Shadow of the Colossus Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/16/2024)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Shadow of the Colossus

Developer: Japan Studio

Publisher: SCE

Genre(s): Action-Adventure

Platforms: PS2

Release Date: October 18, 2005

One popular topic of conversation usually reserved for a focus group or a conversational ice breaker is which of our artistic achievements we’d present to visiting or invading extraterrestrials if the opportunity arises. For this hypothetical scenario, we are the arbiters of refined culture, disregarding the adulation of works with several accolades under their belts and peerless acclaim that would objectively serve as representation. So really, the choices ultimately boil down to one’s own personal favorites. A small, but fervid, selection of one’s objective taste regarding this question is quite distressing if one ponders the implications of such a task, for the alien species might not perceive the works with the same level of enthusiasm and see an individual's preferences as indicative of the entirety of humankind. Or, they could just be unfeeling philistines ready to annihilate or enslave us at the pull of a laser gun trigger regardless of what we’ve accomplished in the realm of art and entertainment. For us gamers, the scope of this hypothetical scenario has to be scaled down, for we already have trouble convincing other human beings that video games are a legitimate art form as is. When Roger Ebert, arguably the most famed and respected critic across all mediums much less his signature forte of film, was still alive and active, gamers attempted to sway the dean of critique to a more favorable viewpoint on whether video games were a bonafide form of artistic expression by suggesting that he play Shadow of the Colossus. Of course, being an obstinate old man at the time, he refused to humor any inkling of expending any of his valuable time and energy on such a “trite” and “pedestrian” form of entertainment. In my perspective, I think Roger Ebert was afraid of being proven wrong and losing an iota of his credibility upon his eventual reflection. Not only would I suggest that the haughty figures of older generations seek out Shadow of the Colossus to change their viewpoint, but I’d confidently bestow the game to any race of hostile aliens as a surefire way to prompt them to lionize us as masters of the universe. You’ll be thanking me if this ever becomes a reality. Shadow of the Colossus is one of the essential artistic pillars in the timeline of gaming’s history, equivalent to James Joyce’s novel Ulysses or Francois Truffaut’s film The 400 Blows. All arguments debating the place of video games in the esteemed echelons of fine art alongside its fellow entertainment mediums should be thrown completely out of the window, for Shadow of the Colossus proves the elevated potential of the interactive medium more effectively than any other game before it.

Revealing that the developers behind Shadow of the Colossus are Team Ico might garner an initial understanding of how the game achieves its magnificent artistry. Using their debut project Ico as a reference, the mission of this maverick Japanese studio is to trim the fat of the typical video game to an almost monastic degree, a “subtraction design” philosophy as specifically coined by director Fumito Ueda. Admittedly, video games commonly feature HUDs that aid the player’s understanding of the game’s scrupulous details and character status through a perpetual visual reference. While the necessity of such implements is warranted for most games, they do arguably diminish the immersive elements of gaming with a layer of artificiality. Using the Legend of Zelda series as a primary influence, Team Ico sought to strip the action-adventure base of the series and thematic fantasy tropes down to the marrow. Without the display of a health bar, maps, or an arsenal of items in the menu, Ico acted as an emaciated version of Nintendo’s iconic franchise for every single contextual aspect of the game. Still, I’ll be damned if Ueda’s minimalist design ethos didn’t effectively render something engaging, ironically accentuating all of the puzzle and platforming attributes we know and love from a series such as The Legend of Zelda by diluting their apparentness. Like the project of Team Ico’s namesake, Shadow of the Colossus also strives to evoke an aura of epicness through a meticulous waning of gaming’s excessive elements. However, Shadow of the Colossus did not compromise on that bombastic video game flair as Ico did in some aspects. Somehow, despite its continued ascetic efforts, Shadow of the Colossus is one of the most epically awe-striking video games that I’ve ever played.

