The last guardian

 How i played The last Guardian

Ahh. The last Guardian. For a game i anticipated and eagerly awaited back in 2016 as it was made by the creators of Shadow of Colossus: A game where you chase down giants to kill them... for reasons.  As we can see, i rushed over 5 years to complete this one that I finished it last week. 

A pithy tale of the object of the game is as follows; A young boy finds himself waking up in a cave with a giant beast, Earns beasts trust, aims to figure out what is going on but mainly just wants to get home. Boy and beast enlist eachother as companions in order to achieve this goal.

Simple concept really. I must say i've not played a game quite like this, other than IKO; a game released in 2005 by the same developers. Even so This game really has a unique style, one which isn't typically comparable to general triple A games.

For instance, Most games begin with a simple training room wherein you are told the basics of controls and also shown a bit about what the game is about.

In the last guardian, the FIRST thing you must do is get a giant, scary beast that's chained up... to simply trust you. Go.

They put in a lot of effort to make this bonding seem authentic. I've never seen that beast in real life, however i felt that i knew how it was feeling based on the way it interacted with you and it's surroundings. When it interacts with you, it is dog like i.e. wags tail, shifts ears, loves a stroke. When it interacts with the surrounding environment, it is cat like i.e. cheeky bum wiggle before a jump, attacks things with paws, rather than teeth. Lots more things were thought of i'm sure but i was hooked! I love Trico the scary, unusual beast.

That bond between beast and boy that seems to be the vehicle through the game is an incredibly simple and powerful hook. It draws you in and convinces you that this world is real and dangerous. The boy you play as (Which i called "boy" throughout) is pretty useless at self defence. The best he can do is climb the back of an enemy and hope or the best. I for one very much enjoyed doing a solid snake dive roll at the legs of the statues, resulting in the boy achieving nothing but a headache.

This means that in moments of peril (getting carried by statues through a blue door) All you can do is hope for the best. The beast must deal with it all while you achieve nothing. If you're picked up by a statue, you do have the privilege of mashing all buttons on the controller in hope that your dropped to the ground. Each time this happened to me I almost broke my controller as i'd adopted a squeezy, wiggly, mashy finger technique in order to be somewhat efficient because these moments are STRESSFUL!!!

So how did i play this game? 

I took my time. I spent time looking at everything an artist rendered for my enjoyment. I felt like i had to in order to find any path to the next room in the maze. I tried my best not to google what to do but at one juncuture I did as i became a psychopathic player and the boy was paying for it. 

To clarify i saw a way forward but my slightly faulty controler kept on sabotaging me. A running jump becomes a run, stop then jump. After 5 failed attempts at my jump i googled if i should be doing this,,,, and yes i was doing the right thing. I basically had to get creative and change my camera angle form 'over shoulder' to 'side scrolling platformer' in order to make the jump. Other than that the game gets you through it pretty well.

My controller also got the boy killed many times on one other part of the game.  (I)He would just jump in the wrong direction - plummeting to the ground that you cant see; as this game's stage is set, of course, in a temple in the sky. In these moments its best to have a sandwich or a bath than to endure the hilarious and frustrating death loop of human error.

Shy of playing the game to get through the puzzle like traversal of this wonderful world, I would also spend time interacting with the beast, stroking her in different places to see what she liked. Calling out to her to interact with everything just to see the posturing of the young boy as it looks both silly AND convincing. 

This game is lovely. Not much is explained to you in terms of world lore. It literally is 'what you see is what you have' so do your worst. even the language of the boy is created and not based on anything in our world. so you never know what anyone is trying to say but you kind of know what's going on based on movements and behaviour. This completely charmed me. It was so powerful towards the end that i found myself in tears when the boy sends the beast away for the last time. TEARS! Non verbal emotions are so much more intense than verbal ones.

I am looking forward to playing your next adventure Japan Studio, even if it is 5 years too late!