History VideoGame / Ico

* EscortGame: The entire game is one big escort mission. The developers put in a massive amount of effort to avoid the more annoying elements of the trope and play to its strengths. Yorda doesn't do anything infuriatingly stupid, she unlocks doors (with the added bonus blowing up any nearby monsters real good in the process), and her relationship with Ico is so endearing that you WANT to protect her (see the VideoGameCaringPotential examples below). There are also some frustrating aspects: she's defenseless, can't access the same areas Ico can and moves slowly, the result being that a not-insignificant part of the game is running back to areas already covered to make her come with you, or patiently waiting at the top of a ladder for her to ascend.

* BookEnds: The first scene of the game is a pan of the castle in which the game takes place [[SceneryPorn in all its glory]]. Ico is taken ''into'' said castle on a small canoe; several doors are opened with the help of a magic lightning sword. The player takes control of Ico in the prison room, and after a short amount of platforming, meets Yorda. Shortly after, they cross a bridge hand-in-hand, which gets divided as they cross, and the only reason they don't get split up is because Ico keeps ahold of Yorda's hand. [[spoiler:After opening the main gates, they cross a bridge hand-in hand, which gets divided as they cross, and Ico almost misses the jump until Yorda takes his hand. He gets separated from Yorda, and after a short amount of platforming, ends up in the prison room due to opening several doors with the help of a magic lightning sword. Ico is sent out of the castle on a small canoe, and the last scene of the game (bar [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming the post-credits scene]]) is a pan of the castle in which the game takes place [[SceneryGorn as it falls apart]].]]

* DamselInDistress: Yorda is one of the purest examples of this trope in the medium: utterly defenceless and requiring Ico to protect her at every turn. [[spoiler: Then rescue her from her the Queen.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The bonus ''Shining Sword'' weapon (previously only available in the Japanese/PAL release) is most useful by holding Yorda's hand, causing the ''[[AccidentalInnuendo blade to grow]]''.
* DoorToBefore: This trope is emplyed extensively. The game starts out deep within a castle's catacombs, then works its way into an EscortMission that takes [[KidHero Ico]] and [[FallenPrincess Yorda]] through a game-long flight across a full-scale island fortress. They navigate [[BrokenBridge inconveniently gaping chasms]], [[DeathTrap death-rigged rooms]], [[BlockPuzzle puzzle-based chambers]] and basically tour the whole building - ramparts, gardens, cemeteries - to [[LockedDoor unlock the one escape door]]. When you finally open the doors, [[spoiler: [[SavethePrincess she gets kidnapped]]]], so you have to climb your way back to where you started out at the catacombs for [[FinalBoss one last fight]].

* LanguageBarrier: Ico and Yorda speak different languages, and cannot understand each other. The Queen can speak both languages, but doesn't ever act as a translator. To keep the player in the dark as well, Ico's language is subtitled, but Yorda's is written in strange hieroglyphs (except for NewGamePlus, see below).

* MinimalistCast: Ico, Yorda and the Queen are the only characters with names, and nobody else is on screen for longer than the first cutscene.

* UpdatedRerelease: Released as ''The Ico & VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus Collection'', features widescreen HD graphics and a few other goodies. More importantly for North American players, the rerelease has all of the features from the PAL version, finally averting BadExportForYou.

* EscortMission: The entire game is one big escort mission. The developers put in a massive amount of effort to avoid the more annoying elements of the trope and play to its strengths. Yorda doesn't do anything infuriatingly stupid, she unlocks doors (with the added bonus blowing up any nearby monsters real good in the process), and her relationship with Ico is so endearing that you WANT to protect her (see the VideoGameCaringPotential examples below). There are also some frustrating aspects: she's defenseless, can't access the same areas Ico can and moves slowly, the result being that a not-insignificant part of the game is running back to areas already covered to make her come with you, or patiently waiting at the top of a ladder for her to ascend.

* SleepCute: It's how you save[[labelnote:*]]Well, technically, it's how you load.[[/labelnote]]. ''Awwwwww.''

* SmashingWatermelons: In the PAL version of ''VideoGame/{{Ico}}'', [[NewGamePlus in your second play-through]], there are watermelons growing at the edge of the beach at the very end. Ico can smash them by throwing them. And if he's carrying one of them [[spoiler:when he walks over to Yorda to trigger the final cut scene, then the shot of her waking up is followed by a shot of Ico and Yorda, sitting on the beach together, eating watermelon.]]

* HoldingHands: Ico leads Yorda by the hand through the castle.

** [[spoiler:Near the end of the game, when the pair are separated by the retracting bridge, Yorda does this to Ico when he tries to jump back over to her. Unfortunately, her mother's arrival forces her to let go]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The bonus ''Shining Swod'' weapon (previously only available in the Japanese/PAL release) is most useful by holding Yorda's hand, causing the ''[[AccidentalInnuendo blade to grow]]''.

** The player will spend a long time simply waiting for Yorda to catch up to Ico. In particularly, the amount of time she spends climbing ladders beggars belief. For this reason, the final chapter of the game in which the two are separated feels fast-paced by comparison.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: The soldiers all but admit they view Ico's sacriface as, at best, a grim necessity, as they clearly don't hold any particular grudge against Ico and one of them even asks him not to be angry with them for doing what they believed needed to be done.

* NewGamePlus: Except for the original NTSC (US) version, after completing the game you can enable translated subtitles for Yorda's speech, and have a second player control Yorda directly.

''ICO'' is a 2001 ActionAdventure {{PS2}} game designed and directed by Fumito Ueda, who wanted to create a minimalist game around a [[BoyMeetsGirl "boy meets girl"]] concept. It is the first game in the VideoGame/TeamIcoSeries.

