Frustration as Fun: The Last Guardian
As many other game designers have pointed out, The Last Guardian is an eye opening experience into man’s relationship with nature. Although it is technically not the best produced game, (it spent seven years in development and it is still riddled with bugs and a camera that doesn’t function when you need it to), it is a masterpiece in terms of how it uses the core systems, art, and narrative to convey the tragedy and beauty of how no man can control a beast. The game is set in an ancient mythical place, much like Fumito Ueda’s other games, where you play as a boy, who must navigate through a series of crumbling ruins, as you come to grips with the beast who you awake with.
One of my favorite things about this game is the formal theatricality of the opening cutscene. These elements play an important part in understanding the glory of the beast that you are going to spend the next ten hours of gameplay with. The game opens with happy awe-filled ambient music, flipping through pages of an old scholarly encyclopedia of animals, the creatures getting progressively mythical as the music continues. The last page opens to Trico, the beast, and the pleasant music is interrupted with a unnerving chord, which tells the player what to think, giving them feelings of disease and ambiguity towards the ‘great man eating beast.’
While the artfully crafted cinematic aspects of the game are great, the real reason I think this game is interesting is that for a game so frustrating, it is still somehow so compelling. This notion of actively playing a game that isn’t fun intrigued me. In my experience, The Last Guardian did not provide any ‘fun’ whatsoever. There are moments of small triumphs when tasks are accomplished or obstacles overcome, but ultimately, you, the player, are being forced down a path where you have seemingly little control over the primary agent in the game — Trico. This is the most distinguishing part of the game, and the reason for its controversy in design: Trico is intentionally made to not always give direct feedback on whether it is going to do as told. As a result, the game becomes a battle with yourself and the frustration you feel for this beast (and the game), that doesn’t understand what you want it to do.
The game’s designers even said that while going through the development process they could have made Trico ‘smarter’ and more easily controllable, but testers felt that the game was too easy and didn’t have a purpose, other than to interact with this artificial intelligence. Making it intentionally miscommunicate adds more character, and ultimately creates the game’s reward system — getting the beast to do what you want. The game supposedly has an additional hidden layer of mechanics that makes Trico’s AI listening behavior change. Petting the beast frequently, giving it lots of food, and calming it after battle will make it more likely to understand what you want it to do. This alleged mechanic adds a layer of depth to the game, perhaps suggesting that kindness pays off.
Whether you’re nice to the beast or not, ultimately the frustrating gameplay that comes out of the system works in the player’s favor. The overall experience benefits from being this way because a normal beast doesn’t listen to you word for word. The seemingly faulty AI makes the game’s premise feel believable and makes memorable the moments where Trico does listen. There are few cases where the game subverts these preset expectations on how Trico should react. The first scenario that comes to mind is where the boy has to push a ‘glass totem’ off a ledge, of which Trico is afraid. However, the enemies that take the boy are surrounding it, thus the only logical action is for the player to run through all the enemies to try to push the totem off. Then, seeing the boy in danger, Trico comes to the rescue and takes out the enemies. The scene is set up so that the player will inevitably get picked up by the enemies if he or she tries to push the glass totem off the ledge. In that moment, the player may think that they are done for. But then Trico, in perfect view, is visibly distressed and instead of letting you get carried off, he jumps toward the totem, pushing it off, breaking it, and saving you. The frustration of thinking you’ve failed the task and the beast not listening to you is rectified by the reward that the beast knew that he needed you in order to survive, just like you needed him to survive. The beauty of this scene on a narrative note is that Trico is choosing you over the fear it holds within itself, and it all happens within a few seconds. This, as well as the game overall, can be viewed as a life lesson about trust, selflessness, and relationships. Even though you continue to feel frustration, within yourself toward the game, you continue playing and moving forward for the experience it is giving you.
This game does not compare to any game I have played in the sense that the ‘enjoyment’ is produced in relief from the frustration the player feels. This game is profoundly great because it proves that games can depict deep, complex emotions far beyond the typical amped up reward system of action killing. The Last Guardian is an experience about a relationship and the feelings that come from it, whether they are bad or good, satisfying or frustrating, there is always something to be learned.