Shadow of the Colossus

aka: NICO, SotC, Wanda to Kyozō, Wangda yu Juxiang
Moby ID: 19875

PlayStation 2 version

What a dang waste...

The Good
Oooh. If you thought that size doesn't matter, then think again. I think that this is the very first game that really shows that concept. The game is about you battling these over-sized colossal monsters. Underline colossal. It's not big, it's not large, it dang HUGE!

The monsters you face are literally 5 story (more or less) tall buildings! And they're not biological, their mostly rock-covered. The first time you see one, it's like...uh...it's my funeral. It is quite fun the first couple times around, trying to find out "how the hell you defeat a creature that dang big" which is the next question after "how the hell do you get ON that dang creature?"

Each of these over-sized dang monsters are different. Can't explain all but wait to the part when you see a flying 5 story building. Now that'll keep you dumb-folded for several minutes!

You can also ride a horse in this game...and a big horse it is! Three times 3-5 times larger than our hero who looks like a dwarf compared to this horse. The good ol' horse here takes you around the land which is incredibly huge. Again, not big, not large, but huge!

The Bad
Is it me or am I the only one that doesn't like this game? (see other reviews).

My one-line summary is "What a waste..." and after the 8th monster I defeated, I got bored. This is why:

  • The land is incredibly huge.
    Beautiful and huge, but the thing is, that's all it is. Big, a lot of landscape, but nothing else. No people, no monsters in the middle, the game is just travelling between Point X to Point Y on your horse. The distance between X and Y (referring to the huge landscape) is just travelling distance that cannot be interacted with one way or another. Point: Eye candy. It's useless, all that graphical capability and it has no use whatsoever, if you take away the huge landscape, it doesn't effect the gameplay. I have a problem with eye-candy graphics when it doesn't do much more than just being eye-candy. Final Fantasy for example has a lot of eye candy, but in that game its function is to "back-up" a plot or story. Here, it doesn't back-up squat.
  • Acting.
    Horrible. Well, not horrible, I would go as far to say there isn't any. One-two liner sentences by that strange voice in the temple. The monsters don't talk much either...
  • Story.
    There isn't one. Which quite amazes me why anyone would actually put a good review about this game. After many adventures and RPG games with incredible storylines, one would think a game with this much potential would come up with a better plot. Oh, you want to know the story: Girlfriend dead. Bring to temple. Voice in temple says, defeat 18 big guys, maybe we bring her back to life. Hey, I just summed it up in 3 lines! No sub-quests, no interaction with different plots. I've seen linear storylines, but a puzzle game has more plot than this game! Someone was too lazy to hire a good writer. It's just about defeating monsters...period. No style...dang peasants.
  • Repetitive tactics.
    As there wasn't so much as any mystery to the game, even after defeating several monsters, I got bored. After the 8th, I got really bored. It's probably just another new monster, get on it, hang on and try to stick that sword in its weak spot. If there were a story to set the mood, maybe I would've finished the game. This game is like a girl that doesn't talk much, not much interaction with a person gets you bored real quick.



The Bottom Line
Maybe I missed something, as many websites all had a lot of good reviews and ratings on this game...I seem to be the only one that finds this game somewhat boring.

Maybe I have high standards for games or the game industry has lowered its gaming standards over these years.

But regardless of how good a game appears to "look". It's useless without a story. A beautiful girl or handsome guy without any brains? Yep. That's this game.

by Indra was here (20760) on January 29, 2006

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