Ico - Playstation 2 (2001)

Spring in Fialta

A malign star kept him
Apr 1, 2007
25,087
14,270
Montreal, QC
Anyone familiar/has played the game? I still own a PS2 and since I'm not a video game guy (out of a lack of patience/other hobbies than any sort of prejudice against them) I don't really have any desire to shell out 500-1000$ for a worthy set-up and instead prefer to make do with what I already have and try to get some mileage out of it. I was reading about Team Ico's approach and video game design and became curious. Would the game be a good purchase and time investment? I'd love to get some feedback on any experience with the game (including the successors, I never know what I may end up buying).
 
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RandV

It's a wolf v2.0
Jul 29, 2003
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Vancouver
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It's a good game but from what I recall it's a play through is only about 4 hours long? If you can find it for cheap then it's a good play through, but not something I would spend a lot on.

On the other hand, the developers Team Ico's magnum opus was their next game on the PS2, Shadow of the Colossus. I'd say one of the best games of all time, and better value being more like 10-12 hours for a play through and some okay replay options.

I think both games have a remake option on PS4? So don't get confused with that if you look them up and see some higher spec graphics.
 

PeteWorrell

[...]
Aug 31, 2006
4,625
1,728
That game did not age well. The game's strongest point was the atmosphere and now being 2 soon to be 3 generations later, it simply does not cut it anymore.
 

Shareefruck

Registered User
Apr 2, 2005
28,875
3,570
Vancouver, BC
Yeah, start with Shadow of the Colossus first (that's on PS2 as well, although the PS3 version is significantly more polished) and work backwards if you really love it and are willing to put up with some growing pains (they're vaguely connected spiritual successors that are equally interesting to complete in either order). There are things creatively unique to Shadow of the Colossus that I think you'd appreciate, and that I personally find awe-inspiring (and probably a few things that might annoy you, but that's okay).

While not everybody feels this way because technologically, it's obviously inferior, there are some very cool artistic qualities to the PS2 version created by the console's limitations that are lacking in future remasters and remakes (the foggy haze, chunkiness, lack of on-screen objects, and faded colors to mask its limited hardware capabilities as well as its awkward yet weirdly life-like character animations adds a really cool, ethereal and unsettling dream-like/isolating quality to it). If you're open to it, it's worth trying for sure.

There's a lot of love, charm, ambition, integrity, and tastefulness poured into the game that is severely lacking in most games, and the soundtrack is incredible. Might still be one of the best examples of art in videogames.

My favorite minor detail of the game is that when you leave the game idle for a while, it plays this beautiful sequence where your horse leaves your side as you rest and it just wanders around the map to the track "The Farthest Land" (which isn't played at any other point).

(couldn't find a PS2 version of the video)


 
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Ceremony

blahem
Jun 8, 2012
113,012
15,080
I wrote a review of it when I last finished it four years ago:

I get the feeling, probably wrongly condescendingly, that Ico is a game which has a greater proportion of people who know about it but haven't played it than have. It's old, it didn't sell exceptionally well when it was first released (google "Ico American cover art," go on, I'll wait) and it's... well, it's not an easy sell. It's not an easy thing to describe. "What do you do in Ico?" You're this little boy with horns in a huge castle and you find this girl and you try to escape. "Does the girl help you?" No, she runs off to chase pigeons while you're trying to get her to stand on switches. I'm sure it would be very popular.

To focus on the infuriating AI this early is to miss the point, however. Ico is primarily a puzzle-platformer. You move stuff around or you jump across stuff to get to the end. Pretty straight forward. Occasionally you need the girl, Yorda, to stand on a switch. Sometimes black monsters come out of the ground and try to take her back. You can ward them off with a stick or, later on, a sword, a mace or a lightsaber. The what I hesitate at this point to call combat is somewhat out of place with everything else. Maybe it's because it's an old game and the hit detection isn't what I'm used to but there's something very clunky about these sections. Most of them can actually be skipped just by grabbing Yorda and running straight for the exit of wherever you are but when you're forced to engage it's a bit of a pain and really shatters the burgeoning atmosphere that's growing. The same goes for the appalling single location camera that seems to have a mind of its own when you're moving around. Very annoying. And Yorda. Oh, Yorda. I need her to stand on a switch, so I'll call to her while standing just behind the switch. You can't get her to actually do something, you just get her in the location you want. All she can do is stand on stuff. So you do that, then she doesn't move. Or goes where you need her to then moves a step to the side and what you needed to happen goes away. Or she starts climbing a ladder and decides after getting halfway up that she's going back down. This last one is really centric to the trophy for finishing the game in under two hours (1:58:58, thank you for asking) but it's amazing what she can actually do, or not do. I've seen some attempts at justification for this on the internet. "She's supposed to be naïve! She doesn't know who you are or what you're doing! She's been in a cage all her life!" Yeah, well, she's annoying. She almost becomes endearing the more you play it but oh, she's useless. Almost useless enough to make you want to leave her in the castle.

