Video Games : Ico vs. The Last Guardian

Ico vs. The Last Guardian

Which is the better game?

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

Both are 9/10 games for me, not quite perfect masterpieces. SotC is their masterpiece and a towering achievement in video games.

But between those two, I'll give the slight edge to TLG.



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Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

Never played Ico


Howard Hughes was Italian?

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

Me neither.

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

Then don't waste your precious time. It's a borefest.

I always tell the truth, even when I lie.

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

ICO is probably viewed as the least coolest Team ICO game by the majority of gamers, since there's no riding on the back of large beasts. But I recall some people talking about how the game had an effect on them similar to how people today are being won over by The Last Guardian.

I played ICO more than ten years ago, so I was a different person back then. I might have been your more bog-standard gamer, who was neither patient nor open-minded enough for a game of that type. I should play it again. But there was at least one part that stuck out for me; it was what probably introduced me to the idea that game design and mechanics could be expressive, and that a game didn't have to rely on just visuals and audio to create an emotional effect.

I also remember how a lot of the game involved progressing around areas until you're suddenly at the other side of somewhere you couldn't access before. It was kind of amusing and satisfying to realise you were somewhere you saw from a distance before, as if things had come full circle. It's a neat effect.

Maybe my memory is struggling, but while you can complain about the controls being unreliable and awkward to some degree in all of Team ICO's game - and I'd agree that some of it is downright bad - ICO might have suffered them the most. A few moments of platforming in The Last Guardian are quite bad, but in ICO those moments are the majority of the game.

My impression right now is that ICO was the game Fumito Ueda always wanted to make. I enjoyed SotC more, and it's one of my favourite games, but it seems to me like it was a wild idea he came up with on the side; not that that's a bad thing. SotC's mechanics and design all worked well, and the overall presentation/package of the game was dressed up nicely with mystery and intrigue.

Meanwhile, The Last Guardian seems like a return to his initial vision. It's a lot like ICO, but it brings on board the mechanics and design ideas he learned from creating SotC. Again, I should replay ICO, but I feel like The Last Guardian is his best effort - the game that most accomplishes what he set out to achieve in video game creation (and I guess that answers the OP's question).

ICO was always at the forefront of discussion about whether or not video games are art, which was an incredibly muddied debate. If art is being defined as anything that's creative then of course it's art - no one would deny that. But if art is being defined by stricter definitions, then the debate becomes tougher.

In any case, I think what people were really getting at, especially relating to ICO, is whether or not games can produce a variety of emotional effects in the way other media can - and perhaps specifically stemming from the game design; not just the visuals and audio. I think games have proven more and more that they can, especially with The Last Guardian. Maybe ICO did for quite a few people 15 years ago.

When people brought up ICO in the past, I'd often link them to a huge annotation of the game by PeterEliot on Rose-Tainted. It might seem to meander a lot, but the writer is level-headed and modest in his summaries of the game - not just someone who's gushing about their favourite game in a way that makes it out to be more than it really is; or someone who vehemently wants video games to be considered art.

http://www.rose-tainted.net/ico/essays/petereliot_annotation.html

Funny video: http://youtu.be/pEiUoj1s3_g

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

Ico appears to be the only great game from Team Ico.

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Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

Shadow is much better than Ico in my opinion. That's their one masterpiece.

"If you say I have a motive then it's to punish all of you who brought pain to my friends!"- Zidane

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

Shadow is probably Team Ico's best but they're three for three on masterpieces.

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

I plan on playing The Last Guardian once I finish up with FFXV. That may be awhile though.

"If you say I have a motive then it's to punish all of you who brought pain to my friends!"- Zidane

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian


Ico appears to be the only great game from Team Ico.


ICO is garbage. Shadow of the Colossus is a masterpiece.

Both games aren't even comparable at all.

I always tell the truth, even when I lie.

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

I havent played enough of TLG to pass judgement, I'm quite early on and just got to the scripted glyph that makes Trico spaz out.

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

both gaymes are shit and so are you cucklord

I crushed the pathetic loser troll Cuck_Venom and rebuilt him as my toilet

Re: Ico vs. The Last Guardian

The Last Guardian is good, but Ico is better. Ico's puzzles felt more satisfying to solve than The Last Guardian's… I think if they used the mirror mechanic more, it would have been better. Instead they introduced the mirror in the beginning, then drop it to some mid point time where you use it once more and it's gone forever.

Into the fire she swallowed their hate - Dahlia (Silent Hill)
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