'The Last of Us: Part I' - A Skeptical Review

the last of us part one it's a rebuilt version of the original game from 2013 optimized for the playstation 5 and that's going on sale on september 2nd for 70 it's been quite polarizing so far but thankfully playstation sent me a review code to break this down in as far away as i can manage you see this type of game can't be reviewed with a simple buy or don't buy or wait for a sale or a blind number score and that's always been the case with remakes remasters and the like it's nothing new but i think it's important to understand that this is not your typical situation because it's a remake slash remaster we'll get into that in just a bit things are a little different rather it's entirely determined by your starting point you see if you've never played these games before it will be much easier to recommend even though it's 70 on launch day however if you've already played and perhaps more importantly bought this game once or twice that being once on the ps3 and once on the playstation 4 with the remastered edition it's gonna be a lot more difficult to recommend that you put your money up and that's simply because this game is in effect nothing more than a very expensive remaster of a game that's almost a decade old there are a couple of reworked systems that we're gonna touch on that were a welcome addition and i was glad to see them present but almost none of them contribute in any meaningful way to a change in the gameplay loop where the actual motions through which you will be going as you progress through the story are altered what i will say at the outset is that this release is certainly the definitive way to play the original game without a doubt if you plan on playing this first title at any point in the near future or the distant future you should definitely play this version on the playstation 5. the graphics are top notch the sound design is tremendous just as you would expect from a naughty dog title and the story of course is the same moving tale that stole everybody's hearts almost 10 years ago the only reason this review needs to be made is because of the value proposition sony's asking 70 big ones in exchange for this remake which is pretty steep and normally to be clear i wouldn't have an issue with charging a high price for a remake such as in the case with mafia definitive edition but the simple truth is that this is not anywhere near the same league as that remake that one included so many incredible improvements over the original that it was tantamount to a standalone release it wasn't even the same game anymore but the last of us part one resembles a remake almost exclusively in its branding playstation has been very clear that they want you to think of this as a remake and they've been pushing it by stressing that this has been rebuilt from the ground up for the playstation 5. and while that certainly seems true with almost every single asset building character model feeling significantly improved over the originals there have been practically no major changes to the gameplay systems such that one would conclude that anything other than just the visuals has been improved and this is what i mean by it depends on your starting point if you've never played the last of us you're getting a modern version of one of the greatest games ever made in exchange for 70 bucks and that to me just makes sense however for practically everybody else on the planet who has already played this game the extent of the improvements is significantly more narrow there are plethora visual improvements which i'm sure are readily apparent in the footage you've even seen up to this point in addition to many accessibility additions ai improvements and even cosmetics but whether or not these things are worth the full price to you is almost entirely subjective what i will say is that if this were 40 for example it would be an easy recommendation for everybody the quality of life improvements are numerous enough that every playstation 5 player would be proud to have it in their collection but for 70 big ones you could buy the new god of war game that's coming out soon save for hogwarts legacy assuming it doesn't suck or go purchase one and a half cups of starbucks coffee give or take but that will conclude the spoiler-free section of this video i'm gonna get into the nitty-gritty and show you specific examples of everything that i've said thus far i don't like to just throw things out wildly and assert things without evidence so i'm actually gonna show you clips to try and prove each of the points i just outlined spoilers of course i can't believe i have to say that but spoilers and i also want to just make it clear that this is not a critique or commentary on the game itself and the narrative we're breaking down the remaster remake aspect of it what they've added what they haven't how this is different from the original if you want to hear my thoughts on the game as a whole and as a total story i've done a separate video that's hours and hours long i'll have that linked below and i also did the same thing for the last of us part two which i'll also have linked below of course thank you to playstation for offering the review code early this is the first time i've ever been given a review code by playstation and i really appreciate it and i'm sure my audience does as well so thank you sony and playstation it's very very generous i appreciate it let's begin by blasting through some of the visual improvements that have been made first and most readily apparent are the reworked models the textures and the higher resolution that the game renders at you can choose between performance or fidelity mode with performance using dynamic 4k resolution targeting 60 frames per second and the fidelity mode favoring full 4k resolution at 40 frames per second there's no right or wrong answer here they both look great it's entirely up to you which you prefer but i will note that i played the entire game through on performance mode so all of the footage that you're seeing here was recorded in that mode