My father painted this for me many years ago before he died.

I'm not good at making pictures and I rarely make them for anything. But I can't help but always feel happy when I look at it.

Edit: it doesn't show when uploading with my post. I hope these links show

https://postimg.cc/MnYbQyT7

[url=https://postimg.cc/MnYbQyT7][img]https://i.postimg.cc/MnYbQyT7/20241104-174659.jpg[/img][/url]

Thinking of getting the ICO and Sotc ps3 limited edition collection. Is it worth it? Mainly after the art book. Are there any other art books that are worth it ?

WOAGH TLG art I made

Meet Joe Black Soundtrack Track 17 "Someone Else" Thomas Newman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHylWPQ8Jaw (after the 01:00 mark, of course)

when i was watching the movie i was like WTF it's just like TLG's theme!!! But i checked and the melody goes different. Still similar, tho. You can listen to "Forest" or "Overture: Lore" just for curiosity. xp

Except Argo or Trico 😭

https://preview.redd.it/6fh0lgpmryvd1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=9b0f2931f23b3466afe1107a39640e707f1269f3

I think betting that these images from Ueda's "The Beauty and the Beast" project have any connection to The Last Guardian is a stretch. But if what I theorize in my article makes any sense, and the Master Of The Valley was actually trying to replicate the resurrection ritual from the ending of SotC... if he didn't replicate it correctly, wouldn't he be able to be resurrected as a monster? I don't think that Ueda's next game, if he is still working on the concept that originated these images, will have the Master Of The Valley as the protagonist, because he really seems to have died and Ueda doesn't do direct sequels this way. But I wonder if Ueda could end up maintaining a connection with the previous games based on this idea of ​​a new character trying again to use Dormin's power to resurrect itself or another person they love, and it going wrong, generating a beast.

edit: Just to clarify, I don't take this possibility seriously, okay? What I believe about these images from 2018 and all the "beauty and the beast" is that Ueda is a 3D modeler and animator, and when he announced the new studio, he needed some image that would attract attention. So he modeled something on the abandoned concept from the end of SOTC, which would have involved Mono finding Wander not as a baby, but as a deformed monster. It's no wonder the girl is waking up, we have pigeons flying and the place looks so much like the altar at the Shrine of Worship. But it's cool to imagine connections to other games, isn't it? xD

Hi!! I'm lucasGVSE and I wrote a big article elaborating on the lore of Ueda's work, and i want to share it with another fans. I'm aware of the chaos of infinite theories around these games, so I wanted to organize a bit of what was already known through the fans with their evidences and some new thoughts. My thesis is structured around the idea that his three games are intrinsically connected through the theme of colonization. I'll first leave a link here to RetroGameTalk, where I originally posted my text and everything is diagrammed for a better reading, but i'll also copy paste some focused excerpt here 'cuz I believe I have at least a couple interesting insights about commonly overlooked details, so I hope this to collaborate with our community discussions!

https://retrogametalk.com/threads/about-cycles-and-horns-exploring-the-hidden-lore-of-fumito-uedas-games.474/

If you are brazilian, you can also read it in portuguese at my Medium page.

Long story short:

• Dormin is a "villain" only through Emon's religious narrative, and Wander was most likely a novice in Emon's cult.
• Queen's castle actually belongs to the lineage of horned people, descendants of Wander and ancestors of Ico. She's not a queen but a thief. (Edit: added details about the sacrifice room and those two "horned priests" in the first cutscene)
• "The Last Guardian" name is about The Master of the Valley being the last one to hold Dormin's power.

https://preview.redd.it/iuohwexg4lvd1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=a28c8954c251d226b134d78b632d20bc717d67ec

About Cycles and Horns: Exploring the Hidden Continuity of Fumito Ueda's Games

(...) The consequences of Wander's actions are the central pillar on which all the possibilities of connection with the previous game, Ico, are supported, with Shadow of the Colossus being the oldest moment in this great history. Not that I have said anything that deviates from what is already consensus among the community of these games, but the continuity of Dormin’s presence in Ico (and also in The Last Guardian) is a detail that seems often overlooked. Once the young Mono begins to care for the baby in a fruitful garden at the top of the sanctuary where he was reborn, he can grow and engage sexually with her, repopulating the territory until their descendants eventually start exploring beyond that isolated continent. Yes, you could argue that I’m pushing it with this entire scenario of repopulation and suggest that perhaps only Wander himself, once grown, could have left the continent and attempted to return to where he came from. However, I believe there are clues to something greater if we consider the biblical references confirmed recently by Ueda. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is the most obvious and serves us well now, and it is through it that I support the idea that the creation of an entire population from a single original couple, isolated and cursed, is given.

