I saw video on my recommended about Ico and that made me want to replay it. I beat it prior and did not like it much, so I thought replaying it might make me appreciate it more. It did not made me appreciate it more. It made me dislike it more.

The lack of a map, the awful combat, and constantly needing to hold Yorda's hand were not great the first time I played it and they still are not replaying this game. This game is a hassle and I cannot believe I had a patience to beat it years ago. Now, I cannot even bother.

Ico is the type of game I dread to play, critically acclaimed, landmark classic of the medium, influenced various games and designers I love. I dread playing those because of a fear I have, a fear that's come true : I don't like ICO, in fact, I think I might hate ICO. And now I will have to carry that like a millstone around my neck, "that asshole who doesn't like ICO". Its not even really that external disapproval I dread, its the very reputation that causes me to second guess my own sincerely held opinions. I thought I liked minimalism in game design, and cut-scene light storytelling and relationships explored through mechanics but I guess I don't. There's some kinda dissonance, cognitive or otherwise reading reviews by friends and writers I respect and wondering if there's something wrong with me or if I didnt get it or played it wrong or any other similar foolishness that gets bandied around in Internet discussions. "I wish we could have played the same game" I think, reading my mutuals' reviews of ICO. Not in a dismissive asshole way of accusing them of having a warped perception, but moreso in frustration that I didnt have the experience that has clearly touched them and countless others.

But enough feeling sorry for myself/being insecure, what is my problem with ICO exactly? I don't really know. Genuinely. I wasnt even planning on writing a review originally because all it would come down to as my original unfiltered reaction would be "Playing it made me miserable". Thankfully the upside of minimalism in game design is that its easier to identify which elements didnt work for me because there are few in the game. I think the people who got the most out of ICO developed some kind of emotional connection to Yorda, and thats one aspect which absolutely didn't work for me. As nakedly "gamey" and transparently artificial as Fallout New Vegas' NPCs (and Skyrim and F3 etc) locking the camera to have a dialogue tree, they read to me as infinitely more human than the more realistic Yorda; for a few reasons. Chief among them is that despite some hiccups and bugs the game is known for, you are not asked to manage them as a gameplay mechanic beyond your companions and well, my main interaction with Yorda was holding down R1 to repeatedly yell "ONG VA!" so she'd climb down the fucking ladder. She'd climb down, get halfway through and then decide this was a bad idea and ascend again.

ICO has been to me a game of all these little frustrations piling up. Due to the nature of the puzzles and platforming, failing them was aggravating and solving them first try was merely unremarkable. It makes me question again, what is the value of minimalism genuinely? There was a point at which I had to use a chain to jump across a gap and I couldnt quite make it, I thought "well, maybe theres a way to jump farther" and started pressing buttons randomly until the circle button achieved the result of letting me use momentum to swing accross. Now, if instead a non-diegetic diagram of the face buttons had shown up on the HUD instead what would have been lost? To me, very little. Sure, excessive direction can be annoying and take me out of the game, but pressing buttons randomly did the same, personally. Nor did "figuring it out for myself" feel particularly fulfilling. Thats again what I meant, victories are unremarkable and failures are frustrating. The same can be said for the combat which, honestly I liked at first. I liked how clumsy and childish the stick flailing fighting style was, but ultimately it involved hitting the enemies over and over and over and over again until they stopped spawning. Thankfully you can run away at times and rush to the exit to make the enemies blow up but the game's habit of spawning them when you're far from Yorda or maybe when she's on a different platform meant that I had to rely on her stupid pathfinding to quickly respond (which is just not going to happen, she needs like 3 business days to execute the same thing we've done 5k times already, I guess the language barrier applies to pattern recognition as well somehow) and when it inevitably failed I would have to jump down and mash square until they fucked off.

I can see the argument that this is meant to be disempowering somehow but I don't really buy it. Your strikes knock these fuckers down well enough, they just keep getting back up. Ico isnt strong, he shouldnt be able to smite these wizard of oz monkeys with a single swing, but then why can they do no damage to ICO and get knocked down flat with a couple swings? Either they are weak as hell but keep getting remotely CPRd by the antagonist or they're strong but have really poor balance. In the end, all I could really feel from ICO was being miserable. I finished the game in 5 hours but it felt twice that. All I can think of now is that Im glad its done and I can tick it off the bucket list. I am now dreading playing shadow of the colossus even harder, and I don't think I ever want to play The Last Guardian, it just looks like ICO but even more miserable. I'm sure I've outed myself as an uncultured swine who didnt get the genius of the experience and will lose all my followers but I'm too deflated to care. If there is one positive to this experience is that I kept procrastinating on finishing the game that I got back into reading. I read The Name of the Rose and Rumble Fish, pretty good reads. Im going to read Winesburg Ohio next I think.

