Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Masterpiece"

Shadow of the Colossus is made by the same developers who made Ico and is much different to it as well. It's all about defeating big bosses.

Story

Wander who has this girl and she is dead but can be resurrecting if Wander does this task of bringing down 16 colossual beasts to revive her.

Gameplay

The way Shadow of the Colossus works is you ride on a horse Agro who you ride across the huge world with and with the guidance of your sword help find these big colossusal creatures. Only one is activated at a certain time. Also once you beat a colossus you start from the shrine again and do the same thing again.

The colossus creatures range from all sorts of types of animals like a bird,snake,a horse like thing and a giant and all these have different types of ways to defeat them. You have to climb on them to find their weakspot but you just can't go over and just jump on them. You have to find out where you can jump on it.

You have to like hit a weakspot or jump on it a certain way and then you ascend to find its weakspot and therefore kill it but some of them have more than one area some have two or even three areas. You know when a certain area is done because the white mark for where its weakspot is disappears and its life bar is in the top left of the screen and when thats depleted its defeated. You get that massive satisfaction of defeating one you just want to defeat the next straight after.

Also whilist you are on the colossus you have to hold on with R1 and watch out for how it is moving because it might go back to its normal shape or try to shake you off. Also another thing to watch is the stamina meter which is pink next to your life bar so keep a close eye on that. The thing that is good is no colossus battle is the same and that makes it feel fresh and it adds some vareity in the gameplay.

Your overall button layout is Triangle jumps to either get to another platform or to help you get higher. If you Hold R1 your character will hang onto either a ledge or a part of the colossus which can be climbed. Circle gets you sword out directing you which way to go and square is to use your sword and fire arrows and X calls your horse Agro.

Presenation

The game looks absouletly gorgeous on the PS2. The areas are like desert,water,grass and temples. Though the game lacks any bad guys in the game the only baddies you will be dealing with are the colossus monsters. The musical score is incredible it has epic,tense,sadness and just downright emotional powerful music that puts many games to shame.

Lastability

About 8 hours I would say but then there's Hard Mode and a Time Attack Mode as well.

Overall Opinion

A masterpiece of a game with colossual bosses epic music and just downright awesome gameplay. The game takes you on a wonderous journey through the world of Shadow of the Colossus. The bosses are clearly the main highlight I mean when you do one colossus you want to find the next and do them in but the attention to detail and music really help this game also stand among the titans of the videogame world. If you have not experienced this game yet either get the PS2 version or the remastered game on PS3. Trust me you won't regret it.

Overall 9.6