The Last Guardian Thread

tok9 · 10-06-2015 12:10pm

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Sony have come out and basically said they have next to nothing exclusives wise to show off this year. Unless that's a ploy to try and catch everyone on the hop when/if they go and pull the rabbit out of the hat.

All Andrew House said was that they were more focused on third parties games this year. That doesn't mean they won't show us exclusives for next year.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Even if it is at E3 don't get your hopes up. Sony could just throw out a heavily scripted demo to make a show that it is still in development and bolster a lacking line up if there's is bare bones. Basicallu until there's reports of a playable build I'm taking the stance of 'yeah... sure sony.'

I'd just like an update really. A CGI trailer and a release window and I'd be content. Sony have never really addressed it in a conference since it was announced so it'd be nice to get a mention.

Kylo Ren · 10-06-2015 1:03pm

johnny_ultimate · 10-06-2015 1:23pm

The Last Guardian is one of those funny ones where the level of attention it gets online is disproportionate to how successful the game will actually be. The previous two Team Ico games may have been two of the best games ever made (and with Ico I personally reckon maybe the best) but they were never much more than cult successes. It'll be curious to see whether years of hype and infamy can help translate to sales, given how costly the project likely has been with its seemingly never ending production.

I'd still hold out quite a bit of hope that despite the production hell Fumito Ueda and team will not disappoint us quality wise, however

Easily one of the most radical, accomplished video game artists who has ever lived.

Retr0gamer · 10-06-2015 1:33pm

I don't think Sony really mind if it's just a cult hit. The strength of the playstation brand has always been in delivering a wide variety of game content rather than the likes of MS and Nintendo who really only cater to the dude bro crowd and nintendo fans respectively. The Sony internal development studios have usually been used to widen that appeal. Something like the Last Guardian would be great for Sony to extend their portfolio beyond what MS offer especially with the likes of Gust jumping on board to provide JRPGs considering they've made the 'secret best' JRPGs of last generation.

Xenji · 10-06-2015 1:33pm

The usual E3 rumours are starting to pop up.

Yes, we know it has been in development hell since 2007, but we have it on very good authority that this will be the year that Team Ico finally presents its follow-up to much loved classics Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Whether it’ll bear any relation to the game last shown at E3 in 2009 is anyone’s guess.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2015/jun/09/e3-2015-most-anticipated-games?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Retr0gamer · 10-06-2015 2:43pm

Hasn't Ueda left Sony? If so expect it to be a cover based shooter using the Order 1886 engine.

Randall Floyd · 10-06-2015 3:21pm

The Chinese Democracy of video games

Generic Dreadhead · 10-06-2015 4:01pm

Randall Floyd wrote: »

The Chinese Democracy of video games

It's funny when you go back to the 1st page of this thread, it's like a time capsule or something

Xenji · 10-06-2015 4:04pm

Randall Floyd wrote: »

The Chinese Democracy of video games

Well at least that album ended up being half decent.

Xenji · 16-06-2015 3:55am

Well it is still alive and has a 2016 release date, the trailer looked a bit unfinished and rough, but at least we are finally getting it, well hopefully.

Kirby · 16-06-2015 4:53am

Lots of shadow of the colossus "hanging on" in that clip. Lots of memories. Difference is, we arent trying to kill this one with a sword to the brain. :P

johnny_ultimate · 16-06-2015 8:04am

You know, like the previous two games, The Last Guardian is likely one that doesn't demo particularly effectively, as the thematic, emotional, atmospheric and mechanical nuances - all operating in glorious harmony - couldn't possibly emerge in a video.

However, that apology out of the way, the video looks ****ing magnificent

DeSelby83 · 16-06-2015 9:07am

Not trying to troll or anything but i know nothing about the last guardian, other than all the internet crazy hype, and i havnt played the devs previous games. So coming from a nuetral view on this it looks like a standard puzzle platformer with a giant rat.
What am i missing?

johnny_ultimate · 16-06-2015 9:36am

DeSelby83 wrote: »

Not trying to troll or anything but i know nothing about the last guardian, other than all the internet crazy hype, and i havnt played the devs previous games. So coming from a nuetral view on this it looks like a standard puzzle platformer with a giant rat.
What am i missing?

I'm going to quote something I wrote in a different thread a while ago:

As far as I'm concerned ICO is pretty much the finest example of themes, gameplay and narrative working harmoniously in all of gaming. It's about asking yourself what the mechanics and design are communicating to you. You're supposed to feel fragile and weak when fighting off packs of enemies. You're supposed to feel stressed out and scared every time you have to leave Yorda for a couple of minutes, or when she's captured by the shadow creatures. You're supposed to be forging a relationship - one in which you're dependent on each other in a variety of different ways. You need her, and she needs you - and for the most part this is not communicated through cutscenes or exposition.