Ico is a game I really thought I wouldn't like but alas it became one of my favourites. Every single thing in this game is well thought out from gameplay to story and art. I really didn't feel like there was a single moment wasted.

The story is a minimalist one. only few words have been said in the game and half of it is gibberish in Egyptian like language. Hell the two main characters don't share a common but share a very human relationship. But that doesnt hold it from being heartfelt.

The gameplay feels pretty good with animations neons ahead of its time. There's a noticeable lack of hdd, prompts, Healthbars... etc. they simply leave you alone with the game to explore and experiment.

The level design is incredible with gorgeous areas and well made puzzles. if I could compare it to any other game I would say its Prince of Persia but set somewhere in the The Orient in an ancient ruined temple.

The ending and last boss especially were unexpectedly well done. Never thought a game with barely any combat managed to make a good last boss.

Overall fantastic game the fuzz around it is well deserved, and when I played it it made me feel a kid like sense of wonder and exploration. For me personally it made me feel like I was watching a studio ghibli movie.

10/10 with badass seal of approval.

Pretty great game, I like the hand holding physics (take notes dead rising) and the animations. The music was nice too. Give it a try.
…
April fools! What did you really think I, the great one and only elkmane would have just one sentence as my final review before my retirement? No. I’m gonna give a nice good long review.

Ico is a really nice game. It's a video game stripped down to its bare essentials and then stripped down even more. Theres no health bar or weapon switching or hud or prompts or any tutorial of any kind. Which is pretty cool and can lead to moments of discovery in puzzles which are really fun, like when i found out i could swing on chains or something. The puzzles in this game are so simple but can be so much fun. They often span a whole room or multiple, and mix cool platforming in and it always left me wanting to play more.

I did something new while playing this game. You see, the PS3 doesn't have a headphone jack on its controller, and I live in a house with other people who can't rly be quiet. Why don't i get a house for myself? because I live in ontario! FUCK YOU DOUG FORD! FUCK YOU WITH THE FREEST OF SPEECH THIS DIVIDED STATES OF EMBARRASSMENT WILL ALLOW ME TO HAVE! FUCK YOU AND THIS DEMOCRACY OF HYPOCRISY! Anyways, I decided every morning I was free to get up super early in the morning like 5 or 5:30 to play Ico. It was usually dark when I started but the sun rose through my window on the side and it was completely silent aside from the birds chirping both ingame and irl and it was a fun experience. Don't worry about me tho, i'm used to waking up at 5 to commute to uni. THANKS AGAIN DOUG FORD... FUCKING IDIOT. Anyways, the 5am complete silence helped me think a lot about what feelings this game was trying to give me. And I do feel it. It hit me when I, Ico, was trying to solve this puzzle by climbing up on this structure. Yorda was looking off into the ocean and occasionally glancing back at me to see how I was doing (yorda is the girl u escort around.) And I think I understood. This game is trying to recapture the greatest years of our lives, that being grade 3. And maybe 4 if you were lucky and privileged. Because there's such peace in meeting someone within 3 years of your age at a playground and not knowing how to speak the same language but still playing together. Hey let me show you something cool on top of this tree. You wait down there. I don't know, it was really evocative of that time for me. Like the time I was at the park at 9pm and met some guy from my class I never spoke to and we talked about owls while sitting on a tree and he told me owls are spies for demons and I believed him. This has nothing to do with the game, i'm rambling... sorry.. in my old age i've gotten sentimental for the happier days back before doug ford was premier. Maybe its good im retiring after this. im losing my marbles. Let me get back on track. Basically, this game is like meeting a new friend and helping her escape from her evil mom who wants her to stay inside and practice piano or multiplication tables.

the environments were all also great. If you liked undead parish/burg this is that but for like the whole game. Gorgeous visuals and the camera placements make this a very unique looking game. No prop or interactable item has any kind of glow or yellow paint marking that its usable or anything like that. Boxes are boxes, chains are chains, ropes are ropes, ladders are ladders, it has no regard for readability except for the fact that there is so little detail in the environment (which adds to its isolating abandoned castle atmosphere) that it really doesn't feel like a hassle or like there was something that shouldve been interactable. It's cool. The camera placement also highlights where you should go. Stepping onto a ledge brings the bottom tip of a chain into your view, prompting you to move the camera and investigate the room further. Now i'm gonna talk about the combat.

