"Shadow Of The Colossus": Getcha Spoilers Here! Quiz

Answer: stab back of his leg

The first colossus is not very aggressive. The trick to climbing him is to aim for a weak spot on the back of his left leg. Once you stab him there once, he crouches down in pain, allowing you to climb up the back of his leg and reach his head (which is where most of the colossi's vital points are). At this point you just hang on and hack away.

Answer: the bottom of its hooves

The second colossus (a monstrous four-legged beast) cannot be climbed as long as it is standing upright. Every now and then it will either stomp the ground or get up on its hind legs, at which point you can make out a glowing spot under each of its hooves. You must shoot an arrow into one of these points, which makes the colossus kind of hunch down low.

This is when you can grab some fur and start to climb onto its back towards its vital spots.

Answer: get it to crouch down

This stage features four inter-connected underground shafts which you must use to your advantage. Once again, this four-legged colossus cannot be scaled while standing up. You have to get its attention and then run down into any of the shafts. It will look for you by attempting to peek down into the shaft. You can then come out any of the other shafts and find it crouched over with its back to you, still looking down the tunnel you disappeared into. Now you can grab its tail and make you way to its back. You cannot climb its neck, however, and you have to stab it once in the back of the neck to get its head to pitch downward.

Then just shimmy on down and stab away.

Answer: his beard

This two-legged giant cannot be scaled by either of his legs or his hands. The trick is to get him to chase you to the far end of the stage (make him break through the walls that block the way). When you get to the other end of the room, you'll notice you can hide under a sort of platform held up by pillars. Whistle a couple of times while under there, and the giant will bend down to try spotting you. You may notice a new part of him is now close to the ground: his long gray beard, hanging down like a big bushy rope ladder. Jump and grab onto it, and you're on your way.

Answer: climb a wall

This colossus is found at the bottom of a Roman coliseum-type structure. It is rather small compared to the other colossi, and very low to the ground, but it cannot be climbed so simply due to the glowing spikes on its back. The trick is to run around the various levels of the coliseum and shoot arrows at it to gets its attention.

It will do two things: it will spit some sort of electric mist, which you must avoid, and it will climb up the walls to try to get at you. This is when you strike. Take out two of its legs with your bow and arrow: it will be unable to to keep its grip and tumble down to the floor below, landing on its back. Now simply drop down to the bottom and take out the tender spots on its belly.

Answer: a geyser

This behemoth is one tough customer. It spits energy bolts like the lizard colossus before it, but these ones knock you down hard rather than just forming a harmful cloud of "whatever the heck that was". Another problem, like with all the giant quadrapeds, is that it cannot be climbed while standing.

Its weak spots are also beneath its feet, but the problem is it just won't expose them on its own. Now notice the geysers around the battlefield. You need to lure the colossus over to one of them, so that it is standing directly above it when it erupts.

The water pressure will force it off balance and you'll find you can now get a clean shot at its weak spots. Take out whichever hoof you can to bring the beast crashing down, and climb on up.

Answer: scare him away from you

The first time I saw this one, I thought to myself, "OK they ran out of ideas". However, it turns out to be one of the coolest battles yet. The colossus is the smallest one yet (the size of, say, a van as opposed to the size of an office building), but by far the most aggressive, charging wildly and swiping at you like a small rodent. To make things worse, this bugger is armored from head to toe and shows no vital points whatsoever. You have to crack its armor. But how?

Notice the four raised fireplaces along the walls. Climb up one of them (one of the precious few safe places you can find) and have the colossus ram into it (little to no coaxing needed). A piece of wood should break off and land on the floor. Quickly grab it and jump back up onto the fireplace, and swing it at the fire to ignite it. You now have a torch. And what's this? You jump back down and suddenly this brute doesn't look so tough. In fact it's terrified of fire and will back away from you pathetically. Just get it to back up until it falls off the edge of the cliff, and it will land on a rock formation below, cracking the armor on its back and exposing its vital point. Now comes the fun part. You have to jump down onto its back, and hold on for dear life as the battle turns into a speeding rodeo.

Answer: The flying dragon (13th)

The flying dragon colossus is mostly oblivious to you presence, and kind of just floats around. It doesn't have any attacks, and it can't flatten you like the non-flying colossi (although gravity can still hurt and/or kill you). The whole challenge with this one is getting it to fly down low enough to climb up one of its fins/wings/whatever.

The trick is to fire arrows at the three air sacks on its underbelly, deflating them and causing the colossus to lose altitude. It will fly low enough so that its fins/wings/whatever are skimming the ground, and you must catch up to it on your horse then jump on and climb up from there.

Answer: they ignore you until you attack them

The dragon is in an open stretch of desert while the sandworm is underground in a sandy cave. They also both require you to use your horse and your bow and arrow to be defeated. We've already seen how the flying colossus is defeated, so let's discuss the sand worm.

First off, it never really comes out at you completely, it kind of glides at you half-submerged in the sand. Any attempt to take it on or to outrun it on foot will result in you getting knocked over hard. The trick is to hop on your horse and get it to chase you. When it's directly on your tail, you can turn around and aim your bow and arrow at it. Notice its eyes are just barely clearing the sand and staring right at you. You then fire an arrow into its eye, causing it to veer out of control and slam into a wall. It will lie there stunned for a short time, allowing you to climb onto it and stab away at its vitals.

Answer: his stomach

I don't even know what to call this one. It can best be described as having the upper body of a man and the lower body of... a house. Picture a huge building with a humanoid torso on top of it, and that's pretty much what you're dealing with here.
The first step is getting close to him, which requires you to travel a specific path around various forms of shelter from the fireballs he shoots from his hand (we're talking split-second timing here). Once at the base, you simply climb up the bottom half like you would a building, by finding the right ledges and angles (this is the easy part). Once you reach his waist, it gets kind of tricky. You have to stab the weak point on his back, which will cause him to bring his hand back there in pain. You must then jump off his back onto his hand and hang on as he brings it back around to the front. Now you have to crawl your way to his elbow and stab the weak point there. He will bring his other hand over to check his injury, and you must jump and hang onto it. Now stab the back of that hand and he will hold it up and just stare. While in this position you must fire an arrow at the weak spot now visible on his shoulder. He will draw his hand to his shoulder, allowing you to jump on and climb up to his head where his vital point is found.

That's my quiz. This game is an instant classic in my book. The graphics, the concepts and the actual gameplay are amazing (and I don't use the word 'amazing' as freely as some) You can't even compare it to any other game out there. Those who have played it through to the end will tell you what a masterpiece it is, and those who have played it briefly and quit in frustration should use this quiz for pointers and dive back in, because each new battle is an absolute treat, and the ending is AWESOME.