Forewarning: It's basically impossible to talk about this game in any detail without spoiling key aspects of it, so if you want to experience it for yourself I recommend staying away from this review (or others) until you've played it.
My brother, at one point in our childhood, managed to get ahold of a PS2 and a stack of games to go with it. The end result was the two of us coming into contact with a great many experiences that had eluded us due to only owning Nintendo devices previously. This included series like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and Grand Theft Auto. Of all the games we had managed to accumulate, though, one particular 2005 release titled “Shadow of the Colossus” really seemed to command his attention. I tried it for myself and ended up spending one lonely day bathing in its pale golden rays. There were times when I kind of wanted to tear my hair out… But I kept on regardless. Those eight or so hours have stuck with me for a long time.
The tale Team Ico is telling here is as simple as they come. A youth named Wander has entered a cursed and forbidden land with three things in tow: A valiant mount named Agro, an enchanted blade, and the lifeless body of a girl. He brings this body to an ancient shrine and is approached by a spirit known as Dormin. Wander asks if the girl can be brought back to life. Dormin suggests it is possible, but only on one condition – Wander must scour the Forbidden Lands for sixteen colossi and slay each one. Only then will Dormin have the power to grant Wander’s request. The boy unflinchingly accepts. Led by a mysterious light emanating from his sword, he sets off to fulfill his end of the bargain. There are hints that nothing here is quite so straightforward as it seems, and while some of the shadows surrounding this narrative are dispelled with time, just as much is kept obscured.
Every aspect of the game feels intentional, even when there’s fair reason to assume otherwise. Wander is a skilled rider and bowman, which is translated through gameplay. What is also translated through gameplay is that the poor fellow has clearly never held a sword for more than a few minutes, wielding his ancient blade with all the finesse of a child playing with a handsome stick found by the creek. A shame, then, that flinging what may as well be toothpicks at your towering targets will predictably avail you of naught. And Agro, while being as trusty a steed as they come, is clearly of different stock than the gravity-defying horses that inhabit the province of Skyrim. You’re going to have to get up onto that walking tower under your own power and give it a good stabbing if you want to have any hope of bringing it down. What follows is a gut-wrenching dance wherein you desperately seek an opening to clamber up to that glowing weak spot, striving to avoid being crushed like a bug or flung unto the hard and uncaring earth. Each move the colossus makes causes your controller to vibrate violently, and even the Playstation 2’s hardware seems to falter beneath the utter weight of the tragic monstrosities it endeavors to display. All the while, a sweeping orchestral soundtrack swells from menacing to triumphant as you slowly but surely manage to accomplish the impossible. The staggering sense of scale and the accompanying drama have rarely been matched by other games in the past two decades.
And as you would probably expect of any deal with the devil, this exercise involves no small amount of pain. The Forbidden Lands, while eerie and beautiful, are also barren and lifeless, save for a few decrepit structures and a light sprinkling of flora and fauna. Every new mark seems more distant and difficult to reach than the last, and you will become intimately familiar with each empty stretch of this realm in your travels. You really feel Wander’s relative weakness and scaling each boss can be a deeply frustrating task, which is in no way helped by the awkward controls and combative camera. Nothing quite boils the blood like getting shaken off one poke away from felling your foe. If the sheen of the spectacle wears off somewhere between scene one and scene sixteen, there isn’t much left for you here. Aside from one or two little secrets, this world is just as empty as it feels. Thus, if the idea of exploration for exploration’s sake doesn’t grab you, then you will find very little reason to persist. And as previously suggested, the framerate does chug at times. I doubt this will be too much of an issue for most, but it is worth mentioning.
What will probably make Shadow of the Colossus hardest to stomach for some, though, is the moral ambiguity surrounding its protagonists and the nature of your charge. Wander is not some righteous and just warrior facing off against an unquestionably dangerous villain. Dormin may or not be a benevolent entity and is decidedly not a beloved one. The religious enforcers that pursue you might seem to be wantonly zealous at worst, but what if they have very good reasons for rushing to stop Wander? As to your targets - the sixteen colossi seem perfectly content to exist in perpetual solitude, peacefully milling about until you arrive. Even then, some of them only seem to attack out of animalistic instinct, some pay you no heed at all until you actively threaten them, and some outright flee from you. Video games have long been centered around the simple task-reward structure of giving you a treat and a pat on the back for completing your objectives before urging you on to the next stage. This transactional nature is very much present in SotC and is mirrored in the narrative, as each titan you topple puts you one step closer to saving a life in addition to making Wander just a touch more able. However, the intrinsic feeling of triumph that is typically associated with these experiences can potentially be snuffed out by the tragic tone that underscores each encounter. While you might be capable of understanding your character’s loss and their desperate desire to right what has gone wrong, you might find it much harder to accept that the ends justify the means. You are not a hero in this tale. You are a hunter. You may end up questioning if any of this is truly worth the blood you’ve shed. You might wish for an alternative.
