[~1.5hrs in]
First and foremost, let me begin by saying that Trico is both adorable and terrifying. It's like an XL Bully that you want to befriend; you stroke it cautiously, yet cannot ignore the possibility it may randomly snap and tear your face off at any moment. The game, though beautiful in design, does a spectacular job of no hand-holding whatsoever; I've already got frustrated enough to Google how to get past a section because the hint kept telling me to climb, but I could not find anything to climb. Turned out, I didn't need to climb; the hint was misleading to say the least. The path so far it has been relatively linear, unsure if that's how it remains throughout, but exploration feels faux organic - it seems like you're following your own intuition and figuring it out, but there really is no other way to proceed so eventually you're always going to end up being correct. The game has a constant tension, like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop... or my companion to maul me... I'm intrigued, but by no means blown away.

[4hrs in]
Did not finish. I'm regrettably abandoning this title already. The concept is nice, Trico is cool and the premise of training him like some kinda alien dog is novel... but my god are the controls janky and the environment repetitively bland. Jumping, climbing, and even running is frustrating - it's not smooth at all. And the gameplay is just not fun. I checked the IGN walkthrough to get a sense of how long the game is and after seeing I'm only on Part 5/14, I can't be bothered to endure that much more of this. I have way too many other games on my Backlog to find time for.

Contains probably the most believable being found in the medium so far, and I think that's worth a lot. The game is built around you understanding it and it understanding you, and it achieves this with an elegant mix of writing and game design. The story is intelligently presented; it's beautiful and moving---perhaps moreso than Ueda's other games.

And while it gets scale and detail right, with a vertigo-inducing world of towers and dilapidated ruins, it can feel like a series of puzzle rooms at times. A less contrived or even slower sense of progression would have been more welcome in my view, as its instances of stillness and idle behaviour were among my favourite moments.

Common complaints about this game seem to align with a common idea of what a good game is (smooth, responsive, agreeable), but the ways in which this game underperforms, or performs in an unconventional way, all strike me as either artistic choices or technical bargains that preserve or enhance what the game is doing that is exceptional. It's imperfect to be sure, but it achieves something no other game has and still feels ahead of its time.

This is a game that's, in my opinion, a would-be masterpiece hurt by minor problems that are turned major by being so vital to the experience.

I get that there's something to be said about the loss of subtlety with narration compared to Ico and SotC. At first it threw me off a little too, but really it's not nearly as bad as it initially leads you to believe. There's a lot of narration early on to help ease the player into its environment based puzzle platforming, something that shouldn't be new for an Ico or SotC player but will take some time getting used to for a first timer. These games might follow a template that games like Uncharted began to use in the 2010's but the difference is how it's based less on momentum and more on intuition. The Last Guardian isn't going to lay out a pathway that's plainly apparent to follow. Much like in Ico, it uses simplicity as a strength rather than a crutch for lazy design.

When it comes down to it, level design is very basic but you have to pay attention to your environment to find anything that appears off. And this isn't finding the colour coded ledge or rock to climb, though sometimes it may be. That's actually what makes this game so clever. Very infrequently that will be the way forward and it'll condition you to think about the environment like that, and it's not always the wrong approach. You're truly rummaging through dinghy remains of a kingdom of titanic proportions, attempting to find anything that will help you or Trico forward.

Which brings me to the complaint everyone has, that is Trico himself. I hate to agree with the majority here, cause the visual storytelling of Trico and the boy is truly something special. And it's why I have to criticise the volatile AI and control of Trico. While I do think it's not quite as bad as people say most of the time, it's bad enough in some areas that it can make the game miserable to play. Trying to get this bastard to swim underwater unironically took me 15 minutes. Just think about that for a second. This game is pretty slow paced and a heavily atmospheric reliant experience, but imagine playing any other game where you reach an underwater gate you have to swim through to progress and it takes you 15 fucking minutes whether because the mechanics are so cripplingly problematic or because someone takes the controller out of your hand and counts every tedious second in your face.

Thing is, I get not everyone will have the same trouble with swimming that I did. But if it's not the swimming sections then it's trying to get Trico to find a platform to jump onto, or making his tail come towards you so you can climb it, or Trico just jumping all over the place just cause he feels like it. One time he actually got lost and I didn't even know where he went, it took me like 5 minutes to find him.

It sounds almost funny and akin to something like having a pet of your own, and to an extent I can understand why some people even defend this when I look at it like that. It is true that Trico becomes more responsive as the game goes on and it's true that when he cooperates with you this game is really awesome. I'm more of an Ico guy than SotC so I love the increased focus on platforming and level design. It's just that I can't ignore that the moment Trico's being an asshole and making the process take WAY longer than it needs to I'm taken out of the experience. In that sense it's like a real pet being obnoxious and you're trying to get its attention or calm it down. I love him so much and I love the bond you create over this journey but god he frustrated me to no end sometimes.

