Team ico never misses. Of course it's an another flawed ambitious masterpiece. Yes, their design philosophy is also not everyone's cup of tea. But they are the rare kind of game developers. Experimental and original design kind.
Of course experimental type is not everyone's cup of tea I get that. But the amount of work and sweat that gone to this game is simply amazing.
Probably Fumito Ueda, started his ideas from subverting his Ico philosophy. What if we are in need of defending rather than we are the one that defend? What if the only thing we can do is running away and ordering our guardian to defend us? How that would work? And for that, he combined his Shadow of the Colossus climbing to animals mechanic with Ico's environmental puzzles. Lastly added it's own thing, an animal AI.
Of course Ai focused gameplay have it's benefits and harms. At times you feel proud with seeing how the ai uses what you order them, but other times you want to delete the game immediately because ai didn't understand what you meant 10th time. But it wasn't mostly a problem for me other than some small moments. Because if you take your time and make sure your animal sees you and what you pointing, it works. At times he jumped wrong things or climbed wrong things just like Yorda from Ico. But like Ico, if you be patient and not spam the order button, you won't have much problem. At times I just wanted to get a move on quickly so of course I had some frustrating moments with the Ai but not as many as the other players it seems.
My real problem with last guardian is, it's inability to present what is interactable or climbable and what is not. At times, you think it's impossible to order for your animal to jump to a really damn high tower yet he can or sometimes he can't? Or not just that, for us, climbable surfaces are not clear and it just works to send to us our death. Or it's tendency to hide it's interactable to a place the camera can't immediately see(tbh It was on Ico too but it's much more in here). I clearly remember there were 4 times that I had stuck.
One is, after the bridge scene and trying to return to the surface. At there, hiding near the minecarts, there is a separate way to go and for some reason it's pitch dark. After getting stuck for half hour, I had the brilliant idea of upping the brightness and when I saw the pathway I wanted to strangle the person that tested it's lighting.
Next one is, after falling to the water because of the blue liquid cauldron, we need to call our animal to climb it's tail with pushing and climbing a box in the water, but for some reason he didn't put his tail or I didn't understand where to call him so he can drop it's tail. After struggling for another half hour, he just did
(┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻
Other one is, in the swim diving puzzle 2, I didn't realize how to get up to the lever(tbh it was my mistake and it was a brilliant puzzle with using water physics). But the reason I am stuck is, at the top, there is a rock formation that looks like jumpable with our pet Trico. I thought I should get something for getting up to the lever so I tried to order to Trico and I got frustrated that ai doesn't do what it supposed to do. But it was actually not interactable...
¯\_ ಠ _ ಠ _/¯
Last one is the final sphere puzzle, firstly game don't give any clues to how that sphere works(what makes it grow faster or slower??) and not just that, it doesn't even present clearly that it's upper surface part is climbable. It's the only part that I looked up a walkthrough for and unfortunately for that reason it kinda left a bad taste in my mind
ತ_ʖತ
Also I have some small nitpicks
Why start game loading screen is just the concept art rather than something from inside the world? It's strange because it takes away from the feeling that you are going to see a mystic world with just showing it's concepts super clearly. I mean even a black screen with symbols on it like the death screen can work better in this case.
Also main menu font is boring.
Another one is, it's insistency on showing button prompts to your face. If it's the reason for the lack of clear implications for objects if it's a interactable or not. It wasn't a great choice.
Lastly, our pet Trico's hungry grumblings if you wait in a place for too long is a bit annoying.
It can look a bit negative but it's time to get positive. Game have outstanding amount of puzzle variety. Climbing puzzles, enemy puzzles, box puzzles, physics puzzles, stealth puzzles, platforming puzzles etc. And when the game mechanics come together without failing, you get an awesome time. Also it's actiony cutscene moments are fantastic as well. You can move in most of them so I can't even say they are cutscenes it's still gameplay! Also when it comes to world building and telling a story, last guardian have the most amount compared to the older team ico's titles!
So yeah, this is a team ico game. At times awesome at times clunky at times polarizing but a rare kind of original work. If you are a patient person and can stay patient even in the face of clunkiness play this. But if you are the kind of that likes action, fasty gameplay and hates escorting an ai, don't play it. But know that this is a rare original work that is bit of a dirty diamond. It's shines when the water applied patiently and correctly after all.
