The Games of Fumito Ueda

December 29, 2024

Tags: games ico sotc fumitoueda

Experiencing the Games of Fumito Ueda for the first time.

I had always been intrigued at the games of Fumito Ueda but sadly, I’ve never made the time to play them. Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian are games I’ve heard of and read about for years but haven’t experienced for myself. During the Year of the Hack & Slash, I didn’t feel as though Ico or SotC really fell into that genre appropriately. There could be an argument made for Ico, as you have a sword and are hacking AND slashing away at enemies, but by the time that game had been released, Devil May Cry had already been released and was THE action game to take influence from, at least in the conversation about combat mechanics. Ico would prove to be massively influential, though, and it’s understandable to see why once you really get in and play it. SotC would also find its footing as an influential powerhouse but the swordplay would not be the reason either. To be honest, The Last Guardian hadn’t ever really been on my radar, as I confused it for a wii game called The Last Story for years. Starting down this path of looking at Ueda’s influences (and influences) I’ve since corrected that correlation in my brain (but I still remain interesting in The Last Story).

I decided I would play them in order and instead of using one of the Playstation 2’s in my house, I loaded Ico and SotC onto my Steamdeck. If I have it, in my hand, and can play it from the chair to couch to bed, I’m more likely to get through a game.

Ico is a masterpiece

I’ve learned what most cool people have known for a long time, Ico is a masterpiece! It’s beautiful and smart in the way that it conveys information. Since it released at a time where dual stick gaming was just learning how to crawl, the camera existed in between a fixed/pre-rendered experience and something that gave you a little more agency over it. This was an exciting way to approach the visual language of the game because it meant the camera would be able to zoom in or frame up important details like a path that was opened or a platform that had been manipulated, then going back to a view that was omnipotent and cinematic. The presentation of the environment in this way is directly working with Ico’s biggest strengths, the castle design! As you begin your journey, you see this grand room with a spiraling platform running up against the walls, there are crumbled bits of stairs forcing you to learn how to climb and grab and hang and jump. If you can see it, you will probably explore it. Far off in the distance you see a ladder to a ledge with a broken window? Give it time! You will undoubtedly make your way in there. Foreshadowing through level design is such a cool way to bring the environment to life, even though this castle feels largely abandoned. I’m not going to go too deep into this, partially because I wasn’t making notes during my play through. I’m using this space as an excuse to begin to write about games in my own way, and as way to try to tie some themes together from three games.