What better way to ignite the player’s intrigue initially than to present yet another opening sequence with implied high stakes shrouded in a veil of ambiguity? I would comment that this type of introduction is a standby method for Team Ico to engage the player by piquing their curiosity just like Ico, but the context behind Shadow of the Colossus’s plot is admittedly a smidge clearer. Between the immaculate cliffs of a nameless, naturalistic landscape, a young man, who we dub as “Wander,” rides a charcoal-black horse with a fierce sense of determination. Upon entering an ancient temple fit for a pharaoh's tomb, the young man dismounts his horse and unloads his cargo onto the main chamber’s altar. Unraveling the cloak reveals a girl whose lifeless mien and ghostly skin complexion signify that she is freshly deceased. After unsheathing a glowing sword to fend off the bothersome black spirits that strongly resemble those from Ico, a discarnate voice perks up and informs the boy that resurrecting the girl may be possible via the usage of his reflective blade. With the transportation aid of his loyal steed, Agro, Wander must scour the outer limits of the land to find sixteen Colossi and slay them all as a chivalrous knight does to a dragon. Only by undergoing this daunting escapade will Wander allegedly restore consciousness to whom he presumably loves dearly. How am I privy to all of this exposition you may ask? Because the introduction duly provides it. After Wander places the girl on the altar, a disembodied mask tells us that the setting is a sacred realm foretold to revive the dead, explaining Wander’s impassioned efforts to travel to this remote, abandoned sanctuary. Perhaps the developers couldn’t let the player rely on their likely preconceived notions that this effete guy wearing a hairband is far more sinister than he seems and is going to great lengths to dispose of the body of a girl he has murdered. Some players would find the whole premise too heinous to continue onward. Either or, Shadow of the Colossus promptly exposes its context compared to what little was provided for the beginning of Ico. Hell, the introduction here features more dialogue than the entirety of Ico. This might give the impression that Shadow of the Colossus isn’t as narratively obtuse as Ico, an unfortunate sign that the developers got cold feet and decided to appease the commercial masses. Still, the absurdly lofty overarching objective at hand here for a seemingly unfeasible reward that Wander accepts without expressing a hint of skepticism presents an air of disconnect between the player and the narrative’s intentions. In the grand scheme of things, the player is still kept in the dark about what is really occurring. Also, surely the premise of rescuing a princess who is already dead subverts the hero and damsel in distress roles more cleverly than Ico did. Ladies, get yourself a little Romeo like Wander, who will trudge through death-defying odds like conquering over a dozen different beasts as big as Beverly Hills mansions for you with no questions asked even if you cease to exist (actually, don’t; for I cannot live up to those standards).

If Ico served as a prolonged, squalid depiction of a typical Zelda dungeon, Shadow of the Colossus extends the radius of Zelda’s breadth to the franchise’s open-world aspects. Naturally, because Shadow of the Colossus is a 3D game whose setting consists of the same topography as Hyrule’s first polygonal rendering, I must compare this game’s world to Ocarina of Time as I tend to do with all obvious successors that use it as a template. Discussing similarities between Shadow of the Colossus’s forbidden realm and Hyrule Field is more apt than the usual comparisons, for the few Shadow of the Colossus detractors gripe that its world is far too “empty and stiff” to hold their interest. What amuses me is that this criticism is exactly what I’ve always applied to Hyrule Field from Ocarina of Time, even though I always consider some semblance of clemency for its pioneering primitiveness. While I can understand why these negative descriptors could be assigned to the world of Shadow of the Colossus, they fail to recognize the intended scope of this barren wasteland. You see, the forbidden lands and Hyrule Field present a contrast between empty and “empty,” and you’ll just have to follow along to grasp my point. If we use the example of Hyrule from A Link to the Past, the kingdom’s overworld should be a sprawling environment with diverse terrain and a point of interest around every corner whether it be in plain sight or “a secret to us all.” All that Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time amounts to is a mossy vestibule stretched out to the appropriately spacious diameter of a hub. I stated that Ocarina of Time didn’t sacrifice much in translating all of its refined 2D elements, but the Hyrule overworld is the most apparent compromise Zelda had to make during the complicated transition to the third dimension. When the technology has progressed where rendering an empty hub world is an endeavor fueled by artistic vision as seen in Shadow of the Colossus, the minimalist imperative can produce something spectacular. Outside of the towering temple where Wander begins his quest, the surrounding perimeter is a green grassy knoll surrounded by a blockade of canyons and chasms. Finding a route around the inconvenient environment in opposite cardinal directions will lead Wander to rocky cliff sides that resemble the shores of Dover or a fallow desert area parched by the comparative lack of moisture. Lying between the two radically different environments are sections with lakes, ravines, groves, and dimly lit forested areas where traces of sunlight only peek through to the floor. While the overworld here certainly checks off more ecological boxes than the flat field in the center of Hyrule, the entire landscape is so bereft of any activity that the silence is disconcerting. Besides the clip-clopping of Agro’s hooves, only the wind is an instrument in this close to absolute zero decibel soundscape. The atmosphere is so desolate that it's as if Wander is the very first lifeform, much less a human being, to set foot on this untouched, pristine landscape like Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. Wander’s surroundings are so removed from all traces of civilization that it’s almost as if he’s fabricating them in a dream all to himself. It would explain the perpetually ominous clouds overhead that never crescendo into precipitating, something sublime that accentuates the breathtaking view. The meditative undercurrent of this uncanny world is quite refreshing considering that several other Hyrule Field followers congest their hub settings with a little TOO much hustle and bustle.

If you’re the jittery type who cannot stand to bask in the beguiling ambiance for longer than necessary, you should be relieved to know that Shadow of the Colossus will always present a set goal of finding one of the Colossi somewhere in the overworld. One would think the sheer size of these mobile mammoths or the thunderous echos of their footsteps in the still silence of the setting would make the process of sussing out their locations easier than finding VD on a dive bar’s toilet seat but never will Wander spot one of these beasts from his peripheral. To direct Wander towards the locale of the current colossus assigned by the detached voice that speaks backward from the temple’s sunroof, he must raise his sacred sword skyward and reflect the sun’s rays like a solar-powered compass. If the radiation resembles a straightforward beam as opposed to a scattered burst, then that indicates that the colossus can be found in that general direction. This adjunct appliance to the sword seems like it completely mitigates the searching section of the hunt, but this beacon is no GPS. The narrow, singular reflective ray does not account for the aforementioned arduously conspicuous and unwavering geomorphology. Circumnavigating around the terrain in an attempt to close in on a colossus will always prove to be a meandering charade. Good luck finding the equivalent of the sword’s “reception” if the route to a colossus includes traversing through a forest or a narrow section of a canyon. However, as diverse as the terrain is throughout this world, one convenient aspect of the map is that it is relatively compact. Traveling to either opposite of the ecological spectrum, whether or not Wander will find himself smack dab in a colossus’s domain, will never take more than approximately a few minutes. The player should be relieved considering that Wander will automatically be teleported back to the temple because the voice above has apparently declared it as the omphalos of the operation. The game’s progression is constructed as a rinse-and-repeat process, but at least the restrained spread of the forbidden lands has made arriving back to the general vicinity of the next colossus less tedious. Unfortunately, reflecting light off of Wander’s sword won’t double in aiding the search for the crystal-tailed salamanders and the hearty yellow fruit hanging from the trees, shooting them with Wander’s pink bow with a limitless supply of arrows and consuming them to increase his maximum stamina and health respectively. However, Wander is already compensated with these stat boosts for slaying a colossus, so the grueling trouble of finding these infinitesimal things across the map should be discouraged to even the most devout completionists.

While the aura of traversing through the world of Shadow of the Colossus is drenched in layers of lethargy and interminable tension, the path of conquest is always exciting because of what lies at the end of every route. Besides the notion of successfully maneuvering over the world’s formidable terrain, simply encountering any of the colossi in their earthly domicile is its own reward. Upon encroaching on the territory of a colossus, a cutscene will trigger that showcases the magnificent marvel of extreme biology in its full glory. The “shadow” portion of the game’s title is not a minor allusion to enliven potential buyers with mystique: the colossi are gargantuan enough to eclipse the sun from Wander’s view and even chill him with the shade emanating from their…well, colossal immensity. When in the vicinity of a colossus, the serene tone of the overworld staggeringly catapults immediately into adrenaline-pumping action as if an alarm clock abruptly awakened Wander. While the stark commonality between these beasts is their physical enormity, their environmental conditions have granted them all distinguishable physical adaptations. The first colossi, Valus, features the anatomy of a minotaur creature, standing on two legs to support his massive, lumberjack frame. Sharing his relatively humanoid posture are the column-wielding Gaius, the geezer with a white, ZZ Top beard Barba, and the gravely serious-looking Argus. Still, they all approach the uninvited guest that is Wander differently during battle. Quadrupedal colossi include the wooly Quadratus, the crudely shaped equine creature of Phaedra, and the tortoise-esque Basaran. Other colossi’s characteristics are defined more by their environments. The laser-tusked Pelagia, giant gull Avion, and the electric eel Hydrus all reside along the area of a watery channel or basin, integrating themselves with their aquatic surroundings in varying degrees, but each of them obviously resemble radically dissimilar species. The same dichotomy of colossi types is also found in the desert area of the map, with Dirge burrowing beneath the sand while the sand snake Phalanx (my favorite of the bunch) gracefully soars above it high up in the sky. Surprisingly enough, there is even a trio of miniature colossi with Kuromori, Celosia, and Cenobia. Despite their relative dwarfism compared to their towering colossi brethren, these three are still scaled to the sizes of rhinoceroses with the same level of aggression. The Colossi are a wonderfully assorted bunch of imposing creatures, and whatever common ancestor they all share that has passed down their glowing eyes and arcane armor has formulated sixteen of the most imaginative monsters ever seen in the gaming medium.

Essentially, Shadow of the Colossus is a glorified boss gauntlet with intermittent travel sequences in between each colossus that allows the player to simmer in their latest onerous accomplishment. To divulge the rich gameplay mechanics involved in taking all of these colossi down, I’d have to reveal their puzzle-oriented secrets, and spoiling them would be a disservice to any prospective players and the colossi themselves by sullying their intimidating allure. All the input I can communicate is to not fear using the superior speed of Agro during a few fights and not to underestimate the smaller colossi. One encompassing aspect of defeating the colossi is that all of them will require scaling their mountainous bodies to subdue them. This intimate aspect of the fights is the game’s defining idiosyncrasy, and the prospect of climbing a colossus and riding its backside like a flea on a mangy dog is as exhilarating and unnerving as it sounds. Finding an entry point to scaling their ginormous forms is where the puzzle aspects of the gameplay are relevant, and this may involve taunting them with the bow and arrow or outsmarting them into fracturing their armor. Still, I cannot say which colossi these methods apply to. Once Wander manages to exploit their vulnerability to ascend upward onto the colossi, he must raise his sword as he would to find these beasts in the overworld to expose the tender points of their body signified by a glowing sigil. I guess this modestly-sized blade rivals the might of Excalibur because thrusting it in the designated exterior parts of the colossi will make them groan in agony and gush blood like a sieve. Wander’s only concern at this point is continuing to balance himself on the colossi as it thrashes around trying to knock him off, for they are intelligent enough to register that this puny man is trying to murder them and are rightfully upset. Even though it's illogical from a biological standpoint regarding some of the aquatic colossi, each of their bodies will at least have a clump of fur to cling onto to retain Wander's advantageous position.

Converging a level dungeon and its boss into one fully-fledged experience? Team Ico’s rumhamming of video game attributes is pure, masterful brilliance. Still, the turbulent interactions with the colossi remind me of one prevalent complaint some players share regarding the game’s controls and presentation. Truthfully, Shadow of the Colossus is rather sluggish, operating on a framerate that makes the character movement seem as if it's running in slow motion. This becomes an issue whenever a colossus knocks down Wander and will take what seems like an eternity to recuperate. Sometimes, select colossi will take advantage of Wander’s vulnerability and beat him down until he has been eradicated. The camera also tends to have a hard time holding onto the colossi as Wander does, which can also cause him to make a fatal mistake. These hiccups would normally devastate a game’s overall quality, but I trust that a fraction of Shadow of the Colossus’s imperfections is a deliberate effort from Team Ico. Because the framerate is glacial, it allows the player to feel the full, intended impact of the colossi. Whenever one of these brutes slams its feet into the earth, the shattering of the frame rate that occurs makes defeating them seem like an insurmountable undertaking. Flopping about by the hem of a colossus’s wooly coat in a languid frame of motion effectively highlights how removed from the ground Wander is up top of a colossus like the steep altitude is making his oxygen dwindle as quickly as his stamina gauge. While the presentation is technically unacceptable, one can’t deny that the linear qualities of shoddier mechanical performance make the gameplay resonate with the player.

The immediate falling action of shedding a colossi’s mortal coil with too many critically deep sword plunges should also resonate with the player. After the expedition of locating the colossus and the mental strain involved in finding a way to extinguish it, one might think that executing the seemingly inexecutable would inspire victorious feelings of joy. Alas, the scene of the colossi’s eyes turning blank and its body collapsing into the earth evokes a potent melancholy. Sure, we accomplished the task at hand, but at what cost? The archetypal story of man conquering beast stems back to at least the Middle Ages to Beowulf and Grendel, and it’s deemed as one of the most courageous feats that defines a man as a hero. Can we really assign Wander to the same celebrated category of men? Sure, this is technically his role if we apply what little context we’re given to the heroic tropes we’re all familiar with. Still, one cannot earnestly follow along with narrative tradition when these docile colossi have inflicted no harm on any other living being or the environment before being provoked by an invasive pest. And was the effort truly worth it when every short-term reward is Wander being knocked unconscious by ghastly tendrils that violently penetrate his body? The brilliant aspect of conveying this is that the game never overtly tells the player that Wander is the real monster in a game filled with them like a contrived plot twist. Through subtle clues, Shadow of the Colossus flips the classic hero versus monster story on its head where the concentrated blood flow gives the conflict some well-considered clarity. When these beautiful, majestic colossi cease to exist at our hands, we all wonder if real-life poachers who kill animals on earth have souls.

In reality, Wander is too insignificant to be the hero. From the beginning, he’s been nothing but the subservient tool to the temple’s undetectable landlord who has been praying on Wander’s desperation. His hinting at how to handle all of the colossi at idle moments during their encounters shows he has too much invested interest in seeing all of them fall, which cannot be a good sign considering the unclear correlation between riding the world of the colossi and the resurrection of Wander’s girlfriend. After finally facing the last colossi, a vertical behemoth named Malus whose head practically brushes up against the clouds, Wander does not travel back to the temple to celebrate his achievement with champagne and ice cream. An even more subtle detail in highlighting that Wander’s actions are injurious is that they are having a toxic effect on his well-being. By the fifteenth colossi, Wander will be covered by so many blue lesions, you’d think he was zombified. When the final colossi has been conquered, Wander is no more. He is a vessel for the ancient demon Dormin, the identity of the voice whose soul had been fractured into sixteen pieces and kept in the colossi as a drastic measure to stave off his return. For the past few cutscenes in between colossi, a group of villagers have been slowly approaching the temple and have managed to cross the bridge by the final cutscene. They are aghast to see that Wander has fulfilled the endeavor of reviving Dormin, chiding the boy for his foolishness. When Dormin fully encapsulates Wander, the player gets the chance to play as a colossus and smash the group of men into a paste. However, the men are wise and know exactly what must be done in the case of Dormin’s return. By throwing Wander’s sacred sword into a pool of water, it creates a ravaging vortex that pulls Wander in, ending Dormin’s reign of mayhem before it had a chance to begin. The men hightail out of the temple, with the bridge eroding from the vortex’s ferocity as a positive sign that entering it and interacting with Dormin will be harder to perform.

Somehow, despite Dormin’s deceptive promises, the girl who has been comatose throughout this whole ordeal awakens from her slumber and finds an infant in the pool who is implied to be a reborn Wander. I’m quite puzzled at how the girl has regained sentience when it seemed proven that she would never see the light of day again because all evidence was leading to Wander running a fool’s errand. The fact that he persists onward just to fail miserably at the end and die is what makes the game’s resolution beautifully tragic. Then again, he admittedly did bring all of this misfortune on himself, for not even Orpheus was this much of a zealous romantic. Like Ico, the fatal blow that befalls the protagonist is treated to a hopeful epilogue to keep the player’s spirits up. I can handle tragedy well enough, but I can admit that plodding further allows the player to consider their experience more after they turn the game off. Really, Agro returning to the temple on a limp leg was all the levity this ending needed. Her fall off of a crumbling bridge before the final colossi is genuinely the most devastating scene of the game, and seeing that she (or at least I’m assuming it's a she considering there is no visible, foot-long horse genitalia protruding from its crotch) survived made me cheer delightfully.

Speechless. Utterly speechless. This was my stunned reaction to witnessing the falling action of Shadow of the Colossus and its resolution. In all honesty, my mouth was agape through most of the duration of Shadow of the Colossus because the game is nothing short of extraordinary. Team Ico’s austerity is still on display here as it was in Ico, as seen in the game’s open world and the liberal loosening of the game’s narrative leaving the context up to the player’s interpretations. Still, dialing back the strict abnegation of gaming’s frills and thrills for Shadow of the Colossus resulted in a game far more compelling than Ico, while still retaining plenty of artistic triumphs that I admired about the developer’s previous title. Shadow of the Colossus is beautiful in every sense of the word: from the captivating climate of its uninhabited, windswept world, the titans to topple, to its poignant liner notes that make the player ask questions when the protagonist doesn't bother to. At the helm of this emotional rollercoaster is a unique gameplay mechanic that I don’t feel is hyperbolic to call it a visionary feat of innovation. If your character ever finds themselves gripping to the body of a herculean foe to skewer their weak spots, it means that Team Ico is collecting royalties. Does Shadow of the Colossus need more convincing that it should be an essential game to play for gamers and non-gamers alike? I shouldn’t believe so.

Ico Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/5/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Ico

Developer: Japan Studio

Publisher: SCE

Genre(s): Action-Adventure, Puzzle Platformer

Platforms: PS2

Release Date: September 24, 2001

Ico is one of the first examples I think of when someone notions the concept of an “artistic video game.” Several gamers, including myself, would argue that all video games are inherently art, as it is the golden rule of artistic classification not to compartmentalize a medium for the sake of integral cohesiveness. However, we have to make this distinction between the “regular” video games and the more artistically-inclined ones because there is still a large portion of cultural philistines that still oppose gaming’s deserved ranks of respect with film, music, literature, etc. As of a few years ago, video games started outselling the film industry, so how does that grab you? *Ahem*...anyways, despite how prevalent video games have become as a source of entertainment in the pop culture zeitgeist over the past few decades or so, there is still a vocal pushback against the medium reaching its well-deserved place of recognition. One might blame Roger Ebert for his notorious op-ed decrying that video games could never be art, but he was simply someone with a credible platform echoing the status quo. Because video games are still met with an air of prejudice from the arbiters of high art, some game developers craft their work with heavy deliberation to prove them wrong. To be classified in the canon of artistic video games, one has to subvert the presentational, mechanical, and narrative tropes commonly found across most video games. In the modern gaming landscape, the medium has progressed to the point where subversiveness has to be implemented for the sake of standing out among the saturated marketplace, and the stark creativity makes a game inherently artistic by proxy. I suppose Ico is the first example that comes to many people’s minds regarding this topic because it was one of the first notable games that dared to challenge the medium’s conventions for the sake of making a work of art.

To fully comprehend the intended artistic scope of Ico, perhaps it would be wise to draw parallels between it and the arthouse film world. Since the early years of the medium, several directors saw great potential in using film as a means of expression beyond commercial means. These films are challenging, oftentimes surreal experimentations with narrative, characters, and several other typical film attributes. Most of these films are produced outside of the sphere of Hollywood in the foreign lands of Europe and Asia, and the American filmmakers that fit the arthouse denomination usually produce their films independently. They’re the filmmakers who make every college film professor get an emphatic hard-on just by mentioning their name. Robert Bresson, anyone? Like the aforementioned French arthouse director, Ico’s direction is minimalist to a fault, an ascetic choice to discern its heightened artistic merits from the accessible exhilaration found in most video games.

A lack of context for the game’s plot premise is one of the many artful elements not found in typical video game narratives, or at least not in the 3D era. A group of men on horseback ride through a shimmering, serene forest with a young, horned boy straddled as a passenger. Once they reach a dead end at the cliff’s edge facing an absolutely immaculate landscape, the men decide to tread through the river below by boat to transport the boy to the castle that resides on the other side. Through a series of elevators and unlocking a few obstructive gates that divide in two in the presence of a sword that emits magic, their destination point in this vacant fortress is a spacious chamber with wall-to-wall stone pods symmetrically aligned like library bookshelves. The men place the boy in one of the pods and leave him with the parting words “do not be angry with us. This is for the good of the village.” With a stroke of pure luck, the boy manages to escape his state of entombment when the castle shakes and he falls out of his pod when it collapses onto the floor. The boy climbs the spiral staircase to the upper reaches of the chamber and finds a poor girl curiously imprisoned in a giant birdcage dangling from the ceiling. The boy feels inclined to share his relieving feeling of freedom, so he smashes the cage with the force of his body and liberates the girl from her comically-sized and probably symbolic prison cell. From there on out, the two are an inseparable duo working together to escape the fortress’s oppressive boundaries.

I don’t mean to pick on Zelda but considering Nintendo’s glorious IP is arguably the gaming series most synonymous with the fantasy theming, I have to use it as an example to compare and contrast the way Ico establishes its mythical setting. Many Zelda titles introduce the player to the world, setting, and characters with an illustrated slideshow of yore, giving as much exposition as the opening credits in Star Wars. Thanks to the loglines of exposition, we are immediately privy to the epic scale of the game’s narrative and Link’s elevated role as Hyrule’s chosen protector. While providing an extensive backstory of Hyrule’s lore and current state of affairs is never a detriment in unfolding the narrative, one could still argue that the intended epic scale would be more effective if the game only showed the player the stakes of Link’s adventure rather than telling us from the get-go. We’re supposed to give this small, prepubescent boy the benefit of the doubt that he’s the valiant hero destined to slay the imposing, malevolent forces of the world when he can’t even grow pit hair yet. The boy in Ico, on the other hand, is introduced with zero information about his background or any inkling of what his intended arc is as the game’s protagonist. Is he also a pint-sized prince of peace like Link facing a moment of persecution here from an unjust society, or do his former acquaintances have every right to condemn him to a stationary state of solitude for the rest of his natural-born life? What exactly is the boy’s crime that justifies this cruel fate? Murder? Theft? Was he framed? We have no idea. We also have no clue about the status of the anemic, consumptive-looking girl he freed either. With a prevalent sense of ambiguity, it adds a level of rich mystique to the story. The player should ideally be eager to piece together their own conclusions with context clues, heightening the interactivity of an already interactive medium.

Ico commits to the minimalist direction for every facet of the game’s identity. On top of delivering story exposition in the sparsest manner possible, Ico’s presentation is the video equivalent of a Steven Reich composition. One might not even notice when the opening sequence of cutscenes is over because the game makes no clear indication that it’s the player’s time to help the boy get the hell out of dodge. A signifier that usually would tip the player off is a hud appearing on the screen, displaying important references like health, equipment, stamina, etc. When the player presses the pause menu, the only options are to adjust the volume/display picture and to quit the game. There is no inventory screen or status details, and there certainly isn’t a page dedicated to collectibles. There isn’t even any music that accompanies the gameplay minus a select few cues for a few situations. All Ico presents the player with is the horned boy in an uncaring world with the wind blustering over the high-elevation cliffside, with total uncertainty hanging in the balance. Somehow, Ico omitting gaming’s primary referential tools does not handicap the player with an unnecessary blindspot as one would expect. Health is superfluous in Ico (except in the case of falling off of tall ledges) and the boy can only hold one blunt object, seen clearly in his right hand at all times. These common visual aids are rendered redundant and gratuitous for what Ico delivers, and insisting on implementing them would distract from one of Ico’s biggest appeals: its atmosphere. Without the videogamey white noise of a hud or level music, the player can fully immerse themselves in their surroundings. Whilst breathing in the fumes of Ico’s atmosphere like a fine wine, I detect a myriad of refined scents like melancholy, dread, isolation, helplessness, and a pinch of desperation. Even though all of these are negative descriptors, the sheer beauty of Ico’s cliffside setting makes the negativity permeate an aura of dark romanticism like an album from The Cure.

“Subtracting design” was the specific ethos that Ico director Fumito Ueda hammered in for Ico’s direction. Essentially, it’s the idea that less is more. Already through its narrative and presentation, Ico proves that this is a feasible philosophy not rife with contradictions. Still, the most effective aspect of showcasing Ueda’s radical ideas pertains to Ico’s gameplay. The closest video game genre one can pigeonhole Ico into is the puzzle platformer genre, involving executing feats of platforming to solve puzzles. No, I don’t think a fragment of Ueda’s ethos was to craft a cerebral, arthouse version of Q*Bert or Wario Land. Given that the game is confined to one setting, the more methodical puzzle platformer genre is a more appropriate fit to accommodate its slow-burn pacing. To achieve Ueda’s vision, nothing in Ico is conspicuous. The series of suspended platforms most platformer characters would ascend on to reach their goals is too unnatural and would compromise Ico’s deep immersion. The dilapidated fortress resembles an environment akin to something from reality, connoting that it does not offer any obvious avenues to success like a series of floating platforms would. The player is forced to humor any sort of protruding ledge as a viable means of traversal, shimmying across perilous gaps and executing awesome feats of parkour. Decor centerpieces such as ladders, boxes, and chain link ropes are strewn around the vicinity for clearer interactions. Still, the player has to use all of them as individual fractions of solving a platforming puzzle instead of acting as smooth solutions. There are also the select moments where the boy must ignite his torch to light fixtures and the fuses of bombs, but these instances aren’t as explosive as one might think.

So how does stripping down the elements of a platformer to its pure essence prove to be enticing for the player? Well, it comes down to warping the perspective. Because everything at the player’s disposal for platforming is humdrum and unobtrusive, suddenly, the most minute resources in solving puzzles become a point of potential interest. There is no wasted space in the foreground, or at least the player will be forced to figure out what its valuable assets are by tinkering with everything. Some argue that this makes the puzzles in Ico rather obtuse, but I think it's a brilliant way to make the player engage with their surroundings. The environmental cohesion also aids the game’s immersion by heightening that prevailing sense of realism. Puzzles in Ico are almost designed with how a real person would execute them, only if they had the nimbleness of a youthful kid and an impressive resilience to fall damage. They are also met with a realistic sternness beyond the little samples of gratification most games deliver. Unlike in Zelda, surpassing obstacles in Ico will not warrant a jaunty little jingle to signify a job well done.

The caveat to solving Ico’s puzzles is to not only consider how the boy will progress, but how to make the path traversable for the girl as well. Given the game’s premise of a boy rescuing a girl from captivity, one could infer from this that Ico is an elongated escort mission, and it might make many gamers avoid this game like the plague. Unfortunately, this aspect of Ico is where the game falters. Naturally, the girl does not possess the same physical prowess as the boy, so she cannot climb the chain links, push the boxes, or scale the walls. In fact, the girl looked so frail and waifish that I was always concerned that the boy would pull her arm right out of its socket as he was dragging her around. The puzzles actually seem like the boy is constantly providing support for this girl to reach him at eye level, and this process can be insufferably wonky at times. AI during the early sixth generation of gaming wasn’t exactly sharp as a tack but dear God, the girl’s AI is downright aloof. She responds to the boy’s calling command quickly enough but she doesn’t seem to grasp why her presence is needed. She’s a horse that obliges when being led to the water but doesn’t know how to drink it. Of course, drinking it is the primary objective at hand and when she struggles with the analogous task of taking the boy's hand to climb or missing the ladder she’s being led towards while the boy is screaming at her from above. It could be due to the language barrier considering the boy’s subtitles are in plain English and hers are in hieroglyphics. If she didn’t open the occasional gate that impedes progress, I’d suggest that the boy should consider an “every man for himself” approach and shed the dead weight. The boy can lie down horizontally on the save station couches if the game is that peculiar about the amount of space that needs to be filled.

The hypothetical scenario of leaving the girl behind would also relieve the boy of the burden of having to protect her from the barrage of spirits that are trying to reclaim her. These shadowy ghouls that resemble the balls of ash from Spirited Away forming together to somewhat emulate a physical substratum will emerge from portals in the ground to snatch up the girl and carry her back to the abyss where she’ll be hopelessly sunken into oblivion. If this happens, a shockwave will encompass the entire area and eternally render the boy as a stone statue. To prevent this harrowing curse from occurring, the boy will bat them off with his trusty wooden pole, upgraded to a full-fledged sword after a certain point that naturally deals more damage. While the scourge will withdraw after a few meager hits, their pension for acting as a mob will sometimes overwhelm the player. Knocking the boy on his ass after a swift uppercut usually gives them ample opportunity to yoink the girl off her feet, so always watchful. Their ambushes will be a chronic occurrence throughout the game, but a vigilant one will seize the girl whenever the boy leaves her alone for too long. One might think this could only happen to the careless sort, but the game places puzzle sections where the boy is forced to be absent from the girl for a lengthy stretch of time. A particular section involving a slow shimmying session over a ramp with streaming water and cutting the hinges off of bridges will always result in a nail-biting race to save the girl from plunging into darkness even if the boy is as quick as a golden eagle. Despite the fact I previously implied that anything involving the sooty spirits is a cumbersome dirge, I quite like the looming threat overhead as a consequence of dilly-dallying during one of these sections. The alarming tension is an unexpected way to spruce up a game with such a serene tone.

So, what does it all mean at the end? Certainly, I can’t gloss over my interpretation of Ueda’s intent when Ico’s narrative is so open-ended. A piece of exposition I’ve been hiding thus far is that the boy was ostracized from his society because he was born with horns, which is considered a bad omen by societal superstition. The girl’s name is actually Yorda, a name that you give to your daughter if you hate her. Or, in Yorda’s case, if your mom sees you as a disposable source of youth whose sacrifice will stagnate the aging process. Her mother is the main antagonist of the game, scoffing at the boy’s efforts to rip away her toxic connection to her as she sees them as utterly futile. As imposing as she seems to be as the dominant regal power of the fortress, the black spirits are surprisingly not acting on her command. Right before the climactic final fight against Yorda’s mother, the boy returns to the chamber where it all started and fights a crowd of spirits who now cower under the might of his new energy sword. Once I realized that the spirits were retreating to the pods once they were defeated, I finally uncovered Ico’s narrative depth. The black spirits are the damned souls of previous horned boys who have succumbed to their untimely fates. Maybe not all of them died from suffocation and or starvation being trapped in their pods. Perhaps the reason why they stubbornly try to retrieve Yorda is because all of these horned boys have attempted to save her when they were still flesh and blood, and they’ve all failed miserably somewhere along the line. These horned boys are labeled as genetic pariahs as soon as they’re born, destined to bring nothing but pain and suffering for all of the common non-horned folk. Saving Yorda not only proves their usefulness but proves that they are capable of performing acts of kindness as well. Meanwhile, Yorda is ultimately doomed to never escape the fortress because her rescuers seemed fated to fail. This current boy in the long line of sorry saviors most likely exceeds every other one before him, slaying Yorda’s mom by impaling her with the energy sword. Before he can celebrate his unprecedented victory, he is blown back by a sweeping power force, severing his horns from his head as a bloody signifier of his death. A resurrected Yorda treats her knight in shining rags and sandals to a respectable Viking funeral as a sign of her gratitude. After the credits roll, the boy wakes up from what was merely a slumber on the beach shore and sees a happy Yorda smiling at him. Seems like a happy ending that breaks the vicious cycle, right? Well, we don’t know for sure if what we are witnessing is reality. It could be the pleasant final dream of this boy before his consciousness passes on into the eternal ether. After all, the main theme of Ico’s narrative seems to be that the oppressed can never overcome the crushing higher powers that undermine and subjugate them no matter how hard they try. It may be bleak, but interpreting Ico’s ending this way feels more substantive.

Ico is a game that I respect more than anything, which is a statement I usually reserve for the industry pioneers of the pixelated eras that predate Ico by at least two generations prior. I guess that when I take off my rose-tinted glasses for the gaming generation I grew up with, I realize that there was still plenty of radical innovation for gaming that needed some time to mold, and Ico is the epitome of this. Yorda’s partner AI is mostly the aspect of Ico that desperately needed reworking, as the girl’s inattentiveness in most scenarios drove me up a wall. Also, the boy’s controls could be smoother as well. There’s nothing deep about wonky movement and finicky response triggers. In saying this, there is no way that Ico could ever aspire to be a perfect game. What I respect about Ico is all of its efforts in its experimentation, to dial back the elements of gaming for the sake of achieving something never before executed in the medium. For all of its objective faults, Ico was still more interesting and resonating than whatever flavor-of-the-week game that had better controls and a peppier tone at the time. Truly effective art has a habit of making a colossal splash regardless of how abstruse it is and considering all of the games released after Ico that derive inspiration from it, it is a testament to that phenomenon.

...

Burn the North American cover for this game with the fire of a thousand suns because it's the ugliest thing I've ever seen. It makes the North American Mega Man covers on the NES look like bonafide Steve Ditko illustrations. No wonder Ico didn't sell well over here.