"The Truth is out there" once said a wise man. I think it was Socrates. Or a TV commercial or something.
Somtimes you find the truth by just question something down to his very bones. Wich i will do in the following list with my favorite game of all time,
Shadow of the Colossus. It is a simple game and there is not much going on if you look at it but as you play it it reveals you a world
that lies beyond your sensual perception. The emotion. The feel. The kick and the thrill. And it takes you down there full force.
It plays with your emotions like i never experienced it again in any game. If you just explore the giant world on your horse aimless you will always
find something that catches you curioustiy. May it a giant eagle that suddenly crosses the sky or a new area that is full of mystic and natural idyll.
And of course the Colossi themselfs. Words can't describe the feel of encountering them. You have the see and feel it on your own.
Anyhow. This game mystified me always and there are many thinks i can't wrap my head around until this very day.
This is an attempt to let you become a part of my musings. Oh. And MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT. I will nearly reveal all there is to know about this game in the following list.
So if you haven't played it, choose wisely.
The Squirrel
I love Shadow of the Colossus from the deep bottom of my gamer heart. So it is natuarlly that i tried to unlock everything in it.
I turned every stone, ate every lizard, gathered all the tasty papayas to max my Lifebar, beat Time Attack, beat Hard Time Attack, learned all
Agro related Moves, flew with the giant eagle, fought Tommy Lee Jones at the Cliff of Oblivion. Ok, i made the last one up.
Anyway. Something is still missing out. The magnus opus of gaming sidequests. Entering the secret garden.
It takes very very long to get there.
You need to max out Wanda to do so. And then you have to find it. And climb up to it.
Once entered though you notice a anamoly in the space time matrix of SoTC. A squirrel. The ONLY squirrel in the game.
Believe me, i'm hardcore at SoTC.
I know every grain of sand in that game. I even gave them names. So how did it survive?
The fruits in the secret garden lower your stamine-bar drastically if you eat them,
so supposedly they are poison. So it has no food source. Yet it is alive and well. I have seen enough X-Files episodes to see were this is going.
Another point is there are no other squirrels. So how did it even get there? By reproduction of two other squirrels? Impossible. There are none.
It is also known that every animal in the game is related to a colossi. The 9th colossus looks like a giant turtle and you find some turtles
if you look around carefully. The eagles âre related to the 5th colossus. Even Agro is the embodiment of the 4th colossus Phaedra, the horse colossus.
But not this mysterious immortal squirrel that lifes solitary on top of the sacred temple. It really seems like some kind of hairy Yoda to me. Anyways.
It will probably remain a big question-mark in the history of gaming.
The Ancient City
As you may or may not know Wanda travels a vast and lonely land only referred to as the Forbidden Land. There is not much to see there besides
Lizards, rocks and of course the obligatory Cola vending machine. But people are absolutely none to find. So it just blew my mind when i arrived at the
14th colossus. His habitat is a giant ancient city and he seems like some kind of left alone guard dog that still dwells there. This throws up so many
unanswered question. Why is Ace Ventura 2 better than the first one? And do i really look fat in this new pants?
It just made me wonder what the Forbidden Land used to be before the time Wanda discovered it. Did Dormin, main villain in the game, kill them all and got
therefore somehow sealed into the Sacred Tempel with the last glimpse of their power? Who knows? Obviously no one wich is by the way the whole
reason for this list.
Lord Emon
Halfway through the game, a cutscene pops up out of the middle of nowhere and interduces this guy.
He rides on a white horse through the Forbidden Land in search of something. Some new tires because his car broke down? Unlikely.
He is in search of the Sacred Temple to seal away what never was supposed to escape, Dormin.
This game has a fashion of covering major plot points up, wich is one reason i like it so much.
You are constantly forced to use your imagination or simply have
to accept the voids in the atmosphere of the game. But i'm getting to far from my original point.
We never really get to know about Emon to much. Does he prefer Coke or is he more
on the Pepsi side? Judging from his body, he likes them both. But i'm just goofing around again.
He is one of the key characters in the game and he is also it's narrator as you may have noticed in the opening scene.
To me he seems like some kind of Shaman/Knight that is bound to restore the order of the Forbidden Land.
It is also ironic that he kills Wanda in the end by throwing the Sword of the Sun at him, while Wanda overcame a horde of giant colossi in the first place.
But in the end it is not hard to tell where he stands. He definetly is one of the good ones in the game.
Agros Survival
Nearly at the end of the game, shortly before you face Malus, the last colossus, Wanda is forced to jump over a huge gap with his horse Agro.
What follows is one of the most tragic death scenes in game history. At least that was how i felt.
Agro falls down the cliff while Wanda reaches the other side with the last of his powers.
Agro falls about, i don't know exactly, but very very deep into a river. Finally, Wanda lost the last thing he had in life, Agro his horse.
Wich was just mean. Dickmove Team Ico. Major dickmove.
Anyways after Wanda slaying Malus, becoming ultimately Dormins vessel, getting slain by Emon and the credits start to roll
you see Agro returning to the Sacred Tempel.
This is one though horse i can tell ya. Falling from a cliff, probably breaking all your legs and still he is making it there.
Hats off to one though as nails bastard and my favorite video game animal ever.
Phaedra the 4th Colossus on Hard Time Attack
WHATTHEFUCKTEAMICOWHATWASFUCKINGWRONGWITHYOUBASTARDS!!!
!!YOUOUTRUNTHETIMEREVERYFUCKINGTIME!!!
ITHINKIGOTGOLFWARSYNDROMEFROMJUSTFIGHTINGHIM!!
1!!HARGABLARGHGGGAAAARH!!!1!!!HERPSTONDERPGARHGAGAR
!!!!!!!1!BUYCOLGATEOREVERYBODYWILLDIE!!!
I hope you enjoyed it Sydlexia Forum. Merry christmas!
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