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[Solid]

All this ICO talk makes me wanna replay it. This time I will understand what Yorda says thanks to the beatiful treatment we PALers got from Sony

 

[CloudNL]

ICO was an awesome game. It was not overrated, it's a classic.
Can't wait for Wanda!

 

[iced lightning]

Arguing this is completely pointless. So, with that said I'm going to stop wasting my time.

 

[Folder]

Then why does this thread exist?

http://forums.gaming-age.com/showthread.php?t=35795

 

[callous]

It's a beautiful game and I'm glad I got to play it, but the fighting bothers me to no end.

 

[Days like these...]

For what its worth ICO is one of only a few (non rpg) games I could be bothered to finish in the last few years. I love that game more tha LIFE itself!!!

 

[jarrod]

Overrated on GAF, underrated everywhere else.

 

[SickBoy]

ICO was so emotional for me. It gripped the very fibre of my soul as I was playing it. The castle -- fantastic, the colors? Inspired! I was absorbed in the tranquility of the experience, and everything from the save point music to the atmospheric sounds that flowed through the castle made me not only realize that games could be art, but that for the first time, deep in my own heart I could say to myself, yes, art truly exists, and art is beautiful!

Don't get me started on the unusual, sweet relationship that basically drove the game. On more than one occasion, I found myself transfixed by the game's beauty. Then, it would be like an out-of-body experience.... for the next thing I knew, there were tears streaming down my face and I was saying... no, I was screaming to no one in particular "Oh Yorda! Yorda! I love you!" And it felt good... liberating. I would save the game and meditate and replay the scenes over in my head. In a single phrase: 100% pure beauty.

Ahem... I mean, yeah, I think it's overrated (here at least).

So what? Why on earth can't these people respect the fact that a minorance liked the game so much? I can't understand this arrogance, this elitist attitude to tell other people what games are and how they should be done here from eternity.

It might surprise you, but it's a two-way street with quotes like this:

Ico = best game on PS2

I pity those who can't appreciate it.

 

[mrkgoo]

excuse me but what fucking narrative?

The narrative that is played out while you actually experience the game, and not spelled out for you. You know, the whole thing about

Spoiler

a boy being taken for sacrifice, but freeing himself, only to find a girl. They run around a bit and get ambushed by shadow creatures. They find the gate, but a mysterious 'queen' who closes the gates and prevents their escape. After some fumbling, they manage to open the gate (with some large solar panels, it seems), and return, but then the queen shows up and recaptures Yorda, while you fall (or get captured too? I forget), and find yourself alone again...going through the plumbing of the castle reunites you with the queen for an ultimate challenge. Then you find some stuff out about yorda, and she dies. Maybe.

It was mighty tempting to not spoilerify it, to punish the hethens who haven't finsihed it. Yeah, the story is simple, but the narrative is definitely there. It ahs a sense of storytelling that I haven't experienced since SUper MEtroid, where the story unfolds through your play actions, and left for you to interpret.

I paid $50 for it at release and beat it in 3 hours. I hate it so, so much.

And would you be the type to pay full price (or more) of a movie consisting entirely of a pole dancing Jessica Alba (or other), yet dislike it if it were only 15 minutes long? Short or no, Ico is still pure, sweet nectar.

Actually after reviewing this thread, I DO think many people over-rate it. It's an awesome game, with a lovely atmosphere and a brilliant design, but I won't go so far as to say it's art. Ico IS beatiful, but it's just a really well-made videogame. It doesn't transform the artform. I probably don't see any video game as being a piece of art.

 

[thorns]

I think GTA: SA with its social satire and irony is a much more profound artistic statement than ICO, and a much better game as well.

 

[J2 Cool]

Now Shenmue just sucked.

Was waiting for that, didn't even take a post. I don't blame you, you just don't get the game. Games that try to do something different are always going to get a significant amount of backlash.

 

[Boom]

Sure the Atmosphere, lighting and graphics are amazing, but The core gameplay is pretty Crap IMO.

The fighting is borderline retarded.

Yoda or whatever is pretty damn annoying cant really do anything. The puzzles always come down to moveing a block or pully a lever. Sure there are some moments of brilliance but overall is the gameplay not fairly crap?

Just seems like a giant escort mission with block puzzles to me.

I dunno it feels like some gamers on this board are just Atmosphere whores who forget actual gameplay mechanics for a tight story and great atmosphere.





*this thread is dedicated to my buddy Doom_bringer.

Sounds like somebody just got done reading the new EGM.

