I had heard good things about ICO, so when I saw a number of copies at Best Buy for $15 each I thought it would be a good time to get this game. After 2 hours of playing, I can see this game is special.
The game starts out with a young boy with horns growing out of his head being taken to an old castle by a few cloaked riders. The boy, ICO, is seen as a curse to his town because of his horns, so he is placed in the castle as a sacrifice. Ico soon breaks free of his confinement and explores the castle’s spiral staircase to find a girl trapped in a cell hanging in the middle of the tower. After lowering the cell and releasing the girl, Yorda, a brief dialogue cutscene with Ico talking to the girl about escaping follows. Then the enemies in make their first appearence, as a shadowy form leaves a dark portal and comes after Yorda, slowly dragging her back to the portal.
My first experience with the combat of the game in this scene led to many game overs since I was just learning the game. When you regain control of Ico after the cutscene, the first thing I saw was a stick, so I naturally went to pick it up to whack the shadow enemy with it. But by the time I would do that, the shadow would already have dragged Yorda into the portal where she waited as if she were in quicksand. I couldn’t figure out how to get Yorda back as my attacks with the stick were missing, and after a short while Yorda was gone and the screen filled with a dark wave and it was game over. After another few tries, I decided to use Ico’s basic horn attack instead of getting the stick first, and I struck the enemy before it could return to the portal, making him release Yorda for the moment. I later learned that you can actually pull Yorda back out of a portal before she’s gone by pressing L1, so that explains the silly time I was having.
The object of the game involves guiding Yorda through each area with Ico, and I suppose ultimately escaping the castle. The L1 button allows you to have Ico call to Yorda and have her walk over and follow, or be next to her and take her hand and guide her with you. The characters move in a lifelike way, probably motion captured. Yorda is a girl who appears gentle and not very athletic, so when Ico holds her hand and runs with her, she is kinda dragged along and stumbles. This is emphasized in the vibration of the controller with Yorda’s steps providing the feedback. Guiding Yorda through the castle may involve getting her to jump across a gap, in which you press and hold L1 to have her come over, and Ico will reach out to grab her as she jumps, then use the analog stick to pull her up. Sometimes this can be a nervous experience as you watch Yorda take a leap and just grab Ico in time.
The graphics in this game are very atmospheric with the use of lighting outside and through windows, the brightness of the game, and just the structure and the design of this giant empty castle that feels very empty. Also lending to this is the camera which is set in certain positions depending on where you are in a room. You can zoom in close with R2 and look around with the right analog stick, but its only to a limited degree.
This is an adventure game with puzzles to solve in order to get to the next area, so it seems you spend most of the time exploring and trying to figure out how to open up the passage to proceed, or how to get Yorda to a certain area. Unlike Ico, she can’t climb down a chain rope, or jump up on a ledge and sidle against the wall. In the area I’m currently in, I couldn’t figure out what I was suppose to do to get out. I went through a room with a long bridge, and outside where I found a few bridges pulled up. There was a block in one corner that I moved so I could use it to get to a higher platform. There was a spool holding the rope to one bridge and I thought I needed to release it to get the bridge down, but this wasn’t something I could interact with. After jumping off the side to my doom to try to get to the lower floor a few times, I went back to the previous room and noticed the chandelier hanging on the beams near the celling. After climbing up, I landed on the chandelier, sending it crashing to the bridge below, only to slightly damage the bridge’s support beam. Eventually I wondered if I had missed a door somewhere, seeing another entrance on the floor below, so I went back to the save point and noticed a spiral staircase leading down to the lower entrance along with bombs next to it, obviously to use on the crippled support beam. Using the bomb on the bridge’s support beam brought it down, leaving it slopping down to the exist and across the chasm on the lower floor that had blocked me before. The Zelda secret theme could be inserted at times like these.
After solving this puzzle, the shadow enemies appeared, swarming all around. I still have to get by this part, as I keep getting mauled by the numbers. Some of the shadows take on the form of small creatures like spiders, while some are large beasts. While Ico doesn’t have any life hit points and you only loose to falling from large heights or Yorda’s capture, if Ico gets hit by one of the shadows, he’ll be stunned for a moment while the shadows can take off with Yorda. The most annoying enemy so far are the ones that have wings, who will grab Yorda and whisk her away in the air to a portal, leaving you to chase after and hope you can save her in time.
A few related links, 1up.com has a report on the GDC presentation of the creation of ICO, ICO Flash appears to be a well done fansite, and the official site for the Japanese version is I-C-O.net.
