Talking Ico: Part 1 - Some Explanation and History

ICO fans are few in number not because few liked it but because few tried it. But I am glad that those few have continued to talk about it and kept it from fading. Though neglected it will never quite be forgotten. The thought is not satisfying but it is at least encouraging.

People often use words to describe ICO which they would not use for any other games, perhaps even for those games they like better than ICO. Few ICO fans will go so far as to declare it the best game ever made, but nearly all will agree it is a special experience the likes of which they have not seen elsewhere and do not expect to see again for a long while. The word special is to be stressed--not merely unique, not just odd, but special. I do not want to belabor why it is special; if you agree with me you must already know why, and if you don't I doubt I will be able to explain it to you. The following was written for all those (including myself) who enjoyed ICO a great deal but had trouble making sense of it. I wrote it because on the ICO message board at GameFAQs I saw the same questions come up again and again. I often answered them but rarely liked my own replies. The reason was that the questions were always treated out of context. I tried whenever I could to establish a basic context before replying, and this tended to make my posts rather lengthy. And after a few weeks the posts would be automatically purged from the board, forcing me to repeat myself when similar questions were posed later.

I decided therefore to write an annotation of sorts to the story from the beginning to the end. I posted the first part on the aforementioned board on May 15, 2003 and concluded it on August 25. In March of the following year I compiled the posts, with substantial changes made to some places, into a plain text commentary. Both that commentary and the original message thread are still available in the ICO section of GameFAQs. And now, over two years after the first posting, the work is available in this pleasing new version thanks entirely to Clover's effort.

Let me clarify exactly what I am setting out to do. ICO is at once intriguing and confusing because it insists on holding silence on its own narrative. It shows and suggests enough to convince us that something big is going on but will not tell us what it is. So I propose an exercise: I am going to take a walk through the story and point out noteworthy elements that may help us make sense of what is happening. I will not be a neutral observer; I will advance my thoughts on what I observe. I of course realize that what is sense to me may well be nonsense to you. I make no pretense at authority; you are welcome to disagree with me if you find my reasoning flawed or groundless. Nor do I believe for one moment ICO cannot be enjoyed without some sort of post-mortem examination. If you think an exercise of this sort will only spoil its charm, you should dismiss it.

Allow me also to stipulate what this exercise is not. It is not meant to explain what makes ICO such a fabulous game. I do believe it is wonderful entertainment, but my knowledge about games, electronic or otherwise, is very shallow and I would not consider it my business to debate what makes a game better than another. I will leave that question to real aficionados. My attention is on the story, not the gameplay. Nor am I trying to show why ICO is a great story. Again I do find the story charming, but I assume you and I are agreed on that point and need not argue over it. I am not here interested in how good a story it is. I am only interested in determining what the story is.

As I said these posts were written over three months' time. I have revised them for compilation, but I have left the journal-like expressions ("Last time I said...," "Today I should like us to look at...") unchanged. Each segment will be marked with the date on which it was first posted.

One last thing: when I refer to the game title I will spell it as ICO in capital letters. Ico, on the other hand, refers to the story's hero.

If you wish afterwards to discuss any part of this exercise, feel free to e-mail me at egmont76@hotmail.com.

PeterEliot