Shadow of the Colossus is quite a simple game at its core. It’s just boss fights basically. These boss fights are also more like puzzles than requiring rapid button press to make a health bar go down. The 2018 remaster of the original 2005/06 PS2 release is a very good looking and the open world which contains forests, open plains and deserts and lakes does each very well and all look very good.

Even if the open world is quite barren, the open world is not the main focus of the game as the only thing the player can besides traversing the open world to get from one Colossus to another, is to find fruit or lizards and shires. Which can be used to boost stats between defeating Colossi. Though these stat boosts are not really needed as the stat boosts you receive from defeating each Colossus is more than enough to get to the end of the game.

One thing the remaster does really well is fur, which is very realistic in the way it moves which is crucial to the game’s design as each Colossus is covered in tons of fur which the player is required to use the fur to climb up each Colossus and find their weak points.

While I’m not the biggest fan of boss fights, this is mainly due to the game systems not being built for them. This is not the case for Shadow as the controls and the game design are based entirely around boss fights and environmental clambering. Environmental clambering is handled incredibly well and works smoothly. Alongside the climbing mechanics, the other mechanic is combat related as this is how the Colossus is brought down. But as these mechanics are designed purely for the Colossus there isn’t much depth in the mechanics. However this lack of depth ensures that the mechanics are able to be designed around their core use rather than having to be used for multiple different gameplay encounters and gameplay loops.

The lack of variety in the objectives is actually countered by the variety is supplied by the Colossi as they are very different from each other as each Colossi requires the player to tackle them in different ways as no method to defeat one Colossus is reusable on another. The games difficulty varies up and down with each Colossus as some are more difficult than others. The lack of variety in game design is helped by the fact that Shadow of the Colossus is a relatively short game at about eight hours in length. Although my progress came to a grounding halt with the final Colossus as it is unlike the other preceding Colossi, this final Colossus requires the player to learn new methods to defeat the Colossus which hadn’t been hinted at previously.

Shadow of the Colossus is a game which if you play it as due to being focused one on singular gameplay loop leads as this hyper focus on doing one thing very well, in this case boss fights, coupled with its relatively short run time means that Shadow of the Colossus is a strongly put together piece of entertainment which should be experienced through the 2018 remaster as Shadow of the Colossus lives up to its status as a important title for the PS2 for the most part despite the rather annoying design of the final Colossus.