I had a nice surprise this morning to see that The Last Guardian was out - I was sure it was a Friday release, in a couple of days' time. Thanks to my pre-order, I got a very pretty steelbook case which sweetens the deal somewhat.
I've only been able to spend about an hour with it, and have progressed little beyond the intro, but I wanted to be timely for a change and post some initial thoughts based on what I have seen. A full review may follow soon.
So the main thing I was reading online before I played it (Twitter, Metacritic et al) are that it is essentially a PS3 quality game, with PS3-standard graphics and controls, and that the game frequently dips to "20 frames per second". Well, my natural assumption when reading such specific numbers is that these people all read it somewhere and blindly parrot the information in their own reviews. It's become common in recent years to complain about framerates, especially the notion of considering anything less than 60fps to be substandard.
I don't subscribe to this thought. In some games, sure, frame rate can have a strong effect on gameplay - especially in racing or shooting games where twitchy reflexes are a must on higher difficulty levels. More important than the framerate itself in these games, is that it is consistent. In a game such as The Last Guardian though, this is less important. The game is slow, and doesn't rely on fast reflexes and as such the framerate is not the most important thing. I understand the concerns that the PlayStation 4 should be able to keep up with a game like this, and frustrations about poor coding and optimisation, though I have seen no evidence of slowdown as of yet. I've read anyway that PS4 Pro has no problems with it, at least when set at 1080p, and that the patch 1.02 released today for launch goes some way to fixing any issues, which is maybe why I haven't seen any with my non-Pro.
Graphically, the game is superior to anything I ever played on PS3. There are some elements of the graphics engine that is clearly from an earlier time, such as the layers of your companion Trico's feathers that come through each other, and the hazy dithering around the characters, which reminded me of a similar effect in Far Cry 4 on PS4. But overall the image is crisp and clean, and the colours well-chosen. If this had come to PS3, late in its life, I suspect it may not have held up well at all, and would have had some real framerate issues.
The sound design is typical of Team Ico. Minimalist in nature, the music comes and goes with the action and rouses the emotions well.
Otherwise the game feels very much like its predecessors, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. It wears the influence of these games on its sleeve - from rescuing Trico from captivity in the first chapter, to pressing R1 to call him to you, it borrows its core mechanics from Ico. Maybe there's something in the big bird beast being called trICO. I even found myself slightly anxious in sections where I had to leave him behind due to his massive size, just as I did when leaving the girl behind in Ico, even though to this point no one is pursuing him to harm him - I'm sure this will change soon, but I'm busy avoiding spoilers as best I can! The influence of Shadow of the Colossus comes into play with Trico himself - climbing his feathered body to reach high platforms will remind you of the second game from this developer.
Ultimately it's a very enjoyable experience so far, though one that requires you to be immersed. It's not easy to enjoy with distractions around you - and benefits from use of headphones. It's natural that a game with a 9 year development cycle, that was originally planned to release on PS3, will carry over some elements of that age, however don't let this put you off giving it a go, especially if you liked those two games people are complaining this is "too similar to."
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