Synopsis
The game's protagonist, Ico (イコ, Iko?), is a young boy with a pair of horns on his head—considered a bad omen by his village. As part of the village's tradition, he is taken by a group of warriors to a castle surrounded by water, and locked inside one of the stone coffins in a crypt. Some time after the warriors depart, a tremor runs through the castle, and Ico takes advantage of it to escape. As he searches the castle, he comes across Yorda (ヨルダ, Yoruda?), a captive girl who speaks in a language different from his. Ico helps Yorda escape, but finds she is hunted by shadow-like creatures (the souls of other horned children sacrificed to the fortress) that attempt to drag her into the portals from which they emerge. Although Ico cannot be harmed by the shadows and is able to drive them away from Yorda, he finds he cannot defeat the enemies with his simple weapons. The pair make their way through the abandoned castle, eventually arriving at the bridge leading to land. As they cross, the Queen, ruler of the fortress and Yorda's mother, appears and tells Yorda that as her daughter she cannot leave the castle. Ico and Yorda attempt to reopen the path, but the Queen destroys part of the bridge; although Yorda tries to save him, Ico falls off the bridge and loses consciousness.
Ico awakens below the castle and travels back to the upper levels, finding a magic sword able to dispel the shadow creatures. After discovering that Yorda has been turned to stone by the Queen, he seeks out the Queen in her throne room. The Queen reveals that she is preventing Yorda from leaving so that she may extend her own life, which she had previously done by draining the life of those placed in the sarcophagi; now, she plans to restart her life anew by taking possession of Yorda's body. Ico and the Queen fight, Ico breaking both of his horns in the process. Ico is able to slay the Queen with the magic sword, but with her death the castle begins to collapse around him, and he loses consciousness again from falling debris. The Queen's spell on Yorda is broken, and a shadow version of Yorda carries Ico safely out of the castle and onto a boat, sending him to drift to the nearby shore and choosing not to accompany him. Ico awakens to find the distant castle in ruins, and Yorda, in her human form, washed up nearby him. She awakens just before the game ends.
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