Shadow of the Colossus (Spoilers herein)
 

I just beat Shadow of the Colossus, and I gotta say that was a damn fine game. I loved fighting the windserpent, easily my favorite fight. The final boss was confusing and frustrating, but I managed to kill him.

Here's my gripe, in good old invisi-text, ribbed for your pleasure.

Okay, he turns into some sort of Dormin-horned-demon-baby? What the fuck? Is that some sort of metaphor? I understood everything about how Dormin just used him to take his young body, and release his sixteen different spirits so he could again become a colossus. I'm cool with that. I expected a plot twist. But can someone explain to me how come his dead lover - at least that's what I assume - picked up his baby form and just started walking around with him?

I mean, I'm all for metaphorical endings and all...but seriously, what the hell?

Except for these gripes, I'm looking forward to playing it on Hard mode again. Terrific game, but seriously, what the hell was going on in that ending?

Fucking that's what I'm saying!

And that chick got totally fuckin shafted I mean she's dragged out of death so she can get stuck in this fuckin' weird castle, and on top of that now she's gotta change her boyfriends fuckin' diapers for the next eighteen years! I mean that is just not a healthy relationship right there.

Got it for Christmas and just beat it today (I beat Prince of Persia and put about 11 or 12 hours into DQ8 alongside that, so I'd say that's an accomplishment). So after having been an hour or two since I beat it, I can truly pass judgement.

My opinion on this game? It's freaking amazing. And there's really not much else I can say about it without going in depth on stuff. So, I'll just go into a few things that really impressed me.

1) The graphics. They made this game absolutely beautiful. Sure stuff would pop up every now and then, but who cares? You've got so many pretty landscapes to look at you won't even pay attention to that.

2)The colossi, of course. Other than the last one, who's a goddamn pain in the ass, all of them were really cool and very well animated. And, even if some were similar in design, they were all pretty unique. Plus all of them were fun as hell to kill once you figure them out. Only thing I don't like is when you kill them and it plays that one little death tune, which kinda makes you regret what you just did.

3) The story. So what if the ending's just a bit confusing, I like how everything you do turns out to be one gigantic mistake that ends up getting you killed and sealing off the Forgotten Land for eternity. Just one of those things that'll make you start to think a little more before doing something you think is right


Yeah, I think I'll be playing through it again eventually.

My problem is, though, is that after that priest says whatever he does and throws the sword into the water, no dialogue is spoken to explain anything about what's going on.

Don't get me wrong. It's an awesome game. But seriously, WTF?

Try out the Wikipedia info: (Spoilers aplenty in this link!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_...ry_Speculation

Basically, if you've played Ico, you'd notice something interesting about the horned babe. In Ico, children with horns (BADUMDUM!) are locked away in a cursed castle at a certain age. Inside this castle are shadowy monsters (DUM DUM DUM!) And an entirely shadowy black shaded Queen of evil, and a Brightly white shaded girl named Yorda who we are told is the Queen's daughter. Yorda looks like Mono. It's theorized that Mono (The chick you lost your mind, body, and manhood for) becomes the Dark Queen, as dark magic clearly brought her back.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

I played SotC before ICO, so when I was watching ICO's opening sequence, and saw the broken bridge, that was a big OMFG moment. Also, the spiral ramp you find Yorda at.

I just beat the game tonight, and I both hate/love the ending.

[SPOILER:] I may be a man, but I'm man enough to admit that it was really sad when he kept trying to reach the girl he fought so hard to save, but there were all those obstacles that kept him away. Even at the very end, when the portal dragged him away from her. It was sad. BUT HOW THE HELL DID HE TURN INTO A BABY! I'd understand if he died, or was completely purified, but how the hell did that work out?![/SPOILER]

And you know what? The 16th colossus can take his wrists of electricity and shove 'em where the sun don't shine.

Maybe because a baby is a symbol of purity.

The last one was kinda bleh, but he dwarfed all the other colossi. Even the largest was about half his size. But the one I hated was the sand worm because I HATE SANDWORMS. I hate them so much that as soon as I killed it I spent every last moment of consiousness stabbing the thing.

Maybe its just me but there was something satisfying about struggling against a collosus and then finally stabbing it and seeing that geyser of blood shoot out. In fact when I did my final attack on the final boss I actually said This is for my horse I mean what happened to him was just horrible. If you notice the horse actually flings you onto the ledge sacrificing itself.

The ending wasn't a huge suprise to me to be honest. As soon as I saw those black tendrils I knew this guy was making a huge mistake. In fact I once read an excellent point, you dont even know the collosi are evil to begin with. And its true, you just hear a disembodied voice tell you to kill 16 giants and you blindly obey. Far as you know they are the most selfless benevolent creatures on the planet.

I was thinking that they might have been good, too. I thought that up until the fifth colossus, when I started to notice that except for the first Colossus, each of them were either trapped somewhere or locked up. Someone was trying to keep them from roaming around. That's when I started to wonder if they were evil or not.

Also, I noticed a lot of ruins around. Which meant that this place once had people living there. Until I found out the truth, I was wondering if the Colossi were large organic machines that were built to defend the people, but then somehow turned on them.