Fumito Ueda Is A Genius

Spoilers on ICO in the last paragraph.

If you don't know who Fumito Ueda is, he's the mastermind behind ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, two of the Playstation 2's most loved games. They are both similar, and yet quite distinct. They happen in the same universe, with Shadow's ending setting up at least one plot element that comes to fruition many generations later in ICO. They are both brilliantly and similarly designed visually, with distinct, saturated lighting, and gigantic, breathtaking architecture common in their settings. ICO probably looks better, since it's more confined, and the poor little PS2 struggles to make Shadow's huge environments and inhabitants run at a decent frame rate. They have similarly minimalistic stories.

The basic mechanics feel a bit similar, with lots of running and jumping and climbing with less than perfectly graceful protagonists, but the actual gameplay is quite different, with ICO having you work your way through a gigantic castle, solving complex environmental puzzles, with simplistic combat thrown in to balance it. Shadow on the other hand, revolves around its battles with the titular Colossi, with a good amount of searching in between. The boss battles are generally more cerebral in nature than's typical, but it is still relies much more on the player's twitch ability. It also takes a much different direction with the score, which is all about bombast and majestic, sweeping melodies, while ICO's audio is almost entirely ambient. The stories have similar tones, although ICO's is more self-contained and whimsical whereas Shadow's is more complicated, and less resolved, while also being darker in nature.

I beat Shadow almost a year ago and ICO way before that, but I bring them up now because I've been thinking and reading about them a lot in the last couple days. It started when Ueda was interviewed about his thoughts on God of War II and the differences between American and Japanese design philosophy. Cory Barlog, director of said game, responded by posting his own thoughts about Shadow on his blog. The translated interview and Barlog's response are here and here. It was interesting to see two different developers talk about each other's games, but it really just got me to think about Ueda's work. I gave his two games and Barlog's all 9's, but while God of War II is merely an extremely competent and interesting action game, ICO and Shadow seem to resonate much more and provoke more actual thought than games usually do. They are also both used, ICO especially, as Exhibit A in the case for Video Games As Art. I'm not sure how I feel about the subject, I can see why someone would say it's really no different than a movie, but just the fact that you control the outcome and the way it's produced more similarly to a tax application than a painting just says "product, not art" to me. I think games definitely contain artistic elements, and maybe some really are art, but as a whole, the medium isn't.

But I'm getting away from what I was talking about. Reading about the two games led me to two discussions by one guy, one, a still active forum thread on Colossus, and the other encapsulated in a GameFAQ about ICO. They really delve into everything about the mechanics of the storylines, and they're great reads, the ICO one especially. I had known of the theory that Ico and Yorda are dead at the end of the game, but it never sat right with me. It was conceivable, but I didn't see why it was a necessary conclusion. The FAQ breaks down exactly why it's less likely than the obvious conclusion that they lived, and really discusses story conventions themselves in great deal. I always though these two games were a bit overhyped relative to their actual worth (which was still high), but not many games really inspire this much pondering. Gameplay-wise, they're both quite solid, but what really gives them their worth is the stuff the player isn't directly in control of, and it really is what makes Ueda so good at what he does. He's supposedly working on his next game in the same mold for the PS3, and I cannot wait to see what it is.