Maybe you don't need to slay the colossi at all. Maybe you can abandon your quest, find a nice patch of grass and quietly sit with Agro while taking in the bloom and gloom. Maybe you can eke out a living riding to and fro and subsisting off fruit and lizard tails. Maybe you could just turn off the console. Loss is a natural part of life. Your beloved is gone. Shouldn’t you accept that and move on? Shouldn’t you leave this forbidden land - the denizens of which are seemingly guilty of no crime under man or god – to continue to exist forgotten and undisturbed?
But then I guess there wouldn’t be a game.
The simple fact of the matter is that this is Wander’s story, and he didn’t steal a magic sword and travel untold miles with his girlfriend’s cadaver in tow to just give up the second he started feeling a tinge of guilt. Once that first colossus hits the ground, there’s only one path left. The dying groans of your unwilling victims and the somber music that accompanies their demise might leave a bad taste in your mouth, but if Wander is having second thoughts at all, he doesn’t let it show. And maybe you can stop playing any time you want, but I get the distinct impression that if it was somehow possible to turn control over to your avatar, he’d jump right back into his killing spree without an ounce of hesitation. The game never asks you to take a side; it’s been chosen for you already. It may be that Dormin has nothing but ill will for humanity, and perhaps they will betray you in the end. Perhaps they were never capable of fulfilling your wish in the first place. None of that matters. Opportunities to cheat death don’t come every day. If life isn’t worth living without her, then what alternative do you really have?
Ultimately, pyrrhic is the only word that can be used to describe your eventual victory. The true nature of the ending is left as uncertain as everything that came before and may raise just as many questions as it provides answers, not only unto itself but also with regards to Team Ico’s namesake and maiden title. For me, at least, the mood was intensely somber but not without a spark of hope. After playing so many games with endings that are bittersweet at absolute worst, having those sentiments flipped on their head was definitely something that I needed at the time.
Shadow of the Colossus did not attempt to offer what I think most would consider a broadly enjoyable gameplay experience. Strip away the story and aesthetics and all that remains is a clunky, choppy collection of boss fights preceded by lengthy hallways. However, while some may be able to fully divorce in their minds the game proper from the package it’s wrapped in, to do so for a title like this one is to perform a disservice. They are deliberately and irreversibly intertwined. To me, SotC is a game that feels like one of the rare opportunities for an industry-backed developer to turn their nose up at convention and make an experience that conveys their intended vision. Many critics considered it a success, and many players have similar feelings. Maybe you feel it’s a masterpiece or just another overrated piece of artistic intrigue, or anywhere in-between. In my opinion, if nothing else, it’s an experiment that definitely left a mark on both me and my hobby, and one that I think we gravely need to see more of.
My brother, at one point in our childhood, managed to get ahold of a PS2 and a stack of games to go with it. The end result was the two of us coming into contact with a great many experiences that had eluded us due to only owning Nintendo devices previously. This included series like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and Grand Theft Auto. Of all the games we had managed to accumulate, though, one particular 2005 release titled “Shadow of the Colossus” really seemed to command his attention. I tried it for myself and ended up spending one lonely day bathing in its pale golden rays. There were times when I kind of wanted to tear my hair out… But I kept on regardless. Those eight or so hours have stuck with me for a long time.
The tale Team Ico is telling here is as simple as they come. A youth named Wander has entered a cursed and forbidden land with three things in tow: A valiant mount named Agro, an enchanted blade, and the lifeless body of a girl. He brings this body to an ancient shrine and is approached by a spirit known as Dormin. Wander asks if the girl can be brought back to life. Dormin suggests it is possible, but only on one condition – Wander must scour the Forbidden Lands for sixteen colossi and slay each one. Only then will Dormin have the power to grant Wander’s request. The boy unflinchingly accepts. Led by a mysterious light emanating from his sword, he sets off to fulfill his end of the bargain. There are hints that nothing here is quite so straightforward as it seems, and while some of the shadows surrounding this narrative are dispelled with time, just as much is kept obscured.
Every aspect of the game feels intentional, even when there’s fair reason to assume otherwise. Wander is a skilled rider and bowman, which is translated through gameplay. What is also translated through gameplay is that the poor fellow has clearly never held a sword for more than a few minutes, wielding his ancient blade with all the finesse of a child playing with a handsome stick found by the creek. A shame, then, that flinging what may as well be toothpicks at your towering targets will predictably avail you of naught. And Agro, while being as trusty a steed as they come, is clearly of different stock than the gravity-defying horses that inhabit the province of Skyrim. You’re going to have to get up onto that walking tower under your own power and give it a good stabbing if you want to have any hope of bringing it down. What follows is a gut-wrenching dance wherein you desperately seek an opening to clamber up to that glowing weak spot, striving to avoid being crushed like a bug or flung unto the hard and uncaring earth. Each move the colossus makes causes your controller to vibrate violently, and even the Playstation 2’s hardware seems to falter beneath the utter weight of the tragic monstrosities it endeavors to display. All the while, a sweeping orchestral soundtrack swells from menacing to triumphant as you slowly but surely manage to accomplish the impossible. The staggering sense of scale and the accompanying drama have rarely been matched by other games in the past two decades.
