8. Shadow of the Colossus. The ultimate best PS4 exclusives
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What's that about? We travel through a land forgotten by both gods and men, searching for and murdering more majestic colossi.
Shadow of the Colossus is a cult classic by Fumito Ueda from the PlayStation 2 era, which still stands out in terms of its atmosphere and unique type of fun. And although this production has never been a huge sales hit, Sony allowed younger generations to get familiarized with it. On PlayStation 3, we got an HD remaster of this title, and on PS4, Bluepoint Games studio prepared a full-fledged remake, which proved that almost fifteen years of brilliant work of Team Ico after lifting can still make a huge impression.
In Shadow of the Colossus, players assume the role of Wander, a boy who brings the body of his beloved on his faithful horse Agro to a forbidden land in which no man has been seen for centuries. There, Wander makes a pact with an ancient being to kill sixteen colossi. In exchange, his beloved will be given her life back.
So we travel through the extremely melancholic areas, which consist of large patches of greenery, forests, mountain passes, bays - all dotted with ancient ruins, mostly resembling temples and chapels. Apart from our horse and the lizards and birds spotted here and there, there are no other creatures here – all these locations are completely deserted, which creates an unusual atmosphere, and a player accustomed to sandbox games that serve attractions on average every 30 seconds, can shock before one begins to appreciate this unique world.
Finally, we find the destination of our journey, the majestic colossi, with whom we begin the dance of death. Each giant poses a challenge in form of a puzzle, requiring players to discover its weak spots and the way to reach them by climbing on its powerful body. With each victory, instead of satisfaction, we feel sadness building up and wonder whether it is really worth killing such beautiful creatures in order to achieve one's own goals.
Shadow of the Colossus is one of those games one cannot doubt that they are dealing with real art. And thanks to the remake, it does not concede visually to modern titles and does not scare away players who expect a top-level setting. You may not like the policy of creating exclusive games, but such projects most clearly show why this is not only a bad phenomenon – if it were a multi-platform game, focused only on profit, and not on attracting a specific group of players to the console, it would never get such a budget and would not be so spectacular.