Furthermore, we know that at the end of Ico, the boy and the girl escape by boat from the island where the castle was, heading towards the open sea and anchoring on a beach previously unknown to us. The game’s final scene allows us to walk along this beach populated by watermelons until it ends with a light and prosperous moment, where Yorda and Ico share pieces of that fruit.

https://preview.redd.it/1cumc0fd4lvd1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d5906d6587a12e7705c36c889370e9d65e6d1e7

Interestingly, in the 2018's remake of Shadow of The Colossus, made by Blue Point with Ueda’s consultation, something interesting happened. They tried to create a new mystery that would engage the game’s community, which had spent a decade practicing data mining and exploring hidden details even in unpublished demos, as if it were a kind of archaeology of an ancient civilization and culture that only exists digitally. Knowing this, Blue Point scattered collectibles throughout the map of their remake, positioning several of them in locations that had some secret associated with previous versions of the game and the mystery surrounding the story of that world. One of those collectibles, very curiously, is placed on a beach facing the open sea, among a watermelon patch.

Those beaches have different 3D models, of course, but the point of interest lies in the characteristic of both being turned towards the infinite horizon of water, coupled with the fact that Blue Point emphasized attention to this location in its homage to the changes the game underwent during its development (by the way, watermelons are one of two fruit models contained in the hidden files of the game, but are not part of the final product). Not to mention that in the PlayStation 3 collection containing these two games, the initial menu presented us with official art, made by Ueda himself, of an extensive scenario that connected the two locations where these games take place:

https://preview.redd.it/l84fofx94lvd1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc3fa5effe5a3b74715f6833efd6a157d20fbd2e

Well, if we consider how, in the historical period of SotC, the continent had been isolated for being a cursed territory, especially with the destruction of the land access bridge at the end of the game, and that the descendants of Mono and Wander would develop throughout its isolated expanse without contact with other peoples, it doesn’t seem difficult to assume that they would explore the seas and encounter other populations in new continents. And it would be this way that, after ages and ages, we would have this bloodline cursed by the power of Dormin inhabiting the rest of the world again. You might even notice a boat in the painting above that sails in a direction exactly from the Forbidden Land towards the castle of Ico.

To close this segment of my text, you can also check in the game’s official guide how Ueda wanted to make an alternate ending to SotC, if there was a completed save from Ico on the memory card. Unfortunately, this content was yet another among the many cuts necessary during the painstaking process of finalizing the game, and it ended up being reduced to a mere change in the visual of Agro, Wander’s war horse.

To begin opening up space for more particular speculations, I believe the three main mysteries of this entire story are: Dormin, the black witch of Ico, and the past of the two environments in which they both inhabit. In order to go from micro to macro, there are interesting questions to observe in the relationship between Wander and Mono that may lead us to comprehend this bigger past.

Origins and Territory

Something that has always intrigued me about Shadow of the Colossus is that the tale it tells only covers the final part of Wander's story, while his past, just like that of the Forbidden Land itself, is only hinted at in details of the narrative. Thus, the true relationship between the wanderer and the girl is not known; it is only known that he has feelings for her, who could have been a girlfriend, sister, or even a platonic love. The fact is that Mono was sacrificed for religious purposes, something that must have been the reason for so much rage in the boy's heart. In this context, it is curious that he has access to key information about an entity fought so many years ago. Besides knowing how to reach the sanctuary of worship, he carries with him the stolen Ancient Sword, an item instantly recognized by Dormin, extremely connected to the colossi and crucial in different ways to the history of the Forbidden Land. Something that under no circumstances could be in the possession of a clumsy boy.