The combat is okay I guess, it's interesting and a fun idea to have the playable character be under no threat at all and have yords (me and yorda are on nickname basis) be the target. Theyll try and knock you away, but theyre going for her. Like ashley in re4 kind of. But it's more like ashley in re4 remake. The problem is theyre kind of slippery and can fly- and you have no air attacks. So, lets say I attack and they fly up. I repeat this like 20 minutes. But- if they grab yords then they stay still for a few seconds which lets you hit them as much as you like til they die. It's like re4 remake because ashley gets kidnapped 10x more in that game than she does in re4, and once she IS kidnapped then the ganado or whatever holding her is open to a stealth attack which is a one hit KO. So in that game, I didn't really mind her getting taken five times a fight because it was kind of beneficial to me. Double edged sword though. On one hand, its a way for your sidekick to be useful in their uselessness, but on the other hand it makes the times they DO get taken way less stressful. Honestly I think I would've preferred if they were just less slippery and didn't fly all the time.

I think thats pretty much all i have to say. The review is over now, so newcomers please feel free to drop your like and be on your way. My following message is for my loyal elksters regarding my retirement from backloggd.

Hey buddies. How's everyone doing? okay? i hope so. I know I'm addressing a crowd of hundreds, but honestly you're all my sons and daughters and children to me. All of you are appreciated by me equally. But I have to go now. Why? well, it's because I had a dream. What was my dream? well, I'll tell you now. I had put my copy of breath of the wild on sale in kijiji. What's kijiji? oh kiddo its like canadian craigslist. I wanted to sell my copy of breath of the wild or trade it for a copy of bayonetta 2. I did this in real life, so its interesting that it carried over in my dream. Anyways, I recieved a message (in my dream) saying they would trade me a copy of starbound for botw. I said no, considering starbound is worth like 15 dollars and I was selling botw for 45. The guy didn't like that. Not one bit. He took to backloggd and he posted something. He somehow managed to find every bad thing I've said on the internet, every weird search i've ever made, every guy i've yelled at on rainbow 6 voice chat. My elksters know I have a dark past. The comments were my beloved elksters; all of them felt so betrayed. Comments like "i cant believe elkmane would do this to us." "i can't support him anymore" "he was my idol." I tried to go back and give him my game, hoping for him to take it down but he didn't budge. It was over. My fans hated me. And that dream made it known to me that i can't be elkmane anymore. It's too much. This role isn't something i can mentally handle. The past 6 presidents of the united states have all gone on record as to saying that their job is 2nd hardest in the world right before being elkmane. And they're right. It is tough. So i've decided to hang up my elk hat and retire. And I know some shit's so hard to swallow, but I just can't sit back and wallow in my own sorrow but I know one fact: I'll be one tough act to follow. One tough act to follow. I'll be one tough act to follow. Here today, gone tomorrow - M.M

Here is my goodbye song!

wait, no. sorry. wrong one.

THIS is my goodbye song.

a little quaint but very much a beautiful work of art that i adore. i had a conversation with a friend about how brain rotting fortnite is and it deeply depresses me that hardly anyone touches this masterpiece. the puzzles are challenging but never impossible, even an idiot like me was able to complete it without a single use of any guide. playing it made me realize this must be an amazing game to experience as a kid; puzzle solving, keeping track and caring for another that helps your patience and to completely immerse yourself in a mostly quiet ambience. some moments of silence that is elevated with a rush of ocean wind should not only be much appreciated in video games but also in todays world especially with how chaotic everything has been (i sound dumb as hell but i hope my point comes across).

