DominiqueX
Active member
Awards
Hello Narutobase.
Most of you here heard about The Last Guardian at least once. The game was in development for such a long time that it felt like an eternity until it finally released this week. Now I'd like to exchange opinions about this heavily anticipated game. Did you see the trailers? Have you played it yourself? Let me know down below.
If you don't want to get any spoiler-worthy information at all, then please don't read any further. I try to avoid major spoilers, but I'll still address certain things in order to explain my opinion.
_____________________
I started to play it today and now want to share my first thoughts after almost 3 hours of game experience. Overall I really like the game so far, but unfortunately it suffers from serious negative aspects. Let's go into more detail and start with the good aspects first.
The music
The music is fantastic. It delivers the mysteriousness and epicness of the ingame world really well. The music also matches the different situations of the game. Be it calm and nice or dark and hasty.
The atmosphere
The atmosphere is awesome as well. The world looks interesting and you really want to find out what's going on, how this world is working, why the things are the way they are and so on. And the game really makes me feel like a young child that has to figure out stuff with a huge animal partner. The size-difference is greatly implemented and feels useful in gameplay.
The animation of movement
Sure, the animations are not on a 2016-level, but I really enjoy them so far. The way the boy and Trico - the giant creature - move and behave is really cool. Their body language is easy to read in my opinion and small details like a yawning, stretching or jumping giant is beautiful to watch. The boy has funny but fitting animations as well.
The relationship and interaction between the boy and the creature.
Of course I haven't seen the full game yet, but in my first three hours, the interaction between those two was handled very well in my opinion. They start out as strangers to each others, but quickly build their relationship and work as a team in order to move forward. It strongly reminds me of the movie "The Iron Giant" from 1999.
_____________________
Now to the negative aspects that unfortunately really annoyed me at some times. I guess this has a lot to do with how long the game had been in development, which is why I'm willing to forgive a lot more than I usually do.
Gameplay mechanics
It's unfortunate to say, but honestly, the gameplay mechanics are garbage. It's not fun to actually play the game. The camera is super annoying and glitchy in smaller indoor-areas, especially when Trico is filling out the entire room or hallway.
Next thing are the controls. The button-assignment is kinda weird and you often miss your destination when you try to jump to it. I've been falling to the ground or into an abyss many times simply because the character was not landing where I wanted him to land or he wasn't grabbing what I wanted him to grab. That becomes really frustrating when you are a person like me with a low patience-limit.
The area-design
This and the gameplay mechanics are my two major problems with this game so far. Most of the time, the riddles/areas are truly confusing. It's hard to understand what the developers want from you. The level-design should tell you without any words what you are supposed to do and where you are supposed to go to.
In games like Uncharted 4, important things like the usage of light and shadows show you exactly where you have to go. And different textures of things show you with what you can interact and can't, what you can climb and what not. But in The Last Guardian, I'm walking around and have no clue at all. Maybe I think too complicated, maybe I'm just blind.. but it's exhausting.
Within the first 3 hours, I already had to look up the solution of an area twice. And that annoys me. I just want to sink into the world of the game and soak up the story of the boy and the giant creature. The gameplay is interfering with that, it interrupts the flow of the game by simply being bad.
_____________________
I'll give it another try tomorrow. I'm glad that I supported the developers nonetheless, the idea of the game is beautiful and should be appreciated and supported. It's just that the execution of the idea in terms of game mechanics sucks.
Such stories about deep relationships are what I value the most in life, especially in videogames - The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, Telltale's The Walking Dead, Life is Strange, To the Moon, Valiant Hearts and now The Last Guardian.
Most of you here heard about The Last Guardian at least once. The game was in development for such a long time that it felt like an eternity until it finally released this week. Now I'd like to exchange opinions about this heavily anticipated game. Did you see the trailers? Have you played it yourself? Let me know down below.
If you don't want to get any spoiler-worthy information at all, then please don't read any further. I try to avoid major spoilers, but I'll still address certain things in order to explain my opinion.
_____________________
I started to play it today and now want to share my first thoughts after almost 3 hours of game experience. Overall I really like the game so far, but unfortunately it suffers from serious negative aspects. Let's go into more detail and start with the good aspects first.
The music
The music is fantastic. It delivers the mysteriousness and epicness of the ingame world really well. The music also matches the different situations of the game. Be it calm and nice or dark and hasty.
The atmosphere
The atmosphere is awesome as well. The world looks interesting and you really want to find out what's going on, how this world is working, why the things are the way they are and so on. And the game really makes me feel like a young child that has to figure out stuff with a huge animal partner. The size-difference is greatly implemented and feels useful in gameplay.
The animation of movement
Sure, the animations are not on a 2016-level, but I really enjoy them so far. The way the boy and Trico - the giant creature - move and behave is really cool. Their body language is easy to read in my opinion and small details like a yawning, stretching or jumping giant is beautiful to watch. The boy has funny but fitting animations as well.
The relationship and interaction between the boy and the creature.
Of course I haven't seen the full game yet, but in my first three hours, the interaction between those two was handled very well in my opinion. They start out as strangers to each others, but quickly build their relationship and work as a team in order to move forward. It strongly reminds me of the movie "The Iron Giant" from 1999.
_____________________
Now to the negative aspects that unfortunately really annoyed me at some times. I guess this has a lot to do with how long the game had been in development, which is why I'm willing to forgive a lot more than I usually do.
Gameplay mechanics
It's unfortunate to say, but honestly, the gameplay mechanics are garbage. It's not fun to actually play the game. The camera is super annoying and glitchy in smaller indoor-areas, especially when Trico is filling out the entire room or hallway.
Next thing are the controls. The button-assignment is kinda weird and you often miss your destination when you try to jump to it. I've been falling to the ground or into an abyss many times simply because the character was not landing where I wanted him to land or he wasn't grabbing what I wanted him to grab. That becomes really frustrating when you are a person like me with a low patience-limit.
The area-design
This and the gameplay mechanics are my two major problems with this game so far. Most of the time, the riddles/areas are truly confusing. It's hard to understand what the developers want from you. The level-design should tell you without any words what you are supposed to do and where you are supposed to go to.
In games like Uncharted 4, important things like the usage of light and shadows show you exactly where you have to go. And different textures of things show you with what you can interact and can't, what you can climb and what not. But in The Last Guardian, I'm walking around and have no clue at all. Maybe I think too complicated, maybe I'm just blind.. but it's exhausting.
Within the first 3 hours, I already had to look up the solution of an area twice. And that annoys me. I just want to sink into the world of the game and soak up the story of the boy and the giant creature. The gameplay is interfering with that, it interrupts the flow of the game by simply being bad.
_____________________
I'll give it another try tomorrow. I'm glad that I supported the developers nonetheless, the idea of the game is beautiful and should be appreciated and supported. It's just that the execution of the idea in terms of game mechanics sucks.
Such stories about deep relationships are what I value the most in life, especially in videogames - The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, Telltale's The Walking Dead, Life is Strange, To the Moon, Valiant Hearts and now The Last Guardian.
