Shadow of the Colossus (2005)

I don’t know why it took me so many years to play this masterpiece. I had a great time battling the 16 colossi, each fight was incredible. The reason I don’t give this title a perfect rating is because of how uncomfortable it is to gallop in some areas and how complicated it is to find some colossi; other than that, it’s a fantastic game. The horned baby that appears at the end of the game is Ico, and I’m not going to debate it with anyone, period.

The game is a masterpiece, the atmosphere, the music, the powerful visuals, I'm happy to have experienced this story. The bad things are the camera, the only way to use it is to just move the character and hold the center camera button, or the center on colossus button, otherwise it's like you are fighting another enemy. It gets a bit repetitive in the middle, some bosses are copypasted with meaningless changes, I'd have liked a bit more diverse designs. I loved the game.

Shadow of the colossus is a 2005 action, adventure and puzzle game.Team Ico, the producer of the game, and Sony Computer Entertainment, the distributor, have done a great job.The story of the game is as follows.The story of the shadow of the Colossus begins when Wander enters the forbidden land and crosses the long bridge on the Agro horse. Unknown to the player, before entering, Wander had stolen an ancient sword, the only weapon capable of killing the colossi.Leading to a large temple of worship in the center of the area, Wander carries the body of a virgin named Mono. A moment later, several humanoid shadow creatures appear and approach the wanderer before easily dismissing them with a wave of the Ancient sword. After destroying the shadow creatures, the voice of the disembodied entity known as "Dormin" echoes from above, expressing his surprise that Wander has the weapon. Wander asks Dormin to restore Mono's soul to his body; Dormin claims that it would be possible using an ancient sword to kill every colossus the idols represent, provided Wander can destroy the sixteen idols that line the temple's hall. Despite being warned by Dormin that he may have to pay a big price to revive Mono, Wander begins searching the land in search of the colossi and destroying them. What Wander doesn't know is that the colossi contain portions of Dormin's own essence, which was dispersed long ago to render the entity powerless.[30] [39] As Wander kills each colossus, a released Dormin fragment enters his body. Over time, Wander's signs of deterioration from the collected Essence become clearer-his skin turns pale, his hair darkens, and dark lines grow on his face. After the death of the twelfth colossus, it is revealed that Wander is being pursued by a group of warriors led by EMON. Urged by Dormin to hurry with his mission, Wander soon sets out to defeat the sixteenth and final colossus. On the way to this confrontation, he travels on horseback across a long bridge, which begins to collapse as he is halfway across. At the last second, when he thinks he can't do it, Wander is thrown to the other side by Agro before the horse falls into the distant river below. Soon after, Wander proceeds to defeat the last colossus when Emon's company arrives at the temple of worship to witness the smashing of the last temple idol. Wander soon returned to the temple, the signs of his corruption easily apparent: his skin was moist, his eyes milky, and a pair of small horns sprouted from his head. Emon orders his Fighters to kill the "possessed" man as Mono approaches, and he eventually falls after being stabbed in the heart by one of Emon's men.However, a new Dormin takes control of Wander's body and transforms into a shadowy giant.As his men flee, Lord Emon throws the Ancient sword into a small pool behind the temple hall, awakening a hurricane of light that consumes and circulates Dormin, sealing Dormin inside the temple once again. After escaping over the bridge that connects to the temple, isolating the forbidden land from the rest of the world forever, Emon hopes that Wander will be able to atone for his crimes if he survives one day.Back at the temple, Mono wakes up and discovers that agro has hit the temple with an injured hind leg. Mono follows Agro to the pool where Wander and Dormin were attracted by Emon's magic and finds a baby boy with small horns on his head. He takes the child with him, follows the HORSE to the higher levels of the Temple of worship, and when the game ends, he reaches a secret garden inside the temple.The gameplay is as follows.in this game consisting of 16 bosses, you are trying to kill the bosses.The music of the game is beautiful.If you are not too obsessed with graphics and you like retro games, this game is for you.My rating for the game: 10/10 (y) Good games to everyone 🙂

bellissimo gioco, che fa del design sottrattivo il suo punto di forza. bella trama con accenni filosofici al concetto di vita e morte. il gameplay è ottimo con 16 colossi come grandi enigmi, tutti diversissimi. grafica e controlli da rivedere, assieme alle animazioni: essere accecati dal bloom delle praterie e non riuscire a salire a cavallo sono due cose inguardabili. Voto: 9.2/10

I'm incredibly tempted to say this is Team ICO's best work, although I need to give The Last Guardian another looksie. Thrilling boss rush with an incredibly atmospheric world traversal interlining each downtime between bosses. Holds a powerful thematic core that reflects each guardian that you take down and offers a story that suits the understanding of doing the worst in your power just to save someone you love. Gameplay is tight and encapsulates the struggle of climbing and downing each one of the tightly-designed bosses you face. There's definitely a few stinkers including one that you have to use a torch with just to resort to a very tame boss in comparison to the last ones you fought before it, but never did I feel like the experience ever truly stagnated. (8.5/10)

To review shadow of the colossus is kind of like reviewing a poem - it should be experienced and felt rather than dissected into "gameplay", "graphics" etc. Its minimalistic approach, both in design and in story is, to this day, a breath of fresh air. A minimalistic approach is far from always a good thing, but here it is used for the right reasons. The melancholic solitude felt while traversing the vast, empty "forbidden land" is almost palpable. It's probably not for everyone, but what great poem is? Its epic scenes and the way it makes you feel like every success is, in a way, morally questionable is masterfully executed. If you haven't played this game - don't read too much about it; experience it for yourself.

Shadow of the Colossus is a big one amongst the milieu-scape of video games as a whole. A giant ripple in the console market, its world would impact players from many different nations and go on to become one of the top rated games in the history of the console market. After having made the largely impressive and slightly experimental ICO for Sony's PS2 the folks at Team ICO in Japan began work on this, their next game, which I think was as aptly named as possible to describe the task in which they had set out for themselves. The game begins with questions and ends with them. Each boss battle is another thread in the overarching story of loss, regret and redemption.

A little known fact is that Team ICO had intended for there to be enemies strewn throughout the world for the player to fight in between bosses. What do you think, would that have been cool, or did it work out for the best as the world is vast, desolate and nearly devoid of life?

Best Traits:
- Hulking. Monstrous. Brilliant boss fights. It's biggest draw, no doubt about it.
- Unparalleled sense of exploration and discovery. Finding your way to one of the many colossi was ALWAYS intensely interesting and involved some of the most tactile and tense platforming yet seen and would go on to be emulated by the wonderful Drake's Fortune series.
- Characters that mattered to the player and yet they matter so without having delivered a stitch of dialogue throughout most of the game. AGRO!!!
- Music is triumphant beyond regard and simple praise.
- The most accurately rendered horse character yet created in a 3D game.
- Hard Mode and Time Attack kept the player coming back for an even deeper challenge.