This PS2 game originally released in 2006 is a thing of beauty.
The premise is one that immediately tugs at my heartstrings: a young man travels to a far-away valley with a wish for the gods, to bring a girl back from the dead. The gods respond. "Vanquish these sixteen creatures."
For starters, let me say that it's risky business pleading the gods of old. You never really know how things are going to work out with the gods of old. (Ask the people of Hyrule in The Wind Waker. When the Hero didn't show up and they prayed to the gods for help, they flooded the land. Problem solved.)
Anyway, Wander, the young man, still asks his wish and the gods give him a task. The task, however, is not only dangerous but it is also one filled with trepidation. The giant creatures are certainly deadly due to their size, but they don't seem to be hurting anybody.
They live in this secluded magical valley and there doesn't seem to be another being around, other than birds and lizards, to be hurt by them. Their scale is simply tremendous. The colossi are truly a thing to behold, and yet here you are to kill them for a selfish purpose. Sure, it may be honorable, but it is still a selfish purpose.
And let me tell you, you get no pleasure from killing these creatures. The game does a good job of making you question your quest. The colossi lumber but they don't seem to be of evil. They're peaceful. They walk and they barely seem to notice you. You're basically an insect that has to climb up their backs and then stab at them at their centers of energy until they die. It's truly sad when you finally see them fall. They topple in slow motion; it's as if a castle is being demolished. The music is powerful. And when you do destroy one of them, black tentacles of energy emerge from the colossus and invade your own body, as if to signal that your soul now has a blemish and it's darker, a patina on your heart, and you pass out. You may be doing it for the right reasons, you may be doing it out of stubbornness or selfishness, but you have basically made the world less interesting. You have robbed it of something amazing. After each fell creature that you destroy, dark tendrils overpower you and enter your body. Your heart absorbs darkness and you lose consciousness, and when you wake up, dark silhouettes stand over you, demanding an explanation. I don't have one. Pain? Regret?
I do not know how this story ends yet. I have a feeling that even if the gods of old are true to their word, there is no happy ending. Only bittersweet. Wander will have to keep secrets from the girl. She may not understand what he had to go through.
Shadow of the Colossus got remade for PS3. I have the PS2 version and my friend Shane let me borrow his copy of the HD remake so I could compare it. Let me start by saying, this game was already powerful and beautiful back in 2006. I like playing the PS2 version but for one exception. Being that this is not a traditional game, it already took great pains to treat itself seriously. It's kind of an artsy game and at certain points, it flaunts its artsiness by going into letterbox mode, like the widescreen DVDs we grew accustomed to telling us they were more artistic because they showed us the full frame and so were more faithful to what we saw in the movie theaters. However, this game came out before the days of widescreen HDTVs. It was originally meant to be played in a regular full frame TV, so that when it goes to letterbox mode, you get two black bars on the top and bottom of the picture. It's a nice effect when you're playing in a CRT television. When you play it on a modern TV, you're already getting two black sidebars left and right and letterbox mode leaves you with a ridiculously small picture framed by back all around. The HD remake fixes this remarkably well. Having the regular game fill the whole screen during normal gameplay makes it less jarring when the game decides to go into letterbox mode in its display of artsiness. The game has slightly better textures in the HD remake as well, but it's not super noticeable. Frame rate is better too, but I will say the HD remake doesn't look a hundred times better. It's just a little prettier. The aspect ratio is, however, a vast improvement as long as you're playing it on a widescreen TV. This is perhaps the only reason that would make me want to buy the HD remake, along with the fact that it comes with ICO, another critically acclaimed game for PS2. For now, I haven't decided what I'm going to do with my PS2 copy, or if I'm going to buy my own copy of the HD remake. I'll let you know what I decide.
