ICO has one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite, relationships in gaming. The fact that Ico and Yorda are separated by a language barrier but still have complete trust in each other is just beautiful, man.
This video is maybe one of the best on Ico I’ve seen, how does it not have more views! A lot of your interpretations into the themes are things I didn’t catch and really expand the meaning of everything. This game was the first I ever completed to credits at 14 years old and I remember bawling like a little kid over the ending. I always wanted to believe Yorda survived, and it wasn’t just a dream. Now as an adult, I understand fluent Japanese and watching that full Ueda interview, I noticed something interesting. He talks about the beach scene possibly being a dream, but afterwards he says ただでも、本当の意味は、本当に出会ってるですけどね、そこは “but really, the real ending is that they actually meet again, there” Which is STUNNING because the subtitles do not translate this! He says it quick kind of mumbling while laughing, but it’s as clear as day to me. So to me, Ueda seems to like the dream interpretation, but he intended for an optimistic ending where they meet again.
my MIND is BLOWN! holy guacamole, thank you so much for that insight about the line not being translated... btw i lol'd at the typo that said Yoda instead of Yorda haha
@@yoppimedia Wow just noticed the Yoda typo, ha! Yeah I even had my Japanese partner who has never played the game confirm that I wasn't just hearing what I wanted to! Pretty cool. The subtitles are pretty misleading, my partner said it almost sounds like he said something else since he was mumbling, so whoever subtitled it probably just overlooked it. IMO I think Ueda appreciates the idea of an open to interpretation ending, and to him personally he sees an optimistic one as a opposed to a bittersweet one.
2 years since you commented this, and after a few days of finishing the game this just made my day and week, ty for understanding japanese and translating this to us
I'm still caught on it now. Not just its visuals, atmosphere, worldbuilding, story and setting, but nothing I can think of recently has that same attachment you get with Yorda. That secretly-complex handholding mechanic is so lost in modern games it drives me insane.
there are great gamez inspired by ico's style still comin out! rime is the closest, but no secondary charachter. also try games like jusant or the pathless
@@yoppimedia I just got back into playing 'Aer: Memories of Old'. It's not exactly the same, but similar enough to scratch the itch for me while I don't have the motivation to set my PS2 back up. Thanks for the recommendations and this video, man. It brought back some great memories!
The only game I ever played where I worried about the characters *when I wasn't playing*. I'd be at work, or shopping, or cooking, whatever - and I'd suddenly be struck by the fear that I might let Ico and Yorda down.
I just finished playing Ico for the first time yesterday and this video stood out to me because, well... I too can't stop thinking about Ico. :') I can't even put into words how cool it was to watch this video. You brought up so many great points on the symbolism that I didn't even think of while playing, and it makes me want to dive into all the other theories and thoughts that others have on this game. I think the 2 main things that stood out to me was your take on the mother-daughter relationship between Yorda and the Queen, and the haunting realization that the shadows you killed were the other horned boys all along. I feel like the developers really made sure to keep both of those elements when they made their other two games. With SotC the connection is more obvious, with how Dormin somewhat manipulates you into doing his biding in order to get what you want, and how you kill the peaceful Colossi that are safeguarding Dormin's power. With The Last Guardian however, (beware of spoilers for the rest of this paragraph) the master of the valley controls the tricos in order to get the boys, and upon finding out that the barrels are a part of the sacrifice, you can't help but wonder if you've been feeding trico other boys the whole time. The theory that the barrels are only a reward for turning the boys in is interesting, but I do think that at least part of the energy from the sacrifices were placed into the barrels so that the tricos could also be replenished by it. Having now played all 3 games, it's interesting to see how Team Ico placed these themes in each game without making said connections obvious. I love how each game feels so unique yet mysteriously and breathtakingly similar, it's among the reasons why all 3 games are now my favorite games of all time. Thank you for providing such a great video, I shall be watching your Analysis video on SotC now because I'm very intrigued by what you have to say. 👀 On a side note, I'm so glad I'm not the only one that didn't figure out right away that you could swing on chains and that you could pull Yorda through the hole. ":D When you mentioned both of those I was like, "OH MY GOSH SAME!!"
Something that I can add on as a theory regarding the abusive mother-daughter relationship: The Queen is bilingual, and can speak to both Yorda and Ico in their native languages… but she raised Yorda and presumably taught her that language, so why couldn’t she have raised her daughter to be bilingual as well? It’s simple, it acts as another lock on her cell, another restriction that keeps her close. Yorda is stuck speaking what might as well be a dead language that only her mother knows. Everyone who is sacrificed seems to come from a community that speaks Ico’s language, the common language. But Yorda isn’t allowed to speak with those sacrifices, the Queen doesn’t want her connecting with them. So she taught her daughter only one language, the one that no one outside the castle could recognize. The only person Yorda will ever be able to truly speak with, is her mother. (Putting aside that terrifying revelation, when looking at connections between the games I think it’s also worth noting that the armored guards of TLG don’t just have the same blue glowing eyes, between the armor joints you can see that they are also made of smoke. They might just be formed of similar magic to the Shadows in ICO. And similarly to the Queen, the Master of the Valley’s life seemed to be the only thing keeping their fortress from crumbling and falling apart.)
I've been a huge fan of both Kenji Eno and Fumito Ueda for years. Here's a cool fact: when it came to hiring Ueda, Kenji Eno had this to say about him: "at the beginning, he didn't pass the application process at WARP, but I still remember the work he submitted: it was about a dog running in the rain. His ideas and his concepts really struck me, so even though he wasn't initially even on the hiring list, I hand-picked him because I saw his potential."
It's so cool to finally find someone analysing Ico's soundtrack and even the song lyrics! Probably the best video essay of this game on YT. Great work man!
