Bon clairement pas au niveau de Shadow o f the colossus, mais on voit bien ce que le jeu amène.
L'ambiance est sympa est la plupart des énigmes sont ok, voir cool.
Je me suis relativement enmerdé sur le jeu malgré tout.
Les déplacements et actions sont assez lent, et les combats sont bof bof.
Après niveau lore c'est toujours giga drole comment ya 25 min de lore en 6h mais bon on fait avec (ça a son charme en vrai).
Content d'avoir pu découvrir ce jeu, mais bon il a bien vieilli le bougre.
Je recommande quand même.

holds up remarkably well for a 20 year old game, but I'm glad that this escort-mission style of gameplay didn't catch on in the mainstream. climbing ladders is already slow and tedious in every other 3D puzzle platformer/action game but being forced to wait an extra 20 seconds for your dumbass AI companion to climb the same ladder every goddamn time is such a nightmare that being separated from her starts to feel like a blessing. like, do people actually care about the relationship between ico and yorda? is that a thing people like about this game in retrospect? because the clunky, awkward animation of him dragging her around from place to place is an incredibly accurate rendition of how it feels emotionally to deal with her presence 90% of the time.

oh also two of the worst platforming moments I've ever been put through in any video game (the piston jump and the waterwheel jump) somehow happen right next to each other and I would personally like to grab fumito ueda by the collar and find out what the fuck he was thinking on that one. while I'm at it I have some notes about the 15th colossus too

Children of Llullaillaco were three Inca kids found in the Northernmost part of my Country. They were human sacrifices that took place in a religious ceremony at the top of a cold mountain, were they were buried alive.
One of these children was a high-born lady, destined from birth to become a sacrifice for the gods.
The other was a random kid they found in the streets of the Empire, while the lady was well dressed and clean, the boy was blindfolded, wore rugged clothes and fought nails and teeth to save his life.


The vivid mummies of Llullaillaco are one of the most well preserved of all times, they don't look dead or ancient. They are just sleeping children.

While I was playing this game I found small parallels between these stories. In my head it felt like the boy (who looks just like the mummy) was given one last chance to save his life and that of the Maiden. The desperate running, the way he swung his sword not as a skilled swordsman, but as a kid trying to fend off something he doesn't quite understand. It felt personal, yet distant. Like the events of Llullaillaco only happened a mere 500 years ago, right were I live.

The tale of Ico unequivocally places the player on the shoes of a kid; He runs like a kid, fights like a kid, jumps as a kid and even sits as one. Every mechanic is built in service of this: The combat is simple, doesn't have a Health bar cause' it doesn't need to. The tight jumps where you need to catch the maiden, where you are at the edge of your seat waiting for your joystick to just slightly vibrate is executed masterfully.

This 20 year old game creates an immersive and rich experience, polished by the subtle art of subtraction. Ico tells the story that those kids never had. I'm not sure if Fumito Ueda was inspired by the Childrens of Llullaillaco, but his team manages to tell a tale where for about six hours-

You were there.

ICO is beautiful! Let this review’s long take on the negatives not discourage you from that because the things that work about it work wonders.
The story is simply a boy with horns who is abandoned by his tribe in a castle to be sacrificed. He manages to escape and comes across a mysterious girl who may be his only way out of the castle, but he also has to protect her as there are demons in the castle roaming around trying to take her away. And from there on out, I will avoid all spoilers.

It’s easy to follow but extremely effective, and in a way that also has me convincing harder that it belongs in the same universe as Shadow of the Colossus, because it already has very identical worldbuilding concepts. Strangely though, it seems to take a lot of inspiration from Silent Hill more than anything. The camera has a very cinematic feel to it, it’s a lot more puzzle-based, and it goes a lot more in the direction of survival than action. Don’t worry though, because it’s definitely not a horror game. But it does manage to create a beautiful environment and has you constantly questioning what’s going on with the girl you’re escorting.
Speaking of which, I was surprised by how well the escorting still holds up. It’s not super easy to the point of it being unnecessary like The Last of Us, or absolute perfection like Resident Evil 4, but this might have been the best you could find in the year 2001. My only real problem with it is the main controls and mechanics themselves. For some reason, the analog stick makes sure that your character walks slower at certain angles, but the camera moves around too much to work properly with the directional buttons. Also, there is the save system. I will say that I have seen games that handled it worse, but it’s REALLY bad here. Checkpoints are extremely far from one another and you never know exactly when they occur, and the seats that you can use to manually/permanently save can sometimes be really close to each other, while other times it will take at least 20 minutes before you find another one. These two problems combined gave me my moments of begrudgingly giving up, and are the only thing preventing me from perhaps even giving this 5 stars. It didn't make me rage or anything, but more so getting tired of trying over and over again.

