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 1 of 4
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
Read Parts Two, Three, Four and Five of this feature.
Many things embarrass me -- my penchant for cheap sport coats, my $10 haircuts, etc. -- yet few things embarrass me more than the fact that I've never actually finished
Shadow of the Colossus.
I'm not even sure why. I remember loving the game. The year was 2005. (Cue the foggy screen and harp music.) I'd finally reached the 16th and final Colossus. I climbed him. And I fell. I climbed him again, and fell. Climbed; fell. Climbed; fell. This went on for two straight nights. Like the sirens who lured weak-willed sailors to their deaths in ancient Homerian poetry, some other game came along and lured me away from
SotC for what was supposed to be a cheap, one-night affair. I never went back.
The game's eerie, understated opening plays like "The Lord of the Rings," only with 100-percent less talking.
A few weeks back, just before the holidays, I was coming off the game-journo burnout months of September, October and November, when I decided to return to
Shadow of the Colossus to right this wrong.
I watched the game's opening cinema. It's spare. It's understated. It's like a really good IFC movie. A man/boy on a horse hauling what appears to be the corpse of a pale girl/woman silently descends into what appears to be a long-shut tomb. Sound arty? It is. But the authentic eeriness of it all, coupled with the fact that the same guys who made the terrific
Ico also made this game, made me give the game the benefit of the doubt.
After this oddball trio reaches the bottom of the tomb, the boy places the lifeless woman on a stone dais. A booming voice begins speaking through a hole in the ceiling. "RWWRTT TOONAWAH. BONVITE HOLCHUM COOBAHYOU," the voice says. Thankfully, there are subtitles to translate. If I can defeat the 16 guardians, the subtitles explain, then my wish -- to resurrect the lifeless lady -- will be granted. Climbing aboard my horse, Agro, I set off into this at once familiar and foreign land, to do the voice-from-the-ceiling's bidding ... And so begins my story.