I can't stop thinking about ico either, it's like a melancholy, it's something sad but happy for me to have discovered that game, it's an indescribable feeling.
I was indeed running to work when listening to this video; shouting oiiii did indeed increase my speed enough that i arrived 2mins prior to clock-in. Thanks for the life hack 👍
This is a very good video on ICO and I'm surprised it's not up there in the thousands of likes. Extremely underrated and under appreciated for how well it covers everything about the game, you're on point about so much of it man it's a truly great analysis
This game is near and very dear to my heart. My sisters and I happened upon it when visitong some family. One of my younger cousins had it and he was not good with it at all. We ate it up. With my sister offering help and just watching as I or one of them played it. My cousin came in just as we were opening the first half of the gate. He was so shocked, despite having it for a few years, he'd gotten nowhere. At some point, he gave it to us and we took it home and ohmygosh, we loved it even more. The terror of having Yorda pulled out of sight and off screen still hits me. The only thing that even kind of hot as close is when Medli would get taken in her sage temple. Up until I got a hold of this, I was really only into Zelda games, because of the puzzles. This gamez led me to so many others and even still to this day, I have yet to come across puzzles made to fit the environment like these ones do. I have so much love, so many good things to say. I am so sad that it gets left in the shadows. I wish it would get that same treatment in a remaster that SoTC did. It deserves to, so much. Thank you for this video. Also good point about escort missions. The thing is, this wasn't a normal escort mission, this boy was her bodyguard and you were being escorted instead. That's always the way I seen it. Also, it's these games, Ico and SoTC that I'd love to be able to forget so I could experience it all over again for the first time. And a fun tidbit, my sisters and I and our uncle still call to each other like Ico calling for Yorda to this day.
After playing this for the first time a couple years ago, I'm finally ready to watch this video! haha Anyway, one thing I noticed is where you're talking about the section without Yorda, how the color palette and mood is tonally meant to convey that loneliness - I really think that the cliffside sections, and the section with the big water wheel feel very unsafe and tense - even in your footage, the cliffsides are super easy to begin falling off of. The water wheel has some really tight and precise jumping that require focus and are not always easy. If you wanted to continue pushing the thought here, you could really say that the concept of tension and even danger are central to Yorda's absence too, despite what the game already shows you about how you need her to continue on. Awesome video! I'd love to chat with you about games, I feel like we'd be in conversation all day haha
You making those printouts from the team ICO website sent me back to my childhood in a flash. I remember making those as a kid and thinking they were so cool. Amazing video!
This game took a troll on my poopoo brain when I was a kid. The world of Fumito drastically changed my prescription towards the way i see the art. Way different than any other games I've played so far. The artistic approach of the scripted fantasy or a Zeno genre hit different. The shuttle hint of loneless of the world and the ambiance was just too much for me. Even now I sometimes get glimpse of it and lefts me dumb founded for hours imaginating the world it created in my mind. Such a beautiful world, yet none I can share with.
25:22 Something I want to point out on the note of Yorda being in captivity her entire life is her animations. If you look at the way she climbs ladders, you might notice that she doesn't alternate limbs when she's climbing (as opposed to Ico who climbs ladders normally and a lot faster). It's akin to someone who, obviously, has no real experience in the outside world. The way she climbs kind of reminds me of the way a very young child would
Thank you for this video. I played Ico back in December and ever since then, I too haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It has made me truly find games that tell stories that I actually enjoy. It’s not a novel like some games can be like and it’s not a movie with the important parts of the game being in the cutscene. Ico and Sotc have to be experienced in Video game format, and I love that. Great video man
Came back to this video, and damn this shit hits like it did 2 years ago. I've attempted to play games over the last 2 years, but it feels like a monotonous grind of games that I get mad at that have no story. Then I remembered that team Ico (or I guess GenDesign now), said they were going to release a game... in 2021. I've been in a single player rut since I played Ico back in 2021, playing Counter Strike and random roguelikes to attempt and fill a void of something. I need more games like Ico. Anyone know any games I could try?
thnx! its an official ico wallpaper from i-c-o.net (u have to use the wayback machine to get it these days) i think a bunch of the wallpapers are on the ico fan wiki too
This was a great video. I type up ‘Ico review’ or ‘Ico podcast’ into UA-cam every now and then because I am always up for hearing more of people’s thoughts on it, and I’m glad this was a video among the results. I replay the game on a regular basis and have made a lot of fun small discoveries how the AI works across the different versions. If you ever feel like you need to discuss more about Ico with others, I’d recommend getting close to the speedrunning community for the game, since it really contains the games most dedicated fans.
@@yoppimedia Oh also, I talked with a friend who is a Japanese language teacher, and I asked her about Yorda's final word(s). Together we determined that Yorda says 'sei', but because she speaks in backwards romaji, the syllables are reversed to make 'ise'. ise by itself is a shortened stem of the romaji word, 'iseru', which means to unbind thread like in sewing, but can be used as a poetic way to say “let go”. It's likely that she's saying she's free.
Thank you so much for making this. Ico is my favorite game of all time and I think it's a genuine masterpiece that people still don't appreciate enough, and the fact that you made a nearly hour long video dissecting it means the world to me :)
glad you liked the vid! its one that i really enjoyed at first, but has risen higher and higher on my list of fave games the more i replayed and thought about it. it got to the point where i just had to do a video and im so glad you appreciated the vid :) people like you make me wanna keep goin with vids!
wow wow wow! What an incredible video, thank you so much for putting this together, definitely the best analysis I've seen on such a beautiful game :^) and i lovvvvved the bonus, haha! maybe in that spirit, I'd be so curious to hear what you think about Fallow (if you've played it), especially the space of the game that existed beyond the core experience. I was so blown away by the intertwining of being metatextual on the formal level as a way to expand the themes and story of the game in a fragmented, sometimes gestural way
thanks for the kind words ^_^ i think ive seen fallow once before and it definetely has grabbed my interest now with the way you described it, i gotta add that to my backlog. tactics ogre reborn is consuming all my game playing time at the moment right now though lol
I consider this game the second "philosopher's stone" of gaming, being Out this World/Another world the first (this is the game that inspired Ueda, Kojima and other japanese developers of the narrative posibilities of the medium). Also, the soundtrack of Ico it's just the GOAT. It's the perfect darkly-ambient-drony sound that I love and listen the album constantly. I think the composer form a band for this soundtrack and they make another record? I'm not sure but I need to found out for sure.