A more generic criticism I have which would be easily fixable with a good port (or emulation) is this game runs like ass. It barely meets the stable 30fps cut most of the time. And yeah, I get Ico and SotC aren't immune to this either, but it doesn't matter nearly as much in those. Maybe I'm being a purist here, but Ico's dated albeit charming visuals don't need that improved framerate. It'd be a whole lot better sure, but none of the platforming or combat demands enough of you for it to affect your skill expression. SotC I can contest that this criticism is equally relevant, though even so it still hits 60fps pretty often. The distinction here is that The Last Guardian dips below 30fps often. VERY often. There's a few sections in the last third of the game that probably dip down to 10fps and one of them requires you to jump platform to platform to avoid an instant death. It's not hard, but it feels like hell to play in that moment.

Anyway I'm not gonna go too much further into this, I just wanted to get this off my chest. I really did like this game and I'm super happy to have completed the Team ICO trilogy. It's just sad that this game should be fucking amazing. The things that hold it back aren't the level design, the combat or the soundtrack. It's things that could've even been patched. That's why this game needs a port so badly. Give it an unlimited framerate treatment and let the fans fix the AI with a mod. Make that happen and this may be my favourite Team ICO game.

I know many love this game as much or more than ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. I thought it sucked sooooo bad :D No, that would be too extreme. I liked the world, graphics and how the relationship between the player and the doggo develops. But the controls and camera were so uuuuuunbelievably shitty, I couldn't believe the game was released in this state. Every second of gameplay was torture for me. As a result, I found it difficult to enjoy the beautiful story and creative world. That's a shame, because this is where the game is really strong. Unfortunately, it plays like ass :/

This game has stuck with me long, long after completion, this game is an experience

I personally had zero issue with Trico following my commands and felt like I truly bonded with this creature throughout my time, never did grabbing on Trico's back and jumping over a chasm not fill me with wonder

Exploring and solving puzzles was immensly satisfying and I had little to no issue figuring things out, beautiful graphics as well with some minor stuttering throughout

Further evidence that Team Ico are auteurs when it comes to the gaming landscape and their presence is sorely missed, defintely want to replay this one someday, thank God the cancelation rumors were false

10/10

TLG is a weird game which I’m not sure how I feel about. This is the last Fumito Ueda game I played, after completing Ico and SOTC which I both enjoyed greatly. Ico was the last one I played and hearing that TLG was similar, I decided to jump right into it.

My first experience with the game was that while it has immediately apparent flaws, it felt like a magical experience. Trico is really an endearing creature with detailed animations and a behaviour that, for the first hours of the game, is incredible. You’ll spot the wild creature playing with a chain, being attracted by the smell of a pot or sniffing random stuff and it is nice to just look at it (spoiler, this pretty much doesn't happen in the later half). You also have the two characters obviously getting closer over the first few hours, until they eventually trust each other. Magical is really the word that comes to my mind to describe this part of the game, I was especially impressed by the part where you have to rely on Trico to grab you in midair while you jump as that completely renewed the logic of the game, where the protagonist was the one taking the initiative for everything and Trico was, until that point, just a wild animal indirectly supporting you.

My first problem with the game appeared around halfway through, when you almost reach the top of the main tower. At that point, something happens to make both your characters fall. I cannot emphasise enough how much I hated this moment. Ico and SOTC are both short games with a very clear progression, in Ico after around an hour you’ll know you need to go to two places to unlock the final area and SOTC will right away tell you that you need to fight 16 colossi, you know pretty much exactly how far you are from finishing at any point. This led me to believe TLG would also be a pretty short game and indeed the game does lead you in that direction. Everything else seems to indicate that. Is there really enough in this game for a 10+ hours game? No, clearly not, I’ll detail this in the next section. And here is the problem, the game suddenly throws you back down and you have to climb yet another way, for about two more hours and guess what? The game does it again! You are thrown down twice and have to climb up again.

At this point, the magic just broke. I thought I was almost done and suddenly I’m hit with “not this shit again” about everything the game had to offer. You’re telling me I still have multiple hours of this “looking for a lever” thing? Trico is not listening to me again? Oh please, just let me end this game. Everything pretty much turned into a distasteful frustration. I am not sure if it is because of my negative feelings, but I feel like the game just became worse outside of a few moments. It doesn’t help that everything feels like an unneeded filler at this point, since the game just repeats the same pattern all the time, but I feel like Trico’s AI just started bugging all the time.

