The Last Guardian

Literally wonderful.

It's the best of the "trilogy" from Team Ico. All three games make painstaking use of non-verbal storytelling, building on color, motion, and control as much as on characters and level design. Shadow of the Colossus was disappointing to me because it was quite cold and mechanistic, but here we return to Ico's theme of characters working together both in gameplay and as emotional archetypes. It's done with such tenderness, mutuality, and sensitivity that it's easily one of the best portrayals of a relationship in this medium. Two characters, different species, with a comprehensibly universal bond.

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus were sometimes repetitive and boring, and though the Last Guardian also repeats challenges and levels, I was rarely bored. The game pushes forward with one environmental puzzle after the other (ranging from very easy to moderately easy), but the satisfying core of the gameplay is character interaction. I just couldn't get enough of it.

It's not all great, though. Notoriously, your magical animal friend is neither the smartest nor the most obedient. For much of the game I found this acceptable: it made the animal seem more realistic and, well, charmingly independent. Later in the game it did try my patience. Go left! I said left! This way! I'm pointing left! Left! Animal looks down, then up, and goes right... This could have been fixed quite easily, I think, by making the animal more obedient as the game progresses and your relationship becomes closer. It would actually fit perfectly with the logic of the game. Alas, it's frustrating all the way to the end.

Also, as with the other two games, controls are bad. From the usual struggles with the camera and character movement direction to the fact that the same controller button is used for 4 different actions depending on context and position. What, you really didn't have enough buttons on the controller?! The bottom line is that often the character will do something different from what you want it to do. It's amazing that after all these years, throughout three games, the team still hasn't figured out controls. It's as if they don't actually play video games.

All things considered, it's a game for more patient and passive players. This is likely why it was generally reviewed less favorably than Shadow of the Colossus, which was primarily a real-time puzzle game (bosses are real-time puzzles). The Last Guardian definitely has exciting moments, but they are more scripted and less interactive. Generally, it often puts you in situations where you have little control over what's going on, which may be the opposite of what gamers tend to want out of games.

For gamers like me, though, it's a lovely, memorable adventure that touches a deep yet straightforward chord.