Clattertron

[dc]I[/dc] never played Ico when it first came out. I heard of Ico, of course, and its influence, bit by bit over the years. Always eager to try a ‘must play’ classic, I picked up a remastered copy of Ico when I (finally) bought a PlayStation 3 this past fall.

When my gamer pals from The Idler (Gavin, Andrew, Kevin, and Sara) wanted to write another group play through,¹ Ico was on the short list.

Bring on the Fantasy

I enjoy fantasy in video games. The games are already an abstract reality, so why not go full throttle? I don’t worry about strange details in video games. I go with the flow. The main character is a boy with horns? Sure. Nothing I haven’t seen in a Final Fantasy or a Zelda. The weirder, the better. This might be why I’m not too interested in games like Grand Theft Auto, but love the Uncharted and BioShock games.

Sure, there is an escapism element to fantasy games. The world is totally different, there is magic, strange beings walk the land, and so on. It helps me forget about insurance premiums or rebalancing my 401k for a little while.

 Pay Attention

The first aspect of Ico I noticed was the lack of distractions, both visual and audio. Coming to Ico after playing all the BioShocks and the first two Uncharted games in a row, I’m used to a lot of noise and action.

Ico is a pretty stripped down game. There isn’t a sea of menus or items to scroll through, characters aren’t talking to you (in English) every few seconds, the game is not telling you what to do or where to go.

There isn’t a robust score highlighting all the action. Just a lot of quiet.

Ico: Distraction Free Gaming

I think the lack of all these other kinds of distractions makes Ico’s environment and level design stand out. I heard on a podcast about an old radio trick: if you want the audience to pay attention—stop talking. Listeners, accustomed to endless background chatter, notice the silence and become alert.

Ico does the same. Which, honestly, is a great mechanic for a puzzle heavy game: it helps the player focus on the visuals, and the puzzle they must solve to advance.

 On Your Own

Unlike most modern games I played lately, Ico does not feature a built-in tutorial, or any kind of hint system. It did not help the manual was missing from my used copy, but a quick Internet search helped fill the gameplay gaps.

Still, I cannot remember the last time an adventure game gave me next to no information about what the hell to do. I’m not complaining, however. It just underlines how game design has evolved in recent years.

Like the on-screen and audio minimalism, the ‘how to’ minimalism increases the game experience in Ico too. I spent several minutes just walking around the first room, trying to figure out my next move. Unlike The Last of Us or BioShock, there isn’t an icon or shimmering light to show a switch I need to press or a door to open.

Ico drops you in the pool and lets you swim, or sink, on your own. I approve. I get bored with lengthy tutorials in games. I learn by doing, so let me play as soon as possible.

First Thoughts

While I love the visuals of Ico, the game camera could be better–specifically the camera I can control. Moving the camera on my own causes a feeling of motion sickness and gives me a slight headache after a while, since the camera slips back to its starting point, instead of staying where it was left.

There is a bit of a learning curve with the controls too, especially with Yorda, Ico’s companion I have to escort. The Crane area gave me a lot of trouble, until I read all I had to do was lean over an edge, call to Yorda, and help her up. Easy, in hindsight, but I didn’t know it was even an option.

I’m only about an hour or so into Ico and, occasional motion sickness aside, I’m hooked. I want to see more of this world and experience the story.

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¹ See our pieces on Final Fantasy, EarthBound, and Cave Story. I’m slowly migrating my posts to this site as a back up. Here’s the Final Fantasy post.

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