Let's just get this out of the way, my experience with The Last Guardian was not a positive
one, and replaying it neither improved nor worsened my opinion of it, and since I'm
not of the mindset that changing discs or systems would drastically alter the experience,
since it's never done so for me, so I'm judging based off that mentality.
I should say that I have played both Ico and Colossus, and they're certainly some of
my favorite PS2 games, so I had a good idea of what to expect going into The Last Guardian,
and in a lot of ways Guardian is a combination of the design philosophies from its predecessors,
bringing back Ico's ambient sounds and world building blended with puzzles while borrowing
Colossus's camera, climbing mechanics, and questionable on-screen tutorials.
While they faded quickly in Colossus, the tutorial bars can last well over into the
2nd half of the game and seriously hamper immersion, worse, there's no option to disable
this.
The one thing Guardian brings to the table is its more prominent story and cutscenes.
I won't be bringing it up again, so I'll just mention now that it's a shame that
the soundtrack this time around was so easily forgettable.
While music does exist for setting the mood in certain scenes, nothing comes close to
You Were There or the save theme from Ico, let alone Colossus's boss and victory tunes.
Even now, after having just finished the game again, I can't remember a single piece,
even the credits theme.
The opening, while a cheap excuse to get the player working with Toriko, is a solid start,
but it brings up an issue I have with the entire game.
It's clear the boy is retelling the game's events as an adult, meaning there's no stakes
to his character since we know he'll be fine, but to make it worse, he frequently
informs the player of his developing relationship with the beast.
Now I can't speak for everyone, but these moments made it feel less like a personal
story for the player, and more like one they're meant to observe or be detached from which
goes against its mechanics.
I find it likely the narration was included in this manner because playtesters weren't
caring for Toriko as much as the developers hoped, and decided that if they could make
the boy likeable and told players how much he cared for her, then they might do the same,
especially when she's in trouble, but it doesn't work.
Ueda says the relationships in his games aren't the focus, there's no denying they're
what players most latch on to.
Before, where they held most of the power in their partnership with Yorda and Agro,
here they must rely on Toriko.
The balance of power has somewhat shifted narratively, but not mechanically and that's
where issues start to crop up.
In Ico, Yorda was a very simplistic and independent AI while in Colossus Agro felt like his own
creature, he may have been harder to control if you veered off the beaten path, but his
ability to follow a preset trail meant players could relax while still making progress.
They were simple characters with few hiccups and while neither were perfect, both were
far from a disaster.
Toriko on the other hand has a much larger role and must accommodate for the player's
weaknesses.
It's an interesting idea to revisit the first's concepts and spin them around, but
I can't say it paid off, especially after a strong opening.
The controlled character has his fair amount of gameplay quirks.
He's able to offer commands for Toriko to have her sit, attack enemies or obstacles,
and point her in the right direction, but like the game's predators, he's just too
handsy automatically grabbing just about everything you come across, which is good in some places,
but the simple act of trying to get off Toriko becomes a struggle with this mechanic.
You can either jump, sometimes in risky places, or just hit x to fall off, but sometimes even
holding X won't work meaning it turns into a button mashing extravaganza to fight this
automated system.
While it's a less button intensive process than the one found in Colossus, overall it
ends up being vastly inferior and it's questionable why it was left the way it is.
I even had a few moments where the boy wouldn't grab ledges that were mandatory for progress
despite being right up against them.
Barrels are essentially how the player feeds Toriko, and must be done so frequently so
she doesn't get tired.
If she's giving you trouble you can use them to lure her towards specific areas like
bodies of water.
It's a fun idea and one I really liked…
At first, but you'll often find barrels in areas past the place you want her to move
towards, making it feel like a redundant mechanic.
A smaller issue I had occurs when you put down a barrel for Toriko, as you'll often
end up with the boy picking it right back up for no reason, so you have to either fight
the controls and hope he doesn't pick it up or throw the barrel and hope the physics
work in your favor landing it in the right spot because Toriko requires barrels to be
placed in very specific places to eat them, making positioning an annoying task since
she doesn't understand how to displace herself outside of water.
