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I never played the original. I am unable to fairly provide any sort of comparison to the original game that was released on the PlayStation 3. At best, I had watched a silent let's play of the game back near when it was first released. I say "silent" in the sense that the person playing did not speak, not that there wasn't any game audio. However, there's just something about this game that is picking at my mind to do something with it and here we are.
Far From Perfect
The Last of Us Remastered was a "great" game at best, and a shoddy attempt at a remaster at worst. Don't get me wrong here, I quite enjoyed the game but it certainly did not come without a good handful of issues. Again, I can't fairly compare it to the original so perhaps some of the things I encountered were present in the original release of the game and simply left unfixed for the release of Remastered.
These issues included terrible draw distances and pop-in. Far too often I would see trees, foliage, and even parts of levels popping in before my very eyes. Many times, the objects that suddenly popped into view weren't even that far away from me. To say it was distracting and immersion breaking would be an understatement.
Other issues I came across rather frequently were very odd lighting and shadow issues. I would catch a shadow either appearing or disappearing out of the corner of my eye, usually when turning a corner. I would backtrack and attempt to replicate the issue, and managed to do so successfully many times. Areas that were in shadow suddenly had light shining on them or vice versa until I turned to look directly at the affected area on my screen or when I got nearer to the area. Still other areas had light pouring in incorrectly where two surfaces met. Again, it's a rather annoying distraction, just as the draw distance issue is. It comes across as being very sloppy.
Sadly, a more bothersome visual issue reared its ugly head in areas full of spores. It looked terrible. I've seen comparison shots to the PlayStation 3 version of the game in the same areas and I have no idea what Naughty Dog did, but there are some sections of the game that looks like a near pitch-black pea soup. Again, I would like to believe this wasn't some sort of an artistic change but rather just some sort of a visual glitch that popped up during the remastering process that was never fixed for one reason or another.
The 60 frames per second option was fantastic, though it was highly inconsistent during the course of the game. When it dropped below 60 it was certainly noticeable. However, those periods were few and far between and never seemed to happen when it mattered most, such as in the middle of a fight. The "locked 30 fps" mode was tested, briefly. There is something very bizarre going on with the locked 30 fps option in that game. I have played plenty of titles that are locked to 30 fps and none of them felt like it was hitching or stuttering as much as this game did with that option enabled. I really cannot put my finger on just what it is, but the 30 fps mode simply feels broken. That is to say, it does not feel like 30 fps at all. In comparison, I played through a decent portion of Infamous: Second Son with a locked framerate of 30 and it felt just fine.
Then there the usual issue that is common amongst games in this genre where multiple friendly non-playable characters are following you: body blocking. I would enter a room to search for supplies and find I was being blocked in by one or more of my pals that decided to follow me in to a room that is roughly the size of a glorified closet. The good thing about this, is the fact that I never really ran into this body blocking problem while in the middle of a fight. No, the AI pathing on friendly teammates during fights was actually broken in completely different ways.
While the enemy AI seemed to have fairly robust behaviors while searching or fighting (despite this), the friendly AI seemed to be hopped up on crazy pills. They would often dart around the areas right in front of enemies, going from cover to cover locations without a care in the world. Perhaps it's a good thing that this behavior does not actually result in the enemy spotting you or them because that would have made the game next to impossible to complete. On the other hand, AI behaviors like that should have been reevaluated and perhaps "fixed" simply by having the friendly AI hang back a bit more and not go darting across the room every other second.
I will say that for as much crap as I'm giving the friendly AI, the enemy AI felt almost refreshing to play against. Each enemy type had different behaviors and the flow of the game ensured that you always had to mix up your approach to encounters from one chapter to the next. Kudos to Naughty Dog for that one, at the very least.
Some other, less frequently encountered issues that I ran into include seeing Ellie warp around to get into "position" for those canned sequences where you help her on to a higher platform. This was a rare occurrence and really only happened when the camera was positioned to the side as I hit the prompt. One other issue that I ran into just once resulted in a swift and incredibly annoying death. Without ruining too much, I will simply say that I cleared out a hallway full of enemies, four of them to be exact. Afterwards, I hit a save checkpoint right about where most of the enemies had died. I then quit the game for a brief bit. I returned and upon loading my most recent save, lo and behold those enemies had risen from the dead and were surrounding me! Needless to say, this glitch resulted in swift death. Following the death, the game loaded the same save and amazingly the enemies were again dead, as they should have been in the first place. I also ran into at least one occurrence where NPCs flat out disappeared before my very eyes.
It's All Very Nit-Picky
I have no doubt that this all seems very nit-picky and I won't argue that. These issues are very nit-picky but I feel as though they need to be pointed out. People have said that The Last of Us is the "Citizen Kane of video games." That is such a foolishly loaded statement. I won't get into that, but I really don't find that to be an accurate description of this or any game. I will say that the story is wonderful and the world that Naughty Dog crafted is beautiful, horrifying, and depressing all at once.
The problem is that it's a bit too formulaic. When you come across waist-high walls, chances are you're entering into a new arena in which enemies will start to come after you. No, this isn't true of every encounter, but for a good number of them this is unquestionably true. Or, if you suddenly come across a large number of bottles or bricks, chances are you should pick one of them up because you're about to get into a fight. Or, if you come across water higher than your knee, you know you'll be looking for a wooden pallet to help Ellie get across the obstacle safely.
Fortunately, most fights do give you a number of avenues and methods of approaching the situation or encounter. Except that there is a catch even with this. While you may enter into an encounter completely utilizing stealth and staying unseen, the game will often force you into battles where you have no choice but to fight. The enemies are guaranteed to spot you at certain points in the game, or at the very least immediately enter into an AI routine as if they saw you without having ever actually seen you. I thought this was due to something I did or did not do, but reloading previous checkpoints confirmed that the triggers to force a fight were present and at the same point every time. Others have also individually confirmed that this happens to them while playing. There is nothing more annoying than quietly making your way through an area only to be forced into a fight for no reason other than the fact that Naughty Dog programmed the enemies to engage you sight unseen at specific points. This takes away control from the player and feels far too much like a game that is forcing specific gameplay styles onto the player.
The character interactions are fantastic both throughout the numerous cutscenes and just during the course of gameplay. The way relationships are developed between characters, be they friend or foe, is nearly unrivaled by any other current game out there. This is all well and good provided you weren't looking for a game where you thought that you would be able to make story altering choices. This is a linear affair through and through. I do not have much of an issue with that as I enjoyed the ride, but I understand that some will not feel comfortable carrying out the actions that the game forces the player to experience.
A few other things about the Remastered version is that it includes the Left Behind DLC and the previously released multiplayer maps in with this singular package. Unfortunately, they also released roughly 80 pieces of piecemeal DLC for the game's multiplayer at launch. As I understand it, this was the same DLC that was also on the PlayStation 3 version. This doesn't sit right with me. It seems as though that Naughty Dog is also planning to charge for two additional DLC maps that are currently in development. This also doesn't really sit right with me and it seems to not sit right with a lot of players. Naughty Dog has a great opportunity here to keep the multiplayer community playing together without splintering it into groups of the haves and the have-nots.
Is this a perfect game? No, of course not. Is it as near a perfect game as you can possibly get? Maybe, provided you ignore the technical faults of the Remaster, and the other quirks and gameplay tropes noted above. I really can't help but wonder if some of the technical issues could have been ironed out with another month or two of development time. Honestly, I'm glad I don't have to assign a score to this game because I feel as though it's a no win situation.
