Quick Look: The Last Guardian

I feel like this is the kinda game that would make me cry at the end, animal interactions in movies, games always make me more emotional for whatever reason.

Oh shit...

Am I crazy or does the kid look weird compared to everything else in the game? He looks cel shaded, whereas nothing else does. It's more than just that his clothes are more colourful.

This looks and plays better than I expected. I was more of a fan of Ico than Shadow of the Collosus, so maybe this just peaks my interest more that ist woudl . forothersI think I will buy this for what it is worth.

I haven't even watched the QL yet, but I am a bit at odds with this game. Penny Arcade said it as succinctly as possible, years ago it would seem.

Either the Guardian buys it, or the Boy does.

Visualize tears.

ps....plze be another way plze

EDIT, also what is with the Video Player presenting a large twirling circle of slashes, and not playing? Fixed for the moment by moving to progressive.

Trico's A.I just not doing what you want all the time sounds fascinating to me. I understand why it's not for everyone but the opening of the Eurogamer review really solid this for me when he said that it took him 20 minutes to get Trico to do the thing that he wanted. I don't think I have ever seen anything like that before.

I was ready to mayyyyybe buy this game, until the last 10 minutes of this video. The slow and finicky movement with small margins to falling to your death gives me stomach cramps. And when Alex missed the jump after completing the puzzle, I had to go for a walk.

@alex@danryckert@vinny Those eye symbols are in fact very likely "eyes of aversion", one of the most commonplace and oldest symbols in the history of civilization. Some might argue, dating back even before that to when folks just scribbled on cave walls. They are wards against evil, and have been found to be part of almost every religion since the dawn of humanity. It's one of those common denominators in different cultures that are inexplicable in the same way that "mama" sounds almost identical in every language.

Just a tidbit you might find interesting.

As for what this means, well. If I had to speculate; Gigantic beast trapped inside a temple full of wards against evil that it fears, as well as guardians that do not actually seem interested in "killing" the child? I'll be surprised if this game ends in any other way than you finally emerging from the temple into a village, and Trico mauling the entire township and bringing you the dead bodies of a family of four like a cat would a mouse, expecting rubs on the head for the trophy.

That said, this looks beautiful and I'm really looking forwards to playing this. Wondering if it turns out to be connected to the previous games at all. And if so, how? The way Shadow is connected to Ico is beautiful, and makes both of those games more special. Doubt anything can top that.

@wagrid: I definitely agree with you, though maybe that's just to indicate that he's out of place, not supposed to be there? It seems so obvious I can't believe it's a coincidence, and these games are all about the small details.

I love that Alex mentions they rendered a butthole and then immediately shoves his face in it.

Where is my 'fit to window'?

@do_the_manta_ray: Yeah, maybe! It seems more noticeable in outdoor areas, based on this QL. It's probably one of those things that seems more jarring than it is because I'm only seeing this game in relatively small vignettes like this QL.

Unrelated: the way Trico looks at the boy sometimes reminds me of my dog and thus, I will never play this game because I am not dealing with that.

well that sucks after all the push people put on them to put this game out it turns into a very boring game and not even a quarter of the people the wanted it and made a big fuss every e3 will buy it

I'll want to play this in the future so I'll come back to this QL then - see you in half a year!

"I can count the number of deaths on a hand a half". Dies 5 times in 30 minutes :) Trico seems a bit too random, and how much you enjoy the game seems to line up with how often you get lucky and Trico does what you expect.

Those feathers may be the best-looking anything I've seen in a video game but god DAMN that framerate looks unacceptable!

The animation on the animal is amazingly realistic. Rather than needing to rely on prompts for special interactions like "I'm ready to catch you", the game's designers chose to communicate that information through the animal's body language.

Seems neat but not something I'd play out the gate.

@blacklab: Click the gear

Looks interesting, but if someone told me this was actually a $20-30 indie game I'd believe them.

Trico disobeying/ignoring commands sounds interesting on paper, but I'd imagine that it would get real frustrating real quick. I'm thinking back to all the times I shot Nick in the face in fallout 4 out of frustration when he refused to move out of a doorway. There's a very fine line between "AI with personality" and just plain bad AI.

Congrats to the studio for getting this out.

I do kind of like this. I think it seems to deliver on what it initially set out to do; create a relationship between you and the creature. If the framerate is having trouble on a PS4, there's no way it would have survived on the PS3.

Man... video isn't loading. Bummer.

This new player takes way longer than the old one to get its buffering done. Not to mention it's hideous, but that's a matter of personal opinion.

I think this game looks awesome, it seems the few frame rate dips were temporary and no that bad.

"Was the dodo more of a bird or a duck?"

@rdfed said:

"Was the dodo more of a bird or a duck?"

Someone on the giant bomb staff not understanding what a bird is has become a bit of a signature move for the QL videos. If you really want to hurt yourself face-palming, there is still the No Man's Sky QL...

This looks significantly more like ICO - which I disliked - rather than Shadow of the Colossus - which I loved. That's extremely disappointing, since I found ICO to be such a bore to play. Visually, yeah, sure, looks great, but gameplay-wise this just looks like a drag.

This looks...tedious to play. I understand they want Trico to behave like an animal and not just a mindless tool, but standing around waiting for the AI to do what you want doesn't look fun or charming.

