My friend Matt had been kind enough to lend me Ico, a PS2 exploration/puzzler, and I played through it last week. The game was an early short classic for the system that really showed its graphical possibility. It still looks pretty good now, not cutting edge by any means but easy on the eyes. Essentially the main limitations are that the castle design itself is rather block, but that works fairly well for a castle.
Anyways the core conceit of the game is that the hero is helping a companion through the castle. So basically each room needs to be solved twice, first explored using the protagonist’s abilities and then finding a way to bring you princess companion along. On the whole this works pretty well and while the princess can be hapless I think it was effective at bonding you with her.
The actual storyline is a straightforward lovely fairy tale. For a detailed rundown check out Peter Eliot’s annotation. The game is certainly no great step forward for gender politics. I think it might be possible to use this setup and even keep the male lead and princess while having the female be more capable rather than mystically powered.
Anyhow, the game is only 10 hours or so. Well worth borrowing or renting if you can find it and enjoy exploration/puzzlers.
[Update: As Lira mentioned in Livejournal comments, I forgot to mention the main weakness of the game. The combat is tedious. In many cases the bad guys can simply be outrun, which works better. But if you can't out run them you have to just hit them with a stick a few too many times in a way that mostly wastes time rather than adds challenge.]
Screenshot from Ico via Clover’s single webpage version of Peter Eliot’s annotation
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