I took notes as I played...I guess I played about 4 hours or so? I played up until just after the part they showed at E3 2015, which, by the way, is really quite fun in the game. And, as you know, I'm pro. Anyway, there is a lot going on here that Ueda and team are doing and I didn't want to forget any of it.
First, technicals for people who want it: the game itself is seriously stunningly beautiful. The indoor areas are full of richly detailed textures and great lighting effects. On the Pro, IQ is absolutely pristine. HDR really helps sell the package and really helps sell the ethereal nature of the game. The sun glistening off blades of grass is a beautiful effect. Performance is fine but I think leaves something to be desired. It's not noticeably chuggy in any particular area, but it can feel sluggish in certain scenes (I can't find any commonality between them). The animation is out of this world. I don't think I need to elaborate. The Last Guardian is absolutely drop-dead shockingly beautiful and anyone who says otherwise is a troll.
The game immediately establishes not only the size and scale of Trico but the fragility of the boy. In the very first scene, Boy (I'll call him Boy) yanks a spear out of Trico. Trico kicks and hems and haws and knocks Boy into the wall, which knocks him out cold. The game absolutely sells at every opportunity the dichotomy between the two, which makes this a real role reversal from ICO. The player is the vulnerable one and the player is the one that is useless in combat. Combat is actually taken away from the player entirely (at least so far) and the player relies on Trico for support. And Trico does not screw around! Combat is not frustrating like ICO for this reason. There are also some neat role reversals from SotC. For example, the player completes the "reverse" action on Trico in this game with the spear pulls. Whereas previously you'd be climbing all over big monsters and stabbing them, now you are climbing all over a big monster and trying to help with stab wounds. There are lots of little things that animate similarly to Ueda's old games and remind me of them.
The game frames early puzzles for players through Man's narration. If you get lost, for example, Man will chime in describing the situation and telling players what the issue was or what he did. I think this is a really effective way of helping stuck players and I haven't seen this in another game. The game will say something like, "The beast immediately became pissed off, and I searched for a way to soothe him," or something like that, which gives you the hint.
The controls feel fine. They're almost exactly like they were in SotC, with real "weight" to them and definite acceleration and deceleration periods. I don't expect anyone to have a problem with them, though the camera is more frustrating. I played for a couple of hours at the default speed; I recommend immediately turning it up until you are comfortable. It makes the game feel considerably snappier and solves a lot of issues. Fundamentally the challenge the game is dealing with is not just small rooms + big beast but that the camera is working to cinematically frame both characters to the best of its ability in a way that maintains the scale differential. Often this means Trico's head will be out of the frame. This is unsettling to players so we're constantly fudging with the stick. The camera has a definite acceleration as well so you're going to overcompensate if you start fuddling with it. I'm sort of getting used to just leaving it be and it does a fine job.
The weight of the boy feels realistic but creates awkward animation situations sometimes. His butt ends up over his head catching ledges while falling, for example. It's not a big deal but it certainly does look funny.
I took hundreds of screenshots while playing, which I have never done before. Trico will make you love him; pet lovers will be done in instantly while non-pet people will have their attention earned. Every time I look at Trico I see my Boston Terrier Max. Here is my little Last Guardian:
Maybe it is his ears? Anyway, to call Trico lifelike is to undersell Trico's animation. He's not lifelike, he's...likeexactlylike. The way he navigates small spaces, claws at things he wants to eat, the way his ears react in the wind, the way he vocalizes and draws attention, and just the way he looks at you...it is an out of body experience to play this game if you have a pet. Max himself seemed fascinated by the game and sat on the ground watching Trico on screen.
The first time Trico comes to your rescue, you will just have your heart melt. Regardless of what you think of the game, the level at which Ueda and team have executed on their goal to build a lifelike animal creature is truly something special.
The satisfaction of "training" Trico is akin to getting a new dog or puppy to do a trick for the first time. Early in the game you get the ability to issue "commands" to Trico. They are basic and unidentified by the game. You can figure out they include jump, look, smash, etc. The first time you mount Trico and say "jump!" and he does, you will feel a rush of emotion as you can feel the bond between your characters forming. Or at least I did. Trico can't speak, and really neither can Boy since Trico can't understand him, but they don't need to. Trico doesn't call Boy and ask him if he wants to go look at some titties or tell him hoo-rah or say stay frosty, but the communication between these two is strong.
The game has a real Dark Souls vibe in terms of being able to "see" the upcoming game environments as you play earlier ones. For example, you can see the demo environment as you cross through the levels "underneath" it, which is a nice touch. The game itself has a real sense of place just like the two worlds Ueda and team built before this one. Logically things flow together and logistically you can believe that things connect to other things. Critically, puzzles are extremely organic and do not feel overwrought or "puzzley." They are satisfying and the game doles them out in well paced chunks. By the time you actually start really platforming through puzzle levels with Trico, you feel like you have earned it. And it really is fun to watch Trico jump from pillar to pillar...as you hold your breath and hope he makes it OK.
Animal logic works with him. He's self sufficient mostly, so you shouldn't spend time trying to micromanage him. In fact, I was surprised often by how he was able to follow me through small areas and into places I thought I'd have to ride him or tell him how to maneuver through. Perhaps this is one area players will be frustrated by him. If you need his attention, food really works! In fact, food seems to be one of his utmost priorities at all times. There is one very neat puzzle where you need to get him to stop doing something and get him to do something else. Guess what works! Food.
