Fresh details on Team ICO’s gorgeous looking boy-meets–beast adventure The Last Guardian have trickled onto the web via a mammoth preview plucked from PSM3 France.
According to the magazine (via Gamersmint), the lucky buggers had a chance to go hands-on with the game’s first mission, clapping eyes on the “emotional interactions” between the young lad and his feathered companion, Torico.
That’s not the half of it, though. The publication also had a chance to sit down for a quick chinwag with creator Fumito Ueda, which turned up the following tantalizing tidbits:
-Unsurprisingly, The Last Guardian will share many similarities with ICO.
-The music featured in the trailer for the game isn’t representative of the final product – it’s just a test track.
-Ueda revealed that he was able to accomplish more things with PlayStation 3 that he couldn’t ultimately achieve last-gen due to the technical restraints of PS2.
-Torico has been cobbled together in pain-staking detail, with feathers, butterflies, dust, particles all managed in real-time, with many components woven together by hand.
-The Last Guardian won’t be as confined as ICO
-Torico is able to dispatch guards, though the boy won’t be able to do this.
-Ueda wouldn’t divulge whether the game’s title derives from that of the boy or Torico. We’ll have to wait and see.
-Developer Team ICO turned to all in-house Sony Studios for technical advice wherever possible
-Ueda let slip that Torico’s AI will focus on moods and reactions to the environment. The game is based on the beast’s relationship with the boy in order to solve puzzles and explore the fortress.
-Ueda admitted that he does not consider his work as art.
-In terms of releasing the product, Ueda made it clear that although he’s eager to get it out on time, he won’t rush things. However, he promised it would make it on Japanese shelves at the very least by the year’s end.
-Ueda is conscious about not making the game’s puzzles too difficult, though is keen to give gamers a fair old challenge nonetheless. As a result, the team is constantly beta-testing the puzzles and tweaking them to maintain an appropriate difficult level.
-The Last Guardian won’t have as many fighting segments as ICO.
Expect more details on The Last Guardian to crop up in the next few months or so, hopefully at E3. Stay tuned.