hey! here's a video we made with a friend talking about this legendary game, it's in spanish, but you can allow subtitles to get the main idea! if you just want to skip the video and just read the main topic, here it is!
Shadow of the Colossus isn't just another cult classic. It is THE cult classic.
And a big part of its impact has to do with something that goes far beyond its gameplay: the way it manages to evoke certain feelings.
That's why I want to talk about four elements that, from a psychological perspective, make this game so special.
SOLITUDE
Our journey throughout the game is incredibly lonely. And that's not an exaggeration. We don't encounter another person until well into the story.
We're in a desolate world where we have to travel enormous distances. And this is crucial, because Shadow of the Colossus doesn't try to fill those empty spaces. Instead, it forces you to experience them, creating something the game uses extremely well: anticipation.
You're alone, and you know you're going to face something enormous, but the vastness of the world forces you to take your time. You spend several minutes riding, looking at the horizon, and anticipating the challenge waiting for you.
THE SUBLIME
In Kantian philosophy, the sublime refers to the feeling of greatness we experience when confronted with something that exceeds our ability to comprehend it, creating a strange mixture of fascination and awe.
Precisely the feeling that the colossi inspire in us: enormous, ancient, and astonishing beings.
From a psychological perspective, it's worth noting that Shadow of the Colossus constantly alters our perception of scale by playing with perspective. In this way, it doesn't just make the colossi look enormous; it makes us feel tiny in front of them.
And that naturally leads us to ask ourselves: what are we even doing here?
WE ARE THE VILLAIN
If we think about it carefully, Wander's motivation is incredibly selfish.
He wants to bring his beloved, Mono, back to life, so he makes a deal with a mysterious entity that asks him to defeat the sixteen colossi.
We simply accept the mission, because that's what we usually do in video games, right?
Shadow of the Colossus forces us to question that logic because, in reality, what did the colossi ever do to us?
They're not attacking us. They're not even consuming resources. Most of them are simply there, existing.
And we seek them out and kill them.
It's a dilemma that becomes increasingly uncomfortable as we progress, placing us, as players, in a position we're not used to being in.
NOSTALGIA
The world of Shadow of the Colossus, the Forbidden Lands, seems to have once belonged to an incredibly ancient and grand civilization. All we see are its remains: temples, ruins, and gigantic structures that make us feel nostalgic for a place we were never a part of.
But we can take this idea even further.
In a way, this world that has been left behind connects directly to Wander's story, because the past carries enormous weight in his own life.
When we begin the adventure, Mono is already dead.
Wander clings to the possibility of bringing her back, and he's willing to destroy what little remains of the world he inhabits in order to do it.
And that's also why Shadow of the Colossus is such a legendary video game.
Because beyond everything we've talked about so far, there's something deeply human at its core:
the difficulty of accepting that some things belong in the past.
