The Last Guardian Catch-All

Yeah, the level design in ICO is very cool and probably very influential on the Souls games.

Wut.

cube wrote:

Wut.

The castle design is very similar. You keep unlocking areas and levels of the castle. You'll pass something that's blocking your path, go do some other areas and ultimately end up back at that place and it'll finally be unlocked. The areas atop walls have similar epic views.

By level I mean the level structure, not the enemies, combat, characters, puzzles, etc.

Edit: LoL. Here you go. Paragraph 3.

I can see that, although what you describe with the level structure is essentially the template for the whole "Metroidvania" genre. It seems like a bit of a stretch to tie Ico to Dark Souls.

kexx wrote:

Still haven't given ICO a spin though, any enablers?

It is fairly short, especially if you use a FAQ when stuck... I think it took me around 15 hours when I first played on the PS2, but it can be done in close to 6 if you know what you are doing. I think it is the superior game, although it's kind of apples and oranges, being much more a puzzle game.

I found it emotionally more satisfying for several reasons. I think having much of it indoors actually gave it more variety and a better look. I felt like you got a better sense of the lore and history of the place and the characters. You get to be a "good guy," and as facile and immature as that might be, your victories aren't tainted by self-doubt.

kexx wrote:

Having that said, would you still consider the controls [for Shadow Of the Colossus] to be a deal breaker?

I don't recall the camera being a problem, but the controls were tough. It wasn't that they were terrible so much as that they didn't follow a lot of conventions we have about which buttons do what, so for a long-time gamer, they feel a little non-intuitive.

I got the trophy for beating it in 4 hours, and there's another one for beating it in under 2, so it is fairly short.

I liked Ico in theory but hated playing it. The controls, especially for jumping, are really poorly tuned. It can be difficult to measure and line up your jumps correctly, particularly in situations where you're required to act quickly. There was one puzzle near the middle of the game that requires you to quickly jump on and off a series of swinging chains, and I did there so often that I stopped playing the HD remaster. It was just too frustrating.

Ya'll enjoying these Last Guardian rumors?

I'm curious to see how it might turn out if Mark Cerny really is taking over the project....

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Ya'll enjoying these Last Guardian rumors? :)

Every. Single. Year.

WipEout wrote:

I'm curious to see how it might turn out if Mark Cerny really is taking over the project....

I've been underwhelmed by the games he's designed (Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Resistance) but I haven't played Knack or Ratchet and Clank.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
WipEout wrote:

I'm curious to see how it might turn out if Mark Cerny really is taking over the project....

I've been underwhelmed by the games he's designed (Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Resistance) but I haven't played Knack or Ratchet and Clank.

I loved Ratchet and Clank and the first Jak & Daxter game. Almost all of his games have reviewed well and are generally thought of as very well made. Knack, however, got very middling reviews.

I thought the first Spyro, and Crash Bandicoot were great at the time, and only ever heard good things about Ratchet & Clank and Resistance (less so about Resistance, though). I'm curious more to see whether Cerny's American/Western ideals of game design will be so prevalent in a game that is otherwise very "Japanese," and how the game's story and character development might differ from Ico or Shadow Of The Collossus. In other words, what cultural cues might be prevalent compared to the game's predecessors, and how much might that change the experience?

WipEout wrote:

In other words, what cultural cues might be prevalent compared to the game's predecessors, and how much might that change the experience?

Sometimes when I rodeo in Titanfall, I pretend I'm Wander.

I hope Agent is ready to step up as the the #1 meme for people to joke about pre-E3 if this finally gets announced.

Your move, Half-Life.

So excited! I really thought I was going to be disappointed in what was shown if this was ever eventually revealed, but the game play bit they showed looked like something I cannot wait to play.

Well, that just added another tick in the "which entry point do I pick for the next gen" in the PS4's column.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

Well, that just added another tick in the "which entry point do I pick for the next gen" in the PS4's column.

I will buy a limited edition PS4 if they do one.

Well, I was interested in this back when it was going to be on the PS3. Hope it actually comes out so you guys with PS4s can tell me how it is.

