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The Last Guardian | TGS Hands-On Previews

The press got to play a 30-45 minute demo of The Last Guardian at Tokyo Game Show, so we're slowly getting new previews. I've read through a few of them which I'll add and quote, and I'll include any new articles when I have the chance.

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Game Informer
Fittingly enough, I discovered a game experience that also requires patience, but not in a frustrating way. Instead it’s more serene as you slowly discover how to get around in this strange world with your only ally, a mammoth beast. The Last Guardian isn’t a game that you just tear through without a second thought, and that’s what makes it special.

The controls take some time to get used to; they’re much more responsive and fluid than in Team Ico’s past games, but it’s hard to train your brain to use triangle to jump, and pointing Trico to an area of interest using the camera and holding two buttons at once can be tricky.

This world is dangerous yet beautiful. Solutions are around every corner. Most of them involved Trico to some degree, but often he’s helping you as much as you’re helping him. For instance, at one point I push a huge barrel off a ledge as a way to prop open a gate so Trico can get through. I feel a sense of accomplishment when I figure out ways to get through every plight, and Trico is there at every turn. As you fly through the air on his back, it’s just like echoes of Atreyu riding Falcor in The Neverending Story. I can already tell this is the start of something special, and can’t wait to see what’s in store when I can play the entire game.


USgamer
It's essentially Ico 2, but with an AI companion much more intelligent and necessary than Shadow of the Colossus' Agro. Granted, it's slightly disappointing that Udea didn't forge ahead with an idea as bold and unique as Shadow, but only because he's set the bar impossibly high for himself.

Thankfully, you don't need to babysit Trico at all: He generally knows when to follow you, and most of the instructions you give him (in the demo, at least) involve very specific interactions with the environment. Like Agro, he's mostly on auto-pilot until you need him.

While 30 minutes of The Last Guardian isn't nearly enough time to draw a comprehensive conclusion—I didn't fight a single enemy, for instance—my time with it definitely had me walking away happy. Most importantly, it didn't feel like a last-generation project hastily refurbished to make back some of its development costs: What I played doesn't look astoundingly different from its seven-year-old E3 trailer, yet it also doesn't look like a remastered version of a PS3 game.


Gamesradar
Trico's disobedience could very well frustrate impatient players, but I find it to be one of The Last Guardian's greatest strengths. It helps sustain the illusion that Trico is a living, breathing creature with his own quirks and behaviors - a believability that will surely be at the heart of The Last Guardian's emotional adventure. At one point during my demo, when I needed Trico's help to reach the higher platform he was sitting on, he lumbered away until he was completely out of my sight, despite my cries. For a moment, I was overcome by loneliness, until Trico suddenly reappeared as though he had merely been distracted by something in the distance. And I firmly believe this brief abandonment wasn't scripted; it felt akin to the kinds of powerful sensations of bonding or desertion that arise in the similarly unpredictable Journey.

The Last Guardian's camera has an almost impossible task: trying to frame shots that let you clearly see the tiny boy you're controlling, and the colossal beast that may or may not be nearby, at the same time. To make things even more difficult, the camera has to constantly swivel within the confines of the temple walls whenever you're in an enclosed space - an issue that never hindered the wide-open fields in Shadow of the Colossus, which imparted a similar sense of scale.

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The Verge
When the interplay of puzzle-solving and emotional bond comes off, The Last Guardian is exhilarating like nothing else. Trico is an astonishingly realized creature, with subtle animations and sound design helping you figure out what it’s feeling. Sometimes it’s frustrated, sometimes it’s playful, sometimes it’s scared — but it’s with you for the adventure and wants to help you out. This leads to heartstopping moments where you place your life in Trico’s hands and vice versa, as the creature’s idiosyncratic personality makes you never quite sure what’s going to happen.

This feeling of uncertainty is amplified by the puzzle design and control system, both of which are a lot looser than you’d usually find in a game like this. It usually works in The Last Guardian’s favor, but it’s not always for the better. While I was playing a pre-production build, the controls are pretty fundamentally awkward and the camera seems to have as much of an independent streak as Trico; together with some performance issues, the game is often reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus’ worse traits as well as its best.

