And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
There are some games that maintain a legacy long after their competition has faded into obscurity. The Nier series, most of Kojima’s work and the immersive sims of the early 2000s are quintessential examples. With a ferverent fan base rewarding them for doing something unique, they routinely appear on random forum post listings of the greatest games of all time and seem guaranteed a spot in the pantheon. Shadow of the Colossus is one of these games. Which meant I had lofty expectations when I played the PS4 remaster for the first time.
The game takes place in the remants of an ancient world that has left civilization behind. You (the unnamed protagonist) travel across this land in a quest to brutally murder 16 half-mechanical/half-spiritual beasts.
Ride. Slay. Die. Repeat. The core loop of the game is simple. There are no upgrades or new mechanics unlocked as you progress. The characters (all 4 of them, one of which is a horse and another an offscreen god) are all introduced in the opening cinematic. There is barely a plot other than a lady needs reviving and a untrustworthy voice from the heavens says you need to kill the colossi for that to happen. There’s a bit of an epilogue that rounds out a few things with more depth, but it’s pretty self contained otherwise. This leaves the space open for most of the game for you to put your own interpretation on the events. You can pull on context and your imagination to create a purpose for the colossus, but the game doesn’t need this.
Each colossus is a small puzzle to be solved. Normally involving some aspect of the environment and inciting the colossus into doing a move that lets you climb up them. They’re normally pretty simple once you figure them out (only a few steps to accomplish) and the fights are pretty tight as a result. Most of them took around 20 minutes.
Some of the colossi (the correct plural is unclear and not addressed in any depth) turned into a trudge though. Even when you know what you need to do, you have to wait for the colossus to do a certain attack, maybe repeat a few times, then climb up it and attack. And if you fall, be prepared to repeat the whole thing. That is if you didn’t get stunlocked to death. The most egregious example of this is the final boss. You can easily fall at some points losing 5 minutes of progress. Then he shoots one hit KO lasers that force you to restart the whole battle.
The setting is gorgeous. It feels like they started with the goal of having beautiful landscapes and then worked backwards. There’s not much to each region (a few shrines), but once you accept that you can just enjoy the beauty for its own sake. It also pulls the classic visual trick of having completely different biomes right next to each other, but with a tunnel or mountain range between them. I noticed this same approach used in Red Dead 2 as well recently.
The music is also top shelf. There are recurrent themes between different songs (a favourite of mine) and the use of an orchestra provides a consistent vibe throughout.
https://open.spotify.com/track/6caXq5vTdKwK1RyZKuMZrN?si=5EKAufRETaaD565VAsKyqQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A3figbcSY1DOlxu48MGSWEQ – An ominous, eerie tone from discordant strings as you descend into an ancient colosseum.
https://open.spotify.com/track/5qvOTJNT2OmFEDAarVhtiD?si=sdBQEEkXQ0e4oDejsxykBA&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A3figbcSY1DOlxu48MGSWEQ – This song plays when you kill a colossus. It’s not really celebratory, but becomes strongly associated with the event.
https://open.spotify.com/track/3AfofNrtIWqVS3QZs5MJjL?si=4_JBp0HNTjKbZQyhEJB6ZA – An aggressive, fast-paced battle theme as you ride around a colossus looking for an opening to stab your fancy sword in him.
The game is short. I think it was 8 hours from start to finish. It feels almost like an concept demo that was pretty, interesting and fun enough to flesh out into a full game. Something must be working, I finished it in a single long weekend. I am glad it didn’t have any more depth. The simplicity is part of the elegance and helps to keep the vision strong and the execution timeless.
Rating: 6/7 blue-tailed lizards patiently shot and eaten for a stamina boost
Leave a Reply