RGT Nostalgia Society #11 - Ico

[PupinDaTurd]

I always saw SotC as the first chapter and ICO as the final chapter of the same story.

That's what the devs say if I'm not mistaken.

 

[ThatOneLum]

I always saw SotC as the first chapter and ICO as the final chapter of the same story.

AFAIK this is 100% true, it's just that it seems like 1000s of years, or at least 100s, must have passed between the two due to the infrastructure in place in ICO, so it's not like the connection offers much narratively to either game outside of a "Oh, that's neat!" at the end of SotC.

 

[Bakuma1997]

GOSH DANG IT

Can't get the right settings for the game, my PC is good, but is the settings of PCSX2 that kind of throws the curveball

 

[PupinDaTurd]

Alright, finished it just now. Fantastic beginning of Ueda's career as auteur game developer extraordinaire. Kojima wishes he had these chops.

(My new desktop wallpaper)

There's a few places where the controls felt pretty unpolished and unwieldy. Sometimes when the camera does a hard switch while I'm running now I'm steering off in a different direction slightly, going to an edge and stopping for the balance animation. And a few times a jump would just veer off at an unintended angle and spell a Continue or even worse, having to reclimb all the way back up something from the bottom. That sucks.
But these are growing pains from 3D game development, I can forgive it for the most part. It's way cleared up by SotC so they got better and that's good.

(Y'see this jump? FUCK this jump.)

Thanks for suggesting and picking this. Who knows how long or if ever I would have gotten to it otherwise. Makes me want to replay SotC and Last Guardian for the first time. Also keep an eye out for his new joint coming, Project Robot.

I'm about to run it again and get the pickup chievos now.

GOSH DANG IT

Can't get the right settings for the game, my PC is good, but is the settings of PCSX2 that kind of throws the curveball

What?

 

[DanCalibur]

GOSH DANG IT

Can't get the right settings for the game, my PC is good, but is the settings of PCSX2 that kind of throws the curveball

What problems are you having? It's supposed to run flawlessly out of the box.

 

[Bakuma1997]

What problems are you having? It's supposed to run flawlessly out of the box.

The graphics are crisp, but the framerate kills me had the same problem with GOW 1

 

[diapered]

kinda random, but gave me these feels, sitting on the couch >_<

 

[DanCalibur]

The graphics are crisp, but the framerate kills me had the same problem with GOW 1

That's weird. Do you know your CPU model? Are you using the latest version of pcsx2?

 

[Bakuma1997]

That's weird. Do you know your CPU model? Are you using the latest version of pcsx2?

Yes and Yes, read some tutorials, as soon as i get spare time i may check if they work

Post automatically merged: Apr 10, 2026

That's weird. Do you know your CPU model? Are you using the latest version of pcsx2?

Managed to make it work, currently reached my first sofa

 

[SpikeSlania]

Also, I'm not a RA person, so that doesn't matter, and I already have had that version downloaded for a while, so might as well go with it ^_^

If you ever do set up a RA I will follow you on there :P

I might actually sit down and finally play Ico tomorrow. I think I'm done messing with my "backup" library and converting most of my CD based games into UHDs. I was debating between playing Ico on my Batocera desktop or Retroid Pocket 6 and think I will go with the Retroid on this. Will just play make believe that Ico got ported to the Vita :P

 

[ThatOneLum]

In some ways I'd love to have done the RA for this gem, but as I'm playing on OG hardware it's not doable at all.

Still left the final few hours of the game for myself, but tempted to round it off today.

 

[Jdan-S]

Also, for anyone planning on going for the Retro Achievements like me, you will want to play the European version.

I had the US ISO, but thanks for the tip about the PAL version having RetroAchievements.

I finished the PS3 version before, and I'm going for a hardcore run. I might do new game+, but I don't think I'll aim for the speedrun achievement.

 

[DanCalibur]

I had the US ISO, but thanks for the tip about the PAL version having RetroAchievements.

