CamHostage
Member
Controls, maybe I could agree, they are sort of stiff and jerky (although it does have some nice physical response to it as well.)
The camera though, I love and wish was in more 3rd Person character games.
They don't do the thing where the camera is tied to a pivot point in the character body and all your views are flat angles locked around your figure. Instead, Ico uses a cinematic view, with pre-set camera placement (sort of like a 3D Resident Evil before RE4, or a lot like God of War 1-3) that could then follow along or readjust from that general viewpoint. It was a set camera placement, but there was some control on the second analog stick, although instead of freely floating when you flicked the stick, it kept the camera in that spot for consistency and let you look around (and I think zoom in as well?) from that viewpoint before then nudging back into place as you continue to play.
It felt more like you were observing the game world and looking around the scenes that the characters inhabited, and that there was a reason for the camera to be where it was, rather than the traditional 3rd Person character camera that only exists in videogames. You weren't constantly futzing with the camera to see things (like you are in other games, including later Team Ico and RE/GoW games) because the camera was already generally placed where it needed to be in order to find a solution or work your way through an area, plus it wasn't always swerving and lurching every time you turned 180 in order to show you what the character sees. You don't see what the character sees; you see what the "director" (which becomes you) sees. Sometimes you could feel not fully satisfied because you couldn't get in to look close enough on a detail or couldn't see far enough to avoid enemies, but you just felt like you wanted more control sometimes because that's what we're used to; you never actually needed more control of the camera than the game gave you.
It was a directed game experience , and particularly in "adventure" games where gameplay is more about discovery than battles, it's a camera system I would prefer was used more often. It's not something that's easily done, though (I don't know how SotC or The Last Guardian could have done it and kept up or managed the scale, although TGL could have really used more fixed cameras as it got real swimmy and frustrating,) but game engines and camera scripting are more robust now (plus modern AI could help some with that.) When a 3rd Person set-camera perspective is done well, you have a more complete sense of place and mood and direction, and the character feel more like they're in the world rather than in your game.
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