I understand what the developers were going for and it's a cute trick to try and get
the player to bond with Toriko, but just because you're forced to care for something it doesn't
mean you'll like it, just ask your dad.
*Whisper* You motherfucking sonofabitch I'm coming for you tonight.
The key fault with The Last Guardian is it asks the player to be committed to Toriko
both as a pet and an artificial intelligence.
Toriko does have her cute moments, and at times I could see and feel what the developers
were going for, but the trying AI only served to increase the distance between us.
I'd be lying if I didn't say the best parts of the game were when Toriko and I were
separated and I could at least progress at a steady pace.
It can be especially trying when the beast moves ahead of the player, comes back, but
fails to register how to move forward once more.
It's like playing a mandatory online co-op game, but you're always paired up with a
beginner, and no matter how much you explain it to them they're just not getting it and
keep suggesting they Rush B when you don't want them to, kind of like a cat.
I've played mandatory co-op puzzle games with strangers and no voice or text-chat on
launch day before and had a much easier time than I ever had with Toriko.
But, BriHard!
Toriko isn't supposed to listen to you all the time, it's to make her more realistic!
I've heard this quite a bit in defense to the game to which I disagree and believe had
Ueda never mentioned it, few would use it.
By claiming it makes Toriko more realistic, developers can shift blame off themselves
and onto the player with the assertion that it's working as intended, and based on how
faithful fans are using this defense while heralding it as a sort of innovation, it seems
it worked.
While I do believe Toriko's AI was intentionally built to disobey at times, I find it likely
this idea was nowhere in the original design document and came about due to poor programming
and despite trying to make her more obedient for the final product they failed to do so,
especially since she fails to become more cooperative as her relationship with the boy
develops.
A consequence of leaving it as is drastically pads out the game's length.
Looking up average Let's Plays, it can be completed in as short as 4 and a half hours,
a stark contrast to the 11 or 12 it took myself, and many others, to finish.
If you attribute just 1 of those hours to simple puzzle solving and a death or two,
then that means I spent over 5 hours simply waiting for Toriko to work properly.
How anyone can spin that as a positive is beyond me, and I'd much rather have a shorter
functioning game than one that was longer, but lower in quality.
The reality is the game should be judged on its own merits, as much of the people playing
Guardian won't have paid attention to developer interviews, and thus won't go in with this
mindset and I doubt the assertion of realism would make the scene I'm playing on screen
any less frustrating for the player.
I can understand a pet not knowing to push something, especially if it could potentially
harm their owner, but it clashes against its own design when earlier Toriko is doing exactly
that with 0 problems.
There's just no consistency or flow to her, and it's very clear she's a piece of programming.
Characters aren't good for being realistic, if they were people would hate the protagonist
due to how he takes fall damage and can quickly recover from a broken leg.
No.
Characters are good for being believable in their environment.
It's the difference between having realistic dialogue… "hella cash" and cinematic
dialogue…
"Bond.
James Bond."
The former piece may be more realistic, but it's also terrible dialogue.
The latter may not be realistic, but it is believable given James' Bond's character.
I may be comparing a pet to a human here, but also consider that pets in films act quite
unrealistic.
They're merely performing scripted actions, and they're still fantastic at eliciting
an emotional response from the viewer because the developers know how to properly manipulate
them.
There's a reason we've coined the term video game logic.
We know it's not realistic and we don't expect it to be, but there's still a level
of suspension of disbelief that keeps the player engrossed and in the moment because
it feels good to play.
The times Toriko felt the most convincing as a living creature wasn't when she disobeyed,
but rather in the more controlled moments such as catching the boy mid-fall, or trying
to enter half-open doors when the player is in trouble and those moments work well at
building a relationship with the beast, but the segments of the AI doing what it wants
of its own accord only serves to weaken the player's bond with Toriko through frustration,
rather than enhance it.
To help prove my point I'm going to refer to a game that did the same concepts with
Toriko, only 20 years earlier.
Released on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo in 94, Pac-Man 2 is a game where the player
has little control.