So, if we judge by this and by this phrase from Lord Emon, who already knew the young boy:

“I don’t believe, this… so it was you after all. Have you any idea what you’ve done?!”

https://preview.redd.it/yu712gf55lvd1.png?width=537&format=png&auto=webp&s=3886ab001ebd072396622f90bc773202a4beb090

And if we look closely at those little outfits, this is the same aesthetic pattern found in Lord Emon, one of the shamans of the religious order responsible for repressing the entity Dormin and the cult to it for ages, and in Mono, who had her life sacrificed in service of that same doctrine. Moreover, the same sign is exposed in response to the Ancient Sword when it is brought close to the sealing points of Dormin's energy in any of the colossi — something that makes no sense as a target, to highlight the weaknesses of those beings, but rather makes sense as a “stop” warning. Anyway, we can see that this symbol is directly related to four ritualistic elements of the game: a shaman, a sacrifice, an artifact, and the colossal guardians of Dormin's power.

Wander having access to key information and items, being known by Emon, and being in love with the sacrificed soul, along with wearing a cloak featuring the same religious symbol, leads me to believe that he was part of the same social group as that old man. Being quite young, as we can tell by Wander's short stature compared to the warriors accompanying Emon and making Agro appear gigantic — he is even shorter than Mono — and being so uncoordinated using that sword, the most I could wager is that the boy was an apprentice of some kind within that religious order. And, of course, the same pattern will appear also on Ico's clothes, ages later.

But who or what is Dormin?

https://preview.redd.it/ett01m4c6lvd1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=b3d4a5c7c5a42ed93808de79e7f8c3da59bd9401

The one who was sealed for committing something forbidden in the past — the character who kept the reversed name of Nimrod, that was the first intended name for the Shadow of the Colossus protagonist and needed to be changed after a recommendation from SCE of America.

What I find intriguing here is very much related to Dormin's duality. Not only is his voice both feminine and masculine at the same time, but there is also a whole relationship with light and shadows. While he is vilified from Emon's perspective and presents a body made of shadows, he communicates with Wander and guides him curiously always through light. Whenever a colossus is slain, those bands of darkness leave their bodies and pierce Wander, while at the moment of the destruction of the idols that represent them, there is a violent explosion of light! Additionally, each time the boy wakes up in the sanctuary, a shadowy figure appears around him, and simultaneously, a radiant dove appears around Mono's altar.

Nothing points out to us that Dormin would be an evil creature, except for Emon's voice, which speaks to us from the perspective of the ones who won the war. Every colonizer demonizes those he wishes to colonize, building a myth that others are savages and that he is the enlightened one, who has the legitimate right to what originally belongs to them. A “self-defense” is forged against the people who were previously there, aiming to justify their annihilation or slavery.

Speaking of colonizers...

https://preview.redd.it/o9dsz0i86lvd1.png?width=1270&format=png&auto=webp&s=50f5b9567798fb675d065921ef4523f958be9065

A Queen or an Usurping Sorceress?

When we play Ico, we are introduced to the game's villain as a queen who rules over a vast, empty, and isolated castle, where villagers abandon horned children as a sacrifice to her. In this same environment, we find Yorda, a girl declared to be the queen’s daughter, but who lives locked in a cage until freed by Ico, and they begin their escape together. But what is this queen doing in such a remote place? Why are these sacrifices necessary? And why would she cage her own daughter? Well, we can start by recalling some dialogues that occur when Ico confronts the dark lady, close to the game's final battle:

​​わたしの この躰も
もう長くない
Queen: This body of mine will not last much longer…​​

ヨルダにはわたしの意志をついで
城の主として復活してもらう
Queen: I shall bind my will to Yorda, and use her to reincarnate as master of this castle.

​​それがあの子の宿命 いわば
ヨルダはわが”魂の器”なのだ
Queen: That is the girl’s destiny. She is the vessel for my soul.

We understand, then, that the reason for her actions lies in the need for a process that ensures her eternal life, reincarnating successively through the bodies of her daughters. The character, therefore, parallels Dormin in her capacity to interfere with life and death, but with caveats. She does not have absolute power over this, and the extent of her power is limited to the conditions of her own body. She is not immortal and must work to manipulate her finite nature. She needs resources for this, and it is here that we can find more elements of continuity between the consequences of Shadow of the Colossus and the story of Ico. Let’s see some more dialogues:

​​ぼ ぼく イケニエなんだ
ツノがはえたから
Ico: I, I’m a sacrifice. Because I have horns, see?

