Shadow of the Colossus Remake Review (PS4)

Known for remaking old games, developer Bluepoint Games specializes in keeping the soul of original intact while simultaneously modernizing those games with quality of life improvements for a modern audience that never played it.

Bluepoint is responsible for releasing remakes and high-definition remasters of Gravity Rush Remastered, Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection and Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for PlayStation 3 console platform until now.

Since I am someone who never played the original Shadow of the Colossus (due to me not owning a PlayStation 2 or a PlayStation 3) I missed out on the game. But this game was a cult hit.

So unlike myself, even if you owned one of those systems back in the day, there's a good chance you missed this game over the massive library of games available on both the PS2 and PS3.

I actually emulated the PS2 version on PC before the Bluepoint remake was announced but ended up quitting without even reaching the first colossus. That didn't mean I lost interest in the game, it was one of those games that was left behind in my backlog.

The 2018 Shadow of the Colossus is a remake by Bluepoint Games of a 2005 PS2 cult classic of the same name, originally made by Team Ico. The original game became 15 years old on October 18, 2020 and the remake is nearly 3 years old.

The funny part is, this is the second time they're working on the re-releasing the same game. Now, let's move on to the review.

The first aspect I'd like to talk about is the story. Immediately when you start up Shadow of the Colossus you’ll be greeted with a gorgeously detailed cut-scene of a boy riding a horse at night, carrying what seems to be a corpse in his arms.

The name of the boy is Wander and the deceased girl he’s carrying is Mono. There isn’t much context given to the story. Other than the fact that Wander is trying to save this girl by bringing her back to the land of the living.

It’s not even clear what exactly his relation to the girl even is. Could it be his lover? Or sister? Whatever it may be, she clearly meant a lot for him to take a journey into the Forbidden Lands.

He reaches his destination which seems to be an abandoned tower referred to as the Central Temple, and places the empty body on a pedestal, and grabs the attention of a mysterious entity named Dormin.

Long story short, Dormin offers him to restore the girl’s life if he successfully manages to subjugate 16 colossi scatter around the land. After this short introductory scene, the story seems to be taking a backseat with minimal amounts of cut-scenes throughout the entirety of the game till the game.

Even though this game’s 13 years old now, I won’t be spoiling the nitty gritty details of the story, most of which occurs near the end.

But, know this that the main thing you will be doing in this game is slaying 16 giant monsters. This is a task that you absolutely must do in order to bring Mono back to life and finish the game. 

Shadow of the Colossus is technically an open world game. I say ‘technically’ because a lot of the things that you may associate with ‘open world video games’ are noticeably absent here.

For starters, slaying giant colossi is the only thing you do in this game. The Forbidden Lands may be vast, but the game is short. (Around 8-10 hour long depending on how fast you are) and mechanically, SotC may be one of the simplest games you’ll ever play, a far cry from some of the biggest open world games you could play today.

The reason definitely lies behind the game’s lead designer Fumito Ueda’s philosophy of designing games by subtracting features. And I think this is something that can work really well if executed properly.

If you think about it, it makes so much sense. The less mechanics you have, the less you need to worry about nailing each mechanic. And by having fewer mechanics to worry about, you can especially focus on the more fundamental aspects of the game and perfect them.

And the gameplay is clearly one of the more memorable aspects of Shadow of the Colossus. And the PS4 version of SotC does live up to the PS2 original, albeit with some shortcomings.

The gameplay is almost identical to the PS2 or PS3 version from what I’ve seen, with very little differences. This might actually be a good thing if you want to have an experience as close to the original as possible. I think it’s a positive too.

Bluepoint Games kept the original control scheme alongside many other alternative options introduced in the remake. But the “modernized” controls merely come off as nothing more than an alternate button layout.

You still need to control your horse, Agro, by repeatedly tapping Triangle to “start” her and holding it in order to keep going. The left analog stick is only used for steering left or right. You use the d-pad to switch weapons.