there's a bunch of small details and refinements as well that have greatly improved the overall quality of your average playthrough certainly too many to list in a single video everything from npcs gazing longingly at a chef preparing seared squirrel all the way to the basic design of characters like robert he looks way more scummy and criminal this time around i can't really describe it maybe it's just that he's more photorealistic now but he just comes off as more slimy joel and ellie also look a lot more like their counterpart models in the sequel and sarah also looks a lot more like joel than she did in the original which i appreciate it's a good touch again these are very small details but they really do make it feel like this is the definitive version of the game i should also mention that the left behind dlc is included in this package just as it was with the remaster that came out before this for the playstation 4. it's also seen similar graphical and quality of life improvements and it is a must play if you're gonna go through this game again highly recommend and yes i was also very curious about the end of the game and whether or not they would alter the design of the surgeon such that he would actually look like abby's father to tie into the last of us part two better and i'm happy to report that they did make that change i was also hoping that there might be an easter egg or something where you can see abby through a window or something like that but i wasn't able to find anything and i looked around for a good long while maybe there is an easter egg or reference to her that they put in here but i wasn't able to hunt it down i'm excited to see if any sleuths can discover something after this launch is on the second real-time cutscenes is also a great addition which was not something with the original release all of those cutscenes were pre-recorded and it's especially great with skins though it's important to note that you will only get access to the skins that they've shown off in all the marketing materials after you've completed the main story so don't expect to go through the game on your first outing with some wacky outfits you're gonna have to wait i think it's also important to note that these cosmetics are pretty lackluster you can customize the look of your guns which is cool but for joel the extent of his cosmetics are basically just changing t-shirts out and swapping out button-ups and then putting on the winter outfit from the opening of part two it's like cool kind of lame though and while ellie gets more options that are more varied i think it still doesn't feel like much effort was put into this except for the daxter backpack which is my favorite because when you run or move in any way the arms on the backpack jiggle which i i just think is awesome i mean the fact that you only get access to this stuff after you finish the main story to me it just makes sense that you could get a little goofy with this stuff you could have silly hats that joel could wear especially because once you finish the main story you unlock speed running mode which means that you can actually go back in and for speed runners you could have customized cosmetics that are very funny and keep things a little more interesting than just more of the same but it's just unfortunately not present here if you were only hoping for swappable t-shirts then i bet you're gonna be super pumped but for me it was a little underwhelming i got to the end of the game felt really excited to see what cosmetics i could unlock but it was all just lame but across the board there is higher fidelity everywhere and it makes reading things like newspapers and notes much easier i found myself pausing and sifting through every birthday card newspaper and note that i found while playing through the game it was much easier to sort through these things with the more immersive visuals and because the resolution on the textures was so much higher i could actually read the text and handwriting on the page without having to hit square to bring up the typed out text and i think this is more generally the major benefit of the improved visuals it's not magic or anything but it lends itself to more immersive run-throughs it's much easier to get lost in a world that feels real and this world feels much more real than it did before ray traced reflections are also a tremendous addition at least i'm pretty sure that they are ray traced at least in some cases that or they're using some of the most impressive cube mapped reflections and screen space reflections that i've ever seen but regardless the fact that i can't tell the difference i think demonstrates how well these are implemented i guess we'll just have to wait for digital foundry to explain what exactly is going on here what i do know is that i immediately felt the benefit of these as i explored joel and sarah's house in the opening of the game i mean just look at these reflections on the sliding glass door this is unbelievably cool i will note that ray traced reflections are not universal though again if that's what they are like in this one where there's glass on the trophy case it's a cube map so you can see the reflection of the environment but it isn't ray traced in any way since you can't see any dynamic objects like joel ellie or bill who are all walking around in the background but once you're actually in the throes of the game and you're actually playing one of the most noticeable changes to the original is the extreme gore system that was of course created for the last of us part two and it's here in full force i mean there are some moments that are just unbelievable i mean i'll just show this clip where i have a shotgun and a guy comes around a corner unexpectedly and it doesn't end up well for him i don't even want to begin thinking about how they got this system working i don't even want to know who was in charge of making sure it looks realistic because i'm sure that was a tough job all i know is that it looks realistic and it's it's haunting every time it happens but the result of it is