​​ツノのはえたこどもは
ここに連れてこられるんだ
Ico: Children who grow horns get taken to this place.

I'll take the liberty to include here one of the dialogues omitted in the final version of the game, but which can be found in the files obtained through data mining and translated by the site Glitterberri:​

​わたしは 自分の
生きたいように生きる
Yorda: I’m going to live the way I want to.​​

その代償として わたしの
命が失われようとも
Yorda: Even if I have to pay for it with my life.

​​罪のない種族の犠牲のうえに
生きながらえるよりずっとマシだわ
Yorda: It’s far better than surviving on the sacrifices of an innocent people.

https://preview.redd.it/memhk4ucfrvd1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=2ffa0dfdf738d62b72a91572ea1e23ddd18fc87f

It becomes clear, then, how something contained in the children who grow horns is vital for the Queen to perform her resurrection work and maintain her way of life. Her powers do not originate from her own nature; they are, in fact, a product of energy stolen from the bodies of the sacrificed children. She uses them, even while showing disdain for their existence.​​

さぁ 身のほどをわきまえて
ここから 立ち去るがよい
Queen: Now, remember your place, and begone from here.

さぁ 邪悪者はいなくなった
いっしょに帰ろう ヨルダ
Queen: There, the wicked one is gone. Now, let’s go home, Yorda.

"Wicked", that which is evil or morally wrong. This is how she refers to the child we play as.

Okay. So she uses the bloodline of Wander to borrow remnants of Dormin's power contained within him, but she herself is not of that lineage and shows absolute disdain for those who are. But what if she has stolen more than just this energy from the children? Isn't it strange how that immense castle is structured in a way that could accommodate a complex network of inhabitants? There are no subjects, no people? We could point to the processing limitations of the PlayStation 2 as the main cause of this emptiness, but I believe settling for that explanation underestimates the heavy art direction that justifies Fumito Ueda's work as a game designer.

Let me start with this: Do you remember how the game's promotional material, as well as the internal art of the boxes, often placed the boy Ico in visual parallels with this statue from one of the castle's main bridges?

https://preview.redd.it/uh76yekn6lvd1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=fa6c48606c11ce3ba93067b322988d7d2501c870

Well, there are two statues located on the entrance bridge of the central tower. They represent men with long horns on their heads, wearing armor beneath a poncho similar to those we’re accustomed to seeing on Ico and Wander. At least one of them is intact, while the statue beside it is already corroded by the likely passage of time, just like various other architectural components that tell us how ancient that environment is. And it doesn’t stop there.

Exploring the castle, we can find cemeteries in various locations. Most of them have plain graves without any ornamentation, while a smaller number, grouped in a specific area, feature graphic horn decorations on top of their tombstones, facing the direction where the heads of the buried bodies would be. Buried bodies. It seems strange to find this in a land inhabited by supposedly immortal creatures, doesn’t it?

Knowing Ueda's widely shared game design philosophy — famously termed Design by Subtraction, which suggests that any component in a game that doesn’t enhance the themes and feelings of a world or its characters should be cut out — I think it's inappropriate to overlook these aesthetic elements as important components of the visual narrative about the history of that space. Someone lived there. Many someones. Mortal beings who inhabited and utilized all the mechanical systems we find for the castle’s functioning. Some of them were honored with statues and unique gravestones adorned with horns. Someones analogous to Ico, as we’ve always seen suggested in the official material.

https://preview.redd.it/xnufxylt6lvd1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=dfdf9f39b09f170d0f3efb48dd29f82167b3bf97

[edited thanks to crooked_mantis comment] Right, but if horns are a symbol of the people who were overthrown, what about those "priests" who took the boy to that castle? Why would they have horn ornaments on their armor if they serve the witch? Why wouldn't they live in the castle too? The first interesting thing to me about them, is that they bothered to apologize for taking Ico there. They also don't say "your village", just "the village". Considering these two aspects, we can at least secure that they are from the same village as Ico. Besides those guys wearing horns on their helmets and not their head — otherwise they would've been sacrificed too —, they don't wear "poncho" clothes like the ones we've seen in Ico, Wander, and the horned statue on the castle. They worship the witch and her intentions, while Ico, by his clothes, keeps a connection to the same culture Wander and Mono were into. I wouldn't consider too much of a stretch to assume there might have sectarian groups within the same village.

