When I reviewed The Long Halloween on GoodReads (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2581443772?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1) I noted that it's one of those comics that every comic book fan is going to read at some point in their life, making pure reviews in the vein of a pre-release teaser pointless. After all, if I have major issues with the work, is that really going to deter you from wanting to formulate your own opinion, especially when said work is widely hailed as a masterpiece by the collective consciousness?

A similar issue arises with The Last of Us (henceforth to be referred to as TLOU), which is a game that I imagine everyone will plan on playing at some point in their life, regardless of the type of genre they prefer. Then again, to this day it has remained a Sony console exclusive, so perhaps that will prevent it from being experienced by a decent sect of the gaming populace (till emulation becomes feasible anyway for those who indulge in that).

No matter, the reason I bring this up is because this a title that has been covered extensively by mainstream and YouTube critics alike- it has been broken down, dissected, and analyzed six ways from Sunday, and so any general review I scribe will only fall into the overabundance of published material.

Instead, I want to focus primarily on the downsides of the game, which I feel were significantly overlooked because of the momentum provided by the strong narrative. I am not doing this for the sake of slinging mudballs, but rather to provide consumers with some tempered expectations when they take that inevitable step into playing it. That being said, I will also take this time to highlight some underrated facets of the game. Keep in mind that spoilers will be discussed, so you have been warned.

I have my issues with the story, but as those are minor I will reserve it to the very end (marked separately by spoiler tags, rest assured). Instead, we're going to delve into the graphics first, which for the most part are gorgeous. As this page indicates, I of course played the remastered version, and so a lot of visual updates were done from the vanilla release. What those specifics are, I cannot say without looking at comparison videos, but overall the end product is stunning. The post-apocalyptic genre has been done a bunch, but Naughty Dog managed to make their own mark through adopting a post-consumerist theme. I'm serious when I say that some of the most depressing moments in TLOU are not story beats but interior decorations: you take a look around your bedroom and you'll see that you have personalized it in some way, whether it be through posters on the walls, books/music you were digesting, the types of electronics you purchased, or even simply the color of your bedsheets. Those of us who live in developed countries have this luxury to really individualize our personal spaces, and Naughty Dog realized this when it went about with its art design.

I am not doing anywhere near a service to the effort put in by the artisans when I tell you that the level of detail in buildings is phenomenal. From pop culture paraphernalia to broken down items, you genuinely get a sense that a unique person lived and breathed in these rooms before having to haphazardly abandon it due to the outbreak. It's heartbreaking at times, seeing the lives of whole families upturned for the worse. Throw in skeletons and blood patches galore and you know there was a violent transitionary period between the two time frames.

This goes a long way towards saying that Naughty Dog has excelled at environmental storytelling. One of the issues that comes with creating an alternate future is how you go about conveying those historical differentiations to your audience- the easiest choice is adopt the exposition route wherein some character (or characters) drops long tidbits of knowledge about how things came to be. This, of course, has the downside of generally killing the pacing via what is known as the "exposition dump" in writing circles.

Another option is to be vague to a fault, leaving it to the audience to determine what happened on their own. This has the downside of leading to plot holes and frustrations since you are not aware of the explanations behind why certain things are the way they are (and consequently why certain characters act the way they act).

In TLOU, the developers took a middle approach- after a radio broadcast title credits that gives a general overview of what happened over the past 20 years, you're left with four main sources of information: offhand remarks from characters, optional conversations, collectible pieces of stationary that tell small tales about the lives of people who lived through the outbreak, and finally the aforementioned environmental storytelling.

Those first three are also done incredibly well. It's a delicate balancing act that writers and game designers indulging in this tactic need to handle, and I can proudly say that Naughty Dog achieved this. They're spaced out and condensed well-enough that they never feel extraneous, nor are they ever lacking in info; what you know, you know, and what you don't know you get a strong sense of. Even small bits of monologue like Joel remarking how he misses coffee go a long way towards providing depth to the discrepant future you are in.

Another graphical feat I observed and enjoyed was the depiction of falling water on character models. Usually, video games tend to just have liquid generically envelop a character, with maybe the screen getting blurry. Here, though, whenever you stand under a cascade of water, it actually bends around the model, as it would in real life, with Joel throwing his hand up to stymie the mini torrent.