The game starts out with a young boy with horns growing out of his head being taken to an old castle by a few cloaked riders. The boy, ICO, is seen as a curse to his town because of his horns, so he is placed in the castle as a sacrifice. Ico soon breaks free of his confinement and explores the castle’s spiral staircase to find a girl trapped in a cell hanging in the middle of the tower. After lowering the cell and releasing the girl, Yorda, a brief dialogue cutscene with Ico talking to the girl about escaping follows. Then the enemies in make their first appearence, as a shadowy form leaves a dark portal and comes after Yorda, slowly dragging her back to the portal.
My first experience with the combat of the game in this scene led to many game overs since I was just learning the game. When you regain control of Ico after the cutscene, the first thing I saw was a stick, so I naturally went to pick it up to whack the shadow enemy with it. But by the time I would do that, the shadow would already have dragged Yorda into the portal where she waited as if she were in quicksand. I couldn’t figure out how to get Yorda back as my attacks with the stick were missing, and after a short while Yorda was gone and the screen filled with a dark wave and it was game over. After another few tries, I decided to use Ico’s basic horn attack instead of getting the stick first, and I struck the enemy before it could return to the portal, making him release Yorda for the moment. I later learned that you can actually pull Yorda back out of a portal before she’s gone by pressing L1, so that explains the silly time I was having.
The object of the game involves guiding Yorda through each area with Ico, and I suppose ultimately escaping the castle. The L1 button allows you to have Ico call to Yorda and have her walk over and follow, or be next to her and take her hand and guide her with you. The characters move in a lifelike way, probably motion captured. Yorda is a girl who appears gentle and not very athletic, so when Ico holds her hand and runs with her, she is kinda dragged along and stumbles. This is emphasized in the vibration of the controller with Yorda’s steps providing the feedback. Guiding Yorda through the castle may involve getting her to jump across a gap, in which you press and hold L1 to have her come over, and Ico will reach out to grab her as she jumps, then use the analog stick to pull her up. Sometimes this can be a nervous experience as you watch Yorda take a leap and just grab Ico in time.
The graphics in this game are very atmospheric with the use of lighting outside and through windows, the brightness of the game, and just the structure and the design of this giant empty castle that feels very empty. Also lending to this is the camera which is set in certain positions depending on where you are in a room. You can zoom in close with R2 and look around with the right analog stick, but its only to a limited degree.
This is an adventure game with puzzles to solve in order to get to the next area, so it seems you spend most of the time exploring and trying to figure out how to open up the passage to proceed, or how to get Yorda to a certain area. Unlike Ico, she can’t climb down a chain rope, or jump up on a ledge and sidle against the wall. In the area I’m currently in, I couldn’t figure out what I was suppose to do to get out. I went through a room with a long bridge, and outside where I found a few bridges pulled up. There was a block in one corner that I moved so I could use it to get to a higher platform. There was a spool holding the rope to one bridge and I thought I needed to release it to get the bridge down, but this wasn’t something I could interact with. After jumping off the side to my doom to try to get to the lower floor a few times, I went back to the previous room and noticed the chandelier hanging on the beams near the celling. After climbing up, I landed on the chandelier, sending it crashing to the bridge below, only to slightly damage the bridge’s support beam. Eventually I wondered if I had missed a door somewhere, seeing another entrance on the floor below, so I went back to the save point and noticed a spiral staircase leading down to the lower entrance along with bombs next to it, obviously to use on the crippled support beam. Using the bomb on the bridge’s support beam brought it down, leaving it slopping down to the exist and across the chasm on the lower floor that had blocked me before. The Zelda secret theme could be inserted at times like these.
After solving this puzzle, the shadow enemies appeared, swarming all around. I still have to get by this part, as I keep getting mauled by the numbers. Some of the shadows take on the form of small creatures like spiders, while some are large beasts. While Ico doesn’t have any life hit points and you only loose to falling from large heights or Yorda’s capture, if Ico gets hit by one of the shadows, he’ll be stunned for a moment while the shadows can take off with Yorda. The most annoying enemy so far are the ones that have wings, who will grab Yorda and whisk her away in the air to a portal, leaving you to chase after and hope you can save her in time.
A few related links, 1up.com has a report on the GDC presentation of the creation of ICO, ICO Flash appears to be a well done fansite, and the official site for the Japanese version is I-C-O.net.
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