u/Slapuwitmymeet

My promo copy of Shadow of the Colossus arrived today. When Sony gave out copies to store managers at Best Buy, GameStop/EB Games, Sony’s Internal Developers, and the press, they would put a hole punch on the UPC label. You can actually feel the hole punched out. They did this to ensure managers, developers and reviewers did not take the game and try to return it to a store or trade it in for cash or store credit. When you send it in for grading they also identify it as a promo copy on the grading label. The shrink wrap isn’t in the best of shape but I’m glad to have it in the collection. 🤘

Here is where I am currently on my quest to collect each variant of Shadow of the Colossus. On the bottom are the demos it has appeared on and the white rectangle is an out of 1500 PS4 Shadow of the Colossus press kit. Top left is the Vinyl Record along with the Roar of the Earth CD. Everyone of these are sealed except the South Korean version. My plan is to frame these and then hang it on my wall. Posting two photos because the glare kept jumping around lol.

I have now received my sealed Japanese version of the Shadow of the Colossus promotional DVD. Combining Ico with the Japanese word for 2 (ni) gave us, NICO. The footage on the NICO bonus DVD is generally considered to be in the pre production or early alpha stage. This is where we can also see where Embark Studios drew inspiration for Arc Raiders. Pursuing a behemoth (alpha Quadratus) with friends and taking it down is seen on this footage. If you haven’t seen this yet, I recommend treating yourself and looking it up on YouTube. What I also found interesting was how early on they hired Kow Otani to do the soundtrack. He completed quite a bit of the music included in the video. Have you seen the footage? What did you find the most interesting?

This was an amazing pick up. This not only is a very rare copy of the game but it includes the Nico bonus DVD along with the game. That normally runs about 60-70 dollars itself. A used Korean Copy without the DVD sells for 100+. A little background, Nico was the prototype name for Fumito Ueda’s second game. His first was Ico. He took the Japanese word for 2 aka ‘Ni’ and combined it with his first game, Ico. This would become what we know as Wander and the Colossus/Shadow of the Colossus. It was originally going to play very similarly to ARC Raiders minus the extraction shooter part. Arc Raiders was heavily inspired by Shadow of the Colossus during the early development phase. The game was going to have players band together online to take down a single colossi via horseback and by climbing them and attacking them. This DVD provides all the footage from that development period. Flawless condition. Paid 26 dollars for this (+10 for tariffs) and I couldn’t be happier.