Like with Toriko, the player can only suggest things to Pac-Man, have him fight enemies,
feed him, and point him in the right direction of where to go and what to interact with,
all while affecting Pac-Man's environment to make that process easier.
It's the same basics of Toriko's AI.
While the player is essentially guiding Pac-Man from A to B, the mechanics are set up in a
way that keeps Pac-Man's actions somewhat predictable and controllable, but success
isn't always guaranteed, and as with Toriko, this can result in long frustrating sessions
where the player knows the solution to a problem, but Pac-Man simply refuses to comply.
While Pac-Man 2 was called an innovation in gaming upon release, it was, predictably,
met with mixed reception and left players pining for something more in line with the
original.
I doubt the assertion of Pac-Man being more realistic by disobeying the player would change
public opinion, especially after 22 years.
Really the only thing differentiating Pac-Man from Torico is one is a humanoid, and for
anyone looking at Guardian through Rose-Tinted Glasses, that's the only difference they
need to put one above the other when in reality those terms are arbitrary and useless when
it comes to function because at its most basic form they're simple bits of data meant to
look like a character and you should except it to function regardless of the coat of paint
you put on it, bad game design, intentional or otherwise, is still bad game design, and
The Last Guardian is no exception.
So it's a shame that Toriko can't operate as well as a game from 22 years ago on inferior
hardware.
That's not to say bad controls can't be an effective part of good game design.
Silent Hill and Resident Evil used them in earlier installments to ramp up tension which
fit their status as horror games, and both Ico and Colossus used them to convey player
weakness.
What these share is they're all carefully controlled to garner specific responses from
the player and serve a greater purpose.
I'm happy to say The Last Guardian's mechanics fit its theme regarding the relationship between
a boy and his beast, but Toriko's uncontrolled AI does not and only serves to diminish it.
The solution here would be to implement a failsafe to make sure the player isn't struggling
too much with the AI by making Toriko follow a preset course of actions after a few minutes
or a command being repeated 3 times, but that's not what happens, instead the narrator simply
interjects to offer the player a hint, which frequently exacerbates the player's frustration
in long drawn out sequences.
Sometimes these extended periods of time can leave the player feeling as though the solution
reached isn't the correct answer as the game actively fights against them.
In this scene, it's clear Toriko needs to pull this chain to open the door so the boy
can place this piece underneath and keep it open.
Toriko happily plays with the chain until the player moves closer to the gate at which
point she focuses on the boy instead and it's a struggle to get her to play with the chain
again.
So, like a lot of moments, the player will essentially have to wait long periods of time,
some going as far as half an hour, just for Toriko's AI to put two and two together
and do what the player wants.
Moments where she won't listen are so frequent that it becomes less of a miracle as to when
they do happen, and more of one when they don't.
Another example of when this happened is when I fell into a small lake and was trying to
make it back up and to Toriko.
It's clear that I should push the box into place and its very likely that Toriko's
tail is what I need to go back up, there's even a hole you can open for it and you can
get Toriko to peer into another gap to position her correctly, and I thought I had this wrong
for a few minutes until I noticed Toriko's tail had collided with the wooden structure
and were stopping it from falling.
I then spent 10 minutes waiting just trying to get Toriko to move so her tail could drop
down.
I eventually succeeded and got back up and it played this triumphant and endearing music,
but it felt more like an insult after having to deal with such frustration.
Now, you can easily open the menu and return to a previous checkpoint, which I did in other
parts of the game, but if you're having to reset checkpoints to work around an issue,
then you're admitting that there's a major problem with that part of the game, there's
just no getting around it.
Companion characters aren't anything particularly new, they've been a mainstay in the Zelda
series for years, and even Ico and Colossus had their own.
While they may have been finnicky at times, it was never anything that lasted more than
a handful of seconds, and certainly not enough time to ruin the experience.
But personally, of all the companions I've come across before, Toriko might be the worst
one to date, outclassing even Skyward Sword's Fi where you could at least Mash A to rush
through her dialogue and still have a functional game.
With Toriko, you can only sit down, wait, and hope for the best.