that it makes combat and gameplay feel much punchier it makes it feel more grounded and realistic and it makes each kill more satisfying if you could even say that it's a welcome addition and i think this is actually one of the biggest improvements they brought above and beyond just general graphical improvements this is something i noticed continuously as i played through the story and in some cases i found myself more impressed with the gore than with textures that were improved or improved facial animations and things like that this is the really noticeable thing and all these improvements really show themselves off from the start the opening sequence hits just as hard if not more so with improved graphics especially with ambient events such as the gas station exploding the burning farm and the random npcs on fire after some of the fires go off inside of stores as i touched on a moment ago they've also greatly improved the facial animation quality with one or two exceptions there was this sequence in the car a very notable and memorable scene where ellie's facial expressions are markedly more stiff than they were even back in the remaster maybe this was a bug or something but it looked as though she had just had a fresh dose of botox before the scene and couldn't move her mouth fully maybe i'm just reading into it too much but i couldn't help but feel as though something was off to address the performance of the game itself i will say that i had very minimal issues though i did have the occasional graphical hiccup or bug but nothing too severe and because these issues were so minimal and so few and far between i hesitate to even bring them up but this is a comprehensive review so i'm gonna show you there are multiple times where ellie just warps through joel i think this is a remnant of the ai making sure that in combat you can't bump into ellie so you don't get frustrated if you're trying to flank around an enemy and she's in the way so it's just an artifact of how the game was designed you know like the meme says it's not a bug it's a feature i think that's what's going on here but there were multiple cases where it was particularly aggressive where she would just walk straight through joel's model it was a little distracting and it pulled me out of whatever immersion i was feeling every time it happened here in the record store there's also some strange pop in with these objects on the floor as they drift over the records not really sure what's happening here it might have something to do with the culling of distant objects or with shadows rendering in chunks i'm not sure all i know is that this was distracting and occasionally the graphical issues even affect gameplay such as in this sequence where you're using the sniper rifle trying to protect sam ellie and henry as the big armored truck comes in this tree on the left's shadow kept flickering in and out making me think that there were shots coming from the left when i was in ads when in reality it's just the sunlight flickering in and out it's a small bug and it's a small issue but it actually affected the gameplay because whenever i saw the flickering light to the left i thought there were gunshots so i would turn and look there only to realize nothing was there and it was just the shadow flickering in and out as it was trying to render the complex shadow of the leaves and everything it was super annoying and i don't remember having this issue in other naughty dog games but generally the game looks and runs really really well and you would hope so since it's effectively all this game has to offer over the previous release so it's good that they pull it off i guess and the other quality of life improvements are notable and tremendous themselves there are a huge number of customizations that you can make in the menus everything from dual sense haptic feedback to some pretty insane details with the hud and you can even enable reduced gore if it bugs you such that it removes dismemberment effects removes and reduces some visible wounds on npcs reduces or darkens blood in certain cinematic sequences and then there's no more nudity as well more specifically this has to do with clickers it's not like they added sex scenes or anything so don't expect anything crazy it's just that clickers and other late stage infected have had their clothes rot away so occasionally you see a nip slip but you can turn that off if you want in addition to this there are five difficulty options this time around very light light moderate hard and survivor i tried testing all of them and what i will say is it's just in line with the remastered edition where the game is really easy for the first half and then gets insanely difficult in the last half even on just hard survivor is just insane i don't know how people play it props to you if you finish the game on survivor i don't have the patience but considering this game is so narrative it's nice to see that there are lighter difficulty options so that people who come over from the hbo series and have never played video games before or don't play them very often they can actually get through this without feeling as though they need to get good it's it's nice to see furthermore you can also enable perma-death mode on a per act or per run-through basis and of course there are countless accessibility options which were first introduced in the last of us part 2 which are also great additions to see any way to make the game more accessible to a wider range of people is awesome and that's another example of this recommendation being based on your starting point if you haven't been able to play these games before because of the lack of accessibility options from early 20 teens games it could be worth paying 70 bucks to play through this game one of the greatest games of all time for the first time but so far we've been pretty positive and i know what you're thinking luke you tend to be pretty ruthless when you critique and review games so what's the catch well here it is the rest of the video is going to be pretty much tearing this thing a new one