Thirith on 28/12/2016 at 18:55
Heh. I got started a couple of days ago, though I'm not very far. While as a game it hasn't grabbed me as immediately as Ico and Shadow of the Colossus did (how could it, after so many years of anticipation?), Trico (the creature) is a triumphant video game creation. I want one in real life.
henke on 29/12/2016 at 08:39
I think it lives up to it's heritage. It's magical. Though it's not without it's share of issues, both technical and gamedesignwise. I'll get more into that once I've finished it and figured out how I feel about the overall experience. One thing is for certain though, Trico is a good boy and deserves all the pats.
Thirith on 29/12/2016 at 09:57
Yeah, it's slightly broken the way at least Shadow of the Colossus also was (I'm thinking mainly of the camera and how difficult it can be to handle, as well as of the controls in general), but it's also pretty unique in the way all Team Ico games have been. I'm really glad this one wasn't cancelled.
henke on 31/12/2016 at 13:22
Finished the game this morning. Time to get online and complain!
So yes, issues. First off this game performs worse than any other PS4 game I've played. Looks like they're targeting PS4 Pro hardware and as a result there's noticable slowdowns during many of the major setpieces. Secondly, the camera is the most unwieldy one I've experienced in a 3rd person game in a long while.
Seriously though, I've been gaming for 25 years, a lot of that time on sub-optimal hardware, so poor performance and unwieldy cameras aren't going to phase me, but the one aspect of Guardian that did bug me, were a couple of baffling gameplay moments about halfway through the game. The first you can see in the last screenshot in my first post up there, when you get stuck in a tree. Mashing buttons makes your guy swing around wildly trying to get free, but to no avail. I had to go online to find the solution. You have to press a specific button combination to get Trico to come help you, only the game has done nothing to teach you this button combination or indicate that you might need it. The second instance was when I was stuck in a watery cave under a floor and Trico was up above. I guessed that I had to push a crate out into the water under Trico's position and then stand on it and yell at him to save me, but doing so did nothing. Looking online I found out that I had to push the crate to a specific position in the water, and then yell at Trico, who will then break the floor and lower down his tail so you can climb up. Why did I have to be in that specific spot? Why didn't Trico break the floor when I shouted at him from the other place? HOW IS ANYONE SUPPOSED TO GUESS THIS SHIT? That this game has been in development for almost a decade and things like this are still in it, is baffling.
Yet, those moments are the exceptions. For the most part puzzles have logical solutions that you can arrive at simply by observing the environment, like in the below clip.
[CENTER][video=youtube;Acl3DgoCNmo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acl3DgoCNmo[/video][/CENTER]
There's a real vulnerability to these characters, Trico and the boy, that's lacking from a lot of other actiongames. For instance in the latest Uncharted, when Nate is dangling from a ledge and it starts to break, like it has a hundred times before, you can't help but roll your eyes and deadpan "oh no, what's gonna happen? Is this the end of Nathan Drake!?!?!? :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:". But in Guardian, partly thanks precedents set by the developer's earlier games, partly because of how these characters are portrayed and the tone of the game, you're never quite sure how things are going to play out, and as a result it makes the adventure that much more exciting and terrifying. Without spoiling too much, there's a sequence in a cave that had me on the edge of my seat, pleading with the game as things slipped further and further out of control.
So yes, overall a wonderful game. A magical experience. Lives up to it's heritage. If you have a PS4, you need to play this. :thumb:
Starker on 12/1/2017 at 07:12
A pretty interesting look at the game's mechanics from Mark Brown:
[video=youtube;Qot5_rMB8Jc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qot5_rMB8Jc[/video]
Thirith on 16/1/2017 at 07:53
While I still very much enjoy the things this game does that you simply don't find in other games, the things that are very uniquely Fumito Ueda, it is a bit frustrating how sometimes you're pretty certain you know how and where to continue, but it doesn't work - and you don't know whether that is because Trico isn't following your commands correctly, you're in the wrong place, or you're barking up the wrong tree entirely. After the first encounter with the [spoiler]guards with the Eye shields[/spoiler], I found myself in a corridor with one large window being the only obvious way to continue - yet it took me about ten minutes to get Trico to go there, including several trips back to the other rooms, just in case I had missed something. In the end, it turned out that my first idea was the right one, but Trico was having a very long stubborn moment.
Thirith on 31/1/2017 at 05:41
Quote Posted by henke
There's a real vulnerability to these characters, Trico and the boy, that's lacking from a lot of other actiongames. For instance in the latest Uncharted, when Nate is dangling from a ledge and it starts to break, like it has a hundred times before, you can't help but roll your eyes and deadpan "oh no, what's gonna happen? Is this the end of Nathan Drake!?!?!? :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:". But in Guardian, partly thanks precedents set by the developer's earlier games, partly because of how these characters are portrayed and the tone of the game, you're never quite sure how things are going to play out, and as a result it makes the adventure that much more exciting and terrifying. Without spoiling too much, there's a sequence in a cave that had me on the edge of my seat, pleading with the game as things slipped further and further out of control.
Very well put - although the thing I cared about most in
Uncharted 4 wasn't whether Nathan lives, it was whether he and Elena would find back together or if he'd permanently screwed that one up.
Which cave sequence were you talking about, by the way? The one with [spoiler]the other, aggressive Trico and the cage[/spoiler]?
henke on 31/1/2017 at 07:10
The one that's almost too narrow for Trico to crawl through, but he follows you in there anyway. Halfway through we could see the light at the end of the tunnel, but there was a gate in the way. I could fit through it but Trico couldn't. I had to run up ahead and pull a heavy chain to open the gate, so he could crawl through, but then he gets stuck halfway through it. The gate had these sharp downwards points that looked like they might impale Trico if I even let go off the chain, but he couldn't get out of there, no matter how much I shouted at him. Eventually I realized I had no other choice than to let go and then run over to him and try to push him back out, or pull him through, or something, anything. But then the whole cave collapsed.
Thirith on 31/1/2017 at 07:29
Ah, yes. That one is effective, though in my case it was almost over too quickly; [spoiler]I decided after a few seconds that I'd probably have to find a solution elsewhere, and once you move in the direction away from Trico, the situation resolves itself in little time.[/spoiler]
While I was sometimes annoyed by the control issues that most people mention, Trico himself - his visual design and in particular his animations - is a triumph. I can't think of many companions in games that are done even nearly as well.