Okay, but and what about that ritual room? If this castle belongs originally to the horned people, why would they make a central space with sacrifice capsules? To cover this, we'll need to look another unmentioned element of the castle: those idol figures which blocks so many rooms. They look like caricatural representations of horned people, and within them it's also contained creepy statues of honed boys crying — much different than the uplifting feeling of the bridge statues. They are magical and can only be manipulated by the witch magical sword or Yorda's power, being also full of "runes" or ideograms of the language only spoken by Yorda and her mother. What is odd about these idols, is that they can be assumed as doors of the castle, but they never fit in the architectural style of the spaces they are placed. In fact, it's usually common for them to be totally off. And we do find a lot of regular doors, made of wood or rock, like that one right from the beginning when we need to pull a lever for it to open. That being said, those idols are pretty much like if they were added later to the castle, with the purpose of magically block some passages and exits, instead of being part of the same architecture project. From that, I can point it out that those sacrifice capsules shares the same visual aspect of being full of "runes" or ideograms, also being opened only through magic — I personally feel that the capsules and the idols are built from different materials than the rest of the castle, but I can't really analyse this game textures to check on it. So, to summarize it, those capsules themselves were installed in that room only after the witch had find her way to assume the throne. 

https://preview.redd.it/i76p7669pmvd1.png?width=1173&format=png&auto=webp&s=a8c396e3618b32e973a9dd28c855e16c5bcd4011

So here’s the overlooked detail. There is no legitimate queen here, but rather a usurper. Someone who only takes what belongs to others. She takes the body and vitality of her daughters for herself. She takes the scattered remnants of Dormin's mystical energy for herself. She takes the castle and the kingdom of an entire lineage that managed to survive and prosper for herself.

Again, this is a story of affective resignifications. Dormin was a natural, politically neutral entity. Neither good or bad, light or darkness. We know him only through the ruins of what was once his ancient realm, now destroyed by tribes of another religion that took him as an enemy. Still, something of him survives and rebuilds through Wander and Mono, taking those ruins as a free space to prosper and proliferate, to the point of eventually abandoning the ancient continent and constructing new spaces for itself, outside its original land. And this is destroyed again. It’s a repetition of the same cycle, with new ruins of a space that should be sacred for those who share Dormin’s nature, now stolen by a new colonizing force. Those horns should be their crown, not their burden.

It’s interesting to note how, at the end of Ico, the boy and the girl manage to completely destroy the physical structures of that castle and end up on the already mentioned beach located on the continent of the Forbidden Land. Thus, another part of the cycle repeats, in which a space that was once a tormentor becomes a place that symbolizes freedom, acceptance and new beginnings.

And here we go again, to a new repetition of this cycle.​

https://preview.redd.it/614dg9jx6lvd1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=5aabb0c263fe1ff9726917bc72ffc3b987911945

A Last Guardian?

The name of this game has never made much sense to me. It’s common to think it refers to Trico, the gigantic creature that accompanies us throughout the adventure, or to the nameless protagonist boy. But what would they be guardians of? And more importantly, why would they be the last? If we consider the creature, it wouldn’t make sense for it to be the last guardian of that space, the valley used as a nest by all other Tricos, in which the whole game takes place. After all, we know that by the end of the story, that our Trico is not the last of those beings to survive, and we are also introduced to it's puppies. Similarly, the boy, who becomes an adult at the end of the game, reveals himself as the narrator of the story, telling to the children in his village about his adventures with Trico, so they can understand the importance of that valley and those beings, in order to ensure they remain harmonious protectors of that environment. So again, why this name? Who is the last guardian, after all?

https://preview.redd.it/g7qxz4p07lvd1.png?width=536&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d6c9d676116b0c67ed7ef181a4c1e68e3e3cde9

