The Last Guardian
The Last Guardian is made by the same studio that did Shadow of the Colossus and ICO. It has been awhile since the annoucement, and at one point I read it was canceled so I was surprised when a new trailer came out. I may not be as excited as when I heard it first, but I did preorder it. I expected it to be like ICO which just an escort mission the game. The style and gameplay looks very similar to it to. Since there be lots of puzzles, I am dreading a bit that since I'm not the greatest at puzzles. I don't find puzzles fun so I know I'll be struggling with this game. I've noticed the Japanese title for this game is different. Its called the Man-eating Steller's Sea Eagle Toriko (Hitogui oowashi no Toriko). While I know Trico is how its spelt in English, I feel I should note that toriko in japanese have possible other meanings such as captive, prison or small bird. There might be others but those two seem the most fitting. I think the English name is mostly to give the game more appeal than the Japanese title which makes sense.
The visuals are very pretty, but its not as polished looking as like Final Fantasy XV is. The design of the beast and the whole ruins is wonderful though. Its definitely memorable and unique to me. You play as this little boy who woke up in a stone cave room with this giant wings beast. A beast that your village has said eats humans. You undo the chains on the beast's neck and both of you set out to escape the huge ruins. It feels like a co-op kind of gameplay in this game. You may be the one solving puzzles, but the beast will carry you in unreachable areas for almost half the time. There is the ability to give the beast commands, but I haven't figured out what the commands actually mean.I find that Triangle can make it jump or stand. If you want to make it go a certain direction, I find it effective to stand on top of it and point while the boy runs in place. While the puzzles aren't too difficult, there where a few that I had to look up a playthrough. The puzzles with the barrels were the most frustrating at first, though luckily they didn't get so annoying for the rest of the game. There are enemies too and they are like automated stone suits of armor. The beast does the fighting, but there is one type of enemy that has something that scares the beast and prevents it from attacking so you have to make it let that thing go. When they grab you, a bunch of symbols come up and you realy have to hit all the buttons multiple times to get out of their grip. This really kills my fingers and wrist. You do the same when you die but luckily not as intense. Getting grabbed is the worst so be sure to avoid that happening. The controls are also not the best, but I did get them mixed up. Also the camera doesn't help much. There were times I couldn't see, and times the camera auto corrects while I'm trying to jump that I keep missing. I had to adjust the camera to make it slower cause it was giving me headaches. This game also has vibration, and it doesn't have the option to turn it off. The vibrations are subtle most of time. Not sure exactly how many hours took me to finish this game, but its less than 20 hours for sure.
This game ain't for people who are impatient. Sometimes the beast, Trico, may need a moment to actually process and proceed. Also, not for people with fear of heights. You walk across rope, and small sliver of walking space across buildings that are seem like 100 miles tall. This game is not anyway similar to Shadow of the Colossus, but its a story of the bond between this little boy and this beast. There are some intense scenes, and I did cry twice as I played. And my hands were sweating most of the time too while playing this. Shadow of the Colossus may have awestruck and inspired me when I played, but this game really touched my heart. There is narrative in this too so you're not in the dark about the world or the characters as their previous games have done. If this sounds something you're interested in, I highly recommend it. There will be frustrating parts in this game, but the story and the friendship does make it up a lot for me.
0 comments: