Well, I finished the game tonight. I have to say that this game was amazing. The longer I played the game, the more I enjoyed it. The level of realism built into Trico was extremely impressive. The game is somewhat linear, but it rarely feels repetitive. The world is (to no surprise) extremely beautiful. I could waste a lot of time just looking at the view. There was absolutely no question that this was a Team Ico game. My two biggest fears going into this game were the controls and camera. Luckily, neither was a disappointment. The controls were very responsive and I never had any trouble controlling the boy. Luckily, the boys grip strength puts Wander to shame (that's a joke for the SOTC fans). The camera only gave me a small amount of trouble. At times, it felt like the camera needed to be farther back to provide a larger field of view (especially while riding Trico). The other big unknown going into the game was how responsive Trico would be. The learning curve with Trico was really fun. Figuring out how to get her to do certain tasks was challenging, but fun. If anything, Trico was probably a little too responsive. She was easier to control then I expected. The length of the game seemed appropriate. I was able to finish it in under 15 hours (according to the trophy list, it can be done in under 5 hours). I'm not sure how long it actually took me to finish, I just know that I received the sub 15 hour trophy, but not the sub 5 hour trophy. Overall, I didn't find the game to be extremely challenging. I considered the experience to be more relaxing. It's definitely a puzzle game over an action game (more like Ico in that regard). But I'm ok with that. I wasn't expecting or looking for a big action game, but that's not to say there isn't a decent amount of action. I was able to complete the game without consulting a guide and I was able to get 29% of the trophies on my first pass. As others have said, if you are a fan of Ico or SOTC, you should absolutely buy this game and play it. If you didn't care for those games, this might not be for you. If I were to rank the Team Ico games, I would probably put the Last Guardian third after Ico first and SOTC second. But while it may be third out of those three, it's still an amazing game that was worth the wait. I won't say if it lived up to the hype, because, to be honest, I didn't pay attention to the hype. I made it a point to avoid that.
