Summary: The Last of Us has better gampelay than you remember, is basically a two-game-in-one packacge because of how different Grounded mode feels, and has the best story ever told in a video-game, aided in no small-part by amazing world-building that helps you realise than 2020 wasn't so bad after all.
On the day of my 18th birthday, back in 2020, I woke up, and before having to go to uni, I turned on my PS4 to do what I had waited 18 years to do : play a PEGI 18 game. It was litteraly the first thing I did: I had waited years for this moment, and I was not going to wait any longer. That game was The Last of Us.
And my first experience with the game was... good. It became one of my favourite games of all-time, sure, but a lot of that had to do with the sentimental attachment I had to it due to it being the first PEGI 18 game I ever played. I loved the story, the characters, the looting/crafting system, but thought that apart from that, the gameplay wasn't anything phenomenal or revolutionary. I then played Part II the following summer, and absolutely loved it. I thought it absolutely pummeled Part I in terms of gameplay.
I was very interested in replaying the first game, firstly to see if my appreciation for the story would be unchanegd on a second playthrough, and secondly to see if the gameplay really was nothing more than good. I saw a guy on Twitter say that he didn't understand why The Last of Us was so reverred, because it was "a 10/10 story and a 8/10 gameplay", and I agreed with him. My replay changed my mind on that : it's at least a 9/10 gameplay.
First off: my replay was done on Grounded difficulty, which completely changes the game. I found myself looting way less, because it felt useless. I'm pretty sure I only found 2 firefly pendants, and I never found the flame-thrower somehow. I must've crafted 7 things in my 15 hours with the game.
I don't know if I would play on Grounded again or not. Simply put, it does strip the game of a lot of fun mechanics and items. I love throwing molotovs or nail bombs, so not getting those often made the game a bit more dull, but at the same time it did make the few instances where I got to actually use those items way more satisfying, so it evens out in the end. I will say this though: it forces you to be stealthy, against clickers especially, since you now have to sneak past them because you can't just shiv your way to victory. On my first playthrough, stealth felt like a helping hand: if I got detected, it wasn't the end of the world. In this playthrough, being detected sucked. The encounters that you can't stealth your way past are some of the hardest because of how limited your ammo and ressources are. It almost felt like a "die and retry" type game on occasions.
My conclusion for Grounded mode: play the game on hard first, then on Grounded, as the latter totally changes the game.
(This is the part where I discuss the story, I don't spoil anything except the last word of the script, which, if you haven't played the game yet, won't spoil anything for you ebcause of how out of context it is) I won't talk about the story extensively, because there is nothing I can say that will do it justice, or that hasn't already be said before. It's the best story a videogame has ever told, it's miles clear of Red Dead 2 (and that isn't a dig at Red Dead 2 as I love that story) or any other game. There's a reason most Sony exclusives nowadays are story-driven and it's The Last of Us. I do feel like people don't insist enough on how amazong the fact that this game has one of the best endings in any video game, due in no small part ot the last word being pronounced is "okay". I find that amazing.
I do want to talk more about the world-building though. Firstly, the music. I don't know if it's a guitar or a banjo or a weird string instrument, but it fits perfectly with the broken world of The Last of Us.
Secondly, the world design. The world being this mesh of nature and synthetic human constructions is visually pleasing, and a testament to how fragile our legacy is. Humans are merely a drop in Earth's sea of history, and the designers perfectly understood this. Also, it's a pretty cool parralel: humanity is being decimated by a mushroom, and the buildings we built are being decimated by vegetation. It's almost like mother nature is reclaiming her rights on Earth after leaving it to humans.
Thirdly: reading the documents, or just paying attention to the world design, really shows how sudden the apocalypse was. There is a zone you traverse through where you can see that the day the infection hit that town, there was a graduation ceremony going on. People were partyign and suddenly: world's end. It kinda reminded me of our own pandemic. When it was announced that all non-essential businesses were closing, I was at my friend's house, like every other saturday before that, and every other saturday after that, we assumed. But suddenly, our lives were changed. Suddenly, we asked the question "when will be our next saturday evening together?" rather than "whose house are we going to next saturday ?"
Finally: the realism. To quote videogamedunkey "getting anywhere is a major pain in the ass". I am sure that The Last of Us TV show will fail if it doesn't understand that the reason for which this game is so good is because the gameplay and the story mesh together perfectly. You grow attached to Ellie and Joel because you feel their struggle, you understand how monumental a feat it is to stay alive because YOU struggle to stay alive in this game, where a lot of enemies just oneshot you. You grow attached to the characters because they struggle to survive like you would struggle to survive, because they take a lot of time to get anywhere like you would: their struggle is realistic, so you empathize with them more than with anyone else. It's why people empathize with Athreus more than with Kratos: Atreus is still a normal boy, while Kratos is litteraly the God of War. People are more attached to Joel and Ellie than any other character because they feel more human than any other character (which is especially true on grounded mode where two bullets kill you).
But, that realism is also why this doesn't get the full five stars. This game is so realistic in every department... except the AI, wether that be companion AI or enemy AI. It's hard to feel immersed when Tess is running in front of a clicker that's supposed to be hyper-sensitive to sound, or when Ellie is stepping in front of me, blocking my path to cover, or she's shooting at nothing, or the clickers are only targetting me.
Also, this game is slow. I know it's a design choice, and it doesn't feel like an accident, but walking around is slow, carrying a ladder or a plank is slow, sneaking around is slow. That's not an objectively bad thing, but I do have to admit that I prefer Part II's faster pace, and think that this game could've done with a faster animations.
