Exploring ICO: Crawling Through The Gut of the Castle

You need to commend the ability to say so much with so few words. A minimalist canvas allows the audience to paint their own conclusions and inferences. The opposite is a canvas that is paint-by-numbers, the audience is fed the information they need to paint these conclusions. Both can be enjoyable, and it is a feat to make either end of the spectrum work well. I am going to laud minimalist storytelling but I do not discount the opposite. The simple truth is that they both need to be done well.

I play plenty of games that are all about instant gratification, and they are some of my favourites. I count certain titles with a very overt narrative as some of my favourites. However, sometimes you just want to just become engrossed in the narrative and let it bloom naturally. ICO quintessentializes this mindset.

For many of the games I grew up with, storytelling was an afterthought. It was about “here is the premise, now just play the game.” We drew our own conclusions, thought of viable reasons for each new scenario, and humanized our onscreen avatars. ICO is the natural evolution of this philosophy, where a premise is introduced without volumes of exposition but storytelling does matter.

It’s a union of player input and aesthetic suggestion. Minimalist design belies how intricately the struggle is presented. The premise is simple at outset: ICO is left for sacrifice, he meets the captive Yorda, and they must escape an expansive and labyrinthine castle together. He must keep her safe as she is absolutely necessary for his escape. However, she is not nearly as mobile as ICO, forcing him to breach new paths for their ultimate exeunt.

Lateral thinking is often required by the new player on the spot. Whether it is deciphering the solution to one room’s puzzle or trying to determine if it is better to stand and fight or just push through to the next room with Yorda in tow. In this way, the gameplay drives the events in a very theatrical manner. There is no surrender of one element for the other, they work in harmony to drive the experience for the player. I believe when I revisit this game, the elements will flow together in a very cinematic sense.

This is an interesting factor, because many of the puzzles in ICO will not deter me on a replay where some were legitimately confusing or at least gave me pause on the first play through. The gameplay is not so visceral that I could drive my enjoyment under that usual metric. Instead, I think I will come to see ICO as one of the more poignant stories I could revisit. It’s a unique beast, and ultimately that’s what fuels me these days.

It could come as a surprise to some folks that I am lauding the storytelling in this game. Most folks who know me know that I consider story a secondary matter in games. This might be a side effect of growing up with mostly arcade-style games. However, I also think a major factor is that stories are often overwrought, pandering, and patronizing. Believe me, when it’s good I care about it.

I think when a friend convinced me to buy Shadow of the Colossus a number of years ago now I started to change my tune. This was wholly opposite of the pandering cookie-cutter games I had started to expect. So much interpretation was left to the player. It’s like there were key frames in place, and we were animating everything in between. It was absolutely refreshing.

This is why I ultimately decided to purchase ICO: because I enjoyed Colossus so much. However, I knew it would be of the utmost importance not to compare the two directly. They are different creatures that share many characteristics but ultimately they can stand alone as two very exclusive experiences.

I had come to realize that while I am rarely concerned about storyline, I do like characters and plot progression. I like how the story is told. You could have the magnum opus of a literary genius at your disposal. But it will still fall flat if it is not put into motion correctly.

I was not disappointed with ICO at all.

Keeping exposition to a minimum allows the game and the player to coalesce, you just have to be open to it. For a game like ICO or Colossus, you need to put conventional expectations about story aside. You will not enjoy this aspect of the games unless you allow yourself to be awash in its tide. You need to just play.

And you will begin to develop expectations and feelings for the characters. The raw sense of isolation in ICO means that between yourself and Yorda you really have nowhere to turn. As the proprietor of the castle steps up her game to recapture Yorda you begin to feel anxious about leaving her behind. Not just because you know she will be attacked, but because you don’t if you will be able to get to her quickly enough to save her. While I often inconvenienced myself to do so, I kept her with me as much as possible.

 

I got the feeling that the castle was alive. A creature at its terminus, its final death throes as its body breaks down around itself. It is remarkable architecture marred with the misuse and disuse of the ages. The castle’s ghouls are its tendrils grasping out in final indignation – desperate to regain the one thing that could sustain it.

The castle itself made me very happy. One thing that I often rag on in games with 3D environments is that that extra dimension of freedom of movement is typically squandered. How often in other titles have you walked into a room, seen no exit, then simply looked up and shot the switch? Too often. ICO takes its use of space very seriously and this is one of the factors I appreciate the most about the game.

Sure, you still need to ‘look up’ but you also have to look down. And all around. Then you have to get out on those ledges or chains and actually see where they can take you. You’ll also want to learn to where to dismount without the fall killing you! The scale of the castle is impressive and movement within it is not taken lightly. The heights are sometimes dizzying and imposing, but once you start into the environments you will find your way through. It’s again, very intricate.

While camera angles are set in such a way as to frame the scene, there is still a great deal of freedom involved where you can swing around and zoom in and out, as well as track Yorda. The camera gets flack sometimes, and it is pretty touch at times. However, once you’ve used it for a little while it becomes second nature.

This is good. Since the game often forces you to leave Yorda behind even for a few moments, you will want to be able to note the locations of the inevitable ghouls and their portals when they show up.

I should talk about the combat in the game. Essentially, the Queen of the castle wants to recapture Yorda to her own ends. She sends aetherial black ghouls after our intrepid pair to capture the girl and drag her down into a portal. While ICO has no life bar to be killed by ghouls, he can be sent sailing. If they drag Yorda fully down into their portal – he will die. He cannot escape the castle without Yorda, so game over little dude!

Your weapon for most of the game is a stick that you find in the castle. ICO is not strong and he must hit even a basic ghoul many times before it will be destroyed. For much of the game this makes the choice between flight or fight imperative, but you can usually fight it out. He gains new weapons much later in the game that really cut through the ghouls with impunity. But for the most part he’s pretty weak.

ICO is not a powerhouse and Yorda is frail, and I love it.

This may sound kind of strange at first, but this helps sell the idea that the journey through the castle is a real struggle for both characters. I’ve played so many games focusing on instant gratification that it is, again, refreshing to play a game where you are legitimately at a disadvantage at times. Not to mention that even when you are equipped with a sweet sword you can be feeling pressured to come to the rescue because she’s been carried away and the rest of the bad guys are flocking all around you.

They are still strong. Their strength is in raw determination and within their need for each other.

And while sometimes it seems like it would be more convenient if Yorda had the physical strength to climb chains too, the animations between ICO and Yorda as he struggles to bring her along really impression the two characters to you. I do not get sentimental about games, but I was often concerned for their welfare, ha ha.

It seems surreal to even think this but I may end up getting the PAL version of ICO down the road because it has added content and I’d really like to play through this again in the near future. It’s certainly not for everyone, a common theme on this blog I guess. But if you can find a copy of the game I highly recommend playing through it. And if you’ve played Shadow of the Colossus and not ICO, divorce the two games in your mind now and get started on ICO!

I build my collection or at least the cornerstones of my collection based on unique gameplay experiences. ICO came out quite some time ago now, but it does provide this desired function for me, in a big way.