Ico
Encyclopedia
is an action-adventure game
published by Sony Computer Entertainment
and released for the PlayStation 2
video game console. It was designed and directed by Fumito Ueda
, who wanted to create a minimalist game around a "boy meets girl" concept. Originally planned for the PlayStation
, Ico took approximately four years to develop by Team Ico
. The team employed a "subtracting design" approach to reduce elements of gameplay that interfered with the game's setting and story in order to create a high level of immersion
.
The titular protagonist is a young boy born with horns whom his village considers a bad omen. Warriors lock him away in an abandoned fortress. During his explorations of the fortress, Ico encounters Yorda, the daughter of the castle's Queen. The Queen plans to use Yorda's body to extend her own lifespan. Learning this, Ico seeks to escape the castle with Yorda, keeping her safe from the shadow-like creatures that attempt to draw her back. Throughout the game, the player controls Ico as he explores the castle, solves puzzles and assists the less-agile Yorda across obstacles.
Ico introduced several design and technical elements, including a story told with minimal dialog, bloom lighting
and key frame
animation, that have influenced subsequent games. Although not a commercial success, it was critically acclaimed for its art and story elements and received several awards, including "Game of the Year" nominations and three Game Developers Choice Awards
. Ico is listed on several overall top game lists, and is often considered a work of art. The game was reprinted in Europe
in 2006, in conjunction with the release of Shadow of the Colossus
, the spiritual successor to Ico. Along with Shadow of the Colossus, Ico was released in The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection
for the PlayStation 3 which featured HD graphics, Trophy and 3D
support.
Ico is primarily a three-dimensional
platform 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 in each room or area 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, and perform other tasks such as solving puzzles, to progress within the castle. These actions are complicated by the fact that only Ico is able to carry out these actions; Yorda can only jump short distances and cannot climb over tall barriers. The player must use Ico so that he helps 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 is able to tell Yorda to follow Ico, or to wait at a spot. The player can also have Ico take Yorda's hand and pull her along at a faster pace across the environment. Players are unable to progress in the game until they move Yorda to certain doors that only she is able to open.
Escaping the castle is made difficult by shadow creatures sent by the Queen. These creatures attempt to drag Yorda into black vortices 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 and pull Yorda free if she is drawn into a vortex. While the shadow creatures cannot harm Ico, the game is over if Yorda becomes fully engulfed by a vortex; the player restarts 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 which Ico and Yorda rest on as the player saves the game. In European and Japanese releases of the game, upon completion of the game, the player has the opportunity to restart the game in a local co-operative two-player mode, where the second player plays as Yorda, still under the same limitations as the computer-controller version of the character.
in a crypt. Some time after the warriors depart, a tremor runs through the castle, and Ico is able to take advantage of it to escape his confines. As he searches the castle, he comes across , a captive girl who speaks in an unknown language. Ico helps Yorda escape, but finds she is hunted by shadow-like creatures (the souls of other horned children sacrificed to the fortress) that attempt to drag her body into the portals from which they emerged. Although Ico cannot be harmed by the shadows and is able to drive them away from Yorda, he finds he cannot defeat the enemies with his simple weapons. The pair make their way through the abandoned castle, eventually arriving at the bridge leading to land. As they cross, the Queen, ruler of the fortress and Yorda's mother, appears and tells Yorda that as her daughter she cannot leave the castle. Ico and Yorda attempt to flee, but the Queen destroys part of the bridge in their path; although Yorda tries to save him, Ico falls off the bridge and loses consciousness.
Ico awakens in the chambers below the castle and travels back to the upper levels. During his explorations, he finds a magic sword that is able to dispel the shadow creatures. After discovering that Yorda has been turned to stone by the Queen, he seeks out the Queen in her throne room. The Queen reveals that she is preventing Yorda from leaving so that she may extend her own life, which she had previously done by draining the life of those placed in the sarcophagi. Now, she plans to restart her life anew by taking possession of Yorda's body. Ico and the Queen fight, Ico breaking both of his horns in the process. Ico is able to slay the Queen with the magic sword, but with her death the castle begins to collapse around him, and he loses consciousness again from falling debris. The Queen's spell on Yorda is broken, and as a shadow version Yorda carries Ico safely out of the castle and onto a boat, sending him to drift to the nearby shore and choosing not to accompany him. Ico awakens to find the castle in ruins and Yorda, in her human form, washed up beside him. She awakens before the game ends.
An extra scene can be unlocked after defeating the Queen. After waking up on shore, Ico finds and carries a watermelon to Yorda, who wakes up. The two split the melon between themselves before the scene fades to black.