so buckle up buckaroo here we go why isn't this just an automatic recommend for everybody even at the higher price tag well i've got a lot to say about it first and foremost understand that i love these games and as i said earlier i've made critiques of these games that total over 10 hours in length i know the last of us games like the back of my hand and i don't levy these critiques lightly i'm bringing them up because i think there needs to be an honest dissection of these problems in the public eye especially since sony and playstation have been making choices that really indicate to me at least that they are currently primarily interested in improving their bottom line above and beyond simply creating the best video games and products possible for their customers everything from the recent news of acquiring mobile developers so that they can start getting mobile versions of their award-winning ip published to the app store to charging 70 dollars for what is effectively just a graphical upgrade to a game that's a decade old but i've said that a few times what does the difference between remaster and remake even mean well you see most of the frustration with the last of us part 1 has to do with what you're getting in exchange for your money most people feel like remakes are worth the full price tag while remasters are usually defined as re-releases of older games that improve stability graphical fidelity or some other notable alteration here there are so few gameplay improvements and so many systems that were added to the last of us part 2 that are suspiciously missing that i think this game falls much more in line with the definition of remaster than a remake and let's go through some details so that you don't have to take my word for it and to break this down i want to separate it into the different phases of gameplay that you'll be engaging with such as exploration combat stealth combat and crafting with regards to exploration if you were hoping that they would have increased the number of basic interactable objects you'll probably be disappointed everything from your average breakable object such as tables and chairs to objects in the environment with physics barely scratches the passable level for a modern title this once again reinforces the idea that this is much more of a remaster than a remake to bring an old title into the modern age even something as simple as smashing out windows that you see is not allowed you can even shoot the window out i would have no issue if you shattered the glass and you couldn't climb out it because it's not part of the predetermined path but to even bar the player from smashing the glass out is just strange to me it's a weird choice and i don't know why they made it furthermore this window opens up to an alleyway that you're able to walk through and is part of the main path so the inability to even just smash the windows much less climb out them and go outside is just completely arbitrary especially because in the last of us part two this type of interaction was a major priority and was incredibly satisfying you could smash out whatever window you wanted climb around the levels and it made stealth and combat far more engaging because if a path wasn't open to you you could open it for yourself there's also a bunch of safes scattered around the world and they brought over the safe code system from the last of us part 2. this will be very familiar if you played that game again it's a fine addition though i will note that it's super annoying that you can't open your inventory to look through notes while you have the menu open for the safes it's super annoying to find the safe realize you got the number slightly wrong or you don't remember the right one or this is a different safe and then you have to close down the menu open your notes find the relevant info and then reopen the menu with the safe and then input the number again it's just unnecessarily clunky and the fact that it's the same as it was in the last of us part two shows just how little effort went into fresh ideas and improvements here level design is also almost identical as far as i can tell almost every single level is a one-to-one recreation of the original game every hallway every doorway and npc is exactly where it was originally if you were hoping for major foundational changes you will be sorely disappointed but if you go into this looking for the ultimate version of the original game you'll leave satisfied probably and quite pleased because it is far and away the best way to play the original last of us experience with regards to combat this is the biggest defense i think there is no prone no variable depth or height in combat and stealth and there's no dodging melee attacks which is insane i can't even tell you how many times i tried to quick dodge with l1 only to remember that that's not a thing in this game if you've played the last of his part 2 even semi recently there will likely be a re-learning curve where you have to un-teach yourself how to play with this dodge mechanic because it felt so natural but again for those who are new to the franchise and haven't played these games before it probably doesn't matter to them they're gonna play the last of us part one and then move into the last of us part two and find all of the improvements there and be like well they really upgraded stuff this is awesome but for me coming off of the last of us part two it just feels like something that is necessary is not present it really is like if you were playing elden ring or dark souls 3 and you got used to the dodge roll and then you jump into the next game and there's just no dodge roll it would just feel off and feel wrong and that's really the best thing i can compare it to i was in fights with clickers and zombies and they would lunge at me with a big swing and i try to tap l1 just impulsively with muscle memory to quick dodge out of the way doesn't work you just eat the blows you have to hold l1 and sprint backwards and try to get away and then turn around and shoot them again it's super clunky it feels so