I finished the PS3 version before, and I'm going for a hardcore run. I might do new game+, but I don't think I'll aim for the speedrun achievement.
View attachment 174709

The speedrun achievement is very doable and the broken 50hz jumps are good for laughs. SanchoPanda has some nice guides on YouTube. You can do it

 

[PupinDaTurd]

The speedrun achievement is very doable and the broken 50hz jumps are good for laughs. SanchoPanda has some nice guides on YouTube. You can do it

"Doable" is a very subjective word. I just had to give up an attempt because I was over 20 minutes from the estimated times when I opened the Gate, despite following Panda's videos.
I don't wanna hate this game so I'm putting it down instead of trying to grind some achievement.

 

[Crashbandi]

So I've been really trying to get into this game. And I just can't seem to get it. It's beautiful and the gameplay seems really good. I just can't seem to pick it up and play like many of the others we've been playing.

 

[diapered]

If you ever do set up a RA I will follow you on there :P

Aw, thanks, maybe I will think about it. RA does look like fun, but I am extremely lazy (and drunk ) when gaming, so I probably wouldn't even pay attention to the achievements after setting it up >_<

So I've been really trying to get into this game. And I just can't seem to get it. It's beautiful and the gameplay seems really good. I just can't seem to pick it up and play like many of the others we've been playing.

Understandable, I kind of have to be in the mood for this one. Finally done with most my work, it's dark out and peaceful... idk puts me in the mood. Maybe just me?

well anyway, back to fighting these shadow fuckers with a stick. Stay away from my wife dammit ...We hold hands so we are married right? What is more serious than that O_o

 

[SpikeSlania]

Aw, thanks, maybe I will think about it. RA does look like fun, but I am extremely lazy (and drunk ) when gaming, so I probably wouldn't even pay attention to the achievements after setting it up >_<

Besides it being nice to keep track of your games and seeing if you're close to the end, it lets you stalk your friends and see how they have been slacking! Or sometimes leading me to a random homebrew I never knew existed that I saw @Kamako playing. Some weird Genesis homebrew were you convince people to buy the Genesis over the SNES

 

[KamakoKamako's icon]

Ok! After a long ol' delay, I'm finally back and good to go continue my playthrough.

Congrats to all of you who have since beaten the game since I last posted here - I hope to have joined you all by tomorrow night. :]

Besides it being nice to keep track of your games and seeing if you're close to the end, it lets you stalk your friends and see how they have been slacking! Or sometimes leading me to a random homebrew I never knew existed that I saw @Kamako playing. Some weird Genesis homebrew were you convince people to buy the Genesis over the SNES

Funnily enough, I actually didn't start that homebrew game yet! I had a friend over and I was singing the praises of Retroarch (i.e. how great it is to be able to swap between different systems on the fly), and that's the MD game I happened to land on. xD Looks like fun though.

Completely off-topic dude, but you mentioned in an earlier post you'd recently gotten done converting all of your ISO's to CHD's. The more I look into it, the more this sounds like a really good shout, and something I'm gonna do too. Can you recommend a program you used to do the conversion? Or did you just do it via the command line? If not, were you able to do it in batches? I'll tackle 'em one at a time if I have to, but if I can transform in bulk then that's what I'm a do. :P

 

[diapered]

huh, guess you need the princess on the couch to make it glow and save? But the bridge broke away, so I can't use the first save point again because I don't think the princess can jump across? ...man.

lol, this version is probably more appropriate with ico on the couch alone

 

[PupinDaTurd]

Completely off-topic dude, but you mentioned in an earlier post you'd recently gotten done converting all of your ISO's to CHD's. The more I look into it, the more this sounds like a really good shout, and something I'm gonna do too. Can you recommend a program you used to do the conversion? Or did you just do it via the command line? If not, were you able to do it in batches? I'll tackle 'em one at a time if I have to, but if I can transform in bulk then that's what I'm a do. :P

Not who you're asking but I've used CHDman to good results a year or so ago when I was still on Windows. Can check into that one. I think there might even be a web based one too but I don't know anything about it, just the program.

 

[Badseed Badseed]

 

[diapered]

YAY just got to second couch ^_^

 

[SpikeSlania]

Completely off-topic dude, but you mentioned in an earlier post you'd recently gotten done converting all of your ISO's to CHD's. The more I look into it, the more this sounds like a really good shout, and something I'm gonna do too. Can you recommend a program you used to do the conversion? Or did you just do it via the command line? If not, were you able to do it in batches? I'll tackle 'em one at a time if I have to, but if I can transform in bulk then that's what I'm a do. :P

I'm on Linux so you can guess I had to use the terminal. But I want to guess since you said Command Line you're on Windows. I know someone posted a guide on the forums for CHD on Windows but I can at least drop the instructions I see from Retro Game Corp's Compression Guide.