I played this for the first time about 2 and a half years ago and you’re right about not forgetting it. While annoying, it was a really good experience playing this from atmosphere to art style
I would love for you to do a video on The Last Guardian. It’s so good. Just as good as Ico and SOTC. I have an extra copy of the game if you do not own it.
Now I'm starting to get into team ico games after playing and loving shadow of the colossus and just now getting into the last guardian im so fucking excited about trying ico now ❤😄
I interpreted the horn thing as the end of the curse of child sacrifice from the village as the queen was defeated. I still think about this game after I first played it in 2001. I was so upset at the ending. Could the end of the movie Inception be inspired by this ending?
Well your SotC was great so I'll add a comment here too! If you want an honest answer from my personal take on why Ico has his horns broken, after coming back from The Last Guardian, I can't help but wonder if the horns are supposed to be a stand-in for player control given how the Tricos are literally signaled to be controlled by something called "The Master" through their horns. More specifically, they seem to be the "handles" of the controller you're holding and you're essentially controlling Ico through his head via them. His horns are notably black at their points, like a dualshock 2 controller at the time. It's quite telling to me that we lose all control of Ico at this point when both his horns are broken, he's finally free from our control. This could add quite a bit to why Ico's considered "cursed," he's not given any real control over his destiny (even referenced in the song "You Were There" I feel) and he's sorta doomed to recursively "relive" the experience when the player starts the game back up or does a new game+. You could frame this as Ico's mind reliving the game's events and recontextualizing them in New game+, or a more emotional statement about how his mind's been influenced heavily by this abuse even after being removed from the abusive situation, etc. Both of these things can tie together for some pretty sad commentary on the home situation of children in our new millennia and how media is often an escapism but also a tool that can warp perceptions. I pair this up with Ueda's description that Ico is dreaming in the end, which would make a lot of sense for this read since that'd mean we still unfortunately have influence over this poor kid's head (great commentary) even after all that's happened to him. While he's certainly escaped the actual experience of being controlled, his mind is still focused in on Yorda who I sadly believe is gone. Given how this is ostensibly still a game, I can't help but wonder if Ueda is saying what effect media has on priming people into preconceived notions on others and reliance on structures that goad you into doing awful things. This is very similar to The Iron Giant, a genuinely great animated piece of art that talks in its story and visuals how sending the wrong signals can cause you to be a weapon for others. I cannot help but wonder if it had an influence on Ueda when he worked on The Last Guardian, another story about a boy interacting with a powerful giant being that is a tool for a horrible system. Other reads I love include how people are manipulated by systemic issues of power/hierarchy, the cycle of parent-child abuse, the use of classic fable structures (a "witch" literally consumes children to keep herself and her castle afloat), and seeing how all of these reads interlink with each other for an overall pretty great bit of commentary for its time. There's a lot about this game that can be read metatextually too, like how Yorda cannot survive in the "outside world," which could quite frankly mean she cannot live in our real world, it's impossible. And yet we, as the player, still wish we could save her and show her this freedom. Ico could be reflecting this in his dream by this read, since we the player are still have an influence on his thoughts, he cannot help but think on Yorda even after the game has "ended." Pair this up with Shadow of the Colossus and notice how the time we begin to take control of Wander is only after Dormin imparts their words of influence on us: Kill the colossi, you'll get this sacrificed girl back to life. This is all sorta why I get why so many devs and writers love Ico. It works within the medium it is set in and has a lot of scope and depth by nature of its subtractive design to PUSH you into asking questions like "why did they do this, what does this remind me of, what was the mindset of the people making this for this section." This is all so great for a 2001 game because that's basically analyzing games like you would with film, paintings, literature and all sorts of other arts and creations. In context for its time in 2001, I can see why people called this genuinely revolutionary for games as a medium.
Hey! Good video i love it! I finished the game 5 days ago, after remembering it recently. I played the demo 13 years ago when i was 5 year old. Even the demo was significant. All my life after that i was like "this demo i've played at 5yo was so special, what is this game?". I think i will never forget this game, it has a big place in my heart. Do you know where can i find the Ico and Yorda printable model? I can't find them on the i-c-o site :c
thanks for the nice comment! :) ico is so good heres the paper cutouts, they're buried in a weird parts of the site lol web.archive.org/web/20050207110927fw_/www.i-c-o.net/main/download/paper04.jpg web.archive.org/web/20050207110927fw_/www.i-c-o.net/main/download/paper05.jpg
Just completed ICO and really loved it. Played SotC and couldnt even complete the first boss. The controls is total crap. Im playing on the emulator with a keyboard, which is even worse, but i beated God of War this way and it was kinda ok. The camera in SotC is total shit. Both free camera and "colossus focus" are bad. The urge to press a button to grab a ledge is even worse. Dedicated buttons to jump and hold a ledge is a nightmare too. Bow controls are crap too. Combine all of these and I just cant play this game, though I was really interested cause I liked ICO so much. Its really sad.
