Getting the Platinum Without Losing Your Mind
The Last Guardian has 48 trophies on PlayStation, including the Platinum. Most people blow past the story trophies without thinking twice because the game funnels you through them naturally. The real headaches come later, specifically around the two secret trophies and that one annoying platforming checkpoint that can reset your progress if you're not careful. I spent about 20 hours on my first run and another 6 hunting down the collectibles I missed, so I know where the pitfalls actually are. Let me break this down by trophy category rather than going chronologically, since that's how the game actually works against you.
The Last Guardian Trophy Guide Breakdown
The early game trophies — "Meeting Trico," "The First Steps," "A New Friend" — trigger automatically. You don't need to do anything special. The game is designed to make sure you get these. If you're somehow not getting them after finishing the prologue section, check whether you're on a patch version, since there was a known bug on the original disc release where the "Climbing the Wall" trophy would softlock. Patch to at least version 1.04 and you won't see that issue. The mid-game has a cluster of trophies tied to Trico's abilities. "Riding the Wind," "The Great Journey," "Through the Storm" — these all require you to complete specific story beats, but there's a trick most players miss. You can actually backtrack through previously completed areas using the save system. The game creates a checkpoint at the end of each major chapter, and these checkpoints persist between sessions. This means if you get a trophy-locked area wrong or miss a collectible, you don't have to replay the entire game. Load back to the chapter start, grab what you need, and let it progress naturally. Here's where things get genuinely frustrating: the trophy "The Secret of the Mountain" requires you to find all 10 feather collectibles. There are exactly 10, and they're scattered across every major area. Some are obvious — perched on a ledge you can see from a distance. Others are hidden behind environment puzzles that aren't clearly marked. I spent three solid hours looking for the feather in the Underground River area because the game never tells you it exists until you're right next to it. The workaround I found was checking every corner of that area while riding Trico at full speed, since some feathers are on walls or ceilings that you only notice when you pass close enough.
The remaining trophies are split between story completion, combat encounters, and one multiplayer section that most people don't realize exists. "Guardian of the Vale" requires you to complete the multiplayer training mission, which is locked behind a story progression point you might not reach until well into the second half. Don't panic if you haven't unlocked it yet — just keep playing.
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Platforming Sections That Will Test You
The game has three sequences that are genuinely difficult and can block trophy progression if you die repeatedly. "The Falling Bridge" in Chapter 3, "The Glass Temple" in Chapter 5, and the final encounter in Chapter 7. Death here doesn't always respawn you at the last save point. In some sections, dying sends you back to the beginning of that entire chapter, which can add 40 minutes or more of retracing your steps. I recommend creating a manual save before entering any of these sections if your game allows it. The built-in autosave sometimes lags behind your actual position, and I've had cases where the game autosaved before a puzzle I hadn't fully solved yet, forcing me to redo work. The combat trophies — "Fighting Back" and "The Final Stand" — are straightforward but can be tricky if you're not familiar with Trico's attack patterns. Trico has three main combat moves: a tail swipe, a bite, and a howl that stuns enemies. The tail swipe has a long wind-up but high damage. The bite is faster but shorter range. The howl is utility-focused and essential for clearing groups. Most players try to spam the bite because it feels responsive, but the tail swipe is actually more efficient for the larger enemies you face in the combat trophies. Factor that into your approach. One counter-intuitive thing about this game: the difficulty doesn't scale with your progression. Early game enemies hit harder relative to your health than late game enemies do, even though the late game has more complex mechanics. This means the first 6-8 hours of the game are actually the hardest difficulty-wise. Many players quit during this window because they underestimate how punishing the early combat is. Stick with it. The game opens up significantly after Chapter 3.
The Two Secret Trophies
"Secret of the Mountain" we already covered. The other one, "The True Guardian," is the rarest trophy and the one that takes the most effort. It requires you to reach a specific ending condition that isn't explained anywhere in the game. You need to maintain Trico's trust meter above a certain threshold throughout the entire game. This means not hitting Trico, completing side objectives he gives you promptly, and feeding him regularly. The feeding mechanic is buried in the controls — hold the interact button while near Trico when he's hungry. If you neglect this for too long, his trust drops, and you'll trigger the normal ending instead of the secret one. I made the mistake of ignoring Trico's hunger during the Chapter 4 travel sequence because I was focused on exploration. By the time I noticed the trust meter dropping, it was already too late to fully recover. I had to start a new game from Chapter 3 to fix it. This is the single most common reason people miss the platinum, and the game gives you almost no warning about it until it's too late.
A Few Practical Tips
Enable the auto-save feature if you're on a version that has it, but don't rely on it completely. Create manual saves at the start of each major area. Play on Normal difficulty unless you have a specific reason not to — the Hard mode changes enemy placement and health values in ways that can make the combat trophies unnecessarily punitive. Keep the volume up. Trico gives audio cues when he's hurt, hungry, or detecting enemies, and missing these cues costs you time and trust points. If you're going for the platinum, plan for about 25-30 hours total. My first run took 20 hours with minimal backtracking. The second run for missed collectibles and the secret ending added another 6-7 hours. Some players finish faster if they already know the layout, but that knowledge only comes from playing through once.
Common Issues and Workarounds
The most reported issue is the feather collectible in the Underground River area. The feather is visible but positioned behind a wall segment that Trico can't fit through on the first attempt. You need to complete a specific puzzle earlier in that chapter to lower the water level, which exposes a new path. If you're stuck, go back to the large bridge area and look for the lever mechanism — it's easy to miss because it's partially obscured by vegetation. Another edge case: if Trico gets stuck in geometry during the climbing sections, the game sometimes fails to unload the area properly. This can cause trophy progression to halt. The fix is to restart from the last checkpoint rather than reloading the entire chapter. I encountered this twice during my second playthrough, once in the Clock Tower section and once near the final area. Restarting from the checkpoint resolved it immediately. There's also a known issue on PS4 where the trophy "A Long Journey" (completing the game) doesn't unlock if you finish the game on a save file that already has the secret ending conditions partially met. This is rare but documented. If you hit this, create a brand new save file and finish the game again on that file. It should resolve the trophy lock.
The soundtrack is worth paying attention to. Several key moments — feeding Trico, solving major puzzles, reaching new areas — have distinct musical cues that tell you something important just happened. I picked up on the feeding cue accidentally and it became my primary indicator for whether Trico was satisfied, which made managing the trust meter significantly easier.