 

[Porridge]

In a gaming world of Halos and Grand Theft Autos, sometimes, some gamers, need a break from all the alien and whore-killing. Something quiet and in it's own world. ICO is a masterpiece and one of the finest examples I can present for the case that "gaming is art."

 

[Folder]

Um, the fighting system...
Hit ghosts with stick. Hit button thrice and get a low level DMC combo. Seriously, everyone forgets that most of the game is spent hitting ghosts with a stick in quite a rubbish way. I guestimate that about half the game time is spent in this way. It's filler gametime, bottom line. ICO is beautiful. It's also a poor gaming experience with glimpses of something that, with a little more work, could have been genre-changing.

 

[ChristKiller]

The fighting does not make up half of the game... probably more like 10% at most.

 

[Folder]

The fighting does not make up half of the game... probably more like 10% at most.

Simply not true.

 

[Porridge]

Um, the fighting system...
Hit ghosts with stick. Hit button thrice and get a low level DMC combo. Seriously, everyone forgets that most of the game is spent hitting ghosts with a stick in quite a rubbish way. I guestimate that about half the game time is spent in this way. It's filler gametime, bottom line. ICO is beautiful. It's also a poor gaming experience with glimpses of something that, with a little more work, could have been genre-changing.

Last I checked, ICO wasn't a fighting game. Imagine if they put in a combo system... It would be distracting. The game is subtle, it's quiet. It doesn't need this kid to be doing these flashy friggin moves. That works for DMC or Ninja Gaiden, but not here.

'Cause if he could jump all over the place flinging hadokens out of his ass, then maybe he might not've been captured and thrown into a tomb alive.

 

[Mejilan]

Hmm, I don't think I've done this since pre-Neo-GAF.

I thought ICO downright sucked.

The very defintion of ALL style, NO substance. ALL it had to its name was great atmosphere/presentation.

IMHO of course.

 

[Endymion]

Um, the fighting system...
Seriously, everyone forgets that most of the game is spent hitting ghosts with a stick in quite a rubbish way. I guestimate that about half the game time is spent in this way.

Seriously, you must have played the wrong game.

 

[ChristKiller]

Simply not true.

Yeah I guess you're right... the fighting was probably more like 5% of the game. My bad!

 

[RobotChant]

Number one reason why ICO is overrated: "It's art!"

 

[Ill Saint]

Seriously, everyone forgets that most of the game is spent hitting ghosts with a stick in quite a rubbish way.

Everyone forgets that you don't even have to fight a large number of the battles.

 

[Azrael]

This thread reappears in a new form every few months. I guess the people who don't like the game believe if they're persistant enough, eventually everyone who likes Ico will get tired of arguing with them and let them have the final word.

Complaining about Ico's combat is like bashing Grim Fandango because you can't blow stuff up and kill people. It misses the focus of the game completely. Ico is all about guiding two weak and vulnerable characters through a dangerous castle with nothing but their wits to rely on. Giving Ico a powerful weapon with combo strings and magical attacks and throwing hordes of enemies and bosses at you would have been out of character. Ico is not for ADD-riddled players who can't appreciate an adventure game that doesn't involve killing stuff every five seconds.

 

[Socreges]

This thread reappears in a new form every few months. I guess the people who don't like the game believe if they're persistant enough, eventually everyone who likes Ico will get tired of arguing with them and let them have the final word.

This has been said a couple times now, but I could find only one other instance.

 

[Folder]

Number one reason why ICO is overrated: "It's art!"

Indeed.

 

[Amir0x]

You're so off the cool list, Folder. No more Ménage à trois with the cute art majors over at the local community college.

 

[Folder]

You're so off the cool list, Folder. No more Ménage à trois with the cute art majors over at the local community college.

Curses!

"Hey baby. Wanna come back to my place and see some real PlayStation art?" was my best line when trying to ensnare hot art students.

 

[Endymion]

.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Simply not true.

It's around that amount. What people don't seem to realise about ICO is that most of the time you can grab Yorda and run toward one of the doors and when they open that'll kill all the enemies in the room. There are some points where you have to fight, but there aren't too many of those.

 

[Fafalada]

Simply not true.

Aren't you the same guy that claimed the game has no music?
Anyway, I didn't spend more then 10% of the game-time fighting, and that was without using Yorda as the weapon.
When you DO use her - the fighting "time" is reduced to like 3 fights in the whole game, 1 of which is the final battle, bringing the fighting time down to like 1% of total game time.

But you're right of couse, what are we thinking. Such a shallow and simple game couldn't possibly have enough finese in play-mechanics that actually knowing how to play would make it easier to beat.