It’s obvious that Trico is on rails for most of the game and this doesn’t actually bother me, in fact I think this should have been the entire game. It’s obviously very difficult to create an AI of a giant beast that will be exploring corridors and solving puzzles and it shows. Whenever Trico has any freedom, he’s likely to just blank out at your orders, go back and forth, bark at you like you’re asking for the impossible and then after five minutes of waiting, he suddenly does the thing you’ve been trying to order him to do. Yes, Trico feels like a real animal WHEN he is on rails. When the AI takes over, he’s just blanking out and acting buggy. Trico staring at a wall is not lifelike. Trico doing two jumps then decides to go backward or blanking out before the third jump is not lifelike. It is just frustrating, especially when the game announces you’re not even close to the end and the game starts being repetitive, you just want to finish it and it hits you very hard how clumsy Trico is. It is obvious this is very badly managed or I would have said the game definitively needs to make Trico speaks more. Trico already barks and complains a lot, the problem is that it happens for something he'll suddenly do 5 minutes later so it doesn't clue you into anything at all. Another very frustrating aspect of Trico blanking out is that you need to restart some segments if you die, which can happen a lot because of other reasons I mention, and especially in the lategame they distance the checkpoints more than before, with segments where you need Trico to do something and it takes forever every single time you restart.

For the first part of the game, I think these problems are much less apparent because Trico is pretty much on rails all the time. The game only teaches you that you can command him after a few hours, so I am guessing you didn’t need to press R1 at all until then (I played Ico first, so I just assumed I can use it and never realised the tutorial didn’t tell me about it). There’s a logic I quickly learned: if Trico doesn’t do something, you probably need to look for another path and it proved to work (not that it’s a positive aspect of the game, the progression is often very artificial: you see a path but no you need to go another place first for an interaction with Trico THEN you can finally go there). I was almost never stuck and would always quickly find the way to go. This turned out much less obvious in the second half of the game as Trico’s AI would just bug out and there are things that just don’t make sense. There are a few parts of the game where you need to just walk to the right spot to trigger something or the game won’t progress. The voiceover gives you some clues, but even for these you sometimes need to trigger something or you can wait forever and it just won’t tell you anything. Sometimes, it also spoils the game right away without giving you any time to think. In fact, I think it was meant to spoil you all the time, it’s just that I didn’t always trigger it fast enough (or didn’t trigger it at all, most likely). There are also these dumb moments where you need to feed Trico or he won’t lead you to the next spot and the only way to learn is either the voiceover (which can make you wait forever, as I said) or looking everywhere and not finding anything (and if you’re lucky you’ll find the food before being stuck). Since the food is usually hidden somewhere, you just have to guess that it's time to actually look for food, not very intuitive.

By the way, most of the commands are literally useless. I don’t think I ever needed anything other than plain R1 and R1 + circle / square which orders him to smash something (which I did like twice, including the tutorial). I have no idea why they didn’t just remove this and simplify the game.

I mentioned earlier the game has apparent flaws but I could ignore them: the longer the game goes the more frustrating they are. The character’s controls are terrible and surprisingly worse than Ico. Not only is it very annoying how frail they made the boy this time, with a more “realistic” approach (not being able to run/jump while carrying something, no jump spam, struggling animations when climbing…) but they made things very annoying and confusing. The auto-grab is really a pain especially when you press the button to let go but he decides to grab something midfall, then you have the controls which can be confusing. In Ico, you approach a ladder and he climbs it, here you need to press the grab button. The thing I hated the most is how they’ve removed the auto-tracking for jump grabbing things. In Ico, you’ll never miss a chain because of the tracking but here, you really need to aim for that chain. The camera is also pretty terrible and really unfit for the combo of large beast + tight environments. It fades out to black a lot whenever it can’t manage to show something and it’ll often not show you what you want. I’m glad we can at least control it like a normal 3D game this time around though, as I really dislike the Ico camera. I don’t understand though why in every Fumito Ueda game, you just fucking can’t move the camera around without it centering back on the main character especially if you’re moving. What if I just want to observe some landscape?!

I like the overall design of the environment in this game and it looks very pretty with the cell shaded style and all. Not very immersive though because it quickly becomes apparent how much the place is designed for the player. Ico slightly had this problem but here it’s really emphasised. Literally everything you need has a magical lever to solve your problem. What’s the most immersion breaking is that they could have at least made a logic to those levers, but no. A gate you need to open will have a lever close to it, but not all gates will. Trico has a lever for the armour and chain at the very beginning, but not later beasts. Whenever you go off tracks you’ll notice how much the game has designed a path specifically for the player. Aside from these levers, the rest of the game is just as nonsensical. What’s the purpose of this entire place? It’s just full of empty rooms, big corridors and gates like the entrance of a castle. There isn’t a single room with anything useful and whenever it’s not empty, it’s some weird design like the traps that make Trico mad. Even the placement of the guards is weird.

