ICO: Melody in the Mist (2002)

ICO: Melody in the Mist (2002)

Composed by Michiru Ōshima and Pentagon

The ICO score is just over twenty-five minutes in length, but during that time it encapsulates almost as many different emotional states as the game itself gives rise to while playing.

Some of the incidental music is so brief that it seems as if the lingering aspect you'd normally expect to have actually becomes the whole, but it's never cursory or perfunctory.

Other parts of it are so perfect, so refined, that making them longer couldn't increase their beauty, it would merely increase the duration.

As a whole, it's a gathering of musical moments ranging from serene, ethereal, forebodingly eerie and haunting to ultimately peaceful, filled with hope. That's a lot of ground for something that's only as long as my bus journey into town.