Step 1: The Secret Garden and the Wind Slit - Sanctuary of Worship
The initial stage of the mystery begins at the Shrine of Worship because it is a mysterious building that attracts a lot of attention and is located in the center of the Forbidden Land where Wander's journey begins, and especially for guarding the Secret Garden, a mysterious accessible place that does not part of the main mission (to defeat the 16 colossi). To access this area, it is necessary for the stamina, signaled by the pink circle, to be large enough to climb the mosses on the side of the Sanctuary of Worship below the huge bridge. To evolve the stamina it is necessary to collect the white tails killing the lizards or defeating each colossus. In PS2 versions, the player can climb the mosses through the diagonal jumps (hold the jump button, point the left-hand analogue on the diagonal above-left or up-right, then release the jump button), in which, saves when you spend the stamina. However, in remastered versions of PS3 it is not possible to make these diagonal jumps, as this execution does not exist because it was considered as a kind of bug.
When entering the Secret Garden, the first thing that every player notes, are the fruits that decrease both energy bar and Wander stamina. For this reason, the fruits of the Secret Garden were called by the players as "forbidden fruits," because of the Biblical reference that the Secret Garden has with the Garden of Eden and the fruits of the Secret Garden possesses with the forbidden fruit, the apple that Eve experienced. The idea that this puzzle passes in the minds of the players, is to reduce the energy bar until reaching a maximum downgrade, before confronting the last colossus, so that, at the end of the game, the death of Dormin is made easier, when the Lord Emon orders his guards to shoot several arrows at the creature that seizes Wander's body. However, the result that many expect is that some Alternate Ending can be released, but when Dormin loses all his energy, nothing happens, because the beast Dormin can not die in the base of arrows, as shown in the video below by me:
Only Emon knows that the only way to defeat Dormin is by purifying his physical part by opening a portal of light into the water source, located just off the spiral staircase, when Emon flings the Ancient Sword at the edge of the ladder. Conclusion, we can see that this puzzle served as a warning to observe what we least perceive and the forbidden fruits of the Secret Garden was one of the puzzles that we paid the most attention and brought us in a dead end, but with the intention of opening our minds. However, it is noted that the forbidden fruits reveal a supposed hidden message, in which there is a mystery related to "trying a suicide", because when we eat the fruits or when we control Dormin to kill it in the base of arrows, it means that the game conveyed the idea that the Last Big Secret is related to "risking life".
As we leave the Secret Garden, we chose as an alternative, to cross the huge bridge, which at the end of the route has the Wind Slot blocked by a wind force. That is, the Forbidden Land is sealed by all corners by this force, that is, all those that enter this island, can not leave more. For the time being, it is not really known how these lands were sealed, but as soon as Dormin is sucked into the portal of light, the huge bridge self-destructs and the wind sealing the crevice passage is removed, freeing the passage for Emon and his guards .
However, the Wind Slit is another dead end. There seemed to be no hope of a secret until the Ascadia-PSU player noticed the symbols marked on the four stone blocks, which are repeated continuously on the huge bridge, as well as having a few blocks in the Secret Garden. So he decided to investigate these blocks, and after his possible fascinating discovery, Ascadia-PSU decided to create a topic in the most famous forum of Sony Playstation that caused a huge repercussion and yielded thousands of posting, paving the way for more innumerable theories.
Theory of Intersecting Points
Credits: Ascadia-PSU
In mid-2007, Ascadia-PSU created the topic Quest for the Last Big Secret on the Sony forum (http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/Shadow-of-the-Colossus-PS2/Quest-for-the-Last-Big-Secret-Mysteries-of-SotC/td-p/20178777) that generated a huge repercussion on a possible secret that could be triggered from his theory.
What is Theory of Intersecting Points?
During the opening of the game, Emon introduces a mysterious talk about the origin of the Forbidden Land:
"That place... began from the resonance of intersecting points... They are memories replaced by ens and naught and etched into stone. Blood, young sprouts, sky - and the one with the ability to control beings created from light... In that world, it is said that if one should wish it, one can bring back the souls of the dead..."
Ascadia-PSU noticed that the drawings on the four stone blocks represent places seen from the sky.
Block 1 - Lake Relic (Arena of the 7th colossus)
Block 2 - Wind Slit
Block 3 - Desert Fortress (Arena of the 15th Colossus)
Block 4 - Entrance to the Sanctuary of Worship
Then we use the map to position the 4 stone blocks in their identified locations:
From the phrases said in the speech of Emon:
"That place... began from the resonance of intersecting points... They are memories replaced by ens and naught and etched into stone."
The stone blocks can correspond to anything and in this Ascada-PSU noted that by interconnecting the blocks of stone, they formed a cross on the map and the center of this cross takes us to the Abyss of the Flame (Arena of the 11th colossus), that is, a second stage of the mystery.