And as you would probably expect of any deal with the devil, this exercise involves no small amount of pain. The Forbidden Lands, while eerie and beautiful, are also barren and lifeless, save for a few decrepit structures and a light sprinkling of flora and fauna. Every new mark seems more distant and difficult to reach than the last, and you will become intimately familiar with each empty stretch of this realm in your travels. You really feel Wander’s relative weakness and scaling each boss can be a deeply frustrating task, which is in no way helped by the awkward controls and combative camera. Nothing quite boils the blood like getting shaken off one poke away from felling your foe. If the sheen of the spectacle wears off somewhere between scene one and scene sixteen, there isn’t much left for you here. Aside from one or two little secrets, this world is just as empty as it feels. Thus, if the idea of exploration for exploration’s sake doesn’t grab you, then you will find very little reason to persist. And as previously suggested, the framerate does chug at times. I doubt this will be too much of an issue for most, but it is worth mentioning.
What will probably make Shadow of the Colossus hardest to stomach for some, though, is the moral ambiguity surrounding its protagonists and the nature of your charge. Wander is not some righteous and just warrior facing off against an unquestionably dangerous villain. Dormin may or not be a benevolent entity and is decidedly not a beloved one. The religious enforcers that pursue you might seem to be wantonly zealous at worst, but what if they have very good reasons for rushing to stop Wander? As to your targets - the sixteen colossi seem perfectly content to exist in perpetual solitude, peacefully milling about until you arrive. Even then, some of them only seem to attack out of animalistic instinct, some pay you no heed at all until you actively threaten them, and some outright flee from you. Video games have long been centered around the simple task-reward structure of giving you a treat and a pat on the back for completing your objectives before urging you on to the next stage. This transactional nature is very much present in SotC and is mirrored in the narrative, as each titan you topple puts you one step closer to saving a life in addition to making Wander just a touch more able. However, the intrinsic feeling of triumph that is typically associated with these experiences can potentially be snuffed out by the tragic tone that underscores each encounter. While you might be capable of understanding your character’s loss and their desperate desire to right what has gone wrong, you might find it much harder to accept that the ends justify the means. You are not a hero in this tale. You are a hunter. You may end up questioning if any of this is truly worth the blood you’ve shed. You might wish for an alternative.
Maybe you don't need to slay the colossi at all. Maybe you can abandon your quest, find a nice patch of grass and quietly sit with Agro while taking in the bloom and gloom. Maybe you can eke out a living riding to and fro and subsisting off fruit and lizard tails. Maybe you could just turn off the console. Loss is a natural part of life. Your beloved is gone. Shouldn’t you accept that and move on? Shouldn’t you leave this forbidden land - the denizens of which are seemingly guilty of no crime under man or god – to continue to exist forgotten and undisturbed?
But then I guess there wouldn’t be a game.
The simple fact of the matter is that this is Wander’s story, and he didn’t steal a magic sword and travel untold miles with his girlfriend’s cadaver in tow to just give up the second he started feeling a tinge of guilt. Once that first colossus hits the ground, there’s only one path left. The dying groans of your unwilling victims and the somber music that accompanies their demise might leave a bad taste in your mouth, but if Wander is having second thoughts at all, he doesn’t let it show. And maybe you can stop playing any time you want, but I get the distinct impression that if it was somehow possible to turn control over to your avatar, he’d jump right back into his killing spree without an ounce of hesitation. The game never asks you to take a side; it’s been chosen for you already. It may be that Dormin has nothing but ill will for humanity, and perhaps they will betray you in the end. Perhaps they were never capable of fulfilling your wish in the first place. None of that matters. Opportunities to cheat death don’t come every day. If life isn’t worth living without her, then what alternative do you really have?
Ultimately, pyrrhic is the only word that can be used to describe your eventual victory. The true nature of the ending is left as uncertain as everything that came before and may raise just as many questions as it provides answers, not only unto itself but also with regards to Team Ico’s namesake and maiden title. For me, at least, the mood was intensely somber but not without a spark of hope. After playing so many games with endings that are bittersweet at absolute worst, having those sentiments flipped on their head was definitely something that I needed at the time.
Shadow of the Colossus did not attempt to offer what I think most would consider a broadly enjoyable gameplay experience. Strip away the story and aesthetics and all that remains is a clunky, choppy collection of boss fights preceded by lengthy hallways. However, while some may be able to fully divorce in their minds the game proper from the package it’s wrapped in, to do so for a title like this one is to perform a disservice. They are deliberately and irreversibly intertwined. To me, SotC is a game that feels like one of the rare opportunities for an industry-backed developer to turn their nose up at convention and make an experience that conveys their intended vision. Many critics considered it a success, and many players have similar feelings. Maybe you feel it’s a masterpiece or just another overrated piece of artistic intrigue, or anywhere in-between. In my opinion, if nothing else, it’s an experiment that definitely left a mark on both me and my hobby, and one that I think we gravely need to see more of.