It lives!
(This
review contains minor spoilers!)
After years upon years of delays,
false cancellation rumours, delays, a move from the PS3 to the PS4, delays,
some awesome E3 trailers, and a couple more delays here and there, to say that
The Last Guardian had some lofty expectations to live up to would be an
understatement. A few delays later, and it’s finally here! So was it worth the
wait, or does it join No Man’s Sky and Watch Dogs in the ranks of overhyped messes?
Well…it’s hard to give a definitive
answer as to just what it is. Firstly, I’ll just clarify that it’s not by any
means a disaster. Far from it. The big problem here is that there’s a lot of
stuff in Last Guardian that holds it back from truly being a game worth
remembering for more than its hellish development cycle.
Let’s take it from the top. The game
starts with you as an unnamed boy trapped in some sort of cellar. Chained up
alongside you is a two-eyed two-horned flying purple people eater by the name
of Trico. The opening segment of the game is dedicated to getting Trico
accustomed to your presence by means of feeding him his favourite snack:
glowing barrels. Once he’s happily fed and freed from his chains, the two of
you are off to explore a puzzle-filled valley as the boy attempts to return to
his home village.
That’s all you get in terms of story
for 90% of the game. Most of the plot of the game is focused on building the
bond between yourself (playing as the boy) and Trico through gameplay. While
this leaves you without much motivation aside from wanting to see the ending
throughout most of the game, once you do get to that ending the payoff is
immensely rewarding. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
At its core, The Last Guardian is a
puzzle game with some platforming elements as you cross the towers and temples
of the valley with your enormous puppy pal. The puzzles themselves rarely
become too hard to figure out without a little thinking, although there are a couple
that definitely cross into the “how would anyone figure this out without a
guide” territory. What’s good about the puzzles is that none of them are made
unfairly or designed poorly. While towards the end you may feel like you’re
repeating yourself, each puzzle room is crafted to keep you on your toes and
looking around for clues or answers, some of which you pick up on immediately
and others that seem unsolvable but with an answer staring you right in the
face the whole time.
The game is undeniably beautiful to look at, with some amazing lighting effects throughout the experience. This can lead to several framerate drops unfortunately, but they aren't frequent enough to completely damage the experience. Trico is the highlight of the visuals, as he looks downright incredible. He looks and behaves just like a real animal would. Though some might say Trico is a
little too realistic, and this is
where The Last Guardian’s biggest and most significant problem comes into play.
While your companion is undeniably adorable, he’s not exactly the best behaved
dog in the pound. To reach new areas, you often have to ride on Trico’s back as
he leaps from ledge to ledge. The problem with this is that Trico is deliberately
designed to be as realistic as possible, and with that includes the fact that
he won’t always do as he’s told. You can use various pointing and button
combinations to suggest him into going the right way, but sometimes you’re
forced to sit and wait for minutes at a time while your pal takes in the
scenery. He also tends to get stuck sometimes when trying to perform simple
tasks, including jumping from ledge to ledge. Sometimes he’ll complete a
sequence with no problem, other times he’ll need to stop and take a minute to
readjust and get his bearings before continuing, and still other times he’ll be
completely confounded by a 2 x 8 platform, resulting in up to 5 minutes of fruitlessly
pointing and directing him where you want him to go as he roars and stares off
into space. It’s something that honestly could’ve been fixed by replacing some
of these jumping segments with cutscenes to cut down on the time you spent waiting.
The other main component in the game is platforming. Every once in a while to solve a puzzle, you must jump and climb
your way around the crumbling platforms up to where you need to go. Looking
back on it, the platforming is a bit of a double-edged sword. The majority of
Last Guardian’s unfair deaths are a result of the platforming, as the boy’s
jump is floatier than a hot air balloon, but afterwards he plummets like a stone. He also
has trouble grabbing onto ledges sometimes, and when he finally does manage to
latch onto one it’s a pain getting him to let go. This is especially clear when
trying to climb Trico, as you often can get stuck trying to make the climb from
his knees to his back, and jumping off him is harder than it sounds. Nathan Drake he is not. But the
platforming actually leads to several really cool and fun segments, such as a
collapsing bridge segment first glimpsed at E3 2015.
So what’s the best part of the game
overall? Surprisingly enough, the answer is combat! Your primary foes in the
game are reanimated suits of armour that hunt you down. If they grab you, you
have to button-mash your way to freedom, lest you be pulled into a strange blue
door and killed. Trico is, again, your main line of defense against them, and
he is much more focused when battling than he is puzzle-solving. Watching him
go to town on these armour guys is flat-out awesome,
and while you do fight lots of them throughout your adventure, seeing Trico
stomp through a horde of them never gets old.
You’ll also face off against the
armoured villains without the help of Trico, forcing you to rely on your wits
to outsmart the villains rather than fend them off yourself. The boy’s only
attacks are a weak shove and throwing small objects, neither of which do much
more than cause your foes to stumble. You also gain access to a mirror that
allows you to shoot lightning from Trico’s tail, but it’s not an item you have
with you for much of the game, so it isn’t something to really rely on. In my
opinion it’s much more fun to figure a way to trick your way around the armour
while you figure out a puzzle to allow Trico in than just have him rip them to
shreds with no problem.
There are also a few boss fights in
the game, but they don’t really show up until the last quarter of the story, so
I won’t spoil them. All I’ll say is that they’re awesome and the final battle is a
perfect cap off to your adventure.
So is The Last Guardian the legendary
experience that we were all hoping it would be? No way, not even close. There
are way too many things wrong with it that prevent it from shining at its
brightest. I will say though that, unlike No Man’s Sky, I am wholly satisfied
with the final product and feel that it was completely worth the wait. Yes, the
platforming could’ve used a little more balancing and yes, Trico may be the
most adorable yet unreliable NPC companion in gaming history, but I feel the
awesome action set-pieces, gorgeous visuals, tricky puzzles and excellent
combat more than make up for it. Still, Trico’s tendency to sit and contemplate
life mid-adventure does make this a game that will make you frustrated. To any
gamers with impatient tendencies, avoid The Last Guardian at all costs. It’s absolutely
not the game for you. To everyone else, I’d say you should at least give it a
rent just to see what all the fuss is about. I’d also recommend seeing it to
the end, because that finale really gives you a reason to appreciate the slow
moments.
Now, when I started this blog, I swore
to never add a .5 to a score unless absolutely necessary. I’ve always felt that
everything I review should stick to the standard 10 point score so as to give
an easier way to measure games, movies and the like up to each other, and I
still believe that. However, I feel that this game is the first time I’ll have
to make an exception, as I really can’t decide where to put this one. Plus,
this is my final post of 2016, so might as well go out with a bang right?
So, The Last Guardian earns my first
ever…
FINAL SCORE
7.5/10
Good - Great
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