Ico has the guts to do what everything else in its kin is deathly afraid to do
No, it wasn't the minimal dialogue which contributes to an air of mystery.
No, not the constant wonderful set pieces that while largely sharing the same assets I could remember each room in the game regardless.
No, not an ACTUALLY GOOD on-rail camera which contributes to the environment feeling even more grand and mysterious.
No,
Ico turned the HUD off.
I say that only partially joking, but I yearn for more games to attempt this. The problem is that they'd have to be designed in a way that's intuitive, and the way Ico uses context sensitivity is careful and brilliant; it got a little shaky in the last leg of the game when I had to wonder "can I actually make that jump?" but the previous 5hrs had taught me to simply trust the game's direction, so I carefully lined myself up, pressed triangle, and cleared it. The game mostly does a fantastic job of making it clear enough where you can and can't traverse without making the environment look stained with neon "CLIMB HERE" platforms.
You control a boy born with horns, scorned by his village and sacrificed or sold because of his deformities; he's locked up for a while, before tremors all around knock over and break his coffin, freeing him. On the way out, he finds a girl named Yorda, whom's as pale as snow and speaks in a tongue he does not understand. Despite this, he grabs her hand and guides her along and vice-versa, revealing she has an innate ability to open the ancient fortress's sealed pillar doorways. This is where Ico begins, and where any detailed talk of the story from me ends.
The environments, while samey most of the time, are nonetheless captivating and beautiful throughout; wrought with sweeping winds bellowing over the abandoned city-fortress, accompanied only by its machinations creaking as they idly work, and seagulls finding a familiar home along the cliff-like, decrepit ledges of the fortress above the vicious sea that hammers menacingly against the base and rocks far below.
Traversal feels incredibly heavy and clunky, but not in a way that outright controls bad; I did just about everything I wanted to do without much fuss over inputs other than some careful movement, like you would if you were realistically traversing perilous scaffolding and ancient aqueducts. A pessimist would call Yorda a glorified leg shackle in this regard, and while I'd be inclined to agree in only the coldest objective sense, you could argue bringing any persons on a trip you have to wait for just makes them dead weights; is that how you evaluate your friends or loved ones? By how you may have to accommodate them on your journeys? I don't think so, not for me anyways. Do you think Yorda, who knows how the fortress is layed out, feels even a little burdened by the bumbling boy figuring it out himself since she can't explain due to the language barrier? She might, but she shows grace in allowing the boy the agency to solve it himself; only after quite some time, at most, standing in a vague direction and calling to him as a hint forward. It's a beautiful symbiotic relationship of mutual patience and understanding that allows them to communicate despite not knowing a single word from each other's tongue.
Everything about this speaks to me on a primal level.
Compassion before frustration. Understanding before knowing. Empathy before sympathy.
That is Ico.
No, it wasn't the minimal dialogue which contributes to an air of mystery.
No, not the constant wonderful set pieces that while largely sharing the same assets I could remember each room in the game regardless.
No, not an ACTUALLY GOOD on-rail camera which contributes to the environment feeling even more grand and mysterious.
No,
Ico turned the HUD off.
I say that only partially joking, but I yearn for more games to attempt this. The problem is that they'd have to be designed in a way that's intuitive, and the way Ico uses context sensitivity is careful and brilliant; it got a little shaky in the last leg of the game when I had to wonder "can I actually make that jump?" but the previous 5hrs had taught me to simply trust the game's direction, so I carefully lined myself up, pressed triangle, and cleared it. The game mostly does a fantastic job of making it clear enough where you can and can't traverse without making the environment look stained with neon "CLIMB HERE" platforms.
You control a boy born with horns, scorned by his village and sacrificed or sold because of his deformities; he's locked up for a while, before tremors all around knock over and break his coffin, freeing him. On the way out, he finds a girl named Yorda, whom's as pale as snow and speaks in a tongue he does not understand. Despite this, he grabs her hand and guides her along and vice-versa, revealing she has an innate ability to open the ancient fortress's sealed pillar doorways. This is where Ico begins, and where any detailed talk of the story from me ends.
The environments, while samey most of the time, are nonetheless captivating and beautiful throughout; wrought with sweeping winds bellowing over the abandoned city-fortress, accompanied only by its machinations creaking as they idly work, and seagulls finding a familiar home along the cliff-like, decrepit ledges of the fortress above the vicious sea that hammers menacingly against the base and rocks far below.
Traversal feels incredibly heavy and clunky, but not in a way that outright controls bad; I did just about everything I wanted to do without much fuss over inputs other than some careful movement, like you would if you were realistically traversing perilous scaffolding and ancient aqueducts. A pessimist would call Yorda a glorified leg shackle in this regard, and while I'd be inclined to agree in only the coldest objective sense, you could argue bringing any persons on a trip you have to wait for just makes them dead weights; is that how you evaluate your friends or loved ones? By how you may have to accommodate them on your journeys? I don't think so, not for me anyways. Do you think Yorda, who knows how the fortress is layed out, feels even a little burdened by the bumbling boy figuring it out himself since she can't explain due to the language barrier? She might, but she shows grace in allowing the boy the agency to solve it himself; only after quite some time, at most, standing in a vague direction and calling to him as a hint forward. It's a beautiful symbiotic relationship of mutual patience and understanding that allows them to communicate despite not knowing a single word from each other's tongue.
Everything about this speaks to me on a primal level.
Compassion before frustration. Understanding before knowing. Empathy before sympathy.
That is Ico.
gman
1 year ago