Ico & Shadow of the Colossus

Ico:
In a remote, sunlit forest, several masked men travel on horseback to the edge of an enormous sheer cliff overlooking the sea. Off the coast is an otherworldly, dilapidated fortress, built on tall rocky spires. Some of the men have horns on their helmet. These horns look like those of Malus's head. The men proceed down a winding path towards sea level, get in a small boat, and row silently towards the castle.

They have a prisoner with them: Ico, a boy with an immediately identifiable characteristic: two large horns protruding from his head. These horns are the result of an ancient curse, one that has stricken Ico's village for generations and earned him all its hatred and blame for whatever misfortune comes to its residents. The men have taken him to the castle after his twelfth birthday to place him in a mysterious coffin deep inside the fortress's darkened halls, where he will either starve or succumb to the cold. To open the way to the coffin, they take an enchanted sword that has the ability to open the idol-shaped gates that lead to the room.

The men force him into the coffin, ordering him not to resist and telling him they do this "for the good of the village". After they leave, however, a tremor caused by the castle's many aged moving parts dislodges Ico's coffin from the wall, breaking it open but knocking him unconscious. During this time, he experiences a strange vision, set in another part of the castle - a spiked stone cage hangs from the ceiling of an enormous cylindrical room. As Ico approaches the cage on a spiral path that runs up the room's walls, a shadowy substance amasses at the bottom of the cage, overflowing and dripping onto the floor far below. Another shadow emerges from the walls behind Ico, engulfing him and ending the vision. He wakes up.

Ico begins to explore the old castle, pulling levers and opening doors in search of a way out. Soon, however, he finds himself at the bottom of exactly the same room he saw in the vision, including the metal cage hanging from the ceiling. Ico ascends the spiral path until he reaches the top of the room again. This time the cage contains a young girl, Yorda, who sits there quietly. Ico calls out to her and promises to find a way to let her out. He reaches a lever, which lowers the cage close to the ground. Ico makes his way back down and jumps on the cage, sending it and a dislodged piece of wood crashing to the floor. The impact opens up the cage door, freeing Yorda.

Shadow of the Colossus:
One cloudy night, a lone hawk flies by two longtime companions - Wander and his horse Agro - navigating an unforgiving cliffside path on the edge of a canyon. The two have been traveling for a long time on this offbeat path, through murky forests and wet grasslands alike.

They arrive at last at their destination: a tall stone gate with a narrow passage. On the other side lies an enormous bridge of near-otherworldly construction. The bridge spans over the Forbidden Lands, a dramatic landscape of plains and canyons with enclosed and cut-off environments ranging from arid deserts to clefts with tall geysers to dark forests and murky crevasses.

The bridge finally comes to an end at the Shrine of Worship, a gigantic structure in the middle of the Lands. Wander and Agro make their way to the ground floor and the temple's main hall, which is lined with sixteen stone idols. At the end of the empty hall is an altar. Here it is shown that Wander is carrying something with him: a body wrapped in a cloth sheet. He places the body on the altar and removes the sheet, revealing Mono, a young woman clothed in a white dress.

The game suddenly cuts to a picture of an owl mask amidst a cloudy sky. From here, Lord Emon, a spiritual leader in Wander's society, speaks an esoteric monologue:

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.
But to trespass upon that land is strictly forbidden...
Agro is suddenly frightened by a noise from behind the trio. Several shadowy apparitions are emerging from the temple floor, and Wander sees this and draws a mysterious sword from its sheath, pointing it towards the shadows. The blade emits an otherworldly energy, and the creatures immediately dissolve into thin air. Immediately, a booming pair of voices fill the halls from a great aperture above, surprised that Wander possesses the "Ancient Sword". Wander correctly identifies the voices as belonging to Dormin and asks that Mono be revived. Initially, Dormin expresses an indifference towards the matter, but ultimately cannot hide the interest in the sword Wander carries.