... if the final product manages to keep up the pacing and beauty of what I played, The Last Guardian could well be a worthy successor to Shadow of the Colossus and Ico before it. It looks to have all of those games’ heart and delicate touch, not to mention Ueda’s unmistakable hazy aesthetic — those points alone will be more than enough to make The Last Guardian stand out upon its release this December.


Polygon
My 30 minutes of hands-on time with The Last Guardian was not bad, exactly. The game looks beautiful, its environments are stunning, and its puzzles are clever and satisfying, often with multiple layers to figure out. There's a core gameplay loop around solving a puzzle to get to a new room, then figuring out how to get your bird-dog friend to follow. That loop is strong, and it helps reinforce the relationship between the protagonist and the pet.

It feels awkward as hell when it comes to actually controlling the main character. The protagonist doesn't walk so much as he lurches in whichever direction you've pushed the analog stick. Much of the demo focuses on platforming, but his jumps have a stickiness to them, a sense of inaccuracy that could be played up as realistic weightiness in the right game but just feels frustrating here.

Like a real dog, Trico often does what it wants, refusing to listen to your commands until it's good and ready. On the one hand, there's a clever nod to real interactions with pets there that I appreciate. On the other, jamming on a button over and over to get Trico's attention isn't super compelling gameplay.

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Kotaku
What I played of The Last Guardian was at times frustrating and at other times fascinating, both due to Trico, the game’s bird-dog AI companion.

In 2011 Ueda had explained that Trico had a mind of its own, and that was very evident in this year’s demo. There were times when I would gesture, holler, and clap my hands to get Trico’s attention. Most of the time he’d respond, but not always. I grew frustrated, then reminded myself that Trico was just a bird-dog thing, so I needed to be patient.

I don’t know if this makes for a good game, but it did make for an interesting experience. The AI seems rather sophisticated, and Trico could very well be the most realistic creature to appear in a video game. While that realism might wear on some players’ patience, it made the game more immediate. You are dealing with an animal and all that entails.


IGN
... the section I played has a lot of the same endearing qualities that made Team ICO’s previous games memorable, but that same segment also shares some of those games’ problems – problems that haven’t aged well.

My time was mostly spent solving puzzles to move Trico from one area to the next, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the segment I played felt like an extended escort mission.

The camera misbehaves about as often as Trico does. It gets caught on objects in the environment, it swivels unexpectedly or focuses where you don’t necessarily want it to, and it loses track of Trico at inopportune moments. It’s distracting, and makes some challenges more difficult than they should be. This is coupled with a tenuous control scheme that’s very reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus, one that’s less forgivable in 2016 than it was in 2005. Hopefully this will be fine-tuned now that the developers have a few extra weeks before release.

That being said, there are genuine moments of brilliance at work here. Moments that will make you chuckle, moments that will make you hold your breath and shut your eyes tight, moments that will hopefully eclipse its annoyances and remind you that the experience might have been well worth the wait.


Wired
In the first room of the demo, we had to figure out that Trico would occasionally jump into a position in the room that would allow us to climb higher and exit the chamber. But since he was wandering around the area, it wasn’t obvious exactly where that position was, or where you should be to take advantage of it. I tried to solve the puzzle by just running around by myself, but it was only when I stood back and watched Trico’s movements that it became clear.

In the demo we played, the boy now holds on automatically until you press a button to drop. On the surface, this may be kinder to the player, but I always felt that having to keep a button depressed to simulate hanging on for dear life was a way of heightening the connection between the player and the on-screen action. Now it’s easier to play, but doesn’t feel as much like Colossus anymore. A good tradeoff? I’m not sure.


16 Minutes of Gameplay
Part 1
Part 2

20 Minutes of Gameplay + Commentary
Link

18-Minute Famitsu Gameplay
Link

For fun, spot the ways in which the creature behaves and reacts across the available footage. It will give you a good sense of how fantastic its AI is.

