I see a lot of hate for it, but people seem to hate it for the very reasons I love it.

The Last Guardian is a game about empathy, that's the main mechanic here and I think you have to have a fondness for animals to like it. I find it bizarre personally, but a lot of people I know just want them all dead, see them as stupid and don't care... I find those people disgusting and I feel passionately about that, so this game was always going to appeal to me.

What I really love about The Last Guardian is it runs with these themes as the plot and tells it with Trico. This wouldn't have worked if Trico felt like an NPC in a game where it instantly responds to you like most games. Trico feels like a real Animal A.I where he takes time and feels dynamic and like he's trying to understand you. So I'm playing frustration free and just loving watching Him and treating him with respect and patience like I do my Dog. When my Dog was a Puppy he destroyed my house chewing everything and took time to train, I don't get angry at him and that's how I feel with Trico.

The other thing I love is the way the little Boy animates, I was worried with all the reviews that the controls would be horrible, but I didn't find this. I just got in and played the game and to me it felt responsive and great, I loved how he animates and moves around, it feels so much better and looks more convincing that most games IMO. The only trouble I'm having is the FoV is too narrow and that causes problems with the camera in tight spaces. It doesn't help there are control indications taking up half the screen and you cannot turn them off.... these are simple things they can fix however. To me though games like Final Fantasy control like crap, where they all take long strides, it feels so floaty with the animations not keeping up and they move off centre from the camera which feels so weird. I hate the way GTA V moved where they all felt so sluggish and not like Humans at all, where they melee was so bad and sums it up really to why that movement sucks.... so I was pleasantly surprised with The Last Guardian.

I never played SoC or Ico, but genuinely for me The Last Guardian is one of the most important games ever. It really does something different that no other games are doing and it's conveying far more emotion than any Mass Effect game or any crap like that where everyone feels so fake. I believe the characters in The Last Guardian, in most other games they all just feel like they're written to be shot or as filler.

So I've got a legitimate question, not trying to bash the game or anything. Is it confirmed that this is in fact how Trico is supposed to work? Is he designed to not always listen or maybe kinda do what he wants? Or is it more of an issue with the game where the A.I is slow and doesn't function properly all the time and people use the excuse that "it's an animal" to cover up a short coming?

I haven't played it and I'm slightly interested in this game myself but when I hear people talk about how Trico won't listen all the time makes me think of the excuse that zombies in video games can have shitty a.i. because they are zombies and would be idiotic.

Trico is by far the best video game character of all time for me. Can't get mad at it either, it's not bad AI, it's an animal!

I've been talking to it as well, things like: 'Calm boy, calm!' and 'You can make that jump. You see! Told you!'.
My appartment is too small to house a cat or dog, so this is a pretty good surrogate, haha :P

I haven't played TLG yet (too many games this season, my wallet can't take it), but as an animal lover, what you've said makes me really excited to try it. SotC is one of my favorite games ever, and I also completely love the artistic aspects of Ico even if the actual gameplay sorta doesn't hold up its end of things. The idea of making an animal companion that actually behaves somewhat like a real animal would is a risky choice, because lots of people are just going to interpret it as "bad AI" or "stupid game design" (and they wouldn't even be wrong, depending on what you value most about playing games). Those sorts of strange and bold risks are what I've come to expect from Ueda games, though, and it really excites me.

I finished it yesterday and absolutely loved it. Trico is awesome, the environments are beautiful and the big set pieces are way better than anything in ICO or SotC (the ending sequence is one of the most harrowing things I've experienced in a game in a while). The camera resets in small spaces can be a bit annoying, but I suppose it's better than the camera clipping through walls constantly.

I also found the reports of bad Trico control to be wildly overblown. There were only a couple of parts where I had difficulty getting Trico to do what I want, and in both cases it turned out I was trying to do the wrong thing. If you pay attention to what Trico is doing (especially where his head is pointed) and position yourself between his ears, it's not too difficult to make him move. And in a lot of cases, he will automatically position himself in the correct place and look toward what you need to do next.

