Wanda to kyozô

This video game is a masterpiece of minimalism, honing in on fine details to achieve a consistent artistic style. The fantasy setting is bare and barren, bringing to mind the ruins of ancient civilisations. The storyline leaves a lot to the imagination with many hints of a magical time gone by. The design of the colossi are gorgeous and complex, and they feel like real beings with a composition that sparks speculation - the mixture of fur, stone and architecture has an otherworldly feel to it. The design of the architecture also feels like a long lost civilisation has been abandoned in a cursed land. The soundtrack is rousing and deep. The gameplay is intense and fills the player with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. This whole setting has a deep, immersive mythological feel to it. My only gripes are Agro's controls and the lack of replay value.

This is the most epic game I've ever played, with the possible exception of Half-Life 2. You are a young man who climbs atop the backs of giants and has to bring them down by use of your sword and/or bow & arrow. The first giant is beaten simply by climbing onto him and stabbing marked areas of his body, but other enemies are beaten by interacting with the environment around you, which by the way is one of the most jaw-dropping visual features of this game by far. You ride your horse through grassy fields, barren deserts, vast mountain ranges with waterfalls, you name it. The world is enormous and something you totally would not expect a PS2 to be able to handle (I'm guessing it's pulled off due to the fact that there is no interaction with other characters or enemies at all).

Understandable is the criticism it's received for being, in essence, nothing but a bunch of boss battles. There's no real interaction with anybody else in the game. But most would probably agree that what it lacks in terms of rich gameplay it more than makes up for with the freakin' pretty landscapes and jaw dropping cinematic display.

The 16 giants are something you might see in a Lord of the Rings movie. By land, by air or by sea, you find yourself doing pretty much everything. Grip onto the back of a Boeing-sized Pterodactyl of sorts. Cling to an enormous electric eel as it swims under the water. Ride your horse alongside an enormous galloping bull. Every gamer on the planet needs to at the very least RENT this game. See it before you die or you just might not make it into gaming-heaven. I'm pleading with you here, I don't want anybody at all to miss this.

Oh, and as a music person I must stress the superb soundtrack.

No longer are video games the time-killers numbing the minds of our world's adolescents. Shadow of the Colossus (the English-language release title; the translation of the Japanese would be roughly "Wander and the Colossi") has used beautiful imagery and innovative puzzles on the backs of giants to tell a story worthy of the religious mythologies of an ancient civilization. The technical game-play is stunning in its simplicity, and has truly moved video games to the status of an art form. Fumito Ueda's previous endeavor Ico (to which Shadow of the Colossus is a prequel) is also told in a way that does what was done with comic books in the 1980s; using an unappreciated, stigmatized medium to tell a story that, if told in a cinematic or literary form, would leave the viewing and reading populous speechless. To those of you who do play video games, you simply must play this game. To those of you who don't play video games or have teenage children who play them, buy them a copy and at least watch them play. Most of important to you all, open your minds or you'll most certainly miss out.

I can't even begin to explain how amazing this game is, it is beyond words, beyond actions, to explain the precious contents hidden in the case of one of the best games ever made in the entire world.

In all of my years of life, I have not met one person, one living soul that has not liked this game after watching it or playing it themselves.

Yet it all began with me watching my 2 cousins playing it, until I despised it for the playing style and how short it was. It was probably because I was in the middle of my Final Fantasy 8 file and was used to long games. Until I went to their house about a year later and was bored, and decided to play the game to actually feel how it was to play.

I must say it had to be love, I would not put down the controller for anything, not even to watch Full Metal Alchemist at 10:00, I was too concentrated of at the greatness of the game, and the contents it held.

Until I demanded that I borrow the game, I printed out one of the online guides, and played the game all day. For 2 days straight I beat it, after getting about every single fruit and WT lizard that the world could hold, and watched the touching ending that like gasping for breath, and trying to hold back my tears.

But it didn't end there, I did everything there was to do, completed all the time attacks in easy and hard mode, and confirmed the 17th colossi rumor (and btw, it's not real.) It didn't end there either, my cousins were so happy with me that they wanted to borrow my file and show everyone how good I was at the game.

My favorite colossi has to be no.7, the electric eel. I love the water graphics in the game, and the way it moves and how you have to catch onto it's tail. I also love the idea of insignias and the way they look, and how you have to spend breath-taking hours trying to find them, and the colossi acting like a complete idiot trying to shake you off.

But the best thing about this game, is the will and freedom to explore this large and vast land, which takes about 5 hours to cover the entire area, and takes a long time to find all the fruit trees and all the save altars on the way. I would say about half of the area is used for the colossi, the other half is for exploring with your only friend and companion, Agro, the black horse. Be glad that he is with you, for if you would have to travel this land on foot, it would take you about a hour to walk from the top of the map to the bottom, not even thinking about left and right.

This game definitely deserves more praise than people have given it, for it is the best game in the world and got voted 4th on ign.com, (damn that God of War..... DAMN YOU!), but everyone knows, and I know it should of gotten first. So if you find this game sitting alone in EB Games or a movies store, give it a try. You might not like it at first but you will get hooked, like me.

This game is one of the greatest games ever made because of how well it was done.

The game's plot puts you as a wanderer who takes a girl to the forbidden land to give her back her stolen soul. But to do this you must go and slay the Colossus. Who roam in the land. I'm not going to lie to you, this game is hard. For example it took over an hour to beat the last Colossus.

There aren't a lot of creatures in this game. It's you, you're horse Agro, a dead girl, and sixteen Colossus that roam. Another great but interesting thing about this game is how you never really communicate with Agro, but you somehow form a bond with him since he's really all that you have.

The graphics may not be the best and sometimes seem a little glitchy, but Artistically this game is unmatched. It really is fun to explore ruins to a lost civilization and wonder why it is that the world in the game is the way it is...

The music is truly the best soundtrack ever put into a game, it has all real instruments which is great for a video game. This soundtrack sounds that of a film! I praise it!

The overall of this game is incredible and that's why I will always support Shadow of the Colossus.

10/10