I was always curious about Team Ico and Fumito Ueda's highly praised trilogy, but truthfully what finally did it was hearing that my favourite creative director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, played Ico and was inspired to give up his day job to pursue games after it.

Ico is a platform adventure game in which you play the titular young Ico, who is left to rot in a castle for being born with horns. Instead of rotting away, you find a weird magic girl (Yorda) and go off on a quest to escape the wretched castle you're in, with evil forces attempting to stop you.

Reading up on it, it's fascinating to see what things this game revolutionised, light functions that didn't exist before Ico, the team's creative 'subtracting design' to keep the player's path focused, and the incredibly clever level designs & area puzzles. This game has inspired almost every major and minor game that came after it, and it's so easy to see why. It feels like there's a clear historical divide of pre-Ico games and post-Ico games, shaped by its world-changing innovations and creativity.

The game is incredibly charming in spite of its minimal narrative and dialogue. The feeling that courses through you when you discover a new path or solve a puzzle is like no other, and the castle's world feels incredibly vast and complex for a game that's 23 years old.

Ofc the game is imperfect (which feels like mostly part of an inevitable obstacle in hardware limitations that the developers had to deal with). There are moments where the jankiness leads you astray from obvious solutions for needless amounts of time, or enemy fights get very repetitive. But for a <10 hour game it's not only forgivable, but a contributing factor to its raw charm and underdog spirit.

Ico has fully got me on board for its successors. On to Shadow of the Colossus and the Last Guardian!

The North American cover-art is the visual antithesis to the sheer quality I precieve of this particular game.

It's a simple, haunting story about a cursed boy, whom is controlled by the player, that is forced to be a sacrificial lamb, only to free himself and later free a glowing girl that speaks an entirely different language from him.

It's a simple, haunting game where the two travel through the ruins and structures, navigating treacherous and perilous environments, solving ancient puzzles that lock their exits, and fight back against shadow beings that seek to spirit away the girl the player character freed.

It's a simple, haunting theme about a growing bond of friendship beyond language, and the power of trust and determination against nigh insurmountable odds.

It's a simple, haunting journey where boy meets girl, boy saves girl, and boy frees girl, with nothing but a stick and little else left to lose.

Is this review pretentious? A tad. Am I biased? Very likely. That said, this game isn't for everyone, and its simplicity alone might turn most away from it, but power and respect to those that give it an honest try.

Handholding has never been this good.

In all seriousness Ico is truly one of a kind game with it's unique and ambient atmosphere backed up by it's environments that still looks good thanks to it's beatiful art direction,even the puzzles knows how to take advantage of these environments and play it in very interesting way that does makes me think out of the box couple times,it is a shame that the three to last level is an underwhelming compared to previous ones as its just the same level but reversed with some new tweaks.

Some might say the combat and the movement is too loose or a bit basic but i think it's still bearable just take some time to get used to it's movement and positioning ICO then ur good for the rest of the game and despite it's minimalistic and subtle nature of the story it's still an pretty story that the game succeed at implementing this through gameplay,world,and soundtrack.

Truth be told going into ICO i'm a bit afraid that it will ended up be somewhat an shallow experience but thankfully that's not the case and i am glad to finally experience this amazing gem 2 decades later.

Much more tense that I had anticipated, but a great experience nonetheless. Ico explores its themes of bonding and persistence through the lense of a child trapped in this decaying castle, searching a way out amidst the ruins of a world that's seemingly hostile to that which he cares the most. To me the serene beauty of the enviroment is arguably the star of the show, but is permanently muddled by the constant threat of danger; you cannot leave Ico's companion Yorda alone for more than a couple of minutes without feeling worried, and calculating the distance between them in terms of seconds becomes a neccessity. The player is never quite free in their mind to meander around the castle and fully appreciate the artistry of its design. This is deliberate, of course, and its purpose gives your actions a weight that they would've otherwise lacked, perhaps. But here's my thing with Ico; I always had conceived it as a rather different experience, one more contemplative and calmer, one which just left you be in this magnificent place for the most part, one when you weren't rushed to solve anything by the ever present enemies lurking at every corner, and that's not the case. Sure, there's some momments here and there, but that's not the main thing the game's looking for, in my opinion, and this contrast became problematic to the mind of a person that had been wanting to play it for a good fifteen years.

Ultimately, even if I would've loved the game Ico was in my mind a lot more, it's hard to deny the merits the actual game has. It's almost like a horror game, the player's always on their toes, and while the combat is bad, intrusive and unceasing, it does gave a deeper meaning to the relationship between these two characters, makes the bond more solid. Anyway, the game's great and the sound design and the score are top notch, that alone makes it an obligatory play for everybody.