5/5 ★ – bryansbane's review of Shadow of the Colossus.

A brilliant work of art. Shadow of the Colossus is a game that doesn’t ask much of you, but does soon begin to ask you why you’re doing the things you’re doing and what that means. It feels like a game made by subtraction, subtraction in that so much of what you might expect from a game at the time is not there, and that’s by design. You have a simple goal. Ride your horse across the land until you find a Colossus and defeat it. Defeat them all to save the girl. “Fighting” a Colossus is primarily finding out how to climb it to find its weak spots. It’s simple but effective, original and highly memorable. It’s a hard pitch to sell someone in the game by telling them all you do is ride across and empty land and climb bosses, but the effect the experience has on you won’t ever leave you. There’s a reason it’s still mentioned by so many to this day. There’s still nothing else like it.