Normal difficulty, 5 colossi defeated.

Shadow of the Colossus is a cinematic action puzzle game about discovering and destroying enormous, majestic creatures. The game's greatest strength is the poignant and spectacular setpiece that each colossi presents. Additionally, the subtle storytelling provides an evocative Faustian context for the gameplay. It's a shame that such a beautiful and unique idea is so thoroughly damned by mechanical failures.

The physics-based movement is unpredictable and unresponsive whether on horseback, climbing walls, or worst of all: clumsily negotiating the edifices of giant beasts. The camera is infuriatingly capricious, leaping forward and backward when close up and constantly "correcting" your view to a more useless angle when zoomed out. For many of the colossi the punishment for failure is tedious repetition of known solutions. To counterbalance this the colossi are easily dispatched in a few hits, making the core gameplay loop frustration leading to anticlimax.

I want so badly to love this game for its ancillary qualities, but it fails at the most fundamental level to be fun to interact with. In that sense it is a beautiful work of art but a terrible videogame.

Shadow of the Colossus was a game that I’ve always adored, yet never finished. It’s shocking considering that the adventure is less than 8 hours long, but I’ve finally made good on completing this epic adventure. The PS4 remake was spectacular, offering stunning draw distances and visual upgrades to the formidable colossi. The music is still a standout, and some of the boss fights throughout are still truly chilling and grand. While I don’t think the ending is as impactful as it could be this is a bonafide classic and best experienced now on PS4.

Full Review: Shadow of the Colossus was a game that I’ve always adored, yet never finished. It’s shocking considering that the adventure is less than 8 hours long, but I’ve finally made good on completing this epic adventure. The PS4 remake was spectacular, offering stunning draw distances and visual upgrades to the formidable colossi. The music is still a standout, and some of the boss fights throughout are still truly chilling and grand. While I don’t think the ending is as impactful as it could be this is a bonafide classic and best experienced now on PS4.

I hope that my experience was due to the game being improperly ported. Because the time I spent on this game was miserable. I was intrigued by the concept, and the overly positive reviews I had read in the past... But getting all the way to the end was a real struggle.

Not because I was bad at the game (though I was to be completely honest). No, the game was SO buggy. The controls were so delayed and unresponsive, I had to press a button 2-3 times just to get a single response. ESPECIALLY with Aggro, which sucks since he's supposed to be there to make life EASIER. And the camera had a mind of its own. It would move and adjust itself all willy nilly, and when I would try to correct it, it'd freak out and give me headaches just looking at the screen. Those two elements made my time very un-enjoyable.

Otherwise, the game was interesting! Cool concept, big (though thematically empty) world, and the fights were cool.... When I could actually participate in them.

Thy next foe is... the shittiest and most frustrating controls I've ever seen. And for a remake that's inexcusable, cause weren't the new controls one of the selling points of the remake? I tried the original and I literally can't tell the difference.
I guess this just isn't for everyone and it's definitely not for me. I like mysterious and ambiguous storytelling and developers getting creative, I understand how epic and cinematic this looks but I don't get the unanimous praise when the gameplay is still so frustrating and ultimately boring

I played ‘ICO’ a couple of years back now and really enjoyed my time with it. The art style and gameplay was completely different to anything that was available at the time, and even now. ‘Shadow of the Colossus’ was the same. It’s hard to describe how I see these games, they’re more of a piece of art than a conventional video game in my eyes. Rather than playing the original PS2 version or PS3 remaster I opted for the PS4 Remake as a definitive edition.

The world is incredible and absolutely stunning. It's not often that I play a game in a fantasy setting and wonder what went on in this world and want to know more about its history and lore. The PS4 Pro and PS5 versions of this game do it so much justice with the high resolution and high frame rate. The fact that the game only shows hud items (which can be fully turned off) when required helps make this game feel so immersive. The detail and how the fur of the colossi moves is just stunning. The only thing that feels lacking is the human character models. They still feel very much lifted from the PS2 era, especially The Wanderer. I did really like that there are a series of video filters to pick from to make the game look different each time you play it, for example a nighttime look that I can imagine makes the game feel a lot darker. Literally.