From 2015, The Last Guardian takes us to the latest moment in this long history. If Ico takes place eras after Shadow of the Colossus, we are now in an even more distant time, where traces of a less analog and more “scientific” technology are evident in all the architectural arrangement of the human constructions in that valley. Still, there is a mysticism that permeates each of the crazy mechanisms that seem to operate through invisible waves, like the radio or Wi-Fi signals we know. All in favor of an entity we never know in physical form — the Master of the Valley. However, in the heart of the main tower, we catch a glimpse of what appears to be a sarcophagus of a giant humanoid figure. As we know from Egyptian culture, sarcophagi can be protective instruments for those embalmed within them, containing drawings, symbols, and objects representing divine entities desired to assist in the crossing of that soul to another world. Once again, the theme of man's effort to manipulate his mortality reappears through our main antagonist. And he's a colonizer too! That valley was a nest, the home of those griffin-like beings, who now unfortunately find themselves controlled by the technology of this omnipresent mind, which uses them to kidnap selected children and bring them to a new sacrifice.

Although we never see him, we witness the manifestation of his powers by the same mass of black and turquoise energy that we knew in times past, when we were in the shoes of Wander and Ico. It is true, however, that the kidnap children doesn't grow horns on their heads anymore, but they manifest black and turquoise marks on their bodies, analogous to the tattoos present on Yorda's body in early versions of Ico. Also, close to the same freezing room with the sarcophagus, we find another room, one with a pool in it. Not any pool, but a pool with the exact same design of that pool in the Shrine of Worship — Dormin's tower in Shadow of the Colossus. That same pool in which we see Lord Emon performing a ritual responsible for controlling Dormin's growing power emanating from Wander, resulting in his death and resurrection in the body of a horned child. As it seems, we have someone at least trying to replicate what happened before in the Forbidden Lands.

At this point, you already know where this story is going. Something fails in the colonizer's system and the creature breaks free, joining us to escape the prison structures that were built upon a territory that was naturally theirs. The Master is defeated, and who knows how many ages would it take to another sorcerer or scientist discover about all of that history and power. Who knows if Wander's lineage wouldn't have its Dormin's traces diluted through its new generations. The last guardian of this power has already been buried.

https://preview.redd.it/3x9pmrip7lvd1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=686f046e02703ec1462fb26748293481eeef9d3a

Thanks:
NomadColossus for your pictures and contributions on this community. Glitterberri too!
The team or person who translated the book "The World of Fumito Ueda". I don't know if Fernando Garcia only shared the file or if he translated too, I'm sorry.
And thank you for reading!

I know it can run now with high resolution textures, but at 1080p 60fps.

Does it have any loss besides the resolution if I play at performance mode?

Everyone considers ico to be the sequel to sotc. But I really like the idea of the ending beach in ico being the same as the one in the forbidden lands, also considering that emon threw a horn in the water in the e3 demo ending. And this image I saw made me wonder more about it. What do y'all think about it?

Credits to the image: @oddewill on X

A rather short rant, but basically, trying to get the 2 hour trophy is making me hate this game. I haven't felt any Gamer's Adrenaline or Gamer Rage in a long time, but the Adrenaline was only making my Rage worse.

Not only because of how slow and tedious it can be, but it leaves you little to no room for error. Yorda's AI, and the game in general, isn't built for speedrunning. It also doesn't help the only way I can play is Cloud screaming, but even a physical copy of this game couldn't make me want to do or.

I really wanted to Plat all the TICO (TeamICO) games, with the OG Shadow on the list, but I'm thinking of just giving up. ICO is a cult classic that should be enjoyed at one's own pace, not speedran.

I still love this game, and I salute those who've Platinumed it. It's just not for me.

Hi everyone! I beat Ico somewhat recently and wanted to see if there was a discord server for this wonderful game. It looked like all the ones posted to this subreddit are dead ;-; Please feel free to join and discuss all the TeamICO games

https://discord.gg/AmxrRN8sXw

I've been meaning to play through Ico again and this time getting the extra stuff like the mace. I heard that there is also co-op mode in new game+ with the second player controlling Yorda.

How is this mode for the second player? Can they do anything apart from move or is it like Tails in Sonic 2?

And two console magazine with ICO and SotC cover.