I'm sure plenty will assert that you haven't had any personal issues and so my lackluster
experience is automatically invalid, and you know wha-.
*Phone call* Oh wait, hold on, I get that.
Hello?
– Hey, Brian.
You working on that video talking about what a buggy mess Sonic 06 was?
– Hey!
Fuck you, Matt.
I didn't have any issues playing it!
Now what was I doing?
Oh, yeah, back to the video.
Behind Toriko the camera might be the 2nd biggest complaint I have, as it often refuses
to look beyond a certain angle in cramped environments, and at times the screen randomly
dips to black when colliding with an object, or worse, for no reason.
I was willing to ignore it until this happened…
This footage I'm playing right now may just appear to be a black image, but as you'll
see, it's just an unfortunate situation to be in.
I tried all I could to get out of this, both moving around on Toriko, shifting the camera,
and dropping off the beast as well, but nothing would really fix the situation, and honestly,
I contemplated resetting the game here and redoing this entire segment before it inevitably
fixed itself.
Where the levels in Ico and Colossus felt cohesive and flowed well into one another,
Toriko's ability to jump over large walls and from pillar to pillar can often result
in environments feeling as though they were placed next to each other with a disregard
for cohesion.
It might sound like a complaint, but this is one of the greatest things The Last Guardian
has going for it regarding its world.
Developers don't have to worry about creating filler content to bridge these key environments
together and can instead focus on creating good levels.
There are still moments of downtime to break the flow of gameplay so it can be built back
up later, and while the overall pacing between levels is solid not every environment holds
up to that genius.
Some levels rely solely on the game's physics.
The solution of having Toriko jump into a lake to create waves for the player to reach
a switch was one that felt satisfying to solve, but because the way forward is often so poorly
communicated it left me feeling incredibly stupid at times.
The stained-glass sigils had the most potential as a puzzle related item, but they go completely
wasted.
Because it causes Toriko to stop in her tracks, the player always has an immediately clear
objective, and while it's great for world building, there's not much to them as they're
easily destroyed by being pushed off nearby ledges or with Toriko's tail-beam seemingly
existing only to delay the inevitable and pad out the game's length and I'll show
you what I mean.
In Ico exists an instance where the player walks with Yorda across a bridge, and it collapses.
The boy then grabs Yorda and quickly pulls her up to safety establishing an idea of character
dependency, while also keeping the player from backtracking.
In Guardian, the boy must destroy a sigil, which then destroys the bridge, before being
saved by the beast and pulled up to safety.
While this is longer, to this part's credit the immediate shift of Toriko saving the boy
and then vice versa helps establish a more solid relationship than in Ico while also
making progression feel earned, and I'm glad they added it in, but because that extra
step of destroying the sigil is so drawn out it ends up taking Guardian 3 minutes to accomplish
what took Ico 5 seconds, when it could've just been a minute.
Take out the sigil and the bridge just could've collapsed on its own and you'd not only
get to the scene's climax faster, but you'd still have a fantastic, and arguably better,
sequence of events that remains logically cohesive, and matches the game's minimalist
design.
While it has little impact on the overall experience, it's just a small part of a
larger problem, especially when you consider the player isn't in any actual danger.
If you wait for the column to break, or Trico's AI isn't working, it will leave behind a
safe spot for the player, showing there was never any risk.
Moments like this are spread throughout Guardian and the player must actively go out of their
way to make the result be death.
It makes the whole experience feel disingenuous and like the developers are constantly holding
your hand because they'd rather let you feel like you're on a spectacular journey
than actually be part of one.
There are only 3 major sigils with platforming segments attached, but because the level design
is so straightforward and linear, the player is never asked to think, they simply move
forward because there's only ever 1 path to follow.
To make matters worse, because the player can't fall off ledges or tight ropes without
deliberately pressing the jump button, there's never any potential for failure, or worry
over being sent back a few seconds.
The game tries to pretend there is reason to be cautious by placing most platforming
segments over empty chasms or from high ledges, but once you realize this it becomes strikingly
poor game design.
Come the 2nd half of the game a series of sigils are huddled up together, but are so
easily taken out that progress fails to feel earned in a spot that already feels like tedious
filler, especially since they come so late in the game.