The only weapons you have are a sword and a bow. Using the sword is pretty standard; just don’t expect to do DMC-level combos or juggling. The bow is somewhat difficult to control as you need to hold down R1 to aim and while aiming you can’t move around and it’s not exactly the most accurate aiming system in the world (probably by design).

The climbing system by holding R2 can also be confusing. If you want to jump from ledges you need to hold down the jump button while still holding down the R2 button to climb and let go of them both, and to grab hold of the new ledge you need to hold R2 again.

This might sound confusing to read but trust me, when you start playing this game and go to the first climbing section you’ll notice this immediately, especially if you didn’t pay much attention to the tutorial message (like myself).

If you’re someone who played the original you might be happy to know there’s a “classic” button layout which you can try if modern doesn’t suit your taste. Personally I slowly adapted to modern and stuck with it till the end.

There’s also a health and stamina gauge you can manage though they refill automatically (which is helpful). By defeating a colossus your max stamina and health get a small boost. You can also upgrade your health and stamina by eating fruits found on trees and hunting lizards respectively.

But it’s completely possible to beat the game without even realizing you can manually upgrade your health and stamina. One of the key aspects of the game is that sometimes it doesn’t tell you anything about certain mechanics that are present in the game and it’s all up to you to discover them.

Depending on who you ask, this may be a good or a bad thing.

Whenever you’re not fighting a colossus, you’re travelling with your sole buddy Agro. The camera system on controlling her is probably the most advanced one I’ve seen. The cut back camera also gives you an illusion of traversing a vast environment but by zooming in with L2 you can find out that you’re actually travelling in a reasonably fast pace.

Sometimes it makes you feel like you are just a tiny spectacle even before fighting any colossus. Of course, journey by foot will actually take you a long time to reach each colossus and is not recommended.

On the other hand, while fighting a colossus, the camera takes a significantly different turn. Often times you might have to struggle with the camera when locking on to a colossus with L2.

This isn’t the case with every colossus, but some of them can get you worked up, so keep that in mind.

A lot of these small complaints likely stem from the original game and make the remake more tedious to play. But they don’t necessarily take too much away from the enjoyment once you come to terms that what you’re playing is s now 3 generation old game.

Some of these mechanics may not have aged well but what did age well is the gameplay of taking down each of the colossus.

Each colossus is like a puzzle to solve but they all follow a very basic pattern. Use your bow to grab the attention of a colossus, figure out their kinks to reveal their weak spot, scale the colossus and then keep hitting them in the weak spot by charging your sword.

I did finish the game on the Hard difficulty. So the fights last much longer. But you’ll be just as fine playing in any difficulty you want as there are no major differences. The parts about defeating the colossi are the most adrenaline-rushing moments of the game.

However, there are instances that can kill the adrenaline rush because there are still some jank here that don’t necessarily tie directly to the controls but with the game itself.

For example, if you run out of stamina while scaling a tall colossus and fall, Wander will really take his sweet time lying on the floor before standing up, sometimes the colossus can kill you during this moment you have almost no control over.

This can get frustrating if your stamina bar is small and you didn’t quite figure out the loop you need to follow in order to defeat a colossus. In case you couldn’t tell by now, the colossi are the only things you fight in this game and they all act like a boss.

There are no contemporary enemies or mini-bosses that you fight in-between going from one colossus to the next. So they had to nail all 16 of them.

Originally Ueda’s team had the vision of creating over 40 colossi which they later cut down to 24. They finally cut it down to 16 of the best ones before release and it was probably for the best.

There are a few colossi that act very similarly or look like they were the same colossi but in different environments which changed the way you fought them. I won’t get into much detail on each of the colossi but nearly all of them will leave a lasting impression on you.

Some of the colossi can be tricky to defeat but instead of looking up an online guide for them, you really should try your own wits to beat them before thinking about throwing in the towel. They are really not that difficult!

