Something all games seem to be focused on is throwing set-pieces at you like you were an only child to what in America is called a “pageant mom” and in the rest of the world is sectioned under the mental health act. If you have a split second to yourself, they end up spawning endless hordes of enemies to throw at you like those suicide bombers from Killer7. My point here is that it’s no wonder why Animal Crossing is always so bloody popular. Sure, the raccoon mafia will snap your kneecaps like twigs and mug you for every penny you make from shaking all the trees and selling totally original gingham, but it’s peaceful.

Shadow of the Colossus is the second game from developer Team Ico, the first game worth about as much mention as the flavor of mint tea at this point. I’ve personally never been much of a fan of the first game where you were guiding around Keira Knightley cosplaying as a mute melon smuggler with no clue of what self-preservation is. You played as an eager young man, go about with a stick in hand, a stupid helmet, and a bit of a cape (or his mother’s tea cloth) wrapped around your neck. I honestly don’t remember his motivations, I think it was to get some of that sex I hear so much about.

If you’re starting to think, “Well, you’re not exactly talking about Shadow of the Colossus thus far, are you?” No, it is this thing called context. I have to draw a comparison between some things that are just a bit crap and that make you want to bang your head against a wall. This is so you know when something is good. Shadow of the Colossus doesn’t do any of what I mentioned above because it understands the word context, giving it to you in heaps so it makes as much impact as it possibly can. There is none of this 2×4 business to protect White women from something big and Black.

In Shadow of the Colossus, the only woman and only other person within a country mile is laying on her back. Ok, that doesn’t make it any better, and honestly, it makes it sound like there is a somewhat narrow-minded view of women within the team behind the games. Anyway, the woman on the slab is your driving force, your love interest, and the exemplar of the “true love” trope in a game where I don’t mind it. Do you want to know why? I don’t have to listen to poorly acted, poorly written, and awkwardly animated retellings of Romeo and Juliet. She’s a stiff, this is a magic land filled with sixteen big creatures, I need to go kill them to save her.

I remember when games were that simple. It was called the PS2 era where you could have suicide bombers clad in colorful leather running at you. Ahh, the past! However, there is none of that in Shadow of the Colossus. There is nothing more than I’ve already said: A young woman as stiff as a board, sixteen angry monsters with uncontrollable back hair, and you, the tiny one with the puny sword that might as well be a toothpick for what you plan to do with it. Yeah, there is a horse, sprawling and adventurous lands that are rather large, and there is a bow too. The most important feature is your grip meter.

Effectively, it is a boss rush game. You have nothing else to do but put that twig you picked up into the rather large hooves of the first monster. There is a reason the game is called Shadow of the Colossus, if it was “Holy Christ, that thing over there is the size of a skyscraper placed on top of another skyscraper,” it would get about the same thing across, but it wouldn’t be as snappy. The first boss you stumble upon with your magic sword that reflects light to your next target is, quite literally, colossal. Sure, at first he’s about half a mile away, minding his own business, possibly stumbling about in the pain of his own mass. He looks a bit small but soon enough you’ll see why they call him a colossus.

With the massive foot dangling over you, ready to squish, you see how small you are in this universe. One tussle in the sheets later, and you are both laying on the ground after being filled with something you might not entirely have wanted inside you. Every fight ends in more or less the same way. If you are a human with even an ounce of emotion in your cold dead heart, you’ll feel sad about it because Kow Otani created a masterpiece of a soundtrack to match the powerful moment of a large beautiful creature as old as the soil itself tumbling to the ground in death. I’ve seen some philistines say, “oh but, Shadow of the Colossus is boring!” Well done, you’ve shown you are a heartless lizard person, you can run for public office.

Yes, there are long periods of the game where you’ll just not hear any music. You’ll be roaming the lands of this strange world, killing lizards and eating fruit. All of that is juxtaposed with loud, chaotic, tense fights with monsters that genuinely don’t want you crawling all over them because they know what that means. Why? They are living breathing creatures of this world, beautiful and mythical. On the other hand, you are the tiny spec of dirt with a sword coming along and stabbing them because you couldn’t be bothered inventing penicillin to cure the dead meat on the table back at the central shrine. You are a horrid and despicable person, but some don’t get that because it isn’t in flashing neon above their head.

Ok, the story tries to go a little higher in its concept by using a completely made-up language, subtitling it while an old man makes it sound vaguely Japanese. The story is simple, I’ve already said it: You, young man, take a young dead woman to a shine where you are directed to kill beautiful creatures with the vague idea this will help her, your perfect Tinder match. Nothing more, nothing less, we were that straightforward with stories during the PS2 era and it pays off because nothing is overly complicated. You’re not tangled up in things for sequels to dangle about for nine years while it is being developed. No, I’ve never heard of this The Last Guardian you speak of, be quiet!

Why do I keep saying “PS2 era” for a review of a PS3 game? Because of Bluepoint Games, known for saying, “Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You may remember me from remastering all your favorite PlayStation classics, such as God of War, Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted, and Demon’s Souls.” Ok, even I’ll admit, that was a long-winded way to get in a Simpsons gag, but I don’t care. Of course, Bluepoint has remastered Shadow of the Colossus twice, once on the PS4, but in 2011 they released the Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection. Finally, on the PS4 Pro, the 2018 remaster let the game run at 60 frames-per-second. However, the first time the game ran at 30 was on the PS3.

As much as nostalgia can blind you to the PS2’s flaws, it made the game run at a “cinematic” 24 FPS, if you are lucky. Not that the PS3 version is without its flaws either, as you can still see pop-in, and if your PS3 is getting old like mine, it might be wheezing a little. Not struggling to keep up, but you’ll hear fans blowing away over a decade and a half of dust. This, I think, brings me to the UX of this very obvious Japanese game made 16-years ago for a system that is 21-years old this year. The controls are a bit dated and clunky at this point, which was fixed with the 2018 release and not the PS3 version.

There is a reason I called it a boss rush game and never call it boring despite the mountain of emotion it lays on you. Killing the fourteen absolutely colossal things and the two moderately sized sheds is fun. One of them is them is a flying hairy stone snake that is probably the grandad of Fuchur from The Neverending Story. You might think I am joking, but flying jumpy stabby wahey is very real and very fun to try and time attack. Yes, under all of this, the facade of being the grimmest, driest, and saddest story, there is a full game tucked under here. After several playthroughs, you might just be able to climb the central shrine.

The time attacks and hard mode aren’t just for your benefit of stabbing beautiful creatures again, it is there so you can get all the interesting bits. Bigger stabbing sticks, exploding arrows, maps of all the fruits and lizards, a parachute, and a couple of paint jobs for Agro, your horse. Kill all sixteen colossi three times, that’s 48 deaths on your conscience if you have one, and you’ve beaten all the major portions of the game. You’ll still not be able to climb the central shrine though. You need to go through again, but this time with surgical precision a few more times, just to make sure and you can finally solve the puzzle of that bridge.

Shadow of the Colossus is a beautiful game, despite the hazy green filters everywhere, shrouded by mysteries. Who’s the kid and his pet dead-woman? I don’t know, she isn’t a Fuchur’s grandad, and nor is the K-pop frontman with the twig either. She might be the driving force, he might be your vessel into this world, but the stars of the show are the lumbering beasts you keep killing. Shadow of the Colossus has no problem telling you who you are, a horrible person. I think I love it.

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Shadow of the Colossus

$28.99

10

Score

10.0/10

Pros

• Context to all the chaotic fighting.
• Colossal monsters.
• A soundtrack that is as sad as it is perfect.

Cons

• The PS3 achievements ruining perfect moments.
• Very dated controls at this point.