Prey for the Gods

This game is really good and reminds me a lot of the classic shadow of the colossus. its almost like a copy in the sense that theres an open world with the freedom to wander around and explore in search of items and upgrades, but the main focus is finding and fighting giant titans that each have different appearances, attack patterns and ways to approach them... the core idea is still the same for all of them, you need to climb them using the parts covered in fur and attack the weak spots across their bodies until you defeat them. its always the same process of climbing and striking their weak points to beat the bosses, but i found the climbing and combat system much easier and less frustrating than shadow of the colossus. even so the game is still pretty challenging bc even on easy difficulty youll usually die in a single hit if a titan steps on you, no matter which difficulty youre playing on.

The closest thing you'll get to Shadow of the Colossus on steam, with some survival crafting elements stapled on. Considerable jank, but a commendable effort by a developer trio. If you liked SotC I would give this a chance at a discount.

There's a fine game if you can get past the awkward name. Praey for the Gods isn't shy about its influences: Shadow of the Colossus, Breath of the Wild, and a hint of a Princess Mononoke vibe, all in a Fimbulwinter sort of scenario. The catch with paying homage to some serious masterpieces is you're doomed to be constantly compared to some real heavy hitters. While I wouldn't Praey for the Gods on the same pedestal held by the games it pays homage to, it's a competent entry that is able to stand on its own and does a lot more right than wrong. If you've enjoyed said influences, you really ought to give it a shot.
Being the gaming masochist I am, and hearing others call the game a tad on the easy side, I started on the hardest difficulty and full survival settings and kept both there throughout. I can certainly see where others are coming from if they played on lower settings but I'm not about to fault a game for being accessible and you can change difficulty whenever you want so don't be shy about cranking that up if you're not feeling it otherwise.
To be clear, the difficulty mainly comes from the survival gauges, which degrade faster than they really ought to. Getting hungry and tired while trying to scale a boss is a bad time, as you won't be able to take advantage of the rare opportunities to recoup stamina. By the same token, snow storms are just plain obnoxious and come up more frequently than they probably should, to include during any boss fight that takes place outdoors, which is most of them. It's certainly dramatic when that happens though and satisfying to overcome. Managing the gauges forces you to spend time hunting for resources and building a stockpile of items to see you through the next boss battle and really ups the run time. Having to stock up and prepare to fight a living high rise that wants to kill you makes sense though. Health and clothes would be entirely irrelevant, were it not for the freezing damage that can outright kill you on higher levels. The undead that pop up occasionally aren't really a threat and frankly are more scarce than I'd have liked. They feel a bit like an afterthought. Swapping some snow storm frequency for more minion combat would have been nice.
There are plenty of little puzzles, secrets, and lore scattered around an interesting environment of frozen ruins and giant shackled figures, and while most gear doesn't make a huge difference, they provide enough reward to make exploring to find them feel worth it. The big piece of equipment that stands out is what amounts to the hook shot from many of the Zelda games. Despite being popularized by the franchise, even Breath of the Wild was too cowardly to include it in its open world, so it's quite nice to be able to grapple around and take the edge off of a lot of the climbing, plus it adds some interesting options for boss fights. By the same token, the paraglider cloth, more or less straight Breath of the Wild, is a very welcome addition to scaling giant bosses. Using them in tandem? Very good times.
What the game really does right is a lot of the little things. I mentioned adjustable difficulty already. Key remapping is there and works like a charm. I played with mouse and keyboard and had no troubles with anything, thanks to being able to set it up how I like. The often changing direction of the wind matters not only for the sail cloth but it can slow you down on foot walking into it and you'll put your arm up to shield your face when doing so. Crafting, repairing and eating all have animations rather than Skyrim-style "open the menu and eat all the cheese". Beyond good aesthetics, it forces you to be deliberate in minding your gauges and resources, and when you recover. A good thing in my book. Being able to whittle a bundle of arrows from wood basically any time is also really nice. Your gear changes appearance as you upgrade it. Snow is deep in places and slows you down. You, enemies, animals and even fallen items leave depressions in it as you trudge through, which is a great detail. Warming your hands near a fire, limping and coughing when seriously hurt, shaky aim when freezing, all good little touches I appreciate.
I'll leave off on a big one. To the game's immense credit, and despite the bosses being literally numbered, you can fight them in any order, save for the first and final ones in their respective places. No baloney gatekeeping, no broken cutscenes, no screwed up narrative or progression: if you find it, you can fight it, and you can kill it. The world actually is open. Bumbling into a boss while exploring happened more than a few times and I love that it's just a thing you can do, few games allow that. I wound up defeating them pretty wildly out of order: 1, 2, 4, 6, 5, 3, 7, and 8.
Like I said at the top, Praey for the Gods does a whole lot right and while it's not perfect, it's certainly worth your time. It's not like "giant boss climber" is a very populated genre and it's been a hot minute since Shadow of the Colossus graced the PS2 so if you have any love in your heart for said genre, or curiosity, in the case of having missed out on such a classic, Praey for the Gods is a worthy entry. Apparently it came out of a Kickstarter too, so it's really nice to see a quality project rise through a crowdfunding channel, you can tell the developers had passion.

Great indie game, often underrated. It’s an excellent open world, with fantastic boss and mini-boss fights. The survival aspect is also present. To fully enjoy the game, you need to play on the highest difficulty, which allows you to truly appreciate it while adding a more realistic survival element, without making combat any harder.

I'm coming in as an outsider. Didn't fund the kickstarter and never heard of this game until I searched for spiritual successors to shadow of the colossus.

This game REALLY scratches that itch - it's a fun game and it was only like $8 on sale. Some of the colossi are really fun, and have really cool designs.

The "survival" aspects of it feel like an afterthought - it didn't really bother me that much though. I played on the normal difficulty. You CAN explore but there's really not that much to it. I think in total I only got like 3 upgrades and I put them all in health.

This game is definitely worth it if you want something like SOTC.

The story is not how I PREFER having a story told. You pick up a lot of it from items you find around the world rather than it engaging you directly. However, the mechanics are a lot of fun, and I find the setting and atmosphere inspiring. I've ended up incorporating a cold mechanic into my Dungeons and Dragons games, inspired by this game. Also the aesthetics are personally right up my alley.

It has a lot of potential and it's pretty well done for a team of 3. It is a bit janky with the combat and clibing the bosses so I decided to not finished the game but I had fun with it, the music is good, it runs a 60fps and I like the vibe of Shadow of the colossus and Castlevania LoS it gives. Will be looking out for the next game for sure. If you can get it in sale, it's the best deal I think for this kind of game.