Shadow of the Colossus is a dark and somber game set on a beautiful and mostly silent world. The toppling of these giants in itself is an example of how far human cruelty can go when a goal must be achieved at all costs. To the violent death of mythical beasts that had probably lived for thousands of years at the hands of our “hero”. From the dead young girl, as the mere fact that someone so young should be dead is a terrible example of fate’s cruelty. What really resonated with me about Shadow of the Colossus at the time, is that a game had seldom said as much without saying anything, as Shadow of the Colossus had during my playthrough.įumito Ueda, the game’s creator and director, wanted to tell a story about cruelty, and Shadow of the Colossus successfully conveys his vision. The ending had some goosebump inducing implications for those of us who had played Ico before it. Wander is a silent protagonist, and thus, much of the story is visually implied, and dependant upon “Dormin” itself. According to a mysterious entity known as “Dormin”, he can bring her back to life, but he has to murder 16 “Idols/Colossi”, he might also have to pay a price in order to bring Mono back to life. Our protagonist, Wander, arrives at the Forbidden lands looking to resurrect a young beautiful girl named “Mono”, a girl that we assume from the outset, is romantically linked to him. In the most primitive of ways, his description was on point, but Shadow of the Colossus was, and is, so much more than that. I remember having a conversation with a GameStop employee back in 2005, as I was paying for the game on the counter we had a short chat in which he described the game for me as basically, “Just 16 boss battles”. There is no other game out there where the goal is to topple 16 giant bosses, that are spaced out in a gigantic (in 2005) open world where there is literally nothing else to do but to seek out these massive “colossi” and bring their life to an end. Shadow of the Colossus ( Metacritic 91/ NER: 9.5/10), was a masterpiece for its time in terms of visual design, and remains as moving as ever in terms of game design.
But Shadow of the Colossus turned 15 years old this month, and two console generations have passed us by in the meantime, thus making the PlayStation 2’s technical marvel, a game worthy of remembrance. Just this year, I played through its brilliant remake (Developed by Bluepoint). It feels strange to write about Shadow of the Colossus as a “Throwback” game.