IX: Basaran, the Echoing Storm (Nimbus Recanto) A giant turtle and wanders the charred wastelands amongst the geysers. This huge creature fires powerful energy bolts at you that'll create quite a big shockwave. Quite a difficult colossus to figure out. X: Dirge, the Sand Tiger (Harena Tigris) A massive sandworm that inhabits a cave. You'll need to make good use of Agro and your bow to bring this one down. Quite an exhilerating fight with Dirge constantly chasing you. XI: Celosia, the Flame Guardian (Ignis Excubitor) This little guy is hardly colossal, but is extremely dangerous none the less. It'll hunt you down and swipe at you with its claws. Dormin chymes in to let you know that it fears the flames in which it guards. Could it be a hint? XII: Pelagia, the Great Basilisk (Permagnus Pistrix) This is one of the biggest colossi in the game. You'll have to be really crafty to figure this one out, and it could take quite awhile. This colossus has my favorite environment, taking up residence in a lake atop a huge waterfall in a very remote region of the forbidden land. XIII: Phalanx, the Drifter (Aeris Velivolus) Phalanx is quite possibly the most impressive colossus in the game. Though mostly harmless, it is by far the biggest and one of the most majestic sights you will ever see in a video game. Bringing this one down feels very wrong and gives you a little hint that perhaps Wander's campaign isn't exactly the most admirable. XIV: Cenobia, the Luster of Destruction (Clades Candor) Same build as Celosia, but bulkier and far more vicious. Cenobia immediately chases you down and tries to kill you. You'll have to make very good use of the terrain to keep this rampaging beast off of you, and one wrong move can cost you your life. XV: Argus, the Sentinal (Praesidium Vigilo) Same build as I and VI, but much harder to bring down. This guy could have the most complex and obscure method of defeat out of all the colossi in the game, except perhaps the last. This guy had me stumped for about 2 hours. XVI: Malus, the Grand Gigas (Grandis Supernus) The final colossus. Just the trip to get to him is taxing. The fight itself is exhausting and seems nearly impossible, nigh ridiculous at first. Though stationary, this colossus is still extremely intimidating and the epic battle with him will leave a lasting impression on you long after the game is over. Critics have said the battles in Shadow of the Colossus can be summed up as a matter of climbing up a colossus and stabbing it, just as the battles in most RPGs can be summed up as pressing a single button a whole lot and watching a lot of animations, or the battles in God of War or Ninja Gaiden can be summed up as hitting the attack button as fast as you can. The battles in etc. etc. etc. Why oversimplify this game's combat when any game can be simplified in such a manner? Shadow of the Colossus' battles are no less complex than any action/adventure game out there, but the lack of hectic button mashing and 30 hit combos gives the illusion that it lacks sophistication. Every battle in Shadow of the Colossus is a puzzle. The colossi aren't just giants that lumber around waiting for you to kill them. Most of them want to kill you just as much, and as the game progresses, they find more insidious ways to do so. To even begin scaling the colossus requires that you create an opening. This is done in a different way with every single battle, and some colossi give you several options to go about doing this. While the first two colossi are essentially training rounds, by the third fight, you're going to have to do some critical thinking. The way these battles play out is truly mesmerizing. No game has ever been so epic in its confrontations. You could easily project Shadow of the Colossus onto a movie screen and the audience would be absorbed by it as much as any epic fantasy film. Helping this along is the game's incredible camera. Many people complain that the game's camera is hard to handle, but this is clearly out of frustration at their inability to utilize it properly. Most of the time, you have complete control over the camera. So if you're having a problem with it, it's your fault. The camera hovers the perfect length from Wander, showing him and all the terrain around him that you (as the player) could possibly be concerned with. This is not a game that requires the camera to be tight. Your targets are huge, thus the camera should be properly adjusted to fit those targets. Occasionally, the camera will break away from your control and go into a cinematic pan. This usually happens when a colossus is preparing to perform a certain key action that is required for you to create an opening, and works incredibly well considering that without the game taking control of the camera, you may not be able to see those opportunities when they