To any first-timer, I suggest that you make sure to save as many times as possible, because I REALLY recommend ICO for the story and especially the atmosphere. Atmosphere to me is just as important as the story itself, because it’s the door that leads the audience into the world of the game, and in this area ICO absolutely excels! There is something so creepy yet authentic and profound about the sheer sense of loneliness you feel while playing this. The way the boy interacts with the girl really gives off the impression that these are two innocent children lost in an unfamiliar world trying to find their way back home. It’s not quite as engaging or greatly playable as Shadow of the Colossus, but Team Ico really have proven themselves to be great at subtle storytelling.

I do wish that I could log this game on the PS2 without getting this shitty poster, because the one they got for the PS3 looks MUCH better.

White, really white people escaping black, really black people and hitting them with sticks.
This game is a social critique.





Don't take me serious.

Thank you ConeCvltist for the recommendation.

What can you do to make a game better? I've always thought adding to a game can only improve the experience. After playing Ico I've realised that sometimes less is more.

You start the game with no objective or a marker to follow, you're simply left to explore the castle and try to find a way out. Nothing is explained to you and it makes it so much more rewarding as you work out how to progress through the game. The castle feels so real as it doesn't play out like a linear level, instead it is one big interconnected world.

Ico takes a very minimalist approach with its game design but that is in no way a negative. Having no HUD makes you feel more immersed in the world and the lack of music at times helps enhance the atmosphere. All of these simple approaches make you forget that your playing a game and helps create a beautiful world to get lost in.

Ico flourishes with its simplicity and tells a powerful story that only a video game can tell. Now I've played Ico I can see how much of an impact it has had on the gaming industry, inspiring so many games since its release. This is a must play if you are a fan of video games.

Living in the UK means I own a PAL copy of the game so I am blessed with the beautiful cover art.

Ico é lindo em diversos aspectos mas muito frustrante em outros. Amo como o jogo é orgânico e tão bem orientado em seus puzzles, tem cenários exuberantes e uma história bela que se tira diversas interpretações (que final magnífico), porém é inegável que o jogo apresenta problemas estruturais de jogabilidade e mecânica. Com uma IA lenta, spawns frustrantes, má rotação de câmera e combates exageradamente repetitivos, somado ao gênero central do jogo, o torna, as vezes, cansativo de prosseguir.

Em suma, é um jogo belíssimo e muito bem arquitetado, mas peca em alguns detalhes que proporcionaram uma jogatina ocasionalmente frustrante pra mim.

Having just finished the cult classic adventure Ico via the PSCX2 emulator, I can confidently say one thing: Ueda makes one hell of a castle. My relationship with Ueda’s work is both messy and in a strange context. I first played the Ps4 remake of Shadow of the Colossus, and despite (or perhaps because of) the legendary reputation the original held, I found myself ultimately disappointed. It’s an issue that I have come to understand quite well: older critics and players, born of a vastly different digital era, have a life-changing experience with a particularly bold title.
Said title becomes an inherent part of the video-game literacy canon, growing in appreciation and attention with the passing of each year, even as newer games from clever developers push the envelope far beyond what the original could have dreamed. This continues until a new game under its legacy is both so excellent and so popular to such an extent that it co-opts the original, replacing its place in the canon. But this happens few and far between, and even now the majority of the audience considers wildly outdated games with a reverence more than deserving of the current crop. Hell, it only took thirty years for Hollow Knight to steal the throne from Super Metroid. There’s potential for anything to happen.
In this particular case, Shadow of the Colossus had yet to be toppled in the canon, and for partially good reason. There is very little out there that matches the strange design philosophy of Ueda’s catalog, at least superficially. Not many designers purposefully create experiences that aren’t any fun, after all. And Shadow of the Colossus is anything but fun. It’s a slow, plodding, sad journey through a desolate and lonely land. Pacing is not a consideration, nor is any attempt made to keep the player’s attention. Just hours of silent travel forming the deep valleys between the game’s shallow and bitter peaks. It would be one thing if the Colossus battles themselves were interesting - at that point the game could be considered deliciously bold, forcing the player to ration the leftover adrenaline of each battle as they trudge to the next dangerous foe. But the fights aren’t great, either.
I often hear people claim that the Colossus battles aren’t meant to be fun - that you are doing an awful, brutal deed, and the developer would be breaching sincerity if they made the experience entertaining. I don’t think this is the case. It is most certainly true for the rest of the game, but the battles are too flashy, too grand and self-interested to truly be an act of guilt. If Ueda truly committed to this ethos of player punishment, the fights would be miserable in a visceral sense. Rather, they’re just frustrating and overly difficult. Any sense of empathy I might have felt for these beasts was stamped out the 80th time they murdered me because the finicky player controls gave out. Subtlety is a wonderful tool when used appropriately, but

