That Last of Us Part 1 - Review

It has been almost 10 years since I reviewed The Last of Us back on the PlayStation 3 and given I never bothered with the remaster, this was my first time reliving the story of Joel and Ellie since then. The questions I had going in, were more related to the value of the work that the team at Naughty Dog had done, would a remake of a remaster be remarkable?

As it has been so long, I can tell you the main story beats are all the same, but the details in the story are a little fuzzier, though I would imagine they are not to different, if at all. You take control of Joel, a man who lived through an unspeakable nightmare and then spent the next 20 years eking out a living as a smuggler. When his partner is ambushed, the pair decide to deliver some old school justice on the man responsible, which leads them to cross paths with the leader of a group called the fireflies. While things are pushed pretty quickly, the new item to smuggle is a 12, excuse me 14-year-old girl to a group in the capital building, but when they all arrive, there is no-one alive left to help. The story as I said plays out the same, but even though I knew what to expect, there were still plenty of times when it caught me by surprise, not in a bad way, just that I had forgotten some elements. This is likely to be one of the debatable parts of the remake, with a story that has been told before, is it enough for some players to return for a double dip. For me, it has been long enough that, as I said, I didn’t recall all the specifics of the story, so it was fun to revisit it, just to get those in my mind again.

Where things have been changed, is in almost every other aspect of the game, from the visuals, which are incredible to the advanced AI and everything in between. In terms of what impacts the game the most, the AI is at the top, because now enemies are actually a threat, thanks in part to them hunting for you. If you have played The Last of Us Part II, then you will be aware of what to expect, the game uses a similar system and the results are wonderful. Each time I would enter a combat space, be it humans or infected, I couldn’t just run in and shoot up enemies, not because of of a need to conserve ammo, but they would react far better than I remembered. There were a few times that the enemies would try to run at me, dodging in between obstacles, which would leave them in the open more often than not, but those were rare. When there were a lot of folks to deal with, I had to play it smart, because the game was far more willing to flank me, if it was safe and I just wasn’t prepared and perhaps there was no better showing of that, when I killed my first Clicker, only to have it not die, because it had changed as well.

Another aspect of the gameplay is the accessibility features and while many people will think of things like auto button presses or even colour-blind options, the game here is far more inclusive. In fact, the sheer number of options are perhaps the most robust I have ever seen in any game and that means the game is far more welcoming because of it. Before I even got into the game, it prompted me with a number of choices, but in the menu’s there are countless more and they are grouped in set ways. One option is for those with issues seeing colours, the world can highlight things in a multitude of colours, giving you the choice of what suits you best and that is just for the gameplay. You can even modify the colour of the games hud and menus, along with the subtitles, screen reader and more and again, all that is just for visual improvements. The game also offers up a heap of control options, allowing you to remove repetitive button prompts to a single press, it can account for the orientation of the controller, should you not be able to hold it in a traditional manner or something simple like auto pick up of ammo and supplies. I spent a good amount of time exploring the options, not because I needed any myself, but just because the team at Naughty Dog have built up what should now be the standard in all games, from all developers, to allow for gaming to be as inclusive as possible.

On the presentation side of things, there is so much to marvel at, it is hard to know where to begin, but let us talk about the characters first. Back on the PlayStation 3, the characters looked great, given that the game was released at the end of the consoles life, that was to be expected. Here though, it is like looking at a movie and not a CGI movie, but an actual movie, so much so that the upcoming TV show that is based off the game, had better ensure its quality is perfect. There was a scene early on, where Joel was shouting at someone and I could see the spittle flying from his mouth, and while the story beat was important, I got stuck on that visual touch. It was so fine that you likely wouldn’t notice it, but it fit the scene so well that it took me a moment to realise what I had seen. Normally, in a game like this, cutscenes are where the visuals shine but there is no difference between those and the gameplay elements, the only reason you will notice that you have left a cutscene, is that the camera will adjust for gameplay. In addition, the world is teeming with detail, from buildings that look like they are being held together by rust and greenery that feels more alive than some of the trees out my window. All of the screens in this review were captured from a PlayStation 5 and while they are only from the first hour or so of gameplay, so you can discover things for yourself, it does show off just how insane the detail is now.

On the audio side of things, there is a vast improvement across the board, thanks to the PlayStation 5’s 3D audio and with that, the world comes alive, despite its setting. The character dialogue is now harder to hear, if you are not near them, something that happens in the real world, meaning that if you are having a conversation with someone, you can’t just sprint away and expect to hear it all. When you are close by, the voice will still change depending on your listening angle, so paying attention is very important, if you want to learn more. That same mechanic though, is also used in combat, while you might hear a Clicker off in the distance, the actual distance between you and it, may only be a room or two away, as the sound can be muffled by walls. There was one encounter towards the middle of the game, that gave me a fright, because I was so focused on the sounds I could hear, I wasn’t paying attention to the muffled sounds and a Clicker got the drop on me, it was surreal.

The Last of Us Part I is an incredible game, it offers not only some incredibly refined gameplay, but also makes use the hardware, to deliver a world that is teeming with life, despite the world dying around you. The amount of accessibility options is insane, but it means that players can literally make the game work for them, rather than trying to work around the game, it should be the gold standard for all games going forward. The real question though, is should you play this again, if you have played either version previously and the answer is maybe. From a story point of view, the majority of the plot is identical and if you are someone that doesn’t replay games, there is nothing new here to make you change your mind. The flip side however is that with all the improvements across the board, it plays so unlike the original release, that it can be so easy to forget that it is a remake.

The Score

9.5

Review code provided by PlayStation

The Pros

+The attention to detail in the presentation is simply incredible

+The suite of accessibility options is so vast, there should be toggles to make the game playable for just about everyone

The Cons

-The AI, while smart, still makes some dumb moves every now and then

-It is a remake, which means many players will have experienced this before and there isn’t anything vastly different from the original, in terms of story