My only gripe with the game is that as fearsome and huge as the colossi are, and they are, I almost wished they were more fearsome and more difficult to destroy - some are, but the bulk are relatively easy to defeat as their attacks are rarely lethal. It doesn't take away from the games beauty and originality, just a minor gripe.

If you want an experience that's unlike anything else out there (from the makers of ICO) don't hesitate to put this one at or close to the top of the list.

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