Letting go is a hard thing to do sometimes. You could have so many things you value dearly, and being confronted with a scenario where you have to let them go, it would be the same as letting go of your own arm.
In the game Shadow of the Colossus, you play as a boy who cannot let go of this dead girl. He travels with his horse to a forbidden place to try to bring her back, and the ancient power stored there tells him to kill 16 giant creatures to bring her back to life.
As he encounters these giants, he has to hold on to them with the shoulder button on the controller to climb them all the way to the top, and strike them down with his sword. As he climbs them, the game presents this as a heroic action, with the scale of the giant seeming insurmountable and the heroic music charging you up to the top.
But as you arrive to the top of the giant, you notice their face and eyes, and as you kill them, the music switches to mourning, and you feel bad as the giant collapses and dies. You try to run away from the dark energy that engulfs you afterwards, but you can never get far away fast enough.
After each giant, you have to kill another, and another, and another after that, slowly visually corrupting your character’s appearance. He looks sicker and sicker each time. Your loyal horse stays with you after all this time, never doubting you and helping you to stay alive. At any time, you can cry for her and she will show up until she no longer can.
By the end, as the climax of the game’s story reveals the cost of not letting go of the girl, the dark power sucks the boy away, and you have no recourse in being sucked in by the dark energy.
You can cry for your horse to come back, try to hang on to the floor, but in the end, no matter what you do or how much you hold on the shoulder button, you have to let go.
I liked the game a lot.
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