arise. One superb example is in the 10th battle against a giant sandworm-type colossus. You must ride across a subterranean desert at high speed as the colossus swims through the sand, chasing you down. As you do so, the camera pans back and gives you a startling shot of the colossus barreling down on you, at which point you must turn around backwards on Agro and land a shot in its eye. Of course, you can always pull the control back toward the player by manipulating the right analog, but this is usually detrimental to what the game is trying to do. Also, by holding the R2 button, you can "lock on" to a colossus, which will keep it centered in your screen no matter which way you turn. With these functions utilized properly, the camera will never leave you in the dark about what's happening. A failure of the camera in SotC represents a failure of the player. Some people also have trouble with the controls. While controlling Agro takes a bit of getting used to, you have to respect the fact that they wanted to make controlling Agro as realistic as possible. If you've ever ridden a horse, you'd know that the way Wander manipulates Agro is exactly how you manipulate a real stallion. Rather than just jumping on his back and directing him as you would your hero, you must spur him to get him going. Once he breaks into a gallop, you'll have to manipulate the reigns in order to direct Agro. Like I said, this takes a bit of getting used to. There's a ton of different things you can do with Agro, and the level of depth they went into with the control scheme is incredible. Aside from merely riding Agro, you can turn around on him in full 360 degrees. You can arch from his back. You can make him stop dead in his tracks, and from a stop, you can make him instantly burst into a full-speed gallop. When you have no weapon equipped, you can even gently stroke Agro by pressing the attack button. The complex and more realistic control scheme helps in making Agro feel and look more like a real horse. For the most part, the controls are responsive, tight, and you get amazing force feedback from Wander with everything you do with the controller. Once you've created an opening in the colossus, you must scale it to reach its weakpoints, denoted by glowing sigils which can be revealed at any time by pointing the sword at the colossus, assuming you have the opportunity to do so without being trampled. Functionality of climbing a colossus is simple and intuitive, but that doesn't suggest that the act of doing so is. To scale a colossus, you merely must jump onto an area of its body covered in "hair" (this is actually dead grass, as colossi are spawned from the earth itself) and hold the R1 button, which makes you grab. From this moment forth, you're running on borrowed time. You have a stamina meter which depletes as you hold on for dear life, the colossus writhing and bucking to try to throw you off. The struggle to reach a sigil is an epic one, but once you reach it, it's only a matter of time. At the sigil, you can raise your sword by holding the attack button. When you do so, a shockwave of light will radiate through your stamina meter (which is a circle, by the way). When that shockwave reaches the outer edge of the circle, it indicates that you will deal the optimum amount of damage to the colossus when you release the attack button. Doing so too soon or too late will result in merely a pin prick that will do miniscule damage and just piss the colossus off more. Executed timely, however, will plunge the sword into the colossus, penetrating its rocky flesh and causing geysers of black, oily blood to spray from its wounds. It's not that simple, however. Most colossi have multiple sigils, and once you've damaged one enough, it will disappear and you'll have to find another one. But remember, your stamina gauge is constantly depleting while you're holding onto the colossus. If you don't have enough time to get from one sigil to another, you're either going to have to leap off and try again or find a spot on the colossus' body where you can bide your time. When all is said and done, the colossus topples over. Suddenly, a strange feeling washes over you. Where normally you'd feel triumphant over the defeat of your enemy, the game presents the death of a colossus as a tragic event, and for good reason, as you'll find out later in the game. As the colossus dies, it unleashes a black cloud, which wisps through the air and dives into Wander's body. Its effects are unknown, but Wander passes out and awakens some time later in the altar where Dormin is ready to give him his next mission. This happens sixteen times, and that is essentially the progression of the game. At certain intervals, you'll be treated with a somewhat vague cutscene, a recurring dream Wander has of his beloved waking. Wander never