- Porting proceeds smoothly. Pre-rendered backgrounds are replaced with 3D real-time environments.

- Camera type is still fixed. This allows the team to change the camera placement inside a stage depending on where they want the player's attention to focus.

- Porting is complete. Stage design is at a good stage.

- Ueda suggests they can add yet another layer to Yorda's personality by linking her quirky animations with objects in the stage. Every object is given an interest value and depending on where Yorda stands inside a room she takes notice of a particular object first and checks it.

- All stages, puzzles and game aspects are ready and Ueda starts building the plot and makes it explain why things are in a certain way. He gives a reason why Ico has horns and why Yorda is imprisoned inside the castle. He adds yet another character, Yorda's mother, the Queen of the castle.

- Until now Yorda has always been mute. The reason is that the use of pre-made speech destroys the illusion of reality. To avoid this Ueda decides to make Yorda speak a fictional language, one Ico and the player cannot comprehend.

- Ico's language is based on Japanese so it feels familiar to the Japanese player. Yorda's language is Japanese spoken backwards with a hint of French accent.

- One of the planners, Kei Kuwabara is asked to make a made-up glyph based writing system to use as Yorda's subtitles. Kuwabara takes the backwards Japanese and substitutes each syllable with an invented glyph symbol.

- Since ICO has always been a game aimed towards both gender audiences, Ueda decides to hire Michiru Oshima to compose the score of the game. She produces a number of heartbreaking piano and violin compositions but when placed inside the game Ueda thinks they distract and manipulate the mood too much. The score is toned down to the minimum necessary.