If you look up “beloved PS2 games” in the dictionary, this one is top of the list. Whether its narrow focus is masterfully simple design or an obvious flaw is up to your opinion. I find myself torn; I appreciate the sensibilities of its design and aesthetic—when it’s good it’s very good—but there are glaring shortcomings and annoyances too. Oh and spoilers ahoy.

Let’s first talk about where it didn’t hit the mark, and get it out of the way. The story is pants. We’ll have to compare it to Ico since it shares so much DNA. In Ico the goal is simple: escape, and Yorda both helps with that and is tied up in the plot, being introduced to Ico at the same time as the player meets her so we discover as he does. SotC meanwhile has Mono who is a MacGuffin who starts the game stuffed in a fridge, and we learn nothing about her. The real companion, Agro, has no plot relevance; of course, this doesn’t diminish the relationship between her and Wander that the player feels.

There is meaning and story there, but it’s either stuffed in at the end, or too subtle as it’s unspoken. My motivation as a player was to see the gameplay offered by the next colossus or experience riding around the world, not to see what happens next. And that ending! The twist was appreciated as it’s something actually happening, but everything else was just a little weird. Reading into the events and crafting theories is interesting, but parts of it just come out of nowhere. And if Dormin was so scary and powerful then why was it so easy for Emon to destroy him? Yeah, I dunno, just dumping all the story at the end wasn’t very satisfying for me and it was far more emotional when Agro fell off the cliff, because the game itself had established a connection to her.

So as a good point, the reliance on Agro made you feel the partnership. The poor horse doesn’t care about your motivations, she’s just loyal. Riding her around also felt good (when the controls cooperated), the game has good traversal and a wide open land full of mystery to explore. That’s why I chose the above screenshot; battling colossi is the focus of the game (and what most screenshots feature, obviously) but exploring, hunting lizards, finding new hills and valleys is at least half the experience and can feel soothing, a nice contrast to the high-tension fights.

The fights are mainly satisfying as well, at least if you manage them quickly; figuring out what to do makes you feel accomplished, and climbing these huge creatures is a unique and epic experience. Unfortunately there’s a high frustration factor, as failing to grasp the more obtuse solutions will result in drawn-out battles with repeated failure. A colossus shaking you is not in itself tense as holding R1 will often leave you safe, but the slow burn of your stamina dropping can be both exciting and wearying. Falling to the ground will elicit a sigh as you consider how to exploit the creature’s behaviour again, and chip away at its life bar. Some colossi are exhilarating while others are tedious. I also tried Time Attack which exacerbated the tedium to new heights, as you struggle against a time limit and the AI. So unfortunately the main draw is something of a mixed bag (thank you vocabulary of game review cliches).

Similarly, the music is very memorable and often appropriate, shifting (a bit clunkily) to a more exciting track when advancing the phase in a fight. But on those drawn-out battles though the repetition can grate. The visual design of the world and the colossi are great, very evocative, although the colour palette tends to the drab. I did have minor technical nitpicks with the HD version; pretty severe pop-in of textures and world geometry being the chief complaint. Not that big a deal to me personally but a bit disappointing.

This game is so different to most games in what it’s trying to be that you have to forgive some of its flaws. I don’t mind a series of boss battles with open world roaming in between, I like it a lot in fact. But the execution of some fights and the story elements do drag the game down. It’s fascinating, artful, and strange. But forgive me if I don’t torture myself with Hard Mode.