Saru

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Saru
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Height	108.2 feet (33 meters) - Including the arms.
Location	Cave

Saru (lit. "Monkey" in Japanese) is a colossus that, for unknown reasons, did not make it into the final version of the game. It is one of two unused colossi, the other being Sirius, that doesn't have a different name given by fans; it's therefore called Monkey, as the designs nicknamed it.

Strategy

The artbook says, "It hung from the ceiling, and you'd defeat it by dropping it to the floor." That, coupled with early sketch designs, indicate that Saru was fought in a cave-like area where it would hang onto stalactites. It is likely that Saru would either attack the player by letting stalactites fall, or by dropping itself atop the player. There is also the possibility that Wander had to shoot the stalactites Saru was hanging onto to make it drop.

In the screenshot of Saru, it's shown hanging using its two limbs. In early sketches, the colossus is seen holding onto stalactites with one, two, and four limb(s).

Sheet data reveals that Saru was able to jump 75 metres. Possibly explaining how he got back up the roof after being dropped to the floor, suggesting the player had to drop Saru to the floor more than once.

Location

Saru differs from other unused Colossi in that the coordinates for its location are plainly shown in one of the artbook's images, as illustrated in the gallery below. Translating the debug menu reveals that it may have lived in an area named "Cave", and the coordinates can potentially point to two different locations in the game's map; Dirge's cave at B4 and/or the I3 map square in the preview version, just behind the Beta Dam.[1]

At one point, it was widely believed that I3 must have been Saru's lair, since B4's cave already had Dirge in it and the Preview version seemed to point to the existence of a cavernous structure in the I3 quadrant. However, further analysis revealed that I3 was actually just a flat plain, and that it had in fact been the old arena for Basaran during the game's development, effectively refuting the Saru theory.[2]

Trivia

• PS3 sheet data reveals all the beta colossi had idol statues except Griffin and Saru, suggesting they were removed very early in development.
• Early screenshots of Dirge's arena show it without the cave. A Team Ico developer revealed the cave was added to Dirge's arena later on and was a reused asset that was previously scrapped, meaning Dirge's cave could possibly be Saru's. This is further suggested by Dirge's cave having stalactites and a hole in the roof, both of which are features also seen in the screenshot of Wander climbing Saru.

Gallery

A picture of Saru.

Different early sketches of Saru.

A test shot of Wander holding onto Saru.