Man Versus Shadow of the Colossus, Part 1
How I Killed 16 Colossi in 16 Days (Well, 17 Days. OK, 18 Days)
1/26/2009 8:00 PM | 14 Comments | Page 4 of 4
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
As I'm waiting for my late-morning train to take me back to New York, I remember how once each Colossus is defeated, glowing black spaghetti comes flying out of the Colossus and flies into my little warrior-man/boy. He collapses, only to wake up on the floor of the shrine where I started.
An announcement comes over the train station's P.A. system. My train is delayed an hour. Great. I buy a sandwich and sit alone, wishing some glowing black spaghetti would come flying out of nowhere, and I'd pass out and wake up on the floor (hopefully in a clean spot) of Penn Station.
Back in my Queens apartment, with the winter sun already fading, Agro and I find ourselves standing next to a dank, dark lake. Somewhere out there is Colossus No. 3. Agro can't swim, so I leave the horse on shore and walk into the dark water.
Colossus No. 3: Let this big bastard take a swing at you. No, seriously. Let him swing. Just make sure he hits the raised stone platform instead of you.
Swimming creeps me out. The lake seems primal and menacing. It feels like I'm the first person to touch these waters in hundreds of years. Strange shapes on the bottom appear to be moving. A platform appears in the mist. I take a circular pathway upwards. A few precarious leaps later, the screen shifts to the familiar letterbox format, indicating that IT IS TIME FOR THE OFFICIAL PRESENTATION OF THE COLOSSUS. It's an awesome sight; it's very theatrical. This Colossus is bipedal. And he's bearing down on me, taking pokes at me with a sword that's only slightly smaller than New York's Chrysler Building.
I find a slightly raised, circular piece of stone near the center of the arena. It's the only aberration in the place. I'm studying the stone piece when the Colossus creeps up behind me and takes another swing at me with his sword/Chrysler Building. Because of where I'm standing, the sword lands directly on the stone platform. The reverberations send shivers the length of his arm, causing a chunk of concrete to break free in the elbow region.
He takes another swing at me, and misses. His sword conveniently gets stuck in the terrain for a few extra moments. This is my chance. I scamper the length of the sword, and grab the now-exposed ridge at the elbow. Once the beast brings its elbow close enough to its hair-covered torso, I leap from the elbow to the torso and begin to climb.
This one has two weak points. I give it to him first in the blue tattoo on his chest. Then I climb higher, and finish him off, with a couple of jabs to the tattoo on his head. He crumbles in slow-motion before my eyes. More glowing black spaghetti. Again, I wake up on the floor of the shrine, in the same way that Robert Downey, Jr. used to wake up in his neighbor's houses after his benders.
Read Parts Two, Three, Four and Five.