* SequenceBreaking: A jumping glitch in the PS2 PAL version can be used to skip roughly 50% of the game. See SpeedRun below.

* SpeedRun: The PS3 UpdatedRerelease has a trophy for finishing the game in less than 4 hours. And one to finish it in less than ''[[UpToEleven two hours]]''

* TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything: When you are running, the controller will begin to vibrate a little to indicate a racing heartbeat.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The bonus ''lightsaber'' weapon (previously only available in the Japanese/PAL release) only works by holding Yorda's hand, causing the [[AccidentalInnuendo ''blade to grow'']].

* InfinityPlusOneSword: Lightsaber [[BadExportForYou (but not in the North America release!)]]

%%* PantyShot: In [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64UreO2z5xI this video]].

* TakenForGranite: If Ico fails to save Yorda from a shadow vortex in time, a wave of the Queen's magic flashes out from it, [[GameOver petrifying Ico]]. [[spoiler:Later, the Queen petrifies Yorda after recapturing her at the bridge.]]

* UseYourHead: If Ico's unarmed, he'll headbutt the shadow monsters.

* SleepCute: It's how you save. ''Awwwwww.''

* ControllableHelplessness: A variation, considering that [[spoiler:until a second playthrough when another player can control her]], Yorda is effectively controlled by the player as Ico leading her by the hand, but when [[spoiler:the two have reactivated the main gate and Yorda has used a HUGE amount of her power opening it, the player will notice that her hair has lost its color and is completely white. When you take her hand and resume leading her around, every few meters she'll collapse with exhaustion. There's nothing you can do to help her but keep trying to lead her forward until the cutscene triggers -- which makes it even worse.]]

* MinimalistCast: Ico, Yorda and the Queen are the only main characters.

* {{Backtracking}}: A variant in the level "Symmetry (pt. 2)". It's technically a new area, but is in fact just the previous level "Symmetry (pt. 1)" [[CutAndPasteEnvironments flipped symmetrically]], and requires the player to complete essentially the exact same series of puzzles from that level all over again.

The [[CharacterTitle titular Ico]] is a [[KidHero young boy]] born with horns on his head, which his village considers a bad omen. Warriors [[BurnTheWitch lock Ico away]] in a [[BuriedAlive sealed coffin]] within an [[HauntedCastle abandoned castle]]. He escapes by chance, and while exploring his prison, Ico encounters [[FallenPrincess Yorda]], a mysterious young [[EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses princess]] who speaks a strange language.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Ico was designed to look and sound Korean, which is strange, considering most of the setting appears [[MedievalEuropeanFantasy nonspecifically European]]. This may be meant to emphasize the fact he's an [[NoKoreansInJapan outcast]].

* BenevolentArchitecture / MalevolentArchitecture: The [[PrinceOfPersia Sands of Time trilogy]] took inspiration from the BenevolentArchitecture aspect, and it shows. But on the other hand, one can wonder why such a ridiculously complex and difficult to access mechanism is needed to open a door (a huge one, but still)…

* CuteGhostGirl: Yorda is about as close to a ghost as you can get without actually being one.

** Some fun can be had with the PAL version regarding this trope. There's a puzzle where Ico needs to jump up to a very high ledge and, well, the jump is pretty sweet.

* LivingShadow: These seek to capture Yorda.

* ThePowerOfBlood: In the climax, [[spoiler:Ico's horns are snapped off, and he bleeds pretty well from the wounds]]. It comes like a punch to the gut after a game full of nothing but intangible shadow people.

* EscortMission: The entire game is one big escort mission. The developers put in a massive amount of effort to avoid the more annoying elements of the trope and play to its strengths. Yorda doesn't do anything infuriatingly stupid, she unlocks doors (with the added bonus blowing up any nearby monsters real good in the process), and her relationship with Ico is so endearing that you WANT to protect her (see the VideoGameCaringPotential examples below). There are also some frustrating asepcts: she's defenseless, can't access the same areas Ico can and moves slowly, the result being that a not-insignificant part of the game is running back to areas already covered to make her come with you, or patiently waiting at the top of a ladder for her to ascend.

* UpdatedRerelease: Released as ''The Ico & ShadowOfTheColossus Collection'', features widescreen HD graphics and a few other goodies. More importantly for North American players, the rerelease has all of the features from the PAL version, finally averting BadExportForYou.

* VideogameCaringPotential: You WILL worry about what is happening to Yorda every time she is out of sight.

* {{Determinator}}: Ico will do absolutely anything to escape from the castle ''with'' Yorda in tow, including jumping over a gigantic chasm as the front bridge quickly retracts.

* EscortMission: The entire game is one big escort mission. The developers put in a massive amount of effort to avoid the more annoying elements of the trope and play to its strengths. Yorda doesn't do anything infuriatingly stupid, she unlocks doors (with the added bonus blowing up any nearby monsters real good in the process), and her relationship with Ico is so endearing that you WANT to protect her (see the VideogameCaringPotential examples below). There are also some frustrating asepcts: she's defenceless, can't access the same areas Ico can and moves slowly, the result being that a not-insignificant part of the game is running back to areas already covered to make her come with you, or patiently waiting at the top of a ladder for her to ascend.

* ChristmasRushed: Arguably the reason why the NTSC version is stripped down compared to the PAL and Japanese versions of the game. This was corrected in the re-release.

* TinyGuyHugeGirl: Ico id much smaller than Yorda.

* DamselInDistress: Yorda is one of the purest examples of this trope in the medium: utterly defenceless and requiring Ico to protect her at every turn.

%%* NowLetMeCarryYou: See CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming above.