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Discuss.
 

Servbot24

Banned
Sounds great! The criticisms are just what I expected, and won't really affect my enjoyment of the game if SOTC is any indication.
 

Cudder

Member
Sounds interesting. Do we know what the actual story is for the game? Who the main character is, what the goal is? Maybe I haven't been paying much attention.
 
You know for a fact people are going to do exactly that. Let's not kid ourselves.

I imagine there will be people who complain about it not modernizing itself enough, particularly in regards to the control scheme and the way it feels to control the boy. I can also imagine some will knock it for not straying enough from the formula established by the previous two titles.
 

speedomodel

Member
Water effects look nice in that gif. Hope this delivers for those who have been waiting. Seems to be shaping up nicely.
 
I think this game will be polarizing based on these previews. I just hope people don't go in thinking "this better be good because 10 years!!"

Like I said in the trailer thread, it's definitely going to be more of a love it or hate it experience than ICO or SotC. In both of those games the player dictated what happened. If Yorda wasn't doing what you wanted then you could grab her hand and move her to wherever you wanted. In SotC you had Agro and she'd go in the direction you wanted her to. TLG will be the first time where progress is really up to Trico's AI. You can encourage it, but it'll ultimately respond when it wants to. It's about growing a relationship between the boy and Trico to make it more likely to listen to you just like a real pet. You can't force it to do something like you could in the previous games. It's a huge gamble and one that very few developers would ever take. They're attempting to advance AI forward in a big way when most developers really aren't evolving that aspect of games at all.
 

Agram

Member
Team Ico have always been a love or hate for most people right?
True, and it seems TLG will be the same.

People like to laugh at the game and you don't have to be an expert to know that TLG is not gonna review well in today's market, but those who were truly excited for the game way back in 2009 are still anticipating the game because they know what to expect from Ueda's works.

I can't wait ^^
 
Camera looks really dreadful unfortunately...

It seems like a tall order to have the camera behave 100% of the time while taking a big creature into account in small spaces — one that needs to respond to your inputs to solve puzzles. Hopefully they can tighten it up as much as possible between now and the game's release.
 

maxcriden

Member
Spoilery question about SOTC, since this seems as good a place as any to ask it.

I'm interested in playing the game but some spoilers I've seen over the years indicate you gradually discover you're playing as a bad person. I really have no interest in playing a game where you're a bad guy slaughtering innocent giants. Is that true or is it morally ambiguous where you may not be a bad guy and it's open to interpretation...? Or the colossi may be deserving of your defeat of them? Feel free to be spoilery in your answer as much as you need to be. I am really interested in playing the game (and the rest of Ico, which I played the demo of years ago on an old OPM disc if anyone remembers the same one, and then part of the main game as well I think).
 
Spoilery question about SOTC, since this seems as good a place as any to ask it.

I'm interested in playing the game but some spoilers I've seen over the years indicate you gradually discover you're playing as a bad person. I really have no interest in playing a game where you're a bad guy slaughtering innocent giants. Is that true or is it morally ambiguous where you may not be a bad guy and it's open to interpretation...? Or the colossi may be deserving of your defeat of them? Feel free to be spoilery in your answer as much as you need to be. I am really interested in playing the game (and the rest of Ico, which I played the demo of years ago on an old OPM disc if anyone remembers the same one, and then part of the main game as well I think).

You can't really answer that question without ruining the the game for you. I'd suggest you just play the game.

I mean, I could say that it's definitely ambiguous in that it's never explicit in telling you anything whatsoever in terms of whether or not your motivations are inherently evil. Everything's up to interpretation.
 

Ridley327

Member
Spoilery question about SOTC, since this seems as good a place as any to ask it.

I'm interested in playing the game but some spoilers I've seen over the years indicate you gradually discover you're playing as a bad person. I really have no interest in playing a game where you're a bad guy slaughtering innocent giants. Is that true or is it morally ambiguous where you may not be a bad guy and it's open to interpretation...? Or the colossi may be deserving of your defeat of them? Feel free to be spoilery in your answer as much as you need to be. I am really interested in playing the game (and the rest of Ico, which I played the demo of years ago on an old OPM disc if anyone remembers the same one, and then part of the main game as well I think).

