This game pisses me off. Why? Because this is where the LEGO franchise went downhill. For some reason, Tt games felt the need to make this a more serious entry with its own story and dialogue. I'm sorry but wasn't the whole point of these games to come across as satire? Like a fast-paced, neutered and wacky version of stories that were made for teens and adults? It makes me wonder who this game is even for, because kids wouldn't have the attention span to follow the plot nor would they continue to be invested in its dreadfully slow gameplay and adults are never going to take a game with Batman as a LEGO figure seriously. By adding voices and making it an original story, you've essentially removed the core of what made these games so charming in the first place.

I will admit though, the open world is easily the best we've ever had! Almost makes this game worth buying (except not really).

Over the last few months, I have grown a bit of an obsession with replaying games I am already far too familiar with. Although I am planning to play more games as soon as I'm done with school, I'm glad that I can use the limited amount of time that I have to quickly get through the things I already love so I can learn to love it even harder. SH2 remains one of my favorite works of fiction in history, and replaying and analyzing it NEVER gets tiring. If I get to write my own story one day (most definitely a film), I would want this game to be its main inspiration, because narrative and worldbuilding this good should be unworthy of us mortals.

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.

This is the most fun I've had with a game in a year! Beautiful art direction, kick-ass combat and relentlessness gore and violence that you don't see anymore.

It's not a game that I necessarily recommend to anyone because it is hard as steel! Dying so much and constantly repeating boss fights is definitely a big flaw in the game's difficulty scaling but it's just a case of learning through trial and error. Now that the hard part is out of the way, I feel that I'm only going to enjoy this game more on my second playthrough.