says he loves this girl or that he's sad she's gone. But the idea is made clear by his expressions. The expressions of Shadow of the Colossus are extremely powerful and do not require dialog or narrative to assist them. The voice acting is very full of feeling. It uses the same made-up, Panzer Dragoon-esque fictional language ICO used. It provides an authentic feeling to the game's otherworldly setting. The other sounds in the game are exceptional as well. The ambience is so incredible that having music play throughout the game constantly would ruin the atmosphere. Everything you'd hear in real life wilderness, you hear in Shadow of the Colossus. The breeze, the rustling of leaves in the tree canopy, the trickle of water in a cave, the scurry of tiny critters as Wander's carelessly conspicuous footsteps tread by. It is crystal clear, superb, and all encompassing. The only time music does play in Shadow of the Colossus is during the cutscenes and the fights with the colossi. These pieces are some of the finest you will ever hear in any video game. The music is far less subtle than in ICO, and that's because SotC is a far less subtle game. While Michiru Oshima's score worked wonders for ICO, SotC required something far more epic. For this, Kow Otani, who set the atmosphere for one of the most beloved anime of our time, Gundam Wing, directing the London Philharmonic Orchestra, was chosen to compose an epic, sweeping masterpiece of a score, the likes of which is completely capable of rivaling the likes of John Williams, Howard Shore, or any of Hollywood's greatest composers. It is a powerful, moving, profound and varied collection of bombastic melodies, and only a game like Shadow of the Colossus is worthy of such a score. It is quite simply, one of the finest orchestral soundtrack in video games, to say the least. The opening theme sets the tone, with its beautiful strings and haunting vocals. The colossus themes, while reused occasionally, never become tired. Starting out foreboding and visceral, once Wander has found his footing and begins to attack, the music changes toward the invoking and inspiring. It lulls you into a frenzy of adrenaline, and will make you say to yourself, "By god, I will kill this thing!" To evoke this kind of emotion in the player is a sure sign of the soundtrack's utter success at capturing the essence of the action. Shadow of the Colossus doesn't merely end when it ends, and oh what a spectacular, powerful, and poetic ending it is. After you finish the game, you unlock a hard mode. You can also replay normal mode and play the Time Attack games that will allow you to unlock a host of new equipment for Wander, and new colors for Agro. The set of equipment you get for completing Time Attacks in Normal and Hard mode are completely different. Also, hard mode is interesting because the sigil locations on all the colossi are different, or more have been added. Thus, SotC doesn't get predictable in subsequent playthroughs. In all, your first playthrough of SotC is going to be somewhere between 8 and 12 hours. But by all means, do not simply play the game to fight the colossi. There is an incredible amount of time to be spent merely breathing in the environment. There are many well-hidden locations, paradises, lost shores and groves to explored that serve no importance in your quest to find the colossi, but are quite an adventure to find and beautiful to behold. You can also search for fruit and white-tailed lizards, which permanently raise your health and stamina, respectively. What more can I say about Shadow of the Colossus? This game has left an impression on me and many other players like no other. Over a year and a half after I've beaten it and I still can't stop thinking about it. Like any work of art, it has its critics. The fact of the matter is, Shadow of the Colossus is unique and wonderful and all that, but it is certainly not for everyone. It has the potential to rub people the wrong way, especially those whom approach it with certain predispositions toward action-packed games or games with heavy narratives, and especially people who approach with specific expectations (i.e. "I hope it plays like ____!" You will absolutely be disappointed if you if you expect SotC to be like anything else, because it is like nothing else out there. All I can say is, approach this title with an open mind and a clean slate. For some of you, Shadow of the Colossus will be an obtuse and abrasive mess. For many others, however, this could be one of the greatest gaming experiences of your life and a masterpiece you'll never forget. MP3s Download here Prologue - To the Ancient Land A Violent Encounter A Despair-filled Farewell Grotesque Figures Revived Power The Opened Way The End of the Battle Epilogue - Those Who Remain Thanks to Pitchfork for the editing help.