Guessed by @Machina
I usually put on the soundtrack to the game I will be talking about when I start writing these, so I'm in the right mood and all that. Well. It was a mistake this time, because the moment the Shadow of the Colossus music kicked in, I was left utterly speechless, or at the very least, incapable of typing. It's unreal how good it is, all of it. Every second of this soundtrack is masterpiece. But then again, the same applies to the game.
The best thing about this game, though, is how little it's interested in being one. The gaming industry has all these standards and conventions it puts on every game, and we as their audience have come to expect these kinds of things. Shadow of the Colossus is, more or less undisputably, an open-world game. But it doesn't feel like one in the slightest. There's no sidequests to engage with, no villages full of NPCs to interact with, no hidden collectibles you have to get to unlock some special reward no one cares about, no senseless crafting systems, no dungeons full of different enemies. There's none of that. There's nothing. It's you and your horse in this empty and desolate wasteland, in complete silence, alone with your thoughts.
In other games, you wouldn't even begin to question the morality of slaying a bunch of giant monsters, but Shadow of the Colossus isn't other games. It's a work of art, one that is scarcely concerned with the notion of what being a videogame is, yet is only as powerful as it is because of the medium it's in. It's an understatement to say it was ahead of its time, and over 15 years on, it is still viewed as a cornerstone of the industry. But it feels weird to call it that, because Shadow of the Colossus isn't a product; it's not trying to be part of an "industry". It's only concerned with being itself, and that's something I value more than anything.
