2001, Game of the Year (Runoff)

[BraLoD]

SvennoJ said:

BraLoD said:

Because ICO would be even more mysterious on the PS1 hardware, like Sillent Hill did. And the bad controls could be a bit excused. Same for TLG, it's really bad control wise for a PS4 game, I loved Trico but the game would have been way more passable to me back in 2011 during the PS3 gen.

And looking at what the PS3 was capable of, it certainly could run TLG, they had a lot of problems and the PS3 was not easy to work with, but it certainly could run that game.

Sometimes the limitations of the hardware feel like they work in the game's favour, at least in my eyes.

And I know Miyazaki loves ICO and takes inspiration from it, but almost all that we had in Demon's Souls is a natural evolution of King's Field and Shadow Tower franchises, which being From Software games themselves are no doubt the reason Demon's Souls is the game it is.

There's nothing wrong with the controls of either game, they are just different. The controls in Team ICO games have weight and momentum behind them. Why would it be perceived differently on older hardware?

TLG would benefit from actual analog controls to have a speed in between slow walk and dangerous run speed where you easily trip over things. ICO's controls are great. There is just one point in the game where it's pretty finicky to get the jump right.

PS3 certainly could not run TLG, they didn't put the game on hold for years for nothing. But I would still like to see a documentary about the game development.

But yes, sometimes limitations do work in the game's favor as I still kinda prefer the look of Windwaker in its original form, same with Okami. Those games lost some of their charm in the remake. SotC remake however feels like it was meant to look like that and I haven't looked back at the ps2 version.

The game certainly could run on PS3, games way, way more demanding did.

The thing is Japan Studios was a mess back in the PS3 days, to the point that in 2011, the founder from Santa Monica was sent there to take over it, which started a massive shift there in 2012, many games were canned or put on hold, TLG was certainly one of them in this chaos. (That early to mid PS3 cycle was also when PD took forever to launch GT5, which to that point was, by far, Sony biggest franchise and very likely not good to keep dragging on).

Shuhei Yoshida said the game was playable on PS3 in 2011, but they were not happy enough with the results.

Then the PS4 launched in 2013, and was an instant massive success, Sony shifted everything they had to it already in 2014, they started killing the Vita without a second thought, and the PS3 was to be quickly forgotten as well.

Ueda founded genDesign in 2014, which was very likely part of the Japan Studios massive restructuration process and his way to get out of Sony but still deliver the game. He was clearly having problems with Sony during that development hell period.

After that it didn't take long for the game to be reanounced (2015) and and finally released (2016).

The PS3 was notorious from being hard to develop for, and that was certainly one of the biggest issues TLG had, but the reported mismanagement of the whole Japan Studios (which was very likely what resulted in Ueda changing from a Sony employee to an outside guy working on a contract was) also one of the other major issues that made the game drag on so long that it had to move to the PS4 because it wouldn't make sense to release in on the PS3 anymore.

There was a whole lot of other stuff than that made TLG become the mess it did, rather than the PS3 not being able to run it.

Also about TLG, the game control horribly from a PS4 standard, you get stuck everywhere and have minimal control about that, everything feels off, to the point it almost ruined TLG to me, if Trico wasn't as great as it was I would probably not have finished the game.