Shadow of the Colossus

About

Shadow of the Colossus, known as Wander and the Colossus in Japan, is a critically-acclaimed third-person action adventure fantasy RPG developed by Team Ico and SIE Japan Studio. Initially released for the Playstation 2, the game gained a legacy as one of the best video games of all time and has been re-released several times for subsequent Playstation consoles.

Gameplay

In the game, the player plays as an unnamed protagonist (known as "Wander") who takes a deceased lover to the Forbidden Lands in order to beseech a sleeping god named Dormin to resurrect her. The god agrees, but only if Wander kills sixteen giant beasts called colossi who roam the land. Upon killing each colossi, an unknown black essence enters the protagonist. It is shown that this essence strengthens Wander, while corrupting his body. The colossi, in order, are as follows: Valus, Quadratus, Gaius, Phaedra, Avion, Barba, Hydrus, Kuromori, Basaran, Dirge, Celosia, Pelagia, Phalanx, Cenobia, Argus and Malus.

Notably, the game's gameplay consists almost entirely of traveling to and fighting the colossi. There are no other enemies in the game--instead, the player spends most of the time seeking out colossi while on their horse, Agro. Once a player finds a colossus, they must seek out the weak points on their body, climb the body via various furry points a player can grab on to, and repeatedly stab the weak points. The player is limited by a stamina gauge that drains as the player holds on to the colossus's fur for too long. The colossi generally feature a gimmick or trick a player must solve before climbing.

History

Shadow of the Colossus was developed by Team Ico, directed by Fumito Ueda, and serves as a prequel to their prior game Ico.^[1] It began development in 2002, and Ueda demanded the game feature realistic physics. This resulted in gameplay that sometimes challenged the player regardless of their skill-level; for example, a colossus may shake too often for a player to get a clean stab on their weak point, or their horse, Agro, may not follow a player's directions. The game's music was composed by Kow Otani (example shown below).

Movie Adaptation

In April of 2009, a Shadow of the Colossus film was announced movie was announced, and that Fueda would be involved in the film's creation, and that the director of the movie Chronicle, Josh Trank, would direct it.^[2] However, no cast lists or release date have been announced, leading many to believe the project was scrapped.

Re-releases

The game has been re-released twice, once for the Playstation 3 as an HD remaster in September 2011 along with an HD remaster of Ico. An HD remake of the game is set to be released in February of 2018 (trailer shown below). The trailer for the game was released at E3 2017 (shown below).

Reception

Shadow of the Colossus received extremely high praise. On Metacritic,^[3] the game has a score of 91/100. Electronic Gaming Monthly awarded the game the Best Soundtrack of 2005 award, several Game of the Year awards. IGN gave the game a 9.7 out of 10, ranking second best game in the decade, the first being Half Life 2. It has been nominated for and won several gaming awards.

Online Presence

The game has developed a significant online fandom in the thirteen years since its release. Its subreddit has 1,400 readers.^[4] On Facebook,^[5] the game has over 29,000 likes. Additionally, the game has been played in several Let's Plays. On August 7th, 2015, jacksepticeye began a play-through of the game which he called his favorite ever. The first video in his series gained over 4.6 million views (shown below, left). Game Grumps also completed a playthrough of the game, starting in February of 2014. Their first episode gained over 1.6 million views (shown below, right).

Fan Art

The game has garnered a large fan art community online. There are hundreds of pieces of fan art on DeviantArt devoted to the game as well as many pieces of fan art on Tumblr (shown below).

Search Interest

External References