The Last Guardian • A Friend in Need

The Last Guardian may very well be my favorite game of 2016 and it's a good contender for my game of the decade I [Music] don't cry a lot when playing games or watching movies and if I do it's usually only games like The Beginner's Guide with their subtext making me get all introspective about the way I've gone about my life up until that point I still get choked up whenever I hear that credits song I just about never cry at the literal events of a work of fiction but by the time I was wrapping up the Last Guardian did he go didn't feel like fiction I can absolutely understand why this game didn't do it for a lot of people but I think my combination of love for animals love for puzzle driven walking Sims and childlike wander for unique game design and powerful technology made me the perfect audience for this game the rest of those factors are self-explanatory but let's take a look at that first one a love for animals I'm sure some of you have noticed that I sometimes gravitate towards a linear look at a game and other times I just cherry-pick especially poignant moments and arrange them however I see fit well the reason I sometimes go linear is because some games are absolutely genius with how they drip feed you information about the story and gameplay and I don't want that to be lost in translation The Last Guardian is one of those games so this is going to be a mostly linear look at it that being said let's go ahead and call this spoiler territory as my blind playthrough of this game was beautiful on every sense of the word throughout the entirety of the Last Guardian the illusion that tobiko was a living breathing and above all else unpredictable animal wasn't broken once Hideko was constantly surprising me with its behavior and doing things that I didn't expect that were both positive and negative I never once felt like I was in control of the dqo at least not any more than I feel like I'm in control of my surprisingly obedient cat but what slowed me down more than tobiko misbehaving or getting distracted was the constant breaks I would take to pet the Beast after it showed growing intelligence or bravery this game managed the monumental feat of truly capturing the totally abstract blur of thought and emotion that is growing up with an animal by your side all the good and all the bad to still tastefully into a roughly 13 hour experience all while doing some other very cool things with its world things that any for me to await a fans will appreciate so anyways on to how the relationship with the decoder is over the game the first thing I really want to drive home is the fear which is fitting because that's what the game starts with - you wake up locked in a room with the Beast chained to the floor it's starving wounded and it doesn't trust you whatsoever basically any interaction with it resultant of violently thrashing sending your character flying off of it all I knew for sure at this point in the game was that I wanted to help the wounded creature but that I sure as hell wasn't going anywhere near its mouth you're terrified of this thing but you know that it needs your help and you need it you have the mental capacity to understand that even though the two of you are enemies you're going to need to work together to get through this the Beast however clearly doesn't understand that back at least not yet however after pulling the spear out of its back hand giving it time to rest you eventually earn enough of its trust to retrieve some food for it and while it won't eat with you near it you're at least doing something to help they regain its strength all you're really hoping once you get invested in the scene is that the beast can recognize that you don't mean at harm and that it won't instantly kill you as soon as it's able to move again well it certainly comes close even if you've released it from its change to the eco can't stand up until you remove the final spear from its shoulder and when you do the pain causes it to knock you into a wall knocking you out cold again now we're unconscious trapped in a room with this horrifying monster facing us desperate to regain its strength by eating at this point we have no idea how intelligent a Tico is is it able to recognize that we're the ones who brought it food and that we wanted to help it by pulling out the spears even though that caused a pain doesn't even recognize that we are alive and not just a threatening object well when to the eco nudges us awake probably after realizing that it's still too weak to get to the next bit of food on its own our fears are partly set aside it either doesn't see us as something that can feed on or it recognizes that we can be helpful to it so it at least has basic pattern recognition even if it hasn't really shown any emotion towards us it's terrifying but with its broken wings and horns looking like aviators goggles it's kind of cute and it brings out a caring instinct in us while we really just want to escape wherever we are we can at least sympathize with the beast even if it does scare us I've never been a dog person always preferring cats but this taps into a fear of animals that is especially inherent a dog seeing as they're much more power in house cats every single time I pet my old dog no matter how much affection he showed there would always be a part of my mind fearfully wondering just what he was thinking you constantly hear stories about dogs attacking people even their masters after years of being with them we like to imagine that our animals love us but who's to say that they aren't thinking solely about themselves when they're being affectionate they could just be using us for the convenient food and scratching and have no feelings towards us outside of that I'd even say