Fumito Ueda is well known in video game circles thanks to his direction on titles like The Last Guardian and ICO. While both of those titles appear to be grounded in some old school fundamentals when it comes to their design, the director recently commented that he would very much like to work on a title based in Virtual Reality.

In an interview with Glixel he claimed that that he likes VR and what it has to offer, but he’s quite aware of the limitations that come with the platform. Those limitations would apparently be enough to keep him away from VR when it’s all said and done.

“On one side, as a creative medium, I’m interested in creating something for VR, but I also have the responsibility to make sure that it makes business sense for us to take on the project. So, in that sense, I haven’t found the right balance or realistic solution to make it happen,” he told the website. Looks like we might have to wait a while before we see if Ueda ever takes a step into the VR world. In the meantime, you can check out our full walkthrough of The Last Guardian.

The Last Guardian is one of the most anticipated games of all time and the last PlayStation 4 exclusive to release this year but perhaps what makes its launch even more interesting is that it’s launching with PlayStation 4 Pro support. Under development for over 9 years, The Last Guardian does not manage to leave up to the massive hype it carried for so long but it does manage to live up to the legacy of its predecessors, ICO and Shadow of the Colossus.

From a technical standpoint, there isn’t much here to impress us. Given the development hell this game was stuck in, The Last Guardian clearly looks like a title that was stuck in transition between the PS3 and PS4. The game’s use of low resolution textures and the engine’s incapability to render foliage without any sort of pop in can drag down the experience by a bit. However the star of the show is the creature itself. Trico has been intricately designed with one of the most realistic animal animations we have seen in a video game till date. Trico reacts to each and every action of the player…be it the boy shoving or petting him or it jumping from one place to another. It truly is a sight to behold when Trico is in action.

Shadow quality for the most part is decent and ambient occlusion has been employed to create a soft feel to them. Lighting is also one of the standout features of the game. A limited physical based rendering pipeline has been employed, especially on Trico’s feathers which react to light dynamically and as per its movements. The only downfall to the lighting render is the visual noise it generates on plantation. It could be quite irritating to the eyes as it results in an uncomfortable level of brightness which once again could deteriorate the experience when a lot of foliage is around. The Last Guardian also supports HDR lighting and for the most part it does a decent job in balancing out the colors on the screen but its impact is not noticeable during the indoor environments due to obvious reasons.

The Last Guardian targets a 30 fps cap regardless of the platform you play on. We played a few sections of the game on the PlayStation 4 and it seems that the game is running at 1080p resolution with some drastic frame rate drops in between and in one particular sequence, the screen frozed before the engine stabilized the renderer and everything was then back to normal. On a 4K TV and the PS4 Pro, the engine renders the game at 1800p resolution and 30 fps. For the most part performance is stable in 4K mode but we were quite surprised by the lack of a true and native 4K resolution. The Last Guardian does not look like a game that is stressing out the PS4 Pro GPU so the problem perhaps lies within the engine itself which undoubtedly has gone under several modifications over the last many years. We also tested the game on a 1080p TV and PS4 Pro which resulted into better performance overall compared to the base version.

In the end The Last Guardian isn’t really setting new standards in visual benchmarks…except for Trico’s animations which are absolutely superb. But that’s always been the case in the past with this developer with games like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. The Last Guardian’s prioritizes art style and huge vertical level structures over AAA high end graphics and this where the game’s visual beauty lies.  And to be honest, we are totally okay with that.

But there are some other things you might want help with- if you need help with some of the Trophies of the game, or if you just want general tips and tricks, you’re in the right place, and this guide will help you out with that. Let’s get started.

TIPS AND TRICKS

Understand Trico. Trico is the name of the beast in the game, and he will be your companion through the story- but you need to understand him and his moods, if you are to get anywhere. There are some very obvious indicators about how Trico is feeling:

If Trico’s eyes are dark green, he is feeling affectionate towards you

If Trico’s eyes are white or yellow, he is distracted

If Trico’s eyes are pink, he’s feeling pretty aggressiveAdditionally, if you get too far away from Trico, he will whine, but he grunts and howls when he is ready to take you somewhere. If you ever see him grunting a lot, take that as a sign that you are supposed to get on him so you can progress further.

