I only fully remembered how masterful the art for this game is when I played it again. By making the Colossus itself a puzzle, the designers are able to make this mythological being of flesh and stone and hair into creatures that react to your actions, but still in some places represent or resemble buildings. It's quite amazing.
I spoke of the Colossi reacting, and they do. It's an interesting part of the game, but also a very sad one. At times, you can feel the panic of these creatures as they realize their fate, and more than once I felt terrible for being the one responsible for their deaths.
I didn't recognize the language that the characters spoke, and I think it was all made up, which I both liked and disliked. I liked that the game created its own language, but I didn't like that it turned all the dialogue into subtitles. I also was not a huge fan of the controls on the horse. You can do all sorts of cool things, but they're very difficult. Also, I can't count the number of times I leapt over my horse instead of getting on. Having played for another short while after writing that part and continuously dying (not even near a colossus) because of the controls, I'm going to have to revise my statement to say the horse controls out and out suck.
I loaded an old save game, and I realized that earlier I was incorrect. Your character does get stronger and better health as the game progresses, but it is so subtle that I didn't even notice until I loaded the last colossus after fighting the first.
In a way, I think that is the charm of this game. It is very subtle in its changes, though the challenges may seem overt (colossi). I just realized while playing that every time you kill a colossus, a piller of light rises up into the sky from that location permanently.
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This game blew me away. That much I just have to open with. The gameplay for this game is so much fun (when it isn't frustrating) that I almost can't explain it.
The Game presents you with minimum story, but makes you fascinated by it nonetheless. Who is the girl? Can this nameless boy save her? What are the Colossi? The makers make it clear that they will answer this on their own time, and you'd best just sit back and enjoy.
At first I was somewhat skeptical of this game. Then I played it. For being so simple, it is utterly magnificent. Solving the puzzles of how to defeat the colossi is gratifying in itself; it makes you feel so very clever. But the challenges are (usually) just hard enough to challenge you without infuriating you. There are no powerups, there are no special weapons, just a boy and his horse. And when you have slain a colossus, the reward is that you are closer to the end goal. And yet, this is the only reward you need in this game. Somehow, that is enough.
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