@MirkoS77 said:
@charizard1605 said:
@MirkoS77 said:
@charizard1605: ah, you got around to playing TLoU, I remember a time when you said it was on your list. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it.
I actually remember making a post about it that I tagged you in once I got done with it! It was post #100 in this thread. I imagine the site's notifier broke or something, lol
Anyway, a lot of my impressions then were from me having immediately finished the game, and as I've put more and more distance between myself and the game (and inevitably, the hype that surrounded it), I've come to like the game even more now than I did back then- all my points and issues that I raised back then still stand, but for instance, I don't think I gave the ending enough credit back then. Now I think it is absolutely marvelous. I give a lot of credit to Ellie's characterization, and I stand by thinking she's the best character in the game, but I don't think I have ever liked a character as outright negative as Joel as much before as I did in The Last of Us. I remember saying that the level design negatively affects encounter design, and hey, maybe it does, but after all these months, what stands out the most for me is just how varied and tense the encounters were- everything in the university, during Winter, and the first Bloater encounter being a highlight.
On the whole? Hell of a game. Marvelous title, and a true example of what Naughty Dog can achieve. One of the reasons my hype for Uncharted 4 died as completely as it did is because after The Last of Us, Uncharted feels banal and pedestrian by comparison.
Best that we have this discussion after you've had a bit of time to distance yourself and reflect. I again apologize, I feel bad for not responding to you. Makes me wonder how many other users I've missed due to GS's errors.
TLoU is truly something special, I agree. It is among the most beautifully realized worlds I've seen in gaming. What really makes TLoU stand out to me is its minimalism. Nothing in the game felt superfluous to me. You said you had a problem with pacing so I suspect you might disagree on this, but I loved the down/slow times just as much as the up ones because it allowed absorption into this world that was so immaculately crafted. It was breathtaking to me on first play through. It also allowed that bond between Ellie and Joel to develop, and they really were exceptionally well developed and paced perfectly in their relationship.
One thing I don't hear in credit towards the game is how it plays. I often hear people state the only reason TLoU is praised is due to its narrative. While that's a part of it, it is also one of the smoothest gaming experiences I've encountered. It's why I continue to play it. It's responsive, it animates beautifully in transition, there's a weight to the movement, the inventory, selection, and crafting are brilliant in their "on-the-go" efficiency which makes changing tactics on the run and under pressure very easy. Tension is an understatement for some of the encounters here. I never tire of them because they always evolve differently.
As for the friendly A.I.: you're mistaken on that one.....they can't trigger the enemy. They are invisible to them and won't open fire until you are spotted, so Bill firing off his shotgun just meant you had been discovered but didn't know it. I've had Ellie run INTO enemies, head on, and they remained passive. I never personally found the level design to be anywhere near banal or repetitious, as every area felt unique. Sure, there were the obligatory cover boxes but it was always a journey across the nation, and appeared as such so despite that it retained my interest at all times.
As for hype....well, TLoU may not be the best game ever created, but it is the best game of its genre IMO and an amazing accomplishment across the board. I'm in agreement that I've no interest in Uncharted either, and that goes back to what I was saying about minimalism. TLoU really hit home because it felt so grounded a large majority of the time. Gunfights were generally not encouraged, it wasn't massive set pieces, melee were struggles for life and death. Everywhere you went was completely plausible and that's why I identified with it so much.
I love TLoU to death. It really doesn't need a sequel....but hell if I ain't playin' it.
That's alright, really. Like you said, best that we have it now, once I have had more time to reflect on the experience anyway.
I do have issues with the game's pacing, though they are mostly frontloaded. Notably, I hate the Summer, which has at least three separate instances of Ellie and Joel entering a new city, finding it abandoned, getting waylaid, and then having to fight its way out. Summer was far too long and very boring, and my interest began to dwindle by the end- it's a good thing Fall, Winter, and Spring were as great as they were afterwards. My issues with the pacing derive from the never ending repetitious nature of Summer, not from the quieter moments, which i did appreciate, especially in context of a game like this.
I did like how The Last of Us played- it didn't try a whole lot of things, and neither did it try anything in a particularly new way, but what it did do, it did extremely well. I appreciated how well everything worked in context of the game's world and story- so sure, the crafting system is pretty simple, but you can hardly expect Joel to spend more time on making stuff when he's always on the move and always on the run in an inherently hostile world. it worked great for what it was. I really liked the gunplay too, which I have heard criticisms of, and the encounter design really was great. I would so often have my heart in my throat. The university and winter sections especially stick out.
I almost certainly am mistaken on the friendly AI- I do know that they can't trigger the enemies, so I don't know what I meant when I wrote that all those months ago. Maybe I was referring to it being an immersion breaker? At the very least, I think that is a valid complaint.
I will disagree with you on the level design. Whereas I appreciated the shift from the closed line mentality of Uncharted to the closed room mentality they adopted in this game, it still degenerated into the exact same thing, over and over and over again. Even the multiple ways to clear a room started repeating themselves by the end (sneak, avoid combat except where absolutely necessary, and hightail it out of there; go all guns blazing, take everything on, and fight your way to the other side; create distractions and take them out). I definitely think that if there is a sequel (which I will be honest, I don't want there to be one) they need to focus on fixing this. Resident Evil 4 got this right a decade ago- The Last of Us is indisputably a regression from that, in my opinion.
It's still a great game, of course, and I'm glad I played it. The best praise I can give it is that I usually hate the kinds of post apocalyptic zombie settings that The Last of Us had (which is why I avoided playing the game for so long). They're just not my thing. That I still played all of The Last of Us, played so much of it in one sitting, and liked the game as much as I did, speaks immensely to just how incredible it really ended up being.
Log in to comment