Ico was a great concept, but there wasn't much to it. The game was just
way too short, and the puzzles started to wear thin towards the end. I
loved the style and atmosphere this game had but the gameplay was
pretty weak compared to any other action / adventure game out there. It
was a great experience for what it was atleast.
----------Battle System----------
Ico is an action / adventure game. There's a ton of similarities
to this game and the modern Zelda games, except there's more meat to a
Zelda game. Ico only has 2 moves, hack and slash. He won't learn
anything else in the game. There's only 4 weapons in the game, one is
hidden (I didn't even find it) and the other you use at the last 15
minutes of the game. So basically you use a stick and a sword through
out most of the game, and you'll mostly be using them for puzzles.
There's no inventory, there's no items, there's no armor, there's no
special attacks to learn, there's no experience points or levels.
Ico is sort of a babysitting game, since Ico has to yank Yorda
around the entire game. Ico has to protect her at all times, and if you
stray away from her for to long then a monster will come up and snatch
her. The regular monsters are pretty similar to defeat, but sometimes
you'll get swarmed with them and they'll snatch Yorda away from you,
then fly across the screen to their warp zone and you won't have enough
time to save her. If Yorda or Ico dies then you can continue from the
last time you opened a door or your last save point, so it's not to
much trouble at all.
Puzzle solving and platforming is the backbone to Ico. You'll be
pushing blocks, climbing chains, walking across ledges, hitting
switches, jumping platforms, basically everything you do in a Zelda
game. Puzzle solving was extremely fun and rewarding when you figure
this stuff out, but platforming can be a bit frustrating. The analog
sticks are a bit sensitive, so if you're walking across a small ledge
then one bad twitch can send Ico to the end. Luckily this game will
stop Ico if he gets near the edge, and if he does fall then he'll catch
himself. Even with that much protection I still felt a little nervous
jumping platformers.
----------Characters / Story----------
You play as Ico, a boy with horns. He is sent to this decrepit
castle to be sacrificed since kids that form horns are bad omens to
their village. Ico set's himself free inside the castle from his tomb,
and then wonders around trying to figure his way out of this castle. He
eventually meets up with a ghostly looking girl captured inside of a
cage. He sets her free, but once that happens a bunch of black
monster's come out of the floor and try to kidnap her. Ico saves her,
and they go on their jouney to escape from the castle.
There wasn't much story to the game, that last paragraph pretty
much sums up the first 10 minutes of the game, but after that it might
take 3 hours to get to the next scene with dialog. There's really none
after that point until the 5th hour of the game, then finally some more
at the end of it. I loved the concept for the game, and it certainly
had a ton of charm, but there just wasn't enough of it. The characters
were great and full of personality, even though they're almost silent
throughout, but there's only 3 main characters in the entire game.
----------Graphics----------
The graphics have a great style to them, but the game doesn't show
off to much. The area's are freaking huge, the character designs are
great, and the in-game cutscenes are pretty awesome. The washed out
color scheme was great.
Other than that, the game is kinda weak in graphics. Most of the
areas look the same, you'll fight the same monsters over and over
again. There's only one boss, there's 4 weapons, and only a few
variations of puzzles. The game was also very short, with maybe 5 or 6
cutscenes.
----------Sound----------
There's only a few times in the game where there's music, and
that's what I love about this game the most. The game relies alot on
the ambience of the flames flickering, the wind blowing, or the water
crashing. There's a full song at the end during the credits, which is
very good, and some battle music when you fight the final boss, but
that's pretty much it. The rest of the game has no music and it puts
out a great atmosphere.
The characters speak in Japanese or gibberish. There are subtitles
for the Japanese spoken lines of dialog, and even made up symbols for
the gibberish. Ico will yell out to Yorda during the game, but I have
no idea what he's saying. I can't imagine what this game would be like
with English speaking voice actors, so I'm glad they left it how it is.
There's not a whole lot of dialog in the game though.
----------World Map----------
The game takes place entirely inside and around a gigantic castle.
That's basically it, there's no sub-maps or menus to look at, you just
have to remember everything. The game is fairly linear, so it shouldn't
be trouble figuring your way around the castle.
----------Time to Complete Game----------
5:01:58
That was my last save before the final (and only) boss, but there
was a ton of stuff after that, possibly an hours worth. This game
probably took me 6 hours to beat.