Beating them yourself is extremely rewarding but if you’re really struggling to figure out a way to beat them, Dormin will give you some subtle hints about them. This can get in your way of figuring things out yourself but unfortunately you’ll have to live with it since there’s no option to turn it off to my knowledge.

When it came out for PS2 consoles back in 2005, Shadow of the Colossus was one of the most atmospheric games on the system. It looked great for its time but it was clearly limited by the hardware.

Xbox 360 was nearing its release and Sony announced the PS3 with a 2006 release date just a couple months prior. The PS3 remaster did increase its graphical fidelity by bumping up the resolution and making the game widescreen.

But the 2018 remake takes it to a whole new level. The graphical models of both the characters and the world have been made anew. The Forbidden Lands look like a modern open world environment now.

And even though in the original game the colossi looked incredible, they look even more awesome and majestic in the remake. Bluepoint not only made the game look more like Team Ico’s most recent title The Last Guardian but also one of the prettiest games of this generation!

One cannot simply talk about Shadow of the Colossus without mentioning its music. Some say it’s even the best part of this game. Even though I’m not an audiophile, I decided to listen to the SotC OST while writing this review, particularly of the original game.

So you could say that I might actually agree with the earlier take! I already played the remake so I know how it (mostly) sounds like, and comparing between the two, there are more similarities than I expected.

The sounds from the remake from the same grunts Wander makes to the music that plays during the colossus battles are all more or less the same. And I just found out now that it is because they didn’t actually re-record every single piece of music in the game.

Normally I’d say this is disappointing, but when you have a soundtrack that’s as strong as the original game’s, making another one just to replace it almost sounds criminal even if the original composer, KowOtani, is in charge of the remake.

There are some re-recorded tracks as mentioned in the previously referenced blog post and they do actually sound in line with the rest of the tracks. Maybe if every single track were remade we’d probably get an option to switch between original and remake sound tracks like we can swap between “original” and “modern” controls.

Speaking of switches there’s a photo mode in this game which I totally forgot about. Although I appreciate the inclusion of photo modes in gorgeous games like SotC I rarely utilize them for more than 5 minutes.

If you like it then it’s great but personally I mainly stick to play the game and taking screenshots that are close to the actual gameplay. One thing that is cool however is the ability to play the whole game not just with motion blur disabled but applying every filter available in the photo mode.

This adds replay value to the game by making each of your playthroughs feel unique (at least graphically). And SotC is a highly replayable game too. There’s a time attack mode to test how fast you can beat a colossus.

There’s a trophy that’s granted to you if you manage to beat the entire game in a select amount of time. I know I’m not getting platinum on this game… (At least not anytime soon) but really, the most important additions to the game by Bluepoint has to be some of the new secrets they added to the game as a tribute to one of the most profound secret hunting in gaming.

Well, two in fact. Or maybe more? Shadow of the Colossus is a game full of secrets after all. If you had any sort of relationship with this game in the past 15 years (and had an active internet connection) then you’re probably already familiar with what I’m talking about.

Be it the hunt for the secret 17th colossus or the more vague “last big secret” of Shadow of the Colossus, they really shaped the legacy of this game and helped it gain such recognition and remembrance it has now, probably more than what the creators expected.

And these fanfares are likely responsible for the existence of this remake. So it’s obvious that the remake owed something to its biggest fans like Nomad Colossus which they respected with the inclusion of the “Boon of the Nomad” trophy and special thanks in the game’s credits.

The secret seekers will forever be part of the Shadow of the Colossus legacy and Bluepoint just made it stronger and more everlasting than before, allowing the newer generation an opportunity to partake in it on newer generation of consoles through backwards compatibility.

Shadow of the Colossus on PS4 definitely set the standards for a remake back in 2018 and many future projects to come; majority of fans and critics will agree to that. Bluepoint Games is very much likely to make similar efforts for upcoming projects as they did for SotC.