To me, Ico is soft shadows. Its bright sun on crumbling flagstones, vibrant grass clinging to scant purchase on the sides of plateaus. Ico is an ancient windmill, the kind that you could look at once and immediately know with a surety that time has no hold here, that most windmills will eventually fade into the earth, yes, but not this windmill. Ico is timeless. A strange, quiet, contemplative journey out of traditional place or time. This sense is reinforced through a complete lack of worldbuilding. There is no hidden backstory that details the origins of this impossibly vast castle complex, no explanation for the shadow creatures or their venomous queen, no given reason for the boy’s utter dedication to saving a strange girl. There's simply no need - the truths are self-evident. You experience a perfectly smooth, self-contained fairytale about a boy and girl who choose to save each other. There are no nasty threads to pick out - the world begins and ends at the edge of the game’s camera.
There’s this hazy bloom that flows through the entire experience, softening hard edges wherever they appear. It stops the lonely castle from ever feeling too sinister, almost as if the mist is a blurry guide that looks down on and guides its charges with parental sincerity. To play Ico is to be held by the invisible yet very tangible arms of its designers. I have never met Fumito Ueda in person, but when laboriously climbing a tattered windmill, accompanied by the sounds of sloshing pond water and small grunts of exertion from the tired boy, illuminated by a soft sun that knows no pain, I get the distinct feeling that we know each other’s hearts. What better deed can a designer accomplish, if not this? To hold close somebody he will never see, to whisper words of comfort into a veritable void, hoping someone might hear and take appreciation. Any sin possibly committed by this game is forgiven in an instant. It’s just too damn intimate to truly hate.
It’s a common sentiment that Ueda’s games are so special because rather than adds, he subtracts, and I wholeheartedly agree to a point. While Ico is remarkably stripped back in terms of mechanics and narrative, the world is remarkably grand. Endless empty halls stretch into the foggy distance, and improbably tall ceilings disappear into the atmosphere. There’s a nearly tangible feel about this place - it’s hauntingly empty, spine-chillingly alone, and it has always been that way. Remember: the past does not exist. Ico exists in a dimension in which time stands still, and the only moment is what we currently experience. This complex never housed living things, and it wasn’t designed to. The doors are too large, the ladders too lengthy, the architecture of no conceivable sense. In fact, it’s hard to believe that any sentient being even created the place - the castle is primordial. It has simply existed, massive and haunting, since the beginning of time, and throughout the adventure it seems as though it will continue to exist long after everything else.
This sense fundamentally alters the experience of playing the game. Existing in the castle just feels wrong - I consistently felt as though I needed to creep through each lonely room lest I alert some invisible malicious creature to my presence. The tone never veers to doomed of course, it merely leeches around the edge of the viewable space, worming holes through the largely protective veneer of the previously mentioned bloom. There is no creature, or course. It’s just me and Yora and the castle. Two helpless, vulnerable children more alone than any children have ever been alone. At least you have each other. The main mechanic in holding is holding hands. Non-violent physical interactions are not often seen in games, and here it is used to powerfully human effect. It reminds the player that the little people on-screen are more than mere avatars, more nuanced and complex than simple abstractions of video game mechanics. Holding Yora’s hand is not “fun” - There is no inherent challenge, no twist of previously understood systems, no opportunity for player expression. But it sure is nourishing - imagine the comfort this young boy must feel gripping the hand of his companion after each intense brush with doom. The tactile comfort of the controller rumble, the way each child awkwardly runs with their own uneven gait - How could you not fall in love?
This humanization extends even to the action sequences. Ico is often criticized for having poor combat design. There is zero mechanical depth; the boy simply waves his stick with each press of the square button, jabbing at unknowable horrors in repetitive and sloppy movements. Shadowy behemoths brush him aside like a fly, barely paying attention as they pursue Yora in their awful embrace while the boy lies on the floor, stunned and battered and bruised. Of course he fights like this. He is not a warrior, neither in raiment nor purpose. He is simply a scared little boy desperately defending his only friend from nefarious beings who seek to hurt her. Even in this, the most video gamey of all mechanics, Ueda rejects arbitrary mechanical superiority in preference for his tonal and artistic vision. Ico is not about platforming or combat, they are means to an end, simply more tools with which Ueda represents the relationship between people and their environment.
Ico is about something - a trend that somehow eludes the majority of the modern gaming industry. Viewed in the wrong light, this can make Ico seem frustrating and irrelevant. The puzzles are buried under infuriating mystique, the combat entirely one-note, and platforming about as dependable as immortality. But if you just sink into the experience, really immerse yourself in the layers of aging stone and soil, the veil is loosed, and you begin to really see the grassy, damp, sunstreaked beauty behind it all. So go. Walk these lazy halls. Swim through the sea-blue underground pools and mineral-flecked caverns. Take Yora’s hand and never let go.

