The Game That Launched a Thousand Masterpieces

Miyazaki entering the game industry after his friend made him play Ico is proof that we should all stop ignoring our friends’ game recommendations.

Ico is the greatest escort mission in gaming history

I remember playing ico shortly after it was published when i was in college. I was a huge gamer and i had heard mixed things about it and picked it up. The big differentiator at the time was there not being a HUD/GUI. The screen was devoid of HP, stamina, magic etc. But my biggest personal takeaway was how it made me feel. I could never put it into words no matter who i tried explaining it to. What i always ended up telling people was "it really felt like i was holding someones hand, like i was alone in all the world, but i could reach out and hold this girls hand and know everything would be ok"

Shoutout to the person I meet on the snowy mountain in Journey, hope you're doing well where ever you are.

Even a Hollywood giant like Guillermo del Toro loves Ico. It's both crazy and so well deserved just how much this games has influenced people since it came out. Ueda is a genius!

The best part of this game for me was your relationship with Yorda. The two are completely alien to each other. They need each other to escape but it feels like so much more than a partnership of convenience. You are both children in a place where children (Maybe even life itself) doesn't belong. Yorda trusts you completely going so far as to jump across death chasms to your outstretched hand without hesitation. The game implies Ico could leave if he abandons her Yet he doesn't. He could have left Yorda on the bridge but he (Just like I did in the moment) Didn't even think and jumped right back to get to her. There is something just so genuine about what these two have. The biggest emotional moment for me in this game will be the absolute relief and catharsis of having the two reunite and finally just be free.

Playing Ico and shadow of the colossus were both defining moments of my childhood. The way the games made me feel was so unique. The lonely setting with vast lands, the melancholy endings. Both games changed my perspective on story telling.

The Giorgio de Chirico Ico box Art really added to its depth and mystery.

It's kind of pity that ICO isn't as well known as Shadow of the Colossus

23 years later, Castle in the Mist/You were there occasionally pops up in my head. A classic which will forever remain as an important part of my childhood.

Unrelated to this video, but since you like ancient religions and philosophy so much, I recommend you watch the Turkish show The Gift. I have a feeling you'll really enjoy it. And it's even better when you have been to Cappadocia before🔮🌈🧭

Personally, I would be down for a Sonic '06 Remake...

For me, the greatest day in gaming happened on September 25th 2001, the day Ico and Silent Hill 2 came out. I was a broke ass kid who just quit their job a few weeks earlier, so I didn't have enough money to buy the games but had all the time in the world. I managed to scrape together the $9 I needed to rent them. I waited at the Hollywood Video for them to get their shipment and do the rigamarole to get them ready to rent out. And over the next 4 days played the two most impactful games I've played in my life. What struck me the most about Ico is that the hand holding mechanic is, by default, not a toggle... you hit the shoulder button and Ico grabs Yorda's hand, you press it again and he let's go... No, you had to hold the button down for him to grab her hand and let the button go for him to let her go. In conjunction with this, the rumble was then closely tied into Ico and Yorda's animations. Running while holding Yorda's hand is not portrayed as a particularly smooth action. Ico starts running, Yorda reacts a little slowly and he tugs at her arm to get her up to speed (it's all physics driven and very smooth), and every action is accompanied by rumble, creating a real connection from the on screen action to a physical sensation your hand. It was the best use of rumble in a game after Metal Gear Solid.

I love ico so much. It’s insane to think that fumito ueda’s first two consecutive games went on to become some of the greatest and most influential games of all time

Idky people don't talk more about ICO's OST but it is gorgeous and completely bipolar! One moment you have small sounds made with a synthesizer and others you have a full blown chorus. The battle song actually FEELS like the shadow enemies would feel, in my head: grimy, sticky and pulling your joy away. The simplistic sound design of the save point, for example...it's so IMPRESSIVE how rested you felt with that song, as a player, and how ICO was also resting! I think it's a master piece in many ways, but visually and musically, especially, it is transcendental.

makes me wish that kind of game was still mainstream compared to the triple As we have now

Perhaps one of the few games cited more/more influential than Ico in the development of video games as an artform is Éric Chahi's "Another World"/"Out of This World". Definitely worth taking a look in this same sort of retrospective/historical lens

Ico is the game that gave me a full time understanding of video games, and Ico is the game that started that trend of abstract artistry in video games. It still looks beautiful even today.

It's odd, I played Ico, a LONG time ago, and while my memories of it are more than fuzzy, I can remember, as you were mentioning, feeling that anxiety, that desperation to keep Yorda safe. 11:24 It's funny you compared it briefly to Emma from MGS 2 because I really can't think of another game that made me feel more than those two. At the end of Emma's storyline in MGS 2 (avoiding spoilers, just in case) I was LIVID, I screamed, I went into the next room once I got control again and mag dumped into the first enemy I saw. Then I loaded an earlier save, hoping against hope that if I did better, there was an alternate route for that scene. Even though I was certain there wasn't, given the cinematic, I wanted there to be so bad that I tried regardless.

Looking back I have come to understand what a formative experience playing Ico was and how it made me seek out other types of experiences, not only in video games but in other forms of culture as well. I became much more intetested in how somthing made me feel and reflect on details rather than presenting one single interpretation.