Of course experimental type is not everyone's cup of tea I get that. But the amount of work and sweat that gone to this game is simply amazing.
Probably Fumito Ueda, started his ideas from subverting his Ico philosophy. What if we are in need of defending rather than we are the one that defend? What if the only thing we can do is running away and ordering our guardian to defend us? How that would work? And for that, he combined his Shadow of the Colossus climbing to animals mechanic with Ico's environmental puzzles. Lastly added it's own thing, an animal AI.
Of course Ai focused gameplay have it's benefits and harms. At times you feel proud with seeing how the ai uses what you order them, but other times you want to delete the game immediately because ai didn't understand what you meant 10th time. But it wasn't mostly a problem for me other than some small moments. Because if you take your time and make sure your animal sees you and what you pointing, it works. At times he jumped wrong things or climbed wrong things just like Yorda from Ico. But like Ico, if you be patient and not spam the order button, you won't have much problem. At times I just wanted to get a move on quickly so of course I had some frustrating moments with the Ai but not as many as the other players it seems.
My real problem with last guardian is, it's inability to present what is interactable or climbable and what is not. At times, you think it's impossible to order for your animal to jump to a really damn high tower yet he can or sometimes he can't? Or not just that, for us, climbable surfaces are not clear and it just works to send to us our death. Or it's tendency to hide it's interactable to a place the camera can't immediately see(tbh It was on Ico too but it's much more in here). I clearly remember there were 4 times that I had stuck.
One is, after the bridge scene and trying to return to the surface. At there, hiding near the minecarts, there is a separate way to go and for some reason it's pitch dark. After getting stuck for half hour, I had the brilliant idea of upping the brightness and when I saw the pathway I wanted to strangle the person that tested it's lighting.
Next one is, after falling to the water because of the blue liquid cauldron, we need to call our animal to climb it's tail with pushing and climbing a box in the water, but for some reason he didn't put his tail or I didn't understand where to call him so he can drop it's tail. After struggling for another half hour, he just did
(┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻
Other one is, in the swim diving puzzle 2, I didn't realize how to get up to the lever(tbh it was my mistake and it was a brilliant puzzle with using water physics). But the reason I am stuck is, at the top, there is a rock formation that looks like jumpable with our pet Trico. I thought I should get something for getting up to the lever so I tried to order to Trico and I got frustrated that ai doesn't do what it supposed to do. But it was actually not interactable...
¯\_ ಠ _ ಠ _/¯
Last one is the final sphere puzzle, firstly game don't give any clues to how that sphere works(what makes it grow faster or slower??) and not just that, it doesn't even present clearly that it's upper surface part is climbable. It's the only part that I looked up a walkthrough for and unfortunately for that reason it kinda left a bad taste in my mind
ತ_ʖತ
Also I have some small nitpicks
Why start game loading screen is just the concept art rather than something from inside the world? It's strange because it takes away from the feeling that you are going to see a mystic world with just showing it's concepts super clearly. I mean even a black screen with symbols on it like the death screen can work better in this case.
Also main menu font is boring.
Another one is, it's insistency on showing button prompts to your face. If it's the reason for the lack of clear implications for objects if it's a interactable or not. It wasn't a great choice.
Lastly, our pet Trico's hungry grumblings if you wait in a place for too long is a bit annoying.
It can look a bit negative but it's time to get positive. Game have outstanding amount of puzzle variety. Climbing puzzles, enemy puzzles, box puzzles, physics puzzles, stealth puzzles, platforming puzzles etc. And when the game mechanics come together without failing, you get an awesome time. Also it's actiony cutscene moments are fantastic as well. You can move in most of them so I can't even say they are cutscenes it's still gameplay! Also when it comes to world building and telling a story, last guardian have the most amount compared to the older team ico's titles!
So yeah, this is a team ico game. At times awesome at times clunky at times polarizing but a rare kind of original work. If you are a patient person and can stay patient even in the face of clunkiness play this. But if you are the kind of that likes action, fasty gameplay and hates escorting an ai, don't play it. But know that this is a rare original work that is bit of a dirty diamond. It's shines when the water applied patiently and correctly after all.