sb 64 pt. 8: pagan (voting ends december 2!)

[shelter]

i posted this in july comparing it to resident evil remake, which is also in the running

@shelter

i’m halfway through ico right now and it is has very similar aims, formally/mechanically/aesthetically/circumstantially, to resident evil remake. the two were released only half a year apart (and the complete pal/jp release of ico came out on the same day as REmake), and both are next-gen redos of games developed for the psx (though ico’s original iteration was never released).

they are both roughly the same length (6-10 hours), with a similar dynamic shape over the course of that period, though obviously with varying degrees of intensity. they are both concerned with carefully and ritualistically routing the player through defined circuits of their environments by means of simple puzzles that are more about rhythmically articulating and unfolding the architectural structure of the space than brain teasing in the conventional sense. enemies works similarly - in resident evil, zombie placements are as much environmental puzzles to navigate as they are opportunities for combat (especially given the limited ammo), and ico’s shadows are a big part of the puzzlebox unfolding sequential rhythm of one-thing-after-another in defining progression through each area and its relationship to others around it.

while the original resident evil 1 obviously made use of nearly identical design strategies, its remake aligns with ico in its use of sound, light and color grading as aesthetic definitions of space to complement its design construction. it’s a horror game that takes place either at night or underground, so there’s less tonal variance in light than in ico, but the way it uses chiaroscuro for glinting silver in pillowy blackness, rain slick on foliage in the dark, stark shadows cast by imposing sculptures, etc., and especially the meticulously organized fragments of space de/recomposed by the stylized fixed camera angles are completely baroque in a way analogous to ico’s overexposure and other visual hallmarks. in ico, each new area has a distinct color and temperature grading from the way the light (sun or fire) interacts with the materials (stone, wood, grass, water) and environment (indoor, outdoor, underground, open and shadowed) and these patterns of light and color value resonate and interact from space to space. both games’ save themes are punctuation marks that partition “runs” and mark the pulse of their respective games, since they are location-specific and so always signify either progression, or, in the case of resident evil, possibly a retreat, ink ribbons dwindling…