Death Battle Character Analysis: Wander (Shadow of the Colossus)

Before I get started, I’ve got to explain how I went about researching this: tons of estimates, size charts, and stuff that are implied by the game. What this means is that a lot of the calcs and feats in this blog are subject to change. If you have anything you’d like to add or fix, please feel free to let me know! It always means a ton. Also, I'm not sure why, but Blogger decided to randomly change the fonts of different parts of this blog. No matter what I do, I can't fix it, sorry. 

-Background/Story-

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 girl clothed in a white dress - underneath.

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 ends 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. 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.

Remarking that it "may not be impossible" to bring Mono back to life, Dormin makes a deal: destroy the sixteen idols that line the walls of the Shrine, and Mono will be revived. The idols can only be destroyed by killing their living incarnations - the sixteen colossi. Dormin warns Wander that in doing this, the price he pays "may be heavy indeed". Wander's reply is simple: "It doesn't matter." With that, Dormin instructs Wander to be on his way, telling him to raise the Ancient Sword up in a sunlit area. When he does, eight soft beams of light emit from the blade's tip in the eight compass directions; the beams converge and become brighter when they are pointed in the direction of a colossus. 

-Equipment-

Brace yourselves, this is going to be a long one. Almost all of his equipment was awarded to him by Dormin through various trials.

-The Ancient Sword-

Used many years ago to seal Dormin away within the Forbidden Lands. Wander, having knowledge of the power of Dormin, stole the sword and began his quest to revive Mono. The sword has the ability to "gather light" and show the location of active colossi. Wander holds it up in the sunlight to activate this ability. The light will scatter when he is pointed away from the colossus's location, but those points of light will gather when he aims at the right direction. When near the colossus, these beams of light point out the weak points on a colossus's body. Whether or not it would reveal the weak points of anything other than a colossus is up to one’s interpretation.

 

-The Life Sword- 

The Life Sword has all of the same properties as the Ancient Sword, with the added effect of increasing Wander's health regeneration by 50%.

 -Sword of the Sun-

The Sword of the Sun is exactly the same as the Ancient Sword in every way except that it can "gather light" anywhere, even in a cave.

 -The Queen's Sword-

The Queen's Sword is the second most powerful sword in Wander's arsenal. When paired with the Mask of Power and the Cloak of Force, it'll one-shot any colossus.

-The Sword of Dormin-

Speculated to be where a 17th piece of Dormin is imprisoned during the events of the game, Wander found it in a secret chamber beneath the Shrine of Worship after collecting 79 secret... light... coin... things. The Sword of Dormin is the most powerful weapon in the game, one-shotting any Colossus's sigil(s) at the cost of no longer being able to regenerate health. The little eye on the hilt of the blade changes from white to orange, depending on whether or not a nearby Colossus is out for blood. Also, instead of beams of light, the sword emits a sort of black smoke when held upward.

-Wander's Bow-

Wander's trusty bow that he began his adventure with. It can be used to trigger certain weak spots and damage a Colossus, but, it cannot be used to kill one. Wander also possesses 2 extra arrow types:

• Flash Arrow: They're essentially Link's Bomb Arrows from Twilight Princess. They deal a decent amount of damage to a colossus, even if he doesn't hit a sigil.
• Whistling Arrow: It's in the name.

-The Ancient Bow-

Functions exactly the same as Wander's normal bow, but with the added effect of showing a colossus's weak spots and sigils when pointed at them.

-Harpoon of Thunder-

A ranged weapon that Wander can throw at a colossus's major sigil to inflict massive amounts of damage. The damage done by a fully charged throw is about the same damage as a full stab with the Ancient Sword, Sword of the Sun or Life Sword. A colossus's life bar can be almost depleted with a single use of the Harpoon, but in the end a stab from a sword is still required to kill it. It will, however, like the swords and Flash Arrows, trigger minor sigils with a successful hit.

 -Mask of Power-

The Mask of Power increases Wander’s strength/damage output by 50%. I’m not including the Mask of Strength, since this mask has a higher strength boost. This effect stacks with the Cloak of Force (see below).

