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TheMostFrench
Jul 12, 2009

Stop for me, it's the claw!



Finally it has been released! The team that brought us Ico and Shadow of the Colossus has been working towards this for around 10 years, and now we can journey around mystical ruins with our giant pigeon-cat baby. This OP will be updated as more info about the game mechanics becomes clear.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXLZvsSmBIs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL2zzgW6YOo


Reviews:
IGN 7/10 - http://au.ign.com/articles/2016/12/05/the-last-guardian-review

Gamespot 9/10 - http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/the-last-guardian-review/1900-6416583/


Gameplay:
Like Ico and SOTC, you control a character who is able to perform some basic platforming such as jumping, climbing, pushing pulling, carrying or throwing objects, and interacting with switches and levers. Jumping and climbing feels a bit 'janky' because of how the character handles (they seem a bit heavy). The major feature of TLG is the interaction with Trico, the giant creature who helps you get around. This game requires a bit of patience since you need to direct Trico to perform specific actions at times, and they won't always immediately behave how you might expect. Some of the differences between this game and SOTC is that there is no stamina feature related to climbing, and you dont need to hold a button down when climbing, your character should automatically grab onto ledges and climbable surfaces when you press triangle.

Trico is a mobile platform, you can climb onto their head and swing from their tail. If you interact with Trico they will help you reach a platform or something by extending their neck or jumping up to a new height, allowing you to climb the tail. If you ever feel like you're lost or stuck then chances are you need to go higher using Trico.

It is not a bad idea to wait around in an area and see what kind of things Trico responds to or plays with, because they might be relevant to progression through the game (for example, Trico might bat at a chain or doorway as if it has some importance), or they just might be cute and fun. Trico looks at things in the distance sometimes which can be important.

There are items of food that you can feed to Trico, it is not immediately clear how this affects the relationship and ability to progress (sometimes you have no choice but to feed Trico), since I've found at least one barrel of food which was optional to collect.

From the start of the game there are pretty constant reminders of how to do basic things like jump and climb, but not much mention of how to develop a relationship with or control Trico e: [This kind of stuff gets explained a little bit later in the game, by the middle you can tell Trico how to do a whole bunch of things]
  • Holding L1 focuses the camera on Trico, which is useful to be able to watch how they are acting or responding to certain things.

  • R1 calls out to them. If you point the left control stick in a certain direction and then call out, your character will point in that direction. This has helped me a couple of times when trying to get Trico to do something specific. If you climb onto Trico and then do this you should be able to ride Trico and direct them around to some extent. This gets explained in proper detail later in the game.

  • You can hold circle while standing next to/on top of Trico to pet them! You have to do this sometimes to progress e.g after Trico has been in a fight you need to calm them down. Make sure you dont have the mirror equipped or you might command Trico to shoot lightning.

  • Holding L3 or R3 causes the character to sit down and 'contemplate' which as far as I can tell reveals some insight about the current situation from the character/narrator.

  • If you have taken a big fall you will limp around for a little while but there is no character health to be concerned about, from my experiences only a REALLY big fall is fatal, usually into a bottomless pit, and the game is pretty good regarding checkpoints.

Feel free to share videos, pictures, gifs, etc from your game. Trico does some pretty adorable stuff :3:

TheMostFrench fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Dec 7, 2016

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Jorge Bell
Aug 2, 2006
Good OP

Boogalo
Jul 8, 2012

Meep Meep




Great OP. drat that thread icon is cute.

Dandywalken
Feb 11, 2014

Is this game Art?

Bugblatter
Aug 4, 2003

I'm maybe half or two-thirds of the way into the game (my own estimate based on how I "feel" in the progression) and am loving it. This is basically a direct sequel to Ico so far as gameplay is concerned. Similar traversal puzzles, but now you are the one being defended and helped up ledges.

I might be having a charmed experience though, because Trico has been pretty obedient for me. His stubbornness has never been worse than Yorda looking at birds in Ico.

It's a shame it still has the same camera and framerate as the PS2 Ico. You'd think they'd have updated the camera in the last few decades and while the trees and distant scenery are pretty, they don't really seem like they should be giving the PS4 hardware as much trouble as they do?

Still, the jank is worth suffering through. No one else makes games that feel like this.

TheMostFrench
Jul 12, 2009

Stop for me, it's the claw!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmT4ir_DAwY

I love how Tricos eyes light up yellow when you have food.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8TP9zPOJ7E

And that they get surprised when you shove at them :3:

Zenzizenzizenzic
May 25, 2012

Fun Shoe
I'm about 80% certain I caught Trico pooping but didn't get the trophy for it...now we both look like fools.

TheMostFrench
Jul 12, 2009

Stop for me, it's the claw!



Further highlights include throwing food to Trico, who fails to catch it and gets a barrel in the face, and Trico picking me up by the mouth to throw me on their back, but accidentally throwing me off the side of a bottomless pit instead.

Lynkericious
Nov 7, 2012

Super High-School Level Eating Machine

TheMostFrench posted:

Further highlights include throwing food to Trico, who fails to catch it and gets a barrel in the face, and Trico picking me up by the mouth to throw me on their back, but accidentally throwing me off the side of a bottomless pit instead.

I'm sad you don't have a video for that second one. If it's a reoccurring issue, they should really put in a self deprecating trophy in the future, titled "Thanks, Trico."

