ICO: Castle in the Mist

As a video game fan I am always intrigued when video game novelisations are released, as there are very few of them, and even fewer that are any good. It is difficult to capture the spirit of a video game in written form, and Ico is perhaps the most ambitious video game to novelise due to it's lack of story and abstract style. I have played the video game and can't say I was particularly enthralled by it, however I was interested to see how somebody could make a game with virtually no dialogue into a 250-page novel. I liked the authors style of writing, and thought that the translation was excellent, though sometimes a little disjointed in places. I was confused by the novel as a whole, as sometimes the author spent a long time show more describing exact elements of gameplay (climbing ladders, pulling levers etc) to veering into the realms of a full novel and painting an entirely fictional backstory. I found the backstory elements far more exciting than the gameplay description, namely because the author uses her imagination to paint up the gaps in the story of the video game. Suddenly things seemed to make a lot more sense. However, on the whole I felt like there was something missing in the story. I also found the structure extremely banal - particularly towards the end with the inevitable battle where good triumphs over evil. An interesting adaptation, thought not sure if my knowledge of the original video game helped or hampered my understanding of this novelisation. show less

Novelisation of the computer game of the same name. Very pretty story, lush language and detailed set pieces. Pacing is a bit wonky, probably reflecting said origins as a computer game. Some fascinating world-building, but no idea how true it might be to the original game.

A horned boy faces his destiny as the Sacrifice to the Castle in the Mist, but finds that not everything is as it seems when he frees a girl imprisoned in an iron cage inside the castle. A little slow at times, but the translation from the original Japanese is excellent and it's only really obvious in the last 50 pages or so that this story is a novelization of a video game.

This is a wonderful companion to a wonderful game. I was pleased to see that some of Yorda's backstory was in this! I'd always wanted to hear her POV in the game, so to see it in the novel was lovely.

Some people may be put off by the format, but I thought it was meandering and dreamy, much like the game itself, so it really worked well. Plus it was originally serialized.

This hit my heart in the right place, like the game, what a wonderful novelization.

Coming from the perspective of someone who loved Ueda's games, I was very eager to read this and find out what Miyuki Miyabe might've done with the universe and the story.

Right off the bat, there's a few interesting new pieces of content here that were not in the game, and that Miyabe uses to flesh out the story and events of the journey inside the castle. Ico, his village and its customs are given backstories. Yorda, her mother and the castle are given backstories, and a few supporting characters created to drive the plot along.

Some of it actually works - Perhaps the most interesting part of the story is a long flashback where you follow a younger Yorda as she learns of her mother's secrets and attempts to stop her. Unfortunately, most show more else is fairly uninteresting and unengaging. I found myself intensely bored throughout most of this, forcing myself to read on, even during the last dozen pages of the book.

In the end, I don't really recommend this, whether you're interested in it because you played the game and desire more content, or because you just randomly bumped into it. It's not very engaging on its own and it doesn't provide enough new or refined enough content for people who already know the basic plot. show less

Great book, very engrossing. I enjoyed how this book adds a backstory to characters that had no backstory in the game. The story of a boy who helps a princess escape a castle seems like a fairy tale. That's part of why this book is great. It is a fairy tale about two characters you care about. Its a fairy tale for young adults to adults.

This was such a wonderful story, it really brought back a lot of memories of playing the game, and it was full of descriptions of familiar places (that probably would have meant a lot less had I not played the game before), to have more of a background on the happenings of the game was really nice.