Lead developer 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 main inspiration for Ico was Eric Chahi
's game Another World
(Outer World in Japan), which used cinematic cutscenes and lacked any head-up display
elements as to play like a movie. It also featured an emotional connection between two characters, despite the use of minimal dialog. Ueda also cited Lemmings
, Flashback and the original Prince of Persia
games as influences, specifically regarding animation and gameplay style. With the help of an assistant, Ueda created an animation in Lightwave
to get a feel for the final game and to better convey his vision. In the three-minute demonstration reel, Yorda had the horns instead of Ico, and flying robotic creatures were seen firing weapons to destroy the castle. Ueda stated that having this movie that represented his vision helped to keep the team on track for the long development process, and he reused this technique for the development of Shadow of the Colossus
, the team's next effort.
Ueda began working with producer Kenji Kaido
in 1998 to develop the idea and bring the game to the PlayStation
. Icos 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 play out in an imaginary yet realistic setting. This was achieved through the use of "subtracting design"; they removed elements from the game which interfered with the game's reality. This included removing any form of interface elements, keeping the gameplay focused only on the escape from the castle, and reducing the number of types of enemies in the game to a single foe. An interim design of the game shows Ico and Yorda facing horned warriors similar to those that take Ico to the castle. The game originally focused on Ico's attempt to return Yorda to her room in the castle after she was kidnapped by these warriors. Ueda believed this version had too much detail for the graphics engine they had developed, and as part of the "subtracting design", replaced the warriors with the shadow creatures. 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, forming the base of what is now known as Team Ico
. 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 the 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 Emotion Engine
of the PlayStation 2
, 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. Ico is recognized as one of the first games to incorporate bloom lighting
into video games, a feature that is common in later seventh generation console video games. The game took about four years to create. Ueda purposely 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.
The cover used for releases in Japan and PAL region
s was drawn by Ueda himself, and was inspired by the surrealist artist Giorgio de Chirico
and his work, The Nostalgia of the Infinite
. Ueda believed that "the surrealistic world of de Chirico matched the allegoric world of Ico". The North American version lacks this cover as well as additional features that become available after the player completes the game once. The development team was unable to provide Ueda's cover or the additional features such as the two-player mode in time for Sony's planned North American release date, but included them for the later releases in Japan and PAL regions. On reflection, Yasuhide Kobayashi, vice-president of Sony's Japan Studio, believed the North American box art and lack of an identifiable English title led to the game's poor sales in the United States, and stated plans to correct that for the release of The Last Guardian
. For its original release, a limited edition of the game was available in PAL regions that included a cardboard wrapping displaying artwork from the game and four art cards inside the box. The game was re-released as a standard edition in 2006 across all PAL regions except France after the 2005 release of Shadow of the Colossus, Icos spiritual sequel
, to allow players to "fill the gap in their collection".
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. 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. In the non-North American releases, playing through the game again after completing the game replaces the symbolic text with appropriate language subtitles.
Ico's audio featured a limited amount of music and sound effects. The soundtrack
, , was composed by Michiru Oshima
and Kōichi Yamazaki (aka. Pentagon) and released in Japan by Sony Music Entertainment
on February 20, 2002. The album was distributed by Sony Music Entertainment Visual Works. The last song of the CD, ICO -You Were There-, includes vocals sung by former Libera
member Steven Geraghty.
hit among gamers. The game has received aggregate review scores of 90 out of 100 at Metacritic
and 90% at Game Rankings
. The game is considered by some to be one of the greatest games of all time; Edge
ranked Ico as the 13th top game in a 2007 listing, while IGN
ranked the game at number 18 in 2005, and at number 57 in 2007. Ico has been used as an example of game that is a work of art. Ueda commented that he purposely tried to distance Ico from conventional video games due to the negative image that video games were receiving at that time, in order to draw more people to the title.
Some reviewers have likened Ico to older, simpler adventure games such as Prince of Persia
or Tomb Raider
, that seek to evoke an emotional experience from the player; IGN
s David Smith commented that while simple, as an experience the game was "near indescribable." The game's graphics and sound contributed strongly to the positive reactions from critics; Smith continues that "The visuals, sound, and original puzzle design come together to make something that is almost, if not quite, completely unlike anything else on the market, and feels wonderful because of it." Many reviewers were impressed with the expansiveness and the details given to the environments, the animation used for the main characters despite their low polygon count, as well as the use of lighting effects. Icos ambiance, created by the simple music and the small attention to detail in the voice work of the main characters, were also called out as strong points for the game. Charles Herold
of the New York Times summed up his review stating that "Ico is not a perfect game, but it is a game of perfect moments." Herold later commented that Ico breaks the mold of games that usually involve companions. In most games these companions are invulnerable and players will generally not concern with the non-playable characters' fate, but Ico creates the sense of "trust and childish fragility" around Yorda, and that these leads to the character being "the game’s entire focus".
