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GUEST REVIEW BY LINZY

I first played this game, or rather witnessed it, at a dear friends house. Naturally, I liked it. So imagine how happy I was when the opportunity to buy it came up!

Shadow of the Colossus is definitely an action based game, and not in the whole “Final Fantasy” style either. You have a sword, now go kill stuff. In this case, “stuff” is made up of 16 different crazy huge monsters known as, you guessed it, colossi.

These guys are not small in any way or form. Unless, of course, beings the size of some buildings are considered little to you. According to the game description, the colossi were meant to represent mountains in both levels of intimidation and size. It worked.

Their bodies are made of rock, segments of manmade ruins, fur, and moss. About half of the 16 resemble animals or other creatures; the other eight being humanoid figures. Each is brilliantly designed in its own fearsome and majestic way, just as each has a brilliant plan on how to kill you.

In the plotline of this game, your name is Wander, though this is never revealed to you in the actual gameplay. Your character is first seen crossing an impossibly structured bridge on horseback, something large spread over his lap. Once across the bridge, he directs the horse, Agro, into a dark cave opening, a stone door shuts behind them. Horse and man continue in the dark and eventually find themselves in what looks like the ruins of a large temple. In the very back sits a raised platform, which the man rides up to. He then gets off his horse, and pulls the cloaked figure off with him, setting it gently on the stone pedestal. In a large swooping motion, Wander tugs the cloak off to reveal a fairly pretty, black haired girl. Her name is Mono, and well, she’s dead. Your main goal? Bring back Mono. Because I don’t want to spoil any more fun, I will tell you only one moresnippet that has to do with plot. After some certain events, Wander is told by a rather mysterious being that the only way for him to save Mono he must destroy 16 monstrous creatures.

What the “mysterious being” doesn’t tell you, is that these guppies are hard. There is no easy break. Most tower at least 20 times higher than Wander himself, and the three that don’t are capital V for vicious. For example, take the bull colossus. He is only about three times the size of your horse, but if you’re in his way when he decides charge, you’re in trouble. If you get hit, your knocked unconscious for a bit. You regain consciousness just to be smashed into again. In all honesty, I would prefer the 50 foot baboon; at least you have a chance of escaping it.

That’s pretty much the entire plotline. Actually, it’s the one thing about the game that doesn’t impress me. Although most of the game makes sense, you never really feel like your completely clued in. Don’t get me wrong, its easy to understand and really to the point, just not quite as colorful as a lot of the others that I’ve played.

Other than my slight complaint in the paragraph above, I absolutely loved this game. The graphics are lovely in a dusty state (that unfortunately made things a little difficult to see at times), it was challenging in a long-lasting sort of way, and one could play it over and over, discovering something new to them every time. This game is like a very large puzzle, don’t expect to figure it out on your first try.

It receives 4/5 Linzy stars.

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