The Last Guardian (new game from Team Ico)

Games
21

I decided this fit my busy schedule far more than FFXV or Dishonored 2, so I went ahead and tried it.

Ended up playing 4 hours straight. I like it a lot. Also, I like it’s probably going to be Ico length (8 hours) and not SotC length. I always thought SotC overstood its welcome (as much as I liked it). When you have such a focused experience, there’s only so much you can stretch before it starts feeling repetitive.

It is what it is, which is a pretty clear direct successor of Ico + Shadow of the Colossus. Ico but carrying a small Colossus around. I mean, the visuals and the controls also feel exactly the same. It’s basically another similar game in the series in every single way (I suspect there’s a good amount of shared code/algorithms), so your experience with this is going to be dependent on what you think of those games and whether you think that design paradigm is still valid today.

For me? Well, I love this style. It’s minimalist as hell, like his other games. It is a game that is about one thing and one thing only. Your bonding with the beast as you solve traditional environmental puzzles. And that it does really well, I think, but don’t go in expecting anything more.

But yes, at the end of my session yesterday I definitely felt something for the beast. Impressive work they have done with very simple AI and almost non existent plot. It’s unpredictable enough so that you cans see patterns but still manages to surprise you.

If anything, I think the current gaming landscape is going to make this very hard to shallow at $60 for a lot of people. I would only recommend you get it at that price point if you really know your Ueda and therefore know exactly what’s in store for you here:

-It is small, confined, directed. It feels more like a big indie game than a big first party production. With stuff like Inside having come up recently, it’s not even an impressive indie title visually (the art is compelling for me, like SotC was, but it’s very simple and could have used more polish/detail. Looks like a PS2 game in places, like a PS3 games in others, but nowhere does it look as a this-gen game in my original PS4).

-It’s also not very well optimized, giving it more of that indie feel. It didn’t take me out of the experience, but I’m also on record to preferring 30fps to 60fps on certain genres. If you think you would care about framerates or next gen graphics in a narrative moody game with average graphics, this is not the game for you. Even if it ran well.

22

Welp, what do you know? 7 years (counting from the first announcement back in 2009) and we finally see the light of The Last Guardian. Time really flies fast.

23

I believe it was announced in 2009, but since it’s been five years since DNF shipped, I would agree that time flies. :)

24

Ah yes, I quite messed up between the announcement date and the initial release date. Thanks for clarifying that.

25

Thanks, Juan. I think ICO and Colossus are the best console games ever created so… I guess I need to get a PS4 (Pro?).

26

If you really need stable framerates, get a PS4 Pro for sure.

27

I was okay with the frame rate in SotC, is this better/worse/same ?

28

Same, I think, at least from what I remember. So far (halfway through) only bothersome dips are in very effect heavy moments where it doesn’t really affect gameplay much.

Again, I don’t think framerate can diminish the enjoyment of the game. It’s just not that kind of game. If you are going to enjoy this experience, technical issues are not going to matter much to you. If you think you would care about framerate, there are bigger issues there that might make this not a game for you.

It’s akin to people complaining about too few frames of animation in old point and click adventures. Yeah, better technology would be nice, but the failings are so far away from the strengths of the game that it’s, in my opinion, almost meaningless.

29

Looks like the price for this was lowered across the board. It’s $40 on PSN now, as well as Best Buy, Amazon, Gamestop. So I’m assuming it’s just a new MSRP, not a temporary sale.

30

Sony confirmed this to be a permanent price adjustment.

31

That’s quick, did it not sell well for them?

32

Every month Sony releases their top digital games by platform. This December they listed a top 20 and Last Guardian didn’t chart. It wasn’t on the NPD physical charts either. So yes, it was a huge bomb.

33

What are the chances of the price dropping further in the near future? I’m interested, but if it’s on the way to the bargain bin, I’ll hold off.

34

That’s quite surprise given the amount of media attention the game got. It even won some GOTY awards.

35

Not enjoying this as much as I thought I would. Also I wish I waited and got it at 40 bucks. Framerate is annoying but I got through SoC I can get through this. I just am not feeling the pull to pickup the controller with the limited game time I have in a week.

36

I decided to fire this up next as my recovery game after beating Bloodborne. I’m enjoying it fore the most part… I love the look and sound of the game, and it didn’t take very long at all to feel a real bond forming with the catbirddog, but–good god!–it feels just awful to control. I feel super clumsy playing this, with the character seeming to always go from stopped to a full sprint with no in-between, and constantly getting hung up and stuck on corners in the environment. They really could have taken a few lessons from the Uncharted folks in the however many years it took to make this.

And it’s not just the character. The camera control seems really off as well, and it always feels like it’s either moving way too fast, or way too slow, and it makes navigating the environment far more frustrating than it really should be. There is an option to tweak the camera speed, which helps, but I think the root of the problem is that the dead zone is faaaaar too big. You need to move the stick nearly all of the way before it actually starts to move at all.

It does almost feel like this was designed without analog controls in mind. Both the camera and the movement feel very binary.

37

I think I’m going to put this one away for a while. Outside of intentionally difficult to control games like QWOP and Surgeon Simulator, from a mechanical standpoint this is one of the most frustrating and downright unpleasant games I’ve played in the modern era. Even the most basic navigations around the environment are maddening.

38

Grabbed this when I first got a PS4 because I have always loved both Ico and SotC but am just getting around to it now. I am really enjoying it so far but the controls really do not feel as good as SotC’s. These games are all atmosphere, though, kind of post-apocalyptic mesoamerican, and that style really does it for me.

39

Tldw: The game’s 1.00 version from disc didn’t have a frame rate cap so it runs at 60fps on PS5. But that version is suboptimal because the latest version had better controls that were tweaked in patches.

You would think the 30fps limiter could be tweaked by an intern and pushed out one day? But maybe not.

40

Finally finished this, more than a decade after it was announced and several years after I started it. Trico’s finickiness was really grating toward the end, but I enjoyed it a lot overall. Not as impactful as SotC, but I’m very glad I finished it.