that that's the most likely this cat is incredibly affectionate towards me always choosing to sleep in my bed or on a pile of clothes with my scent she bugged me to no end constantly when she wants my attention and she knows how to communicate her needs to me if she's out of food or wants to be let out without using her cat door I can carry her however I want or even put my hands around her neck and she just purged without fail I've got a dream relationship with this cat but she still attacks me at least once a month I'll be petting her as she sits in my lap for 30 minutes then at one point a switch will just flip she doesn't want to be pet anymore and she'd rather just bite my hand or swipe at me with her paws and just leave so even as it's never prominent enough for me to act on it there's always going to be a part of my mind that's worried that I'm gonna have an inch each scratch on my hand for the next few hours who's to say that this cat actually cares about me whatsoever I bring the food i scratch better than she can and I do those things more when she acts cute and affectionately I can't possibly know what she's thinking even as I constantly keep her within modeling distance of my hands and face animals are scary no matter how much they mean to you and the last guardian taps into that so beautifully we never once know exactly what to do is thinking even later in the game as it saves our life countless times is it just because we bring the food and the scratches it's hard to say until the ending which to put it simply was not at all what I was expecting while we're on the subject of fear I'd like to jump ahead to one other moment before returning back to the beginning it's easy to get attached to a Tico it's intimidating but it's incredibly cute at the same time with those horns and broken wings so we might lose sight of the fear were meant to have for it if not for one little detail that comes up in the earlier part the game the boy even says in this narration that he wasn't afraid of the Beast at this point we were entering big spoiler territory now so last chance to get out while I had been interested in this game since long before it came out I kept it a mystery to myself and not sure paid off as it was the only game I picked up when I finally got my ps4 all right on to the spoilers today Co is some sort of construct a chimera a cyborg I don't know but it's original ancestor was either built or conjured be it magic the powers or circuitry it works like a computer this becomes more obvious as you get towards the end of the game but the first indication of this is in this area it's a sort of combination satellite dish and cage with a beacon in the middle when you approach this area 2d code becomes completely transfixed like a cat that just spotted a bird outside the window then when you jump down and call for it follows you and its horns pick up on a signal from this beacon its eyes turn red as they do when it spots a threat and while you can try to run away you can only dodge for so long before to decode just swallows you whole this isn't even a game over this is the story proceeding as intended we eventually wake up outside of the beast with it sleeping in the same spot there are two possible intentions behind whatever orders Nico suddenly received from the beacon while ultimately children like you are taken to the top of the tower to have their light energy turned into food for the guardians and the master of the valley and their dark energy used to power the Masters weapons today Co wasn't able to fly that far with its wings wounded so it either realized it couldn't complete its order and sort of crashed as a result causing it to heave you back up or its order was to simply swallow your mirror so that you'd be more defenseless and unable to access the top of the tower it's not at all unheard of for animals to quote-unquote glitch owls so the metaphor stands what's more important though is that to dqo who was being more and more friendly to you up until this point suddenly turned on you simply due to its programming demanding it not unlike a beloved animal suddenly attacking it this only happens about 45 minutes under the game right when we're starting to think we can trust Vigo even if you are thinking of it as this cutesy video game companion pet and aren't thinking at all that it could ever betray you from this moment on you just never quite feel safe around the thing even as it saves you over and over especially when it's I suddenly go red you aren't sure why the loud howls it constantly lets out also make it seem like bedico is angry with you even when it isn't it's sort of the curse of the animal really no matter what they feel or what feelings we humans attach to them they're ultimately just slaves to their programming nothing more in spite of all of this I love the hell out of 2d Co I could easily see myself naming my next cat after it so we've established how we're made to sympathize with and want to help you D Co and how we're made to fear it well how do we come to rely on it play with it and trust it with our life time and time again firstly let's cover the cute stuff going back as we're trying to escape the dungeon in the beginning we come across some water and we learned that 2d Co is afraid of it seeing it wanting to follow us but being scared of the water is just plain adorable we get it to face its fears by showing it that we have a tree it jumps down the splash potentially knocking us down as we stand on the platform then maybe you hop onto its back as it climbs up onto land again and get violently thrown around as it shakes the water from its feathers I'm going to hold my tongue and try to quit dedicating entire sentences to exclaiming how cute Anika is the footage speaks for itself