would adapt in response to the changing circumstances of gameplay events. Although the game has an extensive orchestral soundtrack, the music is mostly heard during colossus encounters, beyond which the game's setting is underscored by more subtle sounds of water and wind. The open nature of Shadow of the Colossus locations and their lack of life, coupled with the restrained use of music in the game, reinforces its atmosphere of solitude, analogous to that of Ico. Team Ico wanted to bring "a unique sound and feel" to each of the player's confrontations with the colossi. At the time that NICOs technology demo was developed, Team Ico used available sample music. Once those materials had undergone in-company review and had been finalized, the staff invited Otani to see the prototype as a means to communicate the game's direction to the composer. He then worked on the music for the game's discrete segments from the concepts submitted by the team via artwork and storyboards for the game's isolated scenes. Otani was repeatedly asked by Ueda to rewrite his compositions so that the team was able to use them in particular configurations that were compliant with the game's technical specifications. Otani felt that the assembled soundtrack was imbued with a cinematic quality. On December 7, 2005, an album containing music from the game was released only in Japan, titled Wanda and the Colossus Original Soundtrack: Roar of the Earth (ワンダと巨像 オリジナル サウンドトラック大地の咆哮, Wanda to Kyozō Original Soundtrack: Daichi no Hōkō). After the release of Shadow of the Colossus, Ueda stated his appreciation for Otani's work in the game. Ueda was especially fond of the music that accompanied the game's finale, a series of phrases that had been extracted by Otani from each of the score's other tracks and remixed into a new recording. Although parts of that composition perplexed Ueda at first, he became convinced that it "was a really cool way to use the game's music" after familiarizing himself with the result. Release Following a July 15, 2005 news release where SCEI confirmed the publication date for the Japanese version of Shadow of the Colossus, the company divulged details about the limited first run edition of the game, which players could only acquire by pre-ordering, on August 19 of that year. On September 12, 2005, SCEI revealed that it had secured an arrangement to distribute the game through 7-Eleven's Japanese сhain of