Shadow of the Colossus HD

This game is a straight up instant classic that can be put up there as a paragon of videogame excellence. If you have not played this game then you really need to play this game now, don't walk to the store to get it as well, run to it.

Shadow of the Colossus originally came out in 2005 as a PS2 exclusive which I missed to be honest. I didn't get the game until more than half a decade later after hearing people harp on about the game for an almost equally long amount of time. As a result I ended up picking up the remastered high definition version of the game that came out in 2011 as a PS3 exclusive. Its a real shame the game is a PS exclusive since this game really does deserve a much larger market, but its pretty easy to explain why the game is an exclusive once you take a look at its publisher and developer. The games developer was Team Ico, a team within Sony's development arm which is called SCE Japan Studio, as a result it was obviously only published by Sony Computer Entertainment.

Shadow of the Colossus's weakest aspect in my opinion was its narrative. The entire story is that the protagonist is fighting and killing various Colossi in order to have a demon/god/spirit bring his wife/girlfriend back to life. I can't really elaborate any more than that since the game doesn't do it either. That doesn't really matter here though since the game has some other monstrously strong parts that are damn near perfect. They are quite intertwined though making it a bit difficult to separate them from one another.

These two parts are its mechanics and visual design. As I'm sure you saw in the above picture and inferred from the name by now the entire point of this game and all the action that takes place in this game is fighting the sixteen colossi in the game. As I'm also sure you saw, the colossi are fucking huge massive hulking monsters deserving of all these descriptive adjectives. The first time you see one of the colossi is just breathtaking, you feel so small, the task seems so huge and once you take it down the sense of achievement is just massive.

I'm supposed to do what? with what? To what?

That experience I've described seems to be universal as well. I've heard the same thing over and over again from the people I've talked to about the game. Its a true testament of how the visual design of the colossi is not only beautiful but daunting. That is just amazing as well when you realize that the colossi aren't just bosses, they are simultaneously also living puzzles and level. That decision by the developers essentially allowed them to make these massive creatures that actually feel massive as you struggle to climb them and then when you finally get to the weak spot stick your toothpick of a sword right into them. Any other kind of development choice would have had Shadow of the Colossus turn into a standard cookie cutter role playing game. I mean just look at games like any of the Final Fantasy's, there are huge creatures in all of the games but that really doesn't matter since their design is just that, its a picture with the combat having it own system that operates in parallel to the design as opposed to operating on the same plane.

This is where Shadow of the Colossus succeeded, it turned the game's platforming and puzzle mechanics into an organic part of their game design. This in turn made the game ridiculously intuitive if not an instinctual reaction when it came to controlling your character. Becoming immersed in the game is also made so much easier thanks to this blend of design and mechanics you are throw yourself into the character, you can be him as you try and claw your way up, across and back down all the various colossi.

This review might seem short to some, but I don't think it is. Shadow of the Colossus is a game that came about thanks to some brilliant design and mechanic development choices on a philosophic and technical level. No games since it have been able to do the same thing on the same scale and length as Shadow of the Colossus, the best I saw were just games that copied the concept for one of their boss fights like God of War. This really is a unique game that you need to play. Its just so much fun aside from being a design landmark in the videogame industry.

Challenge Accepted!