Mere Words cannot describe this masterpiece
now coming to the review , you play as an un-named protagonist who has just lost the love of his life , so he travels to distant far away land to seek the help of a creature to help him resurrect his love , now this creature who we do not get to see but only hear his voice , agrees to help but in order to do that we ( the protagonist ) must find and get rid of sixteen colossi which dwell within this land , the most brilliant part of the story is not the plot but rather the way in which it is presented , there are very few dialogs in the movie , infact the protagonist never speaks at all ( except for the time when you call your horse ) instead the cut scenes relay the emotional story through body language and subtle music , also i'd just like to add that this game has the most beautiful ending i have ever witnessed
whats even more brilliant is the setting of the game , you play in a HUGE desolate land of nothingness , its just you , your horse and colossi , while this may not sound like an appealing setting for a game but in this case it actually works , the vast empty land actually gives you a certain feel which i cannot explain , not only that but even your character in the game is amazing , the main character, moves like a normal person, he's not fast nor strong like a superhuman, he doesn't even wield magic asides from a normal sword that acts as a compass. All he has is his horse, his bow, his sword and the strongest weapon in his arsenal , his determination.
now coming to the the highlight of the game - the colossi , the colossi themselves are HUGE ( and even that is an understatement ) creatures which reside in the land , your job is to find and kill them ,in order to do that you'll wander open plains , deserts , oceans , forests and even marshlands to find them , and once you do then thats when the real fun begins , in order to kill a colossi you must first loacte its weak points , you do that by using the sword to focus the sunlight onto the colossi , now the weak points may be anywhere be it the head or the palm etc , once you have done that , you must climb the colossi using the the colossi's hair or armor and then strike on that weak point multiple time so as to kill him , while this may sound like an easy enough task , but just wait until you try it , just grabbing onto them and climbing them doesnt do the trick for most colossi , many of them will make you think so as to defeat them for example - one colossi may come raging at you from the behind leaving you with the only choice of getting on your horse and hitting it in the eye with your bow so he gets disoriented giving you an oppurtunity to kill him , while another may dive into underwater taking you along with him so now you have hold your breath underwater and kill him while also trying not to drown , the puzzles which you have to solve in order to kill these colossi are ingenious , besdies portal this perhaps the only game i have played which made me actually use my head ..a particular colossi desrves a special mention , in this scenario you play in the desert in which a huge colossi ( perhaps the biggest one in the game ) flies overhead you , not giving you a chance to climb it , so you first have to burst some bubbles on its body using your bow which will bring it down lower but still not low enough for you to climb on it , and upon that its flying at a very fast pace , so what do you do here ? you get on you horse and chase it , and once you're level with it you jump from your horse onto its body and start climbing ... even after playing this 5 years ago , it still remains as my favourite battle in gaming history ...now after you climb the colossi , dont think that hard part is over coz these colossi will do anything to shake you off thier body , to avoid this you have to hold onto thier body , now there is a grip meter which decreases overtime and more rapidly as the colossi shake , if it reaches to zero then it means you cannot hold on any longer and you fall ( which in most cases is hazardous considering the immense size of the colossus ) , but once you get past that you have to make your way to their weak point and stab them there with your sword...now the gameplay is a little short but maybe that because you just dont want to stop playing , the colossi themselves take time to beat some might take you around 15 mins while takes can last for more than an hour
now coming to the graphics , visually this game is second only to God Of War 2 on the PS2 , and artistically there are very very few games which surpass this , every single environment looks delightful and even more impressive are colossi themselves , they are truly a sight to behold , every colossi looks differnt from the previous one , and everyone is just as impressive , not only that but the animations are very impressive as well , all the colossi move realistically , even the protagonist and his horse do not move stiff like in most games but very fluidly , the frame rate doesnt always keep up but for a game of this scale it is more than justified besides it really doesn't hamper the experience much
The sound in my opinion is this game's greatest achievement , all sounds from the colossi to your horse feel authentic....and the orchestral score is one of the best i have heard till date , it really sets you in the mood
so in my verdict , shadow of the colossus is not merely a video game it is more of an cinematic experience which no one should miss out on, in the very first hour you'll get ttached to this masterpiece , you'll fall in love with its incredible storytelling , brilliant graphics , amazing sound , and unique gameplay , to me its right there on the top in the gaming hall of fame..the only real bad thing i can say about this game is that i dont see how a sequel could be made out of this , but i really do hope that if not a sequel then sony atleast remakes this again with current generation graphics and could add a few more colossi :D