7th Colossus

A ruin hidden in the lake... 
A ripple of thunder lurks underwater...

Developer Name: Eel
Fan Name: Hydrus (Draco Marinus) - Sea Dragon
Location Name: Lakeside

Map Reference: D1

Colossus 7 Hints
- Swim on the lake surface to draw out the colossus...
- Grab on to the colossus's tail...
- Sever the power of the radiating horn at its root...

A deep lake with a ruined bridge is the lair of the water serpent

What the bridge may have looked like when complete (?)

Early concept designs of Hydrus from the art book - called the 'Fish'

In these sketches above Ueda states 'The first sketch of a colossus that lurked in the water. We called it Fish. Most like an eel, ruins cling to it like barnacles, scales cover its body. It's possible to catch him by sticking your sword into (...)'. 

Hydrus before activation - suspended under the water's surface

Back of Hydrus' Lake

You can see in the image above that if the bridge was complete it would lead you to this path at the back of the arena. So I think they designed the ruined bridge to show that at one time it did indeed lead to this path, but over the centuries parts of it fell into the lake from long years of exposure to the elements. The spiral platform looks like it was used as a lookout at one time, perhaps to keep an eye on the water serpent? There's no way to reach this path in the game so I've used an invisible save stone platform to explore it. It leads up to the towers at the back of the arena and then northwards to the beta mountains at D0 (which can only be found in the Preview version).

Path leading up to towers

Path winds up the cliff face

Path marked by sunlight

Ledge above ruins - you can see the water effects are missing

 View to the south

 Panned out view

 Towers above path

 Up close at the towers

Top of a tower

 View from broken tower

Path leading north to D0 beta mountains

Beta mountains at D0 - just a stone's throw away from the towers

In the Preview version there are beta mountains right behind this area, so maybe you could have once followed this grassy path up to the towers and then proceeded north to the beta mountains, which would have been another huge area on the map... just wild speculation of course ; )

Ledge at front of the Arena

There is a ledge on the side of the arena where you enter, if you turn around and face where you entered you can see it. It's easy to reach, you just have to climb up onto the sides of the entrance bridge and jump from there. It has no relevance to the battle but provides nice views of the area.

West side

East side - leads to a dead end

If you jump down from the west side there's a little inlet where the water is clear and you can see the underwater structures more clearly, and if you turn Wander around to face the camera his head warps in strange ways due to the water effects.

Wander's wobbly face ~ creepy!

Hydrus area sketch from the art book - 'The position of the ruins is random'

Hydrus After Death

After Hydrus dies it sinks to the bottom of the lake. Normally the game would load the next colossus at this point but here I have used the 'kill code' which kills the colossus and leaves Wander unaffected, so the game can continue. Hydrus keeps falling slowly down, below the lake and into the void. I've never hung around long enough to see what happens, but I guess it would just unload at a certain point.

It's still solid so I can climb on its fur, but one hit from its electric spines and Wander will be jolted into a falling position of which there is no way to recover (meaning I have to reload my save file). None of the other colossi do this, they all fall where they were killed, only Hydrus ends up falling into the void.

Video here:

https://youtu.be/pqkcD3RY-fM?t=1656

A sketch of an underwater battle, 'I absolutely wanted to have one'.

Hidden Water Area

I was searching around the outside of Hydrus' lake and found a spot where Wander can swim around that is behind the cliff walls. Because it's under the cliffs it looks like he is swimming in a cave, but it's not a very large area and once you swim too far he just falls into the void.

 The bottom of the towers can be seen in the distance

 A rock arch in the distance... I think this is the Stone Arch Gorge at D2

You can see the inside of the arena through the walls - like a window

Bottom of the Lake

This lake is the deepest in the forbidden lands and it was once speculated that a sunken city lay beneath the dark waters. I wanted to know the depth of the lake so I put Wander down at the bottom and noted his position (-130m), on the surface he treads water at 22.7m, rounded up to 28m. So this gives us a depth of 102 metres deep or about the length of a football field (vertically). Wander takes a full minute to float from the bottom of the lake to the surface, which equates to a speed of 1.7m per second. I looked up how fast humans rise in a deep column of water and the result was between 0.5 and 1.5m per second! So the game physics are almost spot on.

When the 'Quest for the Last Big Secret' forum was in full swing it was discussed at length. It was thought that some action would either raise the sunken city or drain the lake allowing access to a secret area. The main spiral platform has two platforms that jut out at 120 degree angles so an idea was that the spiral ramp could be rotated somehow, perhaps aligning the platforms that would trigger the city to rise. Sounds ridiculous today, but back then all theories were tabled.

There's also a suspicious lonely spire at the back of the lake that you can climb, once at the top the camera pans down into the lake and Hydrus swims in circles around the spire. It was thought that if you could get Hydrus to coil itself around the spire it might trigger a cut scene or other event. They sound pretty crazy now, but at the time we were throwing any ideas out there to see if we could crack the secret.

