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This isn't "overthinking". Stop self-depreciating, and depreciating the practice of thinking about games and their meaning. Mechanics are the language of games, and do encode meaning. The question is, what kind, when, and where. I never finished ICO, but I love Fumito Ueda, which is why I am here, and I'm sure I'll love this video, too. 9:58-10:50 don't make me repeat myself. 13:48 I think this interpretation is true, but I abhor the word choice. It is too formal, exact, scientific, and yes, even super-heroey. It's like saying that Silent Hill isn't similar to this-and-that; it doesn't feel, look or taste like so; doesn't seem to be anything, it just *IS* this. Makes it horrifically less interesting. Drop this business, or better yet, invite the reader to wonder with you. 14:19 this again. Extrasensory feats. This is NOT not the Mutants & Masterminds rulebook. 15:23 conjecture without evidence, my sire, does not therefore, significate that an absence of evidence, is itself true. First of all, I frequently watch 10 mins or more, and abhor short-form-video. I think this video could, and should have been shorter, considering its subject, and what was shown about it. Around 10 or 13 minutes. Maybe it "couldn't" have, but regardless, it felt too long to me. Some of the best Ueda videos I have ever seen were around this length, from Nomad Colossus to Siegarettes. It could even be shorter, and be amazing, like Zulie the Witch's. I personally just find around 10 perfect. You credited your songs, which is good, and the text-only format is very nice.

even if ICO seems invincible.. the more damage he faces, the more "shadow like" he becomes. after certain amount of damage / if Yorda is taken, a similar darkness wave like the queen's 1 hit attack, happens instantly, and it's an instant game over.

to answer all these questions... just play shadow of the colossus .. ALL HORN BORN children share the Dark Colossus's gift.. they are thought to be cursed..

Something I found that may have an intended design is that ICO's head comes out of the portal (hexagon) while Wander's comes out from the Devil Horn figure. It's almost like ICO was the kid that came from the other realm, whereas wander was the demon surging out. I feel they are most likely profecies of some sort that embue it with light magic.

Yorda has so much depth to her, I can't help but treat her like a real person. Feeling my heart ache seeing her jump down or climb, sometimes walking slowly so i don't have to yank her around, and just stand there holding hands to make sure she was okay. And after we got separated in that part, I actually was missing her, how she would whimper if she saw me hanging from a ledge. This game does such a good job to make the player feel connected to her emotionally.

I'm on my first play but I never realised she actually follows you in high places or that she runs to you when she sees Ico get hurt. Despite not understanding her language, so much emotion is conveyed subtly through her actions. I wish more games did this to make their characters actually feel real.

"He's a good kid but he won't stop screaming" - Yorda probably

Never heard of this game but that is cool

What an amazing video! What a game. Just listening to the ambient sound design as you presented your case sends my mind right back to that beautiful castle. I will never forget this world. I think an area you didn't touch on in this is the shadow versions of the previously sacrificed horned children. Can I just check, was Ico the last soul needed to complete the ritual? All the other tomb chambers were full weren't they? At least they all glow when you defeat them all (apart from your fallen one) With this in mind, I feel like after his fall at the start, the subsequent dream of Yorda might not just be from his horns, but from the ritual starting and almost completing. I think that from that point he is connected to Yorda, The Queen, the shadow creatures and also the items of light such as the sword and the resting sofas. Don't the tribes people use a magic sword to open the castle in the beginning? Ico doesn't have any connection to that item as it's before he's been linked to the shadow/light world of existence. If he had died in his chamber then The Queen would've completed the transfer right then, but I guess they expected him to starve for a few days on his prison box and not suffer a quick death. The shadow creatures often ignore Ico and focus soley on Yorda (the horned shadow children basically flee from the player) but I wonder if all of them also share a bond with Yorda, I wonder if they also see her dreams, feel when she is scared and know where she is at all times, just like Ico. The Queen is so indifferent to Ico and only gets irritated by him as his persistence continues. You get the feeling that collecting all those horned children took centuries of waiting and that she is prepared to wait for another once he meets his death. I know that the R1 button is mechanically streamlined to help the player progress, but it's really interesting to think about in terms of world lore. Obviously shadow of the colossus shares this trait. In fact doesn't it have 2 buttons dedicated to this feature? Doesn't one of the buttons look at the colossus and the other look at weak spots? (I could be remembering that incorrectly) but with his magic sword in in his hand, Wanda can sense where his opponent is (as long as he's found them) and also the path to defeating them. I feel like in sotc the horse button is slightly different and knows to call and look for Agro because of their bond, not so much because of light and dark magic. I'm sure the backstory for sotc is that Wanda is from a horse-folk tribe, which is why he's an excellent rider, but less trained in sword combat. One more question before I stop my essay. The Queen turns people to stone and the castle is empty of people, but it also doesn't have stone people around either. Is it implied that she killed everyone in the castle and turned them into the bulk of the shadow creatures? Were they inhabitants of the castle before she arrived? or were they invaders that failed to defeat her? In fact, the inner parts of the castle seem soley designed for the ritual, so has she always been there? or did she make people build those parts of the castle as she started planning a swap to a vessel? Actually one more question. If the queen is Yorda's mother, who is Yorda's father?