anyways as we managed to leave this dungeon about 20 minutes into the game the boy says goodbye to 2d co and cutscene and then leaves it behind as there's no exit big enough for it to fit through well we walk forward a little bit and Vigo makes an incredibly high jump to get over the wall the highest we'll see it made for a long time because that's wings are still broken then it's outside with us and let's help this cry as I seize the landscape around it probably sad that it can't fly around its home every time I've ever seen a dog for the first time in a while I give it a little pet for a few seconds maybe throw it it's ball and the next thing I know it's been 45 minutes and I'm forced to just ignore the dog as it puts its ball at my feet over and over or tries to get me to keep petting it the same goes for my cats and apparently the same goes for 2d ko as they'll stop at nothing to keep following you once you feed it a couple times what's more is that when 2d code jumps over the wall and initially ignores us and rushes towards the cliff as we chase after it I'm sure every single one of us who's played the game had the split-second thought of oh god what did I just unleash on this what's more interesting though is that with two deco being more interested in it that's freedom than it is us we're made to question its intentions yet again I'm certain that if they could still fly it would just leave here and now possibly with us in its mouth and that would be the last we ever saw of it however I'd like to be done talking about our fear of the beast for now so let's go back a little bit and focus on how cute it is that Judy ko follows us outside of the cave and once it realizes it can't fly or get help it decides to keep following us immediately opting to traverse this incredibly suspect obstacle course just to keep up with us sure it might just be doing so because we were its best hope of staying alive but it's so crippled compared to how powerful it clearly was at one point that it's impossible to not feel sympathy an attachment for it moving forward we solve some more platforming challenges with Tico's help and by this point we've probably realized that we can throw 2d Co barrels and it'll attempt to catch them in its mouth with about a 50% success rate it's absolutely adorable when it does catch them but it's also a little heartbreaking when it fails and from 2d COEs perspective we just threw a barrel at its face for no reason not unlike tripping on a cat in the dark chico lets out a little whimper and we feel awful about it so we continue to passively grab our bond with 2d co as we explore and we manage to get to that satellite cage room I mentioned earlier today ko swallows us then we wake up on the ground to find it passed out with its tail dangling over the edge with no way forward this is when the game first demonstrates just how helpful 2d coach tail is when used as a rope we climb down it and Traverse for it a little bit and then 2d KO wakes up just in time to save us from the first set of shadow to a friend we encounter by the way I do call these shadow children I'll explain my fan theory on the connection between the awaited games a bit later but for now just take my word these are the same creatures we fight Nico just look inside their armor anyway is what's more relevant here is that we climbed down to Digos tail moving forward we get our introduction to what I'll call the in sense mechanic an aroma that tobiko will basically be forced to move towards using this to our advantage reminds me of using a treat to trick an animal into the bathroom so you can lock it in there for whatever reason a sad feeling but right after this puzzle to decode goes ahead a bit leaving its tail swing below for us to grab on to and climb up it watches us with interest as we climb its tail then after we see what looks like a second Guardian we come across a puzzle that we can only solve by using the eCos tail so why is this tail thing any more meaningful than say Ravenholm at half-life 2 we're mechanics are introduced naturally then expanded upon to make puzzles and set pieces come up organically well in that scenario only the player is learning here both you and 2d Co are learning and never even occurred to it that someone could use its tail to the rope once it sees this trick at this section this is quickly followed up by a puzzle whose first step has two solutions we can either hop on to decodes bag and have it jump up here or we could have it jump up and then we can use its tail to climb to the higher ground Chico sees this solution and excited to get a grasp on this new tail climbing idea it seemingly refuses to jump up unless you climb this tower and commit yourself to the tail climbing solution even though it's less efficient why am I going into so much detail about something so subtle well this is the first example we see of the Beco genuinely learning and showing curiosity whereas we've mostly been manipulating it up until this point at this section it actively halts our progress so that it can try out a new trick even though it isn't necessarily the fastest way to get to the next bit of food or to the next petting session that second tail climb is also when I started to notice just how much Niko was paying attention to me it would constantly be looking over its shoulder at me or watching me whenever I had to leave it behind to look ahead it keeps her a really close eye on you most of the time which I read is a combination of affection and parent like worried for your safety it seems like it's always ready to catch you if you fall and while this behavior starts how subtle it becomes impossible to ignore as the bond grows while we of course use this tail climbing mechanic throughout the whole game this moment of