cherishes human connection in an endearingly immature way. very quaint but also overbearingly self-conscious in its approach to standard conventions, sometimes to a fault? “design by subtraction” sounds genius on paper, though to me it can lend itself to one of two mentalities in execution. it pushes the player towards experimentation; resulting in immense satisfaction when success occurs due to intuitive forward-thinking, or the absence of any emotion at all in triumph as the logic of the solution may have never transpired within the player. thankfully i think ico manages to lean more towards the former overall with only a few moments that underwhelmed my train of thought. the inquisition of the existence of swinging on chains was that of satisfaction. i noticed when jumping on chains that they’d naturally swing back and forth a little, so i figured there was a way to voluntarily execute that on my own and voilà! the action button had answered my prayers. in opposition to this, much later into the game you’re required to blow up the base of a water tower to progress, as for some reason when its blown up part of the tower conveniently falls to form a bridge leading to the next part of the area. this seemed odd to me because there’s… no indication this would happen and i dont think the average person would assume it’d either. you just throw a bomb at the tower because in the scenario there’s no other options of what to do. this was a time where i was met with dissatisfaction in puzzle solving. even if it is kinda minor it still racked my brain a bit.

anyway i believe this “subtraction” psychology applies to more than just the diminishing of useless aspects that dont add to the artist’s vision. namely it contributes to the progression. frequently we’re paraded with the great expanse of the castle utilizing overhead views and wide shots. in continuing our journey we inherently subtract the unknown of that expanse, and perhaps any fears of it that had construed our view of it. i suppose any action in the (or any) game can be interpreted as a subtraction. subtracting enemies, problems, etc etc…

some further things i had noted…
i was heavily reminded of love-de-lic and cing’s work while invested, i think mainly because of the childlike innocence on display in both of our protagonists alongside the organic vibes of the atmosphere respectively. ico’s selflessness struck me in a similar way to moon’s main character and yorda that of another code’s ashley.
the deprivation of any music aside from minor points is an oddly fitting choice that i appreciate a lot. im a sucker for nature ambience and this is no exception. in a way it kept me grounded throughout the entire experience.
the first time i was met with the blissful save theme it had sounded awfully familiar, within seconds my mind uttered “Based God sampled this!” precisely in Flowers Rise on batshit insane mixtape GODS FATHER. i fucking love that tape man i’ll take any chance i can get to shill it.

this was a really resonant experience for me and i’m glad i finally got to this one. i definitely see where people like taro and miyazaki were influenced here. in the industry nowadays you can still feel tremors that this game insinuated way back when (for better or for worse). brilliant display of the importance of environmental attention to detail.

Very weird game. I love the PS2 era games, because some of them just were batshit crazy convoluted stories filled with action, demons and shit like that. This is like the antithesis of that.

Ico got my interest after I played Shadow of The Colossus for the first time and got obsessed with it. I had to know more, to immerse myself in this world. Then I learned that all games made by Team Ico are supposedly in the same universe. So I booted up my emulator and got to it.

I loved the mysterious nature of SOTC - Ico has that too. I loved the art, the characters - Ico has that too. I loved the Zelda vibe - Ico has that too.

Still, Ico FELT like something else. Whereas Shadow was beautiful and entrancing, Ico was eerie and unnerving. It feels like something’s always creeping around the corner, in the shadows of this abandoned castle. It’s not a horror game, but it is one the scariest games I’ve ever played. But instead of jumpscares, it seeks deep into your mind, makes you uncomfortable and uneasy. I’ll probably have eerie dreams about it.

The absolute SILENCE of this game had me tense, if not sometimes bored. Midway through I was talking with a friend about it and said “it’s missing a soundtrack, it’s too empty”. I don’t think that anymore. It’s supposed to be like that. When something DID HAPPEN it always gave me some reaction, frequently shivers or stiffness. The sound of flapping wings of the shadow monsters while they try to get the girl had me in shambles.

Story wise it’s just as cryptic and mysterious as Shadow of The Colossus. Even weirder though. It follows the same structure too, cutscenes at the beginning - gameplay - cutscenes at the end.

Gameplay is solid puzzles, annoying combat (maybe on purpose) and good platforming.

When there is music, almost never, it goes hard.

I can see how this is considered influential, the way it tells a story with gameplay and minimal use of cutscenes feels very modern. Kinda like Inside. Very artsy game too, for sure. One of those showcases of games as art type of situation, Fujimoto definitely is an auteur.

Can’t wait for The Last Guardian now. This Fujimoto Ueda guy has me intrigued.

ICO is a game that I have mixed feelings about. I thought that it did many things incredibly well, from its world design to its art style and more. The only thing I disliked was actually playing it.

