The main

goal of Shadow of the Colossus is to seek out and kill the sixteen colossi (巨像 Kyozō) in the Forbidden Lands. The colossi are imposing creatures made of stone and dark fur resembling grass. Surprisingly, not all of them are huge in size, but all of them require some thinking to find (and especially to exploit) their magic sigils.

When Wander is killed while fighting a colossus, a game over screen appears, featuring the head of the colossus he was fighting.

Colossus (number and name)		Latin Name	Agro *	Time Attack goals (Normal Mode / Hard Mode)
1	Valus	Minotaurus colossus	No	2:30 / 2:50
2	Quadratus	Taurus magnus	Yes	4:00 / 4:30
3	Gaius	Terrestris veritas	No	6:00 / 5:00
4	Phaedra	Equus bellator apex	Yes	5:30 / 5:00
5	Avion	Avis praeda	No	5:30 / 5:30
6	Barba	Belua maximus	No	3:30 / 6:30
7	Hydrus	Draco marinus	No	12:00 / 8:00
8	Kuromori	Parietinae umbra	No	8:00 / 7:30
9	Basaran	Nimbus recanto	Yes	7:30 / 5:30
10	Dirge	Harena tigris	Yes	6:00 / 5:00
11	Celosia	Ignis excubitor	No	5:30 / 5:30
12	Pelagia	Permagnus pistrix	No	9:30 / 10:00
13	Phalanx	Aeris velivolus	Yes	12:00 / 13:00
14	Cenobia	Clades candor	No	9:00 / 9:00
15	Argus	Praesidium vigilo	No	11:00 / 11:30
16	Malus	Grandis supernus	No	9:30 / 13:00
* Denotes whether or not Agro can participate in the fight.

Colossus idolsEdit

Sixteen gigantic idols line the east and west sides of the Shrine of Worship's main hall. The idols correspond to the colossi; when Wander defeats one, the idol explodes once he is returned to the Shrine (with one exception: Malus' statue implodes earlier, once Lord Emon's entourage reaches the shrine's main hall).

Even after a colossus's idol is destroyed, it is still available in Time Attack before you clear the game again.

The idols are arranged in a specific order. The southernmost one at the east side of the hall belongs to Valus, and Quadratus' idol faces it on the west side of the hall. Gaius' idol is next to Valus', and so on. The idols are all roughly the same size, despite the actual enormous range of sizes in the colossi (especially the relatively small Celosia and Cenobia).

The black tendrilsEdit

The colossi exist for a specific purpose: to house and protect the sixteen fragments of Dormin's essence. When Wander kills a colossus, several black tendrils escape from the fatal wound and into Wander. The tendrils cannot be outrun, and can even go straight through solid objects if necessary. When Wander absorbs the tendrils, he blacks out and is later returned to the Shrine of Worship through a mysterious means (his unconscious body begins to levitate, and he travels slowly through the air until he reaches the Shrine once more. In the game's finale, we see the first few seconds of this process.) Dormin's essence accumulates inside Wander with each colossus felled, increasing his health, stamina, and physical strength. This is reflected in the amount of damage a single stab will do to weakpoints; this becomes very apparent with subsequent playthroughs. Four to five games in, Wander can kill single-weakpoint colossi with a single well-charged stab.

Reminiscence ModeEdit

If you go back to a colossus's lair after you've killed one, you will notice that the corpse of the colossus has turned into a formation of rock and dirt loosely resembling its original form. If you press next to (or on top of) any of the remains, you will pray before them and a prompt to enter "Reminiscence Mode" will pop up. Here, you can choose to fight the colossus again. If you do, the battle will be loaded up again, complete with a vignetted grainy old-film filter.

You are not timed in this mode, so this is not a substitute for Time Attack. Much like that mode, however, the battle will end if you go too far from the arena. Also if you defeat a colossus in reminiscence mode and you die afterwards, you will be teleported to the corpse of the colossus you defeated.

Pillars of lightEdit

After defeating a colossus, a gigantic pillar of light will appear in the skies far above its corpse. These can be seen from every corner of the Forbidden Lands, and serve as a record of Wander's travels and deeds. These have been a part of the game from very early on in its development; even the earliest screenshots clearly show a beam of light shooting in the sky, and the clouds swirling dramatically around it. Their early inclusion in the game, and their profound appearance in general, has led to many theories about what they symbolize, and why it was so important to have them there. One of the most popular theories is that they are only present in order to remind players about the location of a colossus's corpse if they wish to fight them in reminiscence mode.

v • d • e
Characters	Wander (Kenji Nojima) • Agro • Mono (Hitomi Nabatame) • Dormin (Kazuhiro Nakata, Kyōko Hikami) • Emon (Naoki Bandō)
The Colossi	( I • II • III • IV • V • VI • VII • VIII • IX • X • XI • XII • XIII • XIV • XV • XVI ) • Magic Sigil • Time Attack • Unused Colossi • Hard Mode
The Forbidden Lands	Shrine of Worship • Shadow creatures • Save shrines • Fruit trees • White-tailed lizards and other animals
Production & Staff	Fumito Ueda • Kenji Kaido • Kō Ōtani (Roar of the Earth) • Sony Computer Entertainment • [Full Credits...]
Giantology campaign	(Fake discoveries of Phalanx, Valus, Hydrus, Quadratus, Gaius) • Eric Belson (podcasts 1, 2, 3, 4) • IPICP memo
Other media	Demo • "Nico" bonus DVD • Official artbook/guidebook • Collectible figurines • Upcoming film adaptation by Sony Pictures