realization for 2d Co is paid off at the scene when it catches us from our death using its tail showing that it really has learned something one thing worth pointing out before we move on is that soon after this point we gain the ability to give 2d Co more specific commands jump push stop that look there etc anyways a bit later we see a stained glass eye on the ground and 2d COEs eyes turn red it won't move forward and it basically refuses to take its eyes off of it whatever this thing is that seems like it was made to control the guardians we push it off the cliff and Vika looks at us like we're a god it's completely amazed that were capable of destroying these things and with this did he go starts becoming much more proactive with platforming from this point on more often than not it will find the next platform to jump to before you even see it and it'll initiate these jumps without the players guidance much more often by this point it's getting more comfortable with the idea that the two of you are working together it's starting to trust you and when you look through a lot of the subtlety of its actions you might realize that in some respects it's having a harder time trusting you than you are is anyways a bit further along and TD Co starts playing with this chain dangling from the ceiling while this is an inverter on 2d COEs part this both shows us the way forward and with the store shifting slightly as the chain is tugged hints at the next puzzle whose solution involves pulling on that chain to open the door and of course it's absolutely adorable we climbed the chain and grabbed a vase full of that in some stuff and use it to make to deco pull harder on the Train allowing us to wedge the door open so it can pass through more of that outright manipulation of Nikko that tugs at our heartstrings event then as put the platforming eco starts to exhibit some new behavior we hop onto its leg here to climb up and Tanika lifts its leg to make the climb a little bit easier from this point on it slowly adopts more of these behaviors lowering its head to make it easier to get on and eventually doing things like catching us as we fall and throwing us onto its back while Tico started paying a bit more attention to us earlier on it seems like between this and the more proactive platforming on its part it's starting to learn better and better how to work with us and predict what we would like it to do not to say that the never loses the sense of having its own agenda as all animals do a bit later on something comes up that I'd like to ask you guys about and hear your takes on this we see two more of these stained-glass eyes and once we smash them to Niko examines the remains of curiosity a very nice touch but as far as smashing them goes your mental through this helmet at them however on my first playthrough after trying for minutes to smash them or climb them without throwing anything I went back and spotted these viscous orbs behind a Vigo and I threw those at the glass to break it instead of the helmet on my second playthrough the orbs were nowhere to be found they look a lot like the gel that the chosen ones are submerged in when the Guardians heaved them up so my question is is that what I think it is and if so why do we only see it at this moment in the game when two deco stays staring at the eyes for a long period up moving on for the next while of the game we have moments that are strong common of much less subtle bomb-building and emotional resonance being drawn from that bond suffice it to say that the behavior 2d Co starts exhibiting becomes more and more complicated with its growing confidence and itself and in the boy it catches you when you fall it comes running to your rescue and we get plenty of opportunities to help it out by destroying stained glass eyes even encountering what I can only describe as an aerial maze of them whose purpose must be to keep the Guardians from interfering with the more humanoid centric architecture below throughout the whole game these outdoor sections hosts most of the exciting set pieces and many of the more emotional moments as 2d Co gets to make longer and longer jumps showing us how much it's healed thanks to us we're asked to trusted as it catches us in its mouth for the first time in this life or death situation and at one point 2d Co is carrying us and our shirt collar tears forcing 2d co to catch us with its tail as we fall and we eventually get to this incredibly heavy moment when we're forced to leave 2d go on the single column with nowhere to escape to while we're exploring alone were forced to evade shadow children without today go to help us and by the time we get to see it again it's being attacked by shadow children throwing spears at it from the building Moran and it's completely defenseless to stop it after seeing this we really kick into gear and eventually lower the bridge so that Atika can get away from its attackers it settles in this beautiful grassy oasis and refuses to move until we get it some food it's impossible to not feel bad during the scene the dqo has been nothing but loyal to us save for that attack that it was forced to launch against us and it probably doesn't understand why we have to abandon it here just like a dog seemingly thinks that when you leave for work in the morning you'll never come back anyways moving on to a happier moment while I didn't realized that this is what was happening on my first playthrough I recently noticed that in this room we actually used the light of 2d COEs eyes to navigate the start corridor full of pitfalls which I just wanted to mention because I think it's a very nice touch especially considering that 2d COEs eyes don't glow by default so it must have been doing this consciously to help us by this point the