It's about how the world is designed, almost symmetrically, to emphasise and explore this connection. It's figuring out why entire buttons are dedicated to hand holding and a repeated yelp, and how almost every puzzle is made for two, not one. There's hints and echoes of the deeper history and lore driving everything forward, but they're not explicit, and instead the player is trusted to use their imagination. But the immediate, standard gameplay is amazingly articulate in what it communicates. And it's also so improbably simple - barely any music or dialogue, and a clear goal of crossing that bridge whatever it takes. Man, if only more games had the ability to show actual restraint the way Ico does.

Yes, there's a few rough edges due to the technical limitations of the time - a moment when Yorda gets stuck, or the camera doesn't move how we expect. It feels like a bit of a cheat to say this, but some of the awkwardness actually helps enhance the whole experience - some purposefully, some accidentally. But I replayed the HD version recently and was floored all over again about how smart and nuanced Ico is. I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the games I've played that manage anywhere near that same level of depth. It's a game where you really need to look at what everything means and communicates, because it asks us all to engage with it on a level we've all been almost hardwired not to.

Very similar things could be said of Shadow of the Colossus (and several different, but equally positive, things too!). Fumito Ueda IMO is possibly the great video game artist of our time, pushing the limits of what the medium is capable of with his formally complex, incredibly nuanced games.

It's going to be impossible to tell how successful The Last Guardian is until we play it, because going by past form it will be a 'complete' work only worthy of final analysis when it's done. But even in that brief gameplay video, we can start seeing the next steps in Ueda's unique vision of gaming: the narrative and mechanical relationship between two characters; an elegant mix between graceful yet credibly awkward movement and real physical danger; a gameworld that is mysterious, perilous, sad and beautiful. It's going to be the final game that counts, and I'd recommend playing Ico and SotC to get a grip on what makes Team Ico games so special (and they have aged magnificently, especially thanks to the HD remakes that gave the games the technology they deserved without compromising the vision). But on this fleeting evidence, after years of waiting, there's nothing in that video that suggests anything else than this could well be the long-awaited next step forward for one of gaming's most unique, accomplished voices.

Andrew76 · 16-06-2015 9:39am

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

You know, like the previous two games, The Last Guardian is likely one that doesn't demo particularly effectively, as the thematic, emotional, atmospheric and mechanical nuances - all operating in glorious harmony - couldn't possibly emerge in a video.

However, that apology out of the way, the video looks ****ing magnificent

When the footage started I was genuinely excited, proper confirmation it's still in development. I was a little underwhelmed after the demo was over but hopefully that's just because it's not a game that demo's well, as you mention. The Ico aesthetic is uses is beautiful.

DeSelby83 wrote: »

What am i missing?

How good the first two games are and the expectation that this could be up there with them. Ico and SOTC are, imo, the best two games on the PS2. Which is something considering the size of it's catalogue. I prefer Ico myself, such a magical experience, and along with Zelda OOT one of my favourite gaming experiences of all time.

johnpatrick81 · 16-06-2015 11:41am

I think Ico really is a case of "you had to be there". I played it for the first time when it was re-released with SoTC a couple of years ago, and found it hugely frustrating. The gameplay, the flow, it was just......awkward!

SoTC on the other hand....epic. The controls were still a lil off but so so much more fluid. Really looking forward to The Last Guardian but if it's another Ico and pulling your hair out waiting for an AI creature to bloody walk around a corner or whatever then I doubt I'll enjoy it.

Retr0gamer · 16-06-2015 1:19pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Hasn't Ueda left Sony? If so expect it to be a cover based shooter using the Order 1886 engine.

Right I'm a dope, he's still there working on it under contract with a new studio but has effectively left Sony.

RasTa · 16-06-2015 2:21pm

RasTa · 18-06-2015 12:22pm

Proper HD trailer(573mb) here

http://www.gamersyde.com/download_the_last_guardian_e3_gameplay-34888_en.html

Xenji · 01-07-2015 2:49pm

Sony 'probably would have' cancelled The Last Guardian if fans hadn't kept asking for it.

Sony "probably" would have cancelled The Last Guardian if fans hadn't kept asking for an update on the project, Shuhei Yoshida has revealed.

Speaking to EDGE, the president of SCE Worldwide Studios explained that porting the project from PS3 to PS4 was "really, really tough. Especially because we were not sure if the game could be made.

"Tech issues aside, the game was still early in development, so we had to have a really strong desire to continue the project and rebuild on PS4. And of course we believed in the vision of Ueda-san, and Ueda-san and the core teams really wanted to see this realised, and so did I. Having so many people asking us about the game was great encouragement for us to continue the development."

tok9 · 01-07-2015 3:30pm

Good job us, Shu was reading boards everyday! :P

Xenji · 01-08-2015 3:42am

Taken from this weeks Famitsu.

