Once in a while, you find a game the critics and players alike, love. Ico was that game eons ago. Originally released on the PS2, I bought it then and never got around to it. Then it got a 3D to remaster on PS3, and I bought it again because I have a 3D TV and I actually enjoy the feature… but I never got around to it. These days, with the economy in shambles, and the future uncertain, my wife has asked me to beat three backlog games for every one new game I buy. I cherish my wife, and so I have been honoring this request. Thankfully she is flexible enough to let me buy Re-releases, remakes, and remasters and count them. Sadly, this game has not been Re-released since its PS3 remaster. I wish it had.
Even on the PS3 this game shows its age. Controls are too loose, and character models often lack detail to the point that, on a massive TV like mine, faces disappear entirely, at times. There are moments where the game is unresponsive or even two specific moments that require such precision timing that the mechanics of the game itself does not allow… and yet, this game radiates love and passion. This game was built by artists celebrating their art.
The game’s world is mostly empty and hollow. Filled only with the lead character, Ico, the magical girl he is
trying to help escape the castle, Yarda, and the shadow creatures that hunt them. And yet, that emptiness is not without purpose. The story is told by the small details, by what you see happening and where. Shadows rise from spots where there are indications someone fell from battle, and the environment itself is the solution to many of the game’s puzzles. The game is short on dialogue, but what it lacks in dialogue, like many games that came later, Dark Souls, for instance, the world you are in tells the story.
The game is brilliant, but don’t let me bringing up Dark Souls scare you. The game is not terribly difficult, though the two timing puzzles I mentioned are, and sadly that has more to do with the game itself lacking the precision these two puzzles really need. The game is relaxing to play, and not particularly long. It’s a game I wish I had gotten to years ago, and I really enjoyed it. I don’t want to spoil the story because doing so would ruin the entire experience, as the traditional narrative is minimal but the story is the sort of thing Disney would have done in the 80s. Good, but dark. But not so dark it’s not Disney. And like Dark Disney, (IE Watcher in the Woods, or the Black Hole) it’s a game that really needs to be experienced, even if it is not aging all that well.
4/5
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