The game is noted for its simple combat system that would "disappoint those craving sheer mechanical depth", as stated by Gamespot
s Miguel Lopez. The game's puzzle design has been praised for creating a rewarding experience for players who work through challenges on their own; Kristen Reed of Eurogamer
, for example, said that "you quietly, logically, willingly proceed, and the illusion is perfect: the game never tells you what to do, even though the game is always telling you what to do". Ico is also considered a short game, taking between seven and ten hours for a single play through, which Game Revolution
calls "painfully short" with "no replay outside of self-imposed challenges". G4TV
's Matthew Keil, however, felt that "the game is so strong, many will finish 'Ico' in one or two sittings". The lack of features in the North American release, which would become unlocked on subsequent playthroughs after completing the game, was said to reduce the replay value of the title.
in 2002, including "Excellence in Level Design", "Excellence in Visual Arts", and "Game Innovation Spotlight". The game won two Interactive Achievement Awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
in 2002 for "Art Direction" and "Character or Story Development", and was nominated for awards of "Game of the Year", "Game Design", "Level Design" and "Sound Design".
of the game titled was released in Japan
in 2004. Author Miyuki Miyabe
wrote the novel because of her appreciation of the game. A Korean translation of the novel, entitled 이코 - 안개의 성 (I-ko: An-gae-eui Seong) came out the following year, by Hwangmae Publishers, while an English translation will be published by Viz Media
on August 16 of 2011. Costumes (including Ico and Yorda), stickers, and sound effects from Ico are part of an add-on pack for the game LittleBigPlanet
, alongside similar materials from Shadow of the Colossus, after being teased by the game's developers Media Molecule
about two weeks prior. A film adaption of Ico may come about based on the success of the adaptation of Shadow of the Colossus being created by Misher Films
in conjunction with Sony and Fumito Ueda.
Several game designers, such as Eiji Aonuma
, Hideo Kojima
, and Jordan Mechner
, have cited Ico as having influenced the visual appearance of their games, including The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
, respectively. Marc Laidlaw
, scriptwriter
for the Half-Life series
, commented that, among several other more memorable moments in the game, the point where Yorda attempts to save Ico from falling off the damaged bridge was "a significant event not only for that game, but for the art of game design". Movie director Guillermo del Toro
(Pan's Labyrinth
) has cited both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus as "masterpieces" and part of his directorial influence. Jonny Greenwood
of Radiohead
considers, of his top ten video games, "Ico might be the best one".
in October 2005 in Japan and North America, was developed by the same team that developed Ico. The game features similar graphics, gameplay, and storytelling elements as Ico. The game was referred by its working title "Nico" ("Ni being Japanese for the number 2") until the final title was revealed. Ueda, when asked about the connection between the two games, stated that Shadow of the Colossus is a prequel
to Ico, specifically citing the ending of Shadow where a child is born with two horns.
Team Ico
is presently working on a game for the PlayStation 3
since at least early 2008, with a working title of "Project Trico". The title was revealed as The Last Guardian
at E3 2009. A trailer released in May 2009 depicts a young boy travelling with a large griffin
-type creature, supposedly carrying on the companion theme of the series. However, no details have emerged on what connections, if any, there are to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Ueda has stated that "the essence of the game is rather close to Ico".
Ico, along with Shadow of the Colossus, received a high-definition remake for the PlayStation 3 that was released in the third quarter of 2011, before the release of The Last Guardian in 2012. In addition to improved graphics, the games were updated to include support for stereoscopic 3D
and PlayStation Trophies. The Ico port was also be based on the European version, and includes features such as Yorda's translation and the two-player mode. In North America and Europe/PAL regions, the two games were released as a single collection, while in Japan, they were released as separate titles. This follows similar moves previously made by Sony to assemble past PlayStation 2 games as a single collection for God of War and Sly Cooper
.
Action-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
published by Sony Computer Entertainment
Sony Computer Entertainment
Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. is a major video game company specializing in a variety of areas in the video game industry, and is a wholly owned subsidiary and part of the Consumer Products & Services Group of Sony...
and released for the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
video game console. It was designed and directed by Fumito Ueda
Fumito Ueda
is a video game designer born in Tatsuno, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan in 1970. Ueda is director and lead designer of the PlayStation 2 video games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus....
, who wanted to create a minimalist game around a "boy meets girl" concept. Originally planned for the PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
, Ico took approximately four years to develop by Team Ico
Team ICO
Team Ico is a Japanese video game development team led by game designer Fumito Ueda. It is part of SCE Japan Studio's Product Development Department #1, Team Ico developed the games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, both for the PlayStation 2...
. The team employed a "subtracting design" approach to reduce elements of gameplay that interfered with the game's setting and story in order to create a high level of immersion
Immersion (virtual reality)
Immersion is the state of consciousness where an immersant's awareness of physical self is diminished or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment; often artificial. This mental state is frequently accompanied with spatial excess, intense focus, a distorted sense of time, and...
