Ico
Ico is a 2001 action-adventure video game developed and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. It was designed and directed by Fumito Ueda, who wanted to create a minimalist game based on a "boy meets girl" concept. Originally planned for the PlayStation, Ico took approximately four years to develop. The team employed a "subtracting design" approach to reduce gameplay elements that interfered with the game's setting and story in order to create immersion.
The player controls Ico, a boy born with horns, which his village considers a bad omen. After warriors lock him in an abandoned castle, he frees Yorda, the daughter of the castle's Queen, who plans to use Yorda to extend her life. Ico must work with Yorda to escape the castle while protecting her from enemies, assisting her across obstacles, and solving puzzles.
Ico introduced several design and technical elements that have influenced subsequent games, including a story told with minimal dialogue, bloom lighting, and key frame animation. Although not a commercial success, it was acclaimed for its art, original gameplay and story elements. It received several awards, including "Game of the Year" nominations and three Game Developers Choice Awards. Considered a cult classic, it has been called one of the greatest video games ever made, and is often brought up in discussions about video games as an art form. In 2006, it was re-released in Europe alongside Shadow of the Colossus, the spiritual successor to Ico. A high-definition remaster of the game was included in The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection for the PlayStation 3.
Gameplay
Ico is an action-adventure video game. The player controls Ico from a third-person perspective as he explores the castle and attempts to escape it with Yorda. The camera is fixed but swivels to follow Ico or Yorda as they move; the player can also pan the view a small degree in other directions to observe more of the surroundings. The game includes many elements of platform games; for example, the player must have Ico jump, climb, push, and pull objects. The player must also perform other tasks such as solving puzzles in order to progress within the castle.Only Ico can carry out these actions; Yorda can only jump short distances and cannot climb over tall barriers. The player must use Ico to help Yorda cross obstacles, such as by lifting her to a higher ledge, or by arranging the environment to allow Yorda to cross a larger gap herself. The player can tell Yorda to follow Ico, or to wait at a particular spot. The player can have Ico take Yorda's hand and pull her along at a faster pace across the environment. The player cannot progress until they move Yorda to certain doors that only she can open.
Escaping the castle is made difficult by shadow creatures sent by the Queen. These creatures attempt to drag Yorda into black vortexes if Ico leaves her for any length of time, or if she is in certain areas of the castle. Ico can dispel these shadows using a stick or sword, as well as free Yorda if she is drawn into a vortex. While the shadow creatures cannot harm Ico, the game is over if Yorda becomes fully engulfed in a vortex; the player must then restart from a save point. The player will also restart from a save point if Ico falls from a large height. Save points in the game are represented by stone benches that Ico and Yorda rest on as the player saves the game. In the European and Japanese releases, upon completion of the game, the player can restart the game in a local co-operative two-player mode; the second player plays as Yorda, under the same limitations as the computer-controlled version of the character. The new game mode also adds subtitles that translate Yorda's fictional language.
Plot
Ico, a horned boy, is taken by a group of warriors to an abandoned castle and locked inside a stone coffin to be sacrificed. A tremor topples the coffin and Ico escapes. As he searches the castle, he meets Yorda, a captive girl who speaks a different language. Yorda is magically linked to the castle and has the ability to open various gates using white energy that emanates from her body. However, she is physically incapable of defending herself. Ico helps Yorda escape and defends her from shadow-like creatures. The pair make their way through the castle and arrive at the bridge leading to land. As they cross, the Queen ruler of the castle appears and tells Yorda that she cannot leave the castle. Later, as they try to escape, the bridge splits and they get separated; Yorda tries to save Ico but the Queen prevents it. He falls off the bridge and loses consciousness.Ico awakens below the castle and makes his way back to the upper levels, finding a magic sword that dispels the shadow creatures. After discovering that Yorda has been turned to stone by the Queen, he confronts her, who reveals that she plans to possess Yorda's body. Ico slays the Queen with the sword, but his horns are broken in the fight and loses consciousness afterwards. The castle begins to collapse around Ico, but the Queen's spell on Yorda is broken, and a shadowy Yorda carries Ico safely out of the castle to a boat, sending him to drift to the shore alone. She says "Nonomori" to Ico as he drifts away from the castle.
Ico awakens on a beach shore to find the distant castle in ruins, and Yorda in her human form washed up nearby. She wakes up and smiles at Ico.
Development
Lead designer Fumito Ueda came up with the concept for Ico in 1997, envisioning a "boy meets girl" story where the two main characters would hold hands during their adventure, forming a bond between them without communication. Ueda's original inspiration for Ico was a TV commercial he saw, which depicted a woman holding the hand of a child while walking through the woods. He was also inspired by the manga series Galaxy Express 999, where a woman protects a young boy as they travel through the galaxy, which he considered adapting into a new idea for video games. He also cited his work as an animator on Kenji Eno's Sega Saturn game Enemy Zero, which influenced IcoUeda, at the time an employee at Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, began working with producer Kenji Kaido in 1998 to develop the idea and bring the game to the PlayStation. He was granted his own unit as the studio primarily assisted on games from other Japanese developers. Ueda also brought in a number of people outside the video game industry to help with development. These consisted of two programmers, four artists, and one designer in addition to Ueda and Kaido.
Ico design aesthetics were guided by three key notions: to make a game that would be different from others in the genre, feature an aesthetic style that would be consistently artistic, and have an imaginary yet realistic setting. This was achieved through the use of "subtracting design"; elements which interfered with the game's immersion were removed. This included removing any form of interface elements, keeping the gameplay focused only on escaping the castle, and having a single enemy type. This includes the game game containing no user interface details, such as displaying health points on the screen. Ueda commented that he purposely tried to distance Ico from conventional video games due to the negative image video games were receiving at that time, in order to draw more people to the title.
An interim design of the game shows Ico and Yorda facing horned warriors similar to those who take Ico to the castle. The game originally focused on returning Yorda to her room in the castle after she was kidnapped by these warriors. Ueda believed this version was too detailed for the graphics engine they had developed and, as part of the "subtracting design", replaced the warriors with the shadow creatures. On reflection, Ueda noted that the subtracting design may have taken too much out of the game, and did not go to as great an extreme with Shadow of the Colossus.
After two years of development, the team ran into limitations on PlayStation hardware and faced a critical choice: either terminate the project altogether, alter their vision to fit the constraints of the hardware, or continue to explore more options. The team decided to remain true to Ueda's vision, and began to use the PlayStation 2's Emotion Engine, taking advantage of the improved abilities of the platform. Character animation was accomplished through key frame animation instead of the more common motion capture technique. The game took about four years to develop. Ueda intentionally left the ending vague, not stating whether Yorda was alive, whether she would travel with Ico, or if it was simply the protagonist's dream.
Ico uses minimal dialogue in a fictional language to provide the story throughout the game. Voice actors included Kazuhiro Shindō as Ico, Rieko Takahashi as Yorda, and Misa Watanabe as the Queen. Ico and the Queen's words are presented in either English or Japanese subtitles depending on the release region, but Yorda's speech is presented in a symbolic language. This symbolic language consists of 26 runic letters which correspond to the Latin alphabet, and the script was designed by team member Kei Kuwabara. Ueda opted not to provide the translation for Yorda's words as it would have overcome the language barrier between Ico and Yorda, and detracted from the "holding hands" concept of the game. The game initially had 115 lines of spoken dialogue; however, 77 of these lines were not used in the final game, and can only be accessed via data-mining.
Many scenes in the game feature no background music, and many scenes will be accompanied only by sounds in the environment.