Link to original post: [drupal=3008]Shadow of the Colossus is overrated.[/drupal]
Some games are brought up as sleeper hits time and time again, to the point where they become overhyped. One of the best examples of this phenomenon is Shadow of the Colossus for PS2, among the Top 10 most listed games of its generation in the GameFAQs Top 10 List feature (http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/top10/1927.html). Press was also unanimously positive about it, a quick look on www.gamerankings.com reveals a ranking of 91.53%, although it doesn’t come close to being a top score. After several recommendations I borrowed it from one of my admittedly more artsy friends and found myself disappointed.
The game has you playing as Wander, who enters a sacred land with an apparently dead girl. He enters the temple in the center of the land, puts the corpse on the altar and asks an entity named Dormin to resurrect her. Dormin agrees to this, but only if Wander murders the sixteen Colossi that inhabit the land. Wander sets out with his horse Agro to find and destroy the beasts, returning to the temple after every victory. Although the ending was mildly interesting, I just summarized all the background information the game provides you with. You never find out who the girl is, nor her relationship to Wander. While fans like to speculate even still, I mostly found myself puzzled at the lack of motivation to slaughter innocent beasts. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that it’s extremely predictable.
The real innovation lies with the gameplay: the game consists entirely of boss battles, although you do have to travel to them first. You start at the temple, raise your sword and follow the resulting beam of light towards your target. You kill it and repeat the same procedure another fifteen times. While there is significant variation among the Colossi, the Zelda-esque overworld is as barren as the average 70-year old woman. Contrary to what I expected, traveling towards the Colossi takes up a significant amount of your time through a world that is all but dead. With absolutely zero threats and no background music playing for most of the time, I quickly considered the traveling a chore. I’ve heard it called a minimalistic move by the developers to provide you with a sense of isolation, but calling upon this kind of “creator’s intent” seems like a cop-out to cover up what is essentially laziness. It made me appreciate the overworld in Twilight Princess, which I found quite tame, a whole lot more.
Battling the Colossi themselves is an interesting experience… the first few times. Once you get past the novelty of climbing (usually) huge beasts to stab them in their weak spots, you realize your biggest enemies are the inconsistent framerate and the clunky controls. Most of the Colossi fights carry a puzzle element, though hesitation leads to Dormin providing you with subtle hints as “it fears the flames” and “climb the tower to draw the colossus’s anger”. After the sixteenth Colossus and a measly 8 hours of gameplay, you’ve reached the end.
Having brought up these points before, discussion about the game is usually dealt a deathblow when someone remarks the experience compensates for everything and merits a high score on its own. This is not debatable, but I think reviewing games isn’t a complete matter of opinion. Some games are simply not up to par technically, this game being one of them. I do recommend looking up the soundtrack, some of the tracks played during the Colossi fights are incredible and don’t really shine till you listen to them without distraction (I hardly noticed them during the actual game). All in all, this game is a good example of an interesting idea with mediocre execution.
Summary:
+
Some games are brought up as sleeper hits time and time again, to the point where they become overhyped. One of the best examples of this phenomenon is Shadow of the Colossus for PS2, among the Top 10 most listed games of its generation in the GameFAQs Top 10 List feature (http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/top10/1927.html). Press was also unanimously positive about it, a quick look on www.gamerankings.com reveals a ranking of 91.53%, although it doesn’t come close to being a top score. After several recommendations I borrowed it from one of my admittedly more artsy friends and found myself disappointed.
The game has you playing as Wander, who enters a sacred land with an apparently dead girl. He enters the temple in the center of the land, puts the corpse on the altar and asks an entity named Dormin to resurrect her. Dormin agrees to this, but only if Wander murders the sixteen Colossi that inhabit the land. Wander sets out with his horse Agro to find and destroy the beasts, returning to the temple after every victory. Although the ending was mildly interesting, I just summarized all the background information the game provides you with. You never find out who the girl is, nor her relationship to Wander. While fans like to speculate even still, I mostly found myself puzzled at the lack of motivation to slaughter innocent beasts. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that it’s extremely predictable.
The real innovation lies with the gameplay: the game consists entirely of boss battles, although you do have to travel to them first. You start at the temple, raise your sword and follow the resulting beam of light towards your target. You kill it and repeat the same procedure another fifteen times. While there is significant variation among the Colossi, the Zelda-esque overworld is as barren as the average 70-year old woman. Contrary to what I expected, traveling towards the Colossi takes up a significant amount of your time through a world that is all but dead. With absolutely zero threats and no background music playing for most of the time, I quickly considered the traveling a chore. I’ve heard it called a minimalistic move by the developers to provide you with a sense of isolation, but calling upon this kind of “creator’s intent” seems like a cop-out to cover up what is essentially laziness. It made me appreciate the overworld in Twilight Princess, which I found quite tame, a whole lot more.
Battling the Colossi themselves is an interesting experience… the first few times. Once you get past the novelty of climbing (usually) huge beasts to stab them in their weak spots, you realize your biggest enemies are the inconsistent framerate and the clunky controls. Most of the Colossi fights carry a puzzle element, though hesitation leads to Dormin providing you with subtle hints as “it fears the flames” and “climb the tower to draw the colossus’s anger”. After the sixteenth Colossus and a measly 8 hours of gameplay, you’ve reached the end.
Having brought up these points before, discussion about the game is usually dealt a deathblow when someone remarks the experience compensates for everything and merits a high score on its own. This is not debatable, but I think reviewing games isn’t a complete matter of opinion. Some games are simply not up to par technically, this game being one of them. I do recommend looking up the soundtrack, some of the tracks played during the Colossi fights are incredible and don’t really shine till you listen to them without distraction (I hardly noticed them during the actual game). All in all, this game is a good example of an interesting idea with mediocre execution.
Summary:
+