.
The titular protagonist is a young boy born with horns whom his village considers a bad omen. Warriors lock him away in an abandoned fortress. During his explorations of the fortress, Ico encounters Yorda, the daughter of the castle's Queen. The Queen plans to use Yorda's body to extend her own lifespan. Learning this, Ico seeks to escape the castle with Yorda, keeping her safe from the shadow-like creatures that attempt to draw her back. Throughout the game, the player controls Ico as he explores the castle, solves puzzles and assists the less-agile Yorda across obstacles.
Ico introduced several design and technical elements, including a story told with minimal dialog, bloom lighting
Bloom (shader effect)
Bloom is a computer graphics effect used in computer games, demos and high dynamic range rendering to reproduce an imaging artifact of real-world cameras. The effect produces fringes of light around very bright objects in an image, obscuring fine details...
and key frame
Key frame
A key frame in animation and filmmaking is a drawing that defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. They are called "frames" because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film...
animation, that have influenced subsequent games. Although not a commercial success, it was critically acclaimed for its art and story elements and received several awards, including "Game of the Year" nominations and three Game Developers Choice Awards
Game Developers Choice Awards
The Game Developers Choice Awards are annually presented by the Game Developers Conference for outstanding game developers and games.Introduced in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards were preceded by the Spotlight Awards, which were presented from 1997 to 1999.The 2009 award presentation was...
. Ico is listed on several overall top game lists, and is often considered a work of art. The game was reprinted in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
in 2006, in conjunction with the release of Shadow of the Colossus
Shadow of the Colossus
Shadow of the Colossus, released in Japan as , is an action-adventure game published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. The game was released in North America and Japan in October 2005 and PAL territories in February 2006...
, the spiritual successor to Ico. Along with Shadow of the Colossus, Ico was released in The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection
The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection
The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection is a video game that contains high-definition remasters of two older PlayStation 2 games for the PlayStation 3...
for the PlayStation 3 which featured HD graphics, Trophy and 3D
Stereoscopy
Stereoscopy refers to a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by presenting two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. Both of these 2-D offset images are then combined in the brain to give the perception of 3-D depth...
support.
Gameplay
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
platform game
Platform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
. 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 in each room or area but swivels to follow Ico or Yorda as they move; the player can also pan
Panning (camera)
In photography, panning refers to the horizontal movement or rotation of a still or video camera, or the scanning of a subject horizontally on video or a display device...
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, and perform other tasks such as solving puzzles, to progress within the castle. These actions are complicated by the fact that only Ico is able to carry out these actions; Yorda can only jump short distances and cannot climb over tall barriers. The player must use Ico so that he helps 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 is able to tell Yorda to follow Ico, or to wait at a spot. The player can also have Ico take Yorda's hand and pull her along at a faster pace across the environment. Players are unable to progress in the game until they move Yorda to certain doors that only she is able to open.
Escaping the castle is made difficult by shadow creatures sent by the Queen. These creatures attempt to drag Yorda into black vortices 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 and pull Yorda free if she is drawn into a vortex. While the shadow creatures cannot harm Ico, the game is over if Yorda becomes fully engulfed by a vortex; the player restarts 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 which Ico and Yorda rest on as the player saves the game. In European and Japanese releases of the game, upon completion of the game, the player has the opportunity to restart the game in a local co-operative two-player mode, where the second player plays as Yorda, still under the same limitations as the computer-controller version of the character.
Plot
The game's main protagonist is , a young boy with a pair of horns on his head—considered a bad omen by his village. As part of the village's tradition, he is taken by a group of warriors to a castle surrounded by water and locked inside one of the sarcophagiSarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos...
in a crypt. Some time after the warriors depart, a tremor runs through the castle, and Ico is able to take advantage of it to escape his confines. As he searches the castle, he comes across , a captive girl who speaks in an unknown language. Ico helps Yorda escape, but finds she is hunted by shadow-like creatures (the souls of other horned children sacrificed to the fortress) that attempt to drag her body into the portals from which they emerged. Although Ico cannot be harmed by the shadows and is able to drive them away from Yorda, he finds he cannot defeat the enemies with his simple weapons. The pair make their way through the abandoned castle, eventually arriving at the bridge leading to land. As they cross, the Queen, ruler of the fortress and Yorda's mother, appears and tells Yorda that as her daughter she cannot leave the castle. Ico and Yorda attempt to flee, but the Queen destroys part of the bridge in their path; although Yorda tries to save him, Ico falls off the bridge and loses consciousness.
