Reliving the thrill and heartbreak of Shadow Of The Colossus
I’ve Made A Terrible Mistake
Our Special Topics In Gameology series about bodies in games continued this week with an illustrated essay on Shadow Of The Colossus by Nick Wanserski. For many players, Shadow was a galvanizing work, a game that artfully folded emotion and subtle storytelling into its action (and abundant inaction) at a time where that reserved approach was even more of a rarity. It’s an important game for a lot of people, and the comments bore that out. TheLastMariachi cheekily pointed to Gaius (that’s the third creature, the one with the giant sword) as one of the better Colossi. Needlehacksaw made the case for a few others:
Gaius certainly is one of the most distinct ones. Others were more beautiful or intense for me, though, maybe because Gaius is too humanoid in appearance. (I’m a terrible person who feels worse about slaughtering what looks like an innocent incarnation of nature in the form of a giant beast than a giant human. How could you kill a creature like Pelagia, who reminded me of the giant turtle in The NeverEnding Story and is all the more adorable because of its misplaced teeth that you strike to remotely control it?)
As far as exciting battles go, I absolutely adored the thrill of hanging on for dear life while soaring through the air on Avion or being pulled down into the waters by Hydrus. And of course, there is Phalanx, a giant presence that can’t really be placed anywhere on the spectrum of beast, or plant, or just peaceful manifestation—which makes the fight against it kind of meditative and even introspective.
But the most moving encounter for me was Phaedra. The fight plays out like a perverted variation of hide and seek. You gain its attention by whistling, and it runs to the place it thinks you are while you crawl out of a tunnel behind it and start killing it. It’s probably so bad because Phaedra has a playful demeanor. It resembles nothing more than an oversized, petrified dog, or even a puppy. I’m usually not too sentimental a person, and games especially aren’t likely to hit me on an emotional level, but I have to admit that I teared up a little the moment my sword came down on Phaedra for the last time and it broke down in a wordless animation that somehow communicated not just agony but also an utter lack of understanding of what had happened to it.
TheLastMariachi came back to talk some more about Phalanx:
There’s a real beauty in how, like the article and needlehacksaw’s story illustrates, each encounter just feels so personal, and that’s the best (yet worst, from an emotional standpoint) part about it for me. While Gaius is one of my favorites, Phalanx is my number one. It never even attempts to attack you. It was just flying around, minding its own business, until I came along and decided to ruin its day. Then the black tendrils come out when it dies, and no matter where you to try to run, it’s gonna get you. Karma’s a bitch.
Phalanx was also one of Wolfman Jew’s favorites:
It also has an inspiring, unique beauty. We’re accustomed to seeing flying serpent monsters in games, but compared to how literally grounded so much of the land and Colossi are, Phalanx was such an otherworldly sight, as if going further into the desert would take you up to another planet.
Elsewhere, Duwease notes that your constant equine companion also serves to highlight the animalistic nature of the Colossi: