Hi guys,

just finished ICO. What a great game. Defintely a strange feeling when you've finished it - unlike any other game.

I loved the music at the end, the last few fights etc - probably some of the weirdest music i've come across in a game - It was almost like I was in a trance whilst playing.

I can't bel;iev the simplicity of the game - in temrs of no power ups, no tasks,, no HUD, no maps, no instructions, nothing. Jist escape from the place. Amazing. Also, i loved the fact that there are no missions, or levels or anything.

You just set off, and thats it.

Its quite a short game, but that means it deosn't get repetitive. Its nice to finsh a game wanting more, rather than being releived you've finally done it!

I know i'm just rambling, but once you';ve finished it you want to tell someone!

I hope ICO 2 is good - lets face it, there are a lot of sequels that are poor.

I agree with everything you said!! It's true, when I first played this game, I just rambled on and on to anyone who'd listen about how great it was
People should stop buying licensed crap and spend their money on games like Ico- games that are truly worth it

.. same here.. I just finished this game a few minutes ago.. and I loved the ending.. I feel the same way.. this game doesn't give you the feeling of accomplishment but you more or less try to put yourself into the character's shoes.. one of the most shocking parts of the ending that I was most surprised of was what happened to ICO when he ran towards the queen trying to stab her.. I kept yelling at the TV.. hating the queen but.. yes I really hope that the sequel will have a great story as well as the same aspects that you just mentioned..

.. oh yeah i really liked the music in the end too..

This game is good because it's completely original, it's a new genre all in itself

Even I download the theme song : You Were There. This game is the Best!!

Yes!! Ico rules!! Let's all hear it for Ico!!!!!

Sad that like me you discovered this game so late, so that the forum is dead when you want to talk about it!

Best surprise I had recently was an old friend whom I was not aware played games at all, asked a group of us, "Do you guys know video games? I want to ask you if you've played a particular game, if you know about it?" We three are all game hogs (well, me considerably less than the other two), so we assented, and he said, "Have you ever played a game called Ico?" I laughed out loud, firstly because I knew that the other guys had probably not even heard of it, let alone played it (they were really into Battlefield 1942), and secondly because the guy had clearly had the same experience as me, had finished it and wanted to talk to someone about it, something I hadn't been able to do, 'cos no-one else has ever heard of it!

Yes, sadly, it's true. But I've convinced all my friends (we're all RPG geeks) to play it so now they all know.

It is my opinion that a lot of these excellent games that get almost no mention are not well known because they're not advertised enough. Like, for example, I didn't know anything about Ico until I read a review. If they only hammered it into people's heads they would get interested

Well, you guys, at least you have 10 pages to read through it all!

Hehehe...ICO was my very first game...I don't even know why I bought it. Just saw it, bought it, took it home, and played it. Heaven.
Same thing happened to me with DMC. It's almost like an intuition kinda thing

Yeah!!! I loved this game alot even though i've finished it i keep playing it over and over. I can't believe that at the very end on the beach that he found Yorda, I mean i really believed that she was dead because everything that is a shadow is a spirit which means they're dead and when Yorda turned into a shadow it brought a tear to my eye. I only knew about the Beach extra because i went on some website to find some cheats just before i finished the game and it said that after the credits you'd get to play as ico on the beach and find a surprise and i expected it to be a peice of cement or something fromt he castle or his horns on the side of the beach but it was Yorda and i just cheered from then on and i began to tell anybody with ears about it and my mom got so annoyed that i kept blabbering on about it and i even showed the ending to all my friends since i knew they would never be able to finish the game themselves....it feels so good to be talking to people who actually care to listen

Well, it´s november the 5th 2009 and I´ve finished the game.

I´m only 7 years too late to find someone to discuss it with but I have to say I absolutely LOVED this game.
Needless to say I immediately went back and played it again from beginning to end (3+ hours this second time), enjoying every single moment I spent in the company of Yorda.

What an absolutely marvelous game.

quote sunset

Well, it´s november the 5th 2009 and I´ve finished the game.

I´m only 7 years too late to find someone to discuss it with but I have to say I absolutely LOVED this game.
Needless to say I immediately went back and played it again from beginning to end (3+ hours this second time), enjoying every single moment I spent in the company of Yorda.

What an absolutely marvelous game.

The game's so minimal that it pulled me in almost painfully close. I haven't yet found the courage to replay it.

Yorda's a little scatter-brained, but that's to be expected from a girl raised in a cage with no other humans around. Her instinctive trust of Ico made up for it.

I made sure to take her outside the Castle where she could see the sea.

Ico's the brilliance. Removing all the HUDs and almost every other videogaming convention makes you focus on the characters, surroundings and progression of the story in an almost instinctive way. there's no 40 minute cutscenes telling you over and over what the plot is. Just you, a princess and a gang of evil shadows. This is truly one of the top five videogames ever released IMO, better even then Shadow of The Collosus, because it doesn't suffer from the technical problems that SOTC did.

This thread is making me want to replay it now, just to sit back and watch Yorda figure out the puzzle before I do, and gesture to Ico, telling him to look at that particular distinctive beam/bridge/windmill blade.

The Brilliance.

I wholeheartedly agree, this game is an all-time jewel of gaming experience and I only wish it had been more celebrated when it came out.

The removal of a HUD, life bars and all that stuff really helped turn the experience into an immersive one.

And it´s just impossible not to love "scatter-brained" Yorda , for every one time her AI made her zig when I wanted her to zag, there are countless other absolutely delicious moments like:

- when you call her to jump over a chasm and she does a "- No!" with her head after measuring the distance.

- the way she hangs near key spots, looking decisively at them as a way to clue us in on their importance

- the adorable way she points at the solution of the puzzle (the windmill being my favorite one)

- how when you boot up a game, the screen loads up with Ico and her sitting in the chairs resting against each other

- how she gasps in aprehension when Ico does something dangerous

- and of course that little scream she gives when she jumps down a wall a bit higher than she antecipated

I´ve been going through old threads in this forum, drinking from every post and really wishing I had discovered this place 7 years ago. And one post in particular mentioned that, according to the director, the end scene where Ico finds her in the beach was just a dream...
As much as I hate the idea, it sounds just enough cruel not to be true.

Anyway, I´ve started a new game with my niece this time (I´m hoping to get to the part where we can go multiplayer) and she is fascinated by Ico´s resilience, the way he withstands falls that would have killed Lara Croft.