@@StepantcSoTC has something called a learning curve. A steep one. You have to be patient and take your time to figure it out. The camera is actually very well made, you just need to learn to utilize it. It will click I promise. Though it being an emulator on a keyboard sounds like a bad gaming experience. I'd try to hook it up to a PS4 remote cause the game isn't a PC game and might explain your struggle. As someone who is wnit the best gamer, I loved SoTC and the fighting was fun, learning to lead and direct Agro is pivotal. So yeah, before you bash the controls, maybe don't play it on a keyboard. It's just not feasible my dude.
I had this game with the good art somehow when i was a kid, it was too hard for my age. not in my native language, I was 8 or 9 and probably got bored :D
I got this game about three years ago, I got scared of the shadows and I don’t like puzzles so I took a suuuuuuuuper duuuuuuuuuuuuuuper long break, and finally finished it a year ago❤ I’ve finished it about 20 times now😊
Unfortunately one of the ps2 games I never played, and never will since somewhy my family got rid of it. However, ever since I listened to Ico's you were there, I started feeling a nostalgia that doesn’t belong to me, it forced itself onto me, so this day I decided to look up stuff about the game to see if my soul gets rest in relation to the game.
Something I only noticed recently while watching a video of the ending: while the castle is crumbling, the last thing we see before the ending titles start is a group of idol statues somewhere in the castle activating... O__O
@@Mystic_Ode Her plan wasn't complicated. She waited until her daughter was mature enough for her body to be useful. Then she would ditch her old withering body and hijack Yorda's. Thus ensuring immortality for herself. Who was Yorda's father? How many times did she do this? We don't know. But it fits.
@@infidelheretic923 I can't quite tell what you mean by "Her plan wasn't complicated". I don't know if you're agreeing or disagreeing with my statement, but just in case, I'll clarify my point. I don't believe The Queen could die by just any means and expect to be transferred to Yorda's body. If that were the case she could've performed the transfer at any time after she turned Yorda to stone and placed her in the Altar room. Morbid though it may be to suggest, it is not difficult to die in this castle, if you needed to for the transfer ritual. It's still possible that she was initially waiting for Yorda to be older or for her body to pass on via natural causes, but under the unique circumstances, I expect she would have made it a priority to switch to a body that can accomplish more than just standing in place with a forcefield. And it looked like she wanted to commit to it soon, because of Yorda’s new position in the Altar roon. A vessel turned to stone would also presumably not age or mature further, so she was ready to go. But if she could perform the transfer right then and there (and all it took was her death to initiate it) she would not have dissuaded Ico from stabbing her, nor put up a fight against him. There's an element of the spiritual transfer ritual that's either missing or is not yet in place, otherwise The Queen would be committing to it asap. We can also tell from the actions of Shadow Yorda that she does have her memories. She is pretty distinctly not acting like The Queen, who would've been happy to let Ico be crushed under the rubble of her Castle. So it's a safe bet that dying to the sword did, in fact, foil her plans.
@@yoppimediaAnother thing to think about is that the song is in English in every version, including the Japanese release, and I don’t think they provide subtitles for it. So to most of the Japanese audience, the song at the end was a mystery to them. They’d have to look up translations to understand it. So for some people, the song at the end is as foreign sounding as Yorda, for others, it’s as plain as Ico’s subtitles.
Yeah, the North America box art isn't as good as the original, but all things considered it's not that bad, really. I have seen much MUCH worse with the 8 and 16 bit localized Japanese video games. MegaMan , Phantasy Star II, Shining Force II anyone???
ICO is usually called "Your favorite game developer's favorite video game"
Reminds me of MF DOOM
"Your favorite rapper's favorite rapper."
@@juice6199I'll add Black Thought and Kool Keith to that list.
@@juice6199 That's a great comparison
ueda is my favourite though.
i think of the last scene as something symbolic, she's chained to the land and the boy's out on the sea, so they meet at the beach.
ICO has one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite, relationships in gaming. The fact that Ico and Yorda are separated by a language barrier but still have complete trust in each other is just beautiful, man.
Now I can't stop thinking about ico
and now me three
four✌🏻😭
This video is maybe one of the best on Ico I’ve seen, how does it not have more views! A lot of your interpretations into the themes are things I didn’t catch and really expand the meaning of everything. This game was the first I ever completed to credits at 14 years old and I remember bawling like a little kid over the ending. I always wanted to believe Yorda survived, and it wasn’t just a dream. Now as an adult, I understand fluent Japanese and watching that full Ueda interview, I noticed something interesting. He talks about the beach scene possibly being a dream, but afterwards he says ただでも、本当の意味は、本当に出会ってるですけどね、そこは “but really, the real ending is that they actually meet again, there” Which is STUNNING because the subtitles do not translate this! He says it quick kind of mumbling while laughing, but it’s as clear as day to me. So to me, Ueda seems to like the dream interpretation, but he intended for an optimistic ending where they meet again.
my MIND is BLOWN! holy guacamole, thank you so much for that insight about the line not being translated... btw i lol'd at the typo that said Yoda instead of Yorda haha
@@yoppimedia Wow just noticed the Yoda typo, ha! Yeah I even had my Japanese partner who has never played the game confirm that I wasn't just hearing what I wanted to! Pretty cool. The subtitles are pretty misleading, my partner said it almost sounds like he said something else since he was mumbling, so whoever subtitled it probably just overlooked it. IMO I think Ueda appreciates the idea of an open to interpretation ending, and to him personally he sees an optimistic one as a opposed to a bittersweet one.
YES!
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!
I can finally sleep in peace now, after all these years
2 years since you commented this, and after a few days of finishing the game this just made my day and week, ty for understanding japanese and translating this to us
I'm still caught on it now.
Not just its visuals, atmosphere, worldbuilding, story and setting, but nothing I can think of recently has that same attachment you get with Yorda.
