When I review games I usually try to judge them on their own merits, with as few comparisons to other games as possible. Whether it's by genre or series, unless there's something egregious that I feel needs to measured against an existing title I try to judge a game itself. It's fair. Especially in the case of standalone titles that aren't part of a series and don't have sequels, a game has to be considered in isolation. That's what you play, that's what you judge.
It's a bit difficult to decide which category The Last Guardian falls into. Here is a unique, self-contained story with no possibility of a sequel. Here is a game released a full ten years after the same team's last effort. Here also is a game with obvious stylistic and thematic holdovers from that team's last two works. It invites it upon itself, even if the basis of gameplay is mechanically completely different. So then, how is The Last Guardian? And how many times will I compare it to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, despite it being a (mostly) completely different game?
You play as... Boy. I don't think the boy has a name, come to think of it. Through flashbacks we learn that the boy is at a camp somewhere in a forest, in a location where the humans present possess vaguely Japanese features and voices. This camp is poorly situated however, as it's prone to creatures coming and stealing children in the night. The creatures in question are about the size of a double decker bus, have wings, are covered in feathers, are built like a cross between a cat and a dog, and are covered in armour. The people in the camp are prepared for this, because when one of them comes to take Boy all the adults gather round with spears and torches to try and ward it off, and one of them hits a gong to raise the alarm. They all just stand about watching as it reaches in a window, grabs the boy and swallows him, and flies off.
Sadly the beast is hit by lightning as it's flying to its destination and instead of landing on a tower at the top of a huge, deep crater in the ground it falls to the bottom of something which is clearly hundreds of feet deep. Once he's landed a bunch of suits of armour with glowing eyes gather round him and put him on a stretcher. They take him to a small cave and chain him to the ground, where he spits out Boy and our game begins.
The actual purpose of this game is never really explained. You free the beast from his chains and then have a look around. After leaving the cave you start in you just sort of progress forward through a linear route. The assumption is that you're in the Nest - something that Boy was told about by the adults who failed to protect him - and it's obvious you want out, but this is never explicit. I realise it doesn't sound as if it has to be, but the game ultimately is more of a character development exercise than a purposeful story.
What then of the other character? The Beast is actually called Trico. I don't know how the boy decides on this name. It's not a name he gives to that specific creature, because we later discover other creatures that boy calls "other Tricos." Trico is just as weird as I describe. During the loading screen when you start the game you see some of the inspiration for Trico. The game shows an assortment of old-fashioned field drawings of different animals and their Latin names, like something from a biology textbook from the 1800s. Here you can see the inspiration for Trico and how he moves, as there are pictures of everything from fish to snakes to ibex to griffins and almost everything else you could think of, real and mythical. For the most part it's fairly easy to see a lot of care and attention went into Trico's animations and sounds. It does look and react like a real animal, and you're quick to grow attached to it in the way you would a real pet. Mostly.
(Side-note: I decided Trico was a he, but I don't know why. As far as I can tell it's completely asexual.)
I say mostly because this is largely a third person platforming game in an environment which dwarfs your playable character, so you're reliant on this other, larger creature to get you through it. Which means you have to give it commands. It's here I have to admit the inescapable truth which I've realised after four full playthroughs of the game. Despite it being in development for a decade, it's broken. Or at the very least, it's the most poorly optimised game I've ever played. I get that Trico is an animal, that he's unpredictable, but this game doesn't get any better no matter how much you play it. The inconsistency is maddening.
I could genuinely sit here for hours describing how bad it is, but I'll give you one example. At one point in the game you have to stand on Trico's back as he dives underwater and swims through a tunnel. You can "command" him by standing on his back and holding R1 while pressing one of the face buttons, which apparently vaguely correspond to your controls for the boy. On my first playthrough I was at this section for at least half an hour, trying every button possible. Trico would just get out of the water without diving. One time he started diving, reached the opening he was supposed to go through, then came back up. On my second playthrough, I did this first time. The game is filled with moments like that. These utterly kill any pacing the game has. There are genuine moments of tenderness and real emotion as the bond between the two of them grows, but it's so often let down by knowing that as soon as they're over you'll be back to swearing at it endlessly trying to get it to jump to the only ledge it can possibly go to to advance, only to go in the opposite direction entirely.
You can really tell the controls for Trico aren't finished in other locations, where movement just isn't possible the way it should be. You can command him to go somewhere, the only possible way forward, and he won't. Or he'll jump to it then jump back. Or go in completely the opposite direction. Then there are the times where the game gets all fiddly and needs something to be perfect or it won't happen. Trico eats barrels filled with a fluorescent blue substance which attracts butterflies. Occasionally throughout the game you have to feed him these to progress. You can sit the barrel down in front of him, he'll reach out and grab it, and eat it. Only sometimes the barrel won't quite catch in his beak and it'll roll away. Or maybe he's standing up and the barrel isn't quite in the place where his mouth can reach, and he'll just stand pawing at it. These moments are unbelievably frustrating, and you really start to resent the game when they build up.
On a similar note, the controls. The camera. Holy f***. Throughout the game there are numerous small ledges you need to shimmy along or hang from, as well as jumps you need to make over large drops. The controls feel as if they're for a different kind of game. There's no finesse at all. The slightest movement of the stick in any direction has the boy lunging off into an uncontrolled run. You can sort of get the hang of this eventually, but it's still amazingly awkward and doesn't get any less stressful. Plus, like Trico, there are times when your input doesn't match what the boy does. I don't get it at all. The camera has a mind of its own, and is often fond of clipping inside of Trico and going completely black.