You can calm Trico by petting his neck

If Trico is going in the wrong direction, jump off of him. Doing so ‘resets’ him

Use L1 to focus the camera on Trico. You can also give Trico commands:

Tap R1: Call Trico

Hold R1+X: Sit/scold

Hold R1+O: Stand/praise

Hold R1+ /\: Stomp

Hold R1+ []: Swipe

TROPHIES

The Last Guardian
Collect all other trophies.

Though We Are Far Apart
Play the game all the way to the end. [refer walkthrough here]

Lightning Emissary
Reach the end of the game in 5 hours or less.

Fleet Emissary
Reach the end of the game in 15 hours or less. [refer walkthrough here]

Spry Emissary
Reach the end of the game in 30 hours or less. [refer walkthrough here]

Untouchable Emissary
Reach the end of the game without a game over. [refer walkthrough here]

Lock, Stock, and Barrel
Give Trico every single barrel.

All Talked Out
Hear every hint.

Dressed for the Fest
Collect all of the boy’s costumes and equip them.

That Hits the Spot
Hit suits of armour with 20 or more barrels or pots.

Losing Their Minds
Defeat 10 or more suits of armour by removing their heads.

Get Off My Back!
Cling onto a suit of armour’s back for 30 seconds or longer.

Thundering Wonder
Defeat 20 or more suits of armour with Trico’s lightning.

Last-Minute Reprieve
Have Trico defeat 20 or more suits of armour while they are carrying the boy.

Beast Friends Forever
Paint Trico’s entire body.

Practice Makes Perfect
Have Trico catch a thrown barrel in mid-air 20 times.

The Call of Nature
Catch Trico… in the act.

Balancing Barrels
Move 10 metres while carrying 2 or more stacked barrels.

Keep On Running
Avoid Trico for 3 minutes or longer when he goes wild in an antenna room.

Broad-Backed
Land on Trico’s back after being propelled upwards from a cart.

Cryptozoologist
Touch all enemy beasts.

Intensive Care
Remove all spears from Trico as quickly as possible.

Collar
Make Trico put his head in every hole.

Lifeline
Saved from falling by Trico’s tail 10 or more times.

After so long, The Last Guardian is, at last, out- and it looks like the game delivers on a memorable, moving single player story, the lies of which Fumito Ueda is known so well for, and which made his games such enduring classics to begin with. The Last Guardian, like Shadow of the Colossus before it, is the kind of game that must be played by the player for themselves, so that they can experience its beauty and its emotion for themselves- it is not something that I feel someone should ask for help on.

Nevertheless, if you do need help – if the game stumps you at any time, or if you do not have a PS4, but want to see the beauty of this game in action for yourself – then this walkthrough will help you. It is a complete walkthrough for The Last Guardian– so keep in mind that it will have spoilers, and watch it carefully.

The Last Guardian is in a way a truly special game, a kind of an experience which will most likely be never be replicated in the future and I say that in more ways than one. While playing the game, it felt to me that neither Sony nor genDESIGN, the development team behind the title, are likely to take such a massive risk in the future and develop a game along similar route of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. I hope I am proven wrong but The Last Guardian feels like the end of an era and I am relieved to say that down the line this game will be seen from a high pedestal, much like how ICO and Shadow of the Colossus are looked upon now.

"The level design is superb, something which is expected given that this is coming from the team who developed ICO, but there is this vertical scale that some of the areas bring with it which can be both daunting and spectacular at times."

Without delving too much in the narrative, the game is about a grown up man telling his story in the form of a flashback when he was a young boy. Under mysterious circumstances the boy is kidnapped and when he regains consciousness he finds himself in front of Trico, a giant half-bird-half-mammal creature. This is where the game takes the first few steps towards building the bond between the player and the creature. Unfortunately, this is also where I found the narrative to be a bit lacking. The bond is formed too quickly for my liking…feed the creature, take out a few spears from its body and it’s “we are good to go buddy.” I was expecting a rather emotional moment where something will happen between the boy and the creature resulting into an unbreakable bond between the two.