It seems pretty consistent that it’s the developer pointing you towards your goal. You can’t progress without Yorda or the sword. The one caveat is that it doesn’t point you towards Yorda in the beginning, but it seems like the first section is supposed to feel disorienting

Yorda is a fellow pigeon runner

When you make a very story driven game, expect some story meaning to be sacrificed to make the game easier to beat. Like, Yorda could have helped Ico a lot more to solve he puzzles, but.......... Ai programming is hard. And was harder in 1999-2000.

7:28 I NEVER KNEW ABOUT THIS ONE! 😃 8:00 Owwww man, now you're just spoiling me with how cute she is! 😭 Man, the lenghts Fumito Ueda and Team Ico went to program something as simple as "fear" into Yorda... 🥲 I like it when devs go this extra mile to make their game characters feel like they're alive, not just your bot companions. *Also, you're a meanie for pushing poor Yorda into the water.* I aldo noticed Yorda loving to climb boxes, even more than seeing birds. My guess was, she felt safe! If the Shadoww apoeared to attack her, she would be at the hardest for them to reach her on top of a box. 15:22 _Awwwwn, I never noticed that!_ 🥲 Now THIS is how you give life to your characters! Small "insignificant" things like this. Admiring a waterfall in awe. It goes so far to make them feel alive!

Gorgeous, the Yorda card makes me think of her overcoming her fear of water by putting it in pots to experience it without going near the main body of water. It also makes me think that her mother taught her to be afraid of water since Yorda being able to swim to a boat or another island isn't in the Queen's best interests.

I've... just found this video out of nowhere. _Why haven't I found this channel before?_ 😢 I already knew Nomad Colossus as the guy who delved deeply into Shadow of the Colossus, whether it is in the lore, the theories or just the technical explorations. But I never expected someone to be making content of the same quality for a game as precious, but as forgotten as Ico! 🥲 You've earned yourself a new subscriber and I look forward to watching your other videos on this VERY magical game from my adolescense! By the way, I agree with the theory of there being a narrative dunction for the R1 camera. Whether it is an ESP ability or if it's something more romantic like Ico's bond with Yorda, that we cannot say for sure, but I do believe there's a reason why it is specifically deactivated only at the beginning, then _very specifically_ has a "Target" during the rest of the story. My interpretation? I do believe the R1 camera has a "sixth sense" element, though I also believe there's an element of "focus" to it. Namely: what is Ico's mind focused on right now? That is why I believe his "sixth sense" focus solely on Yorda throughout the entire game, the only positive thing he's met ever since arriving on the Castle, and then it focuses on the Sword during the battle with the Queen, *the one thing keeping him alive and able to fight back against her spells!*

Top five game of all time. Beautifully elegent design.

When you mentioned their dream, I remembered that interview about ICO's ending where Ueda says something about it all being a wishful dream of Ico finding Yorda at the beach. I don't know if it could contribute somehow to your view of Ico having some extraordinary perception. Maybe it's premonitory, he dreams of finding her at that spot and that's why we can press R1 to know where Yorda would be, based on what he dreamed (?).

Thank you for acknowledging ICO. Such a beautiful game

Wow this video is actually awesome, Never thought I'd genuinely be moved by the 'R1' button on the PS! controller

great video!

Alternative title, 17 minutes of ICO screaming hahaha good video

i've always liked ico's combat since it still respects the fundamentals of spacing and position. i think the mash to recovery technique does look insane in a modern context but it's pretty intuitive imo, in fact i've been doing this for all my playthroughs without even realizing. i didn't know about blocking though, thank you.

baseless speculation but since it sounds way more like combat music, i wonder if team ico had a different idea for what the last shadow encounter would be, maybe it used to be a standard boss fight.

