Reviewing the Team Ico Trilogy
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- čas přidán 10. 06. 2024
- Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian
Team Ico whips fr, except whoops I didn't play them til 2023! Join me on my shrieking journey from Ico to Shadow of the Colossus to The Last Guardian, as I break down the value of the titles, and how they serve the medium.
Some [redacted] is for sure going to link in the comments something like "here's a more sensible version of this video" and it'll be one of the other Team Ico trilogy vids. And I know this because it's happened for years, but hey, bro, links are automatically held for review, and give it a rest. If you don't think games coverage can allow a little wiggle room for fun, then you don't think games coverage should be informed by the medium it's derived from. And bro, that just ain't very video games of you.
If you'd like to support the show, here's my page! / kbash
Suki art by / skerikaa
free beat by Sero Produktion: • (FREE) Hard Freestyle ...
Gaius silhouette via Jeff Langevin: www.jefflangevin.com
Ico silhouette via raycatzdraws www.tumblr.com/raycatzdraws
0:00 funny handholding game
12:47 funny ps2 obliterator
26:25 funny animal game
#Ico #ShadowoftheColossus #thelastguardian #retrospective #trilogy #review - Hry
My favorite thing about Kbash is his ability to code-switch between a literary intellectual to a hyped up frat boy at the drop of a hat.
Any decently intellegent person can switch between personality archtypes, mate. You should read up Carl Jung works if you want to know more.
@@diamondhamster4320 Any decently intelligent person wouldn't assume that someone isn't already familiar with the works of Carl Jung, sport. Also, any decently intelligent person wouldn't misspell the word 'archetype'.
@@dashtodash I am not native English speaker and I dont give a f@ck about speaking or writting properly in English???
@@diamondhamster4320oh my gosh how unbelievably pretentious like WTF
@@williamalbatross4677 oh my gosh how unbelievably posh and douchey like WTF
Speaking as someone who was sapient at the time - Ico failed in the US because the marketing was almost nonexistent. I saw like a handful of magazine ads for it, no commercials, and basically my entire exposure to its existence consisted of me consuming TechTV/G4 coverage of its release. Sony literally pushed it like a cash-strapped z-tier publisher would push a game and then wondered, "huh why didn't this sell"
You really used sapient? That whole 1st sentence...
Yep, I only became aware of the games existence because of a Toonami review. " Young love, with horns."
When Trico got over his fear to save you from people taking you, I started bawling dude.
That's some how to train your dragon shetz
I remember back in 2016 people angrily commenting at me when I'd make the point that Trico is supposed to act like an animal (especially a cat).
And that they will often not listen to you, and do their own things that often are contrary to your immediate goal or genuinely aggravating, but are overall lovable and a companion.
For instance, my cat loves going on walks. When he's near the door when already in his harness he runs up the stairs and out the door with excitement and rushes to chew on his favorite patches of grass.
And he knows his way back inside, but some times I have to pick him up and carry him inside when it's time to go in because he wants to stay out and explore.
But, anytime I take out his harness to do this, he immediately hides under the bed. Even though it is a precursor to an activity he loves, he will act in defiance to it just bc he doesn't like harneses in itself. Animals are like that.
And the beauty of Team Ico games, imo, is they are meant more of an intended and unique experience than a mechanical showcase. Even Stray, basically the quintessential Cat game, isn't realistic to how a real cat would behave.
I think it was really bold and risky for Team Ico to do what they did and focus on the more realistic interaction between you and essentially a large pet in contrast to immediate mechanical ease.
And the responses were so vitriolic to the points I made. That I'm an idiot and that it's just a bad game and bad and lazy developers, etc. Glad the consensus has changed on it though.
I get anyone who doesn't like it, as unlike ICO of SOTC, it is a bit more niche and not as well fleshed out but to say it was bad bc of it just hurts games as art in the general sense.
(Also, R.I.P to Suki, he seemed like the best boy).
I recommend the game to animal lovers. I did not like it when I first played it. since then i've had a pitbull for years now and he's strikingly similar to trico. it perfectly emulates how an animal acts (with no motion capture even). someone who doesn't like animals or isn't used to being around one won't likely have the patience for trico.
