Hi, I’m Hamish Black and welcome to Writing on Games.
Shadow of the Colossus is considered by many to be one of those rare classics that you
need to play before you die, and a large part of that, I think, is down to its story (or,
at least, the way it’s told).
Within its simple tale of a boy slaying gigantic beasts to resurrect his deceased ward, it
manages to get you questioning your complicity, as a player, in what’s happening on screen.
You carry out these objectives because you’re the player character and that means you’re
in the right, right?
Well, as you fell colossus after colossus and your sense of achievement quickly turns
to a growing sense of dread, you begin to get the feeling that the game doesn’t see
things that way.
It’s masterful; arguably laying down the framework for the many other games that would
tackle moral ambiguity in the player’s actions in years to come.
But think about how it is that story is actually conveyed to you.
There’s little in the way of exposition; nothing explicitly telling you that what you’re
doing is wrong.
There’s nothing inherently evil or sad about the visual of a monster collapsing, you see
that in games all the time.
You kill monster, monster falls.
And yet, there’s something about Shadow of the Colossus that makes that fall feel
truly painful, that makes the landscape feel vast and unknowable, that manages to instil
a general sense of unease in your every action.
It’s a device that’s arguably as important as any mechanic in the game in delivering
its story, and yet it feels so often overlooked: it’s Kow Otani’s unbelievable soundtrack.
It’s not just a case of “it’s really good or it’s memorable.”
I genuinely feel that the music in this game, the specific compositional techniques implemented,
play one of the biggest roles in creating the sense of ubiquitous mystery and apprehension
so crucial to the game’s narrative; arguably telling its story, perhaps the most notable
aspect of Shadow’s legacy, in a way words, images or even mechanics might not.
Take a track like Prohibited Arts, for example, that plays when you enter the temple for the
first time.
It’s a soft, lilting piece of music, mainly revolving around a simple I-VI-IV chord progression
in the bass.
It moves in distinct blocks, making way for a strong diatonic melody in the higher register.
You can imagine walking slowly to this rhythm, like a march; it lines up with Wander’s
footsteps, lending the setting an almost religious weight, like you’re stepping on hallowed
ground.
When the bass briefly transitions from the D minor to the Eb major chord, however, it
clashes with the E and the A in the melody, creating intervals of a minor 2nd and an augmented
4th respectively (perhaps the most dissonant intervals one could envision).
It’s a brief dissonance, combined with the unexpected timbral stab of a stringed instrument;
a subtle nod that things aren’t quite what they seem, that you’re stepping where you
perhaps shouldn’t.
In this less than two minutes of music, you already have the composition outlining what
will shortly be reinforced through exposition.
The music is telling the story without words.
Furthermore, this feeling of mystery is continued once you begin to explore the vast open world
through the score’s sparse, somewhat atypical instrumentation.
Specifically, it’s the use of the bouzouki; the guitar-like instrument used by Otani thanks
to its ability to transcend any one nation’s music, as it can be thought of as Mediterranean,
Middle-Eastern or Asian.
It’s nonspecific; you’re supposed to feel like an outsider here, like you can’t quite
make sense of where you are or what you’re witnessing even if it might feel familiar,
and the instrumentation is a significant factor in that.
Hell, even at its most climactic, the music still carries this sense of weight and mystery.
Different to most battle themes in other games, where you might expect some speedy, pulsing
synths or rhythmic syncopation to evoke anxious energy, Shadow of the Colossus greets you
with something more understated.
The track The Opened Way, that plays when you mount certain colossi, sticks to a fairly
leisurely 130bpm, which on its own is hardly enough to send your blood racing.
The melody played by the higher register strings and brass sounds huge, for sure, but it’s
also incredibly simple, rigidly sticking to blocky quarter and eighth note rhythms.
It’s a rigidity mirrored by the bass and percussion, with the former rarely moving
much (very occasionally going to the C or D major from the E minor root), creating something
of an ominous drone, and the ostinato (or repeated pattern) in the percussion weighs
everything down; pounding the rhythm into your head; again, like a slow but intense
march.
Grasping onto the wing of a giant bird as it soars through the air at ludicrous speeds,
for example, should evoke feelings of swashbuckling adventure; it’s the crescendo following
the long stretches of exploration, and it’s to the score’s credit that the music is
both simple enough to be memorable, as well as enough of a dynamic elevation to feel momentous.
But it’s also melancholic in its own way, almost funereal in the way the rhythm stomps
along.
And as the battle reaches its conclusion and the final blow is struck, it’s this melancholy
that becomes the focus.
In any other game, after taking down a monster, the player might expect some kind of triumphant
fanfare, celebrating their overcoming of unfavourable odds.
You know, the kind of catchy, upbeat end-of-battle theme you get in games like Final Fantasy,
designed to release the tension of the preceding action.
In Shadow of the Colossus, any triumphalism is thrown out the window, as the agonising
fall of the slain colossus is mirrored by the protracted descent of chords (going from
an inverted D minor, to E, to E flat, before resting on the root D minor), slowly toppling
through a chromatic progression.
What’s more, listen to the way the chords shift; the underlying harmony moves, but there’s
always that one note (specifically the 5th) that lingers for a couple of beats afterwards,
feeling like it only resolves at the last possible second.
It’s known as a suspension; a means of evoking tension by creating a brief dissonance as
the chord doesn’t resolve right away.
In the best possible way, it’s languid; it’s painful.
You want to will the note forward, put the chord out of its misery.
But it doesn’t end there.
As the monster lays lifeless, the sombre minor chords resolve to a G major played lightly
by the strings.
What was once grim now feels light, happy and airy, violently clashing with the visuals
of, ya know, being consumed by black toxic sludge.
The music now conveys a sense of irony, almost poking fun at you for thinking that you’ve
done any good here.
Congratulations, you’ve just killed a docile beast; you’ve partially accelerated the
inevitable decay of this world for purely selfish gains.
Good job, ya mad dick.
The thing is, could you imagine this sentiment, this unease, this irony feeling as prevalent
if the music was any different in this scenario?
No, it’s this specific composition that tells this story.
The music is as much a narrative device as the mechanics.
It’s literally a funeral march; following in the tradition of Beethoven’s Eroica or
Chopin’s Sonata in B flat Minor.
Right down to the brief shift to a major key, feeling totally at odds with the otherwise
grim nature of those pieces.
It’s an irony not lost on Otani himself.
He has stated very clearly that his intention with this game was to create that kind of
reflection in the player; that you saved someone you loved, but at what cost?
The religious undertones of the music are absolutely deliberate, with Otani seeking
something resembling a requiem or a prayer.
Hell, even the use of the bouzouki was the result of conversations Otani had with Ueda
himself.
Otani wasn’t merely writing a soundtrack here, disparate from the other parts of the
game’s design; he was arguably a part of the storytelling process, and the resulting
compositions prove just how fundamental his input was to the palpably apprehensive atmosphere
that turned this game into the classic we know it as today.
So I know this was something a little bit different but I hope you enjoyed my piece
on the music of Shadow of the Colossus regardless.
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And with that I’m Hamish Black and this has been Writing on Games.
Thank you very much for watching and I’ll see you next time.