Trico, on the other hand, is completely controlled by AI behavior, and I dare say this is the main highlight of the game, Trico’s AI is probably the most natural looking AI behavior that I have experienced in any game, the moment you begin playing, the game makes you feel that the beast is really alive and it’s paying attention to everything you do, it remembers how well you take care of him and it reacts to it as well, depending on how good you take care of your beast, the behavior from the beast to the player will either be more or less responsive, if you have been a bit neglectful with your beast, he may not listen to you nearly as much as he would if you took good care of him and pet him constantly when the beast was in pain. The boy’s controls are smooth and responsive, complemented with some of the greatest animation cycles to grace gaming, this game is certainly a pleasure to control when it comes to the boy. The boy has the ability to move around freely in the environment, climb structures, go through narrow passages, crouch into tiny holes, basically things that the Beast cannot do on its own. The world itself is like a Zelda dungeon on steroids, it’s a big environment filled with puzzles and dangers to overcome.

Those who played Ico back in the day when it was released on PlayStation 2 will immediately feel back at home with this game, this is what I would consider a true spiritual successor to Ico in both the way it plays and the way it feels. This ambiguity was also present with the previous Team Ico games and it reflects on the kind of storytelling that Team Ico’s game designer and director, Fumito Ueda likes to employ when designing his games. This game has a seemingly peculiar way of telling you a story, it mixes a few narrative elements and environment storytelling, such as the boy grown up narrates a bit of the story in first person while giving you hints to solve puzzles and telling you a bit about the environment you are in, at the same time, the game allows you to experience moments that makes you imagine what is going on, such as the way Trico behaves when you encounter certain objects in the game or when the enemies are trying to grab you, the game never explicitly tells you about why the boy was brought there, it just leaves it to the player’s imagination to figure out what’s going on. Now without going into spoilers here, the basic premise is that the game starts with the boy suddenly waking up in a fortress looking place known as “The Nest” and next to him he finds a spear-wounded dog-cat-eagle looking creature who is at first very hostile towards the boy, however, the boy manages to nurse the beast back to health and the beast starts taking a liking to the boy and then the journey begins. Find out more about it in our in-depth review of The Last Guardian. Now you might be wondering, does this game really delivers, is it worth a rental or avoid like the plague. Carrying on the pedigree of fine titles such as ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian tells an emotional journey between a boy and his flawed but very loyal beast companion named Trico and their struggle to escape a giant fortress filled with brain-teasing puzzles and enemies.

The wait is finally over, after 9 years of development hell, Team Ico’s third and seemingly final game is out for the PlayStation 4 and it certainly delivers. (Editor’s Note: This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4 with the game copy being provided by Gaming Instincts.) Introduction

The last guardian gameplay length