I have not found it to be the case that I had to be in a particular spot or have Trico be in a particular spot in order to progress through a level. If you've explored a room entirely and get stuck, I have found that watching and listening to Trico usually gives it away. You can also mount him and give him commands to effectively steer him to where you need to go. I really haven't found him very frustrating.
Trico's tail magic reminds me a LOT of Yorda's lightning.
The subtitle font is absolutely gorgeous. Wonderful kerning. Bold. Clear. Huge.
Anyway I think I want to go play more.
My second set of impressions is below. You can link these up with the first set if you want to get a sense of how I felt about the whole game. I thought about the game all night and really want to write this for the catharsis.
If ICO was about friendship and Shadow of the Colossus was about hope in the face of total hopelessness, The Last Guardian is about the satisfaction we get in seeing others succeed. What distinguishes Trico from Yorda is how Trico develops over the course of the game both physically and as a companion. While Yorda is clearly special from your first encounter and the game makes a note of her significance through cutscenes and dialogue, Trico becomes special because of how you help him and how that makes you feel. I completely reject the notion that the game could ever feel dated; Trico feels so far ahead of everything else in the field. His very being just seems groundbreaking to me. His animation and design are his character and they make it believable for you to believe in him.
The game makes Tricos development (rather than Boys escape) the major progression markers in the story. While I always wanted the Boy to escape, I really wanted to see how Trico, the failed little man-eating monster who starts the game on deaths door, made out, and those scenes are the real heartrending pieces of the story. Players of Panzer Dragoon Zwei are really going to appreciate a dramatic scene where Trico finally regains his full physical abilities. Youll pump your fist and feel a lump in your throat. The games filled with moments like these
not where you feel powerful because of something you did but powerful because of something Trico did that you made possible. Late in the game, as he becomes your protector, that connection feels palpably strong and human.
The plot of the game is not what you expect. After finishing it, there are a ton of unexplained elements I cant wait to explore and discuss with other people online. Suffice it to say it has been well hidden over the past 7 years and you do not know what you think you do. I wont comment on how it all wraps up expect to say the story is uplifting. After I finished it, I hugged my two dogs and they licked my face. One has really stinky breath so I can only imagine what Tricos breath smells like.
Mechanically, the game really turns into a platformer late. I was surprised by this. There are a lot of sweaty-palms jumps youll make towards the end, and the scale of the game is simply huge. I have no idea how this was intended to run on a PS3 (it barely runs on a PS4). Youll feel so, so high up! It makes every jump feel perilous. In this sense, late in the game, the game shifts from feeling a lot like ICO to feeling a lot like Shadow of the Colossus, where you start climbing massive structures and you just keep going higher and higher. Previously I mentioned how the game has a Dark Souls feel in that you can see places youll be going later as you play. The game also has a Dark Souls feel in that the environments end up looping around on themselves! It is a pleasant surprise because it further enhances the sense of place throughout the game. If this was one of your favorite elements of Shadow of the Colossus, you will really love this in the game.
Artistically, the games beauty is just incapable to describe. Expertly lit scenes and breathtaking views comprise the entire second half of the game. I know the performance is at best uneven but I thought it was so worth it (and 1900p is higher than I thought
this is almost 4K native!). I would have preferred if performance were perfect but it never impacted by ability to play (though it was definitely noticeable). I also noted the camera really struggled in some later-game scenes where you go into some mine-type environments and the ceiling gets very shallow. The game absolutely didnt know what to do with itself here, and this was somewhat surprising they didnt think to switch to a fixed camera or something similar. Still, didnt care. Pimple on the nose of this games beautiful complexion.
The puzzles are really quite clever. There are a few that use physics (be they of mechanical objects or water) and will leave you impressed. The solutions are always simple, so usually it is a matter of finding what they are and not overthinking things. I feel for players that bump into bugs. I didnt experience any, but they should definitely be fixed. The game can be oblique sometimes about where and what you should do or what you can climb on, and like I said before, there are some red herrings. There are no colored ledges or obvious cliffs to grab. Some of the things youll do youll be like, I cant believe this isnt some sequence breaking glitch! because of how adventurous and dangerous it feels. Something else the game has that Ueda games have not had historically are setpieces. One of them is so exhilarating that I called it my moment of the gen. The way the setpiece blends platforming puzzles with traversal and action and then ends the sequence with a straight up physics puzzle is truly genius and so Ueda. Youll love it.
I didnt take notes this time like I did last time so there may be more I remember later. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and cant even imagine this game never making it out. At Chris Kohlers suggestion, I watched the initial reveal trailer from 2009 after finishing the game. Things look a little differentHDR makes everything brighter and the graphics are obviously betterbut the game is all there. There was no rewriting or reworking of the game. It is all there. It just didnt work on the hardware. I think thats the reason why this game is good. It doesnt feel cobbled together or salvaged; it feels unique, like the singular vision of one guy and his team that they have slaved over for 5+ years. It doesnt feel like it has been influenced by outside trends in gaming or whateverI was blown away that there are no stupid collectables to collect or bars to fill just so you can feel better about yourself. Theres a secret garden thing you can find and its just this beautiful little garden where you can sit there and do nothing. You dont get +50xp and the game doesnt even tell you you did it.
At the end of the game, youll feel a tremendous sense of adventure. Youll be sad it is over and youll be crushed that you wont get to spend more time with your feathery friend. But youll feel good inside.
