It is ridiculous how a game this calm, slow paced and silent can create such opposing contrasts in perception. Up from moments of awe, love and appreciation for the amazing design choices the studio made down to frustration hell like I've never experienced it before.

I can generally accept a game demanding me to be patient, especially when it comes to letting an AI driven NPC find its way through the world. But there are so many times when actions just don't work, are misinterpreted and in few cases even buggy to a point where I had to reload the save file, that it sometimes feels more like being a beta tester to go through all the hurdles so the edges can be smoothed out. But they aren't and its a constant try, try, fail, repeat to a point where I just have my smartphone ready to play something whenever Trico again decided to go into a completely opposite direction of where I need to go. I mean the latter would still be explainable that this game isn't as straight forward accessible as a Super Mario or even Soulslike game where every input matters. But so often it feels less like having to guide a pet or a child even and really just like failing at trying to make that NPC-AI progress through the game. Trico is such an amazing virtual creation of a believable lifeform, that it sometimes feels sort of on purpose, when he (or she?) wouldn't go where you want just to state the fact that this NPC isn't like others. In many cases this indeed creates some nice scenes where Trico actually behaves like its following its own agenda, a concept that Team Ico already mastered in their previous games. Like Agro, the horse in Shadow of the Colossus, already stood out of other horses or even mounts, as he wouldn't just steer with a 1:1 transation of your inputs, but often feel like he would really just carry you and agree to the direction you want him to go. Back then, this workd perfectly fine. Here it often just doesn't.

And still I can only subtract one star as the brave decision to create something so unique over such a long development time that must have been pretty nasty, looking at how often this felt like being in dev-limbo and got delayed, can only be praised with huge respect. I am sure it is way harder to create something outstanding today than it was 20 years ago, at least on an AAA level but that's exactly what Fumida Ueda managed to pull off here.

I played this game halfway through and at some point it got me so unnerved, I had to stop it for a while, not knowing if I'd ever pick it up again. But at some point when playing through the Horizon Zero Dawns and God of Wars of this world, you just want to experience something that stands out so I'm glad I just let go and stopped fighting against that natural gravitation that would drag me back into this great world and its great story.Once you stop caring too much whether you progress or not, it becomes less frustrating. I wouldn't say that this is the message I want a game to have, but at least in this case it definitely helps and rewards you with an amazing journey like nothing that came before or after it that will definitely find a more durable place inside any gamer's heart than the next Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty game.