The Ultimate ROM File Compression Guide

Last updated: 11AUG2025 (see Changelog for details) Organizing your ROM library can be confusing and tedious, and so in this guide I will show you how I use CHD, PBP, and RVZ files to optimize my c…

retrogamecorps.com

Edit - Here is the link to the guide someone posted on RGT which is different from Retro Game Corp's guide.

Guides - CHD Format: Lossless Compression to Save Massive Storage Space!

The CHD format was developed by the MAME team (yes, those same crazy folks whose project is to emulate every machine possible, starting with arcade systems). It can be used with most of the CD-DVD based consoles It’s an image file, much like an ISO backup file for a PlayStation 2 game, but with...

retrogametalk.com

 

[KamakoKamako's icon]

Not who you're asking but I've used CHDman to good results a year or so ago when I was still on Windows. Can check into that one. I think there might even be a web based one too but I don't know anything about it, just the program.

I'm on Linux so you can guess I had to use the terminal. But I want to guess since you said Command Line you're on Windows. I know someone posted a guide on the forums for CHD on Windows but I can at least drop the instructions I see from Retro Game Corp's Compression Guide.
View attachment 176060

The Ultimate ROM File Compression Guide

Last updated: 11AUG2025 (see Changelog for details) Organizing your ROM library can be confusing and tedious, and so in this guide I will show you how I use CHD, PBP, and RVZ files to optimize my c…

retrogamecorps.com

Edit - Here is the link to the guide someone posted on RGT which is different from Retro Game Corp's guide.

Guides - CHD Format: Lossless Compression to Save Massive Storage Space!

The CHD format was developed by the MAME team (yes, those same crazy folks whose project is to emulate every machine possible, starting with arcade systems). It can be used with most of the CD-DVD based consoles It’s an image file, much like an ISO backup file for a PlayStation 2 game, but with...

retrogametalk.com

Thankin' ya both for the helpful info - I gave MAME's chdman a try last night and had some great success! I used a pre-built .bat file (which I chose to edit in Notepad first to make sure I wasn't about to run trojan4u.bat).
All looked good, so I converted all my .bin/.cue files into chd's - No more multi-track baloney to contend with. Compression ranged from ~90% of original file size down to ~30%!! Average was around about ~75%, but hey, a win's a win. :D

Using my colossal brain, I was able to edit the pre-built cdtochd .bat file I used to instead seek .iso's, converting DVD to chd, which I understand to be the newly recommended compression option for PS2 titles...and it worked like a charm!

I converted my Saturn, Dreamcast, PS1 & PS2 roms and made a saving of over 70GB!

Tested and all working ok - I even managed to FINALLY get LRPS2 (aka PCSX2) working and (almost) fully operational on RetroArch. One step closer to it being a total emulation solution. The only thing I still have to wrestle with is that some PS2/PSP games aren't recognised by RetroArch's hash manager by default, preventing some games being identified for RetroAchievements...

It seems like this is a hot-button issue though, as the libretro GitHub repo are still responding to enquiries about this up to around 5 days ago. I've found that installing the nightly build of RetroArch has enabled RetroAchievements for most games, so looks like they're most of the way there.

 

[SpikeSlania]

Tested and all working ok - I even managed to FINALLY get LRPS2 (aka PCSX2) working and (almost) fully operational on RetroArch. One step closer to it being a total emulation solution. The only thing I still have to wrestle with is that some PS2/PSP games aren't recognised by RetroArch's hash manager by default, preventing some games being identified for RetroAchievements...

It seems like this is a hot-button issue though, as the libretro GitHub repo are still responding to enquiries about this up to around 5 days ago. I've found that installing the nightly build of RetroArch has enabled RetroAchievements for most games, so looks like they're most of the way there.

My personal solution is using the stand alone emulator for PPSSPP instead of the Retro Arch core but I'm using a front end on my android device to keep everything together so I don't have to access each different emulator separately or have to open up RetroArch, boot up the core I want, then find my rom or however it is done to access them in retro arch, seemed like a lot of extra steps that I didn't want to have to do :P