Shadow Of The Colossus: why it is so much praised?

[sanguis3k]

fruits and lizards who you assume do nothing but find out through various stuff on the net that they increase your health and grip gauge... Might have been something worth mentioning in the manual?

i never actually found them i just kept hammering all the colossi with the upgrades you get from killing each one. by the end your grip and health is so massive it takes one hell of a beating to take you down anyway

 

[elbowlick]

Keep in mind that, no matter how widely-praised a game is, there's always the chance that it is simply not for you.

Just look at Super Mario Bros. One of the most highly-acclaimed games in history, that regularly places at or very near the top of top-(insert number here) lists, but I never found it to be all that, even back when it was still new. Sure, it was fun, but I wouldn't have even put in on a top-10 NES games of the 1980's list at the time, much less the top 10 video games of all time...

This is pretty much the exact answer you need. There is always going to something that most people loved but a minority was not interested in or they even hated (I'd argue that many haters exist because they were originally disinterested but then everyone who liked reminded them how great it was. Case and point: Halo. Note that I do not actually care about Halo). Even if you can even see reasons why people liked it and you still might not enjoy it.

 

[Chancie]

I went into it not expecting too much from it. I had thought that maybe the idea of just killing a bunch of bosses was going to be boring, but I wanted to give it a try.

I like how unique is is, and you won't find anything else like it. The feeling of being totally alone, the music, everything about it was just brilliant and beautiful. Not to mention the ending. I really liked SotC before the end, but the ending really made it for me. It's so beautiful and very bittersweet. It was great up until that point, but that really pushed it into my "favorites" category.

Sorry you didn't enjoy it. It's really a shame, but like everything else, it obviously won't appeal to everyone.

 

[Slenn]

I didn't play the game, but I watched my friends play this game and it looked incredibly boring for the same reasons you gave.
I'll give the game credit that its graphics are amazing at it took a lot of creative liberties to make a different adventure game. But for me I wanted something more than two people in a game and very few dialogue. I wanted more interaction with other different characters, and the environments while amazingly large, got incredibly boring and repetitive. Nothing about this game seemed incredible and compelling.

 

[Ashcrexl]

i think the thing that turns people off the most is the loneliness of the game, the quiet beauty. it's kinda the point, but i guess some people (like you) are too accustomed to shit goin down all around you and cant take a bit of peaceful, alienating impressionism.

also, i notice you seem to have a problem with platforming a la prince of persia. beating the bosses and sometimes just traversing the landscape requires some pretty intense climbing.

i guess, what im saying is that this game, despite being amazing, is NOT FOR EVERYONE. like you.

i apologize if i sound like a dick, but i am.

 

[loremazd]

On a related note, I think you disliked this game because it lacks something other games have: structure. You aren't given the why's or the whats. You have to interperate it for yourself. Not to mention the Collossi are not really evil in any sense of the word, and your benefactors are not entirely benelovent.

It give you very basic tools, and tells you nothing else, you have to figure out everything, do everything, interperate everything. And I believe you saw that as a waste of time.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

I got it before it was really held up to be ideal case of games as art, no expectations found it used at the local gamestop. I killed most of the bosses but I just found the game really boring. Not my thing.

 

[Mikaze]

I didn't play the game, but I watched my friends play this game and it looked incredibly boring for the same reasons you gave.
I'll give the game credit that its graphics are amazing at it took a lot of creative liberties to make a different adventure game. But for me I wanted something more than two people in a game and very few dialogue. I wanted more interaction with other different characters, and the environments while amazingly large, got incredibly boring and repetitive. Nothing about this game seemed incredible and compelling.

That's the thing with SotC, it's not a game you can watch, it's something you have to play for yourself. You don't get the feel of the game just from watching, and it's that feeling that made it truly epic.

 

[Z(ombie)fan]

I wanted to like it, Im mean, you hunt and kill giants. if done well, this is guaranteed to be awesome. Unigueness does not equal quality...

question: who the hell thought putting NOTHING into the wasteland would be a could Idea?
ANswer: someone who shouldn't be making games.

 

[Lullabye]

This is why i like it:

I think thats why we all like it.
Damn that was an awesome game.

