Ico: Castle in the Mist looses some of it’s splendor and mystery in it’s quest to become an adventure novel.
What They Say
When a boy named Ico grows long curved horns overnight, his fate has been sealed—he is to be sacrificed in the Castle in the Mist. But in the castle, Ico meets a young girl named Yorda imprisoned in its halls. Alone they will die, but together Ico and Yorda might just be able to defy their destinies and escape the magic of the castle.
Based on the video game filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth) called a “masterpiece,” Japan’s leading fantasist Miyuki Miyabe has crafted a tale of magic, loss, and love that will never be forgotten.
The Review
Back in 2001, Sony quietly released a Playstation 2 game that was mostly overlooked in the west, despite being released in the US before Japan. The terrible cover art for the U.S. version didn’t help it’s marketability either. However, over time, the game called ICO became a cult classic, inspiring the team which made it to create a spiritual prequel, and eventually for ICO to see a updated rerelease for the PS3.
ICO as a game was simple, with the entire story being told in only a page or two of dialog. The majority of the game focused on exploration and puzzle solving as you tried to help Ico and Yorda escape the castle in which they were imprisoned. ‘Save the princess’ has been a staple video game plot for thirty years, but it had never been done with such an artistic hand. The castle you explore in Ico felt like a real place, even if the architecture seemed to have been constructed by a madman. Every time Yorda was attacked by the shadowy creatures you wanted to save her, because she felt like a real person.
Games have come a long way in ten years, and the Ico team is still trying to push the technological and emotional limits of gaming as they work hard on their next game, The Last Guardian. Back between the release of ICO and it’s follow up, Shadow of the Colossus, Miyuki Miyabe penned this novel. A fan of the game, she notes that this is only a novelization of the plot ‘sort of.’ She was given free reign to create her own version of events which lead up to the events of the game, and to expand on the events during it. As such, it doesn’t quite match up with what the game designers might have had in mind, if the hints in Shadow of the Colossus about the greater lore of that world are true. For those readers, it’s best to step back and take the novel on it’s own.
ICO is very much a tale of nebulous good verses evil, with ancient powers providing the magical constructs. The story starts off showing Ico and his life in the village he lives in. The narrative focus is placed on his foster parents, who discuss the joy of raising him and the grief of the burden of knowing that one day he will be sacrificed. Ico is not oblivious to his fate. He knows that he has a sacred duty to perform and accepts it, even if he doesn’t know all of the sordid details of what happens to those sacrificed to the castle in the mist. He’s almost the perfect kid, respectful, kind, and smart. His friend Toto is far more typical and breaks several village rules trying to find a way to pull Ico from his fate. The reader knows that whatever the other boy plans it cannot work and that Ico will be sent to the castle. Regardless, the set up does an excellent job explaining the how’s and why’s, from the villagers standpoint, of Ico’s sacrifice. It draws you into the world of Ico and sets up a strong backdrop for the struggle to come.
It’s not until the second chapter that the story meets up with the gaming narrative. Through a twist of fate Ico finds himself free to wander the castle and tries to discover why he’s being given as a sacrifice. He soon happens upon a second mystery, a strange quiet girl in a cage who doesn’t speak his language and once freed is pursued by shadowy figures.
It’s here that the story falters a bit. The course that the youngsters take through the castle is told in a dry an almost matter of fact way. Combined with Ico’s nearly inhuman ability to take a beating it lacks a sense of suspense or wonder. It’s clear the author loves the game and the characters, but she seems almost bored with the environment. That’s a shame, because the castle in the game feels like just as much of a character as Ico and Yorda. In between the less than engaging descriptions of the strange rooms that the children must traverse are brief glimpses of the past as seen through Yorda’s memories. These enigmatic passages are not a holdover of gameplay, but an introduced narrative device which reads like one.
Before the novel becomes bogged down the story shifts back to the past in an extended flashback to Yorda’s childhood and the events leading up to the fall of the castle. Once again the narrative picks up as we see Yorda’s life prior to the nightmarish present, a nice contrast to Ico’s own upbringing. Her helplessness and despair are given a sense of depth once her past is brought to light. Her struggle against her mother once she discovers the truth behind her mother’s actions gives Yorda’s plight a deeper resonance. She too is a strong character who stands up agains the impossible to do what she feels is right. However, the flashback comes up short and we’re left with a gap in the timeline. What lead the locals to began the cycle of sacrifice, and the motives behind it, remain mostly unexplained. The events that lead Yorda to being entrapped are only glossed over later, once Ico susses the truth out from a traumatized and weary Yorda.
Once again we’re shoved back into the present as the story winds into the final chapter. The desperate elements of existing story and new begin to knit together. Even with that smoother melding, the parts taken from the game stand out from the additional narrative, and at times the ending’s game elements shine through too strongly. It’s strange for me to say so, but if the author had deviated from the source material a little more it probably would have made for a more engaging read.
For all of the narrative complaints, the translation is a solid and smooth read. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Alexander O. Smith was a fan of the game as well. Many of the descriptions of locations match their counterparts in the game and it was easy for me to picture them once again.
In Summary:
ICO: Castle in the Mist is at it’s best when it takes a step back from the source material. The framework that Miyabe wrote to flesh out the world of Ico prove to be some of the strongest parts of the book. Fans of the game might find the narrative differing from the one constructed in their own minds, but Ico’s reconstructed world for the novels is a well thought out and written. To the fans I’d suggest considering the novel an alternate take on the events of the game and enjoy the story for what it is. For those that have no exposure to the game at all, this is a pleasant adventure story for fans of fairy tales with a slightly unusual setting.
Grade: B
Novel written by: Miyuki Miyabe
Novel translated by: Alexander O. Smith
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: August 16th, 2011
MSRP: $15.99