Ico awakens in the chambers below the castle and travels back to the upper levels. During his explorations, he finds a magic sword that is able to dispel the shadow creatures. After discovering that Yorda has been turned to stone by the Queen, he seeks out the Queen in her throne room. The Queen reveals that she is preventing Yorda from leaving so that she may extend her own life, which she had previously done by draining the life of those placed in the sarcophagi. Now, she plans to restart her life anew by taking possession of Yorda's body. Ico and the Queen fight, Ico breaking both of his horns in the process. Ico is able to slay the Queen with the magic sword, but with her death the castle begins to collapse around him, and he loses consciousness again from falling debris. The Queen's spell on Yorda is broken, and as a shadow version Yorda carries Ico safely out of the castle and onto a boat, sending him to drift to the nearby shore and choosing not to accompany him. Ico awakens to find the castle in ruins and Yorda, in her human form, washed up beside him. She awakens before the game ends.
An extra scene can be unlocked after defeating the Queen. After waking up on shore, Ico finds and carries a watermelon to Yorda, who wakes up. The two split the melon between themselves before the scene fades to black.
Development
Eric Chahi
Éric Chahi is a French computer game designer best known as the creator of Another World .- Career :Éric Chahi started programming on Oric Atmos and Amstrad during 1983 for the company Loriciels...
's game Another World
Another World (video game)
Another World, also known as Out of This World in North America and Outer World in Japan, is a 1991 cinematic platformer designed and developed by Eric Chahi...
(Outer World in Japan), which used cinematic cutscenes and lacked any head-up display
Head-Up Display
A head-up display or heads-up display is any transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints...
elements as to play like a movie. It also featured an emotional connection between two characters, despite the use of minimal dialog. Ueda also cited Lemmings
Lemmings (video game)
Lemmings is a puzzle computer game developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis in . Originally developed for PC and Commodore Amiga, Lemmings was one of the most popular computer games of its time, and several gaming magazines gave it some of their highest review scores at the time...
, Flashback and the original Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia is a platform game, originally developed by Jordan Mechner and released in 1989 for the Apple II, that represented a great leap forward in the quality of animation seen in video games....
games as influences, specifically regarding animation and gameplay style. With the help of an assistant, Ueda created an animation in Lightwave
LightWave
LightWave 3D is a high end computer graphics program developed by NewTek. The latest release of LightWave runs on Windows and Mac OS X.- Overview:...
to get a feel for the final game and to better convey his vision. In the three-minute demonstration reel, Yorda had the horns instead of Ico, and flying robotic creatures were seen firing weapons to destroy the castle. Ueda stated that having this movie that represented his vision helped to keep the team on track for the long development process, and he reused this technique for the development of Shadow of the Colossus
Shadow of the Colossus
Shadow of the Colossus, released in Japan as , is an action-adventure game published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. The game was released in North America and Japan in October 2005 and PAL territories in February 2006...
, the team's next effort.
Ueda began working with producer Kenji Kaido
Kenji Kaido
is the producer of Sony Computer Entertainment Japan's Product Development Department #1.Kaidō started his videogaming career at Taito in 1987, where he worked as project leader and lead game designer on arcade titles Bonze Adventure, Night Striker, Champion Wrestler, Cameltry, Sonic Blast Man,...
in 1998 to develop the idea and bring the game to the PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
. Icos 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 play out in an imaginary yet realistic setting. This was achieved through the use of "subtracting design"; they removed elements from the game which interfered with the game's reality. This included removing any form of interface elements, keeping the gameplay focused only on the escape from the castle, and reducing the number of types of enemies in the game to a single foe. An interim design of the game shows Ico and Yorda facing horned warriors similar to those that take Ico to the castle. The game originally focused on Ico's attempt to return Yorda to her room in the castle after she was kidnapped by these warriors. Ueda believed this version had too much detail for the graphics engine they had developed, and as part of the "subtracting design", replaced the warriors with the shadow creatures. 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, forming the base of what is now known as Team Ico
Team ICO
Team Ico is a Japanese video game development team led by game designer Fumito Ueda. It is part of SCE Japan Studio's Product Development Department #1, Team Ico developed the games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, both for the PlayStation 2...
. 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 the 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 Emotion Engine
Emotion Engine
The Emotion Engine is a CPU developed and manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment and Toshiba for use in the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console, as well as early PlayStation 3 models sold in Japan and North America...
of the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
, taking advantage of the improved abilities of the platform. Character animation was accomplished through key frame
Key frame
A key frame in animation and filmmaking is a drawing that defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. They are called "frames" because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film...
animation instead of the more common motion capture
Motion capture
Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics...
technique. Ico is recognized as one of the first games to incorporate bloom lighting
Bloom (shader effect)
Bloom is a computer graphics effect used in computer games, demos and high dynamic range rendering to reproduce an imaging artifact of real-world cameras. The effect produces fringes of light around very bright objects in an image, obscuring fine details...
into video games, a feature that is common in later seventh generation console video games. The game took about four years to create. Ueda purposely 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.