I always thought that was what the devs were going for. They weren't being dumb, lazy or stupid when it came to their vision for how they wanted to make the game feel. However, just because you put your idea into a game exactly doesn't mean it will translate well for a lot of people. So anybody, including Kbash, acting like those people are wrong makes it all a bit hypocritical. Not all ideas are good ideas or meant for everyone. This is the video game equivalent of that.
Hey man. I agree with all of your points. Just wanted to let you know, though, that Suki was a girl.
Funfact, in Ico, on a second playthrough; when Ico wakes up on the beach and you search the beach before going to Yorda, you’ll find a watermelon. If you pick it up the cutscene of her waking up will happen but then it will continue with the two eating the watermelon together. It’s super wholesome.
The reception to The Last Guardian at release really shows how shallow our language for discussing games can be. Not to say that we shoudn't discuss the problems we have with games, but having issues shouldn't be an excuse to ignore artistic intent.
This. I see too many people calling games like Xenoblade 2 trash or God of War 2018 masterpieces without really talking about what makes them that way, and it really just feels like people enjoy posting opinions on the Internet for engagement, whether or not they actually have a dog in the race. I've even seen some people call the creators lazy just because they weren't a fan of the story direction. Did they explain why they thought the game was lazy? Of course not.
That's just how most people engage with art. Novels, music, movies, paintings... it's the same problem. "I like this thing -> this thing is good -> whatever someone says makes this thing good is good". And the same for the inverse. Just look at the trends in using "defies expectation" as praise or criticism. Defying expectation on some level is practically axiomatic, since otherwise you're talking about a near 1:1 copy of something else. What breaks expectation, how, and what are the implications? But most people really, really aren't interested in thinking that deeply about art. People like simple dichotomies: Thing good or thing bad.
... and also it is exhausting to constantly turn casual chatting on the internet into a thesis defense. Even the academically minded find talking in shorthand convenient at times.
i mean the only issue i truly have is the constant instruction popups, if there was a setting to turn it off that would make it better
Team Ico is a studio that doesn’t get enough respect. Their games are often criticized for all the wrong reasons, as their design decisions are almost always intentional, with the purpose of making the player fully inhabit the emotional space of the character being controlled. Nobody did it like them. Nobody else really could. And after watching this, you not only recognize that fact, but you understand why that’s the case where others often didn’t / don’t.
Team ICO inspired a generation of game devs.
They are "game devs" favourite game.
That's good enough sign of their legacy.
Tbh I can see why people don't like ICO games. Often times they're pretty barebones and don't have much going on for them if you're just trying to have fun smacking things up. Some people want art, some people want to smack things around with loud wee woop music. It's a matter of preference.
Shadow of the collossus is still my favorite ps2 game even though I only played it once lol. Ico games are just those types of games.
Being intentional doesn't make it good tho.
@@PressXtoPlayMainThat's the big issue with that argument, yeah. Just because it was someone's idea to do it does not mean it was a good idea.
I think a decent litmus test is looking for people praising bad games for doing the same thing. If people only praise widely acclaimed games for some particular facet, it's likely that people are praising the design for the game, rather than the other way around.
Their games are hardly ever criticized at all, what are you on about?
Thank you for voicing your opinion on the reception of the last guardian by the youtube community. People straight up were spitting on their own plate, on a lovingly prepared meal. While at the same time, being known as people who regularly bad mouth "fast food" kind of gaming experiences.
Idk if that made sense, but thank you Kbash!
I think what really makes the Ico Trilogy special is that they reach for the status of High Art without disregarding being video games. There's nothing subversive or decontstructive about them, they don't act like they're above the medium they're working in or act as though video games need to be something else in order to be real art. They just are video games, built with a love, thoughtfulness, and intentionality that elevates them, both as video games and as art. It's probably a large part of what enabled Ico to be so influential, it's a game that other games can aspire to be like.
It's a real tragedy how Shadow of the Colossus's unrivaled stardom and the protracted development led to The Last Guardian being seen and expected by so many more people than it was ever going to resonate with. SotC is palatable to mainstream audiences by virtue of its more video-gamey premise and execution, and understandably many mainstream gamers thought The Last Guardian was "Shadow of the Colossus 2." So they get wrapped up in the hype over a game they invented in their heads, and buy a Team Ico game instead.
