REVIEW // GAMING // Shadow of the Colossus Remastered Edition

2018

Playstation 4

Shadow of the Colossus is perhaps one of the most revered video games of all time. Not one of the most popular, necessarily (certainly not by the standards of, say, the conveyor belt that is the Call of Duty series); after all, even though this new high-def remaster is actually the second re-release since its original incarnation on Playstation 2 back in 2005 (it was also given a fresh lick of paint and released on PS3 in a bundle along with Ico in 2011), it remains a decidedly cult game. This is perhaps primarily due to its general ‘artiness’ - while it’s basically about David and Goliath styled battles with huge monsters, the game’s tone is more ethereal and elliptical than that simplistic description would imply.

Still, over the years it has generally garnered an almost religious devotion from those who play it – I’ve heard it described as ‘perfect’ more than once, by more than one person – and while I’m not about to argue that it’s a ‘bad’ game necessarily, I nonetheless can’t help feeling that the hyperbole has reached a point where it’s difficult to separate the actual nuts and bolts game itself from its overblown reputation. I came to this remaster having only very briefly played some of the original PS2 version (we’re talking maybe ten minutes at a friend’s, around ten years ago – my playthrough consisted of running around the map appreciating how zen it all was, and I never even got to fight a Colossus), so I was mostly untouched by any real experience with it before I got my hands on this shiny new current gen edition.

Overall, I agree with the consensus that it’s a legitimately unique experience, something I can’t help respecting; sometimes thrilling and quite beautiful, with the new and improved graphics (the dynamic lighting effects in particular are often gorgeous, and the Colossi themselves are given all the more imposing majesty now that you can admire all their visual idiosyncrasies in crystal clear detail). It's obvious that Shadow of the Colossus was far ahead of its time when it was originally released. Few other games of the period had this sense of scale or ambition, and that stuff at least holds up well today while looking the best it ever has.

However, the hype machine really has been allowed to run unchecked over the years, and it seems to me that Shadow of the Colossus has been somewhat unfairly encumbered with such an unassailably gleaming reputation that its flaws are far too commonly overlooked, as rose-tinted nostalgists who loved the game when it came out (or those who came to the game later and simply don’t want to feel left out of the club) gift it with a status of – that word again – ‘perfection’; something it frankly doesn't even come close to.

While the graphics have been impressively enhanced from both previous iterations, the game shows its age when it comes to the controls. Manoeuvring the horse, Agro, makes me wonder if his name is not some kind of sly English-language joke by developer Team Ico; I lost count of the amount of times he would veer uncontrollably at the merest push of the analogue stick, interrupting the ‘epic quest’ feel of journeying across the map with headfirst bumps into rocks and various ruins. Getting him around what I’ll call - for lack of a more elegant way of putting it – ‘the forest bit’ of the map in particular is akin to pushing a shopping trolley around the assault course from Ninja Warrior (I, uh… would imagine). Controlling the main character on foot can also be a pain during the platforming sections, which... kind of make up the majority of the game. He's prone to some very over-eager animations; get even close to a ledge and he has a tendency to flail and stagger and fall on his face (or to his doom) as though he’s had a couple of pints too many.

He also has an extremely aggravating habit of lying stunned on the floor for a good five seconds or so after falling/being knocked down, which became a genuine issue during some of the more intense battles. There was one such battle in particular – against a charging, bull-like Colossus – in which I was knocked down, once, and then mauled over and over again, to eventual death, before my intrepid Colossus-killer had time to pick himself up off the floor. Messing up a dodge and being bowled over was my fault; being smashed to death before I could so much as move again was not. The camera is also hugely unhelpful at points, swinging around as though seasick during some of the Colossus-climbing moments, unnecessarily complicating the already risky business of getting to that sweet weak spot on an arm or head. The final Colossus is an utter nightmare in this regard, and had me on the verge of tearing my hair out not because of any organic, earned difficulty, but because for most of the fight I couldn't see what the fuck I was doing.

It's only so disappointing because - wonky mechanics aside - the battles can be genuinely exciting and rewarding affairs, if only fleetingly. Gripping hold of fur and huge pieces of stone armour, steadily making the perilous climb up towards the glowing vital points, and keeping an eye on your dwindling grip metre as the beasts writhe and shake and generally try to dislodge you can be a fraught experience; the thrill of, for example, leaping from your horse onto the wing of an airborne Colossus as it takes off into the sky, then dangling one-handed from its underside as it flips over in an attempt to get rid of you, is the kind of pulse-pounding stuff I wish the game could maintain.

Sadly, a few of the Colossi look much the same as each other, give or take a couple of minor details (in a primarily visual medium, and especially in this particular game where pretty much the only thing you’re doing is fighting these things, I would have appreciated a bit more variation, or perhaps just fewer Colossi who instead take longer to beat). This can compound the fundamentally derivative nature of the 'go here, kill this, rinse and repeat' set-up to the point where I was frankly clamouring for a little variation.

The difficulty of the fights is quite irregular throughout, given to peak and trough rather than ramp up steadily in traditional video game difficulty curve fashion, although I concede this isn’t necessarily a flaw so much as simply bucking the trend of incrementally more difficult boss encounters. In a way, this kept every battle fresh in the sense that I was never sure quite what kind of fight I was in for each time (certain encounters are more about getting to the respective Colossus in the first place rather than simply working out where its weak points are and jabbing with your sword accordingly).

The encounters generally require you to use a combination of your environment and rudimentary observational skills, taking note of the behaviours and attack patterns of the Colossi and working out how to weaken them before moving in on them – for example, one Big Lad needs to be goaded into smashing up a bridge you're on, so you can drop down onto his head from above. Figuring out the method behind taking each Colossus down is usually fairly simple, although a couple of them do require some quite oblique tactics which can take some real head-scratching trial and error before the Eureka moment kicks in.

Shadow of the Colossus is an ambitiously-crafted experience cursed with an irritating tendency to get in its own way. Some deeply frustrating, archaic elements (primarily the often awkward animations and the camera) prevent it from being a true masterpiece, and while being very admirable, it crucially fails to be consistently enjoyable. Those coming to the game for the first time, expecting the Second Coming, should adjust their expectations accordingly; the real Colossus to be slain is that of rampant over-hype.