That secretly-complex handholding mechanic is so lost in modern games it drives me insane.
there are great gamez inspired by ico's style still comin out! rime is the closest, but no secondary charachter. also try games like jusant or the pathless
actually rime does have a section with a secondary charachter that will make you feel those feelins, i just remembered. its just not the whole game
@@yoppimedia I just got back into playing 'Aer: Memories of Old'. It's not exactly the same, but similar enough to scratch the itch for me while I don't have the motivation to set my PS2 back up.
Thanks for the recommendations and this video, man. It brought back some great memories!
The only game I ever played where I worried about the characters *when I wasn't playing*. I'd be at work, or shopping, or cooking, whatever - and I'd suddenly be struck by the fear that I might let Ico and Yorda down.
That sounds concerning.
@@Trident_H Worry bout yourself fam
I just finished playing Ico for the first time yesterday and this video stood out to me because, well... I too can't stop thinking about Ico. :')
I can't even put into words how cool it was to watch this video. You brought up so many great points on the symbolism that I didn't even think of while playing, and it makes me want to dive into all the other theories and thoughts that others have on this game. I think the 2 main things that stood out to me was your take on the mother-daughter relationship between Yorda and the Queen, and the haunting realization that the shadows you killed were the other horned boys all along. I feel like the developers really made sure to keep both of those elements when they made their other two games. With SotC the connection is more obvious, with how Dormin somewhat manipulates you into doing his biding in order to get what you want, and how you kill the peaceful Colossi that are safeguarding Dormin's power. With The Last Guardian however, (beware of spoilers for the rest of this paragraph) the master of the valley controls the tricos in order to get the boys, and upon finding out that the barrels are a part of the sacrifice, you can't help but wonder if you've been feeding trico other boys the whole time. The theory that the barrels are only a reward for turning the boys in is interesting, but I do think that at least part of the energy from the sacrifices were placed into the barrels so that the tricos could also be replenished by it.
Having now played all 3 games, it's interesting to see how Team Ico placed these themes in each game without making said connections obvious. I love how each game feels so unique yet mysteriously and breathtakingly similar, it's among the reasons why all 3 games are now my favorite games of all time. Thank you for providing such a great video, I shall be watching your Analysis video on SotC now because I'm very intrigued by what you have to say. 👀
On a side note, I'm so glad I'm not the only one that didn't figure out right away that you could swing on chains and that you could pull Yorda through the hole. ":D When you mentioned both of those I was like, "OH MY GOSH SAME!!"
Something that I can add on as a theory regarding the abusive mother-daughter relationship: The Queen is bilingual, and can speak to both Yorda and Ico in their native languages… but she raised Yorda and presumably taught her that language, so why couldn’t she have raised her daughter to be bilingual as well? It’s simple, it acts as another lock on her cell, another restriction that keeps her close.
Yorda is stuck speaking what might as well be a dead language that only her mother knows. Everyone who is sacrificed seems to come from a community that speaks Ico’s language, the common language. But Yorda isn’t allowed to speak with those sacrifices, the Queen doesn’t want her connecting with them. So she taught her daughter only one language, the one that no one outside the castle could recognize. The only person Yorda will ever be able to truly speak with, is her mother.
(Putting aside that terrifying revelation, when looking at connections between the games I think it’s also worth noting that the armored guards of TLG don’t just have the same blue glowing eyes, between the armor joints you can see that they are also made of smoke. They might just be formed of similar magic to the Shadows in ICO. And similarly to the Queen, the Master of the Valley’s life seemed to be the only thing keeping their fortress from crumbling and falling apart.)
I've been a huge fan of both Kenji Eno and Fumito Ueda for years. Here's a cool fact: when it came to hiring Ueda, Kenji Eno had this to say about him: "at the beginning, he didn't pass the application process at WARP, but I still remember the work he submitted: it was about a dog running in the rain. His ideas and his concepts really struck me, so even though he wasn't initially even on the hiring list, I hand-picked him because I saw his potential."
It's so cool to finally find someone analysing Ico's soundtrack and even the song lyrics! Probably the best video essay of this game on YT. Great work man!
I can't stop thinking about ico either, it's like a melancholy, it's something sad but happy for me to have discovered that game, it's an indescribable feeling.
Yea that cover was always hideous to me. Terrible face design they drew
I was indeed running to work when listening to this video; shouting oiiii did indeed increase my speed enough that i arrived 2mins prior to clock-in. Thanks for the life hack 👍
This is a very good video on ICO and I'm surprised it's not up there in the thousands of likes. Extremely underrated and under appreciated for how well it covers everything about the game, you're on point about so much of it man it's a truly great analysis
This game is near and very dear to my heart. My sisters and I happened upon it when visitong some family. One of my younger cousins had it and he was not good with it at all. We ate it up. With my sister offering help and just watching as I or one of them played it. My cousin came in just as we were opening the first half of the gate. He was so shocked, despite having it for a few years, he'd gotten nowhere.
At some point, he gave it to us and we took it home and ohmygosh, we loved it even more. The terror of having Yorda pulled out of sight and off screen still hits me. The only thing that even kind of hot as close is when Medli would get taken in her sage temple.
Up until I got a hold of this, I was really only into Zelda games, because of the puzzles. This gamez led me to so many others and even still to this day, I have yet to come across puzzles made to fit the environment like these ones do.
I have so much love, so many good things to say. I am so sad that it gets left in the shadows. I wish it would get that same treatment in a remaster that SoTC did. It deserves to, so much.
Thank you for this video.
Also good point about escort missions. The thing is, this wasn't a normal escort mission, this boy was her bodyguard and you were being escorted instead. That's always the way I seen it.
Also, it's these games, Ico and SoTC that I'd love to be able to forget so I could experience it all over again for the first time.
