Shadow Of The Colossus: Every Colossus Ranked From Worst To Best

8. Malus (Colossus #16)

An unpopular ranking for the game's final colossus, perhaps, for though Malus is an undeniably epic, expectation-defying ultimate antagonist - being a literal skyscraper of a creature and not moving from a fixed point - the fight is often more of a frustrating slog than fun and intense.

It begins promisingly, with the player having to avoid Malus' extremely dangerous fire-bolts, which can very quickly whittle your health down if you're blown away from cover. Once you've navigated a series of tunnels to avoid the bolts, you can finally get underneath Malus and start climbing up it, which is where the battle truly begins.

Climbing up the fur on Malus' hands is rather challenging, and moreover, convincing him to move his hand up to his shoulder with an arrow requires an insane amount of precision that can easily make the fight drag on for over half an hour. That's without even mentioning how carefully you need to ration out your stamina in order to stab the weak point on top of his head without being thrown off.

If you are thrown from Malus, there's a good chance he'll fire bolts at you as soon as you stand up, killing you instantly and forcing you to start the entire fight again right from the beginning, which is controller-throwingly annoying.

It gets points for its imagination and being appropriately stressful, but it's a shame the finale wasn't more fun overall.