The Last Guardian: Expectations And Reality

The main thing that “The Last Guardian” has taught us all is that one can wait the game release for seven years, get known that it is cancelled for several times, then finally long last it and discover that it is not disappointing. So what does the story about a guy and a giant creature hide? What is it worth all those years of waiting? Answer to these and other questions experts of our custom writing paper service present in this essay on “The Last Guardian”.

“The Last Guardian” has acquired legends before its release

Historical reference. The announcement of “The last Guardian” was made in 2009. Everyone was very excited about that, because earlier the same studio directed two brilliant games, in particular “Ico” and “Shadow of the Colossus”. A great trailer with gameplay footages contributes to general euphoria, and no one had doubts about existence of the game.

A couple of years later everyone realized that trailer was obviously great, but the game was not released yet. There were rumors that “Sony” was going to cancel “The Last Guardian”. However, later the rumors were denied. They said that the game was in process, they just did not show it. By 2015 they finally presented it to an audience and “The Last Guardian” had already become a really protracted project. It had been creating for eight years, but in spite of this the game almost did not change. In December 2016 there was released almost the same game presented seven years ago.

What exactly does “The Last Guardian” present?

“The Last Guardian” main character awakes in a kind of a cave. There is a creature, a giant mix of a dog and a cat with bird feet, lies in the same place. The creature also awakes and starts crying, because it is injured. The creature is hurt, it does not allow to come closer, but somehow the main character manages to come near, feeds it and pulls the spears out of the back. Now Trico (this is the creature’s name) obviously feels better and starts to trust you. There is one more thing: Trico is chained to a rock, so you need to unfasten a collar so that it could follow you. This is how “The Last Guardian” game starting point looks like. Let’s also consider the rest of the gaming process.

 “Ico” and “Shadow of the Colossus” are two previous products of Fumito Ueda. What is the essence of them? What connection do they have with “The Last Guardian”?

In “Ico” a hero does not look for a princess, as it usually happens, but he already found her and tries to escape from a castle with her. The princess helps a bit, but in general it is better to always take her by the hands, because the enemies all the time try to still her. In “Shadow of the Colossus” the essence is in the bosses, which are incredibly big and look very noble (unlike ugly creatures from “Dark Souls”). As a rule, a character needs to climb on a boss looking for the weak points, what each time turns into an adventure.

Never before hero of “Team Ico” games had felt so comfortable

First of all you just look for a road leading Trico around spacious halls of an ancient half-ruined castle. The places, where the creature can not go because of its size, you need to find devious paths, open the gates and throw together Trico with enemies, which it tramples at once. It always follows you, worries and cries if you are separated. Battles with enemies disturb it, so after them you need to calm down the animal and pull out the spears of it. In this game you will also face your fear or several of them, and probably you will manage to fight them somehow.

When there is nothing to do Trico wonders around or just lies. There are very few signs of an artificial intellect in it. Very soon Trico is treated like a pet of very big size. Some time later there is the beginning of the hardest and the most significant chapter of “The Last Guardian”. You become a real master of Trico and you can give it commands. The most important is to make it understand what you want.

Having pressed R1, it is possible to beckon Trico, to command it to jump somewhere or to brake something. It may sound easy, but you need to show what exactly it needs to do. Probably, the process is similar to dog training, but instead of a dog there is a creature that has size of a two-stored building. It is required to attract Trico’s attention and make sure that it looks at you and listens to you. Then you choose a place, give a command and observe the reaction, whether it understands you. At the very beginning it is pretty difficult to make it obey. However, it looks naturally as if it is a real dog.

The first part of the game is an attempt to find common language between the main hero and Trico. All the way they are together, they provide each other with help, and you start relying on Trico in any situation. Trico is a live being. It is important not the speed of its reaction, but its quality. It is breathtaking when each creature’s jump makes the earth quake, the buildings ruins and the enemies fall down, while the hero hardly manages to grab its tail not fall into the abyss. And it happens all the time.

“The Last Guardian” was being created for nine years. It should have been released long time ago, but it has happened only recently. Can the game be called outdated? If it were released five years ago, the effect would have been stronger. However, the game absolutely suits other games of the company, so everything looks organically.

Advantages:

• beautiful graphics;
• live, amazingly realistic Trico;
• relationships of the characters;
• incredible emotionality.

Disadvantages:

• boring gameplay;
• forced lumpiness of the game walkthrough;
• poor puzzles;
• damn cornices.

Hidden message… or not

Knowing their love for allegories, it can be supposed that “The Last Guardian” is made so “dreary / wistful” purposely. The gameplay grayness very profitably shades Trico’s liveliness and its relationships with the boy. Very weird design of the levels contributes the picture. Rock climbing and gradual development of the friendship can be interrelated metaphor. Fighting different troubles, one climbs up the life ladder. Many people have friendship in childhood, and in adulthood they have only “acquaintances”. Friendship keeping is a feat and achievement that deserves to be admired. Maybe this is what the studio wanted to show. No one can know it, but our custom writing service wants to believe that the theory about important hidden message is correct. And nine years of faith have not turned in just a well animated feathery creature on a screen.

So is “The Last Guardian” worth the expectations? The question is difficult. On the one hand, Ueda pleased his fans with amazing landscapes and stunning work with light. Trico is a wonderful cute creature that you want to make smaller and keep it at home. Its animation and behaviour is better than can be expected. On the other hand, the game is full of serious drawbacks. It is empty, sometimes boring, unreasonably overextended, and its camera and control can become a manual on “how it should not be done”. “The Last Guardian” was expected to be great. However, it is impossible to claim whether it has become perfect for everyone.