Shadow of Colossus is one of my all time favourite games, and ICO being the self proclaimed sequel, I had to try it out for myself.
System Played On: PS3
Age Rating: T (for Blood and Violence)
My Age Rating: 12
There’s so many puzzles you have to have a lot of patience. Violence and blood aren’t really a big deal, for more than half the game you're hitting shadows with a stick.
Graphics: 6/10
There was nothing really great about them. It made me a little sad, since they did such a magnificent job remaking Shadow of Colossus for PS3, the graphics in ICO were just flat. Personally, I’m almost scared to play this on PS2 if this is what it looked like remastered.
Plotline: 7/10
Was there really a plot line? It was almost similar to Legend of Zelda, where you just assume you’re out to get Princess Zelda, but were never told what to do. Hey, have a ghost child, and drag her around. Make sure she doesn’t die.
You never really knew what the point was until the end, and even then it was unclear.
Playability: 5/10
Uncoordinated hero number two, thanks a lot Team ICO. It feels almost as if Sony and the creators tried to make the character extremely hard to control just to add another level of frustration to the endless puzzle.
Also, there was never a walkthrough on how to jump, move items, pull levers, or any clue as to what the controls were. You kind of just mashed every button until you figured it out.
Replay Value: 6/10
Maybe if you're in to speed running like me, but there's really only one way to fight every boss. Not really worth playing multiple times besides to see if they have anymore information about the plot SOMEWHERE in the video game.
Replay Value: 6/10
Maybe if you're in to speed running like me, but there's really only one way to fight every boss. Not really worth playing multiple times besides to see if they have anymore information about the plot SOMEWHERE in the video game.
Overall: 6.5/10
Synopsis:
Ico is a young boy that was born with horns, which is considered cursed and unholy in the land. He is taken to a castle and held there to be sacrificed. Naturally, Ico escapes and meets a girl named Yorda.
Yorda seems to have the enemies, which take the form of shadow beasts, chasing after her and is in need of a guardian to protect her. Ico decides he’s perfect for the job, and so the rest of the game focuses on him protecting Yorda as they explore the castle and try to escape from the evil queen who seems to have previous relations with Yorda.
Overall Review:
After playing the game, all I could really think is meh. It was pretty disappointing to play in comparison to Shadow of Colossus.
Not only was the player given another uncoordinated hero, they weren’t even given guidance as to how to play the game. I didn’t think they’d lay out a perfect walkthrough for the player, but I assumed they’d at least inform me as to why Ico is trying to save Yorda and how exactly to climb the freaking wall.
Along with that, it’s known this was made earlier than Colossus, but the graphics were so different between the two, even in this HD remake, that it seemed like ICO was neglected from the beginning.
They had the opportunity to make beautiful scenery and a detailed creepy old queen, but instead the player was left with shoddy graphics that didn’t do justice to the game. Even HD couldn’t save it.
Since players were given almost no instructions on what they were to do, it was almost impossible to figure out what you needed to do and even harder to convince yourself to keep playing.
(GameFAQs) Walkthrough Link:
http://www.ign.com/wikis/the-ico-shadow-of-the-colossus-collection/Ico_Walkthrough
