TEAM ICO's Shadow of the Colossus

"Games are art too!" This is always what I hear whenever someone wants to discuss TEAM ICO's "ICO" and "Shadow of the Colossus." Granted, I agree, some games can be considered art, and gaming in a sense can sometimes be considered an art form, but why is that always the only thing I hear about these games? Well I'll tell you why, because once you beat them once, that's all they are, well placed ambiance and artsy enemies, at least, this is the case for Shadow of the Colossus.

A few days ago, I received the ICO/Shadow of the Colossus HD Bundle for PS3, thanks to GameFly. I was very excited at the prospect of finally having a chance to try Shadow of the Colossus, as it was both the visuals and the game play seemed appealing. An action adventure puzzle game with no minor enemies or levels to grind? No sprawling dungeons with loot and extensive amounts of side quests? Just your skills vs the colossi? Sounded amazing. I had no interest in ICO, but I popped in Shadow of the Colossus.

Right away I was drawn in by the beautiful visuals of our hero "Wander" and his steed "Agro" riding into a beautifully serene land holding what appeared to be a sleeping woman. Well turns out that's Wander's lover and she died... somehow. This is all "explained" if you can call it that, in the opening of the story. From then on, the most story you get is that you are to kill 16 colossi, because an disembodied voice tells you to do so if you want to bring your girl back to life. So begins our journey. There is a bit of tutorial, teaching you the basics, but nothing fancy, and this brings me to my first major complaint of the game, the controls. The controls are not unbearable, they are however, pretty stiff and honestly kind of outdated. R1 allows you to grip, or move slowly, depending on if there are things nearby for Wander to grip onto. Triangle allows you to jump, or mount Agro if you are standing next to her, or roll if you're holding down R1. Square causes you to swing your sword, which for the most part is completely useless, as there are no enemies for you to attack, other than colossi, which must be attacked in very specific locations in order to do damage, and that can only be done by holding R1 anyway. X allows you to call Agro to your side, or it's suppose to, most of the time the dumb horse doesn't respond or only walks a little closer to you instead of coming to you. Once you've mounted your horse, you must rapidly tap the X button in order to go any speed above "not quite as fast as a snail." I'm almost positive that simply walking would in fact be faster than riding your horse, should you refuse to mash the X button repeatedly for the next 8 or so hours of exploring.

This leads to my next complaint, while the concept of fighting only bosses seemed amazing... it in truth can get rather boring. The bosses themselves are amazing and quite fantastic to fight, but the 10-15 minutes spent going from the Temple in the center of the map to the place you're expected to encounter the Colossus, tends to get boring very quickly, particularly on the very out of the way bosses. The world is quite large and there are a lot of things to see, but not much to do. It does fit the atmosphere of a "Forbidden Land" very well, but it also leads to a problem of not having anything to do but progress the game, as most of the collectables do little to nothing for you.

Which again leads to my next complaint. Collectables and lack of usefulness. There are 77 shining lizards in the game, killing them yields an item which, when collected, increases your stamina by a VERY VERY insignificant amount. Simply defeating a single colossus gives at the very least, 5 or 6 times as much stamina as finding a single lizard. There are 128, or thereabouts, fruit to collect which increase your health by a VERY VERY insignificant amount, again killing a colossus gives you far more and it progresses the story. After completing the game you are given the option to restart on a New Game+ style feature, which allows you to attempt time attacks. The reward for completing the time attacks, in sets of 2, are bonus items which increase your damage against the colossi, reveal the aforementioned fruits and lizards and other assorted things. All these things are good and useful, until you realize you've already beaten the game, and all these cool new tricks and toys you're earning, mean almost nothing for you now, you can't even import them to a harder difficulty.

Overall, the game was a very fun play through, once. Because of the various complaints mentioned above, the games re-playability falls quite sharply, unless you're into speed running and trophy hunting. While I consider myself a trophy hunter, I do not feel my time is worth spending repeating the game upwards of 6 times, just for a few trophies. I completed the game, the rest is just frosting for an already devoured cake. My opinion? Do yourself a favor, play Shadow of the Colossus, at least once, preferably as a rental.