And a fun tidbit, my sisters and I and our uncle still call to each other like Ico calling for Yorda to this day.
After playing this for the first time a couple years ago, I'm finally ready to watch this video! haha
Anyway, one thing I noticed is where you're talking about the section without Yorda, how the color palette and mood is tonally meant to convey that loneliness - I really think that the cliffside sections, and the section with the big water wheel feel very unsafe and tense - even in your footage, the cliffsides are super easy to begin falling off of. The water wheel has some really tight and precise jumping that require focus and are not always easy. If you wanted to continue pushing the thought here, you could really say that the concept of tension and even danger are central to Yorda's absence too, despite what the game already shows you about how you need her to continue on.
Awesome video! I'd love to chat with you about games, I feel like we'd be in conversation all day haha
You making those printouts from the team ICO website sent me back to my childhood in a flash. I remember making those as a kid and thinking they were so cool.
Amazing video!
This game took a troll on my poopoo brain when I was a kid. The world of Fumito drastically changed my prescription towards the way i see the art. Way different than any other games I've played so far. The artistic approach of the scripted fantasy or a Zeno genre hit different. The shuttle hint of loneless of the world and the ambiance was just too much for me. Even now I sometimes get glimpse of it and lefts me dumb founded for hours imaginating the world it created in my mind.
Such a beautiful world, yet none I can share with.
it seems to me like you did share your beautiful world right here
Finally sat down and finished Ico after several years of wanting to play. And oh my god this game was fucking amazing
25:22 Something I want to point out on the note of Yorda being in captivity her entire life is her animations. If you look at the way she climbs ladders, you might notice that she doesn't alternate limbs when she's climbing (as opposed to Ico who climbs ladders normally and a lot faster). It's akin to someone who, obviously, has no real experience in the outside world. The way she climbs kind of reminds me of the way a very young child would
Thank you for this video. I played Ico back in December and ever since then, I too haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It has made me truly find games that tell stories that I actually enjoy. It’s not a novel like some games can be like and it’s not a movie with the important parts of the game being in the cutscene. Ico and Sotc have to be experienced in Video game format, and I love that. Great video man
Came back to this video, and damn this shit hits like it did 2 years ago. I've attempted to play games over the last 2 years, but it feels like a monotonous grind of games that I get mad at that have no story. Then I remembered that team Ico (or I guess GenDesign now), said they were going to release a game... in 2021. I've been in a single player rut since I played Ico back in 2021, playing Counter Strike and random roguelikes to attempt and fill a void of something. I need more games like Ico. Anyone know any games I could try?
This was an absolutely brilliant video. Great analysis of the story which is already so brilliantly subtle. Hats off to you! Just great stuff!
i just wanna tell u that this video has one of the most beautiful thumbnails ive ever seen
thnx! its an official ico wallpaper from i-c-o.net (u have to use the wayback machine to get it these days) i think a bunch of the wallpapers are on the ico fan wiki too
Literally bought a ps2 just to play this game, it is wonderful
Its one PSN now if you had a ps4 but I totally get the og experience and I'm glad you enjoyed!
Never heard about this game, and now I want to play it so badly. Great video! :)
This was a great video. I type up ‘Ico review’ or ‘Ico podcast’ into UA-cam every now and then because I am always up for hearing more of people’s thoughts on it, and I’m glad this was a video among the results. I replay the game on a regular basis and have made a lot of fun small discoveries how the AI works across the different versions.
If you ever feel like you need to discuss more about Ico with others, I’d recommend getting close to the speedrunning community for the game, since it really contains the games most dedicated fans.
glad you liked the vid :) i had a super fun time watchin speedruns of ico actually, so i may just do that thanks!
@@yoppimedia Oh also, I talked with a friend who is a Japanese language teacher, and I asked her about Yorda's final word(s). Together we determined that Yorda says 'sei', but because she speaks in backwards romaji, the syllables are reversed to make 'ise'. ise by itself is a shortened stem of the romaji word, 'iseru', which means to unbind thread like in sewing, but can be used as a poetic way to say “let go”. It's likely that she's saying she's free.
@@Crooked_Mantis mind blown rn... thank you for breaking that down thats amazing! ive never heard thar before!
Thank you so much for making this. Ico is my favorite game of all time and I think it's a genuine masterpiece that people still don't appreciate enough, and the fact that you made a nearly hour long video dissecting it means the world to me :)
glad you liked the vid! its one that i really enjoyed at first, but has risen higher and higher on my list of fave games the more i replayed and thought about it. it got to the point where i just had to do a video and im so glad you appreciated the vid :) people like you make me wanna keep goin with vids!
I still listen to the OST all the time.
Im like 13 years late and so fucking invested in how these games connect and there is no answers anywhere but so many hints i feel like im going crazy
@@NICH.O0O0O0O0 youwerethere.com/
"Nomad Colussus" occasionally covers ICO game content on his youtube channel, you could find out some new stuff.
@@cmf1402 oh trust I've been scowering his blog since I found it lmao
Welcome to the Ueda-verse.
Nomad does indeed have great videos.
Perfect time to get into Ueda considering the new game that was revealed.
wow wow wow! What an incredible video, thank you so much for putting this together, definitely the best analysis I've seen on such a beautiful game :^) and i lovvvvved the bonus, haha!
maybe in that spirit, I'd be so curious to hear what you think about Fallow (if you've played it), especially the space of the game that existed beyond the core experience. I was so blown away by the intertwining of being metatextual on the formal level as a way to expand the themes and story of the game in a fragmented, sometimes gestural way
thanks for the kind words ^_^ i think ive seen fallow once before and it definetely has grabbed my interest now with the way you described it, i gotta add that to my backlog. tactics ogre reborn is consuming all my game playing time at the moment right now though lol
Good video. Feels like other high-viewed videos I've watched.
