Sunday, December 11, 2011

12th Colossus

Paradise floats upon the lake... 
A silent being wields thunder...
A moving bridge to cross to higher ground...

Developer Name: Poseidon
Fan Name: Pelagia (Permagnus Pistrix) - Great Basilisk
Location Name: Poseidon's Lake

Colossus 12 Hints
- Thou cannot aim for its vitals as thou art now...
- Cross to higher ground...

Majestic waterfall at the entrance to a land locked lake

One of the more unusual colossi, only the top half of it appears above the water (much like an iceberg). This colossus has no eyes but can sense where Wander is, perhaps by his vibrations as he thrashes around in the water or by sound? It's also one of the few colossus that wields a ranged weapon (the others being #8, #9 and #16) shooting energy bolts that do substantial damage to Wander when hit.
Sketches of Pelagia from the art book - the two on left show it with earring structures hanging down which were removed and added to #4 instead. You can also see how it views Wander in the water, wading he is vulnerable to attack, swimming he is safe.

Pelagia art book sketch showing ear chains and translation

Standing on the jetty like structures on top of the waterfall


The main features of this area are the waterfall and the huge entrance gate. It was speculated early on that if you could get Wander up on top of the arches it might reveal a path that would lead to the eastern part of the map. Sadly, once Pikol first got up there he found that the gate had no collision detection. There's also another ledge that you can get to on the east side of the waterfall by swimming across the lake, and I remember when I first made it there I thought 'this has got to lead to a secret!' but again I was disappointed as it leads nowhere, ending at a sheer drop to the valley below.

Pelagia before activation (here I have removed the water effects)

Cliffs Surrounding the Enclosure
Using the standing hack I explored around the top of the cliffs. There's no collision detection here either but hidden away up there are some interesting areas that you wouldn't have seen before.

Secluded area high up on the cliffs

Looking down from high above Pelagia's lake on the cliffs

There are some cool hidden areas up on the cliffs



View of archway or Pelagia's gate


On top of the archway

Inside the archway looking west

Archway platforms (no collision)

High up above the waterfall

Nice view of the waterfall from the west side cliffs

Pelagia's field of view plus other design concepts from the art book

Outside Pelagia's Lake
By warping Wander through the cliffs I explored just outside the perimeter of the enclosure. You can see the water effects extend out for quite a way past the cliffs but Wander can't swim in them. I thought there might be a small area that would still allow swimming (as there is at #3's lake) but here it was not to be. It's very peaceful out here beyond the walls, another weird area with nothing but an empty horizon and clouds in the distance.

The lake extends out beyond the cliff walls of the enclosure

When you are outside looking in the walls disappear and you can see under the water

By following the perimeter of the cliffs you end up at the east side of the archway

This area was pretty cool! Somehow it reminded me of Petra (the ancient temple in Jordan), as it looks like a temple cut into the surrounding rock. The passage you can see leads 'inside' the main arched bridge, but of course, without the standing hack Wander would just fall into the void to his death.

You can see there's still water here with the side of the gate looking like an entrance

Underneath the Lake
There's a huge box like area underneath the lake made up of low res textures. These exist under all of the colossi arenas I believe and although interesting don't hold any secrets. But I thought I would show it anyway. I think they are there to create a lighting effect under the arena although they may serve some other purpose?


Death camera view of Pelagia

Missing wall textures in death camera view

Rainbow Pelagia

There's a code that changes Pelagia's contrast so I can make it lighter or darker. By messing around with it you can start to see colors appear in weird patterns. I wanted to change Pelagia's color so that it would look blue or red etc. that is change the entire colossus to a single, different color, but all I could manage was this strange rainbow effect.

Featured in this video: http://youtu.be/vZqp7ylNQJ4#t=0

Pelagia's tower

Above the water line are the gazebo structures that you climb on when jumping from the colossi's head, but below these are tall conical shaped structures that act as the base for the gazebos. When Pelagia rams the gazebos sending them crashing into the lake, the top of these tall structures are all that remain. So I found the codes for all of these structures (which took hours) then stacked them one on top of the other to form this strange tower. But it had no collision detection so all I could do was jump down through it. I may one day make a solid version when I've run out of things to do ; )


More standing hack shots

Underneath 12's waterfall - looking up

Waterfall structure from below

Missing gazebo

In the Preview version I can load the game with all the actionable objects turned off, so for instance the trees at #1's area, the door at #2's area, the barriers at #6's area, the geysers at #9's area and even the main stone bridge is missing, every object that does something in the game is turned off. I haven't made a video of this yet as the distant lands are also missing until you get up close to them so it's quite ugly... but I think I'll upload something soon as it's worth a look for us die hard Shadow of the Colossus fans ; )

Symbols
Pelagia Death screen
Image you see when Wander dies during the fight with Pelagia.