fwiw, i played the ps3 rerelease of this game. i had never played this game before, and i am shocked at how good this game is in 2022. the way the entire game is designed to make you feel lost and vulnerable adds so much to the immersion. i felt anxious climbing a rope at one point in the game - how does a game give you a fear of heights??? it's an incredible achievement. the level design of the castle is impeccable, it's a linear game but is a fully realized 3d space. you can see areas that you visited previously when you're in an area with high ground, you can pan the camera up and see a window that you're supposed to reach from the other side, etc. there is barely any dialogue in the game, but there is a sense of a deep mythology within this game that i can't wait to read more about. the art style still holds up, the puzzles still hold up... this is a true masterpiece and one of the best games i've played.

You are never once told what to do. There are no directions, no tutorials. You figure it all out in an organic way, using the architectural design of your environment and the framing of the camera to navigate the castle.

And the castle... There has never been a more elegantly designed level in a video game. The fixed camera angles that allow you to pan around and look at your surroundings give it a genuine sense of presence and scale. It feels like a real place that was once lived in due to its interconnected and functional design. The feeling of just being there is, in terms of sheer atmospheric power, unmatched in any game. All of this despite the environment being so austere and existing purely for Ico to lead Yorda through.

I've seen it pointed out before that Yorda is simply the typical video game damsel in distress, as she is saved by the player and literally dragged around and protected for the entirety of the game. This is true, but simply identifying tropes isn't substantive criticism; in this case, it's a shallow observation that misses the point entirely.

Yorda grew up in a cage. The entire purpose of her existence is to be an eventual vessel for her mother. She never expresses agency because she has never known it. But after making her first real human connection with someone, a person who knows freedom and only now has had it taken away, she learns how to be her own person. In the end, when Ico is unable to go on (and control is thus taken from the player), she takes the initiative to save him herself and assert her right to be free. There has never been a more thematically powerful use of a cutscene in any game, before or since.

It's an empowering story about becoming a human being, all told with almost no dialogue and through the language of video games. It is possibly the purest example of using this medium to tell a good story. Ueda really is one of the very few real artists in the industry and this game will stand forever as one of the most important milestones for video games.

Probably the worst cover art of all time in the NA version though.

I was surprised how by well I remembered the game after so long. Almost every room introduces a new puzzle or uses some neat dynamic camera trick. They were confident enough in what they had to never repeat ideas too much, which helps make each moment memorable.

I was attentive to the layout of the castle and formed a pretty clear picture of the layout by the end of it. Despite having a pretty limited set of colors and textures, each area has a well defined purpose and unique architectural details to differenciate it. The game has these very well paced loops to old areas to recenter the player.

I feel like most people remember the game's combat unfavorably but it isn't all that bad. There's a violent sense of impact to your attacks, like you hurt your own hands each time you swing. They made the combat a bit tedious but often gave you the choice to flee without telling you, making you feel clever when you manage to run away from a fight. The final boss interestingly inverts that, by presenting itself as a hide and seek puzzle, but having a very action oriented solution if you realize you can parry her attacks.

I really don't like Shadow of The Colossus that much, but Ico looks like my cup of tea and sure is. While the game have a serious problem with jump position since nothing is precise, every other thing is good. The combat is just smash button but in a way that make sense and for me is just fun to see a kid with a stick beating the shit out of a shadow little dude and have a good feel because of it. The puzzles are interesting, Yorda is a good IA and the game handles very well with the themes just using the gameplay. Is a cool experimental title that really deserve the hype his get. For sure a good classic.

If I wanted to know what baby sitting was like, I’d stop pullin’ out every time I bang, make a runt of my own, hire a babysitter and buy one of those hidden cameras you put in, like, a teddy bear, bro. Watchin that footage is GUARANTEED to be better than playing Ico, bruh. Yo, you know escort missions, most universally hated shit after, like, water and sewer levels? Yeah lets make a whole game that. What were those rascally Ramen rats even thinking? sometimes i wanna just break a glass on my face, dude. ykno?

Honestly not very fun to play. The combat wasn't engaging and anytime I saw the enemies pop up I would just roll my eyes and want it to be over with.

Also, having the final save point be over an hour away from the ending of the game is one of the biggest dick moves in any game I've played, especially when the final boss one shots you if you make a tiny mistake. It almost made me quit playing the game after I died that first time.

I'm just glad the game is only a couple of hours long, as I would not have managed to play this for any longer than I did.