Shadow of the Colossus Reviews

Note: This is a review of the recent PS4 remaster.

SotC is a game I've been wanting to play for years, and was ecstatic to play it on the PS4. The team who restored the game obviously had a deep passion for the original. The graphics of the game are (with the exception of some of the character models) are on par with most triple-A titles of today. However, in terms of aesthetics, I felt a that the highly polished graphics seemed somewhat inferior to the previous PS3 version. For example, in the final colossus fight in the PS3, he is covered in shadow and fog, obscuring his features making him much more frightening and mythical in appearance. In the remaster, you can see every little bit of masonry on his face, removing the mystical haze present in the original titles. The world and environment seem so much more clearer, but at the cost of a dreamlike atmosphere of the limited graphics of the PS3. That's obviously subjective, but I think it does affect the game in terms of emotional response.

The biggest issue is the gameplay. Obviously, the game had to be in 3rd-person, otherwise you would spend 95% of the game staring all colossus fur. But the camera was just as an opponent as the colossi themselves. Back to the final colossus fight, you have to make perfectly timed jumps, and the camera makes it very difficult to properly judge distance, leaving you to take a leap of faith. The mechanic of holding the right trigger to hold onto the colossus is great, especially in the Avalon fight, it really makes you feel like you are holding on to dear life. Another irritating thing about the controls is Agro. When you get him to run as fast as he can, he slows down if you turn. This is really frustrating in the Dirge fight, because you have to constantly mash the button to get him to run as well as firing your bow. This little mechanic really makes riding Agro difficult. My biggest gripe with the gameplay is during the Celosia battle, when he rams into you, you are on the ground for a solid ten seconds. That is an eternity in a boss battle, and basically is instant death. You are just laying on the ground for a logn ass time, and the boss is just waiting for you to get up so it can charge into you again. I had to just let it kill me at least twice because there was no other way to get up then just starting the battle over again.

But all that said, besides the occasionally frustrating gameplay, the game is pretty much perfect. From the designs of the colossi, the simple yet emotionally effective story, to the beautiful score by Kow Otani, it earns it status as a major achievement in video game history.