Twilight Princess' popularity, while inspired by Shadow of the Colossus, sadly overshadows this superior piece of art.
What many people do not realize is that Twilight Princess was highly inspired by a much more (but vaguely overshadowed) superior game called Shadow of the Colossus. So much, in fact, that it pretty much ripped the game off. But, like I said before, Zelda recieved a far better reputation because of it's brand, and In my opinion that's not a reason to give it so much praise.
But enough about Twilight Princess. This is a review for Shadow of the Colossus for the Playstation 2, and I intend it to BE that way throughout.
Shadow of the Colossus is an absolute artistic and technical masterpiece, dispite being run on the PS2 hardware, which in this day in age is very limited. The story puts you in the role of a nameless warrior, who carries the body of his lost love to a faraway land to resurrect her. The gods of that realm tell of sixteen colossi that you must defeat and collect their souls, which have the ability to bring back the dead. The game does not do a good job of telling you the basic story very deeply, mostly because the voice acting and such is rarely heard, But it adds a very mysterious feel to the overall uniquity of the game. In the game, you need to travel across the empty, yet massive and beautiful landscapes to find the sixteen colossi and destroy them, and you have a magic sword that shoots light in the direction in which the next colossus lies. Now, the battles with the colossus themselves are absolutely the best boss battles in any game period. While there are no "normal" enemies in the game which is entirely boss-focused, these battles are so fantastic that you won't really care about the lack of normal ones.
The Colossi are mountain-sized beasts made of stone and fur. At first you will be wondering "How the hell am I supposed to kill this thing!?", but If you know what to do, it can be quite simple. You need to figure out how to reach the Colossus' fur and grab onto it, and climb around its body looking for a weak spot, which is usually a glowing blue symbol, and stab it with your sword.
The battles get harder and harder as you progress, so the pacing of the game is very well implemented, making the overall design and balance the game's best advantage.
The graphics and sound are another strong point. The graphics are the absolute best on the PS2 at this point, and the game's soundtrack is very epic and thrilling. The only drawback is that the framerate sometimes drops to about 5-10 FPS depending on how large the objects on screen are.
While Nintendo is supposedly "innovating" the hardcore game market with Twilight Princess, Shadow of the Colossus is definately the true meaning of innovation, but sadly, it's overshadowed by other, more popular games that are highly inferior to it.