Shadow of the Colossus: How Music Tells Its Story

SotC plays with your morality: Wander, a boy that wanted to revive Mono and doesn't care about the price. Mono, a girl sacrificed because she had a cursed fate and was probably killed by Emon's religion in their village. Emon, a shaman that knows the story of Dormin, is the supposed leader of religion. He kills an innocent girl, because of a prophecy. Morally ambiguous at best. Some would say undeniably evil. He orders the murder of a defenseless boy. He can call it a mercy-killing all he wants, Wander wasn't hurting anyone at the time, and certainly had the will to live. Morally ambiguous at best. Dormin, a deity that can control life , seen as evil by their horns and sealed because of the fear the people had (betrayed posibly). I don't see Dormin as evil. Powerful, dangerous, yes. But we never see him do anything morally reprehensible. He attacks Emon and the soldiers, but they are trying to seal him away, as their ancestors did once before. He possesses the Wander but he does say that he is "borrowing" his body, so he was probably going to give it back, even if he hadn't been sealed. The killing of the colossi gradually destroy the wanderer's body, but he did tell him ahead of time that what he was about to do might cost him dearly. He promises to revive Mono once his power has been restored, and does so, even as he is sealed away again. He has a lot of negative imagery connected to him, but when you see the top of the hole from which Dormin spoke, there is a beautiful "Garden of Eden", more full of life than anywhere else in the forbidden lands. I think Dormin is someone who gained more power than his peers could accept, and sealed away in fear.

"you saved someone you loved, but you couldn't save everyone you loved" that is strikingly, hauntingly beautiful. you grow to love the different colossi but the goal is to kill them. there is no way to save them unless you don't play the game, but in that vein, you will be leaving wander to his pain and mono to her continued death. what a masterpiece

I have to say, as a musician, I wasn't expecting you to go into this much detail. Considering it's not your channel's usual area of expertise, this is impressively detailed musical analysis. Most of the time when games analysis channels cover music, they do it in very very basic terms using simple non-musical language that essentially means they can't go much further basic terms like "epic" or "tragic" or "mysterious". You making this video using real musical language and proper analysis makes it both more insightful and more useful to any aspiring composer, so thanks for that. By the way, did you transcribe the scores yourself or did you find them online? If so, where can I find them? I'd love to do some analysis on them myself.

I must say, Hamish: there's several fantastic(ally) insightful videos on your channel already; but you've really outdone yourself this time. This is an incredible piece of work. Respect.

6:08 I felt that...

Great work. As a composer myself, I've always learned a lot from this particular soundtrack. My favourite moment is the music that accompanies the battle against the final colussus - most final bosses have even grander music to heighten the sense of importance, but the music Otani has written takes a step back and doesn't need to further embellish the sheer physical presence of the colussus. It's funereal, slow, a lament to the falling colossi but also to Wander's last shreds of humanity which are about to be lost.

One of the best soundtracks in any piece of media. A true masterpiece. I wish Otani would compose for games more.

0:33 "You just deliberately killed a living breathing being who had done nothing against you other than trying to defend itself against your murderous intent. You should feel asham... NEVERMIND, HAVE A TROPHY!" Is there a way to turn this off?

This is my favorite game of all time

I'm not a musician, but I'm a visual artist. This game has always been a shining example of an interactive work of art. Thank you for a musician take on the game. I didn't understand all the terminology, but I enjoyed and appreciated it. Of the "Trilogy" SotC is my favorite, no contest. If there's a , ps5 VR hologram, 8K turbo edition, I will gladly buy it a 4th time without hesitation.

I can't remember the last time I felt like I actually learned something from a video essay.

Hi, I'm Adam Neely, and welcome to Writing on Games

Another thing worth mentioning is how the "Colossus-Themes" evolve over time. The early themes like "Revived Power" come off as more heroic and triumphant while over time the themes become much more melancholic, culminating in "Demise Of The Ritual" which sounds more like a mournful Requiem.

I fucking love your videos bro.

I have long championed this soundtrack as the best game soundtrack of all time. Utterly stunning.

What makes it unique is 1-Minimalism in design 2-a perfect implementation of what Emmanuel Kant would call "The sublime" by that we mean that dreadful moment that becomes a pleasurable one once it's seen from a safe distance. In this case, seeing the struggle with the giants from our TVs. You called that unease with our actions in the video and i agree with that description. the best example of that is the fight scene with the flying Colossus. Thanks for the great. video and the beautiful analysis.

Aaah... I love this game, its soundtrack, its staff. I often just can't listen to the soundtrack because it's just that good. It's almost transcendental. Meditative. Hearing it again in the video, opens you up to that kind of mindstate. It feels nice.

This was a really pleasant change. We're working on music for our project so this came at a very opportune time. Thanks for doing these videos. They are always doing in a fantastic fashion.

I wanna give a shoutout to some of Kow Otani's anime work as well. His soundtrack for Haibane Renmei is breathtakingly beautiful, and maybe his best work period, it's definitely up there.

I'm neither a musician, nor a music nerd and, the first time I played this game, I was 14. I never really knew why, until I got older, but I always had tears come to my eyes as I defeated the Collossi. Just by watching in the course of your video, the same thing happened again... This history is told by the amalgamation of all it's resources and the soundtrack plays one of the most important roles here. It's just... Timeless and emotional. Your video just helped me realize what kind of emotions I've really felt playing this game. Thank you for doing this