Boogalo
Jul 8, 2012

Meep Meep




If you preordered on amazon, check your invoice. I was billed at $101 for the CE but only got a $6 prime discount which should have been around $20. Hit up their chat, ask nicely, and you can get the difference back. This has happend to me on FF15 as well. Seems the prime discount doesn't recalculate correctly when the preorder price changes.

Queering Wheel
Jun 18, 2011


Hoooly poo poo. I'm at a particular segment that is stressful as all hell. You will know it when you see it. It involves a gigantic glass eye hanging over open air that you have to get rid of for Trico. I don't know how this kid climbs and jumps with that huge set of balls he has.

Bugblatter
Aug 4, 2003

Finished it. The game goes a bit longer than I expected (when I said in my previous post that I thought I was about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way through I was actually closer to 1/3), in a very good and satisfying way. The final stretch is fantastic. And really pretty.

Blast of Confetti
Apr 21, 2008

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

TheMostFrench posted:

Further highlights include throwing food to Trico, who fails to catch it and gets a barrel in the face, and Trico picking me up by the mouth to throw me on their back, but accidentally throwing me off the side of a bottomless pit instead.

good dog

TheMostFrench
Jul 12, 2009

Stop for me, it's the claw!



Bugblatter posted:

Finished it. The game goes a bit longer than I expected (when I said in my previous post that I thought I was about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way through I was actually closer to 1/3), in a very good and satisfying way. The final stretch is fantastic. And really pretty.

The end poses so many questions.

It took such a strange turn. What was the master in the tower? Why was it controlling the Trico? Are they all free now? They seemed to drop out of the sky once it was destroyed. Who or what was in the coffin where you find the mirror at the beginning of the game?

Also

Did you wait until after the credits?

Bugblatter
Aug 4, 2003

TheMostFrench posted:

The end poses so many questions.

It took such a strange turn. What was the master in the tower? Why was it controlling the Trico? Are they all free now? They seemed to drop out of the sky once it was destroyed. Who or what was in the coffin where you find the mirror at the beginning of the game?

Also

Did you wait until after the credits?

Yeah of course, always have to wait through the credits on a Ueda game. I'm glad this time the post credit scene was happy.

Those questions are also a lot of why I like his games narratives and how he leaves enough to get a rough understanding, but only just. If we're gonna theorize then the sarcophagi, the design of the tower, and the master gave me the impression that it's the remnant of an extremely advanced long lost civilization. It seemed to use the captured bodies as both zombie slave labor/defense and fuel, and is still running long after the civilization has died out as a result. Pretty sure that "master" is the actual Last Guardian from the title.

It was clearly designed the control the trico for the purpose of gathering the bodies that would be used as fuel and labor. If you look closely at the animated armor they have the same green phantom-like bodies as the fully "processed" ones the tricos are dumping into the bird statue, and also are the same shade of green that is in the food barrels and running through all the magical technology. The tricos that survived the fall are presumably free.

Bugblatter fucked around with this message at 11:34 on Dec 8, 2016

Queering Wheel
Jun 18, 2011


I finished it. It was fantastic and well worth the wait. Nobody makes games quite like these.

I hope some kind of tell-all comes out that talks about what it took to finish this game and why it took so long.

Bugblatter
Aug 4, 2003

Queering Wheel posted:

I finished it. It was fantastic and well worth the wait. Nobody makes games quite like these.

I hope some kind of tell-all comes out that talks about what it took to finish this game and why it took so long.

They kind of already have. They could never get the game running reliably on the PS3, largely due to how much Trico's complex scripting taxed the system. The early trailers were all rendered recorded in slow motion then sped up to normal speed because it chugged so slow. They completed most of the level design and art, then put it on hold when they realized there was no way to get it playable without significant compromises in design. Most of the long delay just didn't involve any actual dev work. It got brought back when the PS4 came out, but then they had to port all the old code in addition to completing the game.

Replaying now, and I've found that there are a lot of small "secrets" involve using mechanics learned far later in the game, but are super obvious on a second playthrough. It's cool that they did that, as their previous games never really offered anything different on repeat playthroughs. It's all minor stuff, like extra food barrels (which unlock outfits on repeat playthroughs) or small courtyards, but still neat.

Also, the game goes super fast when you know exactly what to do. Trico will comply a lot faster when you just give him the exact right direction and action the first time around, it seems.

Bugblatter fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Dec 8, 2016

AllisonByProxy
Feb 24, 2006

FUCK TERFS/BLM/ACAB
Finished it today. Overall I'd say I enjoyed it about as much as I did Ico but nowhere near as much as Shadow of the Colossus. It felt a bit to similar to Ico. I also could have done without the narration. My biggest complaint though, other than the obvious "Why won't Trico just go where I want!?" is the drat control tutorial prompts persisting all the way through the game. It makes the game way more hand-holdy than the previous ones. They really need to patch in a toggle for those in the options.

TheMostFrench
Jul 12, 2009

Stop for me, it's the claw!



Turns out there was already a thread for this game. Please go here for more discussion.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800772

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Bugblatter
Aug 4, 2003

Edit: Whoops, link for the other thread went up while my reply screen was already open.

Yeah, those tutorial prompts still show up on repeat playthroughs and are massive and ugly as hell. I'm on my second time through the ending, I don't need instructions to equip and unequip my mirror taking up a quarter of the screen, game.

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