As I mentioned last week, I finished up Shadow of the Colossus, and while I still go with my initial impressions that it is a wonderful example of gaming as an art form with its use of storytelling, the gameplay can be incredibly frustrating at times.
The story goes that you play as Wander, who is bringing a young dead girl to a large shrine in order to summon the power to return her to life. As you get to the shrine, you are commanded by an unknown voice to slay these large beasts (the Colossi) in order to obtain the power to resurrect the girl. That is pretty much all the story you get. As you kill each Colossus, the voice will provide you with the location of the next, but you never learn Wander's backstory or the how the girl died, it's all left to your imagination/interpretation. Your interpretation also fits in to the end of the game (which is also not explained), where you have to decide for yourself whether things happened for good or evil. I'd prefer to not spoil the end because it is definitely really cool, but I also can't spoil it because I still am not sure if I understand what exactly happened.
As I mentioned, while the story is fascinating, the gameplay can be quite a pain. Each Colossi that you come to is a level where you have to determine what needs to be done to bring down the beast and then find the weak points to finish them off. For most of the Colossi it's a bit of a chore to figure it out, but never really too difficult. However, there are a few that are infuriating. Certain Colossi will charge you and knock you down and by the time you get up they have charged again, giving you no true opportunity to dodge or save yourself, making you die over and over again until you can finally figure out the one little thing to do to get out of the way. It wasn't reason enough for me to quit playing, but I did have to take a break after encountering one particularly frustrating Colossus (#13 I think).
It's a wonderfully simplistic (not in a bad way, but just that it focuses on one thing and does it well) game that sucks you in as you ride with Wander through the barren lands searching for the next Colossus to kill. I don't know if it deserves the acclaim as some people hail it to be one of the greatest games ever, but I will admit that it was very good and I'm glad I invested the time into it.
The story goes that you play as Wander, who is bringing a young dead girl to a large shrine in order to summon the power to return her to life. As you get to the shrine, you are commanded by an unknown voice to slay these large beasts (the Colossi) in order to obtain the power to resurrect the girl. That is pretty much all the story you get. As you kill each Colossus, the voice will provide you with the location of the next, but you never learn Wander's backstory or the how the girl died, it's all left to your imagination/interpretation. Your interpretation also fits in to the end of the game (which is also not explained), where you have to decide for yourself whether things happened for good or evil. I'd prefer to not spoil the end because it is definitely really cool, but I also can't spoil it because I still am not sure if I understand what exactly happened.
As I mentioned, while the story is fascinating, the gameplay can be quite a pain. Each Colossi that you come to is a level where you have to determine what needs to be done to bring down the beast and then find the weak points to finish them off. For most of the Colossi it's a bit of a chore to figure it out, but never really too difficult. However, there are a few that are infuriating. Certain Colossi will charge you and knock you down and by the time you get up they have charged again, giving you no true opportunity to dodge or save yourself, making you die over and over again until you can finally figure out the one little thing to do to get out of the way. It wasn't reason enough for me to quit playing, but I did have to take a break after encountering one particularly frustrating Colossus (#13 I think).
It's a wonderfully simplistic (not in a bad way, but just that it focuses on one thing and does it well) game that sucks you in as you ride with Wander through the barren lands searching for the next Colossus to kill. I don't know if it deserves the acclaim as some people hail it to be one of the greatest games ever, but I will admit that it was very good and I'm glad I invested the time into it.
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