Clattertron

[dc]T[/dc]here isn’t a lot of hand-holding in video games. I can remember an odd example here and there, like in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, but it is fairly rare.

Ico makes hand-holding a key part of the game-play, which is an adjustment—especially after my recent bevy of run and gun games.

Hold My Hand (Yeah Yeah)

Ico, our horned hero, must lead his ghostly charge, Yorda, around by the hand. If Yorda is left alone for too long, the shadow-whatsits come and try to take her away.

At first, I had to hold down a button to maintain Ico’s grip on Yorda. Then, I saw there was an option in the menu called Hold Type B (or something similar). This made the game-play a bit easier, as Ico’s hold would lock until I pressed the button again.

An aside: I cannot help but think of the song Hold My Hand by the Beatles-spoof band, The Rutles while playing.

The hand-holding strengthens my relationship with Yorda—she isn’t just a character following Ico around (well, OK, she is, but also more). There is a stronger sense of attachment because of the hand-holding. Fellow Project Ico-er Sara touched on child avatars in her latest post, and I agree. I think the game would have a much different feel if Ico were older. Yorda comes across as ‘older’ than Ico to me¹, so a young kid looking out for an older one certainly plays up the innocence.

Compare this to, say, The Last of Us. Make Ico the same age as Joel and game feels totally different (not saying it would be better or worse, just different). I think there would still be a strong attachment, but on a different level–akin to the fatherhood vibe of The Last of Us. 

This Camera, You Guys

I touched on this in my earlier Project Ico post, but, the camera in Ico is super-frustrating. Another member of our Project Ico crew, Gavin, chalks this up to Ico being a product of the PlayStation 2 era. I’m playing the remastered PlayStation 3 version, but the only bits remastered were the graphics—the controls and camera are still clunky.

I feel like other games before and around the time of Ico featured better camera control (Ocarina of Time comes to mind, which came out a good three years earlier).

The camera is so bad, it knocks me out of the game at times. Yet, the world of Ico keeps me coming back for more.

And The Controls

I cannot remember when a game caused me as much frustration as Ico. I still love the game, which is why I haven’t stopped playing, but Sweet Mother of Batman, the controls make it difficult at times, be it the combat or maneuvering through the world.

The combat isn’t very complicated: just button mashing. It is fun at first, but gets old in the middle of a big shadow-whatsits fight. It took me a few game overs before I realized I could pull Yorda out of the shadow pits.

Again, no in-game tutorial or help about that little nugget.

But Really, I Like Ico

Ico, despite its annoyances, keeps my attention. The design, the world, the story: I cannot stay away. More next week, as attending a comic show last weekend limited my playing time.

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 Project Ico: Broken to Work by Gavin Craig at GavinCraig.net

Project Ico: Crane by Sara Clemens at Videodame

¹ Yorda could be some kind of spirit who is hundreds of years old. Who knows?