ICO (demo)

The title screen for the ICO demos, which features a view of the tombs instead of the castle exterior.

Publicly available demos for ICO provided a select arrangement of stages to explore and progress through. They were mostly distributed across a few PlayStation Demo Discs in the Summer of 2001, with demos specific to the Japanese and PAL regions arriving later in Winter 2001 and Spring 2002. Along with the castle's room structure, many of the puzzles and pathways presented in each stage were altered for brevity and simplicity.

Game Alterations

• Each demo takes the player through the Altar, Warehouse, Spiral Stairs, Dark Room, and Windmill stages (in that order) before initiating the first cutscene at the Main Gate. All the demos end just before the appearance of the Queen.

• The demos do not show any of the opening cutscenes with the Shinkan; they simply start with Ico's coffin being dislodged.
  • As he falls, Ico begins the game with a stick already in his grip.
• Warehouse has four barrels in place of the four pots that are found there in the Japanese and PAL region releases.

• Doves now occupy the Spiral Stairs stage.

• Yorda's cage is already lowered when Ico arrives at Spiral Stairs, so the puzzle only requires the player to climb the ladder that leads to the high ledge and jump onto the cage.
  • In the full game, there are two functional ladders. But the one on the opposite end of the room, which leads up to the titular spiral staircase, is missing its bottom half in the demo, making the upper ends of the map inaccessible.

• After she's freed (although the lip movement in her animation is still momentarily present), Yorda does not speak a word to, nor approach, Ico before the shadows arrive.
  • Due to this, a uniquely abridged version of "Who Are You?" plays over the scene.

• Two shadows fly down from above to capture Yorda in the first combat encounter, rather than just one shadow emerging from the floor.
  • If Yorda is rescued from a grab or shadowy portal, she does not stay on the ground until lifted, as she does in the full game. Thus, no matter how the first combat encounter concludes, Ico cannot initiate the interaction where he lifts Yorda up, questions the nature of the shadows, and determines its not safe for them here.

• The visual preview of Old Bridge at the end of Spiral Stairs is gone. It was replaced with a black void to be more consistent with the change in room structure.

• The other side of Dark Room is already raised, and no chain is present to swing on. Instead, players push a box up against the ledge to help both Ico and Yorda reach the top of it.
  • To keep the box from interacting with the base of the room's ladders, raised curbs were added to the room's floor, to prevent pushing it too far in the wrong direction.
  • Due to the change in room structures and the solution, the chain that allowed the player to reach the top of the building in Graveyard is absent. For this reason, the upper end of the map is inaccessible.

• The windmill blades spin in the opposite direction compared to the final game, and feature handles that Ico can grab onto and ride all the way to the top. Ico can still climb the side of the structure, but he can't grip onto the wood beams of the windmill blades. He must grab the handles to progress.

• The windmill area's stone bench was removed.

• As the Queen begins to appear behind Yorda at Main Gate, the screen fades to white and the words "Coming Soon..." appear onscreen. A short video containing some more gameplay footage (with "You Were There" present in the background) plays, ending the demo.

Differences Between Demos

Almost every demo featured a different developmental build of the game, from the months of June, August, and December (PAL demo). This resulted in many smaller differences between each of the demos.

• In both the Summer Jampack 2001 and the Demo Disc 2.3 demos, players actually had the option to let go of Yorda's hand after catching her across a gap. This feature is completely absent from both ICO's US Demo Disc (SCUS-97159) and all subsequent versions of the game, likely to avoid unwanted cruelty towards Yorda.
  • In the Summer Jampack 2001 demo (dated June 8th), dropping Yorda could be accomplished by neglecting to hold down R1 after Ico catches her. Alternatively, if the player stopped holding R1 just as Yorda jumped, Ico would stop reaching out his hand, and never catch her at all. On Demo Disc 2.3 (dated June 26th), however, Yorda will remain in Ico's grip without any input, and the player can no longer cancel the action of reaching out to her after she jumps. The player must instead press R1 a second time after catching her to intentionally let go of her hand.

• In all demos prior to ICO's US Demo Disc (dated August 2nd), physical interactions between boxes and pots were non-existent. This meant players could push boxes through pots, and pots would not be broken if a box fell on top of them. Subsequent demos rectified this.

Video gallery

Ico PS2 Demo Walkthrough Demo Disc 2.3 ICO playthrough part 1

Ico PS2 Demo Walkthrough Part 2 Demo Disc 2.3 ICO playthrough part 2