Fortunately, the game manages to present several emotional moments along with support based game structure that help to solidify that bond between the two. After playing through the first few hours, you really start feeling attached to the creature. There are moments where I would wander off ahead of Trico but after reaching a certain point, I will look back with concern whether the big boy made its way . If genDESIGN wanted the players to feel and think about Trico then they have truly succeeded in achieving same.

Coming off as a spiritual sequel to ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, the gameplay in The Last Guardian feel largely the same. You will be solving mind twisting puzzles, run away from armoured soldiers and do a lot of platforming here and there to make across a particular level. But things become a lot more different and intriguing when you put Trico in the mix. There are certain levels where you would need to take help from Trico to make your way across so a ton of gameplay, as expected, is centered on the creature. The level design is superb, something which is expected given that this is coming from the team who developed ICO, but there is this vertical scale that some of the areas bring with it which can be both daunting and spectacular at times.

"Unfortunately the awful camera can be a complete game breaker at times and this is especially the case when the Trico and the boy are both in a small enclosed area."

As mentioned before, Trico is at the heart of The Last Guardian experience. Players will need to take care of him by feeding him or petting him when it is feeling uneasy. Trico has a mind of its own which means he won’t always do what the players wants him to do. It won’t always eat the food you provide or it will wander off in a different area. Due to this the game may be slow paced at times but for me, it wasn’t really a concern. Trico is a massive creature so obviously it will take its own good time to jump off one cliff to another or come down from a higher level to a lower as and when it wishes. It really is a moment of awe seeing Trico take a jump from one platform to another.

Unfortunately the awful camera can be a complete game breaker at times and this is especially the case when the Trico and the boy are both in a small enclosed area. The game can become downright unplayable at times and although I can understand the reasons behind this annoyance, it’s something that can deteriorate the experience. The Last Guardian also has its own share of incredible set pieces and enemy encounters that set it apart from its spiritual predecessors and although it’s no Uncharted they were intense enough to make my heart beat go faster.

Music is a big part of the experience and the score choice really makes The Last Guardian a treat to play. The sudden change in music during an enemy encounter or Trico taking a big leap…moments such as these feel a lot better with the awesome music score in the background. On the graphics front, The Last Guardian suffers due to the transition it made from the PS3 to PS4. This clearly seems like a game that was designed for the PlayStation 3 in mind as it suffers from low resolution textures and pop in. We played the game on the PS4 Pro and generally speaking the performance was alright but we came across one moment where the game slowed down to a noticeable crawl. But not all is a disappointment as the animation along with the physics engine is a sight to behold.

"The Last Guardian is the kind of game you won’t forget for a long time."

Physics have been revamped which means objects and water effects react more realistically to in-game actions. Trico’s visual fidelity is absolutely superb. It perhaps represents the next big leap in animation technology in video games…be its subtle movements, taking a leap or facial gestures, whoever designed Trico absolutely nailed it.

In the end The Last Guardian is worth the wait. It follows the tried and tested formula of its predecessors and takes it a step ahead with Trico. Team ICO is no more and genDESIGN and Sony may never work on a spiritual successor together, but one thing is for sure. The Last Guardian is the kind of game you won’t forget for a long time.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Sony’s The Last Guardian, the latest game by visionary auteur Fumito Ueda, is finally out after a ten year long development cycle. The jury is still out on whether or not the game was worth the wait (early indications seem to imply that it was), but PS4 owners may want to wait before they jump in and buy the game regardless- at least, those who own standard PS4 systems might want to, anyway.

According to reports by PlayStation Universe and Digital Foundry, the game is slowing down to absolutely unacceptable frame rates- we’re talking it dropping into single digits, sub 10 FPS on older PS4 systems. The difference in frame rate between PS4 and PS4 Pro is stark and astounding- it’s a surprise that a game in this state managed to clear QA at all.

