The Last Guardian review
A beautiful story, yet an imperfect game
Way back at 2009’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony revealed a trailer that sent thousands of Team Ico fans into a complete hysteria. Not only were they told that they’d soon get a follow-up to the highly-acclaimed PlayStation-exclusive Shadow of the Colossus, but that this sequel, entitled The Last Guardian, would carry with it a story that was just as powerful as its predecessor, if not more so. To the fans’ dismay, The Last Guardian would undergo several delays from that point on, eventually pushed to being a PlayStation 4 title in 2012, then later being reintroduced during E3 2015 along with a 2016 launch window. By the time December 6, 2016 came around, only a single question remained: would this game prove to be worth all of the delays?
Expectations were high when it came to The Last Guardian’s storyline, and there was little to no disappointment in the tale that was told. The 12-hour journey that I took through the game’s lost and mysterious world built the foundation for a highly-interpretive tale from the very beginning. Little context is provided to help players understand how the protagonist, an unnamed young human boy, has suddenly awoken inside a cave near a large, winged creature, and has also found himself covered in tattoos that did not exist on his body prior to his awakening. Finding the creature chained, starved and covered in spears, the boy begins tending to its wounds and needs, slowly gaining its trust and easing its hostile nature. Soon enough, the boy frees the creature, names it “Trico”, and sets forth from the cave to explore the wider world beyond and, with great luck, return home to his village.
Knowing so little about either this young boy or Trico gives every reason for players to pay much closer attention to how the two interact with one another. Ever-reliant on each other to proceed, both characters are constantly pushed to develop both as individuals and travelling companions. While the boy faces any lingering fears of a large and uncivilised world, Trico emerges from his tentative, primal state into a fierce and loyal protector of his carer and friend. Several defining moments are laid out throughout the adventure that further test the boundaries of this bond, with results that are both spectacular to witness and important for character growth.
More than just another piece of artificial intelligence, Trico was often more life-like than any other companion character in video game history. While not directly controllable, Trico comes to recognise and respond to specific directions that can be given by the player-controlled boy after a certain level of friendship and trust is reached between the two. Even still, it was all too easy just to sit back and watch as Trico engaged surprisingly naturally with the world around it — often in the subtlest of ways, such as stretching its hind legs up walls or sniffing about different surfaces — until the boy moved further away or called out to it.
Adding to the beauty of The Last Guardian’s story was its equally-stunning world, known as The Nest. Despite the detailed wonder of certain caverns and other constructs, there was simply no better time spent than being outside among the mixture of crumbled architecture and a wild, natural world. While the game’s overall art style was equally as impressive as that of Shadow of the Colossus, things tended to get a little too bright, especially across long distances,, obscuring details that may otherwise have contributed further to the aesthetic appeal.
Just as the bond between the boy and Trico grows, so does the complexity of the puzzles that the pair will encounter. While early-game puzzles often require greater patience in using a relatively untamed Trico to navigate around obstructions, later ones demand more precise directions and a bit more intuition. These often worked quite well with how unstable much of the environment within The Nest truly was, challenging players to navigate brittle terrains, either with or without Trico’s assistance.
Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed to see just how poorly constructed much of the game’s mechanics were. So much of the story’s progression was reliant on the boy’s capacity to climb about the world’s various structures, not to mention his capacity to move about on Trico’s body, and these actions felt far more finicky than they needed to be. While this was fortunately offset by much smoother running mechanics, I often found myself struggling to fully descend off of Trico, or move past his legs so as to properly mount him, which added a needless amount of time to the simplest of tasks. I felt similar pain when trying to leap while in a climbing position from one structure to another, which took far more precision than expected.
The bane of many mechanical problems was the game’s camera, which only made things more difficult when I found myself in a remotely tight space. While keeping close to Trico is often practical, it became a frequent headache having to work my point of view around the creature’s large frame, especially given the camera’s tendency to centre in on Trico’s face when idle for a few seconds. Although this flaw was less noticeable in the outdoors, it only made for a tightly-constricted space to feel even more so. Furthermore, it often made puzzle-solving far more tedious than it needed to be, not to mention keeping track of any number of enemies that have been pursuing me at the same time.
There were a couple of noticeable visual bugs and framerate issues that likely carried over from early in the development cycle, but for the most part the game ran smoothly from a technical standpoint. As such, it’s evident that Team Ico’s decision to keep the game in development for so long, and ultimately releasing it a console generation later, has paid off to a certain extent.
The Last Guardian is by no means a perfect game, the gripes I had with the game never managed to compromise the beauty of the overall story arc. Additionally, although I didn’t find it the easiest to traverse any given indoor puzzle, I can take absolutely nothing away from the game’s stunning outdoor visuals and often-creative platform-based puzzles, which were a real treat.
Our verdict:
The Last Guardian tells a truly wonderful tale of bravery and friendship, set in a gorgeous, yet mysterious world. Sadly, this excellent story is held back by poorly-constructed climbing mechanics and a camera that proves to be just as much of a hinderance as it is an enhancement of the playing experience.
