The third installment in the Fumito Ueda's Dark and Light Franchise with previous titles such as ICO and shadow of the colossus comes one of the most frustrating experience in Video game history, Don't get me wrong, the game in itself is amazing in terms of design, originality and atmosphere equal to its predecessors, but it has flaws which cannot be denied.
You play the role of a boy who meets a giant dog called Trico who was chained in some unknown location. After releasing Trico, you set on exploring and escaping a forgotten city in order to return to your village. As usual, the game does not explain much of the story besides a few fragments here and there. This game is a simple platformer with a few puzzles which need solving. Its nothing complicated and is put forward more as a way to bond with your dog companion while slowly discovering the story. The interesting thing is that this game is quite original in terms of design. This is the first game I have ever seen which creates this kind of giant pet-boy relationship in order to progress through the game. Its something reminiscent of the "Never ending Story" movie franchise. The dog follows your commands and helps you to solve puzzles and reach difficult areas. The dog possessing the agility of a cat can easily reach high platforms which otherwise would have been impossible to get to. Even the combat is geared towards bringing enemies to your dog rather than fighting them yourself since you are just an under aged boy.
Its great and all, unfortunately the game has major flaws in terms of Frame Rate. You often see the game going from 30fps to 10 fps due to the massive amounts of light and open world graphics. You can also see the graphics being a little glitchy especially when your dog is around. I could tell that programming this dog to be as life like as possible must have had its challenges with the current technology. Secondly, the dog doesn't respond to commands as well as one would think. In order to solve or progress you need to either:
A) Be in the right spot for your dog to react.
B) Get lucky for your dog to do what you want him to do
C) cancel your dogs current action in order to refresh his animation, so he can do what you want him to do
D) pray that he feels like moving forward or performing the giving command.
A simple puzzle can take an enormous amount of time to perfect if your dog isn't doing what he is supposed to. Sometimes a puzzle is done in a flash and your dog moves forward without any obstacles.
The problem is that its pretty random and even if you figure out the right controls which are never mentioned in the game, you will get frustrated more than you think. I had to check online to see which "Commands" I could perform since the game never mentioned them at all, I wasted the first hour randomly pressing buttons.
Combine this lack of obedience and low frame right and an area which would normally take 15minutes to solve quickly turns into an hour.
The game is a great adventure with a great concept, but I had to put up with a lot of frustration to be able to finish it. Unnecessary frustration which I have never felt playing anything else. I used to do Dark Souls speedruns, and play most of my games on Hard or Very Hard. So for those who claim that it's my fault for not understanding how the play the game, understand that a very difficult game can be difficult as long as its fair and responsive.
This game is simply annoying... I was touched by the story though... Its a great addition to the Ueda Franchise, but they seriously need to patch it or something..