Welcome, one and all, to a feature that I'm (hopefully) going to be bringing you all regularly. Journeys into the Past will be my quasi-often foray into the world of old games. By "old games" I don't neccesarily mean NES or Megadrive games. I'm going to be taking a look back at some of the games I either missed out on, or played and completely forgot about. So, join me as we take a journey into Shadow of the Colossus... WHOOoooOOOOOoooOOOoooooo.

As I type this, I am roughly one and a half hours into Shadow of the Colossus. Yes I know, late to the party or what? But I finally managed to track down a copy nonetheless. So, without further adeu, let's say go! (Woot, Transformers refference!)

(Note, there may very mild spoilers for Shadow of the Colossus ahead. Go forth at your own risk.)

For any of you that are unfamiliar with Shadow of the Colossus, it begins with a semi-long cutscene introducing Wander and his horse, Agro. The two of them make their way towards a large temple, carrying with them the corpse of a woman who I can only assume is someone that Wander loves. He places her on an altar inside this temple and appeals to a god to bring her back to life. This god agrees to do so, on the condition that you slay the sixteen Colossi that roam the land. Wander agrees and you set out into the world.

Now, on to my impressions.



The first thing I noticed upon entering the world of Shadow of the Colossus is that the atmosphere comes off as incredibly bleak, something which I enjoy incredibly. The graphics are beautifully appropriate and help give off the feel that the world isn’t dying, it’s already long dead. It really helps to promote a sense of loneliness, that it’s just you and Agro. It’s somewhat uncomfortable, at first, but soon, you’re introduced to your first Colossi.

I have to admit that stumbling upon this beast has been one of the few moments in gaming that has made my jaw literally drop. The thing is huge. Not so big that it’s completely overwhelming, but large enough to provoke a reaction of “How the hell am I going to beat this thing?” It’s at that point you get introduced to most of the controls, which brings me to my first complaint about the game.
The controls, whilst effective, handle like arse. Whilst mounted on Agro, all my controller input seems completely irrelevant, as Agro will often veer off towards something in the opposite direction to where I wanted to go, and trying to correct this generally only worsens that. Another thing that irks me with the Agro control scheme is having to constantly press X to keep up his momentum. I found that if I refused to press X every few seconds, Agro would slow to nearly a crawl on several occasions. The camera, however, wasn’t as bad as I’d heard it was and the controls for Wander on foot were okay enough to not majorly frustrate me.

The second complaint that I have with Shadow of the Colossus is the framerate. What can I really say, it’s not terrible, but it’s not ideal either. Especially when you have a fifty foot beast trying to stomp on you and the game can’t decide whether or not it wants to run smoothly. Hopefully, it’ll even out as the game progresses, or I’ll stop noticing. But it’s a big enough problem that it warrants a mention here.
Now, continuing with my experience. After slaying your first Colossi, you are treated with the absolutely brilliant death scene. It shows the Colossi thrashing and flailing around, almost screaming, before finally collapsing on the ground which brings to mind the question “Was that right?” Although I went into the game knowing that I’d probably question my motives for going and killing these beasts, I didn’t believe that I’d do it so soon. The death scenes are marvellous, and they only get better with each Colossi you defeat.



So far, each Colossi I’ve fought has presented a unique challenge. You’re unable to just go in all guns (arrows?) blazing and slash at it until it dies. Some of them require you to use the environment to get onto them; some need you to shoot at weak-points under so that they fall forwards, allowing you to get onto them and proceed to stab the living hell out of them. I’m hoping that this trend continues throughout the game.

I’m currently onto the fourth Colossi, but I won’t be doing any “Second Impressions” thing here. The next you’ll hear about this from me will probably be the full review… If I ever get around to writing one once I’ve finished it, which I hopefully will. If not, I give you guys full permission to e-punch me.
Overall, Shadow of the Colossus has the makings of a solid game. The flaws are few, but unfortunately, the framerate can hamper the game somewhat, but I’m willing to forgive it in the name of progression. For now, at least. Stay tuned y’all!