The Last Guardian is here. This thing was approaching Half-Life 3 status, wasn't it? Sony revealed it during the PlayStation 3 days. Director Fumito Ueda and Team ICO, the makers of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, were building something new. This new something was shown off in 2009. It's supposedly been in development since 2007. This thing has been just about 10 years in the making. It was delayed multiple times. Its cancellation was heavily rumored at one point. Ueda left Team ICO and committed to finishing the game as a contractor. It switched from PS3 to PS4. Its development was tumultuous. Here we are now, the day before it comes out. I played The Last Guardian, and I loved it. The game features a boy and a beast, a pair made friends through a harrowing adventure. Playing the boy, you'll ascend aging ruins, take on stone guards, climb the beast, pull spears from its feathered hide and fall in love. This game is really nice. Trico may be the most fascinating gaming character ever. What's most interesting to me about The Last Guardian, and, perhaps, the thing that wowed me the most, is Trico. Trico, you know, the giant bird/dog/cat creature with blue horns. The cat bit? I didn't really see it until I played the game and watched Trico move. The beast is slow, deliberate and cautious, yet it's capable of huge leaps and awesome climbs. Then I thought about how Trico sounds, and I thought about how it might sound in Japanese. Trico wouldn't be pronounced "Trico." It would be pronounced "Toriko." The Japanese word for bird? Tori. The Japanese word for cat? Neko. Tori. Neko. Toriko. Bird-Cat. That's not what I liked most about Trico, though. In fact, what I liked most about Trico was what I initially disliked the creature, and largely the game, for. Trico is slow. It booms along behind you with thuds and groans, and you, the boy, have to feed it, call it and guide it along in order to move through the ancient ruins. Grueling is the word I lean on for this. You'll have to coax Trico down from terror and agony. Sometimes you'll clumsily climb all over him, wrestling with the camera in moments of action while trying to figure out what, exactly, to do next. At other times you'll wait. You'll sit on Trico, and you'll wait as the beast looks around and thinks up a route or its next step.

This waiting for Trico to do something is annoying, though it becomes more of an issue as the game moves on. Puzzles get harder, and clues become more subtle. You'll stand on Trico, pound on its back and point in different directions to see if the creature will simply react. It takes time, and I can't help but wonder how much longer this game is made because of time spent waiting on Trico. As you and Trico spend more time together, the creature seems more methodical than slow. By two or three hours in, I loved Trico. I loved the way the beast seemed lifelike and ponderous. Sure, the cracks show sometimes and Trico is simply just a piece of code in a video game with animations and scripting, but those moments are rare when compared to the beast's behavior otherwise. Trico seems alive. I came to depend on him. He saved me from falling, saved me from being carried away by stone guards, saved me from so much on our journey, and all of those moments felt really good. Once Trico was fully revealed for The Last Guardian, fans developed this sense of, "oh, I'll love this animal, I'll love him and he's totally going to die." While I won't spoil what happens, I will say that you will bond with Trico. This symbiotic relationship is the center of The Last Guardian. It's why I loved the game, and it's what affected me most. Trico is amazing. Not just as a companion, but as a piece of video game tech, and that's something special.

Team ICO still struggles with camera and control.

Much like Shadow of the Colossus, in order to get to the quality of The Last Guardian, you'll have to wrestle with the camera and controls. At times, the camera works beautifully. It sits on the right analog stick, and you'll sweep over at speeds both smooth and precise. When the game zooms back and tries its hand at cinematic moments, the camera works in time with the action and music. Then you'll find yourself up against a wall, tangling with the armored guards while scrambling over Trico's body. The camera will black out, it'll swing inside the beast's body exposing the back end of its eyeball models. You'll struggle to focus on what you need to do or where you need to go, instead relying on shoddy guesswork to get through the moment. The same goes for the controls, too. There are moments when the boy's animation and movements feel packed with realistic momentum. The boy runs in place when he's in danger, he slides and falls if you stop short and he skitters down steps at speed with his whole body. There are times when you'll shamble up platforms and tangle from impossible heights and it feels so good that it's hardly like you're controlling anything.