The only graphical criticism I have for the remaster is the draw distance. There were one too many instances where foliage and other small pieces of the environ in the horizon would fail to render in time. It wasn't enough to be immersion breaking like with the first Witcher, but as this was apparently an issue that the remaster sought to address, I thought I'd bring it up.

With the gameplay, I can begin indulging in some of my more negative criticisms, beginning with the melee. TLOU has way too simple a combat system for the amount of mandatory fighting you are required to do throughout. It literally consists of a single attack button that you hit consecutive times to trigger a combo. There is no dodging, no blocking, no countering, no variations of attacks (i.e., heavy, light), no incorporation of firearms into combos, and the only time you can grapple is when a prompt presents itself during a melee barrage. It's barebones to a fault, and I say that because things can get frustrating when you're in a fight with many infected. The camera is heavily focused on 1v1 combat, snuggling up to Joel's shoulder as you batter down an enemy, yet you're often placed in situations that result in you being swarmed from all sides, which is realistic as far as zombies attacks go (assuming we consider zombies to be realistic) but annoying when you're not given a system of movement to tag alongside the mano-y-mano.

What this means is you're often forced to either bolt in the opposite direction and reconfigure yourself against the AI, or to utilize your firearms during these segments, particularly when they involve Infected called Clickers that are capable of one-shotting you at close-range. In the easier modes, this is fine, but for harder difficulties that emphasize ammo conservation, this can make such fights very irate, forcing you to do frequent resets to ensure you don't waste too many bullets.

The lack of ammunition in the world serves as a good transition point to talk about the scavenging apparatus Naughty Dog has put in place here, which has flaws. TLOU, to be fair, is not a full-fledged survival horror, meaning it didn't have to be elaborate in its survivalist aspects since you don't live or die by it (at least on the easy-hard difficulties). That being said, it still deserves scrutiny for lacking basic aspects. For starters, you can't loot bodies: you kill an enemy, there is a 95% chance that that gun they were using to fire at you magically disappears. I get that they probably didn't want players to acquire an abundance of ammo, but that could have easily been absolved by simply providing goons without firearms, having thugs possess little ammunition on them, or lowering the clip capacity of all your weapons in general so that you couldn't hoard bullets. Heck, one of my problems with the game was that I felt it gave you way too many weapons, with Naughty Dog wasting time programming all these items. Guns like the pistol, shorty, and El Diablo feel like redundant variations of the revolver, shotgun, and rifle respectively. Even the flamethrower, while very useful, didn't really have to be added given the availability of Molotov cocktails.

Cocktails are one of several offensive and defensive tools at your disposal that you can craft through gathering the requisite materials throughout the world. Finding these is as simple as pressing a corresponding button across a drawer or cupboard flap, but one of the biggest issues I had with TLOU had to do with the narrative often moving faster than the time given to explore and ransack a place for goodies. What I mean by this is there are a number of instances wherein it would naturally make sense for Joel to continue walking forward with an NPC as they are in the midst of a conversation, only for you to miss vital looting opportunities should you choose to play as such. On the other hand, if you do do the latter, what you end up with is awkward pauses wherein the NPC will stop talking, turn around, and wait for you to be done before continuing the discussion as though nothing happened.

By no means are any of these heavily impactful on the narrative, but for me personally, they did briefly rupture the immersion. It would've been very easy to fix too by simply programming conversations around gathering things before pressing forward, which the writers DO at parts, indicating that they knew this was something that should have been provided to the player.

That aside, TLOU does throw in an upgrade system for its weapons, which you can improve and/or add attachments to via another resource called "gears" that are gathered like everything else. The problem is, you can only upgrade weapons through these in-game locations called workbenches that are strewn throughout the four chapters, which in turn require the acquirement of toolboxes to successfully access all upgrade tiers. It's not that they're hard to find, it just made no sense to limit player craftsmanship to these two facets when creating other items can be done at any place and anytime in the game. Perhaps it was an attempt at making things more difficult, but the limited amount of gears prevents you from constantly upgrading anyway. I have a feeling it was only done as a way of encouraging a NG+ playthrough (and thereby, padding out game worth).

