![]() It helps that it's an inversion of Fumito Ueda's tricky adventure, placing you in the poised paws of its feline protagonist, though it still channels the same attributes that make The Last Guardian so relatable for anyone who's shared a house with a cat friend. Stray's path to release seems to have been a bit smoother than The Last Guardian's, though it's another game whose appeal rests on the blithe behaviours we all adore in cats. ![]() Peer into the deep, dark pools of Trico's eyes and you'll get a sense of interior life that's absent in most other video game companions. ![]() It's an acquired taste, and I can understand the frustrations some found with it all, but it gives the game a life all of its own. Whereas Elizabeth's abilities as a companion were stripped back almost completely for BioShock Infinite's final release, Trico's difficulties and disobedience ended up giving The Last Guardian its exquisite flavour. Watch on YouTube Stray's post-apocalyptic setting gives it a melancholic edge - and if there's one thing more disarming than cats it's sad robots. It's that insouciance that made development so difficult, I gather, and I've always found it fascinating how the similarly-delayed BioShock Infinite also suffered from a hard to tame partner AI. What The Last Guardian gave us above and beyond its predecessors was Trico - or catweagle, as it was once known around these parts - the tentative, insouciant half cat/half bat who captured everybody's hearts. Somewhat spectacularly, it's done more than that, and with six years of distance I'm fairly comfortable saying The Last Guardian is my favourite of the lot. It's a small shame, really, because while it might have been impossible for The Last Guardian to live up all that hype, it managed to live up to my own lofty expectations chiefly that it would find its place in the lineage of Ueda's previous games, matching the majesty and icy magic of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Perhaps the anticipation was much of the appeal for so many, or maybe video game audiences are fickle like that - fixating on something then tossing it aside with the indifference of a young cat presented with a new toy. This piece originally went out to Eurogamer Supporters as part of the weekly Eurogamer Essentials newsletter which goes out every Friday to all members - head here if you'd like to find out how to support Eurogamer.Īlmost as many years have passed since The Last Guardian's release as there were in the wait for Fumito Ueda's much-delayed masterpiece following its 2009 reveal, and the biggest surprise after all that time is how quickly it was forgotten.
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