Inspired by the latest posts in this thread, and recalling the enjoyable read provided by the “Jaws or Star Wars?” poll, I’m wondering how people would weigh in on this issue. The question isn’t necessarily which game is better, but which game do you personally prefer? And, if you’re so inclined to explain, why?
-Tom
My vote goes to SoTC. Ico was a great game, but SoTC was the game that had the greatest emotional impact on me from the entire PS2 collection.
It was also a technical marvel, even by today’s standards. I can’t name a single current gen game with as advanced an animation system for horse locomotion as the one used to animate Arro (ok, I know it’s Agro but that’s what I like to call him).
The animation system was a crazy cocktail of Inverse Kinematics, A.I and pre-authored animation loops dynamically loaded based on the environment. I was crestfallen when I first played Assassin’s Creed. The horses just so mechanical, they move like merry go round rides…
SoTC for me. The juxtaposition of the thrill of figuring out how to latch onto and climb the colossi and the sadness of taking them down – they were each unique and so interesting – creates one of the greatest experiences in gaming, in my opinion. That said, I love Ico, too. It’s a haunting and beautiful game in its own right. There are few other games out there that pack the emotional punch of those two.
Ico for the asymmetric co-op, I’ve played the game this way twice - once with my wife, and once with my young son. There aren’t many games where two players of different ability (or who want a different level of challenge) can play together like that, and that we could do it with a game as wonderful as Ico is a real pleasure.
I was literally just playing Assass Creed 3 and thinking how sick I was of bumping into everything and then having to wait for Connor to drop whatever stupid unnatural pose he’s badly transitioned into. I’m struggling to like that game.
I think I prefer Ico. You can’t beat the relationship (or perhaps attachment is a better word) that you develop looking after the princess or whatever she is. Plus Ico is just a poor little kid, he struggles and often feels overwhelmed (beautifully but not frustratingly reflected in his animations) so when you get through the game you feel like you’ve achieved something. I loved the shadow monsters too, really perfect adversaries because they are the sort of things kids like Ico would have nightmares about.
That’s not to say SotC doesn’t do something similar just as well but I didn’t care for the characters as much, the main character was more self-assured (raising the dead!) and the “princess” was just a body on a slab. I liked the horse and the colossi but it’s hard to the same attachment to them when I’m driving a sword into their brain (I know that’s the point though).
I looked at the character’s journey in the game as that of desperation and despair rather than that of a self assured adventurer.
(he has no idea if any of this actually can work but he’s trying anyway)
Ico for me. From the moment I played the demo I was in love with that game. It’s amazing how much the game evokes with its wonderful animations and tactile feedback and natural puzzles and beautiful grand architecture. When I first held the girl’s hand in that game, and tried to run, leading her forward, and saw her not keep up with me, and I actually felt her arm as it tugged back (with accompanying controller vibration), it just felt so real in comparison to anything else I’d seen in games. That game evoked a sense of Chivalry in me that I didn’t even know was there. I felt so protective.
The monsters made of ink who I had to beat off with a stick really were perfect monsters for a kid to be fighting. I was just so enamored with these two characters, I played it straight through in one weekend. It was the first time I’d felt this kind of innocent love between characters in a game. And not as told through a movie or a book, but through actual tugs and yells and swings of a stick that I did on a controller. It’s a beautiful thing, and a perfect expression of a how a game can express emotions differently than other media.
SotC was cool to look at, and I did love some of the monster designs. But I spent a lot of time just traversing an empty environment, and I didn’t enjoy that part. Plus I was really annoyed by some of the boss fights, like the underground Worm type, where I would figure out what I had to do, but to actually do it was a pain in the ass. The relationship between the main character and the dead girl evoked no emotions in me whatsoever. I can appreciate what others saw in it when they explain it to me, but I just never connected emotionally with the game like I did with Ico.
Ico, for me, was more than the sum of its parts. All the game mechanics added up to something greater. Whereas, SotC was just game mechanics and boss fights for me that I played through in order to move forward.
ICO:
The tug of her hand.
Conversations in two languages.
Exploring without her, and missing her; hoping she’s okay.
Seeing from afar part of the castle you’ve already been through–or that you know you’ll be through in the future.
Every satisfying puzzle that ended with her holding my hand again.
The moment on the bridge.
No numbers, no statistics–only one thing matters: is she safe?
Realizing where all the black cloud monsters came from.
The battle in the queen’s throne room.
Three full minutes wandering the beach wondering what happened.
SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS:
Travelling with Agro, following a beam of light.
Wondering why I should trust that voice.
Running up that giant sword-hand.
Riding on top of the bird.
Marveling over the flying thing in the desert.
Worrying about Agro in battle, even though I knew I didn’t have to.
Discovering the secret of the lizards.
The sadness felt, eventually, each time a colossus fell.