There also seem to be extra Trico commands aside from jumping and moving that aren't mentioned by the game, like a stomp, clap and push move, although I never figured out what to use them for. And I'm not 100% sure, but I think he makes particular noises in response to certain situations, like he'll bark a certain way when he doesn't understand or can't do what you command. Also, if you're stuck and need a hint, you can press either analog stick and the kid will sit down and meditate, which will trigger the narration hints.

I think what trips most people up is the fact trico needs to see you to see where you are pointing at. I have yet to see someone actualy point that out. I havent had any problems at all with trico listening ever since the commands unlocked and I found out trico needs to see you to listen.

This might be one of my favorite games ever.Trico is goddamn incredible and the atmosphere of the setting is just sooooo thick. We'll see if it gets frustrating further in though, I havent finished it yet.

Someone made a really good observation in another thread about the problem with Trico being a "real animal" in what is essentially a puzzle game. When there is a very specific solution to a problem that involves Trico and you tell it to execute the solution and it doesn't, that leads to a lot of confusion that is detriment to the gameplay. Should you try every possible solution a minimum of three times in the case that Trico is just being moody? When you finish a protracted platforming segment and execute a leap of faith only for Trico to watch you fall for whatever reason, would you go up and climb all over again just to make sure he wasn't being grouchy and that what you were doing was in fact the right path? What if you go off and spend an hour trying something else thinking maybe it's just Trico being a real animal again?

There is a real problem when the only solution to a puzzle only works some of the time.

I'm only a couple hours in so maybe things go downhill, but I find Trico to be the most fully realized creature I've ever seen anywhere (not just games). The game isn't perfect, but they fucking nailed that aspect of it.

@lestephan: this absolutely isn't true. There are multiple moments where you have to call for Trico when he's out of sight.

I love this game but my biggest gripe with The Last Guardian is not Trico and his animal behavior (I believe this to be the design decision and they do it well) but the camera and controls. I've felt like I've been wrestling with those the most.

I am very tempted, but I'm not sure if it's worth it to me at £50. It would be my first game from this team as I missed the last 2 but I watched a stream of the first 2 hours and loved what I saw.

Yes, I've not had Trico not do anything or get stuck or anything like that, I saw some reviews complaining about him not eating his food... never had that problem. He sometimes kicks it around, but that's fine as it's just his personality and it's fun to watch and it's never been more than 20 seconds of him doing that. I find it weird reading some reviews bashing it so much, it's not Mario, it isn't trying to be that at all. Having watch Ico and SoC on streams (as I said I've never played them myself), I don't think people actually liked those games if they hate this one. They're pretty much the same game, they're so similar and they have the same movement and all the reported frustrations. I'm starting to believe most fans of those games just jumped on the band wagon after the fact and just fell in love with the art style and didn't actually play them. You get a lot of this, it's so weird that people love to pretend to try and be different or whatever..

As for the moaning about framerate and graphics, I'm playing it on a standard PS4 and out of the 8 hours I've played, I've had 2 times where it has dropped for like 5 seconds and that's it. The game has been so smooth and it's been blown up too much from retarded sites like Digital Foundry who love to report pointless crap. Whocares if it's 30 and not 60? It doesn't matter at all, it's not Forza or Wipeout. The graphics are stunning in my eyes, they do not look dated at all, everything feels like a painting and it's so well animated, to me it looks better than Gears of War 4 or what ever else as it actually has style, it's not generic crap.

It's not for everyone and that is fine, but it's fantastic for people who are into these types of games, the hate it's getting is just odd.

@humanity: The Puzzles are not hard, I've not had any issues working them out and Trico has never gotten in the way of them... again it's a non issue. I don't understand how people are saying he's frustrating because he's getting in the way...he's not, he's part of the experience, he isn't there to feel like a tool to solve stuff. You feel like two minds working together, like you're playing Portal 2 or something and you're working it out with a friend. What I love about him is he'll often look at or walk to solutions, if you're still stuck you have the narrator drop hints.

@rongalaxy: Didn't say you cant call him from out of sight, that happens constantly. I was saying the gesture based commands dont work when Trico cant see you. For example when you are clinging to the back of his head. It at least seemed that way in the area I tested it out in.