bond between 2d Co and the boy is pretty powerful and you feel invincible whatever this thing is near you however as we move ahead decoe has eventually attacked by another guardian confirming that that is indeed what we saw earlier and that psycho isn't truly the Last Guardian zico falls off this building into a room we were in much earlier a lot of progress lost we wake up hanging from a tree branch to dqo breathing heavily slumped on the floor through our shouting we eventually wake it up and get it to land on the platform above us so we can grab on to its tail and free ourselves when you climb its tail and see its face again you might just realize that its horns have grown considerably since the last time you thought about it while the game probably did this earlier when did he go swallowed us at this point I start to suspect that the game is using these unconscious time lapse transitions to add a bit of length to D COEs horns and its wingspan without having to pull tricks to obscure these transitions during gameplay although it's like a farmer and innocent yet uniquely sold this I still bring out that sympathy we've had for the beasts since the beginning especially considering one of them has turned off so to speak no light comes from it whatsoever we also see the shadow children getting a bit more clever as they start using these eyes to lure the boy away from Tamiko setting us up for an ambush they've done this before but the traps are getting more and more elaborate proving that this isn't just a coincidence they're setting up these eyes in our path as we move along we are just cleaning up defenses we're actively fighting and trying to outpace the shadow children preparations one of these traps involves separating the boy from Chicco and trapping us in this long narrow hallway where we're ambushed by them seeing that we don't have enough time to open the latch on this door to dqo smashing through it and as the walkway starts collapsing were forced to leave it behind desperately hoping that it'll be okay but not having time to ensure it ourselves be too cruel again tattoo nope and as we make this jump that's clearly just wishful thinking decoe grabs us midair and eventually lands on a platform more casually throwing us over its head so that we land on its back as if it isn't even aware that we just left it to die all of the most obvious examples of today go getting smarter are in moments like this when all hope is lost and we get to be surprised by a new behavior of it powerful than smart as it is now decoe still has some growing to do over these next sections we see a turning gear in a wall to raise a gate and even operate a seesaw to catapult us upward all capped off by using the wake of its splashing to help us reach a platform that the water is a high enough for us to reach moreover although it could be debated whether this was a conscious act of cleverness entre Tico's part or merely a trying to get closer to us anyways after de deke over estimates how long we can hold our breath we pass out and float upwards without it realizing that we've been separated we follow a trail upward and see some feathers spread across the ground hopefully today Co was a hurt eventually we see a tail hanging through the floorboards and while my first instinct was that it was the other guardian as of my second playthrough I think it was meant to hint that Tico was wounded as it doesn't respond to our calls either way we walk a bit further and find that it is the other guardian and it wants us dead long story short we end up in a cage safe at last when the Guardian is summoned back to the tower after a long wait decoe comes back and helps us open the cage again in a way that must have been incredibly painful with a boy but essential nonetheless needless to say I nearly pet to be go into a coma once I was finally out of the cage as we move forward we have to get back to where we were attacked by the other Guardian and when we get there to D Co insists on smelling the other beasts lair much like a real animal would and due to the danger of the other Guardian returning we have to get to decode to let it go and take us away again even this late in the game today Co is still acting as its own animal and it will still sometimes take coaxing to get it to do what we want as we move forward a bit our confidence in Tico almost completely revived from when it attacked us we find another cage and Toodee goes eyes go red again Chico's eyes have gone red a dozen times since the last cage and yet we're still able to read it to mood beyond just the color of its eyes purely because of our time with it there must be another cage ahead as soon as I saw a Tico adopt this pose I ran away from it down the hallway falling into the cage did he go chased me and again it swallowed me the last time this happened we saw a brief glimpse of a flashback and this time we see the whole thing direction wise this has to be my favorite cutscene in gaming you see to be post ikan to our bedroom back in our village swallow us fight off some tribals and fly away with us [Music] [Music] we see it get struck by lightning and come crashing down to the bottom of the nest and we see the shadow children carry it down to the dungeon and chained it up leaving it to die this is when Daddy Co gives us up and where we wake up in the beginning of the game with this the boy realizes that we're in the nest where the Guardians take the so-called chosen ones then in one of the saddest moments in gaming devika wakes up to find the boy lying on the ground limp and it lays our body first on the cold ground then out in the Sun then finally it drops us face-first in the water waking us up from unconsciousness [Music] and tobiko jumps around with pure joy when it sees that we're still