The music lends itself very well to the epicness of this game, there is no music while traversing the vast open plains surrounding the temple but the music really kicks off each time you fight a colossi. This contrast of sound really does build up the grand scale of each encounter.

The controls for the game are somewhat standard but how The Wanderer (who I will just refer to as the boy) is handled as well as his horse Agro can be a tad frustrating. Not many games seem to make travelling by horse feel great though. The boy seems very clumsy, when climbing, one small move and he will be flapping about hanging onto a colossi’s fur like a polythene bag stuck to a tree. He also takes ages to get back up after falling or being knocked over, I’ve seen pensioners get up quicker from a fall than he does. Climbing being one of the most important elements to this game can take a little getting used to and even after you get the hang of it it can be frustrating when you mess up a jump and have to start all over. The camera does not help with the frustrating controls as it often has a mind of its own or gets confused with what to look at. We are used to the camera centering on a character as you are moving through an area but in ‘Shadow of the Colossus’ the camera will sit to the side of the character, giving a more cinematic effect.

Like ‘ICO’ the game is very minimal, there is very minimal dialogue mostly coming from the godlike voice in the temple and the other human characters that you see half-way through the game. The game is so minimal in fact, that I had no idea my character had a bow and arrow until I googled how to do the second Colossi. The minimalist nature of the game works in its favour though as it adds mystery and you, like the boy, are discovering all about these giants first hand.

Onto the colossi, it is true as they say that when playing this game you’re thinking “oh I wonder what the next one will be like!”. Each one of the 16 you fight are mostly different from each other but the end goal is the same, highlight the weak points and stab them with your sword. It’s such a fresh concept that the platforming of a game is you climbing a living creature that you then need to kill. Most of them can feel so massive, you feel terrified as a player clinging onto this giant’s fur for dear life, often many metres above the ground. The frustrating climbing in this game probably adds more to the realism. We are probably so used to the climbing mechanics of games nowadays like ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’ where all the climbale sections are clearly highlighted and misjudged jumps are not really a thing. You could probably climb anything in those games with your eyes closed. Also if the climbing was easier I think each colossi fight would be over very quickly. Overall unfortunately the frustration of climbing and defeating each one of these giants was overshadowing the reward of killing them to the point I was thinking “oh here we go again”.

This game pretty much exists in all top 100+ video game lists but it might be unknown to the very casual player due to it not being a AAA game. I say to everyone who is looking to experience video games as a whole, this game is definitely worth checking out just to be able to live it. That being said, while I’m glad I played it, I’m not as excited by it as a lot of people. I can completely understand and admire people’s undying love for this game, people who have played the game 20-30 times, hats off to you. It is just not a game that made me want to spend extra hours playing. There are unlockables and time trials but honestly, no thanks. My rating system usually goes 3 stars for “good game, wouldn’t play it again” which this game would fall into but I feel compelled to give it a higher rating just for what this gamer has contributed to video game history and the community of passionate fans that was created because of it.

joguei esse jogo no ps2 a mt tempo e nunca zerei, decidi dar uma chance pra esse remake porque não lembrava de nada da versão de ps2, e meus amigos que jogo, não tenho palavras pra descrever a sensação que esse jogo da, só sei q é maravilhosa, a narrativa desse jogo é algo sombrio e por muitas vezes confuso, e isso deixa tudo tão incrível, esse mistério no ar, e oq dizer dos colussus, suas batalhas são memoráveis e incríveis, esse jogo é atemporal, muito em breve irei jogar a versão de ps2, obrigado por essa obra de arte team ico, nunca vai existir um jogo como shadow of the colussus.

A work of art, truly distinct from all other games.

Shadow of the Colossus takes the concepts of platform puzzles and intimidatingly huge bosses and combines the two for a unique result and gaming experience.

The boss is the level, as you climb each one and figure out environmental things that may help you get across the fight. The game might come across as relatively easy, but it is Ueda’s signature “subtracting design” that also helps the player feel more immersed and conscious of their surroundings. The game wants you to simply take in the scenery sometimes, and I absolutely adore that attitude.

So far the Team Ico trilogy has involved engaging puzzles, amazing art, unique approaches to gameplay, and wonderfully balanced senses of loneliness and companionship. Here’s to hoping the Last Guardian continues delivering!