And the guards… this is by far the worst part of the game. The guards are really annoying and the mechanic of mashing keys to free yourself is utterly terrible. Being pursued by them while you have to solve a riddle is just terrible. There’s even a section where I just restarted because if you get spotted by them, it’s impossible to have the time to pull a specific lever before they grab you. Then there’s the fights, where you just watch Trico beating the guards and can’t do anything. This is also where Trico’s animations are the worst as he’s jumping around in a really clunky manner and this is even more so terrible because it means you can’t even stand still on his back, remove spears or anything because it’ll constantly shake you. Oh yeah, you can’t even AFK because of this so don’t try it. Then after the fights Trico is angry and you need to appease him, which really gets tiring especially toward the end of the game where you need to do it multiple times in a row because they kept piling up fights. The end of the game is really a terrible section honestly with some of the worst segments of the game.

There were many cool moments but it feels like the game should have really just been that without the extra fillers: the first time you cross a bridge in midair and need to get rid of the eyes, the fight against another beast, when you’re left alone with the other beast, etc. Then the game would have been about 5-6 hours just like the previous games and I think people would appreciate it a lot more. The flaws are pretty easy to ignore when you make the game a much shorter experience. It really doesn’t offer anything to climb towers for an additional 6 hours with the same riddles all the time and frustrating mechanics. Some of the cool moments are even ruined because of how often they are used. I was really impressed the first time you have Trico jump and rescue you by grabbing you when you’re falling but then they kept doing it all the time. You also have the “oh no he missed you but surprise he’s using his tail to grab you” which just doesn’t work after the first time.

Remember how I mentioned that Trico and the boy become closer over the first few hours? It all stops after that and there’s pretty much no evolution until the last 30 minutes. There’s a part where Trico will actually fight the eye dudes because you’re in danger, but then he goes back to being scared by them again. That’s about it.

Finally, I’ll mention the lack of variety if I didn’t explicitly say it already. It’s always about finding a magical lever or having Trico jump somewhere, there’s pretty much nothing else. They really could have thought of better interactions, both for the boy and the protagonist. Maybe using a crate to push a button? Hell, Ico already had more ideas. They even added an item, the mirror, which you will use for about one hour in the entire game because it’s unavailable the rest of the time.

So despite all this, I actually enjoyed most of the game. It sorts of feels like a Ghibli movie, but that’s really about it. Even the story is honestly pretty uninteresting, Ueda gets praised for the minimalistic approach but I really don’t see anything special in this case, the story doesn’t complement the game or add anything, neither artistic nor a message. It doesn’t even particularly tie into the lore of the previous games. This game is basically Ico 2.0, some things better and a lot worse and it’s not terrible by any means but it’s definitely disappointing overall. I've seen people praise this story telling style but I feel like the game is very generic, it's almost just a Ghibli movie in my opinion. Yes, I like a minimalistic approach but really, what is left here? If I missed some details, I'd be happy to hear about it. I know there are some details in the game but they are really way too sparse. Compare to a game like Dark Souls for example, which is inspired by Ueda and also has a unique style of story telling. I'm not talking about how it has lore through item descriptions: have you noticed how much the environment tells you? You'll find statues of specific characters, broken things that indicate something was removed here, paintings, etc. and they clue you into additional lore. TLG just has bland environment, there's maybe two rooms (like the one with the mirror at the beginning) which clue you into anything but it's so lackluster that I think anyone theorising about this game's story is just inventing their own, entirely.

Even if you're a fan of Ueda's previous games I'm not sure I would recommend it. I would like to say that it's worth playing at least the first few hours and then you can drop it, unfortunately many of the good short events happen lategame so you'll still miss a lot.

Love this game. It is crying out for a PC release, while applying some needed tweaks.

I love the recalcitrant birddog Trico and his stubborn behaviour. I found it very true to real dog.

The terrible camera was the great downfall for me.

I loved the aesthetic of this game but it wasn't memorable.
In terms of controllability and game mechanics, this game is still far from being very good. In my opinion, it is a shame since the story had so much to give. We know that this was postponed for seven years which is a long time...

Some other times the command just failed, I often tried to make the boy do things and sometimes he couldn't, for whatever reason.
The other really disappointing feature in this game is the fighting the boy needs to do in order to get rid of the armored knights. It's the same thing that appears on loading screens. And it's a terrible idea for the controller's lifespan (but perhaps that was intentional. Thank you Sony).