An utterly unique game, which anyone with a bit of patience should love and cherish.
~
Pros:
+ Beautiful: Put simply, this might be the best-looking game I've ever played. Everything about it looks stunning: the graphics are about as good as the PS2 gets, the animation is flawless (particularly with regards to your horse), and a unique artistic vision runs throughout the whole game. The frame rate sometimes stutters, but that's not enough to diminish the effect - time will never lower this game's beauty.
+ Immersion / Exploration: The gameworld is astonishingly large, perhaps even larger than GTA: San Andreas, and exploring its beautiful landscapes (even those where there is no particular reason to visit) simply never gets old. Combine this with the almost-complete lack of loading times and the sheer beauty of the game, and you may never want to leave.
+ Colossi Battles: The battles themselves are thrilling and interesting, without exception. Just watching the colossi in motion is mesmerizing, watching from a distance (or running for your life) while trying to find its weaknesses, before you leap in like a madman; it's a brilliant combination of action-thrills and puzzle-esque problem-solving.
+ Stripped-Down: The sheer simplicity of the game is magnificent: it doesn't overplay anything or add needless gameplay mechanics, and ironically enough for a computer game, it reminds you of the innate beauty of the natural world by just letting you kick back and admire it without distraction.
+ Sound & Music: For the most part, the sound is very minimalistic, but this works unbelievably well in conveying the setting; listening to the wind blow as you ride alongside a towering canyon is something you just won't get from another game. When the music finally does kick in for the colossi battles, however, it's wonderful: haunting and reflective as you watch them from a distance, sweeping and exhilarating as you desperately cling on to them.
+ Horse-Riding: It's a simple pleasure really, but the horse is just so much fun to ride! On top of this, because of how life-like and essential to your progress he is, you develop a pretty strong attachment to Agro as time goes on - Team Ico are clearly the masters of doing more with less in this department (and most others).
~
Cons:
- Hard to Kill: You can take a huge amount of damage without dying, and fall from skyscraper-esque heights with very little consequence - making it a bit tougher would have made things more challenging and tense (the unlockable hard mode sorts this out to a degree, but fall damage is still too minimal).
- Frustrating: It can sometimes be pretty frustrating trying to work out exactly how to kill a colossus, often taking a lot of trial-and-error to see what approaches aren't possible, and sometimes being slightly unfair in their obscurity (one in particular stands out, requiring you to pick something up when you haven't had to do this or been told how to for the entire game beforehand). Still, I managed to finish it without using a walkthrough once, so persevere!
- Awkward/Selective Jumping/Climbing: It can be a bit of a bugger trying to jump and grab properly when you're working your way up a colossus, which in one way is appropriate given how tricky it ought to be given the magnitude of the task, but can often feel frustrating and as if the camera is conspiring against you. It can also be frustrating working out what can or can't be climbed, given how appropriate some things look for grabbing on to; this can also be annoying when you're just exploring, if only because you just want to see more and more of the world.
- Bunched-Up Plot: I like that the plot and story-scenes of the game are so minimal, but they are rather bunched-up at the beginning and end of the game; having them a bit more evenly-paced would have been nice.
~
In some ways, writing this review was rather futile; there's just no way to get the appeal of this game across without experiencing it for yourself. All I can do is assure you that it's a stunning achievement and a remarkable experience, and is as close to art as I've ever seen a game come. Maybe I'll have to try harder to track down Ico...