Review: ‘The Last Guardian’

Gabe Young ’20 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

You could say that living up to Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, both developed by the same studio as The Last Guardian, is an impossible task, but sadly, The Last Guardian‘s shortcomings cause it to fall even shorter.

You awake as an unnamed child in a strange, massive, and completely abandoned dungeon. Your only companion is the massive beast known as Trico. Who you are, why you’re here, and what’s going on are questions left to the vague storytelling tactics these games are famous for. These games have always been about emotion rather than plot and you generally gather everything you need to know through gameplay, which is what makes these tales great.

The vague, obtuse quality of the story isn’t the problem here, but rather how underwhelming it is. Most complaints are about the camera or the frame rate, but while the camera can be hard to wrangle and the frame rate can plummet to abysmal depths, the real killer here is the lack of any emotional motivation. Shadow of the Colossus and Ico were games that thrived on their stories, the unspoken connections that you made with the characters and the world around them. That isn’t as prominent in The Last Guardian.

This time around, your main character is linked to an animal. A very well animated animal, but still an animal, and it’s nowhere near as endearing as the human companions of the past or even Agro from Shadow of the Colossus. Since the link between the main character and his companion is so much weaker, the connection to the game suffers just as much. Controlling Trico is a hassle seeing as half the time he simply doesn’t do what you want.

The only other meaningful gameplay besides Trico-based puzzle solving consists almost exclusively of platforming and running away helplessly as Trico defeats enemies for you. While the platforming is fun enough, running to safety as your Guardian does all the fighting isn’t exactly a great time. Of course, you could argue this is simply to create a bond between you and the beast, and that would be the case if there was any semblance of control or growth during these sequences. More often than not, Trico is under attack as well; in fact, he’s often the primary target, meaning he has entirely selfish motivation for defeating enemies. The game does throw in some interesting game mechanics, such as a mirror that allows you to directly control one of Trico’s abilities (specifically the power to blast lightning from his tail), which is great. The puzzles involved are interesting and well built, but aside from that, the game suddenly takes the mirror away from you to be replaced with boring, basic gameplay.

Not to say that there is nothing good about this game. The visuals are stunning when running at a decent frame rate, which is surprisingly rare. The voice work and world building are all excellent and there is plenty to be admired in the overall workmanship of the game. But for a game that spent an ungodly amount of time in development, the technical errors are just unacceptable. Somehow, it feels like a rushed game.

Hundreds of people spent years developing their ideas, and at the core, there is something beautiful to be found in The Last Guardian. Unfortunately, terrible frame rate and tricky controls contribute to a lackluster and forgettable experience.

Still, it’s hard to call The Last Guardian a bad game. It’s really up to the individual to decide whether or not The Last Guardian is worth it. If you can see yourself easily falling in love with Trico and the other creatures that inhabit the world, then there’s something here for you. If you can look past the technical issues and find something of value in the narrative then, there’s something here for you. But overall, The Last Guardian makes for an empty experience with poor controls and an outrageously inconsistent frame rate that in no way lived up to its predecessors.