The cover used for releases in Japan and PAL region
PAL region
The PAL region is a television publication territory which covers most of Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Western Europe...
s was drawn by Ueda himself, and was inspired by the surrealist artist Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
and his work, The Nostalgia of the Infinite
The Nostalgia of the Infinite
The Nostalgia of the Infinite is a painting by the Greek-Italian metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico.The subject of the painting is a large tower. The scene is struck by low, angular evening light. In the foreground below the tower are two small shadowy figures resembling those in future works...
. Ueda believed that "the surrealistic world of de Chirico matched the allegoric world of Ico". The North American version lacks this cover as well as additional features that become available after the player completes the game once. The development team was unable to provide Ueda's cover or the additional features such as the two-player mode in time for Sony's planned North American release date, but included them for the later releases in Japan and PAL regions. On reflection, Yasuhide Kobayashi, vice-president of Sony's Japan Studio, believed the North American box art and lack of an identifiable English title led to the game's poor sales in the United States, and stated plans to correct that for the release of The Last Guardian
The Last Guardian
The Last Guardian, known in Japan as and previously referred to by the working title Project Trico, is an upcoming video game developed by Team Ico, to be published exclusively for the PlayStation 3 video game console by Sony Computer Entertainment...
. For its original release, a limited edition of the game was available in PAL regions that included a cardboard wrapping displaying artwork from the game and four art cards inside the box. The game was re-released as a standard edition in 2006 across all PAL regions except France after the 2005 release of Shadow of the Colossus, Icos spiritual sequel
Spiritual sequel
A spiritual successor, sometimes called a spiritual sequel or a companion piece, is a successor to a work of fiction which does not directly build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, but nevertheless features many of the same elements,...
, to allow players to "fill the gap in their collection".
Audio
Ico uses minimal dialog in a fictional language to provide the story throughout the game. Voice actors included Kazuhiro Shindō as Ico, Reiko Takahashi as Yorda, and Misa WatanabeMisa Watanabe
is a Japanese voice actress . She is currently affiliated with Aoni Production. She is well known for voicing Nefertari Vivi in One Piece. She is the official Japanese dub-over artist for Cameron Diaz.-Television Animation:*Absolute Boy - Hana Tokimiya...
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. 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. In the non-North American releases, playing through the game again after completing the game replaces the symbolic text with appropriate language subtitles.
Ico's audio featured a limited amount of music and sound effects. The soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
, , was composed by Michiru Oshima
Michiru Oshima
, is a Japanese composer who has worked on several video game, movie, and television titles. Her works include composition for the video games Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf for Super Nintendo, Ico for PlayStation 2, Legend of Legaia for the PlayStation , is a Japanese composer who has...
and Kōichi Yamazaki (aka. Pentagon) and released in Japan by Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
on February 20, 2002. The album was distributed by Sony Music Entertainment Visual Works. The last song of the CD, ICO -You Were There-, includes vocals sung by former Libera
Libera (music)
Libera is a non-profit all-boy English vocal group directed by Robert Prizeman. Most members come from the parish choir of St. Philip's, Norbury, in South London. The albums, tours and TV appearances they do as Libera are in addition to their regular singing as part of the full choir of men and...
member Steven Geraghty.
Reception
Ico sold 700,000 copies worldwide, with 270,000 in the United States and the bulk in PAL regions, and received strong reviews, becoming a cultCult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
hit among gamers. The game has received aggregate review scores of 90 out of 100 at Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
and 90% at Game Rankings
Game Rankings
GameRankings is a website that collects review scores from both offline and online sources to give an average rating. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games.GameRankings is owned by CBS Interactive...
. The game is considered by some to be one of the greatest games of all time; Edge
Edge (magazine)
Edge is a multi-format computer and video game magazine published by Future Publishing in the United Kingdom. It is known for its industry contacts, editorial stance, distinctive anonymous third-person writing style, yearly awards and longevity....
ranked Ico as the 13th top game in a 2007 listing, while IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
ranked the game at number 18 in 2005, and at number 57 in 2007. Ico has been used as an example of game that is a work of art. Ueda commented that he purposely tried to distance Ico from conventional video games due to the negative image that video games were receiving at that time, in order to draw more people to the title.
Some reviewers have likened Ico to older, simpler adventure games such as Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia is a platform game, originally developed by Jordan Mechner and released in 1989 for the Apple II, that represented a great leap forward in the quality of animation seen in video games....
or Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It was originally released in 1996 for the Sega Saturn, with MS-DOS and PlayStation versions following shortly thereafter...
