Team Ico are finally back with the third game in their pseudo trilogy: The Last Guardian. The game allows the player to explore a world in the eyes of a boy who needs to traverse the landscape from shadow guardians and scale the long towers. In doing so the boy will befriend a dog-bird monster named Trico, and in doing so will make an emotional connection that will try and touch us all. But before you sink into the deep end too quickly, here are 15 things we think you need to know before you fork over your hard enough cash towards The Last Guardian.
Trico has its own mind in The Last Guardian
This wild beast is going to show an unprecedented amount of intelligence throughout the game. You’ll see it going through the level at its own pace. Also, don’t expect to boss Trico around.
Revamped Physics engine
Team Ico have used a completely new physics engine for the game. This is something they hadn’t attempted in the previous game.
Trico and puzzles
The original game was very puzzle oriented. The Last Guardian will be no different and will follow the puzzle platformer roots of the previous game. However, this time Trico will be quite involved in helping you solve the puzzles.
Shadow Guardians
They are your foes. They will hunt the boy down and try to capture him. The player has to avoid these shadows at all cost
The game continues to be delayed
This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone following the game since it’s announcement. The game has been in development since 2007. That’s almost a decade of development hell.
Spiritual successor
Each game in Tea Ico’s pseudo trilogy is a sequel to the last game. The Last Guardian is no different.
From PS3 to PS4
Director of Team Ico told in an interview that bringing the game from PS3 to PS4 was the most difficult part of development. However, the PS3 market had become small so moving it to the PS4 made a lot of sense.
Trico’s terrors
The animal is full of emotion. Trico has a mind of its own and its only natural to have emotions in that case. One of those emotions is the sense of fear. Player will see Trico express that emotion throughout the game.
Unique level designs
Levels in the game have been adjusted to meet the standard of Trico and what it will be able to do. Levels will scaled quite a bit to accommodate puzzles that require coordination between Trico and the boy.
Key-frame animations
The game will not use motion capture but instead will go the route of key-frame animations. This is necessary for certain animations that would have, otherwise, been impossible with motion capture.