These are minor gripes though, the game still is phenomenal. It is however a shame that Naughty Dog didn't fix these issues (especially the AI) in this remastered version of the game.
On the day of my 18th birthday, back in 2020, I woke up, and before having to go to uni, I turned on my PS4 to do what I had waited 18 years to do : play a PEGI 18 game. It was litteraly the first thing I did: I had waited years for this moment, and I was not going to wait any longer. That game was The Last of Us.
And my first experience with the game was... good. It became one of my favourite games of all-time, sure, but a lot of that had to do with the sentimental attachment I had to it due to it being the first PEGI 18 game I ever played. I loved the story, the characters, the looting/crafting system, but thought that apart from that, the gameplay wasn't anything phenomenal or revolutionary. I then played Part II the following summer, and absolutely loved it. I thought it absolutely pummeled Part I in terms of gameplay.
I was very interested in replaying the first game, firstly to see if my appreciation for the story would be unchanegd on a second playthrough, and secondly to see if the gameplay really was nothing more than good. I saw a guy on Twitter say that he didn't understand why The Last of Us was so reverred, because it was "a 10/10 story and a 8/10 gameplay", and I agreed with him. My replay changed my mind on that : it's at least a 9/10 gameplay.
First off: my replay was done on Grounded difficulty, which completely changes the game. I found myself looting way less, because it felt useless. I'm pretty sure I only found 2 firefly pendants, and I never found the flame-thrower somehow. I must've crafted 7 things in my 15 hours with the game.
I don't know if I would play on Grounded again or not. Simply put, it does strip the game of a lot of fun mechanics and items. I love throwing molotovs or nail bombs, so not getting those often made the game a bit more dull, but at the same time it did make the few instances where I got to actually use those items way more satisfying, so it evens out in the end. I will say this though: it forces you to be stealthy, against clickers especially, since you now have to sneak past them because you can't just shiv your way to victory. On my first playthrough, stealth felt like a helping hand: if I got detected, it wasn't the end of the world. In this playthrough, being detected sucked. The encounters that you can't stealth your way past are some of the hardest because of how limited your ammo and ressources are. It almost felt like a "die and retry" type game on occasions.
My conclusion for Grounded mode: play the game on hard first, then on Grounded, as the latter totally changes the game.
(This is the part where I discuss the story, I don't spoil anything except the last word of the script, which, if you haven't played the game yet, won't spoil anything for you ebcause of how out of context it is) I won't talk about the story extensively, because there is nothing I can say that will do it justice, or that hasn't already be said before. It's the best story a videogame has ever told, it's miles clear of Red Dead 2 (and that isn't a dig at Red Dead 2 as I love that story) or any other game. There's a reason most Sony exclusives nowadays are story-driven and it's The Last of Us. I do feel like people don't insist enough on how amazong the fact that this game has one of the best endings in any video game, due in no small part ot the last word being pronounced is "okay". I find that amazing.
I do want to talk more about the world-building though. Firstly, the music. I don't know if it's a guitar or a banjo or a weird string instrument, but it fits perfectly with the broken world of The Last of Us.
Secondly, the world design. The world being this mesh of nature and synthetic human constructions is visually pleasing, and a testament to how fragile our legacy is. Humans are merely a drop in Earth's sea of history, and the designers perfectly understood this. Also, it's a pretty cool parralel: humanity is being decimated by a mushroom, and the buildings we built are being decimated by vegetation. It's almost like mother nature is reclaiming her rights on Earth after leaving it to humans.
Thirdly: reading the documents, or just paying attention to the world design, really shows how sudden the apocalypse was. There is a zone you traverse through where you can see that the day the infection hit that town, there was a graduation ceremony going on. People were partyign and suddenly: world's end. It kinda reminded me of our own pandemic. When it was announced that all non-essential businesses were closing, I was at my friend's house, like every other saturday before that, and every other saturday after that, we assumed. But suddenly, our lives were changed. Suddenly, we asked the question "when will be our next saturday evening together?" rather than "whose house are we going to next saturday ?"
Finally: the realism. To quote videogamedunkey "getting anywhere is a major pain in the ass". I am sure that The Last of Us TV show will fail if it doesn't understand that the reason for which this game is so good is because the gameplay and the story mesh together perfectly. You grow attached to Ellie and Joel because you feel their struggle, you understand how monumental a feat it is to stay alive because YOU struggle to stay alive in this game, where a lot of enemies just oneshot you. You grow attached to the characters because they struggle to survive like you would struggle to survive, because they take a lot of time to get anywhere like you would: their struggle is realistic, so you empathize with them more than with anyone else. It's why people empathize with Athreus more than with Kratos: Atreus is still a normal boy, while Kratos is litteraly the God of War. People are more attached to Joel and Ellie than any other character because they feel more human than any other character (which is especially true on grounded mode where two bullets kill you).
But, that realism is also why this doesn't get the full five stars. This game is so realistic in every department... except the AI, wether that be companion AI or enemy AI. It's hard to feel immersed when Tess is running in front of a clicker that's supposed to be hyper-sensitive to sound, or when Ellie is stepping in front of me, blocking my path to cover, or she's shooting at nothing, or the clickers are only targetting me.
Also, this game is slow. I know it's a design choice, and it doesn't feel like an accident, but walking around is slow, carrying a ladder or a plank is slow, sneaking around is slow. That's not an objectively bad thing, but I do have to admit that I prefer Part II's faster pace, and think that this game could've done with a faster animations.
These are minor gripes though, the game still is phenomenal. It is however a shame that Naughty Dog didn't fix these issues (especially the AI) in this remastered version of the game.