Shadow of the Colossus: a Retrospective

The Playstation 2 Era was host to a range of original titles that became instant classics, such as Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, and Sly Cooper, to name a pertinent few. While these games had solid mechanics and memorable characters, they weren’t looking to make a point. They were simply great games. Games were games, and art was art, separate worlds with their own place in the cultural zeitgeist. Even renowned developer Hideo Kojima said as much. But one PlayStation exclusive, while achieving less financial success than the aforementioned titles, managed to revive the discussion around games as an art form, and its influence can still be felt today.

Team Ico was a relatively small company in comparison to Naughty Dog and Insomniac, both established developers with relationships to Sony thanks to their smash-hit Crash Bandicoot and Spyro franchises, respectively. These were the, er, big dogs on campus in the PlayStationverse. By comparison, Team Ico was a small, subsidiary development studio — headed by one Fumito Ueda — inside of Japan Studio. Japan Studio had its fair share of PS1 Era successes with titles like Ape Escape, PaRappa the Rapper, and Gran Turismo, but Japan Studio — though they worked directly on the development of Ape Escape — existed more as a financier for third party developers, and Ueda, a new face in the company, had never helmed a studio before. He previously worked under Kenji Eno on Enemy Zero for the Sega Saturn, before being hired to run Team Ico in 1997. Four years later, the Team released their titular title, Ico, to critical (but not commercial) acclaim before beginning work on their second project, Wanda and the Colossus.

The development of Wanda and the Colossus is something of a giant in itself. Limited by the PlayStation 2’s memory capacities, Ueda had to scrap several ambitious ideas along the way. His proposed 48 Colossi were ultimately cut down to 16. The world, inspired by the geography of the American Southwest, had to be scaled back significantly. The lighting, advanced for its time, caused framerate issues. Sacrifices had to be made in order to make a playable game that kept in line with Ueda’s vision. The team was given more funds and a larger workforce than they had on Ico, thanks in part to the game’s critical success. Larger teams allowed the workload to be divided more, but it also meant that more oversight had to be maintained to keep the vision consistent. Ueda and his producer would spend long nights after hours, adding final touches to the work their team had done that day.

To listen to Ueda speak about the game, one might realize that he is an artist first, game designer second. Ueda was more concerned with how the game felt than how it played. He wanted Wander, the titular character, to move with an air of “cool”. The color grade, lots of greys and greens with some orange and blue thrown between, was meant to create a feeling of impact in the world. The Colossi were designed as inverted Zelda dungeons, each with their own unique strategy, but abiding by the same basic rules: climb it, find the weak spot, stab it. Wander is equipped with both a sword and a bow, but the bow is little more than a supplemental attack strategy, doing finite damage to the Colossi before being rendered useless. Each beast must be physically climbed, and its weakspots physically stabbed with the sword, in order for it to be felled. It is as much a game about persistence in the face of insurmountable odds, as it is an action-adventure game.

But the game also gives the player plenty of space for quiet reflection between boss fights, as there are no other enemies in the world besides the 16 fur-and-stone beasts. As Wander’s physical state deteriorates with the slaying of each Colossus, the player may come into conflict with themselves, wondering if their mission is ultimately worth it. In their travels, the player may occasionally stumble upon a fruit tree or an old temple with light-tailed geckos roaming the base. These fruits and geckos provide boosts to the player’s maximum health and stamina, giving them more of a fighting chance against the giants. There is seldom other life in the world, with birds sometimes flying alongside the hero as he rides his trusty steed, Agro — birds that can be grappled with the right timing; or turtles gathered by some still pool of water. Other than that, the game’s mechanics are fairly simple: reflect the sunlight from your sword, follow the light, find the beast, climb them, and slay them.

Players who have played the game several times will eventually know the tricks and locations of each beast, and the game is aware of this. It’s why they implemented a time attack mode, so that players who feel comfortable with their strategies can test themselves against the clock. Successful completion of these time attacks nets players some new equipment and power-ups — eight items for Normal Mode and eight for Hard Mode, which is available after the first playthrough.

Another valiant point of interest is the score. Shadow of the Colossus is home to an original soundtrack by a live studio orchestra, with each major moment of the game carefully represented by a certain motif or melody. The music moves from soft and ethereal to loud and gallant, and wherever danger is near or emotions pass, the music is there to accompany it. Out in the open, away from the beasts and temples, the only sound the player hears is the wind and the stomps of hooves against the ground. When the music starts playing, it’s a clear sign that it’s about to go down.

Ico generated a cult following, and anticipations were high for the sequel title. When the second title, dubbed Shadow of the Colossus for North American audiences, was shown at E3, players flocked to get a look at what the game offered. People were blown away by the game’s unique approach to storytelling, where it was largely up to the player to piece together this broken world and the reasons for it being in the state it is. It gave the feeling of a world long lived-in and long since abandoned, with seldom in the way of written records to explain it. Players who finish the game are typically left feeling surprised by the enormity of it. It was an anomaly in the gaming world, but this uniqueness was a big part of its charm. It eventually went on to sell over a million copies on the PlayStation 2 and earn the coveted red stripe of the Greatest Hits.

Perhaps what this game represents most, from its development to its gameplay and release, is a struggle against insurmountable odds. It is what great epics have always been made of: a naive hero doing an impossible thing in the name of love, and what they sacrifice for it. Perhaps Ueda was hoping to tell his own story, of what it’s like to face giants. Whatever it is, or was meant to be, it has captured the hearts of gamers around the world. Few games in the PlayStation canon have earned not one, but two remasters, and Shadow of the Colossus can count itself among the fortunate. It’s evident that this is a gaming experience Sony feels is worthy to be experienced by several generations of gamers, and – in my humble opinion – it is one of the most memorable and masterful.