You'll find yourself yelling at your TV. Intense action and thrilling battles. *IN DEPTH REVIEW*
*STORY*
The story of Shadow of the Colossus is pretty straight forward, yet very good. A young man known as the "Wanderer" (not that it's his real name) takes a young woman named Mono who appears to be dead to a big temple. The young woman was said to be cursed and killed by her village or something. The Wanderer takes Mono to the temple and talks to Dormin, some sort of spirit. To resurrect her, the wanderer must find and destroy 16 beasts named the "colossi". Why? That's for you to find out.
*GAMEPLAY: CONTROLS*
The gameplay for SOTC is relatively simple. the X button makes the Wanderer call his horse, or if your horse is out of range and you are fighting a Colossi, you can whistle to to attract it's attention.
The square button makes you slash if you have a sword equipped, charge a stab if you're holding on to something, and charge an arrow if your bow is equipped by holding square and letting go.
Triangle makes you jump, and if near your horse, you can mount your horse.
The circle button is mainly used with the sword. With the sword equipped, you can hold the circle button to raise your sword into the air. If the place you are in is bright enough, strings of light will emit from your blade. You can aim your sword until the strings of light join at the end into a point, and your controller vibrates. That points to the next Colossus you must slay. Also, if your fighting a Colossi using circle will show it's vital spots, more on that on GAMEPLAY: FIGHTING COLOSSI. Also, if near an alter of some sort that looks like a tomb stone, tap the circle button to pray. You will be fully healed and be able to save.
R1 is probably the most commonly used button in the game. It lets you grab. After pressing the triangle button (to jump) you can hold R1to grab onto something, like a ledge, some vines, or hair on a colossi. While holding R1, you can tap the square button to charge up a stab with your sword equipped, and tap it again to release your stab. You can move around while holding onto something, but you get very slow. If a Colossi begins shaking around trying to shake you off, you just hold R1 to keep holding. While a Colossi is trying to shake you off, you can't stab. While hanging off a ledge, you can tap triangle to lift yourself up. While we're talking about grabbing, you can't hold onto something forever. In the bottom right corner, there is a circle with a square beside it and a bar under it. The square shows what you have equipped. It shows either a hand ( for nothing equipped), a bow (for a bow and arrow equipped) or a sword (for, you guessed it, a sword equipped). The bar is your health bar. Once it's empty, you're dead. You can recharge health by just standing, praying, or kneeling, which is done by holding R1 on a flat surface. Kneeling makes you heal faster. The circle is your grip/power bar. While holding on, the pink circle begins to shrink. Once completely gone, you can't hold on and must fall. You can regain your grip by waiting without golding onto something. When charging a stab or arrow, the circle begins to fill with a white circle. When the white circle completely fills the circle, your stab or arrow is fully charged. You can let go any time however. While holding on R1 on a flat surface, you will crouch, and tapping triangle while crouching will make you roll.
R2 makes you zoom in.
L1 makes you center the camera to the Colossi when fighting.
I don't know what L2 does :-P. Never used it the whole game.
The right and left directional pads make you switch between weapons. Up makes you equip your sword and down makes you equip nothing.
The left analog stick makes you move, and the right analog stick makes you control the camera. You can control the camera in cutscenes too.
The horse is called by tapping X. His name is Agro (the horse). Mount the horse by tapping triangle beside him. To mount quickly, jump by pressing triangle and hold R1 to grab onto him. While on the horse, tap X to urge him forward. Every time you tap X, Agro goes faster. Steer with the left analog stick and hold down to stop. Hold R1 to lay down on him, and hold the left analog stick down while laying down to stand on Agro. Press triangle to dismount, and press triangle while still moving on Agro to jump off.
I may have missed some controls but I think I got the main concept.
*GAMEPLAY: FIGHTING COLOSSI*
Each Colossi is different. Some fly, some walk and run, some stay put, some slither through the ground. Killing each Colossi is relatively the same but finding out how is the different.
This game is considered a puzzle game as much as it is a action/adventure game. Finding out how to kill each Colossi is hard, whether you have to climb up it, use your surroundings, or make it kill itself (you heard me right). It wont really kill itself, but will really do things so stupid it practically dooms itself.
Mainly, you have to stab parts of the Colossi that do damage. These are called vital spots. Most Colossi have 1-3 vital spots. To get to the vital spots, you must go through a series of events. Sometimes, The Colossi will smash something causing it to fall. Then you can climb the thing taken down to get higher so you can jump onto the beast. Most Colossi are huge, and I mean HUGE. For example, one of the Colossi is practically as tall as a skyscraper. Some Colossi are about as small as your horse. Others aren't very big but very long. Imagine climbing a skyscraper, only the skyscraper is trying to shake you off and you're trying to find its vital spots to stab while your grip is loosening and you may plunge to your messy death bellow. Actually, If you fall from a hundred feet tall Colossi, you wont die, in fact you may only lose one fourth of your HP. The only annoying part is getting back up.
You will find yourself swearing at the Colossi telling it to stop shaking so you can stab it, or yelling at the wanderer to jump instead of hang onto a ledge like a sissy girl. Actually, the wanderer has some balls to be able to climb huge beasts out of this world, or hang onto a bull like creature that is ramming into walls trying to knock you off. Ya.
Finding the vital spots aren't even half of the problem. In fact, it's quite easy. Just like finding the Colossi, you can use your sword to find it's vital spots. Getting there is the problem.
Some Colossi will require you to stab other parts of their body to get them to expose their vital spots. These are called trigger spots. For example, you can stab a trigger spot and the Colossi will fall so you can get on it, or the Colossi will cover the spot with his hand to tend the wound so you could jump onto that hand to go up to it's vital spot.
Once you kill the Colossi, you will probably yell at the Colossi using inappropriate words I dare not put on this review. The music makes you feel almost sorry for the beast, and maybe you will. But probably you wont because most of these beasts are very annoying and you will throw away the controller and sprawl on your back saying "FINALLY, HE'S DEAD!"
*MAIN OVERVIEW*
The Colossi are the only enemies in the game, but if that keeps you from getting this game, then I have a couple of words. The land is huge, and you'll never have any idea how good the detail is in the game if you go from Colossi to Colossi. The graphics are one of the best graphics in PS2, and the best in game graphics probably of any PS2. Comparing to some cutscenes in the Final Fantasy series, these graphics aren't very good but compared to gameplay graphics in Final Fantasy, SOTC takes the cake. Each battle is thrilling. End of story.
The ending cutscene is great yet kinda scary. It's about 25 minutes long, and sets up it's sequel. Officially, Shadow of the Colossus is the PREQUEL of the game ICO. If you watch the ending cutscene and know what ICO is all about, it really sets it up. I wont spoil it for you.
Now I'm a pretty nice reviewer (meaning I rate good) and I'm no Simon Cowell but I really think that SOTC deserves my 9.0. The replay value isn't very good however. But you you can go to time attack mode after you beat the game once by praying in front of a statue of one of the Colossi. When you pray, you can fight the Colossi and try to beat it in a certain time. Also, you can play in hard mode after you beat the game once through. The problem is that it's pretty much the same, just harder.
The game has many secrets and unlockables that you can unlock but I wont go into detail on that. All you have to do is kill Colossi in time attack mode. Every 2 Colossi you kill you get an item.
I may have missed some things but overall, the game is great and nothing should stop you from getting Shadow of the Colossus. It must obviously be good for me to write a review on it for two hours. So buy, or at least rent Shadow of the Colossus. It's a great game and a must play for everyone (even though it's rated T for teen).