Like everyone else, I've been following the (lack of) progress on this game since 2009. It's great to see that there is now a(nother) planned release date, but the trailer leaves me with mixed feelings.

In showing a decent quantity of actual gameplay, it is admirably honest. But the gameplay itself appears to reveal platformer/puzzler that could have been made any time in the last decade.

There is probably a lot more to the game than that, but right now I don't see a Day 1, full price purchase just yet.

Also, I can imagine that missing those big jumps could become very frustrating very quickly. I'll keep an eye on it though.

Looks like exactly what I wanted: a cross between Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. I agree that in some ways it had a bit of a dated design feel to it, but I kinda like that. Ico is one of my favorite games but it would not demo well with a couple of minutes on stage. Shadow of the Colossus worked better for that, but both draw you in with the slow pace and sense of place.

All over this!

detroit20 wrote:

In showing a decent quantity of actual gameplay, it is admirably honest. But the gameplay itself appears to reveal platformer/puzzler that could have been made any time in the last decade.

Probably, but there's a sense of scale (holy draw distance) and detail that I'm not sure was fully possible with the previous gen.

A very cynical part of me assumes the game's delay came from the feathers. Alpha-sorting all of those things as they wave around in the wind-- between the alpha-sorting and the physics, I bet the PS3 could barely handle what they were trying to achieve graphically.

detroit20 wrote:

In showing a decent quantity of actual gameplay, it is admirably honest. But the gameplay itself appears to reveal platformer/puzzler that could have been made any time in the last decade.

That's the weird catch-22 that The Last Guardian has found itself in. It was groundbreaking in 2009 because it looked like so little else that was being made. Those giant, empty ruins; everything drenched noonday sunlight; a focus on an emotional relationship with a mysterious companion you had to coordinate with to survive. It was a really powerful and really novel trailer in a year otherwise mostly filled with people shooting people.

It wasn't just powerful, though, it was inspirational. The burgeoning indie scene latched on to it as an idea of what games could be, and as The Last Guardian continued to be developed, the projects inspired by it or influenced by the ideas it brought to the gaming community came out before it and changed the gaming landscape around it. We've now had games like Papo and Yo, Rain, Ori and the Blind Forest; even some of the new games shown off yesterday like Recore played off of some of those basic concepts.

In 2009, The Last Guardian was a shock to the system. In 2015, it looks like a somewhat prettier (but not much) indie game. It would have gotten some notice if it had gotten slipped into an indie clip reel, but I doubt it would have stood out so much as it did before or become quite so legendary.

Chaz wrote:

Well, I was interested in this back when it was going to be on the PS3. Hope it actually comes out so you guys with PS4s can tell me how it is.

Yeah, is it ignorant of me to be surprised if there's a technical reason this can't be on both consoles? Very disappointing.

WipEout wrote:

A very cynical part of me assumes the game's delay came from the feathers. Alpha-sorting all of those things as they wave around in the wind-- between the alpha-sorting and the physics, I bet the PS3 could barely handle what they were trying to achieve graphically.

Sometimes I wonder if the delay came from trying to make this the 'killer app' for the PlayStation Move.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:
Chaz wrote:

Well, I was interested in this back when it was going to be on the PS3. Hope it actually comes out so you guys with PS4s can tell me how it is.

Yeah, is it ignorant of me to be surprised if there's a technical reason this can't be on both consoles? Very disappointing.

I think the biggest technical reason is that they need more reasons for people to want to buy a PS4.

Chaz wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:
Chaz wrote:

Well, I was interested in this back when it was going to be on the PS3. Hope it actually comes out so you guys with PS4s can tell me how it is.

Yeah, is it ignorant of me to be surprised if there's a technical reason this can't be on both consoles? Very disappointing.

I think the biggest technical reason is that they need more reasons for people to want to buy a PS4.

Oh yeah, there's that video of when this will be 'technically' possible: LINK

The supposed background on what happened (Warning: Kotaku):

http://kotaku.com/what-happened-to-t...