alive as we move forward we eventually manage to get onto the tower the highest structure in the place which is important both because it's where the Guardians orders are being sent from and because it's the only thing high enough for Kiko to have a chance of jumping out of the valley with its wings as damaged as they are what's more interesting though is that when we finally get to see the towers walls up close it looks unnatural more so than the stone structures we've been navigating up until this point it almost looks sci-fi like some sort of hyper advanced race built this structure when I first saw this I was instantly reminded of the mirror room where we first got the mirror that controls Rico's tail in the beginning this device and this tower are totally out of place compared to the rest of the game his architecture and that'll be explained by the end by the way if like me you were curious as to why we find the mirror such a valuable tool in the dungeon at the bottom of the valley I can only assume it's because the mirror only works on Howard to Nikko and so it was retired with it presumably every Guardian has its own mirror that can be wielded when necessary as we near the top of the tower we get another action scene that I'll dig into more later but the main point of it is that the dqo and the boy are sent back down again we climb up a bit further and that other Guardian shows up again attacking to Nikko within inches of its life what's more important for now is that Pico is now able to make incredibly long jumps stopping just short of pull on flying once we give us some nourishment aliquots tail now shoots full-blown lasers instead of lightning lasers which be meaningfully used to destroy eyes and even more meaningfully the beacon in the next cage before Zico turns on us we climb a bit more until we're almost as high as the towers top and tobiko managed to fool on fly for the first time in the entire it clearly still can't do it well but it's actually able to gain height for a moment they're passed out of the initial jump well now we're on the bridge approaching the flat surface of the tower and we have to leave the dqo behind to do some platforming and push these two AI statues out of the way as we do this more shadow children than we've ever seen before come out of the tower to ambush us and while we have time to push the first eye off of the bridge the shadow children spell quickly paralyzes us to the point where we can't even turn the camera and when they grab us to dqo faces it's fear of the eyes for the only time in the entire game jumping across the bridge to fight the shadow children and keeping the battle up for almost 10 minutes before they're all dispelled so after a bit of run around that we'll get into later we're finally on the walkable surface of this sci-fi tower and once we get inside using the mirror as a key we find that the ground is covered in fog and that we can see the boys breath instantly I thought this is a cooling tower which has confirmed a few minutes later we solve a puzzle involving dangling 2d coasts hail through a hole in the floor so that we can use as a rope and does a gun in this area that the rest of the Beco can't reach and we get to the master of the valley the strange ball of energy if you're like me you probably assumed that this was some sort of transcendent being like the Queen the Neko or doorman and Shadow of the Colossus however without any way to damage it we climb past it and we find this giant fan that's when it's confirm that this is indeed the cooling tower and why would you need a cooling tower here we're entering big fan theory mode so for a moment I'm probably gonna sound like a lunatic to someone who hasn't played all three weighted games but here goes so why would you need a cooling tower here it's because the master of the valley is an AI and this entire tower is its heat sink now I'm not saying there isn't any magic involved as it's able to use spells on you to SAP your vigor and as an upcoming scene alludes to it feeds on the lighter energy from the quote-unquote chosen ones like yourself we see that the boys are captured using the guardians and then some are most of their light energy is put inside with the barrels that we've been feeding to be go up until now so I should clarify we're in the you Aida trilogy does it say that beings have light and dark energy before I move on I should point out that a lot of the following theory is inspired by Max trots video Tomiko shared universe theory however there are some things in that video that I'd like to expand upon and others that I disagree with so as we see in shadow of the colossus doorman soul is made up of light energy and dark energy when its soul was split up into the sixteen colossi the light energy was used to give the colossi life and the dark energy was used to give them offensive capability this is why the colossi bleed black but have glowing teal under their skin and in their eyes they have much more dark energy in them than light energy and the excess light energy was put into these statues which as doorman states or the thing that actually keeps it from using its full power to revive the girl so again light energy is used for healing and defense while dark energy is used for offense this is why as Wonder absorbs the dark energy from the colossi he becomes more dangerous with improved grip strength meaning he can deliver more powerful sword blows but he also becomes so weak that he can barely stand up by the end of the game his ratio of light energy the dark energy is so far from the perfect 50/50 he started with and so he's basically dead until he absorbs the light energy from the Guardians meaning that he's now back to 50/50 and has the entirety of dormant soul inside of him moving