Its a cool theory. One thing it misses is the formation of the bonding Ico-Yorda: The touching hands. Only exception would be the introductory scene, but after that point forward Ico guides Yorda by grabing her hand. And just before the last part of the game the bond seems to "break" as Ico falls to the ocean. However, if the bond didnt break but rather became stronger one might understand why the camera follows Yorda even after the fall and in the boss room. While Ico guided her through the castle she guides him in the final battle. It might seem the Queen had taken Yorda's life force, however the bond she shares with Ico remains, thats how her stone body guides him to the room and why the camera follows the sword. The sword is held with the hand that Ico was hanging on before the fall, hence Yorda, wherever she is might be guiding Ico towards the sword by the same mechanic he guided her the entire time, by the hand. In essence: Holding hands is the key to the formation of the bond between Ico and Yorda, so by the same mechanism Yorda guides Ico in the boss room by their last point of contact they had: the hand that Ico holds his sword with. So then the camera follows the bond they made rather than any other kind of trace

I do wish for a narrative explanation and I would be happy with it if it weren’t for one wrinkle, you might be better suited to answer the following question. Does R1 behavior “Always” point to “objective”? I get that R1 points to the girl and that it even tracks beyond map loads, but to me, that falls under the “make player not lose yorda”, as for the behavior of R1 during times or places where there is no in-game explanation for the boy to know Yorda’s location, it seems to me a developers check mark for a map (R1 points players to objective direction) I think R1 temporarily pointing to the sword is less to do with an in-narrative explanation of the boys powers and more of a (yorda is no longer objective, make R1 point to objective in this map) perhaps the answer can be found by exploring any other behaviors of R1, but the limitation of 3 states (nothing, camera to Yorda, camera to sword) suggests a highly controlled feature meant to guide the player and less of a narrative tool. I’ll need to see R1 exhibit “extra” behaviors before I believe its use has narrative ramifications.

Looking at how, in Shadow of the Colossus, the main character (who is the same as in Ico, I know) has a way of tracking the colossus that makes sense in universe, the sword... idk, it could be, not saying it is, just that it could

16:45 Instead of looking at the sigils on the colossi as tools intended to destroy them, I see them as sigils of life that animate them. They're imbued with magic through the sigils, and when the lines of the sigils are severed, that magic weakens. I see Wander using light to find them more as abusing a property of the sigils (amplification/absorption of light) to find them, rather than the sigils themselves being magical tools created to guide someone to them. A conclusion is eluding me, but it seems extremely important that the sigils which absorb and emanate light from around them, release void/shadow when destroyed. Almost like being encased in light magic, allows the shadow beings contained within to interface and animate larger physical/material bodies. Or, if they were sealed away inside the colossi as is implied, it's like a form of prison within a consciousness. If you're a nonphysical entity, you'd need a nonphysical prison, the consciousness/will of another being entirely surrounding you. 17:26 It's interesting the detail that adults wear the sigil in full facing both sides, whereas children wear it through the middle. You could almost imagine that Wander's cloak was passed down through the descendants of horned children, eventually being partly damaged and cut in half to be used as the base for Ico's cloak. Especially when comparing the designs like this, Wander's appears identical to Ico's; every little bump is the same.

Took me long enough! It's very odd to see the combination of a castle similar to the one we see in the game, and robots and fluorescent lighting. Thank you for all your recent uploads, I will get to watching them soon enough I hope. Stay safe and happy new year! 🙏🙏

Cool theory, I never thought to look more closely at this camera mechanic in particular. One counterpoint I would have for why the camera finds the sword during the final boss is that the sword makes a noise when it lands after being flung out of Ico's hands; him knowing where it is could easily be explained by him hearing where it lands, I think. Granted, that doesn't explain why he still calls out when you press the button. I'm inclined to believe that the calling out is just a result of how the mechanic is implemented, but I appreciate your interpretation regardless

I want to believe

What if Yorda is the one responsible for the camera? Like she guides Ico, even when turned into stone, her magic somehow still shows him the way? I don't think that Ico himself has power over magic. His unnatural endurance is connected to him being a horned being. But I see his horns as mutation of the body not magical power. He represents more traditionaly masculine archetype of physicaly strong character and Yorda is more traditionaly feminine archetype of physicaly weaker character with mystical, mysterious powers of the supernatural origin. Other even dumber theory I came up with is that we don't play as Ico directly. Rather we as player are kinda like guiding hand of fate or destiny that pushes Ico into the right direction. Man that sounds dumb. In my defence I have a slight fever and Im writing this at 4 a.m XD.