Finally, I can talk about the last major facet of the gameplay, which is the stealth. It's a very simple system, consisting of crouch-walking to "silence" your footsteps while you work your way around a field, silently taking down enemies. Stealth areas are reminiscent of Arkham's predator rooms in the sense that they're very spacious, and while Joel obviously can't brood on top of gargoyles, there is plenty of debris to kneel behind. Honestly, one of my more favorite subtle aspects to TLOU is how Joel will cover Ellie as the two of you hide behind such structures.

When I said the stealth is simple, I meant it- you can create noise distractions with adjacent bricks and bottles that lead distraught enemies elsewhere, but that's really it. The only silent weapon at your disposal is a bow you get during the first chapter, and the limited ammo it has (despite arrows having a chance of retrievability) ensures that you can't even use that that much. Enemies rarely clump together, so as long as you have a little patience, you will always find an opportunity to isolate someone and take them out. There're no non-lethal options, though I guess it wouldn't have made sense in this setting.

One of the lazier aspects is how TLOU rehashes the same kill animation for every individual enemy. Considering the amount of different takedowns the melee had, it would've been nice to have more variety here than the same generic chokehold. Also, considering these strangulations are slow, some environmental or quicker kills could've been implemented at the cost of creating noise (much like the Arkham series did beginning with City). To be clear, you do have the option to use a shiv (makeshift knives you can craft in-game) as a way of quickly taking down someone (and the ONLY way to silently kill a Clicker), but these are treated as noiseless regardless.

Honestly, my only objective issue with the stealth has to be the lack of corner take downs. An enemy will come around a corner that you're leaning up against, and the game will not allow you to grab them unless you move directly behind them, which, as you can imagine, instantly alerts them and sets off the rest of the hooligans onto you. Your best bet is to hope they don't see you as they walk past said corner, and then do a standard back grapple.

Ellie's AI is, for the most part, solid, and really brings to shame AC Syndicate, which, despite coming out 2 years later, claimed it could not put Jacob and Evie in more missions together because it was too difficult to program a secondary NPC (note- I don't doubt that it was difficult to program, but a game company as revered and lucrative as Ubisoft could've and should've dedicated the time to see this through). If you are caught, Ellie springs into action, throwing items at goons (later shooting them when she is given a gun) and stabbing guys who manage to grapple you during a fisticuff. The only issue is the game seems to be very hit-or-miss in determining whether enemies can detect Ellie as an individual- there were times where she ran right in front them without worry as they went around a corner she was at, and others where they got alerted and started firing. It's inconsistent, and can lead to occasional frustrations.

There are two two pet peeves I had with Naughty Dog's way of achieving a higher difficulty that I want to talk about real quick. Normally, games make things harder for players on higher difficulties by increasing enemy health and decreasing player resistance to attacks. That latter trait is applied here alongside the removal of listening mode, and those are fine, but two additional facets pissed me off to no end and caused me to revert to a lower difficulty- the first is that they make the already limited scavenging even MORE limited by having you gather SMALLER PARTS of materials when you manage to find them. It was like, why do this when it's already luck-or-chance to find any resource for crafting?

The second was increasing the detection range of Runners. In theory, I'm guessing they were trying to essentially make them like Clickers by requiring you to slowly approach them, but the programming wasn't efficient because it makes their detection very inconsistent: sometimes they'll be like regular-difficulty runners, other times like clickers, and still other times (more-often-than-not) like Infected with Spider Sense that spot you no matter how slowly you approach them or from what angle. The capriciousness that I experienced was frustrating.

Now, to move onto the narrative, of which explicit spoilers will be discussed! Much has been made about the story- indeed, given the above flaws I presented in the gameplay, it stands to reason that the basis behind the numerous 10/10s from publications comes from the impact reviewers felt. And I'll add to that applause: this is a very well-written game. If you're reading this critique, you know all about it resting on the burgeoning bond between Joel and Ellie, who meet as strangers and end up as a surrogate father/daughter pairing. The development is great- the only part I didn't necessarily get was why Joel haphazardly changed his opinion on taking Ellie to the Fireflies over letting her go with Tommy when he previously intended on doing just that (and don't say that interaction with Ellie in the house changed him, because he explicitly states that he doesn't see her as his daughter [though this can viewed as him lying to himself, it doesn't deviate from the fact that he wouldn't want to get hurt again]).