It might as well be a series of doors placed next to levers that open them.
But before I move on, I feel it's important
to mention the slow-motion sequences as they grew increasingly tiresome the more they were
seen and I feel that they should've been cut entirely after this point.
Toriko is meant to always catch the player when they happen and it's immediately clear,
even the first time around, that the player isn't in any danger during these events
and so all tension is lost, but if Toriko's AI were to fail for some reason, the player's
death then becomes incredibly drawn out so I don't see why it was left in.
As another callback to Ico, if enemies catch the player they'll try to take him through
a blue portal and if they succeed it's game over.
While this often results in little more than being sent back 20 seconds, it's a solid
method of providing danger for the player.
While their early introduction is nothing special, I was quite impressed with a segment
later on where the player would have to distract them, go off the ledge and circle around to
a chain and open a gate while they were oblivious.
I was interested in seeing how the game would spin this in later levels as it conveyed a
sense of frailty to the boy, but for some reason, immediately afterwards, the player
runs into the exact same room, with the same puzzle and solution, but with twice the enemies
and none of the levels after this allow for similar stealth segments to occur.
While I like the idea and design of the game's enemies, increasing the number in a scene
is a poor excuse for increased difficulty, especially since only 1 can ever grab the
player.
This becomes problematic in later segments where the boy needs to stagger an enemy as
the boy's pushing animation results in a lengthy getup that leaves him open to capture,
and half the time the stagger won't even register.
This is troublesome on shielded enemies as they stop Toriko from attacking, meaning they're
the only time players are asked to be involved in combat.
I tried it from multiple distances to be sure I was doing it right, but with no success
in alleviating the problem.
I was willing to attribute this to a hidden stagger meter at the time, but since then
I've been told that isn't the case.
You can imagine then, how my opinion of this mechanic immediately dropped.
At times the game will deliberately force the player into certain actions that they've
been told to ignore.
In this scene you'd think taking out shielded enemies would be the solution, but it isn't.
What the game wants you to do is let an enemy catch you and not fight back so Toriko will
jump across the gap and save you.
When I was told this solution and replayed the game, it felt like I was taken out of
the experience and was merely crossing off a checklist.
It happens again near the end of the game, but at least here it feels more logical and
keeps the player in the moment.
There's even a bit where Toriko is possessed and eats the boy, but because there's no
way out, the player must wait and let her eat them.
It's odd that the developers implemented such questionable design choices since they
only serve to dampen the experience.
Hopping on Toriko's back essentially means the player is safe from harm as she becomes
the primary target.
It's a shame because this reduces combat to little more than waiting for Toriko to
finish fighting so you can then calm her down, a process that can become incredibly drawn
out when she knocks enemies into corners repeatedly instead of outright killing them instantly.
She's seemingly invincible and I never had her once die on me.
It never feels like there's any danger, and thus, any point.
What fully cemented my opinion of The Last Guardian came near the end when Toriko was
hopping between pillars.
After Toriko looked at the next ledge for nearly a full minute and finally taking the
leap, in mid-jump the boy fell off Toriko and after respawning at my last checkpoint
the game crashed.
I used PS4Share for all this footage so I was unable to record this so you'll have
to take me at my word for this, but I seriously considered giving up and returning the game
at that point, but pushed through hoping the ending could redeem the experience.
Throughout the game other Trico were an uncommon sight, so it was nice to see them become a
larger focus near the end of the game, and it's once Toriko and the boy become separated
that you truly come face to face with one.
While it's little more than a giant chase sequence, the events play out quickly and
satisfyingly before the boy becomes trapped in a cage.
A solid representation of the moment as without Toriko, the boy is unable to move forward
and while the cage's physics feel somewhat off, it's use doesn't last long enough
to become bothersome.
The beast leaves and time passes before we reunite with Toriko, break free from our cage,
and can progress once more.
Fortunately, in the last hour, there were a few moments where Toriko, the camera, and
technical bits, all worked perfectly if only because the level design was so safe and linear
that cooperation couldn't possibly be hampered.