――Were you astonished when the announcement was made at E3 2015 at the Sony Press Conference? How did you feel when you experienced a whole lot of people cheering and applauding at the event?

Ueda: Since a lot of time had passed I feared that a lot of people had forgotten about specifics of the game or even its title. The timespan in which we didn't publish any information about the title has been really long, so when I saw how big the reaction was I was honestly very happy.

――Knowing it be rude, I've still got to say that, although I was hoping for news concerning "Toriko“, I wouldn't have thought that we'd get details such as the timeframe of release. What was the reason for the stop of new information, if I may ask, was it that the development wasn't going well?

Ueda: One can't say that only the status of the development has lead to this situation. "Toriko" is a title owned by SCE, so the time of release is influenced to a big part by SCE's sales strategy.

There was also the jump from the PS3 to the PS4, the porting of the PS3 code lead to a bigger chaos than we imagined, that's also why it took that much time. So it's not the case that the development took that much time only because of technical problems.

――Well then at what point of development do you stand at the moment in percentage?

Ueda: It's hard to answer this question in percentage. I don't know how the readers will react to what I'm going to say, if they take it as a plus or look at it more negatively, but the level we showed in the E3 trailer was something that we had originally created for the PS3 and had been already finished in July 2010. We ported it to the PS4 brushed it up and showed it via the trailer.

――So it was something that had already been created this early. I'm a bit relieved to be honest. What if that's the only thing that has been worked on this whole time, I wondered (laughs).

Ueda: That said, there are still some technical problems that we haven't cleared until now. There are also things where we couldn't render a thing that worked on the PS3 by just porting it to the PS4. Concerning such things there are still several problems left.

――I guess it's not that easy that everything just works because of the high specs of the new hardware. Are there things from the original plans that became possible to be added thanks to the PS4?

Ueda: There are some things but not a lot at present. The game design hasn't changed after all. We were able to up the resolution by porting to the PS4, but concerning the graphic style we are going for it's a „universal“ one that doesn't depend so much on processing power or the CPU etc.

That said we're still working on improving the graphics so together with the unique game design I hope everyone is looking forward to a great game.

o Do the boy and Toriko head for the sky?

――In "Toriko" the two main characters are the boy and the strange birdlike creature called "Toriko" but only the boy is actually playable, is that right?

Ueda: That's right.

――Something that caught my attention in the trailer was the peculiar violet sign attached to the cart the boy was pushing. It seemed like Toriko has an aversion against it?

Ueda: That is correct. If you run into things that Toriko doesn't like the boy has to get active and make changes to the situation in order to advance. They haven't been introduced yet this time but there also enemy characters in the game. If the player encounters those the boy alone will not be able to handle them.

That's when Toriko's turn has come. Both have to rely on each other to be able to advance, that's the basic structure of the game.

――The word "maneater" makes quite an impact, will there be any brutal depictions in the game?

Ueda: There are a lot of things I can't talk about yet, concerning such depictions, I have to leave the answer to your imagination.

――By the way, Toriko, although quite big, has an air of youth around him, will he mature over the course of the game?

Ueda: "Maturity" has a lot of implications to it, which changes await you during the game is something I want everyone to experience while playing the game.

――It's strange for me as a reporter to say this, but i really feel that it is a waste to hear specifics about the game in advance. I strongly believe that regarding your games the experience of playing them yourself is absolutely central to them.

Ueda: I guess they are the most fun going in completely blind. That's why I don't want to give away too much at this point.

――I think the E3 trailer included exactly the right amount of news. It got you interested in what will follow and you did get a clear picture of how the game works.

We actually showed another video, different from the trailer, at the E3 show floor with more calm scenes in it. I think you will get an even better picture of the game's feel seeing it. If the right time comes, I would like to show it to all of you.

――Will the levels this time mainly have a vertical orientation?

In general the idea is to get upwards I think, yes. But of course there are other levels that are more open, also scenes wherein Toriko can run rampant.

In ICO and SotC there were quite a lot of scenes that made people with fear of heights uncomfortable (laughs), in the trailer we showed, the scenes were of this kind too, but not all levels will be like that.

――In the scene where the boy makes a giant leap towards Toriko the slow-motion effect got my heart racing.

There were two big jumps in the gameplay video we showed this time. They differ from each other and Toriko's reactions differ accordingly. Furthermore, Toriko will not catch the boy in any given circumstance.

The first jump is shown in order to foreshadow the feeling of insecurity of the second jump. The implementation of the slow-motion effect into the final game is currently still under consideration.

In situations of great danger like this it is said that in reality too the surroundings are seen in slow-motion. So I put the slow-motion into the game as a factor of reality but whether we really use it through the whole game is something we will have to work on from here on adjusting it in accordance to the balance of the whole game.