ICO – Review Blurb

PS2 – 2001

Quick Summary
You [ICO] are a young boy with horns who seems about the age where he is on the brink of going into puberty. You are carried across multiple landscapes to a castle in the middle of a body of water where you are locked up in a sarcophagus. Children with horns are thought to be a bad omen and the villagers sacrifice those children in fear. Although naturally the tale doesn’t end here, the ground shakes as the villagers leave and ICO rocks the sarcophagus until it falls over and breaks.

As ICO is escaping he comes across an ethereal looking girl [named Yorda] locked in a cage. Do you leave her? Of course not! You free her, she seems to be a very nice but completely ignorant girl that acts more like a baby chick. As you attempt to escape it’s revealed that Yorda is the daughter of the Queen of the castle and that neither will be allowed to leave. After which point you spend the rest of the game solving puzzles in order to escape while being pursued by hordes of dark shadowey foes that attempt to grab Yorda and it’s your duty to rescue her each time. You lose the game if you don’t save Yorda from the shadow creatures in time.