Here I could see a glimmer of the product the developers were aiming for, but it did
little to change my opinion.
It fails to reach the same highs as its predecessors, but when the game is functioning as one would
expect it to, it's a solid and often enjoyable experience.
It can only be called unfortunate that to get to those moments you must fight against
not only the controls and levels, but Toriko herself, and those lows are staggeringly low.
The ending isn't quite what some people might expect, but it's twist in revealing
the barrels players have been feeding Toriko are made from kids is somewhat predictable
if you've played Ico, where it turned out other horned children were sacrificed and
become the enemies you'd been fighting.
The way these last few events played out caught me off guard, but mostly in a good way.
Seeing Toriko be outcast by her brethren and torn to pieces isn't exactly the prettiest
sight, and while I can tell this scene is supposed to be impacting me in a highly emotional
way, Toriko's AI had made me grow to dislike the beast so much, I was largely unaffected
by what was happening and could only say to myself "Well that's quite brutal."
The game caps itself off with its only boss fight before placing the player's fate in
their partner's hands once more.
Despite my own personal distaste for Toriko, I think this scene was extremely well-executed,
as are most of the set pieces throughout the entire game, and you can see just how much
the boy and his beast have grown to care for one another, before they must ultimately,
and permanently say goodbye, a stark contrast to the opening where the boy was so quick
and willing to abandon Toriko.
As time passes, the boy, now a man finishes retelling his story and there's even a suggestion
that Toriko lived and had a few children.
I don't know if the Trico eat anything other than barrels, but by leaving this scene in
there might be the unintended consequence of suggesting there's a continued supply.
*small break*
During my playthroughs of Guardian it wasn't hard to feel as though Sony and Ueda went
for broke when they released it in.
Quite like its predecessors, Guardian's development was a troubled one, especially
in regards to programming and optimization that led to multiple delays and even a system
transfer.
But even on the PS4 the game frequently drops in frames, sometimes even into the single
digits, despite not much happening on-screen.
I've heard the issue is alleviated somewhat on the PS4 Pro, but it's doubtful most players
will be using that system, at least right now.
While the visuals are stunning at times, I don't think the trade-off of frames for
better visuals benefited the game in any way and can only hope a patch will help alleviate
these problems.
When I go into video games, I want little more than an enjoyable experience, often setting
my expectations as low as possible while avoiding trailers, and for The Last Guardian that's
no different.
Its good ideas are so hampered by safe hand holding design and poor programming that the
entire experience ends up feeling phony.
Ico and Colossus were so acclaimed because there was nothing like it at the time.
While concepts they introduced have become more commonplace and been done better, their
foundation in game design was so strong that they both manage to remain enjoyable to this
day, better yet, there was a sense of danger.
While Guardian does improve a few mechanics to a fair degree, it also worsens a few as
well, often to a much greater extent, and usually they're the most important part
of the experience.
Put simply, If Ico and Colossus were pioneers of their kind, then I'd label The Last Guardian
as a relic, feeling 2 or more generations behind its time.
A shame when games coming out today that aim to feel 5 generations behind still manage
to remain more enjoyable, some even being better than most AAA titles.
One can only hope that as the weeks go by and the honeymoon phase wears off, people
will be willing to look past their rose-tinted glasses and be more critical of the end product.
*cut*
If you found yourself disagreeing or agreeing with all my points and still find yourself
a fan of the game, then I hope this video at least gave you a deeper understanding and
appreciation for what it is, while making you think more critically of it.
Who knows, if TLG inspires you to make your own game, you may at least now have a better
idea of what to do for an overall better experience.
I am not against liking flawed experiences with Bioshock Infinite and Atelier Meruru
being 2 such examples.
Whether you choose to buy, rent, or pass on the game, I hope you temper your expectations
accordingly and suggest watching part of a let's play to see if it's something you
feel is worth experiencing for yourself.
If you do choose to play it, or already have, I can only hope your experience is better
than mine.
And if you do end up watching a let's play, be sure to thank the poor son of a bitch who
had to edit out all the waiting.
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