A boy and his bird-dog
One thing you can certainly say about 2016 is that it at least gave the world a lot of long-gestating, often borderline mythical games. Projects like The Witness, DOOM, Final Fantasy XV, and now, finally, The Last Guardian have become reality. Better yet, it may be the best of them all. The Last Guardian is a remarkable triumph for a game that feels so dated and rough in spots, but the parts of it that stand out - the intangibles - make the final product so much more than the sum of it's parts.
Director Fumito Ueda definitely has a style that he's comfortable with, so if you've played his and Team Ico's previous games Ico, or Shadow Of The Colossus, you'll likely have a good idea of what you're going to get as far as art direction and setting. If not, it can be summed up by saying prepare for stone castles long since turned to ruins and desolate, empty spaces. Despite the real world turmoil and development changes that plagued the game - or at least appeared from the outside to plague it - there is nothing to suggest that this game ran into specific trouble, or that Ueda leaving to form his own company (genDESIGN) and working on the game in a contractor capacity is noticeable. If someone hadn't known about these events, they probably wouldn't even be able to tell, it all feels how it was likely intended to feel at the end of the day.
Playing as a young boy waking up in a strange dungeon covered in markings he did not previously have, you are tasked with finding a way out of this decaying fortress back to your home. The hook? Also in this dungeon is a large bird-dog-cat-thing chained to the ground and covered in spears sticking out of it's body. This adorable monstrosity is Trico, and soon after freeing him, the two of you begin a quest to work together to attain your freedom from the mysterious valley you've found yourself in. Like the past Team Ico games, there is a minimum on narrative clarity for the most part, allowing for a combination of environmental story-telling and making up your own details as you see fit, but there actually is a surprising amount of plot that occurs in the last quarter of the game, proving to be quite a welcome surprise.
Working together with Trico is what the bulk of the gameplay consists of, as you need him to get up to higher places, manipulate heavy objects, and deal with the hollow suits of armour that show up to try and recapture you, and he needs you to fit through smaller passages and use the various levers and switches that control most doors. The moment-to-moment movement is where the game feels the oldest, featuring some stiff controls and a janky camera that wants nothing more than to get stuck on a wall and obscure your view while indoors. The face buttons of the controller are used for some pretty basic actions like jumping, crouching, and grabbing, while the R1 button calls for Trico and L1 will center the camera as best as it can to find Trico (not that you'll need to look too hard for him, he's huge). There's a weight to the boy's actions that make them feel clunky, but not unmanageable, so it's never much of a deal-breaker.
The real challenge comes in the form of making Trico do what you want him to. Trico is amazingly realized as a living creature, and coming with that territory is his tendency to not care what you're doing and just sort of wander around - or even worse, go backwards, something that was always incredibly frustrating. Eventually you'll get the ability to issue some equally basic commands for Trico, like having him jump or put his paws up on something, or to sit, but even these require him to sometimes be in a specific spot for them to work. The game is made maybe a little artificially long by adding in time where you're just screaming at a bird-dog to position himself just right near the broken ladder you need to reach.
Those kinds of moments and situations are absolutely frustrating when they're happening, but after you move on and begin to gel again, they're quickly washed away when the conceit actually works, which is, thankfully, the majority of the time. With how real and lifelike Trico is, it didn't take long for me to start empathizing with the big lug, and working together with him was a genuine treat that few other games have ever really nailed quite like this one, and it'll probably hit someone who has, or has had at one point, a pet cat or dog harder with the way that Trico acts. Despite his tendency to have to save you, I began to think of Trico as a real companion, and something that I should protect just as vigorously. This is also facilitated with a button for petting him and calming him down like one would with a real pet that's agitated. I became so attached to Trico that I found myself occasionally talking out loud to him, even when I was completely alone in the room I was playing in. And really, this is what was always the proposition for The Last Guardian: a tale about a bond formed between you, the player, and an A.I. creature in the form of Trico.
There are the odd controller stickiness problems, the spots where Trico is hard to manage, and some places where the frame rate, at least on a regular non-Pro PS4 strrrrrruggles, but these are well overshadowed by what works. He doesn't have any dialogue - y'know, because it's a dog - but Trico just might be the most interesting and complex character I can think of in a video game in some time. The way that he initially doesn't trust you but grows comfortable, and later later protective with you is believable and organic, and I became so enamored with him that I would get sad whenever he got stuck with another spear trying to defend the boy. As well, all of this leads up to a conclusion to this story that is nothing short of beautiful and emotional on a level I would sooner associate with a Pixar film than a video game. The oppressively empty world and atmosphere would have probably made a fine game just on their own, but the addition of Trico is what makes this game something special, and definitely worth the wait.