Also, I like how the OP can't play such a simple game.

HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW WHERE TO GO? THERE IS AN ENTIRE GAME MECHANIC MADE TO MAKE SURE YOU DON"T GET LOST!
Fail kid...just fail...

 

[Gomithrus]

for me it was how the music worked so well to complement the game, also the cinematics when the colossi appeared were awesome

 

[Bonecrusher]

SotC was awesome.

Sorry if you didn't like it.

It is not just that I like it or not.
There are plenty of games that I don't like it, but has interesting points and a reason.
Unfortunately, I felt very empty playing this game, and wondered if I am doing something wrong...

Its the combination of story, setting, action, and graphics(which at the time for AWESOME!!!111!!) that made this game get the praise it got, and it deserves it. The game is just amazing.

story? what story? there is a long boring intro that shows nothing, when the game starts it tells nothing, and then we are attacking a "boss" without a purpose.

ok, may be the story opens and develops over time, I didn't play that much. But there are some examples for "less story in the beginning, widens past and future exponentially" type of games, for example Darksiders or Prototype, and even those games give "hint" in their intros or the first level. SOTC doesn't have similar things.

Stick to masturbating and FPS.

/facepalm

wrong prejudice...

I like how the OP can't play such a simple game.

HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW WHERE TO GO? THERE IS AN ENTIRE GAME MECHANIC MADE TO MAKE SURE YOU DON"T GET LOST!
Fail kid...just fail...

fail for me? sorry it was game's fault, not me.

I played countless games before. Almost all the games can be reduced to two types: 1) nonlineer sandbox games that you can find different missions accross the map, 2) lineer mission based games that you need to go a specific path and can't go another place.
even in some sandbox games restrict player movements if other places have no reason to go.

But this game gives you an empty story and an empty world. When I first played, I wanted to explore the world reflexively, and went to different places. RPG and Action games familiarized us to explore the zones to find different items that will help us future on.

About the "entire game mechanic made to make sure you don't get lost": there are compasses, maps, gps that show you where you need to go, in other games too, but I didn't need those things. Because games have given or hidden signs that directs you for the correct path.

I wanted to explore the world (found nothing) and didn't pay attention to the sword thingy, that made me lost in the game.

This is why i like it:

I think thats why we all like it.
Damn that was an awesome game.

So, the game praised just for killing colossal bosses?
If you like colossal boss fights, you will love it.
That's it?

By the way I don't try to bad mouth or denigrate the game here.
I am just trying to understand why people loved the game, while I encountered with emptiness.

If the only reason people like this game is the colossal boss fights, that's mean my disliking to the game is due to not being my type of game.
However, if there are more deep things in the game that people liked, it will mean that I skipped some important parts of the game, and I need to replay the game to see those beauties.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

I've heard everywhere that sotc is an awesome game, and I bought one a few years ago. Even some people told "It is the Planescape: Torment of consoles, if you loved Torment, go and get it".
I had high expectations, but at the end it was just waste of money for me.

I learned a while ago to stop trusting the groupthink on these things.

 

[fletch_talon]

story? what story? there is a long boring intro that shows nothing, when the game starts it tells nothing, and then we are attacking a "boss" without a purpose.

Its been a while but I distinctly remember laying the girl's body upon the alter and having a presence speak to me (in the game, I'm not crazy) telling me what to do if I want her to be resurrected.
The presence tells you to kill the colossi and in return offers to grant your wish, or something along those lines.

 

[Altorin]

story? what story? there is a long boring intro that shows nothing, when the game starts it tells nothing, and then we are attacking a "boss" without a purpose.

ok, may be the story opens and develops over time, I didn't play that much. But there are some examples for "less story in the beginning, widens past and future exponentially" type of games, for example Darksiders or Prototype, and even those games give "hint" in their intros or the first level. SOTC doesn't have similar things.

Did you even kill 1 colossus? Because each time you kill a colossus, a black entity appears and kills you. The idea of the story is in the subtext. Basically, you (the character in the game) are being very selfish. You want your girlfriend to come back to life. You're willing to do anything for that to occur. You visit a creepy temple and some unknown force tells you that if you do what it says, your girlfriend will be restored, so you go do it. It says - Go fight and destroy the huge monsters, and as a reward, your love will return.