-Cloak of Force-

This cloak boosts Wander's strength by 25%. As stated above, the effects of both items stack with each other.

-Shaman's Mask-

The Shaman's Mask provides a 25% buff to Wander's durability. It has no effect on the damage he deals to colossi, however. Like the Mask of Power, its defense boost stacks with the Shaman's Cloak.

-Shaman's Cloak-

 At this point, do I really need to explain what it does?

-Cloak of Fate-

This cloak grants the same 50% boost to Wander's healing that the Life Sword gives.

-Cloak of Deception-

The Cloak of Deception not only turns Wander invisible, but, it makes all of Wander's other equipment invisible as well. Not entirely sure how that's possible.

 

-Cloth of Desperation-

It's literally just a parachute.

-Agro-

Agro is a very loyal horse to Wander and it quickly becomes clear during the game that the two have been together for a long time. After each colossus falls, Wander awakens in the central Shrine, where Agro is seen galloping in a few seconds later. Agro's speed helps Wander in many battles, by either keeping him from harm (Basaran and Dirge) or allowing him to catch up with a fast-moving enemy (Phalanx). Something incredible is the fact that she’s invincible in-game. Hell, she even survives a fall into a river from several stories in the air after a bridge collapsed underneath her. Sure, she broke her leg, but it’s still impressive

-Dormin-

Dormin is the mysterious entity residing in the Forbidden Lands, and an ambiguously-motivated pseudo-antagonist of Shadow of the Colossus. Dormin communicates with Wander both through a large sunlit aperture in the ceiling of the Shrine of Worship, and during colossus battles will provide Wander with occasional hints if he is having difficulty (though he wouldn’t be able to give Wander any hints in a Death Battle, as that would be considered outside help). Upon defeating the 16 colossi, whom all housed 1/16 of his being, Dormin used Wander as his vessel. If Wander is gravely injured in battle (such as when Emon and his men shot him in the knee and stabbed him through the chest), Dormin will emerge from Wander’s body to protect his host and to heal him (Healing is implied by the fact he was able to run and jump during the sealing ceremony). While he likely only has very basic combat skills, Dormin possesses colossal strength, possibly 16x that of your average colossus, considering they all contained a portion of him. As shown here (22:40), Dormin has one major thing in common with the 16 colossi: while physical harm hurts like a mother, he can only be killed by – ironically – his own weapon (the Ancient Sword). However, that would be a NLF, so it would be safer to say that if you don’t have the Ancient Sword, you have to at least surpass him in physical stats by a significant margin, have some kind of holy weapon or have a means of sealing him or poofing him out of existence. Oh, and he can also breathe fire.

-Skills/Abilities-

• Wander has the grip of a F#%&ING titan. Between a rodeo with Celosia (Colossus #11) and hanging upside-down on a giant bird (Avion), I don’t know how Wander doesn’t get his arms torn off. Not to mention just how long he can hang on and how far he can climb. Seriously, he gives Spider-man a run for his money. 
• Wander is an incredibly skilled horseback rider. Wander can stand up on her back to fire arrows and harpoons, hang on her side to dodge attacks and launch himself great distances by jumping off of her.
• Wander is also an excellent archer, firing very precise shots at several colossi and has (as shown above) several types of arrows alongside magic harpoons. He's not Hawkeye or anything, but he's still commendable.
• As stated above, Wander became Dormin's host by the end of his adventure. If Wander is about to die, Dormin can and probably will take over. Not sure if this really counts...

-Feats-

-Strength/Attack Potency-

• Capable of harming (in some cases, insta-killing) any colossus. While he CAN hurt them without directly hitting their weak spots, he can't kill them without piercing their sigils.
• Should be strong enough to stab through stone, considering that's what the colossi are made of.
• All of his ranged gear can harm a colossus without hitting their weak points. This means he has one hell of an arm when throwing a harpoon and his bow has a ridiculous draw strength.
• The explosion of a flash arrow should scale to the durability of a colossus, meaning it's possible for it to level a small building.
• Dormin smashing his fist into the ground makes the room they're in shake a bit. He should also be at least as strong as the average colossus.

