Shadow of the Colossus
What do you look for in an ideal boss? First and foremost, there should be some sort of challenge involved. After three quarters of an hour circle-strafing through the walking corpses of the AI grunts, the final target should be somewhat resistant to those same tactics. Similarly some sort of lateral thinking challenge would be nice, having to use a little mental dexterity along with the digital to find and exploit the enemy's weak points. Finally, it should look freaking cool. A jaw-loosening, eye-widening vision of terror.
In that vein, Shadow of the Colossus consists entirely of bosses.
The ramifications of this are twofold: First, each of the opponents is an impressively unique challenge. Second, there are but sixteen things to attack in the entire overly-sprawling world. Each stage sees the Wanderer awakening in a shrine at the centre of the map, and being given a cryptic hint regarding the nature of the next colossus. Thus at any given time are there just three living things on the map, and that's including the Wanderer's ugly horse. Worse, the only clue to the beast's location is its bearing; the ideal straight line across the landscape invariably passes through massive ravines and mountain ranges which aren't marked on the entirely useless map until after completing the stage.
Wind Waker solved this problem at a stroke by making the sailing fun, streaming across the undulating waves with the orchestral score in your ears and the gulls in your hair, casually dispatching octoroks and steering through rupee slaloms. In contrast, SotC remains silent and unchanging during its many miles of pastel-shaded horseback travel.
And then, finally, the colossus appears and the game really begins. Each beast is a mammoth living arrangement of twisted stone-like pillars and conspicuous furry patches. Somewhere on its body are a series of glowing weak spots, with these being the only places that will really damage the creature. So far, so traditional. SotC's hook is that exploiting the weak spots requires some lateral thinking and a little up close and personal attention.
| Gone in Sixty Minutes | ||
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| With just 16 opponents, it's not the fastest of paces... | ||
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| 0:00: Wake up at the shrine | 0:03: Gather the light to find the colossus | 0:24: ...That will be him |
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| 0:32: Evaluate his attack patterns | 0:48: Find a way onto the beast | 0:57: And attack the weak spot |
With a sword.
Like a living Prince of Persia puzzle, every part of the colossus is available for the Wanderer's acrobatic attention. Combat involves finding a way onto the beast, scaling its craggy limbs, and holding on for dear life as it attempts to shake him off. Any protruding edge can be held, and any patch of hair grasped in the search for the elusive critical point. This inevitably leads to vertigo-inducing rides as the colossus flails its limbs, turning a nice even floor to a deadly overhang a hundred feet above the ground in the blink of a motion blurred eye. This, dear reader, is where SotC comes together. The feeling of being an unwanted parasite on a massive, even noble creature is undeniably exciting, and the sense of scale and danger is immense.
Or is it? The Wanderer is very difficult to actually kill, as he regenerates constantly and smashing into the ground from a height is an injury quickly recovered from just by standing still for a moment. Only heavy, sustained attacks will actually result in failure. Similarly disappointing is the game's core point of holding on to a moving object. Try this at home: Press R1. Keep it held down. Now your stamina gauge is nearly empty and you're on a level surface, so you can let go again. There is no call for action or reaction. Sometimes you will be able to scramble around, sometimes the Wanderer will be pinned to the spot while the colossus moves. The camera too is broken. Where a traditional third person camera will zoom in or out to avoid obstacles, SotC's will rotate at a fixed distance and decide for itself whether to lock on to your target. If a conveniently placed limb occupies its orbit then it will push the camera around against your will, confusing the angles and leading to embarrassing that's-not-the-floor confusion.
Also, I have made very little mention of the story. That's because there is none. Other than a short scene after the twelfth colossus, the story is imparted through the intro and outro alone and is sufficiently abstract to be ignorable. It is just one of the gaming concepts SotC sacrifices in order to obtain a curious sort of purity. A hollow story told about an empty world in which a nameless warrior travels in silence, interrupted by one-on-one unlosable combat. It's not just pure, it's practically distilled. But while distilled water is certainly useful, have you ever tasted it? It's the impurities that provide the flavour. The addition of an unlockable time attack mode is one of the few nods to tradition.
| Shadowns |
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| Colosses |
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In Conclusion
Shadow of the Colossus is, appropriately enough, a difficult beast to pin down. On the one hand, it is an imaginative idea and features some truly breathtaking moments of combat. On the other, while some games are soulless creations in glitzy coating, SotC is a spark of life contained within a thoroughly glamourless shell. If you have an eye for the unusual and a taste for the abstract, it is a flawed gem. If the idea of leaping blindly from the arcing sword arm of an animated mountain and grasping its ridged spine as you fall sounds appealing - and it should - then this is about the best there is. Just be prepared to feel at the back of your mind that this is due to a lack of competition more than its own skill.
| Final Score |
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| 150ft monster out of the darkness |
| Like that foreign movie the critics all rave about and, when you finally get round to seeing it, is undoubtably interesting but leaves you wondering whether you actually liked it or were just told you should. |