@nagafen: if you like that and you enjoy RPGs then you should check out Dragons Dogma. Your followers in that game can be "rented" out to other players and they learn quest info that way so that when you go do a quest that they've done with someone else they'll point out which way to go and such. It's a really cool system.

@lestephan: I'm nearly finished with the game now, but I've never had that issue once.. it's not a game built of frustrations for me.

@sackmanjones: The AI is functioning as designed I believe

@humanity: This is a concern, but seeing as how everything i've seen and read so far makes it seem the puzzles are pretty straight forward, the actual challenge is in interacting with the Animal. Which seems to be the core design philosophy behind the game, and make it a lot more appealing to me as i find puzzle games not all that engaging.

@nagafen: I played it for 5 hours straight today and I'm head over heels in love with the game. I have never cared about a character in a video game as much as I care about Trico. I find myself talking to him(?) constantly. I understand that it's not for everybody but it's surprising to me that so many people get frustrated with Trico. I felt an instant bond with him and have never once been frustrated. It's marvellous.

@sackmanjones: It is absolutely functioning as designed. It's not frustrating at all, I think it's brilliant.

Finished it yesterday and I absolutely loved it. Yes, Trico is an animal and acts like one. Yes, that can get frustrating. That risk they took makes the game better because of it though.

This isn't just a puzzle game. You know that relationship between the boy and animal they've been selling you on? That's not just the story. That's the GAMEPLAY. Throughout this game Trico learns how to communicate with you and you learn how to communicate with Trico. THAT'S why it's so difficult at first. It gets easier as the game goes along because the both of you have learned. The commands are purposefully vague.

Final act was incredible.

@humanity: The environmental puzzles aren't hard at all.

Communicating with Trico IS the puzzle.

@nagafen: Admittedly I'm not the most sensitive when it comes to framerate but I agree. I have only seen it drop twice and it was really noticeable BUT it was for a few seconds. The game is beautiful, the scale of the environments is staggering and I think the animation for the boy and Trico are phenomenal.

@frostyryan: Even in the beginning I never really had trouble getting Trico to do exactly what I wanted. It felt like we understood each other pretty much immediately. There have been a few times where I thought that he was refusing to do something but then I realised that I was being a dope and missed something.

@pompouspizza: Sure but there's still a learning curve.

The game doesn't tell you what stamping your foot means or clapping means. They're very vague games of charades until you start learning how trico reacts to it. That's the stuff I love.

@frostyryan: Oh absolutely, I still don't really know what clapping does but it's fun to figure that stuff out.

@humanity: @sackmanjones: I'll have considerably more to say as I get deeper into the game. I've only just gotten up to the part where Alex began the quicklook, and boy, oh, boy, am I ever loving the heck out of this game. As noble an effort as Alex made to convey his sense of a growing bond and mutual understanding with Trico, it's not something I feel translates that well until you play the game; or at the very least, spend a good amount of time looking at it.

Bear with me for repeating this next phrase, but I really do feel like I'm communicating with an animal. I say this as someone who's had animals. Trico is, if anything, very intelligent, and is playful in such a way that just by watching him, you just might figure out where the next intended goal is. (It's also a genuine delight) For instance, there is one puzzle where you need to pull down a chain in order to operate a pulley to open a big gate infront of you. After scratching a bit at the door, Trico walks up to the chain and starts pawing at it, hitting it in the same way a cat would play with a string. Tentatively at first, expressing curiosity, with a bit more abandon as time goes by. It draws attention to the chain in a way that feels natural, whilst still serving as a great hint. Turns out you need to attach a weight to it that he's interested in, some food. And after a couple of sniffs, he begins tearing at it, allowing you time to slip beneath the door-frame as it opens and closes with each of his tugs.

Once on the other side, you'll have to prop the door open so Trico can get through. Trico finishes his meal, and then panics, realizing all of a sudden that he can't get to you, smashing his head against the gate, and whinging in pain from the result. He whines and moans, but finally begins to calm down a little and instead watches you carefully as you approach with the thingy-ma-bob you're intending to prop open the door with. He returns to the chain, understanding that pulling it changed something. All of this feels so very natural, and the gosh darn Griffon (dogbirdcat-thing) believable, adorable and at times, fucking terrifying.

I believe I might just love him.

