Lost in Shadow

Also known as A Shadow's Tale in PAL regions. This obscure gem coming from the absorbed Hudson Soft has heavy inspirations from ICO (a PS2/3 exclusive) and the classic Prince of Persia to a certain extent. In fact it has so many similarities with ICO that it's considered to be a decent clone of it.

The protagonist, who is a young boy, loses his body product of a dark force and so his soul is sent to somewhere far away from the tower. Your mission is to go through many sections full of obstacles, outside and inside the tower, in search for his lost body. However, he later finds out about the evil source that is responsible for the many travelers that disappeared or died while they were in the tower, leading to another mission which is defeating the root cause of all those events.

When you start the adventure, the young boy has no weapons but is aided by a small fairy who is able to move certain platforms, which are marked by a tiny circle of light for easy spotting, this lets the boy to go through them. A bit later in the game he finds a basic sword, gaining the ability to kill any enemy that he encounters through his quest. However, this sword does not let you enter the light doors until he finds an upgraded sword somewhere near the shrine area. Once he has this ability, entering any of the light doors triggers a 3D environment that reminds a lot of ICO, but with a time limit while in this state and also that he cannot attack, though there are no enemies to encounter in light world.

A level system is also implemented, with each level up your attacks become stronger, health is upgraded by finding the so called 'memories' which contain information about the tower and what happened inside it before his adventure. There are 90 of them and in the video I find them all, proof of it is the 21.0g cap near the end. Another feature in the game are the Shadow Corridors found in most sections, these act as some sort of challenges, and completing them rewards the player with lots of EXP points. In some cases you're required to complete this sub-level for progression. I show all 40 of them thanks to a guide I used, same for the Memory locations.

You might notice halfway in the game (after acquiring the sword that enables light doors) that a mandatory backtracking has to be done in order to pick up four of the six Stained Glass pieces. These pieces are needed to access the Dark Tower and the few final sections after it. The game has only one bossfight and it's at the bottom of the well when you reach the other side of the garden. Upon completion with 100% progress you are rewarded with a knife (less powerful weapon) and some trident-looking weapon that kills everything in one hit, to enable them you have to press C (for knife) or Z button (for the trident) while selecting a 'dirty' save file.

Overall a very obscure gem that people who played ICO will find many familiar elements in it, especially in terms of gameplay, unfortunately there is no spoken dialogue though in my opinion that's less of an issue.

0:00:00 - Start
0:00:55 - Prologue

Garden
0:02:51 - Well Yard
0:05:54 - Outflow
0:08:21 - Station's Lower Structure
0:12:58 - Tram Station
0:15:46 - Gate
0:17:12 - Pillar Path

Lower Tower
0:18:07 - 1F: Inside Tower
0:20:55 - 2F: Large Stairway
0:22:49 - 3F-5F: Tower Base
0:27:24 - 6F-9F: Low Outer Wall

Factory
0:33:19 - 9F: Fan Passage
0:37:55 - 11F: Factory Section 1
0:43:45 - 12F: Factory Section 2
0:47:21 - 13F-15F: Factory Section 3
0:59:24 - 16F-18F: Factory Section 4
1:01:42 - 19F: Factory Section 5

Reservoir
1:08:36 - 21F-23F: Disinfection Tank
1:16:00 - 24F: Connection Bridge
1:20:03 - 25F: Sewage Treatment 1
1:27:00 - 26F: Sewage Treatment 2
1:33:46 - 27F-29F: Cistern Remains

Residential Section
1:46:12 - 31F: Long Passage
1:53:08 - 32F-35F: Residential Section 1
2:03:25 - 37F: Residential Section 2
2:12:22 - 38F: Residential Section 3
2:21:54 - 39F: Residential Section 4

2nd Factory
2:32:27 - 41F-42F: Iron Stairway 1
2:38:56 - 43F: Factory Section 6
2:43:22 - 44F-45F: Tram Section 1
2:54:08 - 46F: Iron Stairway 2
3:01:55 - 47F: Iron Stairway 3
3:15:02 - 48F: Iron Stairway 4
3:29:57 - 49F: Iron Stairway 5

Shrine
3:33:09 - 51F: Shrine 1
3:43:00 - 52F: Temple
3:50:59 - 53F: Shrine 2 (Stained Glass 5)
4:02:41 - 55F: Altar

Backtracking for Memories
4:05:30 - 2nd Factory revisit
4:10:17 - Residential Section revisit (Stained Glass 4)
4:27:55 - Reservoir revisit (Stained Glass 3)
4:38:25 - Factory revisit (Stained Glass 2)
4:59:39 - Lower Tower revisit (Stained Glass 1)

Sewer
5:08:25 - B1F: Sewer Section 1
5:20:34 - B2F: Sewer Section 2
5:35:10 - B3F: Sewer Section 3 (Stained Glass 6)
5:53:44 - B4F: Sewer Section 4
6:03:23 - B5F: Elevator
6:05:14 - Placing all Stained Glass pieces

Dark Tower
6:07:09 - Floor 1
6:09:43 - Floor 2
6:15:02 - Floor 3
6:17:34 - Floor 4
6:20:39 - Floor 5
6:22:50 - Floor 6
6:27:05 - Floor 7
6:29:14 - Floor 8
6:35:54 - Floor 9
6:38:07 - Floor 10

Garden Labyrinth
6:43:13 - Garden Labyrinth 1
6:56:06 - Garden Labyrinth 2
7:12:28 - Garden Labyrinth 3
7:30:09 - Well Yard

Well Bottom
7:30:41 - Well
7:32:15 - Well Bottom (Final Boss)

7:38:46 - Ending & Credits