Man there is a parallel universe in which ICO came out on PS1. It would be most technicaly impressive PS1 game (and would probably run like ass judging by SotC and TLG performance haha). There are some in game clips of this version of the game and they are kinda mindblowing. What is interesting about that pilot movie is that the designs for clothing and enviroment look considerably more modern. In my head SotC and by extention ICO were always post apocalyptic games. Like thousands of years after the apocalypse with society devolving into tribal people who consider the technology to be magic. I wonder if this was what Ueda had in mind at the beginning. Im probably 100% wrong with this interpretation of this universe but deep down in my heart I dream that ProjectRobot is the prequel that shows apocalyptic events that led to the world of Ico being in the state it is.

It's wild to hear that they had a deadline after The Last Guardian development cycle 😂 I literally got through middle school and high school between the announcement of TLG for PS3 and it's premiere on PS4.

The symbol seems to represent horns pointing upwards and connecting 2 worlds: heaven and earth, above you have 3 dots, with the larger central one that looks like a portal, above these 3 dots there are horns pointing downwards as if to imply that this power is able to connect earthly and otherworldly creatures. 14:00 source of Ueda saying SOTC is a prequel? Never find something like that, there is an interview where he say SOTC is a continuation of ICO.

I may be wrong, but I think those are some impressive calculations for PS2. Taking into account inverse kinematics, map data etc. Team ICO could pull off literall black magic with this hardware. Makes me think how would ICO look on PS1.

Boring explenation - probably something to do with tech limitations, lack of memory for animations of shadows interacting with waterin more complex scenes. Fun explenation - Dormin was sucked into a magical pool of water right?

Pal look more finished and ambience look less empty but ntsc have some unique nice details

I feel that this R1 camera function is one of those trick that ueda use to complement a useful gameplay mechanic with lore and world building: to me it feels like the intention is to tell to the player about the boy's magical abilities given by the horns to perceive yorda from everywhere in the castle, like you said, and that was held true throughout the most of the game except for the beginning (which wouldn't make sense since yorda and the boy have yet to meet) and during the queen bossfight where such a mechanic would have only interfered, so the devs decided to target the sword instead maintaining the continuity of this camera function only gameplay wise. This is what my gut feeling is telling me, there's not much more than a clever way to combine gameplay with lore. Nice video

This literally sounds like a Half Life 2 track lmao Might be from the old sci-fi version

Great and interesting discoveries from you, as always. Thanks and Happy New Year!

Technically, that kind of garment is called a tabard.

A wonderful gift for the end of the year, thank you! I think that the evolution of this mechanic throughout the game represents the the connection itself, as it forms between the two. Ico can call for help when he is alone in the beginning, but nothing comes out of it, he is still alone. After the deja vu dream sequence, Ico steps into Yorda's dream, forms a sympathy and understanding for her just by the act of seeing with her eyes. And after that, he is never completely alone, his call for help finds a recipient in the form of Yorda, and she always pulls his attention in the direction of what is the most vital thing to get out. Which is mostly Yorda herself, as both the goal and the fail-state in any part of the castle are connected to her. And when you can't help her anymore, she helps Ico find the sword, it being the "next best thing" that the current goal and Ico's salvation relies upon. So for me, the source of the ability is both of them - one to call, and one to answer. For the nature of the connection in-game, lore-wise, it's hard to tell. Perhaps Ico is the source of a physical act, and Yorda is the "supernatural" part of the equation, using the Light magic to pull his focus. When Yorda is being dragged by the shadows out of frame, she instigates the connection herself, without Ico's call, because it's urgent for him to help her, so the camera directs us to her location without an R1 button. But only two of them combined form the whole mechanic. The sad magical girl and the brave proactive boy build a connection that is deeper than words, it transcends the castle that entraps them. Maybe it's the most important mechanic of this game thematically. Thanks again, the analysis is very thoughtful and stimulating, for some reason I never noticed that Yorda stays asleep when Ico talks to her for the first time! Happy New Year!

The lyrics in the song You Were Here say 'countless visions haunt me in my sleep.' It seems like the song was sung by Ico after the ending but I thought it was worth mentioning.

6:25 Fun fact. During gameplay (which I thought needed a small change) when Yorda is far away from you, she's not reacting to ICO's voice but rather the R1 button before she approach him.

Bro is consistenly making Nomad-level of content about ICO and thought we wouldn't notice.