(As for him catching you, it happens a handful of times across the entirety of the game from what I've read, and the situations where-in you need to do so are fairly obvious. As for what happened toward the end of the quick-look, Alex just missed the jump.)

I haven't played this game yet (and won't until I can get it for £20), but I strongly suspect I'm going to really like it. ICO is one of my favorite games ever, the act of having to hold Yordas(?)hand and pull her along really resonated with me for some reason, and I see this game having a similar effect on me.

I haven't finished it yet, but I have a feeling I might be close. I really must echo what a lot of people in this thread are saying about treating Trico like an animal and learning to read its signs. If you are the type of person where tight control and responsiveness is a must, this probably isn't for you. But if you can get in a patient mind set, this game really is unlike any other, and the bond you form with Trico is truly special. It hurts me when Trico is getting hurt, and I rush to make it stop. It probably helps that I love animals in real life, and that I can't stand watching animals suffer.

I can't agree, I'm about 3 hours in. While Trico's animation is endearing and incredibly well done, it isn't enough for me to deal with the inconsistencies present throughout the game. First off, I'm a huge animal lover, myself (or my parents) have owned 12 cats/dogs since I was born, I've grown up with them and had to say goodbye to 10 of them. That's in addition to keeping rabbits, and dealing with horses on a regular basis. I sit here looking at a cat who got outside last month and belligerently would not come in for over an hour and had me worried sick. She's one of my favorite souls in the world. So I'm familiar with the nuances of dealing with animals.

All that said, last night I spent 30 minutes trying to get out of a small area, because Trico wouldn't jump through an opening. I wasn't 100% sure if the opening was the right path, there were some other areas I pursued with no luck, but the game gave me zero feedback. After 15 minutes of letting him do his own thing, and trying to figure out the right path, I basically switched to QA mode. I was more or less running into walls and trying all the commands hoping it would trigger something. I was ready to go online when Trico finally cooperated. This experience (and it's the second time in 3 hours that it's happened) has not created a bond or endeared Trico to me, it's made me question if the game was bugged, and completely broke immersion.

I get what people are saying, and maybe other people are having fewer issues then I am, but man, these hiccups really kill the flow the game has. Which sucks because the game is SO good when it flows! I love it, and I'm going to beat it and without a doubt play it again. That doesn't mean, however, that I'm not frustrated with certain aspects of it.

@lestephan:

I think this is what occurred to me the other day. I was at a place where I thought I had to order him to jump across a gap, and whatever I did he wasn't responding at all, then I moved in front of him and did the L1 dance thing and he jumped across a bit later.

Y'know I think a lot of the criticisms of the AI are overblown. Most of the time I found Trico a little slow to respond, and sometimes did the wrong thing, but I was cool with it because it just seemed... like a realistic interaction with a weird giant lovable goof, and it rarely took so long that I was getting frustrated.

There's one sequence which was the exception, where it felt very different and DID feel like the game was breaking instead of me just trying to communicate with my weird bud.

It's the bit where you twice have to send Trico diving underwater. I found it really hard to get him to dive, and then very often he'd dive and I'd come off his back, or he wouldn't make it all the way into the tunnel, which suuucked.

But aside from that, I thought it was just fine, really conveyed trying to coax an animal into doing something in a way that was more interesting and endearing than it was frustrating.

Oh- also, I finished it earlier, and yes, I loved it. It doesn't quite have what SotC had for me, but I feel like it works as a weirdly inverted Ico, and has enough of those moments where SotC is at its most exhilirating that you can see that in its blood too. It's a 3rd game to be proud of and I hope that team has more (and sooner!)

@milehigh17: It sucks if you're having issues, but I've completed it and had none through the whole period... so maybe it's just a toss up to if you will have some A.I issue or not? Maybe you;'re not playing on the latest build? I'm not sure, but it was silky smooth all the way through for me.

I just finished it and I loved it.

they could have made a game where the animal just responds with canned animation if you press the button in the right place. or had you control the animal directly. or put it on a set routine or any number of things which would have been easier,and made for a more predictable game.

instead they give you an actual companion, and working with it and coaxing it and celebrating when you communicate and being frustrated when you don't - that's what makes it special. it's so full of charm and vitality and feels actually like something different.

the game has its problems whatever. I thought it was wonderful. not for everyone, but perfect for me.