outdated and for a remake i think it's unacceptable because they already fixed this problem and the fact that it's not present here can only be explained as far as i'm concerned with blind laziness or cost and corner cutting there is no reason that that should not be present here and the absence of these mechanics leaves me all the more confused when you consider that they added other things to the game that weren't present in the original such as the revamped crafting and skill menus and the quick turnaround mechanic where you pull back on the left stick and tap x so they are capable of adding new mechanics to the game and reworking it in a way that works with the level design from the original since they didn't want to change that especially within combat but they just didn't feel as though it was necessary to bring all the improvements crafted for the sequel two years ago they only brought some of them and the ones they chose to bring were so lackluster and unimportant that i'm left wondering why the hell they are present and the other ones were not included with regards to stealth it's largely identical to the original game as well the only notable difference is probably the ai which i have to say is vastly improved i only initially noticed in this open section though when the enemies kept flanking me in coordinated strikes where they would hit me from both sides at the same time while a third threw a molotov and tried to snipe me it was really impressive and i was like okay these these guys are not kidding around you actually do have to try to flank enemies move around the arenas it it's pretty impressive just how different it is from the original and it makes you appreciate all the work that they did in the last of us part two but it also further compounds the issue of why they didn't bring all of the improvements from the last of us part two when they went to the trouble of adding in the better ai the gore systems and all of that which i'm sure was not that easy to do there's also some random enemies that will beg for their lives if you fail to kill them all the way and simply severely injure them this was one of the most haunting additions to the gameplay loop of the last of us part 2 and to see it here is really really cool other small tweaks to the combat have been added such as the adaptive trigger support which has been hyped up in some of the marketing but it's very very minimal and in my opinion it's one of the more underwhelming implementations of the adaptive triggers from a first party playstation studio it just doesn't feel punchy it doesn't feel interesting more often than not i didn't even realize it was working and this is because the two main cases where you'll notice the adaptive triggers kicking in are when you're applying health kits there's a little resistance to them but most people will select the health kit in their inventory with up on the d-pad and then immediately hold down right trigger to apply it but the adaptive trigger resistance doesn't kick in until the menu has closed meaning that you won't even feel the resistance because you'll already be holding down the trigger when it starts to apply the resistance so you just don't notice it at all and the other time is with the bow and arrow when you pull the string back you'll feel the resistance of that with the adapter trigger but i'll be honest i don't know what they did the bow feels like absolute ass this time around it's difficult to use the arrow drop off is like very aggressive i don't know if it's that i remember the mechanic more fondly than it actually worked but all i know is that the bow and arrow in the last of us part one is so painful to use that i just opted to not use it i used it occasionally when i had no ammo for other guns but if i had any other option i chose that because it felt so bad which is again very odd for a naughty dog game normally they have this stuff refined to high holy hell but time and time again it just feels like this was a remaster developed by the interns and new hires while the big boys worked on other big projects that are coming down the pike i don't know that for a fact but simply because the improvements and changes that were brought to this game were so minimal and feel as though they're done with the bare minimum effort it just makes me think that this was like a training exercise for new hires and nothing more it's really disappointing they also brought the crafting bench from the last of us part two which i will be completely honest is awesome i love this thing and i think it's super super cool and i'm glad to see it here the crafting and skill menus like i mentioned earlier are imported from the last of us part two and it's a nice addition and i have to mention is the assault rifle is also way worse than it was in the original game and the assault rifles that were present in the last of his part two were way more usable than these things are you can definitely tell that this was the gun that they had at the end of the game that's only used for like 10 minutes so we won't put that much effort into it because it shoots so poorly it's unbelievable the recoil is out of this world not just up and down but it also has horizontal recoil and sway so it makes it almost impossible to hit your targets it's unbelievable all told it feels like a huge missed opportunity that they didn't introduce basic mechanics from the last of his part two such as the quick dodge from melee attacks going prone or any of the other improvements to verticality that they made with the grappling hook and rope swinging in the sequel instead of feeling like the original game remade in the image of the last of us part 2 one of the greatest and most highly awarded games of all time with all of the tech and gameplay improvements to go along with it it just feels like the last of us part one exists in a weird intermediate space between 2013 and 2020 when the sequel released it simply doesn't feel like a full remake but rather like a remaster that also brings a few small changes and tweaks all in all i find this remaster remake