The Last Of Us may not be terribly original regarding its narrative. Nowadays, the whole “sad angry typically badass dad and his plucky more emotionally resonant child navigate through life while the larger status quo is in shambles” premise is a dime a dozen across media. You have the original trendsetter, Lone Wolf and Cub, Berserk, basically countless Batman stories featuring Robin, Terminator 2, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, True Grit, Sweet Tooth, Logan, Stranger Things, The Bad Batch, Rebels, Mandalorian, Kenobi, etc. Even the setting, which as far as post-apocalyptic scenarios caused by some zombie virus go, is super paper thin and derivative from any modern realistic post-apocalyptic world you’d see in something like The Walking Dead or A Quiet Place. But that’s not exactly what TLOU needs to care about in telling a remarkable character-driven narrative that executes this tired premise most effectively. You don’t care enough to know the dark secret behind this fungus virus or what’s going on in the world because it’s all about Joel and Ellie’s relationship in how they both navigate through humanity falling apart and the lengths people will go through to cling onto what’s worth preserving. For what should be the most cookie-cutter, formulaic zombie survival story ever generated by an AI, it’s elevated through the mature yet intimate way this is presented. I have to give props because despite you never really having much player input, the story still leaves you with great emotional stimuli over how engrossing it became that it almost didn’t matter. Combined with the still exceptional performances by the voice actors who added a genuine sense of depth to these well-written characters, I can understand how this garnered its groundbreaking status as one of the best (narrative) video games of all time.

As much as I admire and enjoy what Naughty Dog presented with TLOU, it reminds me of something that makes it difficult for me to completely buy into the hype here. It’s a powerful cinematic experience, sure, but how is it trying to break the mold of the medium other than demonstrating you can put a prestige HBO drama into a video game? See, when I think about the age-old discussion of whether video-games can be considered art, I believe the criteria that should be underlined is how the artist uses every tool that’s available to them. TLOU actually does some of this right. Nailing certain aspects like the fully realized environmental scenery to feel as though you’re in it, the clever usage of sound design to create tension and ambience, or the high-quality animations to make it feel like you're taking part of a film. However, for the rest? Like the actual gameplay? Feels more like an afterthought than an opportunity to make every piece count for the bigger experience to behold.

The shooting is good. It has the right weight to it, the damage you or enemies take feel realistic like something straight out of Deus Ex, there’s no bullet-sponge enemies besides maybe one. Unfortunately, I can’t really commend this much to other parts of the gameplay; like the resource management, which is a cool way to thematically tie into the survivalist theme but feels as depthless as almost any other modern AAA video game, stealth has potential but in practice is pretty bland and is ruined by how flawed the NPC AI can be, the “puzzles” you need to do with Ellie and Joel to get to the next area are pretty repetitive that even the characters acknowledges later on, and item/ammo scarcity is maybe a bit too forgiving on the player. The gameplay is perfectly serviceable, which I guess is fine since that’s not the real takeaway, but it shouldn’t be just serviceable. It should feel like the developers put as much time and effort into it as much as they did with the narrative. It should feel like you’re constantly going through the wringer in combat, trying to be smart with ammo to make every shot count, and completely immerse the player, through Joel, that surviving in this world is just as dreadful as the characters make it out to be. TLOU still has some pretty wonderful moments of light interactivity given to the player to help enhance the narrative. This is the only game I can think of that perfected the walk-and-talk sequences you’d see commonplace everywhere. It’s not meandering fluff or pointless exposition done to delude you into thinking the game actually has more character than it does. I can’t imagine the prologue working as brilliantly as it does if it was just some long cutscene and not an interactive sequence where you feel immersed into these characters. The more Joel and Ellie’s relationship grows, the more your relationship between Joel and Ellie grows as well. Making the ending even more conflicting and gut punching once you realize the true nature of their relationship, and where it can spiral from here on out.

I can’t imagine it being easy for Naughty Dog to juggle scripted narratives with the more minimalist gameplay approach for a game like TLOU. I can respect the ambition of even trying to compromise for something everybody with a PS3 will enjoy while also justifying itself for being what it is. And they tiptoe the line pretty okay, if not, very uneasy in its implications. But this might be the case where the whole is just greater than the sum of its parts.