Thyroid

The Last Guardian

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Really it looked exactly like the PS3 version, the move to PS4 was probably purely for marketing purposes. But yeah that was real gameplay and I think it could be really good.

I haven't compared them side by side, but yeah when the footage started I thought it was just the old PS3 footage.

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I believe the move to PS4 was technically necessary. The game always seemed to rely a lot on physics and it had pretty good animation and lighting, I always saw it beyond most stuff we ended up seeing in PS3 in those aspects.

I believe most of the problems came from this, Fumito Ueda said back then that his work on the game was done, so the creative parts probably were done or planned back then. Considering Team Ico's history of torturing the PS2 hardware with Shadow of the Colossus, I believe they overestimated the PS3 capabilities as well.

But yep, it's the same game, same assets, probably just an upped resolution.

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It stills looks goddamn gorgeous to me, although I haven't played any games of the current consoles yet, so maybe they blow this away.

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Also, Twig, we joke about how long this game's been in development, but it's still just been 8 years and only 6 since it was first publicly shown. That's a lot, certainly, but not any more outrageous than the other big vaporware titles.

Centuries!

 

8 years is still a huge money-sink. No amount of anti-exaggeration will change that! Also other big vaporware titles end up sucking.

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I reckon it was just put on ice for a while. Maybe it was because of technical hurdles that couldn't be overcome with the PS3, maybe it was because the staff were committed to other projects, maybe they just had creative block and wanted to return to it. But I find it very unlikely that this game has actually been in active development for this long. I just hope that the graphics not looking as slick as its new-generation peers won't put people off of what will surely be a delightful and emotionally stirring experience.

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I think the (I'm assuming real time, actually working) gameplay looks comparable or better than the pre-rendered in-engine trailer did from '09. So I guess its kind of awesome that the game looks as good as their initial target trailer, which is a win for me! I think it looks gorgeous.

 

Though I still find the lighting to be a little blown out in Team Ico games, Its sometimes soft and dreamlike, but mostly a little too harsh.

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I think the frame rate is more solid as well, I remember the old footage having some slowdowns when structures collapsed.

Also noted how clever and simple their design choices are. Instead of assigning a button combination to make the catbird jump, you just call him and jump at the end of the bridge. Beyond being a elegant way to implement a mechanic, it represents with fidelity how interactions between humans and animals works.

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That looked really incredible.  While watching it, it also elicited a really emotional reaction from the lady about both the kid and the catbird.  I'd say one of my only worries about it is that the emotional connection will be destroyed by repeated deaths/failures.  SotC avoided that because the two gut punches didn't come at all from the direction you expected. 

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Yep. The gameplay just shows why Team Ico games are so unique. 

 

 

The subtlety of this game is pretty great, no overdone soundtrack, just you, the wind, and the "catbird" and his reactions with you figuring out what to do. It's awesome how you must figure that those purple structures are bad for Trico based only on his face and reactions, which looked really subtle and well done. The animation is top notch. 

 

People might feel weird about it because E3 trailers are usually packed of action, so it might feel weird to see a game so quiet and introspective, but this is exactly what I wanted from this game. 

 

To be sure, I don't want to negate the great things you and others have pointed out about the game. The environment and animations look beautiful. The sound was great. Climbing around on the catbird seemed fun. All that stuff really drew me in.

 

That said, I felt like there was a lot of waiting going on with the catbird. Waiting for it to come after you called. Waiting for it to go down the stairs. Waiting for it to jump across. Also, moving blocks around is the worst type of environmental puzzle because they often- like here- move slowly. I think it was the combination of these things that really put me off.

 

I'm also curious to see what failure at any one of the various points through the video would look like on the player end.

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I'm also curious to see what failure at any one of the various points through the video would look like on the player end.

Hopefully something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me-WHitlw8A

(Yes I tried to find a video of Snake falling off the bridge. Couldn't.)

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The most affecting part of the trailer for me was right at the end when you see some feathers fall off the creature and thinking "oh fuck that's totally a thing isn't it, he's going to molt and die as the game progresses." ;(

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The companion's death does seem horribly inevitable, yes.

 

The only way I don't see it dying is if you sacrifice yourself for it/to rejuvenate its species or something. Probably a higher likelihood that it sacrifices itself for you, though.

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Horns were a misunderstood but ultimately noble thing in Ico and SOTC though.