back to the Last Guardian we see that the light energy from the chosen ones represented by cyan is used to give life to the Guardians seeing as they feed on it and is used to power the master of the valley as evidenced by a scientist dark Energy's use for well again offense it's what powers the Masters only direct weapon it's pulsing attack that can only be fought with the light energy of the mirror shield it's light energies defense of nature this is of course similar to the ending of eco when we use the light energy of the queen sword to defend us from repulsing shadow attack well if each soul has a 50/50 ratio of light and dark energy then what are the rest of the chosen ones dark energy is going to the creation of shadow children an eco the queen was using these coffin-like machines to extract the energy of the horn boys she used their light energy to keep herself alive long enough to attempt to put her soul at the Horta and use their dark energy to create shadow children for offense and this is more or less exactly what the master of the valley does you ADA has confirmed that Shadow of the Colossus is a prequel to eco as for whether the girl in shadow is the queen and eco there isn't enough evidence but I think it only makes sense that the Last Guardian takes place after eco as this whole setup with the master of the valley having invented guardians to capture children and extract their dark energy is essentially just a much more streamlined version of what the Queen was doing an eco you could even say that the master and this entire control tower is just a modern-day version of these rooms filled with tombs that extracted the soul energy from horn boys it's just an upgraded version of that room and this time it has an AI controlling it so with that somewhat irrelevant theory rambling done I've got one last story to tell before I move on to the ending I was house-sitting for one of my old teachers for a bit over a week recently and by far the most interesting part of the experience was getting to know the pets they had two llamas an older dog and a kitten that couldn't have been more than eight months old the dog was immediately trusting and I still can't get a read on how the llamas feel but the cat was pretty scared of me at first when I first got there I reached down behind the couch to plug in my playstation and I saw the cat for the first time hiding under the couch as soon as I noticed her she retreated to deeper under the couch and I didn't see much more of her until it was time for her to eat I filled up her bowl and we went our separate ways and eventually she came upstairs to where I was playing my games and started meowing at me her Bowl was still 70% full but she wanted a 80% full and I happily obliged and started really petting her for the first time after a day or two like this it had gotten to the point that whenever I was eating or doing anything downstairs she was there trying to get my attention eventually I'd earned enough of her trust that she let me pick her up and after calming her down by speaking softly and petting her I was able to slowly walk around with her and she wasn't scared that I would drop her anymore so long as I moved slowly enough after the first week I had taken the dog out for a walk and when I got back the door was open the kitten had gotten out and I was terrified I walked around outside calling her name and after a few seconds she ran out from under the staircase where she was hiding and practically jumped into my arms before I opened the door and got her back inside if the people I was house-sitting for somehow end up watching this I'm sorry that she got out but the feeling I had throughout my time with this cat is exactly what the Last Guardian managed to capture so perfectly what's more I had forgotten the cat's name and so I had taken to calling her 2d Co and when I saw her real name on one of the notes left for me by the homeowners I stuck with 2d Co that might not be your name but I think she'll always associate the sound of it with me as I was packing up getting ready to leave I picked up two dqo and I walked downstairs with her changing elevation was always what scared of the most when I held her so I hadn't tried this before but by moving slowly enough holding her tight and whispering that name to dqo over and over I managed to carry her down the staircase bonding with something that can't speak your language is somehow more meaningful and visceral than speaking with someone who you can understand it's like the words only serve to muddy up where you to stand whereas you have to show your feelings to bond with an animal so now I have nothing left that I feel like I need to cover except for the two most powerful moments of the game for me the ending and a section I skipped past earlier just so I could save her here when FICO was attacked by the other Guardians on these bridges I frantically did all I could to help it survive the fight and eventually the two of us had managed to wound the enemy enough for it to leave Zico was lying on the floor panting and he heaved up the mirror shield that had taken from us so much earlier I used the mirror to point to decodes lightning at anything to look breakable worried that I might be hurting 2d go further by harnessing the mirrors power and I managed to knock down a barricade up above I was thinking that it was just a way for me to progress but I was desperately hoping that it was hiding a barrel or two for doody ko as I climbed up the chain I was getting more and more convinced that this was the last I was going to see of it and again I was still expecting a tragic ending so once I had finished the climb I jumped back down and petted eco for a solid two minutes or more once I said my goodbyes I started climbing the