I’m back!
Alright, let’s dive in. I’ve told you about my reservations and my excitement, so I think it’s about time we got the speculation train chugging.
Who is controlling whom?
One of the most interesting things about The Last Guardian is the very strong suggestion that you play as a child. And going by the way Team ICO designs games, I’m also going to assume that you don’t really get beefed up as the game progresses either. In the E3 trailer, the child is shown struggling against a guard and any time he prevailed over one, it was because he used the environment to his advantage, not because he whipped out some crazy ninja moves. So how will the child interact with the beast? Will it be like Agro? Controllable, but with a mind of its own? I can hardly imagine that every time you ride the beast, you’ll be required to watch a cut scene. That just seems mad. But then again, wouldn’t the child be too overpowered with the beast? Well it seems obvious that the beast is too large or too clumsy to follow the child everywhere, because we see the kid inside a castle or a cave without the beast. But why does he even go to those places? Does he need to collect certain things to escape? Does he even need to escape? But I suppose now I’m touching on…
Story-
Best Buddies before a Beautiful Backdrop
But since there’s not really much else to go off of at this point until this year’s Tokyo Game Show, I should leave the rest up to you. What do you expect/hope for in The Last Guardian? Do you care? Let’s have a fanboy fest in the comments below! The promised stupid picture post is still coming, but not until later tonight. Ethos out!
I hope to be surprised by the gameplay, wowed by the graphics, and have my heartstrings pulled by the child/guardian relationship …. Actually that brings up a good point. I had always assumed that the beast was the “guardian” refered to in the title because it is so big, but it could just as easily be the boy. Suppose he came from a village which cared for the beast, when the antagonists of the game attacked and wiped everyone out, and now the boy is literally the “last guardian” left, and must guide the beast to safety …. or maybe not, who knows?
^Some one may be looking to exploit the beast or kill it for its pelt.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that! I was going to include the Penny Arcade comic because I actually agreed with them. It’s the one where they said that we all know the game is going to be great, but let’s be honest and admit that either the kid or the beast will die at the end.
Yeah, I really enjoy a sad ending if it’s done well.
Well like a friend once said “I like any ending that the game earned”. He said it about movies, but I think it’s true in both cases. As long as it’s not just an emotional grab and it makes thematic sense, then I love a good sad ending as well.
Yeah I don’t think it’s a mistake that 2/3 (or arguabley 3/3) of my top 3 games have sad endings. Also I have to say that by definition a sad ending is an ending that the narrative earned, otherwise it’s not going to be sad regardless of how tragic they try and make it.
A thought occurs to me while reading through these posts: What if the beast is actually a baby colossus? Whether a prequel or sequel or whatever, this story could take place in the same land as SotC, but at a time when it’s populated by humans (there are ruins all over that area, so presumably there was an engineering-capable society there at some point in the past).
And I’ll definitely agree with you guys about sad game endings, the narative has to earn it. Lost Odyssey comes to mind as a game where the “sad” part of the ending just didn’t land for me at all. Some of my favorite games, though, are the ones where you don’t just outright win in the end.
If the game manages to create an atmosphere as emotionally engaging as ICO or Shadow of the Colossus, the sure-to-be-sad ending will work.
As for Darth Gibblet’s musings over the possibility of the beast being a baby colossus, it brought to mind one of my greatest hopes for TLG: please, please, team ICO, make it tie into Ico and SotC in a sensible way. I want a coherent world/timeline here. No more of these little shreds of continuity that do nothing more than fuel the fire for fanfiction writers with surplus amounts of time on their hands.
I have no problem with the tenuous tie-ins, it’s sort of like Ivalice which was never recognizable, nor interelated between FFT, Vagrant Story and FFXII. You might get little shreds of info which refer to a name or a place from a previous game, but too much and it will dispell the mystique. It’s also sort of like the Department Heaven series …