Wander to Kyozou / Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) (2005)
Developer: Sony Computer Entertainment Japan

Review by Faididi and Co.

He pats his horse's butt more than he touches his girlfriend

Story: Average

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan's Wander to Kyozou (Shadow of the Colossus) may be set in the same world as Ico, but its story is about different people and places. This time, a boy named Wander has brought his comatose girlfriend, Mono, to a secluded magical valley in the hopes of saving her. The god residing there agrees to stuff Mono's soul back into her body if Wander slays the sixteen giant monsters hidden within the valley, and our hero leaps at the deal. The story is surprisingly simple, having zero plot development until the very end. That can seem weird, even if Wander doesn't notice that his face melts off more and more with every colossus he defeats, and he never asks the obvious question why the colossi are trapped inside the valley in the first place.

Gameplay: Excellent

Wander to Kyozou is a follow-up to Ico, but it's an action adventure of a completely different breed. Our hero does only one thing, and that's hunting down the colossi. Not counting the optional power-ups that can be collected to boost Wander's stamina and grip endurance, the valley is entirely devoid of any characters or special objects except him, his girlfriend, his happily invulnerable horse, and the 16 bosses. While these foes may be made of rock-like flesh covered in coarse hair or armor plating, Wander possesses a magic sword that not only helps him locate the colossi but can slay them, if he reaches and stabs the weak points conveniently marked by bright magical symbols on their bodies.

If Ico is about finding detours past broken passageways in quiet ruins, then this game is about beating what amounts to living obstacle courses, who are often the size of castle towers, and who continue to move across the terrain even when Wander is in the middle of clambering across their bulk. The scale of these colossi is no joke; similar to the soldiers in Sandlot's The Chikyuu Boueigun (Earth Defense Force), Wander compares like a tiny bug to his enemies. Except for two, the colossi also take on unique forms, ranging from a classic club-wielding ogre to a laser-spitting turtle, from a soaring giant bird to a dragon-like sky serpent, and from a living island to a bitchin' sandworm (Dune meets Tremors!). Much of the fun lies in first finding a way onto these monsters, each of whom represents a set of puzzles. Does Wander need to wait for them to try striking or ramming him before he can hop onto their limbs? Does he need to leap onto their backs from a nearby ledge or perhaps from his own galloping mount? The suspense keeps building when he is carefully working toward their weak points, resisting their attempts to fling him off. Normally, Wander can suck up a ridiculous amount of damage, whether from getting trampled (lol) or from falling great distances, so the game still emphasizes thinking over sheer reflexes.

As fun as the colossi are, Wander to Kyozou definitely suffers from a lack of action between their scenes. To find his foes, Wander will travel through thick forests interrupted by waterfalls and gulches, wind-swept deserts pocked by misty geysers, abandoned cities that have been built for giants, sunken ruins of equally mysterious origins, and many other neat places. As already mentioned, however, these same areas are all deserted and contain hardly any interactive objects. Wander's horse is cool, but that's not quite the same as seeing the interactions between the two heroes back in Ico. Given how the colossi already each keep to their own regions (and never overlap with one another or attempt to team up against Wander), perhaps this game would've been better paced by arranging the colossi's scenes as linear chapters instead, therefore skipping the overly uneventful periods between them.

Controls: Below Average

Whereas Ico has good controls, this game does not. The loss of responsivity is due in large part to the serious lag between the time when the jump button is pressed and the moment when Wander actually leaves the ground. The horse-riding controls also suffer from sluggish steering during low speeds.

Another major problem is the unintuitive button assignments for certain actions. When Wander is clinging onto something, holding the grab button while pressing the jump button makes him leap upward. But, when he is standing on his feet, doing the same thing causes him to roll forward instead. Thus, when you want him to grasp a foothold and then jump straight up, this clumsy layout may cause him to accidentally roll right off the colossi.

Not much smarter is the camera, which likes to automatically move on its own when Wander is running around the sides of a colossus, usually providing useless views. Thankfully, if this game has one advantage over Ico, it's that the camera can be manually moved faster and more freely, and its idiotic automatic movements can be overridden by the Player at any time.

Graphics: Excellent

The visuals are easy to appreciate when one lays eyes on the game's gorgeous world. The natural landscapes briefly glimpsed in Ico come to full force here, and Wander to Kyozou uses streaming techniques to achieve a seamlessness not seen before. The lighting effects are enhanced to the point where the ambient illumination dims and brightens as Wander passes through shafts of light poking through small gaps in the canopies of forests. When Wander finds himself scaling the colossi who can fly, any cliffs, lakes, and ruins below can be seen blurring past, ready to catch him if he falls. The finer touches in the graphics haven't been forgotten, be they Wander's loose cloth tunic with small tokens tied to it blowing in the breeze or the way his horse's mane flows like silk over its back. Too bad the immense amount of visual detail and huge draw distance cause frequent, significant drops in framerate, although this never detracts from the game like the controls do.

Audio: Excellent

Partnered with the graphics in a perfect dance are the sound effects. As Wander explores the valley, the strong winds blow noisily across the skies over the plains, the leaves and branches rustle against one another in the forests, and his horse's steps echo eerily throughout the empty halls of forgotten temples with every clap upon the ancient stone tiles. When Wander encounters the colossi, the earth heaved up from their stomping and crushing attacks splatter back onto the ground in a cacophony of splattering dirt and broken rocks. Among the most impressive-sounding scenes is the one where Wander faces the sandworm colossus. This thousand-ton behemoth constantly generates an ear-shattering roar louder than any earthquake across the entire desert as it whips through the sands at terrifying speeds. It's awesome stuff.

As for the music, there are more tunes than in Ico. The manner in which the music changes when Wander closes in to attack the colossi is neat, even if several of them share the same tunes.

Overall: Excellent

Wander to Kyozou deserves applause for being an action adventure that genuinely differs from its predecessor, and especially for its most impressive enemy and puzzle designs, as embodied by the colossi. If its controls had been more responsive and smarter, and if its level design had more to offer than merely pretty scenery in between the monsters' scenes, it would've completely surpassed Ico.