On that note, I do think TLOU could have benefitted from having some flashbacks of Sarah, Joel's daughter. The opening was superbly done, and I wouldn't change a single aspect of it (besides maybe making the gate Tommy opens a little easier to see apart from the crowd!), but these memories could've been interwoven throughout the game (worth noting that TLOU 2 would go on to do just this with its own flashbacks). The reason I say this is because the game goes a long way towards impressing on us (and outright stating in that aforementioned part in the house) that Joel is starting to view Ellie as Sarah, yet because we never got any characterization of her (besides knowing she likes movies), those comparison don't work as strongly as Druckmann and his team intended. I also felt, at times in the early game, they made Ellie act too much like 10-12 year-old, which didn't fit considering she is 1) 14 and 2) has grown up in a world that requires her to grow up fast.

Besides those small quibbles, there are other issues I had: there seem to have been abandoned concepts like the use of maps for areas (which you can collect that serve no function) and Joel receiving an engine starter from Bill only for him to never bring it up again; the ending; while I appreciate it when a video game makes me question if I'm doing the right thing, I did not like that the writers indulged in the whole "the hero has to die" trope common in apocalyptic fiction with Ellie having to die from the surgery - it just felt so out-of-the-blue and done purely to justify Joel's actions (I feel it would've been a lot better had Ellie been presented with an odds of dying over an absolute certainty); and finally, the short length of the three seasons in comparison to the first (Summer) is noticeable. There are significantly less "missions" in Fall, Winter, and Spring. This is an issue I also noticed in Darksiders wherein the Bat Queen section was noticeably longer than the others. While some might claim it was done for storytelling reasons, I'm under the impression that, like Darksiders, it was more because of developmental constraints (Naughty Dog's horrible record of crunch-time is pretty infamous). I say this because there were scenes that could have been added to the latter chapters that would have contributed to them without impacting pacing (of course, that latter aspect depends on execution, which I know Naughty Dog could have pulled off). For example, have Joel and Ellie spend more time at Tommy's encampment, getting to know the individuals there; have Ellie actually go to the cannibal village instead of David revealing his hand so early; have the abandoned Salt Lake City QZ in the Spring section be occupied by a new group of stragglers/hunters different from one's we have encountered before. I'm just spitballing here, and I'm sure stuff was left on the cutting room floor from the writers themselves. If the rumored remake comes to fruition, I'd definitely like to see more flesh added to this skeleton.

Regarding the sound design, there are inconsistencies with regards to the doppler effect and interiors (going inside a building doesn't quite provide a smooth transitionary decline in volume to outside mumblings (thug talk) and rumblings (particularly inclement weather). I also wasn't a fan of them rehashing the exact same tone of voice and warble for every enemy variation- these are all different citizens being infected across the country, so why would they all sound the same? Maybe I can understand for the fully infected ones like stalkers, clickers, and bloaters, but not the drowners who still physically resemble their hosts.

A lot of praise has gone to Gustavo Santaolalla's score, but outside of the main theme I honestly wasn't a huge fan. I thought the string solos he employed didn't quite carry the emotional impact he intended them to, though I acknowledge I'm in the minority here. In general, he nails the atmospheric vibes for each area, so that's always a plus in these long video games with diverse locales.

Overall, you'll definitely enjoy your time with The Last of Us. This critique isn't meant to diminish the game's achievements (in fact, I went out of my way to highly underrated aspects of it), and it has firmly established its place as a piece of high art in video game storytelling. However, there were detriments that I feel reviewers and fans have deliberately overlooked, particularly in the realm of gameplay, and hopefully people glean something decent from this write-up!

As TLOU Remastered comes with Left Behind, I will be copy/pasting my review of it here. But for those who want a quick link to it because you want to get to the spoiler bit I asterisked above, here is one: https://www.backloggd.com/games/the-last-of-us-left-behind


TLOU: Left Behind is an example of a retroactive story DLC done right. What I mean by this is, narrative-focused add-ons tend to be either small sequels to the main game or side stories focusing on another character besides the protagonist. A retroactive one, on the other hand, is set at some point during the main storyline, and these are generally harder to pull off in non-open world titles because you have to avoid creating continuity issues.

