Shadow of the Colossus is a rather strange game to review. Not because it's terrible but because a lot of the games I tend to play multiple times and write reviews on tend to not lean so heavily to the "artsy" side of gaming. Playing SotC feels like a game you are meant to play once or twice at the most but a third time can enter into the realm of diminishing returns. You play it the first time back on either PS2 or the PS3 HD version and then a 2nd time with the Bluepoint's remake of it and then stop there. It can be said for a lot of games but it feels most apparent for me here. There is still a lot of enjoyment and thrills to be had from SotC, it's just not the kind of game you play because of how "fun" it feels to play.
The story is interesting in that not much of it is told through cutscenes. What cutscenes are here are very brief and the storytelling itself is either inferred through details with the sparse dialogue or in the environment. If you are one of those, "every storytelling medium should use the strengths of it's medium" people, I got a feeling you would no doubt champion SotC and Team ICO's games by extension.
What the story can be boiled down to is that you play as a nameless Wanderer and ride his horse Agro as you traverse a forbidden and empty land as you kill monsters who have done nothing to you to resurrect a dead girl. Is she your girlfriend, your sister or an innocent woman he helps out of reluctance? Up to intrepretation. It's an interesting way to tell a story over multiple hours without overly relying on cutscenes and dialogue by extension. It can be an intriguing story to ponder on.
Gameplay is what carries any game and I respect SotC in a lot of ways. Remember those overly long and drawn out enemy waves that plagued ICO? Gone. There's no combat to be found here which to me is the developer realizing their limitations. They know making another game with poor combat wouldn't cut it so they made a boss rush title instead.
I also respect the game for how much it carries itself on these boss battles since outside of these moments, you'll be spent traversing a large, barren and empty world with barely anything to do or even find.
So no enemy waves and no explorable world. The game is ultimately a boss rush game broken up with long horse back rides. Your time is mostly spent fighting these super large "colossal" giants and gameplay is spent trying to find their weak spots and performing the most painful acupunture on both the giants and yourself.
There are two aspects that help sell you on how epic it all feels: music and controls.
The music is almost a character in of itself. I'd say without this soundtrack, the game would fall apart almost immediately. Hearing the haunting music pieces as you are trying to get on to the collosi but then when you get on, these super heroic and triuphant songs start playing and it gives the player the feeling that he is barely hanging on to dear life. It adds so much to the thrill.
How Wanderer controls also plays a role and this divides many. You of course got the grip guage but the way Wanderer platforms around or how unpredictably he can move creates a sense of unpredictablity to the gameplay. Wanderer could struggle to move the way you want him to, he'll fall when you least expect it or the him refusing to grab on to a ledge the way you intended him to.
I argue unlike ICO's terrible combat that there is some delibrate aspects to this since it's supposed to create a feeling that Wanderer is this small insignificant being climbing on a creature that is way bigger than him. It makes the title feel less "gamey" and makes the act of climbing more tension. I dislike using either of them as defenses but considering how SotC has no explorable world and no enemy waves, might as well try to something dynamic to the gameplay.
As a result even if the gameplay does become diminishing returns after a 2nd time, it can still feel amazing to defeat a collosi with the gripe guage almost depleted and with that music playing.
The game isn't absolved of issues. For one using the light sword can be cumbersome since there's a lot of dark areas and the sword is useless when the player is under them making these empty horse rides last a little longer than expected.
Wanderer takes forever to get back up after getting knocked down. It could take about a minute and if you are fighting smaller collosi, you could get hit again and repeat the process.
Since SotC is a puzzle game, you'll get more out of it if you're a speedrunner since if you already know the collosi weaknesses beforehand much of the boss fight gameplay is cut in half. You are meant to slowly think and ponder on how to beat them.
The final collosi is the weakest since by that point, SotC becomes an actual platformer and the collosi itself can feel gamey in how scripted it can add plus the controls needing you to be precise now.
Overall, SotC is still enjoyable but can run into issues
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