However, the difference there is that while the puzzles in Ico often required Yorda to be solved, you could at least follow what needed to happen on your own and you had enough agency to do the bulk of the heavy lifting to finish each puzzle. This is by no means a new issue, as Penny Arcade wrote a great comic years ago about Yorda in Ico doing her own thing, much to the frustration of the player. I think the reasoning for this was to make it feel like a real animal but if anything it feels like Trico is simply not all that interested, which actually harms the bond the game tries so hard to build between you. In addition, as Trico is often an integral part to many of the puzzles and it can be quite frustrating that it doesn’t really respond to you very quickly. In most rooms and corridors, the camera collides with a lot of the environment and it makes it hard to see where you are going (something the below gameplay video should partly illustrate). The other issue with the camera is that unlike Yorda in Ico, Trico is an enormous companion to have. This doesn't happen that often but what with the confusion over what Trico is able to do, it can get a bit confusing. In The Last Guardian, there are more than a few areas where the ruins actually lead you to a dead end in terms of each puzzle. While both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus were set in a ruined landscape, the messaging and signposting in terms of the level design was often clear. What compounds the latter is that the level design and layout is more organic now. Trico always finds a way to stick with the boy. The result of all this is that each area you have to solve is sometimes done by accident, as Trico moves on and “solves” the puzzle for you, or the solution is not initially obvious because you aren’t sure what Trico can do.
In addition, as the level design is more vertically oriented due to Trico’s abilities the camera doesn’t aid that very well, as it can be quite awkward to look up or down. In that, there is a degree of control placed upon it by the game and it’s not entirely free-form. The other issue is that the camera sits strangely between the setup in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. While the game combines both the setup in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, the general progression is closer to Ico with the exception that you now have your own pet Colossus to help you solve puzzles. However, the latter is more a byproduct of how the camera works, though more on that in a bit. Talking of the boy, if you've played Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, he moves in a similar gangly way to the point of perhaps being a bit too twitchy this time around. After all, it's a huge feathered bird, dog, cat thing that that can shoot lightning out of its tail. The problem there is that unlike Yorda in Ico, who is a very comprehensible human being, Trico is a fantastical animal and it’s not initially or implicitly clear what it can or cannot do. While you are in control of the boy, The Nest is ultimately scaled and built around what Trico can do. It's not long until after that Trico becomes your friend and you're working together to find a way out of The Nest. These are scattered around the game world and are signaled by the presence of glowing blue butterflies, which is a nice touch. Trico starts off weak and you need to feed it glowing barrels.
This is where the narration starts and it helps to give hints as what to do next, much like Dormin in Shadow of the Colossus.
With you is a giant feathered animal called Trico, which normally eats people. In The Last Guardian, you play as a boy who mysteriously awakes in a labyrinthine and vertiginous environment known as The Nest. The Last Guardian effectively combines these two approaches and herein lays the cause of many of the problems in this game. The player, Wanda, then had a very free-form camera because he was the point of focus, as you were working your way through each puzzle as it was laid out across a giant’s body. By contrast, Shadow of the Colossus inverted the puzzle room setup and wrapped it around lumbering giants instead.
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