I finished last night and loved it as well, though in retrospect I wish I didn't play through the whole thing in two sittings.

Trico is great, everything about the AI makes sense. You have to think about it in terms of working with him, not making him do what you want. He's a true partner to the player and treating him with some respect will make the whole experience smoother. Use your imagination a little and try to think of it how a kid would. If I were to show this game to my nephew he would make believe Trico was a real being, why is it so hard for adults to do this?

Not talking to anyone in particular but in my opinion the complaints about the AI are from people who aren't giving the game an honest chance. Tech issues are annoying, I had some really bad framerate drops but not too often. And yeah the camera is wonky, you have to really struggle with it sometimes. Didn't detract from the overall experience though.

@drachmalius: Whenever I stop playing I can't stop thinking about getting back to it but I'm trying to pace myself somewhat. Out of curiosity, why do you wish you didn't play through the whole thing in two sittings?

@pompouspizza Basically because it's over and I probably won't replay it until next year at the soonest. I remember it being really cool playing SotC and looking forward to the next colossus while sitting in school. Here I was enjoying myself so much I couldn't stop playing, but now wish I had spread it out a little more to let it sink in more. Oh, well.

@drachmalius: I had the exact same experience with shadow. I'm trying to take my time with it but I actually have no idea how far in I am. I have been playing for a while so I must been a decent way in but I hope it's not over too soon.

When the game is working as intended, I was quite enjoying myself, but when the game broke, in the myriad ways that it can, it really hurt the experience for me. I don't think I can say I love the game, but if it wasn't for that fantastic last act, I would have definitely had an overall negative experience with the game. So what went wrong. Well, there were a few times where there was clearly something wrong with triggering Trico to do something to progress. One of those times I had to restart at a checkpoint because waiting any longer than 10 minutes is ridiculous. Fighting the camera and the controls the whole game was unpleasant; the worst offender being that of every time I wanted to get off of Trico. The handful of times the game is vague or obtuse in what I'm supposed to do led to frustration. Lastly there were two jumps in the game which both had really bad checkpoints that both took three tries for me to complete; I really loathed those moments.

As for Trico's AI in general? It's fine, but I don't think it's anything special. Maybe I'm harder to please or maybe it's my background in computers, but I didn't think of Trico as an animal — just an NPC like any other. I think they could have done much more to flesh out Trico, be that more complex algorithms, more player interaction, or more personality/relationship defining moments. Fortunately, even with that being said, I was able to see Trico as a character by the end of the game (probably because the last act is just that good, as I said before).

In the future, I might not look back as fondly on this game as I do on Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, but The Last Guardian is a great game despite its issues.

The "it's an animal" defense is shit to me. It's shoddy A.I. and even if the former were true that doesn't make it a fun experience. It's incredibly frustrating when you know clearly what to do and Trico just won't cooperate. There is nothing fun about that. I cared far more about Agro in SOTC then I ever did about Trico in this game, both mechanically and narratively.

@kishinfoulux: @sackmanjones:

Agro from Shadow of the Colossus was programmed to sometimes not listen or do something else to commands that the players would input while on horseback to make it seem more like a "stubborn animal" than just a vehicle or puzzle piece. I haven't played TLG yet, but I imagine they used that same technique with the AI for Trico.

im sorry but im in the camp of the whole "well my animal doesnt listen to me so its realistic" to be a load of bs. how is that argument valid in any way. look i get that you love the game to set those issues aside but it has horribly frustrating moments and overall feels sluggish to me. a subjective opinion is i like it because he behaves as a untrained animal does but the objectivity is that he just straight up doesnt do what hes supposed to do because of shit ai. use the whole untrained animal argument if it makes u feel better but it sounds very silly.

and also, games are about having fun. however, people love no mans sky because its a barren wasteland, and love trico because hes like a real untrained animal. well guess what, i wanna have fun, i dont necessarily need realism in my games. i spend enough time with my own untrained shitty dog (who i love) to not want that in a video game and the universe itself will never be fully traversed so i dont need a to scale replica of it in a game, thanks much!