The actual control scheme itself doesn't make any sense either. Triangle is jump. X is hang/climb down. Great idea, make an awkward game even harder by not using the most common button layout. Then you've got several wasted buttons. I'll give you an example. At certain parts of the game the boy has a mirror he can shine on things so Trico can fire lightning bolts out his arse. To do this, you press circle. But sometimes you'll be doing this while on Trico's back. Pressing circle while on Trico makes you start petting him. Meanwhile L1, L2 and R2 all sit vacant. This is basic stuff that I noticed after playing for about ten minutes, how could a team of dozens of people make this game and not notice?
So then, why the spiel at the beginning about comparisons with other games, specifically Ico and Shadow of the Colossus? The game is made by the same people and is similar in a lot of ways, especially aesthetically. As I've written here before I really like the design of both of those games, and the world design of The Last Guardian is very similar. A ruined, clearly once-great civilisation is here for you to explore, all the while feeling as if your burgeoning control over your character pales into insignificance to your surroundings.
The ultimate problem is that there's a purpose and a clearly defined story to those games. The local village sacrifices boys to an evil queen in a twisted Snow White rip-off. A boy wants his dead girlfriend brought back to life and travels to a forbidden land for help, only to find an evil demon was imprisoned there. What's The Last Guardian about? A big hole in the ground populated by empty suits of armour and big flying dogs is commanded by a big glowing ball in a tower. The tower occasionally sends the flying dogs out to capture the local children, bringing them back to the hole in the ground and being fed barrels in return.
I get, I think that the game is a character study above all else but that doesn't change the fact that the premise is very, very weak, at best. The problem with the growing relationship between the boy and Trico is the impending sense of a payoff, and there just isn't one. It's clear that what Trico did was bad. It's clear that as he shakes off the various control methods used by the big glowing ball that his bond with the boy is greater than anything he had done previously. Even the ending when they escape and the boy is returned to his camp ties this off neatly, but there's never even an attempt at an explanation for what was going on. The boy tells the story through voiceover segments throughout the game and he just says there's a Nest, and they're taught to be scared of it. The nest was clearly once more populated than it is, but there's just no explanation for any of it, and the game suffers.
Here's where the comparison comes in. In Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, a sense of isolation and bewilderment was a necessary part of the experience. You were exploring an unfamiliar land, and you had to be made to feel small and uncertain. Here, you travel with a resident of the land. You get a dreadful payoff, and you get a completely killed sense of pacing because of how bad the controls are. As much as I've tried to view The Last Guardian on its own terms the amount it has in common with similar, better games just left me empty throughout.
I was getting a bit ahead of myself when I said the Nest was unpopulated. I mentioned empty suits of armour, and they're the game's main enemy. The pop up occasionally and stagger towards you, picking you up and taking you through a blue door with light beaming out of it if they get too close. Trico is usually always on hand to bat them out of the way though. Every time you do this Trico gets angry and needs to be calmed down by jumping on his back and petting him on the back of the neck. This also kills the pacing of the game, because you know every time you face an enemy there's no threat, and you'll have to struggle up Trico's back for a few minutes afterwards.
It's actually worth repeating that there's no threat. The suits are easy enough to avoid in most cases. They can throw spears at Trico but Trico is virtually indestructible. He never gets injured to the point of reduced mobility. On the few setpiece occasions where he does you quickly revive him with some barrels, so there's never any sense of stakes or peril to engender any care for him. While this isn't so bad because there are other opportunities for the relationship to develop, this is a video game. There is presumably supposed to be some challenge with consequences, but I suppose it's all in the awkward platforming. Even the suits themselves aren't that threatening. They have their own music cue, but it's this weird French horn tune that sounds more like it should be accompanying a scene change in an episode of the Pink Panther. It's really ridiculous and ill-fitting, and just serves to further delegitimise these sections as any sort of threat.
The final aspect of the enemies I'll complain about tie in with the sense of repetition and unexplained nature of enemy encounters. Throughout the world there are strange eye-shaped glyphs made of glass which Trico is afraid of. They stop him from moving, and you have to destroy them to continue. These turn up in the strangest places, with no possible explanation for their location or purpose. They're obviously some means of control of the creatures, because the suits of armour carry them around, but why then are some hanging suspended hundreds of feet in the air from a giant mobile? Why are there two on the narrow bridge leading to the final tower, on small bits of rail to the side which don't go anywhere, and are easily pushed off? Why does Trico overcome his fear on this one occasion when the boy is taken away, but is still catatonic afterwards?
The comparisons to other Team Ico games at this point become fair because although in those you enter half-destroyed worlds of what were once clearly purposeful locations, there are too many aspects of The Last Guardian which seem to have been added for stylistic purposes rather than thematic ones. A sense of wonder only works when it's predominately awe on the part of the player, seeing something grand yet long-eroded and now unexplainable. The Nest itself fulfils this role, but everything in it seems to have been added later. The architecture is fantastic, the content is as grand and imposing as you'd expect, but the player interaction with it undermines it a lot.
I honestly don't know what I expected when I played this. As much as I enjoyed Ico and adored Shadow of the Colossus (the PS3 versions) it's not like I went in to this expecting something similar. I know it was in development hell for a long time and there are times where you can see that it suffers for this, but it honestly feels like a game centred around an idea/relationship with nothing else to fill the space. Seeing the bond develop between Trico and the boy is fine, and for the most part it is engaging, but there's too much fiddly bullshit surrounding it to really think the game is great. Both the gameplay and the content itself seems ill-suited for the central theme of the game, and what should be a unique experience ends up overpowered and spoiled.
.
- but I thought he was the best part of it.
