UEDA and The Last Guardian

FUMITO UEDA

It’s safe to say when people hear or read Fumito Ueda’s name they associate ideas like originality, auteur, and game development hell. The latter isn’t so endearing, sure, and personally I feel like it’s unjust but I’m not the majority. To say he’s an auteur, yes I’d agree with that and want to briefly explore why he’s an auteur to me.

ICO

This game is a masterpiece. Ueda conceived the game in 1997 (Playstation era) so it had a fairly sized development period. ICO faced an interesting issue that became a small pattern with Ueda: the technology couldn’t support his vision. ICO is about a young boy with horns who’s meant to be sacrificed for the village. He is taken to an island and imprisoned. After escaping he finds Yorda, a young girl who’s also trapped and rescues her. Together they find a way off the island, fighting off misty black spirits and Yorda’s evil mother. There is very little dialogue in the game, and though we understand Ico and the Queen’s dialogue, Yorda’s is never translated for the gamer. The audience assumes Yorda’s feelings, ideas and motives through body language since the spoken language is a foreign mystery.

The game is acclaimed for its efforts to illustrate love, human connection and the desire to protect while giving the player an intellectually and emotionally driven experience. As the gamer plays Ico, literally leading Yorda by the hand towards freedom, it’s natural for players to connect with her. There’s a strong desire to keep her safe and this has to do with not knowing exactly what she’s saying, but believing she’s in danger. Over the course of the game, Ico and Yorda’s relationship develops. When you save your game and leave and return you’ll find Yorda and Ico crashed on a stone seat, fatigued from combat and hiding. It’s a precious moment every time it’s experienced.

Ueda’s concept for the game was to have a boy and girl holds hands, forming an emotional bond without speaking. It’s the entirety of the game. This is why Ueda is an auteur. He challenged the modern concept of gaming at the time, and arguably ICO still stands. In 2001, Halo, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Final Fantasy X were all released. Those are games with well rooted franchises (with the exception of Halo unless you include Marathon). ICO was the indie game. ICO was the small team competing against giants. His game wasn’t about killing aliens, or taking out giant mechs, or fighting world consuming demons. It was about a boy and girl, and it worked.

SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS

There isn’t a game that matches it in scope. Shadow of the Colossus, the sequel/prequel to ICO was even more successful. You play a young man known as Wander who seeks to revive his dead lover who was sacrificed because her destiny was supposedly cursed. In order to revive her, Wander seeks the help of mysterious entity that requires he slay the colossi – giant stone beasts that wander the land. In some instances, giant isn’t an apt description. The game is about scaling these massive beasts, stabbing their weak spots so that the player can scale higher and bring the monster down. One Colossus soars, another swims, and another buries itself and snakes around in the desert sand. Each one has a unique challenge that Wander needed to overcome. He’s successful, of course, by the end of the game. However, he didn’t know that in order to resurrect his lover that his life would be taken too.

This game stands out from others in the way that it’s described as a game with only bosses. From the gamers standpoint this means no lackeys to slash through, only the challenge of a final boss many times over. Ueda was arguably a pioneer in this regard. Shadow has its connections to Ico in that reincarnation seems to be at work. Once Wander dies he’s born a boy with horns which many perceive to be Ico. Most games didn’t have a spiritual connection to previous entries in this manner, and Shadow to this day is discussed and analyzed. There appear to be other themes in Shadow as well; one that I was made aware of in writing this was that the mysterious entity Wander seeks the aid of is named Dormin, and some believe he’s associated with the biblical king Nimrod. I need to look into that a bit more.

Again, a simple story about a boy and a girl. The game’s basic nature and heavy themed narrative made an experience that cemented Ueda’s reputation as an auteur designer. The double edged sword is that this now raises a standard – and it will be soon revealed if he can live up to it.

THE LAST GUARDIAN

This game was announced roughly ten years ago. Ueda expressed his initial ideas in 2005. It when through some changes, much like ICO and faced the challenge that the technology wasn’t necessary available to achieve Ueda’s vision. When he was working on ICO, he felt that the Playstation technology lacked the ability to animate characters how he saw them, so they switched engines and launched ICO for the PS2. The Last Guardian followed suit. Ueda believed that the PS3 hardware wasn’t capable of animating Trico, the giant-horse-bird-thing you befriend in-game. As a result they switched engines and started working the game for the PS4. It’s development was also hindered when Ueda left Sony (admittedly the behind the scenes of the business portion is still somewhat of a mystery to me). Unlike the other two, not much is known about The Last Guardian. Players will assume the role of young boy who was kidnapped and in his attempt to escape he meets Trico.

Like Shadow and ICO, Ueda focuses on creating an emotional connection. This time around it’s about a deep and loving friendship. In my opinion this game, like the other two is going to be unparalleled. Ueda is not working with two people, but a person and a fantasy creature that he intends to be as life-like as possible in order to establish the same feelings and ideas he’s accomplished in ICO and Shadow. I admire his honesty to halt production on the PS3 and switch gears.

For me, ICO remains as one of my favorite love stories. Shadow of the Colossus was a worthy attempt at taking it's place. Both ICO and Shadow deal with themes like self-sacrifice (whether for duty or love) courage (in ICO it's the courage to stick together and in Shadow it's the courage to overcome) and taking action. I’m excited to see where The Last Guardian goes and I hope that it lives up to a decade of hype.

For me, it will. I say this because I’m loyal to Ueda as a creator, just as I am to Kojima and Suda51. These individuals challenge the gaming industry to tell incredibly unique stories. Ueda remains an artist, not because he’s simply talented but because he’s an honest storyteller. Whether it’s a story about having an emotional connection despite speaking different languages, or about a young man who sacrifices himself so that his lover can live, or about a boy who befriends a griffin-thing – you can argue and defend that no one else in the industry is making games like Ueda. He has a track record of winning players hearts and I think he’ll maintain that with The Last Guardian.

If you’re tired of intergalactic first person shooters, games with no endings, and bizarre MOBA FPS cocktails, check out The Last Guardian. I highly recommend ICO and Shadow too. They’re worth playing, and replaying for that matter. The Last Guardian comes out December 6, 2016.