chain again and realized that there was nothing up here but a couple of barrels not a way out so I brought the barrels to dqo and used its lightning to access a couple more that were in a mine car suspended in the wreckage above I fed the rest of the barrel started eco and was it showing no signs of getting better I just kept on petting it until the screen faded to black upon fading backend the boy was sleeping against aliquots feathers when its head came in from the side of the framed look at the boy waking him up this may very well be the most relieved I've ever been in a story I was expecting a tragic ending to this game as a new at his last game Shadow of the Colossus so all of the because near-death experience has really hit home for me I was expecting the game to end with its death what was essentially just another point-and-click puzzle had me on a roller coaster of emotions that few if any games have managed to match I started out afraid of this thing and at this moment in the game I still wasn't completely sure of its motivations but if it had died here it would have literally ruined my whole day well after a lot of recovery ended eco and a lot of climbing back to the top we eventually get to the top of the tower the one place in the entire nest where we can see over the wall under the outside world the master is still functioning but that's not why we came here we just want to leave when we get up here we find a Diigo staring off the sunset and the boy quickly joins him but before we can make our escape the master sets off the beacon and countless guardians come from all over to land on the platform with us this is where we learn just what's inside of those barrels we've been feeding to dqo needless to say the Guardians gang up on and utterly annihilated Eko even going so far as to rip off its tail while throwing it near the Masters chamber we're able to drag it into view of the master and use the mirror to fire laser damage destroying the master once and for all with this all of the Guardians go into a daze and fall off the tower many of them dying and just a few managing to find a foothold just staving off the inevitable loss of control that was inflicted on the other Guardians but to Niko stays in control of itself either because its horns broke or because it found a new master whose love could drive it but with the Masters destruction it spells overwhelm us Anton eco finds us passed out in its chamber it picks us up and finally manages to fly out of the nest before crash landing in our village and heaving us up in front of our chief the last little bit of control we have in the game is raising our arm and mumbling to Daddy Co that it has to leave if it wants to live as the tribals will just continue to hurt it further it has to go back to the only place that can hope to find food for itself the nest the mixed feelings you have towards your time with Rico aren't just expressed in cutscene and set-piece they're woven into the basic concepts of the gameplay it never feels good to manipulate an animal whether it's my example early or tricking a house pet to go into the bathroom so you can lock it in there for whatever reason or chasing a terrified chicken so that will go back into it's fenced enclosure sure it's for the animals own good but they don't understand that they just see it as a betrayal from this thing that usually signifies food or scratches well pretty much everything we do with Viggo over the game can best be described as manipulation save for petting and removing spears whether it's calling the beasts when we are in danger using the incense to lure it into a specific spot where we need it coercing it to make a jump or of course getting it to fight for us we're constantly inconveniencing this animal for our own game while it's only thanks to our cooperation that to be Co and the boy are able to make it out of the valley there's no denying that Vigo had a worse ending that the boy did I mean the last line of the whole game is the narrator saying that the decode doesn't have a long time to live after it flies us back to the village so that we can live on while it does eventually reproduce and live on to be a parent there's no denying that Tanika would have lived longer if the boy had died right here after destroying the master of the valley then there's the unavoidable fact that once there are no more barrels in the nest to be going it's offspring will almost definitely have to go back to stealing children which I'm all but certain will lead to daddy kochu zhing to starve itself rather than kill more the West's Guardian has an ending that mostly seems bittersweet at first but that gets more and more bitter the longer you think about it the less Guardian may seem like a slow burn to the outside observer but literally every section of the game serves to further the complex relationship between you and to the eco and by the time it was over I had more sympathy for the dqo than I have for any fictional character I've ever encountered [Music] [Music] I'd like to thank you guys for bearing with me while I slow down production to hopefully cure my vertigo hopefully such a long video was worth the way I'm definitely not fixed yet but it is getting better with some changes to my lifestyle I'm making and the next step is visiting an ENT which I've already got scheduled for wish me luck [Music] [Music]

Channel: Leadhead

Views: 20,307

Keywords: the last guardian, fumito ueda, ueda, analysis, ending, explained, essay, trico, animal, theory, robot, shadow, of, the, colossus, guardian, ico, team, bond, story, discussion, sad, happy, cute, japanese, games, spoilers, connection, universe, shared, ps4

Id: _-WqiVxRNzM

Length: 42min 6sec (2526 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 17 2019