I never got to play Shadow of the Colossus in the PS2 era, so playing it now, 13 years later on the remastered edition, is my very first time.
Just going by the way this game plays, in and of itself, I might've given this game a 7 if I was feeling generous, or a 6 if I was in a foul mood. As impressive as the sheer scale of it is, it is plagued with minor annoyances that come with it being a two generation old game, such as the finnicky way it handles and certain camera angling issues, which makes scaling on the backs of the Colossi, leaping across games, and climbing in general much more frustrating than it needs to be, but, even with the finnicky, outdated way in which it handles, this game still managed to blow me away by how emotionally engaging it is.
When I started the game, knowing nothing about it beforehand, the main character carries the body of a woman (I assume it was his lover, or maybe even a sister, I'm not sure if that information is made clear because I didn't pick up on it if it did) to an altar, and then we're tasked with destroying 16 Colossi which I guess are materialized gods from the what we're told are created by the idols of "false" gods, in order to save this woman. So at first I was thinking, "Oh cool, a straightforward boss based giant monster fighting type game to save a girl, I can get on board with that." And the ominous voice also informs us that there's going to be some kind of a price to pay for carrying out this task, which I immediately figured would probably be something along the lines of my companion horse dying (spoiler alert, that did happen, but that wasn't quite the "price" this voice had in mind). But then my perception of the game shifted immediately after my encounter with the first Colossus. I was expecting the act of scaling up and taking down my first colossus would be a more heroic feat, maybe there'd be some swelling music and I'd grow stronger and learn a little something from it
(I'll come back to finish this review later)
Just going by the way this game plays, in and of itself, I might've given this game a 7 if I was feeling generous, or a 6 if I was in a foul mood. As impressive as the sheer scale of it is, it is plagued with minor annoyances that come with it being a two generation old game, such as the finnicky way it handles and certain camera angling issues, which makes scaling on the backs of the Colossi, leaping across games, and climbing in general much more frustrating than it needs to be, but, even with the finnicky, outdated way in which it handles, this game still managed to blow me away by how emotionally engaging it is.
When I started the game, knowing nothing about it beforehand, the main character carries the body of a woman (I assume it was his lover, or maybe even a sister, I'm not sure if that information is made clear because I didn't pick up on it if it did) to an altar, and then we're tasked with destroying 16 Colossi which I guess are materialized gods from the what we're told are created by the idols of "false" gods, in order to save this woman. So at first I was thinking, "Oh cool, a straightforward boss based giant monster fighting type game to save a girl, I can get on board with that." And the ominous voice also informs us that there's going to be some kind of a price to pay for carrying out this task, which I immediately figured would probably be something along the lines of my companion horse dying (spoiler alert, that did happen, but that wasn't quite the "price" this voice had in mind). But then my perception of the game shifted immediately after my encounter with the first Colossus. I was expecting the act of scaling up and taking down my first colossus would be a more heroic feat, maybe there'd be some swelling music and I'd grow stronger and learn a little something from it
(I'll come back to finish this review later)