Long, calming rides across a beautifully empty landscape, punctuated by the most intense battles.
Shadow of the Colossus.
As I posted in the other thread, it’s basically down to the combat. Ico has minion fights. Repetitive, shallow, and far too prolonged and frequent. Just whacking shadows with a stick until they go away. (I gather you eventually get a sword, and I presume there’s eventually a boss fight, though I might be mistaken about that, but frankly, I’ve never finished it because of how bored and annoyed I was by those shadow fights.) Shadow of the Colossus, by contrast, is pretty much the polar opposite. Instead of sloggy, frequent fights against meaningless and inconsequential foes, distracting you from the game’s core competency in puzzles and exploration, you get 16 amazing, unique setpiece encounters that are what the game’s very clearly about and best at. Both games share amazing aesthetics, worldbuilding and so on, but Ico feels to me like a textbook example of how not to handle combat, and Shadow is some of the best I’ve ever played.
I think that’s totally valid and highlights the best part of these games; their ability to tell a compelling but still somewhat opaque story that’s open to interpretation and input from the player’s imagination.
I suppose “driven” may be a better term than assured for SotC main character.
Ico’s situation seemed to be forced upon him and in that way the player (or at least this player) feels more of an affinity with him. We didn’t come to the castle of our own free will and just like Ico we maybe don’t care all that much about the girl, either way we have to help her if we want to complete the game. In SotC we have to kill the colossi regardless of how we feel about them and all we know about why we’re killing them is that the character (not this player) is in love with a dead girl, so there’s a bit more of a line drawn between the player and the character. I did want to kill all the colossi to see what would happe,n but not as fervently as I wanted to help Ico escape that castle.
Again not to say SotC doesn’t work extremely well, I just felt a tiny bit more engaged with Ico. I definitely wasn’t pleased when horsey went bye-bye.
EDIT: Rockman nailed it before I had the chance! malkav11 hates everything I love about Ico’s combat, it’s sluggish because you’re a little kid! Little kids can’t fight monsters easily! I have to say I never struggled so badly with those fights I had to quit, maybe you should give it another go though because honestly I’ve never had as strong an emotional response to a videogame as I did completing Ico.
Looks like I’ll be putting in Shadow of the Colossus today. ;)
Oh, man, this is a tough choice. I’m going to have to go with SotC, though. Mostly, my choice comes down to the fact that Ico could have done a better job at informing the player when it is/isn’t safe to leave Yorda behind. Some of the puzzles/rooms require you to leave her far behind, while in other places you have to always be ready to defend her. SotC didn’t send this kind of mixed message, as far as I recall.
To me, the genius of both of these games is their minimalism. Everything seems to be there for a purpose; with nothing wasted. Bare bones combat, spartan landscapes, and minimal dialog, but they both come together to make an emotionally engaging story in places that seem to be brimming with history.
You… you people are going to make me play these through again, aren’t you. Ok, FINE, you’ve twisted my arm.
Wow I suck. I could barely get up past the ankle of the first colossus. Need more practice.
I suck, I haven’t played either of these classics!
I didn’t struggle with them. They weren’t really challenging in any way. It’s just that they were so boring and annoying and frequent I didn’t want to play the game anymore. (Kind of like how I’ve never finished FFVI because I just couldn’t take having another filler random encounter every three steps anymore.)
Sorry I misread the post, didn’t mean to have a go or anything.
Ico, for the incredible sense of place, and the emotional bond I formed with Yorda. I played it over the course of two days while I was cooped up in bed recovering from surgery, and it was one of the finest gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
I never could get into SotC - I didn’t want to kill the colossi, and the core gameplay (climb the colossi, fall off, repeat) just didn’t do it for me. I tried again on my PS3, with the 3d/HD improvements, and it just never grabbed me.
Oh, gosh, this one is tricky.
Mechanically, it’s easy - SOTC. I much prefer its high-octane gameplay to Ico’s more deliberate puzzle-solving. But game mechanics only scratch the surface of what made Ico & SOTC so memorable. Both games tell a story in very few words. Both are meditations on friendship and loyalty and love; but they approach the subject from opposite angles. Ico is about the positive aspects of those emotions, and its DNA is everywhere from PoP to Journey to Bioshock: Infinite. SOTC is about the evil that can result when one takes loyalty and love too far.
In the end, I’d have to say I love them both, perhaps with a slight edge to SOTC, and both are amongst my all-time favourite games.
I just happen to be borrowing the HD collection from a friend right now. I own them both on PS2, but don’t have that console anymore. They were gorgeous for their time(s) (and hell, Ico was on a CD, not even a large enough file to warrant a DVD) and really stood out for their minimalism. The HD release is necessary, however, as they look like ass on a modern tv in their original forms.
I have to say that SotC never really resonated with me and I preferred almost everything about Ico from the combat to the puzzles, and the interesting, mysterious world.