With that said, PlayStation Universe’s report indicates that restarting the system helped alleviate the problem, so maybe this is a bug, possibly caused by overflows or memory leaks- in which case, I seriously hope that Sony get a hotfix out pronto. Right now, the game is, very literally, unplayable.

The Last Guardian has been a long time coming- and given that unlike, say, Final Fantasy, it doesn’t have a bestselling franchise that it is attached to, you’d expect the long wait to have dulled most people’s anticipation for the game. That doesn’t seem to be the case at all, however.

MCV UK are reporting that Sony are finding that pre-orders for The Last Guardian are exceeding their expectations- at least, according to Sony’s product manager Joe Palmer.

“I can’t comment with specific details, but I can say that pre-orders for The Last Guardian are exceeding expectations,” he said. “We’ve seen a really positive response to the Collector’s Edition in particular, which despite its higher price point proves there’s a huge appetite for the game.”

“When you’re working on a game that has such incredibly high levels of expectation, it’s impossible not to consider the pressure of meeting player expectations,” Palmer added. “We’ve tried to avoid fuelling the hype by playing on the fact that people have been waiting a long time for this. We want people to be excited because the game looks incredible, not because of its complicated development story.”

It’s good to see that The Last Guardian has the hype and anticipation surrounding it, because Fumito Ueda’s games otherwise never get the commercial attention that they deserve upon their initial release. Let’s now hope that Sony’s expectations weren’t so low for the game that beating them is no big deal.

After almost a decade of waiting, The Last Guardian is almost here (it’s surprising how many games I get to say that for these days). Ahead of its release, Sony have released a brand new advertisement for the game in Japan which seems to have a sense of self awareness and humor about the protracted development cycle for the title that kept fans waiting.

The Last Guardian is the next game by visionary game director Fumito Ueda, who has previously made the fan favorite ICO and the award winning, critically acclaimed Shadow of the Colossus. It marks the end of a very long and troubled development cycle for the game.

The Last Guardian will release in Japan and in North America on December 6th, and in Europe on Decmber 7th. Possibly because Sony is pissed at them for Brexit, the UK will have to wait till December 9 to get their hands on the game.

The Last Guardian has had one of the longest, most protracted development cycles in history, originally starting out as a PS3 game before going missing in action for the better part of a decade, and then re-emerging as a PS4 game. That fact is actually reflected in how big the game’s final file is going to be- according to a tweet made by someone who got their hands on a physical copy of the game early, the final file size for The Last Guardian is just 15GB.

The person also notes that the case for the game lacks a PS4 Pro icon, which may indicate that PS4 Pro enhancements have been delayed, and will be added later down the line as part of an update of a patch. Do remember, however, that for now, that remains unconfirmed.

The Last Guardian is due to (finally) release exclusively for PS4 on December 6.

Shadow of the Colossus released in 2006. The Last Guardian has been in development for nine years, and we’ve known of its existence, and been waiting for it, for over half that period. But, much like that other Japanese game that we thought would never release, The Last Guardian is finally going to release in a few days.

To commemorate this occasion, the director of the game, visionary auteur Fumito Ueda, has a note included with the game- a note in which he acknowledges and admits that the game’s development was troubled, but promises that it will be an experience like no other nonetheless.

You can check out the text of the note, courtesy of Eurogamer, below. The Last Guardian launches exclusively for PS4 on December 6.

Dear Adventurers
It’s been a long time coming, but I take great pleasure (and relief!) in knowing that The Last Guardian is in your hands.
When we first began work on The Last Guardian, I intended it to take from and build on our experience working in ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, making it something akin to a greatest hits album. Unfortunately, as you know, we ran into a few twists and turns along the way, and the title took longer than anyone expected. Still, just as ICO and Shadow of the Colossus are truly unique games, so too is The Last Guardian an experience unlike any other.
As you play, take the time to stop and enjoy the scenery as you follow these unlikely companions on their journey. And you definitely won’t want to miss the ending!
The development team and I hope you all have a wonderful time with The Last Guardian. Nothing would make us happier.
Fumito Ueda.