Shadow of the Colossus Impressions

Yesterday I thought it was about time to play some of my back catalog of games before I buy any new ones; First up on the list is "Shadow of the Colossus".

So I dusted off my PS2 which has not been fired up for many months, and after messing about with the "rats nest" of connections behind the TV managed to locate the power and SCART cables. Popping the disc into the PS2 the disc whirred into life, the intro started and then unexpectedly froze. Wondering if it was because I'd set the game to 60Hz mode I tried it on 50Hz, but to no avail I received the same result. As a last ditch attempt I took out the disc and gave it a good clean. This time after a few moments, the intro finally continued. Something has to be said for trying out a game straight away rather than just leaving it on the shelf for months!

Onto the game...

The intro is beautiful, you see Wanda travelling on horseback across the land. The music is melodic and haunting setting the atmosphere for the game. Eventually Wanda reaches his destination, dismounts, and lifting a bundle from the horse he proceeds into what appears to be shrine. Placing the bundle on an alter Wanda removes the shroud to reveal the body of a girl. This is your first taste of the story, Wanda has travelled to this far off land to restore the soul of this girl. After talking to some entities that live in this place he is told that it may be possible to restore her to life if he seeks out and destroys the Colossi that roam the land.

To find the colossi you loft your sword high in the air, and using the reflected sunlight scan the landscape until the direction is shown as a beam of light. After riding across the landscape and scrambling up a cliff face you have your first memorable experience with a colossus. A huge foot passes in front of you and the camera pans around to reveal the behemoth in its full glory. Your first few thoughts are "wow, that's huge" followed by "how the hell am I going to defeat it?". Luckily there are some handy hints that appear to help you learn how to kill this colossus.

Locking the camera onto the colossus you run around trying to find a place to clamber on. The beast is fully aware of your presence and is not standing still, but it is slow and after dodging a few huge attacks you get close enough to climb onto its foot. Grabbing on as it moves across the land you slowly work your way further up onto its torso and then finally up to the head. This is where you find its weak spot, shown as a glowing tattoo and where you must plunge your sword. Of course the colossus is not taking this lying down and tries to repeatedly throw you off, shaking Wanda from side to side. This was just the first colossus, Wanda must destroy 16 very different colossi in total.

Although this is a two year old game the graphics are gorgeous with a distinct appearance and push the PS2's aging hardware. So far I cannot fault the atmosphere, you're launched quickly into the game with just a fragment of story but that's all that's needed at this point. I don't really need to know the full history between Wanda and the mysterious girl, just that he's willing to do anything to try and bring her back to life. There is a real sense of scale to this game, the landscape is vast and spectacular. The colossi that I've seen so far are all immense, intricately detailed and fantastically animated, and I must say that I feel a little pang of guilt when I finally kill one of them.

There are some minor issues so far, I initially found the controls to be a little bit fiddly but I think this may be because I'm out of practice with the PS2 controller. Also, the camera isn't perfect and seems to require some attention from player every now and again. Neither of these faults though detract from the game experience.

Shadow of the Colossus is a very unique game. There's nothing else quite like it on the market and I look forward to continuing to hunt down the remaining colossi. I'll post my final thoughts when I complete the game.