, that seek to evoke an emotional experience from the player; IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
s David Smith commented that while simple, as an experience the game was "near indescribable." The game's graphics and sound contributed strongly to the positive reactions from critics; Smith continues that "The visuals, sound, and original puzzle design come together to make something that is almost, if not quite, completely unlike anything else on the market, and feels wonderful because of it." Many reviewers were impressed with the expansiveness and the details given to the environments, the animation used for the main characters despite their low polygon count, as well as the use of lighting effects. Icos ambiance, created by the simple music and the small attention to detail in the voice work of the main characters, were also called out as strong points for the game. Charles Herold
Charles Herold
Charles Herold is a video game critic. He wrote the "Game Theory" video game review column for the New York Times from 2000 to 2008, when he left the Times to become the Wii Games Guide at About.com...
of the New York Times summed up his review stating that "Ico is not a perfect game, but it is a game of perfect moments." Herold later commented that Ico breaks the mold of games that usually involve companions. In most games these companions are invulnerable and players will generally not concern with the non-playable characters' fate, but Ico creates the sense of "trust and childish fragility" around Yorda, and that these leads to the character being "the game’s entire focus".
The game is noted for its simple combat system that would "disappoint those craving sheer mechanical depth", as stated by Gamespot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
s Miguel Lopez. The game's puzzle design has been praised for creating a rewarding experience for players who work through challenges on their own; Kristen Reed of Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
, for example, said that "you quietly, logically, willingly proceed, and the illusion is perfect: the game never tells you what to do, even though the game is always telling you what to do". Ico is also considered a short game, taking between seven and ten hours for a single play through, which Game Revolution
Game Revolution
Game Revolution or GR is a gaming website created in 1996. Based in Berkeley, California, the site includes reviews, previews, a gaming download area, cheats, and a merchandise store, as well as webcomics, screenshots, and videos...
calls "painfully short" with "no replay outside of self-imposed challenges". G4TV
G4 (TV channel)
G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...
's Matthew Keil, however, felt that "the game is so strong, many will finish 'Ico' in one or two sittings". The lack of features in the North American release, which would become unlocked on subsequent playthroughs after completing the game, was said to reduce the replay value of the title.
Awards
Ico received several gaming acclamations from the video gaming press, and was considered to be one of the Games of the Year by many publications, although it was in competition with other best-selling 2001 releases, such as Halo, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Grand Theft Auto 3. The game received three Game Developers Choice AwardsGame Developers Choice Awards
The Game Developers Choice Awards are annually presented by the Game Developers Conference for outstanding game developers and games.Introduced in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards were preceded by the Spotlight Awards, which were presented from 1997 to 1999.The 2009 award presentation was...
in 2002, including "Excellence in Level Design", "Excellence in Visual Arts", and "Game Innovation Spotlight". The game won two Interactive Achievement Awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences , founded in 1996, is a non-profit organization that promotes computer and video game entertainment with the annual D.I.C.E. Summit event, where its Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony has been held annually since 1998...
in 2002 for "Art Direction" and "Character or Story Development", and was nominated for awards of "Game of the Year", "Game Design", "Level Design" and "Sound Design".
Legacy
A novelizationNovelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
of the game titled was released in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
in 2004. Author Miyuki Miyabe
Miyuki Miyabe
Miyuki Miyabe is a popular contemporary Japanese author active in a number of genres that include science fiction, mystery fiction, historical fiction, social commentary, and juvenile fiction...
wrote the novel because of her appreciation of the game. A Korean translation of the novel, entitled 이코 - 안개의 성 (I-ko: An-gae-eui Seong) came out the following year, by Hwangmae Publishers, while an English translation will be published by Viz Media
VIZ Media
VIZ Media, LLC, headquartered in San Francisco, is an anime, manga, and Japanese entertainment company. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ Media LLC, which is jointly owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and...
on August 16 of 2011. Costumes (including Ico and Yorda), stickers, and sound effects from Ico are part of an add-on pack for the game LittleBigPlanet
LittleBigPlanet
LittleBigPlanet, commonly abbreviated LBP, is a puzzle platformer video game, based on user-generated content, for the PlayStation 3 first announced on 7 March 2007, by Phil Harrison at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California...
, alongside similar materials from Shadow of the Colossus, after being teased by the game's developers Media Molecule
Media Molecule
Media Molecule is a British video game developer based in Guildford in Surrey. The studio was founded in January 2006 by former Lionhead Studios employees Mark Healey, Alex Evans, Dave Smith, and Kareem Ettouney...
about two weeks prior. A film adaption of Ico may come about based on the success of the adaptation of Shadow of the Colossus being created by Misher Films
Kevin Misher
Kevin Misher is an American producer and former film executive.Misher’s most recent release is Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Channing Tatum and Billy Crudup, and directed by Michael Mann. The film was released on July 1, 2009 by Universal Pictures...
in conjunction with Sony and Fumito Ueda.
Several game designers, such as Eiji Aonuma
Eiji Aonuma
is a Japanese video game designer and video game director. He currently works for Nintendo, and has overseen several installments in The Legend of Zelda series of video games.-Education:...
