peaceful, at least the same way a fly at a picnic in the park is; it may be overwhelming when trying to steer you away from food, but it becomes another charming addition to the outdoors. despite how much it deviates from typical formula of video games, as well as how much the team set out to create smth "realistic", ico is essentially going thru the bare essentials of what amounts to a bedtime story that became a dream of a child. everything feels so simple: the combat is always the same when fighting the shadowmen, the tasks are similar to each other more often and not, and the story plays out like a fairy tale

but, not in spite of, but because it moves by, it feels less then charitable to say that it goes against the "realism" aimed for this game; more then anything, my favorites parts of the game was when i decided to walk instead of run and just press myself into how much love was put into the design, how each pristine pixel and low-key sound mixing; the flies are always at every picnic, but they're just as much little creatures of their own nature as any of the quirks and bugs here. no need to be bothered by how it took ya out of everything; it's the exchange between the two that is another form of interactive beauty