With Left Behind, not only do you get a release that avoids that pitfall, but you also get two additional facets: narrative context to major events in the main game, minor plot holes repaired, and significant background characterization for Ellie that adds emotional depth to her final speech at the end of TLOU.

Obviously, there is no way to talk about any of these without spoiling the main game, so I'll instead address the question of whether or not you should play Left Behind during your playthrough of TLOU or after. Having done the former during my replay of TLOU 1, I would recommend doing so. It takes place perfectly before Winter begins, meaning you have a natural transition point to begin it (compared to most DLCs), and, as I said above, it adds significant context to both that chapter and Ellie as a whole. The one downside is that it will cause some pacing issues in the sense that it slows down the momentum of the main game's narrative, but that's a small price for the payoff you get.

Now, onto the spoilers- Left Behind has two simultaneous stories going on: first is a continuation of the present wherein Ellie is trying to treat Joel after he suffered a life-threatening injury at the end of Spring; second is an exploration of Ellie's past, specifically her relationship with a soldier trainee-turned-Firefly named Riley.

There's not much I can really say on the story front because most of it consists of character moments that you just have to experience. Druckmann and his writing team do a good job of not only showcasing the history between these two girls, but the continued friendship they sport despite fractures having erupted in it. Scenes like playing with water guns, telling jokes, and exploring a Halloween-themed store may not seem like fun in a post-apocalyptic game on the outset, but become subtly engaging when you experience it through dialogue conveying the pure joy these characters are having, all helped by fantastic chemistry between the actresses Ashley Johnson and Yaani King. King, in particular, gives a phenomenal performance, and was honestly robbed of a nomination (let alone win) at the BAFTAs in 2014.

It may seem like there are tonal inconsistencies given that this seemingly-innocent past conflicts with the harsh winter story of Ellie struggling against Infected and Bandits to save Joel from the brink of death, but I never felt anything of the sort. Part of this could be the short nature of the DLC, but I feel it has more to do with the past parts not forgetting that you're in a dystopian setting. Despite the lighter-tone, you are regularly reminded of the oppressive nature of life in the Quarantine Zone and of tragedies that have occurred. The mall you spend most of your time exploring, while lit-up, is ultimately abandoned, and strewn with the same level of depressing decrepit detail I raved about in my review of the main game (heck, in some ways it hit a little close to home considering malls are becoming less and less frequented with the advent of online shopping services!).

Perhaps ironic, perhaps intentionally-designed, you're also exploring a desolate shopping complex in the present, albeit one cloaked in moonlight and snow courtesy of an impending ice storm. I'm a sucker for winter-themed locales, so seeing Naughty Dog return to this format a year after their game was released AND successfully bring it to fruition is a testament to their capabilities as artisans.

I believe I enjoyed the score here more than in the main game due to those lighter chords matching the more optimistic atmosphere of yesteryear. And I have no criticisms/praises of the sound design that I didn't/did have with the main game.

My only critiques overall would be the following: first is that the switches between the two halves are not naturalistic enough for my liking. I was hoping for something akin to the final fight in Arrow season 2 wherein you have mirrored instances for the transitions to occur, but instead what you usually get are hard cuts that aren't really tied to cliffhangers.

The second is, just like with TLOU, you have collectible vignettes detailing small stories that occurred in the location you're at. The thing is, whereas Joel would have reactions to every other one, Ellie is completely silent, even when hearing recordings.

But overall, Left Behind is solid storytelling and definitely worth doing during your playthrough of TLOU (or after, if you chose to beat it straight through). I cannot emphasize just how much it adds to the base game, both in terms of character progression, character arcs, and explaining small details like how Ellie had a bow if Joel still had his.







+The part where Henry is leading Joel through the apartments to their secret hideout, Joel going into other rooms when they need to hole up; the part where Tommy is giving a tour of Jackson, it makes no sense for Joel to be walking off to the side grabbing stuff off the shelves while his brother escorting him; the part where Joel finally arrives at the house Ellie is in, Joel's immediate reaction would be to rush up the stairs to make sure she's fine, not scavenge the house (which you don't get the opportunity to do as you are immediately attacked by bandits after the cutscene with Ellie), etc....I could go on and list more examples.