Watching Stampy’s let’s play of ico as a kid changed the way I thought about games permanently.
I consider ICO, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian the Holy Trinity of gaming
They’re masterpieces I can’t stop thinking about either.
I consider this game the second "philosopher's stone" of gaming, being Out this World/Another world the first (this is the game that inspired Ueda, Kojima and other japanese developers of the narrative posibilities of the medium). Also, the soundtrack of Ico it's just the GOAT. It's the perfect darkly-ambient-drony sound that I love and listen the album constantly. I think the composer form a band for this soundtrack and they make another record? I'm not sure but I need to found out for sure.
I can't stop thinking to how i didn't knew about this channel before
I played this for the first time about 2 and a half years ago and you’re right about not forgetting it. While annoying, it was a really good experience playing this from atmosphere to art style
Now I can't stop wanting to play Ico.
I would love for you to do a video on The Last Guardian. It’s so good. Just as good as Ico and SOTC. I have an extra copy of the game if you do not own it.
Now I'm starting to get into team ico games after playing and loving shadow of the colossus and just now getting into the last guardian im so fucking excited about trying ico now ❤😄
as someone who spent his childhood with playstation 1-2 games ico still has a special place in my heath and is one of the highlight of my bookself.
I still haven’t stopped thinking about it.
I interpreted the horn thing as the end of the curse of child sacrifice from the village as the queen was defeated. I still think about this game after I first played it in 2001. I was so upset at the ending. Could the end of the movie Inception be inspired by this ending?
Well your SotC was great so I'll add a comment here too! If you want an honest answer from my personal take on why Ico has his horns broken, after coming back from The Last Guardian, I can't help but wonder if the horns are supposed to be a stand-in for player control given how the Tricos are literally signaled to be controlled by something called "The Master" through their horns.
More specifically, they seem to be the "handles" of the controller you're holding and you're essentially controlling Ico through his head via them. His horns are notably black at their points, like a dualshock 2 controller at the time. It's quite telling to me that we lose all control of Ico at this point when both his horns are broken, he's finally free from our control.
This could add quite a bit to why Ico's considered "cursed," he's not given any real control over his destiny (even referenced in the song "You Were There" I feel) and he's sorta doomed to recursively "relive" the experience when the player starts the game back up or does a new game+. You could frame this as Ico's mind reliving the game's events and recontextualizing them in New game+, or a more emotional statement about how his mind's been influenced heavily by this abuse even after being removed from the abusive situation, etc. Both of these things can tie together for some pretty sad commentary on the home situation of children in our new millennia and how media is often an escapism but also a tool that can warp perceptions.
I pair this up with Ueda's description that Ico is dreaming in the end, which would make a lot of sense for this read since that'd mean we still unfortunately have influence over this poor kid's head (great commentary) even after all that's happened to him. While he's certainly escaped the actual experience of being controlled, his mind is still focused in on Yorda who I sadly believe is gone.
Given how this is ostensibly still a game, I can't help but wonder if Ueda is saying what effect media has on priming people into preconceived notions on others and reliance on structures that goad you into doing awful things. This is very similar to The Iron Giant, a genuinely great animated piece of art that talks in its story and visuals how sending the wrong signals can cause you to be a weapon for others. I cannot help but wonder if it had an influence on Ueda when he worked on The Last Guardian, another story about a boy interacting with a powerful giant being that is a tool for a horrible system.
Other reads I love include how people are manipulated by systemic issues of power/hierarchy, the cycle of parent-child abuse, the use of classic fable structures (a "witch" literally consumes children to keep herself and her castle afloat), and seeing how all of these reads interlink with each other for an overall pretty great bit of commentary for its time.
There's a lot about this game that can be read metatextually too, like how Yorda cannot survive in the "outside world," which could quite frankly mean she cannot live in our real world, it's impossible. And yet we, as the player, still wish we could save her and show her this freedom. Ico could be reflecting this in his dream by this read, since we the player are still have an influence on his thoughts, he cannot help but think on Yorda even after the game has "ended."
Pair this up with Shadow of the Colossus and notice how the time we begin to take control of Wander is only after Dormin imparts their words of influence on us: Kill the colossi, you'll get this sacrificed girl back to life.
This is all sorta why I get why so many devs and writers love Ico. It works within the medium it is set in and has a lot of scope and depth by nature of its subtractive design to PUSH you into asking questions like "why did they do this, what does this remind me of, what was the mindset of the people making this for this section." This is all so great for a 2001 game because that's basically analyzing games like you would with film, paintings, literature and all sorts of other arts and creations. In context for its time in 2001, I can see why people called this genuinely revolutionary for games as a medium.
Nice video man! I suddenly want to buy a ps2 just to play this game
it was released on ps3 too, but yeah... i wanna buy a ps2 also lol
Hey! Good video i love it! I finished the game 5 days ago, after remembering it recently. I played the demo 13 years ago when i was 5 year old. Even the demo was significant. All my life after that i was like "this demo i've played at 5yo was so special, what is this game?". I think i will never forget this game, it has a big place in my heart.
Do you know where can i find the Ico and Yorda printable model? I can't find them on the i-c-o site :c
thanks for the nice comment! :) ico is so good
heres the paper cutouts, they're buried in a weird parts of the site lol
web.archive.org/web/20050207110927fw_/www.i-c-o.net/main/download/paper04.jpg
web.archive.org/web/20050207110927fw_/www.i-c-o.net/main/download/paper05.jpg
Honestly I might get a lot of hate for this but I like ICO better than shadow of the colossus
i think a lot if fans would agree with that, you keep doin u :)
Based
Just completed ICO and really loved it. Played SotC and couldnt even complete the first boss. The controls is total crap. Im playing on the emulator with a keyboard, which is even worse, but i beated God of War this way and it was kinda ok.
