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.
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.
sliceofzura
1 year ago