@minamik
@matthew-whetzel
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:) thanks all!
Glad you like it!

And the Allies are back! ( sorry about the long delay, we've been a little too busy)
If you missed, you can read part 1 here

Let us know what you think.
And see you soon, when the exciting conclusion of pErZonA Allied drops [TBD].

@Sentinel-Beach Thank you! glad you like the masks, some of them had us really racking our brains for the best fit.... but there's still many to come :D

@logic__error Thank you so much <3
Glad you enjoyed.

@Ikataishou Hahahah! We didn't think of that, but there will be surprises!

When the Easy Allies return from a their surprisingly light on music (but still totally a concert) anniversary concert, they find themselves struck by an arguably devastating legal dispute that could shut down the endeavor for good. However, there may be one last hope for the boys to preserve the way of Love and Respect.

When everything the allies hold dear is on the line, will they find the conviction to stand together?

Rick and I were inspired by some of our favorite video games and internet personalities (the Easy Allies) and decided to create a comic that blends these affections in an exciting manga infused tale. The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred (unless the events actually happen in which case you may refer to us as oracles).

If you prefer to get this in PDF format, HERE YOU GO.

Prince travels with the help in a quest to get married.

FFXV

@Mbun I mean, fair enough. It may be true that too many games do it but, like all narrative resources, I don't think many games do it well or use it to great effect. I'll agree that having an open ended story just because is cheap, but neither Ico nor Shadow of the Colossus have cheap open endings, they simply aren't quite as expository.
To me TLG felt a bit quaint, like a little bubble, there is a self contained event, a very pretty piece of a world, but it doesn't quite connect to anything else, it doesn't seem like there's more out there, neither lore wise nor story wise and not even in a moral standpoint, this game is very finite.

At the end of SotC there were many literal questions: about the world outside, about what Wander's transgression had really meant, about what happened before and what you had helped him accomplish. But there were more interesting questions about good and evil, about necessity and struggle, about player agency and about gameplay as narrative...(this is less pronounced on ICO but it's still there). In many ways shadow of the colossus speaks about more than just it's story, and that is what "games as art" should do. Even if you don't adhere to games being art, that's just what good fiction does.

That is sorely missing from the last guardian, it takes a far more literal and aesthetic approach to beauty, but it doesn't really evoke more.
And I understand that for that reason it's a more comfortable game, it's cute (but it is also very blunt about unnecessary details), but it's not intriguing, and to me that's a real shame.

@Fridge-man said in The Last Guardian discussion thread. Spoiler-warning!:

@Delcast It's interesting to see such a different opinion from a long time Team ICO fan. I haven't played through any of their older games (could not get invested in ICO, haven't played SotC) but I loved The Last Guardian. The technical issues we can agree, but Trico and the story seems to be experienced so differently.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a very cute story, but it's far more traditional, predictable, and almost entirely literal... very little is left to imagination, which contrasts heavily with the studio's previous work. This more direct approach also weakens my emotional investment in the relationship, because the previous games talk about grand themes, this one talks about the events in a story.
But that's why I'm specifying that my appreciation comes from someone with a very invested interest in the previous games. To me it feels like a game from a different (and a little less interesting) creative team.

First of all, just as a disclaimer. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus made me want to become a videogame developer, team Ico games mean more to me than I can put into words.

Secondly, I don't mean to discourage anyone from playing it, and I'm glad if you liked the game, I still think it is definitely worth playing no matter how many issues I have with it.

All those things considered, The last guardian is probably one of the biggest disappointments of my gaming life.
Lets get it out of the way, the camera is simply a BAD implementation, it's clumsy twitchy and overall uncomfortable to direct, there's also a "fade to and from black feature" when the camera clips with geometry that is simply disorienting.
It seems to be aiming for cinematic shots but it simply makes it a pain to maneuver in the environment, specially in vertical sections and close quarters.

The controls while serviceable when controlling the kid by himself also have a ton of problems. While holding on to trico, it is sometimes incredibly inconsistent the direction that will actually take you to the spot you want to be in. It seems it sometimes uses character relative and sometimes camera relative controls, and it never comes across as intentional.
Several times through the game, I tried to press the X button to release trico, which seemed to just make the kid jitter and go back to holding the bird, occasionally holding down X worked, but occasionally just pressing X made the kid go full on limp ragdoll and fall to his death.
Moreover, the game insists on assigning multiple actions per button, which is specially problematic on the circle button. You want to point that laser? nope you're too close to a barrel you picked it up instead, want to pick up that barrel? nope Trico is too close so the game decides you want to pet him instead.
Sure, some of these issues are minor and only occasional but they constantly appear throughout the experience, and due to the amount of interaction with objects you do here, it feels even worse than shadow of the colossus and Ico.

Then there is the problem of Trico itself, that can be incredibly frustrating to direct, specially once you get the ability to give him instructions. Sure, the interactions between the boy and the creature are wonderful and extremely powerful at the time of creating a bond, but the game itself is almost equally capable of destroying that bond through sheer frustration.

Those I feel are the common complaints from people playing the game, but personally those are surface level problems.

While the world is breathtakingly beautiful [I don't want to understate how gorgeous it is], the progression through it seems confusing and aimless, many places seem familiar, whether you are revisiting them or not, and while that does give a lot of cohesion to the world, it also ends up making the distinct sections less memorable. And even though there's a mention of your goal of escaping the valley in the game, it never translates to a landmark or an actual mission.
This is also exacerbated with how repetitive a lot of the puzzling feels, I personally thought the game felt stretched and longer than it needed to be, with little reason for it. Sure there are a few stand out rooms, and some impressive set pieces, but the bulk of the transversal feels like busywork.

There's also an over reliance of scripted moments, of the type "you need to die here" or "you have to walk to this exact point" for no reason other than triggering an event.

But beyond that there are deeper issues that may only apply to me and my expectations of what the game could have been.
Firstly, Team Ico games are "solitary epic" adventures, but to me one of the greatest strengths they have is their ability to hint, to remain mysterious, to avoid explanations and bluntness to generate a world that entices wonder, shrouded in shades of legend and conflicting morality. These worlds feel coherent, grounded and unexpectedly real, beyond their more overt fantastical elements.

The Last Guardian seems to forget all about this, it is happy to indulge in full-on explanatory cutscenes, it does away with the shades and tells a simplistic story that feels way smaller and contrived than both the previous games, and most disappointingly, it provides Hollywood worthy cliché sequences and answers that seem unaware of its lineage.

Specially in the final chapters of the game ( the white tower ) the context is broken and the world falls apart. Not only does the inside of the tower look quite cheaply made compared to the lush splendor of the rest of the world, but the environment and the puzzles there appear extremely "gamey", so much that I firmly believe this section doesn't belong in the game (maybe it was rushed or a matter of budget?)
Both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus finish with some strong tonal and narrative shifts, but they actually work with the world, they aren't foreign. To me, the whole final section stuck out as a sore thumb.

Honestly, using the severed tail to take out the core to me felt almost insultingly ridiculous.

And the game goes on with it's blunt simplistic explanations, even offering us a glimpse into the future, in case we thought them flying into the sunset was too subtle an ending. The story basically ties it all up with a little bow. Where is the melancholic mystery and intrigue that made these games so memorable!?

The only mystery remaining being were those barrels are people jello, or if the machine used the people as some source of power and the barrels were simply some Trico treat.

It is really sad for me, I had the highest hopes for this game. And in the aesthetic department, it surely delivers, but I felt everything else is a mess, and overall, a huge let down.