Dudes, I've got it! Trico totally looks like a monkey-bird from the 90's cartoon Pirates of Dark Water. Though it seems like smaller wings, instead of a beak hes got a beak-shaped snout, and he definitely doesn't walk upright. I'm not surprised that Alex is finding some value to this game based what an animal lover he is. He's a lot more warm and fuzzy than some people give him credit for. I may rent this game at some point but the bar for quality video game experiences has gotten so ridiculously high since this game's been in development. Thanks for the video.

@dirtyplatinum: Or maybe, not every videogame needs to follow the same rules? Maybe some people enjoy experiencing a game that 'breaks' a couple of the cardinal rules of how you're supposed to make a game "fun?"

I genuinely enjoyed Deadly Premonition seeing very clearly how different design choices would have made things more "fun." The experience wouldn't have been the same. Clearly, it's not for everyone--but you're missing at least part of the point when you dismiss something for breaking a couple of standard rules.

Why does Alex keep calling the beast Treeco instead of Trico?

@chicken008:

Probably the same reason Dan was saying "eeko" instead of Ico.

Team Ico games give me acrophobia, I swear.

Vinny's spot-on in that it looks like a remaster of a PS3 game, which I guess it kind of is.

Framerate issues aside, I'm still torn on whether or not I would enjoy the creature's "AI" in this. While I can see the merit in the idea of how the creature not always obeying you makes him more realistic (as an owner of a Yorky this may be too close to real) I feel like this immersion would be completely broken whenever something minor goes wrong.

I see the situation as being similar to the uncanny valley. The creature not obeying him immediately and it taking several attempts to get him to move or eat: "Wow, that's how real animals often act!" The creature staring at broken glass for 5 minutes as if he's stuck in some trance: "Wow this is broken." Moments like this, or when the AI refuses to catch Alex multiple times at the end when he had just caught him multiple times a few minutes back, really just highlight when the AI is very clearly just acting like shitty video game AI. It would make me hate it even more whenever that suspension of disbelief is broken.

@mezmero: Oh man, I haven't thought about The Pirates of Dark Water in forever. Such a good cartoon show, and a shame it got canceled before the story got finished.

Why does it seem like a lot of time in this QL was spent looking for anything negative? Dan seems to instantly dismiss it

I was mildly intrigued by this game, but after watching this QL the framerate, unresponsive AI (whether on purpose or not...), and the poor camera angles/controls leading to deaths was enough for me to write it off.

This was a useful quick look.

Definitely a no for me.

I will say that the art design looks lovely though.

@chicken008 said:

Because the Japanese pronounce it that way :)!

Some trivia so you can understand where the name Trico comes from, so you can get the understanding on why the Japanese named it the way it is:

- Ico was the first game of the "series".

- Shadow of the Collosus was called "Nico" (Ni means Two in japanese and its also a wordplay on Ico. Ni is sorta pronounced like "Knee", maybe you know "The Knights who say Ni" from Monty Python, the way its pronounced there is quite accurate to how the japanese pronounce it.)

- Now The Last Guardians Dog/Cat/Bird is called Trico, which again is a worldplay on Ico. Tri this time however means Three in Latin. I believe they just called it that way because its Ueda's third directed game and that its somehow attached to Ico and/or the world of Ico.

EDIT: Ahhh, I presumed that you mean "Tri" as in "trei" or "try" (people speaking english often have problem pronounce Japanese properly due to the accent). I completly ignored Alex accent so if thats a misunderstanding thats my mistake then, sorry. Alex does indeed emphasizes the "e" quite a bit at times but often enough he pronounces it well.

Hm, does anyone else not get video with this player? I noticed it didn't work on GameSpot either, which now uses the same player. I use Chrome.

A couple months back for some reason, a few of my chrome settings got changed in an update to block some video players. I hadn't been able to watch anything on here for a while.

Give this a try: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/6213033?hl=en

This does not look like a game I would enjoy. At all.

I'm kind of baffled by all the comments. The 'finnicky' player movement has been in all the previous games by this team. And the horse in SotC was hard to control at times, pulling away from where you were guiding it.

Idk, this game is exactly what I was expecting, but then I've played through SotC at least twice times in the past several years. I have to wonder if the other two games were released today, they'd be poorly received as well. It seems there's no desire for games like these now.

It's funny how easy public opinion is swayed. This game is getting rave reviews across the board, but because the game has been delayed a lot and is finally out, people are expecting it to be bad and nitpicking any little thing to confirm that belief, instead of actually playing the game and finding out for themselves. This game is no different than ICO and SOTC, both of which have been called classics at this point in time.

The run in place animation looks reeeeeeaaaal stupid.

@jejoma: Yeah, I've seen comments on it, and it's awkward. As if Colossus is archaic now. To me, it's not, nor is Ico. That said, I am not a fan of Ico despite realizing it has beautiful art and great though minimal sound design. The game just bored me, and even kind of frustrated me in sections, but not due to it being archaic (I played it late). Colossus is a superb game, and only the final boss annoyed me.

Edit - Oh, and I'm replying to your second comment, not your reply to me about the video not working. This sucks really. I wonder if I should start using Firefox or something...

loading video...

Youtube it is.

This looks very good!