Ico

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is widely considered one of the most popular and critically-well-received games of all time, but it is undeniably complex. It tells the story of an unspeaking little boy who must solve large environmental puzzles to save a young princess, but it does so in the mold of a traditional monomyth. Along the way, young Link acquires a multitude of useful and bizarre items - arrows, bombs, a boomerang, a magical fairy flute, a hookshot, metal boots, magical alternate outfits, masks, even a teleporting scarecrow - and becomes a master swordsman, all while Koji Kondo's famous soundtrack lends the proceedings a bright, epic feel.


There's no denying the huge debt of inspiration Ocarina is owed by Ico, the first art game from the development team Team ICO and their leader, the auteur Fumito Ueda. Ico similarly tells the tale of a little boy who must solve huge puzzles to save a princess, and the puzzles from either game could fit in just as well in the other. What makes Ico different is that it strips out all the excess and reimagines the narrative through minimalism. Where Ocarina required the use of 11 buttons and an analog stick, you can beat Ico with just an analog stick and 4 buttons. Where Link's enormous inventory made him practically a walking pawnshop, Ico can only carry one thing at a time - for most of the game, a wooden stick. Where Ocarina flooded the screen with a cluttered, icon-heavy HUD, Ico's screen is entirely free of weapon icons or health meters. And where Kondo's score left legions of gamers humming the Lost Woods theme for years, Ico is almost entirely silent.


Ueda uses this minimalism in Ico to two main artistic effects, both relatively absent in most traditional fantasy adventure games, like Ocarina of Time: realism and loneliness. The young protagonist, Ico, is inexperienced and inept, and when he perseveres, it's largely through sheer luck or persistence - this is because his abilities in the game are limited to what an average boy of his age and size could do. He stumbles, drops things, and fights by clumsily hitting things with his stick - even the smallest enemies can easily knock him sprawling with a single blow. Another interesting minimalist touch is that Ico and Princess Yorda speak entirely different languages and so cannot communicate with one another - their relationship, the central focus of Ico, is developed almost entirely through unspoken gestures. Ico guides Yorda by holding her hand, and he catches her and pulls her and helps her up ladders. When the player saves the game, Ico and Yorda fall asleep holding hands on a stone couch. Significantly, this all occurs without any incidental music - all that can be heard is the wind hitting the stone walls of the castle, the charaters' footsteps, the distant sea.

The end effect of this minimalism is a bleak, unremitting loneliness. The castle is gigantic, empty, and largely silent, and the silence builds to an almost tangible negative space, punctuated only by bird calls or Ico's own panting as he climbs. The entire last couple hours of the game have no save points, forcing the player to complete them in one shot - an artistic choice of Ueda's meant to position the terribly sad ending in the context of two-hours of loneliness and near-complete-silence that only lends it more weight. The game's entire script fits on half a page of normal text, but Ueda's silences and simplicity, which he himself called the "Subtraction Method", convey the story far more effectively than words.


Artist: Fumito Ueda, Team ICO
Medium: PlayStation 2 software
Year: 2001

Artist Statement:
"I often import games from abroad and play them. On such occasions, my imagination is sometimes stimulated more as I don't understand the language, I get less of the picture. ICO is a game which intentionally tries to achieve this effect."

Bibliography:
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3144548
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3144673
http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/icosotc/ico.htm
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3122598
http://top100.ign.com/2005/011-020.html