Wander at the bottom of the lake (102m deep)

I used a hack to get down here but there's an area where Wander can run around, jump and use his weapons as if on land, although you still see water effects. For some reason Agro just runs around in circles down here and doesn't respond to calls or shy away from arrows. When you shoot arrows you see a burst of bubbles appear which I thought was a nice effect considering you never shoot arrows underwater! But a lot of the ground has no collisions so you can't go far before falling into the void.

 Wander riding Agro deep down on the lake bed

 Hydrus swimming high above

 You can actually shoot it with exploding arrows but the colossus doesn't react

 Here we can see that there is no sunken city in this lake - just columns and spires

Swimming up through a column

You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/pqkcD3RY-fM?t=1407

Hydrus Above Land

I once made a video of Hydrus flying above the forbidden lands much like how Phalanx or Avion does. It was a very old video (less than 360p) so the quality is crude by today's standards (so I think I will re-make this video).

 See video here: https://youtu.be/pqkcD3RY-fM?t=766

Symbols

Hydrus Death Screen

Image you see when Wander dies during the fight with Hydrus.

14th Colossus

A guardian set loose... 
A closed off city beyond the channel... 
It lusts for destruction...

Developer Name: Cerberus
Fan Name: Cenobia (Clades Candor) - Destruction Luster
Location Name: Ruins

Map Reference: C2

Colossus 14 Hints
- Climb the tower to draw the colossus's anger...
- It cannot pursue the at the top of the tower. Proceed forward...
- Climb from where the colossus and the earth are connected...

Cenobia's starting position - sitting sentry up on its tower

I always thought this colossus was too similar to #11 (Celosia). Both are small, fast colossi that use charging attacks and both need to have their back armor destroyed to get at their weak spots. It's almost as if Team ICO used a short cut and just remodeled #11 into #14. 

They had eight other colossi to use that they had worked on, see my unused/beta colossi post:
http://nomads-sotc-blog.blogspot.com/2011/07/unusedbeta-colossi.html but opted instead for Cenobia. Don't get me wrong, it's one of the most exciting colossi battles, running and climbing from column to column to avoid being attacked! In fact, it reminded me of a time when I was a child at my neighbors house, we would aggravate his dog then run and climb his swing set while the dog barked and growled at us down below xD. Similar feeling when you are on top of a column and Cenobia is below trying to knock you down! But I think we have missed out on another more unique colossus, like the Spider or Worm for instance.

Cenobia concept sketches from the art book

A trail of ruined pillars leads to the hidden city

I remember when I first Agro launched over the edge of the cliffs at the end of the columned path I caught a glimpse of something green far above. You land on some cliffs and are forced forward and have no way of going back. It leads you down underneath the cave with the island but you can't go far before you fall into the void. Note: Khfan1 had already been here before, although he never posted a video about it. But you can watch my old low quality video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isuFWW0gpwI&feature=youtu.be#t=3058

Once you enter the cave you discover a lake with a small sunlit island in the center. This is here, I assume, so you can use you sword one last time to make sure you are on the right track. There's something special about this area and just makes the hidden city ahead that much more magical ; ) Although hauling stones through here to build the city would have been a problem.

Above the island looking down

Years later I decided to check out that old 'glimpse of green' I had seen and found an amazing off limits area that no one had ever seen before which included a solitary ledge overlooking the skylight with the island below. From the sunlit island I warped Wander up above the skylight, from there I could see a new area I had never seen before. At the time I had run out of things to explore, so for me it was an amazing moment ; ) Just another hidden area that Team Ico had taken the time to put into the game, even though there is no possible way to see this area.

A secret area hidden away above the island

And here it is! This small moss covered ledge with a couple of trees clinging to it, doesn't look like much but for me it was one of my greatest discoveries xD. Mainly because all the other hackers had missed it, so I can legitimately claim this as my discovery - Nomad's ledge? (Just kidding ; )

See video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJzAwG2IYhE

These blocks always intrigued me. How did they get here? My first thought was that the builders of the city left these here, perhaps they were hauling the blocks down the passage and when the city was finished they just left these here. Or perhaps something happened during construction and they had to leave in a hurry?

 At the entrance to the closed off city

The city is unique in that it has these drainage channels snaking through it (similar to the secret garden). Useful for when you need to get away from an enraged colossus. Perhaps it used to rain frequently in this area and these were used to channel water away from the city?

Cenobia's Temple
Here is yet another area fans always wanted to explore but is off limits in the game. It's like Team ICO was teasing us with these areas (like the unreachable platform in the secret garden), in fact Cenobia's area is full of solid walkable platforms that are unreachable legitimately.