-Durability/Endurance-

• Wander can survive being rammed into by Avion (colossus #5) after a dive. This guy copied my original calc from my original Wander blog from RT/SA without crediting me. It's probably a little dated and inaccurate, as Avion's terminal velocity or max speed in a dive is likely much higher than that of a Falcon's. I don't know jack about aerodynamics or anything like that, so it's very possible that the above or Avion simply generating lift is much stronger.
• Wander can survive attacks from Quadratus (colossus #2).
• At the start of the battle, Quadratus casually walks through a gigantic stone wall. By looking at literally every possible angle and frame of the animation and comparing it to Quadratus' size, we can get a rough estimate of the wall's dimensions (5m x 18m x 24m). This feat ends up being a minimum of 4.1 tons of TNT (large building level).
• Wander can survive Kuromori's corrosive gas for an extended period of time.
• I would give a link, but everyone's playthroughs on youtube are flawless -_-
• Wander and Agro can survive Pelagia, Kuromori and Basaran's projectiles that appear to be some kind of electricity. (see "speed/agility" below).
• Was still able to stand after being shot in the leg and stabbed through the chest by Lord Emon's servants. 
• Can survive attacks from Argus, who can shatter small bridges with his stone club.
• Can survive attacks from Barba, who casually knocks over small walls in his lair.
• Can shrug off being crushed by Gaius' gigantic stone club.

-Speed/Agility-

• Being a horse, Agro can run at speeds of up to 55mph
• Wander can dodge Pelagia, Kuromori and Basaran's electrical projectiles. VS Battles Wiki considers this to be a massively hypersonic speed feat, but it's kinda... debatable.
• His arrows most likely travel at the average speed an arrow travels... obviously (150 - 200mph). This technically gives Wander superhuman attack speed... sorta.
• He can also throw his harpoons at the same speed as his arrows somehow.
• Can react to Avion diving at him. Based on the calculation in the durability section, this can potentially put his reaction speeds at several hundred MPH.

-Summary-

• Strength/Attack Potency: Large Building Level
• Durability/Endurance: Large Building Level
• Speed/Agility: Superhuman. Possibly massively hypersonic, but it's very unlikely

-Strengths-

• Very skilled archer and horseback rider.
• Seemingly above-average intelligence, based on his ability to analyze his surroundings and manipulate every colossus.
• Invisibility can be used for both defense or offense. It's kinda difficult to fight an opponent that you can't see.
• May or may not have the ability to expose his opponents weak points with his swords and ancient bow. More than likely, however, it only applies to a colossus.
• Cloth of Desperation makes long falls irrelevant.
• Masks and cloaks amplify his stats (Strength/durability).
• Average healing factor that can be amplified by his Life Sword and Cloak of Fate 
• Somewhat diverse arsenal in general. 
• As Dormin, he becomes nearly invincible.
• Dormin also might be able to take the soul of his opponent, though the degree of power he has over the souls of the living and the dead is pretty vague.
• Dormin's ability to breathe fire can find some use despite its slow warm-up time.

-Weaknesses-

• Mediocre swordsman at best.
• This means that he is absolutely screwed if the fight ends up in close quarters.
• Lacking any decent speed feats.
• Wander's injuries also affect Dormin. If Wander breaks his leg, Dormin won't be able to walk properly.
• Wander can only have one of each equipment type (1 Sword, 1 Cloak, 1 Mask) equipped together at a time. This means he has to constantly swap between them if he wants to boost any particular stat. 

Possible Opponents

 

-The Heroine (Praey for the Gods)-

For those who don't know, Praey for the Gods is an indie game that is heavily inspired by Shadow of the Colossus. The premise is nearly identical, the Heroine has a very similar arsenal to Wander's and she's fought monsters (Gods in her case) with similar power to the Colossi. If you haven't played Praey for the Gods yet, you MUST! Here's a link to its steam page.

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After what feels like a century, I've finally finished this blog. I know it's not super long or anything and that's not the reason why it took me forever (I simply haven't had the time). If you have any suggestions for other opponents, feel free to let me know. I'll be sure to credit you when I add them onto here.