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The Last Guardian

Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
Ico is still their only good gameplay game. the never-ending shadows, always there, player never quite knowing when they'll strike: the much-needed element to introduce an endless amount of tension to more segment the design.

sotc and this one apparently just simply dropped the notion that the game's overall design needed bursts of activity. a mechanic like the endless shadows from ico is not present in sotc or in this one.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,756
Fittingly enough, The Last Guardian was the last game I completed in 2016. It seems they spent all those extra years in development in order to make the controls and camera as annoying as possible. Even leaving that aside, I don't think it was a great game like Ico or Shadow of the Colossus, though it's certainly a good one. Much better than would ordinarily be expected from a game stuck in development hell.

the-last-guardian-reviews-trico-boy-700x389.jpg.optimal.jpg


A Boy and his Cat-Bird-Dog.
 

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Finished it. Me, my daughter and son crying together at the sofa was beautiful.

But Zed is right, the game is good but nothing to shout home about. Nothing on the level of Shadow of the Colossus, for example (never played Ico so can't say).
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,756
So, does the chimera monster die at the end or not? What about the boy?
Play the game and find out, rather than asking for the ending to be spoiled. :rpgcodex:

Finished it. Me, my daughter and son crying together at the sofa was beautiful.

But Zed is right, the game is good but nothing to shout home about. Nothing on the level of Shadow of the Colossus, for example (never played Ico so can't say).
Ico and Shadow of the Colossus would both have been considered masterpieces of the Symbolist movement, if they had somehow been created a century earlier. The Last Guardian has worse gameplay than those two thanks largely, but not entirely, to the frustrating camera and controls (I also don't think the puzzles are as good as those in Ico), and it doesn't have the same quality of storytelling. Certainly worth playing, but not a classic.
 

Rivmusique

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
3,489
Location
Kangarooland
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
The ending of the game with the correct reaction:



Looks tedious to play. "It's so good, the beast ignores most of your commands and takes ages to do what you've known needs to be done for minutes. Just like a real pet, masterpiece". Fuck off. Irritating, no fun.
 

Talby

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 15, 2008
Messages
5,507
Codex USB, 2014
Shit controls, shit performance despite looking like a PS3 game, bland and uninspired art design outside of the bird dog monster and puzzles on the level of babby's first puzzle game.
 

Ezekiel

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2017
Messages
5,372
Started playing The Last Guardian again after three years. Because I never turn the PS4 on, I needed an update and was not connected to the network. The controller that I purchased as a replacement for the dead zone on the original not long after getting the console has such a terrible dead zone that the boy could not run towards the camera, but only walk, forcing me to use the original controller whose dead zone is not so bad. Meanwhile, my PC controller is still perfectly fine after a year. Ended up playing until the battery life on the controller was almost out, maybe ninety minutes.

I know it will get tiresome like the first playthrough in parts, but I'm impressed for now, even with it running so poorly. Impressed on a technical level and also by the world and lack of handholding. Sometimes the narrator will hint at what to do, but it's not even close to the on-rails/corridor design that's standard now. Also nice to play a modern Sony game without upgrades, skill trees, inventories and all that shit. But I know this is only because it was greenlit before they started being so boring (delayed for so long that many thought it was cancelled).

"Puzzles" are alright. Yeah, Ico's were better. Quoted the word puzzles because most so far haven't really felt like puzzles, but rather just exploring for the one way forward. I have forgotten almost all of it, but still of course remember how mechanics/items work and how the creature behaves, since you repeat the actions over and over through the adventure.

What bothers me more than the performance is the camera speed. One of those games where pushing the stick slightly makes the cam move slowly and pushing it far makes it move much faster, with no degrees in between. The foot movement is like that too. He walks very slowly and runs, with no degrees in between. If they ported this to PC, a keyboard (with mouse helping to control orientation) would perform almost as well as a controller, because of how the range of the analog stick is wasted.

Probably made a mistake in posting this in a dead thread rather than in "What game are you wasting time on?" Oh well.
 

Ezekiel

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2017
Messages
5,372
You can tell that even then Sony gave their Japanese studios less than their American and European ones. Only one musical theme for almost every fight.

Impressed by all the little ways in which Trico mimics animals.

I would have preferred holding R1 to climb and hang on, like in Shadow of the Colossus. Toggling with Triangle makes it so finicky and difficult to let go at times, since the boy grabs right away again. Also would like to be able to just hop off ledges easily, since the environments are so much more dense and intricate than in Shadow of the Colossus. It feels very limiting to always be stopped when you approach a drop, to have to jump always. I know that some of the platforms couldn't have been as narrow without this protection.

In the heart of the valley now. Almost finished with the replay. Can't remember what to do in here.
 
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Ezekiel

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2017
Messages
5,372
Jesus, I didn't remember the Soylent Green element.
 

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