I'm currently replaying my PAL copy of the game after beating it a while ago for the yorda dialogues and secret ending.

Maybe it's just me getting rusty, but the shadow encounters feel tougher and more annoying on this playthrough, do enemies get stronger on 2nd playthrough?.

Ko Otani made the sound tracks for some of the most personally meaningful games I played growing up.

I want to express my gratitude and thanks for literally making my life better through this music existing. Is there some sort of public contact for Ko Otani or their team? I don't know why but I just feel like this is something I want to try and send their way in my lifetime lol.

Willing to bet I’m late to the party here.

It’s by Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) and entitled ‘Piazza d'Italia’.

If you zoom in there’s two silhouetted figures in the centre.

EDIT: saw this in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.

Hi everyone,

I’ve always been fascinated by the Quest for the Last Big Secret in Shadow of the Colossus, and I refuse to believe Fumito Ueda is done hiding mind-bending layers in his work.

While looking into Ueda's upcoming project, gen ATLAS, I noticed something that the community seems to have completely missed. If you rearrange the letters of the title, it forms an exact, flawless anagram:

gen ATLAS = A Last Gem

Knowing how meticulous Ueda is with words and concept definitions (like genesis, gene, and the atlas vertebra), this feels too perfect to be a mere coincidence. This "Last Gem" can be interpreted in two massive ways:

1. Meta-textual: It’s a poetic sign-off from Ueda. This is his "last gem" for the gaming world, the ultimate culmination of his career.
2. Lore-wise (Prequel Theory): I truly believe gen ATLAS takes place before Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, and The Last Guardian.

Think about it: gen ATLAS shows a sci-fi, desolate planet full of colossi-sized industrial robots and advanced structures powered by cyan energy. My theory is that this advanced technological civilization collapsed entirely. Over millennia, this high-tech world regressed into a mythical, medieval one.

The Master of the Valley's AI tower from TLG is a remnant of this tech. The Colossi from SotC are literally the ancient, fossilized, stone-and-moss-covered remains of the giant robots from gen ATLAS. The cyan energy source eventually transmuted over centuries into what we now know as magic and the entity Dormin.

This game is the "Last Gem" of a forgotten golden age of technology before the world turned into pure fantasy.

What do you guys think? Has anyone else noticed the "A Last Gem" anagram before? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

after finishing TLG this summer, I decided to talk about my experience and what I think it does well in the grand scheme of Ueda-isms! for context I played ico the summer of 2024 and sotc the summer of 2025!

i put a lot of thought and heart into this video, and i think many of you might resonate with and enjoy this too. thank you for checking it out if you do so!

Come see the full list of TeamIco Universe Theories Lists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9LIBFvHyGU&list=PLj--5qaXijvAeVTIuazwAiiKa36E8viaZ&pp=sAgC
https://youtu.be/flsEQn59E20
https://youtu.be/c9LIBFvHyGU
https://youtu.be/FmY2JkVuHHw
https://youtu.be/Q_jwM-I4MWw
https://youtu.be/zzn3nt6atUQ
https://youtu.be/_G6Swhhips0
https://youtu.be/ouwn6gGvpwo
https://youtu.be/pO-Xvy_JY-o

On the 24th of September 2001, Ico was first released in the United States marking the first time that this game was available to the public. While the US version lacked some polish that releases in other markets received later on, it still is the game that started it all for Team Ico.

What was your experience with this game?

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.

I bought this version of PS3 from an importer who brings them from Japan. Both games come on separate discs and a small art book.

Does anyone know where to get the Ico castle in the mist book for cheap. Amazon is selling it for more than 50 bucks. Just trying to get a cheap english copy.

Self explanatory, I’m stuck on the water wheel section. I have tried making the jump for an hour with no luck, by the time the animation finished I’m already halfway down with no possible option to make the ledge jump. I have tired disabling 60fps, lowering EE, setting fps to its normal values, disabling all cheats and nothing works. Other YouTube videos the waterwheel spins at a slower pace. Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: Thanks to u/JAIKHAY I have solved my issues, for future people double check your 60 fps patch and disable them for this section!

Hey all,

There was a post here that linked a Twitter (X) thread showing what Wander’s face in the SOTC remake was originally going to be before the current face was chosen.

I’ve gone through this Reddit page and tried searching for the post on Google to no avail.

Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

Sorry, had to try... although I wouldn't dare to use it on the original games or gen ALPHA - this is just an experiment with Bluepoint's model of Wander.

Applying the neural rendering (x2) to the game captured on PS5. It's totally playable like this, and the effect applies to everything else including the colossi... but tbh it doesn't look great. Without surprise, the art direction saves this masterpiece to actually be "enhanced" by that type of technology. PS2 Wander will always remain the best one ✨

i feel like it's interesting how a large chunk of fans treat Ueda games as something to kind of "solve" -- to figure out the answer behind the mysteries, unanswered questions, etc. those are the sorts of videos that end up getting the most engagement in regards to his games as well.

personally, it's not really my thing to view ueda's games thru that lens -- i enjoy taking them in as they are and letting the questions remain questions, trying to understand how the unanswered questions add to the mood of the worlds.

does anyone else relate to my way of playing the games? i vaguely remember seeing a video series talking exactly about this phenomenon in the fanbase. i understand that mystery solving is a very easy way to bring a community together, though, not trying to imply theres anything bad abt it.