I loved The Last Guardian, and it remains one of few truly unique experiences I've had in the medium. Trico was so fully and beautifully realized, a living and breathing animal that I could interact with the same way I would a real animal, and get the same results. In the same way that Agro was not Wander's car, Trico was not the Boy's tool. They have autonomy and are used by the player through abstraction. When I was first learning to give Trico commands, of course I felt frustrated that he wasn't immediately jumping to my aid. But I *watched* him, and I saw him *thinking,* looking where I pointed, examining relevant areas and objects, and putting together what I wanted him to do. And from that point forward I knew to trust in Trico's intelligence and allow him the space to understand me. The more we interacted the faster he knew what I needed him to do. It was exactly like training an animal. It felt real.
Just a shame so few people allowed themselves to see it.
All of this stems from the video game industries long standing biggest problem. Revealing games years before their ready and hyping them up.
Just look at the game awards and gta6 these games come out in 2025 and it's not even 2024 that means if even a little of those games are off expectations there will be massive controversy and people will lose jobs companies will take hits in revenue and the vicious cycle will continue
Good to know that's common. I started playing the beginning and stopped just cause. But I had those same feelings. It's good to hear. I do want to get back to it at some point.
Never forgot how when I finished The Last Guardian I felt so overwhelmed and sad not just at the ending of the game but that I also had to say goodbye to Trico. Thinking about the hours of work and collaboration amongst many talented developers and their own lived experiences they brought to bring Trico to life and how I felt a true sadness like I had lost a pet of my own like many of us have.
Shadow of the colossus was probably the first game I played that really made me feel something.
And that 13th Colossi is still one of my fav bossfights ever. One of the most beautiful and majestic creatures I've seen in a game
KBash at it again with one of my favorite IPs. Don’t know how I got here a year or so, but you’ve quickly become my most cherished CZcams-video-game-essayist. If that’s a genre.
Leave "essay" out of it. He's not getting graded by any professor for making CZcams vids.
@@jarlwhiterun7478an essay is a piece of writing that is written to convince someone of something or to simply inform the audience about a particular topic. Note how teachers are not required for something to be an essay. This qualifies as an essay my dude.
I love the Last Guardian and saw so many YTers rip into it in 2016. To this day people act like it was bad. Such egregious levels of cap 🧢
It's a beautiful game that had some minor issues with controls (and low fps). The controls in SOTC weren't very good either tbh.
@@NerevarineKingI would scream at wander the first time I played sotc. good game but it really had me wondering why everyone loved it so much. it could be so frustrating. just beat the last guardian as a result of this video and its well worth it if you have some patience. I'm ten years older since I played sotc, so that helps...
@@NerevarineKinghonestly, i feel like its cuz of the idea that the controls are supposed to favour the game, to such a 'gamey' state, frame cancels, quick 360 pivoting, low recovery frames n so on, so when something is emulating "da real world" it will be jarring, especially to those hands steeped into decades of button combinations
Shadow of the Colossus is still to this day one of the most unique experiences the medium offers, and it's insane how they did that with such a minimalist approach. Every other studio likes to put in tons of mechanics and subsystems and number crunching to make them feel deep, but Shadow of the Colossus manages to feel just as engaging while doing absolutely none of that. And story-focused games like to put a lot of effort into the direction of cutscenes, plentiful voice acting, dialogue with side characters, and plots with interesting twists and emotional moments, but Shadow the Colossus is committed to doing the bare minimum in that department too, and it somehow doesn't feel cheap or lazy. Less is more it seems.
Hey KBash, thanks for covering some of my favorite games. I love that you always interact with the mechanics truthfully and meaningfully and don't just latch onto what is popular to say like so many others. It is refreshing. Here's to hoping that some day there is another game in this series.
Also, I am sorry for your loss. Losing a pet is always hard.
RIP for your precious cat KBash. I'm sure it had a good life with you
Ico was like a imagination troll for my poopoo brain when I was child.
Still now I sometimes get a glimpse of the world ico pooped in my brain like the atmosphere or the artists ideas.