It's very much open to interpretation, so I would tell you to play through it and draw your own conclusion.
 
I hope the extra month of development they've been given is enough to iron some of these technical issues such as the wayward camera.

Truth be told though, if the game succeeds on an emotional and atmospheric level like its two spiritual predecessors did, then that alone would be enough for the game to deliver in my mind. ICO and SotC weren't exactly flawless on a gameplay level either, but they didn't need to be.
 

maxcriden

Member
You can't really answer that question without ruining the the game for you. I'd suggest you just play the game.

I mean, I could say that it's definitely ambiguous in that it's never explicit in telling you anything whatsoever in terms of whether or not your motivations are inherently evil. Everything's up to interpretation.

Appreciate your reply. Thank you. I mean, I just don't like the feeling I get from playing a GTA or something where you're a vile individual wretchedly slaughtering people and wreaking terror. Hope that makes sense.

It's very much open to interpretation, so I would tell you to play through it and draw your own conclusion.

Thanks to you also, Ridley. We usually have similar taste in games from what I've seen from your games so that makes me think I'd enjoy it (assuming you did, I mean).
 

Unknown?

Member
I don't believe in bad controls. Anyone can get used to any layout, people just complain when it's not the norm and they have to learn how to use it. Pressing triangle to jump is no worse than pressing cross.
 

silva1991

Member
So it has camera and and control issues of the previous games, but everything else is great. I'm fine with that.

the average person struggles with Souls controls too in his first playthough even today.
 

Tigel

Member
I don't believe in bad controls. Anyone can get used to any layout, people just complain when it's not the norm and they have to learn how to use it. Pressing triangle to jump is no worse than pressing cross.

Thank you, I believe exactly the same.
 
Sounds exactly as I expected. Expect it to review poorly, but be fun to people who like Team ICO games.

December's almost here. (Let's hope TLG is here in December)
 
I don't believe in bad controls. Anyone can get used to any layout, people just complain when it's not the norm and they have to learn how to use it. Pressing triangle to jump is no worse than pressing cross.
I'm not particularly dexterous and I adjusted to Ico very quickly. I think the original DMC triangle was jump too. Meh, I just don't get it...Ico controls wonderfully IMO, has aged better than SotC to me. I may go back and try and finish the speed run, are they on PSnow?
 

jett

D-Member

jett

D-Member
Spoilery question about SOTC, since this seems as good a place as any to ask it.

I'm interested in playing the game but some spoilers I've seen over the years indicate you gradually discover you're playing as a bad person. I really have no interest in playing a game where you're a bad guy slaughtering innocent giants. Is that true or is it morally ambiguous where you may not be a bad guy and it's open to interpretation...? Or the colossi may be deserving of your defeat of them? Feel free to be spoilery in your answer as much as you need to be. I am really interested in playing the game (and the rest of Ico, which I played the demo of years ago on an old OPM disc if anyone remembers the same one, and then part of the main game as well I think).

The colossi aren't living beings. There's no bad guy in the game.

This isn't really a spoiler.
 
I don't know why someone would think the movement-feel of Ico should be 'modernised'. I don't even know what that means. The clumsy movement was a deliberate design choice because you're playing as an awkward kid. It's not like it had to do with hardware limitations... Likewise in SOTC, there's things about the controls that could definitely have been a whole lot better, but I wouldn't call it modernised, they were just weird design decisions at the time and still are.

Both games were still great though and if this is as good as those, it deserves every success.
 

Ridley327

Member
Appreciate your reply. Thank you. I mean, I just don't like the feeling I get from playing a GTA or something where you're a vile individual wretchedly slaughtering people and wreaking terror. Hope that makes sense.

Yeah, it's nothing like that at all. If anything, any ill feelings you might have are completely intentional.
 