This is as high as you can go on the temple - the very top has no collision detection

Level above the door

Yet another bricked over door that is impassible (like #1's temple)

Behind the temple - there is no back wall to the temple, just three sides

When I first got up to the temple (by using the jump hack) I thought Cenobia might ram it causing something to happen, but it just runs on the same spot at the base of the stairs. Again, it's strange why the made the temple solid if you're not supposed to get up here. Why put collision detection on something no one will ever get to? Same goes for the rest of the city.

Other Structures
Along with the temple that Cenobia first appears at, there are other structures that have collision detection - again why? Why go to the effort to make something solid and walkable if the main character has no way to get up there? Perhaps it was a simple matter of changing a byte or modifying a line of code that turned the textures into collisions? In Unity it is a simple matter to select a texture and make it have collisions, although from a programming point of view I think this would have been more time consuming... don't ask me, I'm not a programmer so I have no idea ; ) Whatever the reason, by hacking I can move Wander up there and explore.

Top of central building - no ledges are grippable, but the entire structure is solid

Odd oval shaped platform - this is the highest point in the arena

Top of arches - you can see how they join the oval shaped platform

The Rook

This strange platform sits isolated at the south end of the arena. People have likened it to a 'Rook' from a game of chess and it appears there were once two of them, the other one has been torn from its foundations and no longer exists. It's just another odd thing in the game but it's most likely purpose is to use it as a barrier to avoid Cenobia's attacks if you fall off a column. When you get on top of it (again by hacking) Cenobia again just runs on the spot at its base, you can see in the image above that its head actually sinks into the pillar.

Here's what the platform would have looked like complete

On cliffs outside the hidden city

Nomad's Temple
Back in 2009 I used all of the columns and structures scattered around Cenobia's area to create a unique temple design, I was quite happy with the result, however it had no collision detection as when you move a model from its native location its collision mesh stays put. So all I could do at the time was run around it and jump up high then float down onto (and through) it. Also back then my emulator ran the game very slowly so the resulting video quality was quite poor and less than 480p in size.
See here: https://youtu.be/isuFWW0gpwI#t=2157

Field is devoid of columns

Images of the original design in 2009

Redesigned temple in 2013

To build the temple I first had to find the position co-ordinates of each column, wall and arch (three codes for each one - x, y and z). Then I could find the collision meshes of each object (another three codes for each). I would move each object up into the air so that I had an empty field to work with, then I moved down each piece and positioned it to build the temple. Since I had no blueprints of any kind I just used my imagination and came up with the above.

But by 2013 I had learned a lot more thanks to my collaboration with WWWArea, he had worked out how to move the collision mesh together with a model (such as a column for example) so I spent a long time rebuilding the temple and redesigning it so that Wander could climb it. I also designed a trap that would snare Cenobia and an obstacle course for Wander, see here:
https://youtu.be/KAwI9kAqvPo

Cenobia Hacks
Here again, I have moved Cenobia outside its native arena using the gravity hack + gravity stable codes. It appears, from the images as if it is active, but in reality it's still as stone, just a statue I can move around. I can 'warp' Cenobia far away from its arena but outside there is nothing there, just void and low res lands.

Cenobia at the B2 beta mountains - you can see its area glowing in the distance

As mentioned above I can 'warp' Cenobia outside its arena. Above I have warped Cenobia out to the B2 beta mountains, although it's not a mountain, rather a large flat, brown plain. This is one of the extra areas that were found in the Pre-release version (thanks to Unclejun). Below I have moved Cenobia to the A0 beta mountains, as they are very close to #14's arena.

See video here: http://youtu.be/isuFWW0gpwI#t=994

Cenobia is dwarfed by the A0 beta mountains 

Half sized Cenobia - has trouble jumping the ditches when small

I can make Cenobia smaller or larger, but it requires finding all of its armor parts, each one having three codes (x,y,z), so it takes a long time. But once done I can scale the colossus up or down. This holds true for all of the colossi.

See video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDyknY61kms

Double sized Cenobia - now it's a real colossus!

Here I moved the large tower like column to the Ico beach. I had hoped I could run around on the beach and see it out in the water (just for something cool to do ; ) but it's the same old problem. When I move anything out of its quadrant the surrounding lands loose their collision detection, even the tower is a ghost, so I'm using the standing hack in these images.

Cenobia on top of a column. I've moved it here before it's activated so it's still in its starting pose. The weird thing is when I climb the column Cenobia grunts, so this is the first time I've heard a sound coming from a deactivated colossus!

And finally my greatest hack of all time! Cenobia and Celosia together in the same area. Instead of fighting each other they both just want to attack Wander. You can see they are about the same size, Celosia being a little larger.

Pretty impressive huh... well, perhaps not - it's just a Photoshop job ; )

Cenobia's Death Screen

Image you see when Wander dies during the fight with Cenobia.