Great vid kbash! I’m sorry for your loss
The Last Guardian is a game i got in the mail, installed and played start to finish in one sitting, then booted up again to get the extra costumes and stuff. I have not done that since i was a kid, i'm in my 30's now. I love the game so much.
Also, if you own the original version of the game, so not the platinum edition, you can play it on a PS5 in 60 frames making it as smooth as a Ghibli movie. Thank me later.
Being able to play the game I bought on launch on the PS5 for the first time was a surprisingly great silver lining of having a videogame backlog 6 years long.
One thing I noticed once more (having only played Shadow of the Colossus) is how insanely powerful the soundtrack of especially the last two games is. It's so full of raw emotion and beautifully layered chord progressions, it's a whole work of art in itself.
Never played the Last Guardian but some of the tracks from that game just make my eyes wet. And that does not happen often - even less so when I have no emotional connection to it.
I swear all of Kbash's videos have Castle in the Mist playing in them at some point. Granted I haven't been watching long, but the iconic twang of the song's guitar are unmistakable in all of the videos of his that I've seen. I can't wait to see how many time's he decides to put it in the backdrop in this one.
Still need to play The Last Guardian so I can't watch this video in it's entirety, but great video! Only played ICO and SotC last year on PS3 and they still hold up incredibly well after all these years
You should definitely play the last g if you love the other 2 games. I’m not sure how it fits into the trilogy or if it even does.
Thank you for the video KBash, and I'm so sorry for your loss. Sending love to you and yours.
@1:08-.-I like the phrase "game made of puzzles" because it implies it is not a puzzle game, and yet it is still built around puzzles.
There were so many moments in this video where I felt like i was finally heard and seen when trying to talk about these games with other people and discussing them online; especially with The Last Guardian. I had NO problems at all learning the controls for the game and found it to be so simple to get Trico to do what i asked of him when i saw and realized right off the bat, "oh hes acting like an actual animal so I'll treat him like that" & it all clicked instantly with me and never struggled to get him to go and do what i had asked. And you actually get to see that Trico is learning the longer the game goes on. At the start its like trying to teach a new pet tricks and at the end Trico feels like they've bonded with you and does things on they're own that feel just so satisfying. It's like your wonderul companion giant pet is actually real, which was 100% made intentionally by design. Despite all the technical hiccups and the amount of unnecessary bashing this game was getting back in 2016 I always thought this game was special and not given its respect that it genuinely deserved. Team Ico made some of the best games that I have ever felt the most emotion towards that none others ever have & I'm glad that after all these years later, Kbash comes in here and makes me feel like I was finally heard. I know this all can sound cheesy as hell but thanks for this video Kbash. I've been watching for awhile now and I felt this video as one of my personal favorites to date. Keep it up man!
Be honest, now that you're older, how much if its bashing were actually genuine and how much did it 'feel' like people were just hopping on the bandwagon
I'm going to be honest, the fact that you learned to stunlock enemies with the first swing of the combo in ICO *is* impressive to me because I see so many other players miss it. Many are conditioned to see the unique animation of the combo attack and assume mashing buttons wildly is what the game expects, and thus what they should do, never realizing there was a 'work smarter, not harder' approach. But I think the stunlock was intentional, not an exploit, it's just taking a different approach by pacing the swings out.
Also you gathered the pieces, but not the whole picture of the game's version differences. It ties back into the reason that the box art looks the way it does in North America: It was a rushed release to the states. In early 2001, IGN said the game was set to ship in July, then they reported it got delayed to August, then it shipped in late September...... But the game didn't come out in Japan until *December* of that year. It released in America first because we were handed the beta version. The PS3 version is just the Japanese/European PS2 copy in remastered form, so all the things you might've perceived as extra content was just what the Japanese devs called 'finishing the game'.
I agree with you that the American version is still good, and it is still ICO. I actually value it a lot for the insight it gives in the development process. But I have to acknowledge later versions are what the devs intended for the game from the start.
So the reason we got a poor quality box art wasn't because the American market didn't understand the beauty of the Japanese cover. The Japanese cover hadn't been painted yet.
R.I.P. Suki. Sorry for the loss.
Also a beautiful video by the way.
I don't think I'd ever be able to play the Last Guardian, the ending is heartwrenching.
Maybe not the comment you were looking for, but after crashing hard during finals week, I’m glad I woke up to this. Your warm voice and descriptive, caring storytelling is a breath of fresh air when I’ve otherwise been pretty stressed.
Idk if it's just cuz I love these games but you really popped off with these ones man I loved the humor
OMG I always wondered why people exaggerated the AI in Ico so much. I thought “maybe I just got lucky and the AI isn’t fucky in my game” but I’m glad to learn I wasn’t the only one.
I just thought about Trico again, and a manly tear fell down my cheek.
Babe wake up, Kbash manifested a new vid!!
Wait what...you can actually break the glass eyes with Trico's poop? I learned something new today. I like all 3 games by Fumito Ueda & am so excited to play his 4th, but I still regard "Shadow Of The Colossus" as his true masterpiece (so far) & probably the game he'll be best remembered for. Having said that, Trico is a one-of-a-kind A.I. companion, no question about that. Fumito Ueda has a vision that's very unique. That's not a surprise though. After all, he got his start working for the late great Kenji Eno. Nice review/discussion.
This is my favourite trilogy of games, i absolutely love gen design so much
Issuing that final command to Trico justs...gets me everytime, dude...
Last Guardian was very easy to mock for its funny, janky, awkward gameplay moments and I get why people might have gotten frustrated with it. But I think it nails the emotional impact of its story better than either Ico or SotC (which is saying something, because those games do a stellar job with their stories). I love all of them, but I probably reflect on the Last Guardian the most out of the three. It's cool to see that game get some love here, because there really isn't anything quite like it.
My favourite kind of game devs
Is the one that make the players hate thier gam....
Seriously I like when games are made without the concern of appealing to the players through dumping down their game wither through gameplay story or presentation
Some of my favourite games are designed by people who wanted to deliver the game as it is ( the legend of heroes games, growlanser, little nightmares,Blazblue)
And the game with kbash TM
Knights in the nightmare ❤
Rip Suki 🥀
MA! THE NEW KBASH VIDEO JUST DROPPED!!!
Thanks for this sick video! You know the video is art for making references to Mr.Mosquito and A one Dick Dasterdly (Wacky Races). Always some great stuff KBash!
Edit: So as someone who has lost some pets, that ending was a lot of emotions for me. My condolences to you.
Apparently they had 24 colossi planned and cut eight because they felt kinda redundant or they couldn't get them to work, and I still wonder what a 50% denser Shadow of the Colossus would have felt like
They planned on having 48 colossi. They narrowed it down to 24 ideas and eight of them got scrapped. You can look up the scrapped colossi. They have models and art and everything.
I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING
Great video Kbash!
I don't think the state of CZcams game criticism is that different now since Death Stranding got the same treatment.
I played the first two and my favorite one is Ico, by far. It has an incredible atmosphere that gives me extreme nostalgia for some reason. I wish it were a proper RPG to really immerse myself in it.
I just finished my second playthrough of ICO yesterday lol talk about great timing!
YES start beef with Arlo!!! You two are my favorite and I need to feel ripped asunder
Ico is my favorite handheld game of 2001
26:31 love the fable music added lol
All three of these games really takes me back as a kid. It'll be super nice if Bluepoint would do a remake of ICO, or they could bring trilogy collection of these classics.
some of my favorite video games of all times. i really hope ueda makes another one some day. thanks for the video ❤
A KBash video that's not 20 hours long!? I'm actually relieved honestly
16:46-17:27 this goes SO hard.
Kbash, theoretically, how much would I need to pay you to make a fully fleshed out version of your track. 👀
I was on board until you implied Dormin was evil and Wander was only a useful idiot. 100% disagree. Would disagree more if it was possible.
I need to beat ico…. The first time I tried playing it, I got too stressed out and haven’t gone back. I love sotc maybe one of my favorite games of all time, and I enjoyed the last guardian.. but yea idk I need to give ico another chance for sure.
Crazy that kbash and Liam triforce release a video on these games within two weeks from each other.