Added the new gameplay videos from the previous thread. I must reiterate that I'm absolutely floored by how life-like they've managed to make Trico. The creature feels real. It is a marvel of an AI paired with superb animations.
 

Guymelef

Member
Honestly not sure what to think about this latest batch of previews. Personally not very excited for the game, moreso intrigued by it, so hearing about clunkiness especially with the controls and camera aren't reassuring.

I understand it's meant to simulate a clumsy kid and his "pet" traversing a world, but there has to be a balance. If it's not fun to actually play, then what good is it that a game is "realistic"?

Does sound like the AI programming is top-notch, as an animal won't always respond to commands so that's quite a cool system. I'll stay tuned, seems like the type of game (even more than most) that hands-on time is required to get a feel for how much you will enjoy it.
 

OldRoutes

Member
I hope the extra month of development they've been given is enough to iron some of these technical issues such as the wayward camera.

Truth be told though, if the game succeeds on an emotional and atmospheric level like its two spiritual predecessors did, then that alone would be enough for the game to deliver in my mind. ICO and SotC weren't exactly flawless on a gameplay level either, but they didn't need to be.

It worked for both of these games because of the generation they were in. Out of the PS2 era, third person controls and cameras got refined to an extreme degree with Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Tomb Raider and even Sunset Overdrive.

Even games like God of War 3 paved the way for a cinematic experience that could only make SOTC and ICO better today.

I don't really want to argue the hypothetical scenario that TLG has bad camera or bad controls, but comparing it to two games that are 2 generations ago is bad.
 

Ashby

Member
Spoilery question about SOTC, since this seems as good a place as any to ask it.

I'm interested in playing the game but some spoilers I've seen over the years indicate you gradually discover you're playing as a bad person. I really have no interest in playing a game where you're a bad guy slaughtering innocent giants. Is that true or is it morally ambiguous where you may not be a bad guy and it's open to interpretation...? Or the colossi may be deserving of your defeat of them? Feel free to be spoilery in your answer as much as you need to be. I am really interested in playing the game (and the rest of Ico, which I played the demo of years ago on an old OPM disc if anyone remembers the same one, and then part of the main game as well I think).

You're doing what you believe needs to be done to save your beloved. So Wander's motives are pure if that's important to you.
 
He says "most people"
It's like MGS V, "critical acclaimed" and it's a love/hate game by players.

There seems to have a higher ratio of love compared to hate in Team ICO's games unlike MGSV.

To those who like to put legitimacy in Polygon's "plays like a PS2 game"

gameinformer said:
The controls take some time to get used to; they’re much more responsive and fluid than in Team Ico’s past games

There. That ends that argument all together.
 
Ueda's games have always been the type that unfold slowly and require a certain amount of patience. They're not for the "immediate gratification" type of gamer.

It seems difficult to remember now but there was nothing like Ico when it came out in 2001. There have been many games since then that have followed suit stylistically. Chris Kohler really pinned down its influence in this 2013 article.
 

Unknown?

Member
It worked for both of these games because of the generation they were in. Out of the PS2 era, third person controls and cameras got refined to an extreme degree with Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Tomb Raider and even Sunset Overdrive.

Even games like God of War 3 paved the way for a cinematic experience that could only make SOTC and ICO better today.

I don't really want to argue the hypothetical scenario that TLG has bad camera or bad controls, but comparing it to two games that are 2 generations ago is bad.

The era we're in we always think our controls are great. There was a time where clicking the left stick was to zoom in first person shooters instead of L1 or L2 and if it wasn't that way it was bad. 2 gens from now our current games will seem like tank controls. It's usually all in someone's head though.
 

maxcriden

Member
The colossi aren't living beings. There's no bad guy in the game.

This isn't really a spoiler.

Yeah, it's nothing like that at all. If anything, any ill feelings you might have are completely intentional.

You're doing what you believe needs to be done to save your beloved. So Wander's motives are pure if that's important to you.

Thanks all for your replies. Ashby, I guess my concern was that you're doing what you believe needs to be done to save her, but you're doing reprehensible things in service to that goal. But, it sounds like that's not necessarily the case.
 
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