Artistically this game is amazing! I’m not going to say much about the positives of ICO, but I loved the art-style used. Another thing that I liked was exploring the castle, it felt gigantic and almost endless at times. From an artistic point of view the flaws with the gameplay helped with immersion, but even with that lens I just did not enjoy playing the game.

I disliked ICO's gameplay a lot. The movement is pretty bad, I can’t really describe it, but it just feels clunky and hinders more things about the game, like the platforming. Platforming in the game was good, other than the movement but something I personally disliked was how everything blends with each other (I NEED yellow tape to guide me).

But the main gripes I had with the gameplay were the combat and the camera. The combat was genuinely terrible. It’s tedious, doesn’t evolve throughout the game and made me not want to continue playing. The camera is also terrible but for external reasons. I hate it because it gave me a headache.

Even with the gripes I had with ICO, I still respect this game a lot for all of the unique ideas and concepts it introduced.

Quando eu comprava jogos de PlayStation 2 em alguma banquinha suspeita por aí e ficava folheando repetidas vezes aquelas capinhas de plástico mole dentro de uma caixa de acrílico - ao ponto de irritar o dono da banquinha -, frequentemente me deparava com a capa de Ico.
A capa europeia/japonesa é uma obra de arte, uma pintura digna de ser colocada em um quadro e pendurada na parede. Por sua vez, capa americana é COLOSSALmente feia. Não vi um 3D tão esquisito nem em filmes da Vídeo Brinquedo. É muito aquém do que o jogo é, do que o jogo entrega. Qualquer print in-game seria mil vezes melhor. Essa capa é considerada como uma das mais feias da história e condenou o jogo a ter vendas fraquíssimas nos lugares que vendiam com ela. Nunca tive a sorte de ver a capa europeia/japonesa e, assim como muitos outros, julguei o jogo pela capa e nunca passei perto de Ico na vida.
Nem me culpo por me afastar e nunca ter dado chance ao jogo e, ao invés disso, ter preferido os mesmos GTAs San Andreas Modificados, o mesmo Resident Evil 4 e os dois God of War de sempre. Acabou que a versão HD de ps3 tirou aquela aberração, não fazendo os olhos de quem vê pela primeira vez sangrar, e colocou essa capa linda que sempre deveria ter sido a definitiva.

Minha primeira impressão, logo de cara, foi "WOW, o quão cativante o jogo é!". O visual dele, a atmosfera desse ambiente gigantesco tanto dentro quanto fora do castelo, com muito espaço aberto, conseguindo explorar razoavelmente tudo, deixa um ar bastante agradável. E isso vai até o fim, é raro ver um mapa e cenário tão bem-feitos assim.
Com poucas linhas de diálogo, já é possível engajar na trama e começar a se fazer perguntas: "Quem são aqueles cavaleiros cobertos de roupa? Que lugar é este que trouxeram o menino? Por que trazem para cá crianças que nasceram com chifres? Como isso protegeria o vilarejo deles? Qual língua essa menina fala e de onde ela veio? Por que prenderam ela nesse lugar, se ela não tem chifres? Por que as sombras a perseguem e tentam tirá-la dali?" etc. Com menos de 10 minutos, sendo a primeira cutscene, a narrativa te acorrenta, te intriga genuinamente, te motivando a querer descobrir mais. Não é nem um pouco comum um jogo causar isso em tão pouco tempo, com a força e competência que foi.
Depois de umas 5 horas de jogo, no entanto, tudo o que eu acabei de falar sobre a narrativa DESAPARECE literalmente. Você conseguiria entender a história de ICO apenas ao ver as cutscenes iniciais e a parte final. Simplesmente mais nada é apresentado nesse meio-tempo, é apenas gameplay. Alguns podem gostar, eu achei uma pena, porque eu amo a forma como o jogo conta sua história, de forma sutil e lenta, deixando partes cruciais subentendidas e mistério maturando com calma.

