Ico

I'll start with the good things, of which there are many. It is, to an extent, a beautifully realized game. Much was done with little for storytelling, world creation, character development, and visual art. Most of the game takes place in a single, intricate structure, and it's well thought out and a pleasure to move through, recognize, and think through. The story is thin but weighty, and it's satisfying to go through it from beginning to end. It feels at once like an epic old legend and a simple tale.

Even the gameplay has good aspects. It's centered on environmental puzzles, a genre I love, interspersed with combat (not a lot of it) and other things that can kill you, providing some tension in what is otherwise a calm game about exploring environments.

Visually, it's very impressive for PS2 tech. The color palette matches dullness with splashes of black and white that fit well with the tone of the story. Everything is shaded with soft and fuzzy lighting that makes it feel like something old and half-forgotten. The animations are often very, very good. Subtle little cues bring moments to life.

Good sound engineering, and some very nice musical moments. The voice acting, little that there is, is powerful.

And now for what's bad...

First, the core of the game: the environmental puzzles are just not that great. There's little to work with, it gets repetitive, and requires too much backtracking. Exploration does not feel rewarding because there's just nothing interesting to find. You walk around again and again until you realize what you're supposed to do.

But then everything becomes much worse due to the controls. The camera (it's 3rd person) follows you around dumbly, making it that much harder to explore. Your character moves like a total klutz, and a wrong turn can send you hanging from a ledge, which won't kill you but just wastes time. Really, the environmental puzzles are challenging only because of these stupid controls. And there are a few especially bad instances: 3D platforming. Hard to do right, and Ico does not do them right. Because of the wonky camera sometimes you push the joystick one way only to find out, as the camera spins, that you are moving in the wrong direction. Frustration city.

And combat is worse. Much worse. First of all, there's really only one kind of enemy and you have one kind of attack. So that's boring. But, again, it's hard only because of the stupid controls. You think you are attacking in one direction but it's hitting another.

All of this could be forgivable if deaths were quick and you started again when you stopped. And I could do that but only because of the PCSX2 emulation support for save states. In the real game, saves are very, very far apart from each other. I cannot imagine playing this game on a real console, at least right now. I was more patient with games 15 years ago, but I really don't want to spend 6 minutes climbing through some stupid pipes just to get to the combat sequence and die again because the camera turned around during my attack swing. :/

Also, for all the polish of its art direction, the artists themselves didn't always do that great a job. The structure's levels are often quite boring in their design (never mind the puzzles within). The color palette is so washed out that it's often hard to see much detail. But since the detail is usually just stone walls, that's not too big a loss.

In conclusion: this game can be enjoyed with emulation save states and a walkthrough at hand. The complete gameplay length is about 4 hours.

I'm glad I played it, despite the frustrations. I found the world to be very alluring and evocative, and am excited to play the studio's other games that take place in this world.