Describing these complaints is somewhat redundant when I haven't told you what they're actually spoiling. Ico is a pretty short game. You can finish it in under two hours, even. Despite this there is a tremendous sense of scale in its setting. The castle you are in is large. It's entirely empty save for the two characters, although there is clear evidence of it having been inhabited previously. There's a sense of isolation, partly from the opening cutscenes which show Ico being taken there from an unspecified village because of his horns, partly because when you're in areas like those in the picture above you can see it being cut off from the rest of the world. Your sole focus is to escape from somewhere unknown to somewhere unknown.

Maybe it's because you play a child who's carrying around someone with no attention span but there's a sense of peril that really transmits to the player that's evident in this game that's rare in others. The impact of the setting's visuals is amplified by the sounds and the minimalist music. The former helps add to the sense of seclusion and insignificance, the latter is exactly what you want in a setting which creates these sensations. It's a perfect compliment. The feeling of the possibility of failure is a phrase which I think best describes how all of these aspects combine to create one overwhelming sensation. You quickly forget that this is a game with rigidly defined objectives you're playing. You want to explore, you want to leave. In exploring, you learn why you want to leave. It's all there is to do.

And why do you want to leave? Ultimately it's a typical fairytale situation I suppose. Yorda exists as some symbol of youth and purity who's being kept hostage by an evil witch who's going to use her youth to prolong her own life. Yorda herself shows no real inclination about wanting to leave. She sort of does whatever Ico wants in a dreamlike way which suggests she's never had any sort of direct order or purpose in her life. This adds to the sense of purpose you feel in controlling Ico in that you're imparting your own on to another character who is entirely reliant upon you. It also means that when she's exasperatingly unresponsive in doing whatever you need her to do you wonder why. Why is Ico's focus on getting this girl out of the castle with him, rather than just himself? Even if I'm to spoil the story for you, when you discover the source of the shadows that have tried to take Yorda back throughout the game you're just filled with more questions. Where have all these horned boys come from? Why? Is Ico doing the right thing in taking Yorda out of the castle? He isn't wanted, these other boys with horns aren't wanted, or so he's led to believe. Is there some greater purpose he has to enact which he can't know about?

Technically, with regard to the graphics and the music and such like Ico is a pretty unforgettable gaming experience. It is short, but playing through it blind, you don't feel like this is the case. The sense of scale within the game itself is enough to overcome any misgivings you have about its real length. The amount of questions you can ask yourself about the story, about why Ico and Yorda are doing what they are, they're endless. You can ask yourself them while you're playing it and for a long time after. The gameplay is pretty straightforward as well as the puzzles, but there's just enough difficulty in the puzzles and the platforming to make getting out the castle the challenge it should be. This combines with the unique atmosphere and the ending to create a tale that fills you with a sort of childlike wonder which believes that stories like this aren't possible, aren't imaginable. It'll stay with you forever if you let it, and you probably should.

The only other thing I have to say about Ico is that I was playing it when I made my first post on HF. Make of that what you will.

Spoiler heavy, obviously. It's alright. If you're not used to video games you might get annoyed with Yorda more quickly than I did.
 

JaegerDice

The mark of my dignity shall scar thy DNA
Dec 26, 2014
25,021
9,228
It was absolutely brilliant for the time, but it doesn't hold up that well.

If you're the type that's capable of putting yourself in the mindset to appreciate the context of an old work, then it's absolutely worth playing. If not, you're better off watching any of the many youtube essays espousing what made it great.
 

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