It's not shit AI, it's what they were going for. If thats not something you like then don't play it, simple as that.

I actually enjoy seeing people get so annoyed because they can't exert their will directly over trico.

I also like the seeing people say that you know what trico has to do but he won't do it. I think it's exactly what the team were going for. how are you communicating what you want to do?

the games explores exactly how you get a dumb but independent ai to cooperate with you, based on very limited shared communication. and gives you the freedom to fail at it and shout at the TV too.

but that's what makes actually cooperating feel rewarding for me, because you actually succeeded at something when you combine your brain with tricos brawn to progress.

Finished it yesterday evening. It's almost my GOTY. An incredible piece of art.

Ofcourse a lot of the behaviours of Trico are scripted as well, but I feel they are to a certain point and then they let the 'physics' do the rest. Which does not always go down well. I've had a few examples where I was stuck because of things not going the right way, without me being to blame. I'll put it in a spoiler block:

@dussck: the second bit in the pool, I got trico to break boards by moving to different corners of the area and calling, which made him move back and forth enough to break it. then I went and stood where he could see me, and the tail fell down behind through the hole. I felt so helpless at that point though, it felt good to have figured it out

What I have a problem with is people hand waving issues with the game as "Trico's an untrained animal." I don't think games must be fun, since that's an unnecessary restriction on creators, but I do think games shouldn't feel broken. Maybe someone someday will be smart enough to make a transcendent broken game deconstruction, but until then, it'd be nice if all games functioned as intended. The problems aren't simply Trico doesn't listen, and if you get some kind of enjoyment out of people having trouble playing this game, well, that's messed up. There's a better game in The Last Guardian; either one with these half-baked systems removed or a fully realized version where the player actual develops a relationship with Trico through learning, teaching, discovery, exploration, and camaraderie. What we got instead was a mess, which shouldn't be too surprising given its protracted development. FFXV has similar issues, though it suffers even more since it doesn't have a fantastic last act like The Last Guardian.

maybe I didn't word it well, but people having trouble shows me that the main mechanic of the game, as I see it, is authentic. if everyone just sailed through then I'd question how much was just scripted, and so less meaningful.

but, the game does something different, something new, and I appreciated that.

i think a lot of the problem comes from trico being pretty dumb. but if he was intelligent, it would be boring, unless you made the puzzles also much more complex.

that is probably the next step, but for now I think a dumb companion with simple puzzles works.

I can't agree at all that it's broken, or a mess. from my perspective it is the opposite.

@gerrid: Like I was saying, if it was simply a performance problem with Trico, then I would feel differently. When I was near a large body of water, Trico pooped on an outcropping of land. In my curiosity, I picked up the poop and threw it in the water. To my surprise, the developers forgot to program in collision between the water and the poop. So instead of the poop splashing into the water, it just fell through the world. That moment is indicative of a significant portion of the experience for me; it's not that I was interacting with a simulated animal, it's that I was struggling with a game that mechanically hasn't fully come together. I'm sure having to switch from PS3 to PS4 was a heavy burden, but even with its almost a decade in development, The Last Guardian needed more time.

If you want more context for my experience with the game, there are moments in the game with the conceit that Trico won't do anything until fed. That's fine. The problem happened when I brought a barrel to Trico and he simply ignored it. Eventually, it ended up working after I accidentally threw it at his face, wherein he immediately ate it. If the aim here is realism, then they widely missed that mark in this moment, especially with the given conceit; instead, it felt like Trico's scripting was bugged — a loop in a computer program stuck for reasons unknown.

Yes . It's technically a really flawed game , but I absolutely love it .

@razzuel: I get it, and I sympathise because sometimes all it takes is a couple of sour moments to colour the whole experience of a game. I could have probably gone over the edge into frustration rather than enjoyment myself if a few more incidents had gone against me. I had the same thing with him not eating the barrels so after a bit I just stood in front of him with one in my arms. he got it every time then.

and trico isn't perfect at all, and the animation is squirly and some of the situations are poorly thought out in a way that makes them more frustrating than they should be. but overall I think they managed to pull off what they were ambitiously going for. but sadly I think it means for lots of players they might just end up getting an asshole rather than a buddy.