, Hideo Kojima
Hideo Kojima
is a Japanese game director originally employed at Konami. He is currently the director of Kojima Productions and was promoted to Vice President of Konami Digital Entertainment in early 2011...
, and Jordan Mechner
Jordan Mechner
Jordan Mechner is an American video game designer, screenwriter, author, and filmmaker, best known for creating the Prince of Persia video game franchise.- Life and career :Mechner was born in New York City...
, have cited Ico as having influenced the visual appearance of their games, including The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
is an action-adventure game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development, and published by Nintendo for the GameCube and Wii video game consoles. It is the thirteenth installment in The Legend of Zelda series...
, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
is an award-winning stealth action video game directed by Hideo Kojima. Snake Eater was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and published by Konami for the PlayStation 2, and was released on November 17, 2004 in North America; December 16, 2004 in Japan; March 4, 2005 in Europe; and on...
, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a third-person action-adventure computer and video game published by Ubisoft. It was released on November 21, 2003 and is a reboot of the landmark video game series Prince of Persia, created by Jordan Mechner in 1989.The Sands of Time, developed internally at...
, respectively. Marc Laidlaw
Marc Laidlaw
Marc Laidlaw is an American writer of science fiction and horror and also a computer game designer with Valve Software. He is perhaps most famous for writing Dad's Nuke and The 37th Mandala, and for working on the popular Half-Life series.-Biography:Laidlaw was born in 1960 and raised in Laguna...
, scriptwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
for the Half-Life series
Half-Life series
The Half-Life series of video games share a science fiction alternate history. Nearly all of the games are first-person shooters on the GoldSource or Source engines, and most are linear, narrative, single-player titles....
, commented that, among several other more memorable moments in the game, the point where Yorda attempts to save Ico from falling off the damaged bridge was "a significant event not only for that game, but for the art of game design". Movie director Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and designer. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator with Ron Perlman, Federico Luppi and Doug Jones...
(Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth is a 2006 Spanish Spanish-language dark fantasy film, written and directed by Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro. It was produced and distributed by the Mexican film company Esperanto Films...
) has cited both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus as "masterpieces" and part of his directorial influence. Jonny Greenwood
Jonny Greenwood
Jonathan Richard Guy "Jonny" Greenwood is an English musician and composer, best known as a member of the English rock band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, harmonica,...
of Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
considers, of his top ten video games, "Ico might be the best one".
Other Team Ico games
, released for the PlayStation 2PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
in October 2005 in Japan and North America, was developed by the same team that developed Ico. The game features similar graphics, gameplay, and storytelling elements as Ico. The game was referred by its working title "Nico" ("Ni being Japanese for the number 2") until the final title was revealed. Ueda, when asked about the connection between the two games, stated that Shadow of the Colossus is a prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
to Ico, specifically citing the ending of Shadow where a child is born with two horns.
Team Ico
Team ICO
Team Ico is a Japanese video game development team led by game designer Fumito Ueda. It is part of SCE Japan Studio's Product Development Department #1, Team Ico developed the games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, both for the PlayStation 2...
is presently working on a game for the PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
since at least early 2008, with a working title of "Project Trico". The title was revealed as The Last Guardian
The Last Guardian
The Last Guardian, known in Japan as and previously referred to by the working title Project Trico, is an upcoming video game developed by Team Ico, to be published exclusively for the PlayStation 3 video game console by Sony Computer Entertainment...
at E3 2009. A trailer released in May 2009 depicts a young boy travelling with a large griffin
Griffin
The griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle...
-type creature, supposedly carrying on the companion theme of the series. However, no details have emerged on what connections, if any, there are to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Ueda has stated that "the essence of the game is rather close to Ico".
Ico, along with Shadow of the Colossus, received a high-definition remake for the PlayStation 3 that was released in the third quarter of 2011, before the release of The Last Guardian in 2012. In addition to improved graphics, the games were updated to include support for stereoscopic 3D
Stereoscopy
Stereoscopy refers to a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by presenting two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. Both of these 2-D offset images are then combined in the brain to give the perception of 3-D depth...
and PlayStation Trophies. The Ico port was also be based on the European version, and includes features such as Yorda's translation and the two-player mode. In North America and Europe/PAL regions, the two games were released as a single collection, while in Japan, they were released as separate titles. This follows similar moves previously made by Sony to assemble past PlayStation 2 games as a single collection for God of War and Sly Cooper
The Sly Collection
The Sly Collection, titled as The Sly Trilogy in Europe and Australia and Sly Cooper Collection in Japan, Korea and Asia, is remastered port of the PlayStation 2 games, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, Sly 2: Band of Thieves and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, for the PlayStation 3 on a single...
.
External links
- Official North America website
- Official Japanese website
- Official European website
- "Ico: Creating an Emotional Connection with a Pixelated Damsel" -(Charles Herold, in Well Played 1.0 2009)