But as you play through the game, it becomes pretty evident that the thing that is offering you what you need is actually getting you to do pretty horrible things. Hunting down majestic, unique, and altogether innocent creatures, and butcher them for your own selfish ideals, and each time you kill one, you get darker and darker.

It's a classic story trope that doesn't really need any extra filler.

The game's story is all in the pretext, and it's fine if you're not interested in that, and I'm sorry you wasted your money - it doesn't make the people that appreciated it wrong, and it doesn't even mean they should have shut the hell up about how good it was, because it was really good.

You do make some valid points, but everything that you mention, even the largely empty world, is all part of the setting, it begs the question, why is it empty? The developers could have filled it. But they wanted to promote the idea that you could be killing the only wildlife that actually exists in this part of the world.

Whoever told you it was like planescape torment though was a moron. I've NEVER heard anyone compare it to torment, because it's about the opposite of torment, in all factors except its epicness.

 

[guntotingtomcat]

You're playing it wrong, or you have a crap version.
1. intro cut scene is skipable, if that's not your thing
2. there are ample hints and tutorial pop ups throughout the first mission, one of them explicitly telling you "press this button to raise your sword"
3. if your first thought in the first cutscene was "nothing's happening", then it probably isn't the game for you.

 

[AyreonMaiden]

The atmosphere and...everything else but the actual control scheme made it awesome for me. I'm one of those story- and atmosphere-gamers. Killer7 is my favorite non-Zelda game of all time, and that game had extremely polarizing gameplay, but story and atmosphere in spades.

However, I'm not gonna say that "leaving things open to interpretation" is a good thing or a bad thing about Shadow of the Colossus. Because I personally don't blame you if you felt there was no story in there. I asked myself a lot of questions about SoTC's world and story and had to kinda sigh and accept that "durr it's what you want it to be art art fart" which made me a little sad, but again, atmosphere and the BEING IN THE MOMENT dampened that blow by A LOT. It got to where there was no need to think about the past of this place. What mattered was the present, and what I'M doing there. But I suppose your enjoyment of that depends on what the things that DO exist make you feel. And you know, sometimes people THINK they wanna know the truth about everything, but they truly don't (see: the ending of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, The entire Star Wars prequels) so maybe it's good that they didn't go into too much detail.

I tend to hate when TOO much is left open to interpretation, though, because it's not a long walk from "open to interpretation" to "non-existent, and you fooling yourself into thinking it exists," And I tend to hold in a higher regard what the creator of a story had in mind over what any coffee-sipping overthinker decides (Ray Bradbury walked out of a lecture after some snob pushed his interpretation of Fahrenheit 451 on him, and I thought that was far too badass for me not to mention.) I don't like feeling like I have to put words in the creator's mouth when it comes to his or her own story.

It's also why I can't stand indie lyrics usually. Some are fine, but for others I can't shake the feeling that they have nothing to say and are random and quirky for the sake of it.

And I also don't think you're wrong if you like a more traditional structure in games, unlike a lot of the pretentious snobs who like to tell you to go back to FPS and masturbate. That has a beauty in and of itself. Don't let any art snot belittle you for liking structure.

 

[GundamSentinel]

I had high expectations, but at the end it was just waste of money for me.

It just isn't for you. That's not your fault, that's not the game's fault. That's just how it is. To me, it's the best game ever. It has a great story, if you have the patience to discover it. Yes, it is empty and there is nothing else to do but kill Colossi, but that is just part of the atmosphere of the game. It is supposed to be empty.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I remember trying to play this game a few years ago and this is what I have to say: how BORING. I knew what the expect, but that's no excuse for being one of the most boring and possibly pretentious games in history. It tries so hard to be "deep" and is nothing more than "The Road" a game about nothing that forgets that you can't hold a game together on a dull world, rinse-repeat game structure, and no attachment to characters. I liked Ico, but SotC's praise is undeserved. If it is art, it's BAD art