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Along those lines, my prediction for the setup of this game is that the Birddog's species is hated and feared by the local populace. The manage to wipe them all out, except this one infant, born right after the attack, its mother dying in childbirth (or maybe it comes from an egg? unclear). It imprints on your character, thinking you're its mother.

 

So basically How to Train Your Dragon.

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Along those lines, my prediction for the setup of this game is that the Birddog's species is hated and feared by the local populace. The manage to wipe them all out, except this one infant, born right after the attack, its mother dying in childbirth (or maybe it comes from an egg? unclear). It imprints on your character, thinking you're its mother.

 

So basically How to Train Your Dragon.

not a bad starting point, though.  I thought it was a thoroughly charming movie.  But development for TLG started in 2007 (according to wiki), and the movie came out in 2010.  The book the movie is based on came out in 2003; but I feel like this idea was already in the zeitgeist of popular culture.  When I think of popular portrayal of training a wild animal, I think of Dances with Wolves (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099348/)

 

Edit: Actually if you want to talk about training of the wild, I believe Gilgamesh was the first figure to tame a wild beast-man (Enkidu)

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not a bad starting point, though.  I thought it was a thoroughly charming movie.  But development for TLG started in 2007 (according to wiki), and the movie came out in 2010.  The book the movie is based on came out in 2003; but I feel like this idea was already in the zeitgeist of popular culture.  When I think of popular portrayal of training a wild animal, I think of Dances with Wolves (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099348/)

 

Edit: Actually if you want to talk about training of the wild, I believe Gilgamesh was the first figure to tame a wild beast-man (Enkidu)

 

Oh, I wasn't trying to imply that it would be a rip-off. How to Train Your Dragon (which I also love) is basically The Iron Giant, anyway.

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I've played this for a few hours and I enjoyed it. That is, I enjoyed it until

I had to start controlling Trico

, which is the most incomprehensible bullshit I've ever seen in what is arguably a mainstream video game. After furiously struggling for twenty minutes trying to figure out even the most basic aspects of that garbage, I don't even know if I want to continue playing at all. I know I could probably look up the "actual" controls, but I feel like I should be able to figure it out on my own, especially with the crazy amount of hand-holding the game has been doing up to this point.

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I finished this for the first time a few nights ago. I'm surprised to find that nobody has written about it much here, so I thought I'd give this thread a little bump.

 

I loved it. And finishing it has left me so perplexed and disappointed by the reception it's received. I feel like I'm alone somehow in how I feel about it, even though it seems to have received pretty good reviews on the whole. I've read and heard a lot, for example, about the 'bad' camera, and the heavy/loose feeling of the controls; but almost all of that frames the discussion in terms of technical 'problems' that ought to have been 'solved' by now, instead of looking at them as the result of deliberate creative decisions. As if making a video game were as simple as picking pre-made Good Solutions off a peg. It's depressing to think that the remarkable achievements of this game, both on a technical and artistic level, have gone largely overlooked - though actually I thought Steve Gaynor gave a great summary of this when he cited TLG as his GOTY for 2016.

 

I can't deny it was frustrating. On a standard PS4, the console really struggles at times. I wish it were smoother. But that felt like a small price to pay for some of the most incredible things I've ever seen in a video game. There are so many moments here which had me calling over my partner, saying 'would you just look at this? Can't you see what they've done here?' even when they were as simple as Trico walking carefully towards me across a bridge

 

There are other difficulties. There's gameplay stuff - the occasional struggle with the enemies, the problems with getting Trico to go where you want. But if you ask me about this, I'm liable to become that awful jerk who insists that actually, it's meant to be frustrating. There are parts of the game that are about frustration, and terror, and waiting, and the awful certainty that you should be doing something but you can't. None of these things are supposed to be fun. (I really like this short blog by Ross Foubister on this aspect.)

 

The finale, and the ending in its entirety, is utterly crushing. It's not how you think it's going to go, and I don't think you can really understand it without having played the rest of the game. It left me with that hole in the stomach feeling that I get after an adrenaline rush, or during profound anxiety. I was alone in the house when I finished it, and it made me tremendously upset. Not 'sad' upset, but a different, better, bigger kind of sadness.

 

I think it's probably the best thing Ueda has ever done.

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I have a copy sitting and staring at me that I hoped to start before Zelda came out. I did not accomplish this. Perhaps once Zelda is done. I do really want to play it.

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