Depois de cerca de duas horas de jogo, percebi alguns pontos que me desagradaram. Às vezes o jogo reutiliza mal os cenários e outras ele reutiliza genialmente. Em alguns momentos, eu não gosto como o jogo te força a ficar dando voltas pelo mesmo cenário como uma barata tonta, muitas das vezes não sendo particularmente claro - talvez pois eu não gosto tanto de plataforma. Você basicamente fica tentando até dar certo, puzzles assim não dependem da sua habilidade, do seu raciocínio, do seu esforço. É um jogo de advinha bobinho e sem sentido, chegando até a ser frustrante. Aumenta o tempo do jogo dum jeito estranho, desnecessário. Você zera o jogo em cerca de 6-7 horas na primeira vez e em menos de duas horas e meia na segunda. Não foi você que não prestou atenção no design, é só que você não adivinhou o que era pra fazer. Isso me fez largar o jogo com quinze minutos de jogatina muitas vezes, porque em alguns dias eu só queria me divertir um pouco e aparece um bagulho imenso e pouco intuitivo... Acaba que de cabeça cheia você não vai ter saco pra experienciar o que o jogo tem de melhor. Esse definitivamente não é um jogo pra você zerar em dias seguidos, pois em muitas das vezes ele não é divertido a ponto de tu continuar disposto a jogar. Existem as partes que ele engrena, e existem essas que descrevi. Até recomendo jogar ICO em paralelo com outro jogo mais descompromissado.
Olha, provavelmente você vai passar muita raiva jogando, em várias oportunidades. Respire fundo algumas vezes, feche os olhos e conte até 30, tome um chá ou uma água e repita pra si mesmo "o jogo é de 2001". Algumas coisas são datadas e você tem a chance de perder vários minutos se você não salvou ou não achou um save point. Eu mesmo já pensei em desistir várias vezes e ir jogar outra coisa e já deixei de jogar ICO durante alguns bons dias, chegando até a uma semana, mas algo sempre me fez voltar pro jogo para tentar novamente depois de esfriar a cabeça e estar mais calmo.
Não tenha vergonha de usar guias se ficar preso em alguma parte (spoiler: você ficará). Reitero, os puzzles desse jogo e brincar de Advinhe o Que Estou Pensando com seu priminho de 6 anos é a mesma coisa. Fiquei embasbacado com uma parte específica: há uma ponte que precisa ser baixada para Yorda poder passar. Explorando para resolver este puzzle, você encontra uma salinha cheia de bombas e uma fogueira próxima para acender essas bombas. Bem, assim como 2 + 2 = 4, você logo deduz que precisa acender a bomba perto da ponte para que ela caia com o impacto da explosão, e de fato você consegue fazer isso. Quando a bomba explode, no entanto, NADA acontece. Depois de uns 20 minutos tentando novamente isso e outras coisas, eu vi em um longplay que você precisa usar uma corda num cantinho para pular em cima da ponte e ela cair... Espera aí, quer dizer que a ponte desce com o PESO DUMA CRIANÇA DE 8 ANOS, MAS NÃO COM O IMPACTO DUMA BOMBA?????? Tudo bem, eu reconheço minha burrice ao não ter achado a corda que é fácil de ser vista, mas é sério que, mesmo tendo a chance de resolver o mesmo puzzlezinho de outra forma bastante lógica, simplesmente não dá?

Eu ouvi falar no quão influente ICO foi pra indústra em geral. De fato, você consegue reconhecer em ICO coisas que outros jogos também fazem. Por exemplo, uma característica que tanto ICO quanto Dark Souls tem em comum é o fato de você conseguir ver cenários e fases que você já passou, muito tempo depois de ter as passado. Além do fato de os cenários "se encaixarem" entre si dentro de um escopo muito grande: você passa da metade do jogo e libera um caminho para você voltar lááá no início do jogo. Isso enriquece a exploração ao passo que a incentiva. Explorar o castelo é bem satisfatório.
Ainda bem que a Yorda é fofinha e o modo como sua relação com o Ico é bem interessante, porque eu me senti jogando uma versão pesadelo extremo de Resident Evil 4 na qual o jogo inteiro é unica e exclusivamente você escoltando a Ashley e impedindo os ganados levarem ela embora. Definitivamente proteger a Yorda não é a melhor parte, mas pelo menos a dinâmica de ambos falarem línguas diferentes e mesmo assim um querer ajudar o outro - afinal, você precisa da Yorda pra passar de fase - faz valer a pena e você realmente sente a necessidade de protegê-la e dá um incômodo ver as sombras a levando embora enquanto você fica um tempo deitado no chão, por ter levado porrada.

Talvez eu tenha sido bem anacrônico em alguns momentos, talvez isso possa até ser um elogio ao jogo, ele é uma fonte da qual muitos jogos de hoje beberam. Então, julgar um jogo de 2001 comparando com jogos atuais e ainda sim ter uma visão positiva em geral e recomendar, é algo considerável.