extremely frustrating going into it i knew what to expect especially because naughty dog's representatives refused to discuss whether or not gameplay changes had in fact been made instead they just reaffirmed that they had rebuilt the game from the ground up for the playstation 5 whatever the hell that means but even with my expectations low i can't help but feel like this was simply a quick cash grab to try and capitalize on the influx of new players that will surely come in with the last of us hbo series when it eventually launches of course that makes good business sense there will likely be millions of people exposed to this franchise for the first time and like i said earlier the one group for whom this release makes the most sense are those who have not played the games before and so to some extent i feel like i can't be that upset because this to be frank was not meant for me the last of us part one from its inception was created for new players and those who simply love this franchise so much that they don't mind spending new game money for visual upgrades to a game that they've already played many many times before and this is why i've addressed this from the beginning of the video i often see game critics and journalists complaining that games don't fall in line with their personal expectations and desires for the title it's the same fallacy that so many commit when they dismiss for example the latest assassin's creed game simply because it didn't focus on stealth mechanics the game can still be really good even though it isn't exactly what you wanted it to be and in the same way i think the last of us part one is a triumphant success when evaluated against its intended goal but i was hoping that they would take this opportunity to remake the game with the gameplay mechanics and systems from the last of us part two not just the improved graphics and load times but also the ability to dodge melee attacks go prone and the larger roster of weapons but those things were never promised so in some ways i think it's unfair of me to dismiss this release for those reasons all of this to say i'm just very frustrated that naughty dog did the bare minimum here it's unlike them normally they're known for going so far beyond what expectations are that it's just baffling it's like they make everybody look like they're not even trying in comparison this is a very corporate cash grab release it's not your standard naughty dog release and that's worrisome to me especially when i look at the rest of playstation and what jim ryan's been doing and how it's starting to feel like playstation is losing the artistic focus and is instead just focusing on trying to milk their customers dry they did improve the graphics and they added a bunch of cosmetic items that you can only enjoy after you play through the game once but for a lot of people this will be their second third or even fourth fifth or higher playthrough of the game meaning that the cosmetics will only be enjoyable if you're looking to really grind out some hours in a game that you've already played many times and that's why everything falls back to you you have to decide whether or not you want to pay full price for a glorified remaster that was literally created with as little effort and expense paid as possible unfortunately what could have been a celebration of one of the greatest games ever crafted feels much more like a corporate attempt to milk a cash cow even further it lacks soul passion and the creativity for which its developer has become so well known the last of us part one is a great game no doubt but it's just as good as it's ever been and for a remake that's coming almost a decade after the original release it's really unfortunate to see that they didn't manage to bring any notable improvements in all that time especially when they've already created those systems in a game they released two years ago and i'm initially tempted to point at this lack of innovation in the remake as an indication of just how great the original was that it was so good back then that it's next to impossible to improve upon but like i said the last of us part two demonstrated how many improvements could be made to the original formula and the developers implemented some of those changes here but the difficult ones the changes that would have required more effort and development time were avoided in favor of those which were the cheapest easiest and the most marketable it's unfortunate but the last of us part one to me represents just one more example of sony and playstation prioritizing profits over quality and artistic integrity which has become all too common during this newest generation of consoles i hope this isn't indicative of where they're going next with future releases but it's disappointing but that's it for me thank you for watching i appreciate you guys more than you could possibly know let me know what you think of all of this in the comment section below i'll be looking through those to see if i'm totally off base i just can't help but feel freakishly disappointed in this i expected not much and i'm still disappointed it's a real bummer but like the video if you enjoyed it i would really appreciate that and share this with a friend if they're thinking about getting the last of us part one maybe talk them off the cliff and give them an alternative perspective on it and of course subscribe and ring the bell blah blah blah you've heard every youtuber on the planet say it i have to say it because this is what we do but i'll leave it there thank you for watching honestly and truly it means the world to me that anybody would sit here and listen to my ramblings so i appreciate you greatly i love you all more than you possibly know i'll see you in the next video hugs and kisses bye-bye

Channel: Luke Stephens

Views: 353,550

Keywords: luke stephens, luke stephens the last of us, luke stephens tlou, tlou, tlou part 1, tlou remake, the last of us remake, review, critique

Id: kLJFiCOa7Ds

Length: 34min 5sec (2045 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 31 2022