The last guardian and shadow of the colossus are absolutely my 2 favourite games of all time
One is a bitter sweet tragic tale with some phenomenal moments
And the other is a beautiful unique adventure with nothing like it
Argo knew what it was doing, knew both wouldn't make it and used its last moment with ground contact to hurl us forward on our mission 😢
I miss this era so much it hurts
*_I SMASH the thumbs up button on any Team Ico video I stumble upon._*
Wow, cool video, once again! Now, for another retrospective episode, could ya please tackle SNK's World Heroes? Definitely an underrated series of games in need of more love.
These three games mean the world to me, it took me a long time to try Guardian but after playing it for a friend and minor frustrations through out and a minor soft lock the ending segment at the top of the tower and ending it made all of it worth it. An experience I’ll never forget.
Last Guardian looked amazing- they did so well I cant believe it wasn't well received. Thats art.
Man I love your stuff, might sound cringe but your gags are always fun and feel unique. Love seeing you delve into old stuff I've played with goofy takes or your measured thoughtful stuff.
Wow I am excited for this one.
I always wanted to play the Team Ico trilogy, and I've yet to do it. But videos like these always get me more pumped for it.
(Btw, english isn't my first language, but isn't it supposed to be "A Chaotic Look" in the video title?)
yeah the title bugs me too lol
Kbash I think its wonderful youre giving Last Guardian so much credit and going to bat for it but when it came out IT SUCKED. They patched the hell out of it after it came out over the course of months. All the flak it got was incredibly deserved and playing it unpatched on a PS4 versus playing it patched on a PS5 is a VASTLY different experience. I know you said you arent dissing any creators and I wholly believe you because youre cool but you gotta keep the state of the game itself in mind when considering "Huh why is my experience so different". Maybe even if you played it unpatched on a PS4 your experience would still be fine enough after knowing its inner workings now but going into it blind on good faith alone netted me and a number of others a unfun time.
Yo! That dsp clip, i love Kbash editing 😂😂
Wow I did not realize that The Last Guardian was so panned by critics. I loved the shit out of that game, the way it communicates a growing bond between the boy and his cat bird over time with it listening to more of your commands, letting you scold and reward behaviors etc. In a way it's kind of a second-person game because the pet is the one doing a lot of it and you're in the position of the boy giving it instructions. It's all just very interesting both mechanically and narratively. idk I liked it a lot
This one's for the algorithm. Great video
a great video ab some absolutely phenomenal games with some great music from the fable series
grat vid as always! do smt on the fear and hunger series
this video is underrated, BASH YOUR UNDERRATED
There was an download update to the controls for the last guardian. So it’s hard to know how good or bad they were on release. That’s really my only criticism of this video. Brilliant otherwise. 🤗
23:15 "Sploosh." Scott Falco was so unexpected. 😂
Love your energy and personality man. Or at least what I perceive to be your personality lol
Thank you kbash your the best, you care dude, keep shining.
There is only 2 games i bought the soundtrack for silent hill and shadow of the Colossus and man sotc has one of the greatest soundtracks of all time. It really colors the landscape and history of the world
damn boy, you made me cry
I was just wondering "when is kbash uploading again?". Pleasantly suprised to see you covering one of my favorite games
I'd love to see you do one of these for the mana series
RIP Suki. Much love to her and those left behind.
"probably" going to hell for that? you're DEFINITELY going to hell for that Agro bit.
12:50 I appreciate that you did this
Let's go! Another great video!!
Kbash talking about my favorite video game of all time, let's go!
I have never played shadow of the colossus but the idea of it makes me want to cry
Excellent video but I gotta say that is SUCH A PRETTY CAT OMG! (Edit: i got to the end and now i cry)
That Colossal Rap tho! 🔥🔥🐉
Shadow of the Colossus is that one game that i still need to play that has eluded me
Gotta say, those are some cold bars to murder innocent colossi to
Bro why you gotta show me brave frontier like that when i can't go back 😭😭😭
The Colossus rap earned you an instant sub 😂😂
With all the talk of games as art I thought this was going to bring up Fumito Ueda saying he doesn’t view his games, or games in general, as art.
This is amazing 👏
I'm always game for team ico videos
I’m sorry for your loss ❤️🩹
I'm just gonna say The Last Guardian is my favourite game of all time