The camera in SotC is total shit. Both free camera and "colossus focus" are bad. The urge to press a button to grab a ledge is even worse. Dedicated buttons to jump and hold a ledge is a nightmare too. Bow controls are crap too. Combine all of these and I just cant play this game, though I was really interested cause I liked ICO so much. Its really sad.
Ico is my fave as well.
@@StepantcSoTC has something called a learning curve. A steep one. You have to be patient and take your time to figure it out. The camera is actually very well made, you just need to learn to utilize it. It will click I promise. Though it being an emulator on a keyboard sounds like a bad gaming experience. I'd try to hook it up to a PS4 remote cause the game isn't a PC game and might explain your struggle.
As someone who is wnit the best gamer, I loved SoTC and the fighting was fun, learning to lead and direct Agro is pivotal. So yeah, before you bash the controls, maybe don't play it on a keyboard. It's just not feasible my dude.
Hi I love your channel and I love this game!
9:40 I did the exact same thing
10:14 And I struggled in the exact same spot
I had this game with the good art somehow when i was a kid, it was too hard for my age. not in my native language, I was 8 or 9 and probably got bored :D
I got this game about three years ago, I got scared of the shadows and I don’t like puzzles so I took a suuuuuuuuper duuuuuuuuuuuuuuper long break, and finally finished it a year ago❤ I’ve finished it about 20 times now😊
Good vid ! LOVE ICO
I can’t stop thinking about later alligator
I'd love to hear your thoughts on Eternal Poison. 😁👍
Thete are not that many things in life I truly regret.
One is that I can never play ICO again for the first time.
Unfortunately one of the ps2 games I never played, and never will since somewhy my family got rid of it. However, ever since I listened to Ico's you were there, I started feeling a nostalgia that doesn’t belong to me, it forced itself onto me, so this day I decided to look up stuff about the game to see if my soul gets rest in relation to the game.
Ok, apparently bro said there's a ps3 version. So I might be able to play(dunno why I never checked if it was released for other platforms.)
Great content!
I actually purchased the cover he didn't like at the beginning.
20:56 But yorda was alive right? Lying at the shore at the end of the game?
its up to interpritation, dont think about it too literally or take my word as fact. make ur own meaning
Something I only noticed recently while watching a video of the ending: while the castle is crumbling, the last thing we see before the ending titles start is a group of idol statues somewhere in the castle activating... O__O
I want to play Ico but I scared it'll be expensive😢
It’s not. Both the ps3 and ps3 remaster are really cheap.
YES!!!
Fantastic game
cheers
Summer Green
Hey, tell me if I'm wrong but did the Queen literally not say that when she wakes up again it will not be her anymore😰
I don't think she was counting on being dead the next time Yorda awoke, so there's a good reason to assume things didn't work out as she anticipated.
@@Mystic_Ode
Her plan wasn't complicated.
She waited until her daughter was mature enough for her body to be useful. Then she would ditch her old withering body and hijack Yorda's.
Thus ensuring immortality for herself.
Who was Yorda's father?
How many times did she do this?
We don't know. But it fits.
@@infidelheretic923 I can't quite tell what you mean by "Her plan wasn't complicated". I don't know if you're agreeing or disagreeing with my statement, but just in case, I'll clarify my point.
I don't believe The Queen could die by just any means and expect to be transferred to Yorda's body. If that were the case she could've performed the transfer at any time after she turned Yorda to stone and placed her in the Altar room. Morbid though it may be to suggest, it is not difficult to die in this castle, if you needed to for the transfer ritual.
It's still possible that she was initially waiting for Yorda to be older or for her body to pass on via natural causes, but under the unique circumstances, I expect she would have made it a priority to switch to a body that can accomplish more than just standing in place with a forcefield. And it looked like she wanted to commit to it soon, because of Yorda’s new position in the Altar roon. A vessel turned to stone would also presumably not age or mature further, so she was ready to go. But if she could perform the transfer right then and there (and all it took was her death to initiate it) she would not have dissuaded Ico from stabbing her, nor put up a fight against him.
There's an element of the spiritual transfer ritual that's either missing or is not yet in place, otherwise The Queen would be committing to it asap.
We can also tell from the actions of Shadow Yorda that she does have her memories. She is pretty distinctly not acting like The Queen, who would've been happy to let Ico be crushed under the rubble of her Castle. So it's a safe bet that dying to the sword did, in fact, foil her plans.
the song is from the boy’s perspective. it’s literally sung by a boy…
oh shit! thnx for lettin me know :]. that changes how i think about things. whered ya find that out?
@@yoppimedia the credits of the official soundtrack, ICO ~Melody in the Mist~. his name is Stephen Geraghty.
@@chunkymilk thnx so much!
personally i think the singers gender doesnt define the entire perspecitve of the voices gender, but i like that you made me think about it
@@yoppimediaAnother thing to think about is that the song is in English in every version, including the Japanese release, and I don’t think they provide subtitles for it. So to most of the Japanese audience, the song at the end was a mystery to them. They’d have to look up translations to understand it. So for some people, the song at the end is as foreign sounding as Yorda, for others, it’s as plain as Ico’s subtitles.
ico is the velvet underground & nico of video games
only music nerds will understand exactly what I'm saying
Yeah, the North America box art isn't as good as the original, but all things considered it's not that bad, really. I have seen much MUCH worse with the 8 and 16 bit localized Japanese video games. MegaMan , Phantasy Star II, Shining Force II anyone???
Cassin Keys
I just wish we had a happy ending:(
There is. Post credit scene
Check the art Ueda drew of adult Ico and Yorda
@@nix98zlcy I want it in the game😢
Crooks Lodge
Corwin Mall
Rae Shoal
98283 Nyah Oval