A solid game overall with a few major short-comings. The combat is solid, but your bullets are made of rubber until a good 3/4 into the game when you get actual weapons that do damage. Because of this, you're forced to use stealth a lot of the time, which is already not my favorite thing, and there are way too many enemies to realistically choke all of them. What ends up happening is that you just end up punching everyone to death and praying to God you find enough materials to make more medkits. That being said, once you get to the winter chapter the gameplay actually becomes really interesting, giving a really solid mix of the aforementioned punching people to death, shooting and stealth. But the combat is just one half of the gameplay. The other half is "puzzles" which basically just boil down to "find the right spot to press triangle." These are completely uninteresting, but also relatively unintrusive so they don't really warrant much discussion.

The main event here is definitely the story, which like the gameplay, takes a bit to get going but is overall very solid. I did feel like a genuinely cared about Ellie, Joel and pretty much everyone else in this game, with the only major issue being the excessive amount of time skips. The story really helps the game give off a thick atmosphere that I've really only seen in games like Danganronpa and Resident Evil (not even remotely similar games, just go for a similar vibe). The ending however, blows extremely hard. Actually, ending isn't really the right word. The game just stops. There is no logical reason why it should stop in the place that it does and I don't know how anyone managed to wait 7 years for a sequel. Yeah, I know Part 2 is divisive, I haven't played it yet, I'm just saying this ending is a crime against good story-telling. I don't usually play multiple games in a series in a row, but I feel like I need to play Part 2 as soon as possible because of how unsatisfying this games ending is.

The soundtrack also really doesn't do it for me. Generic trumpet tunes make up most of this game's OST and it brings the game down honestly, which is the exact opposite of what a game's soundtrack should do. This game also started the modern trend of muted soundtracks in games like this which is one of the worst things to come out of modern gaming. If you don't believe me, go compare the OST's of Resident Evil 2 and its 2019 remake and I think you'll turn around real quick.

The muted soundtrack isn't the only crappy trend this game started. I really want to stress that THIS IS NOT THE GAME'S FAULT but a lot of the annoying things about the modern video game industry started with The Last of Us. The gritty realistic artstyle, the muted soundtrack, the overly cinematic cutscenes and gameplay, the basic white UI and the God damn tight hallway shtick every modern game does where they think it's a clever way to hide a load screen. These are all things that work decently enough in the context of this game specifically but got really annoying when games that aren't equipped to give of the sad tone and thick atmosphere that The Last of Us gives off use these tactics as if this is the way video games naturally needed to go.

The Last of Us is absolutely a game that is worth you're time and money (it's like $10 on eBay, there's no excuse). The story and characters are compelling, the gameplay is enjoyable enough and it's an important part of gaming's history. That being said, it's not without its flaws and I might recommend staying away from it if you're the kind of person that doesn't like RPGs that take too long to get going.

I can't for the life of me get why people like this game. Mumbo's Mountain is reasonably enjoyable but from there it just keeps getting worse. I wanted to finish this game but by the time I got to Gobi Desert, even just turning it on started to piss me off.
The game has a ton of stuff to collect and nearly all of them are required to beat the game, to the point where you'll want to 100% the game out of convenience instead of because you actually wanted to. Not inherently bad, but with worlds this big, that often require multiple sweeps to get through, this becomes annoying really quickly. This is made even worse by the fact that Banjo moves at a snails pace, especially once Mumbo transformations get involved. The only option for faster traversal is the Talon Trot which locks you out of most of your move set and has start-up and ending animations that take forever.
The levels don't compliment Banjo's movement at all, often times having jumps that are barely too high to make even with the backflip and double jump. The extra moves Bottles teaches you all have the "create a problem so we can solve it with a stupid gimmick mentality" in every level after Mumbo's Mountain, locking a ton of collectibles behind some stupid pair of shoes that will only be unlocked once Bottles teaches you how to use them half-way across the map.
Another big problem has apparently been fixed in the Xbox 360 version, but considering the most modern ways to play this game are either NSO or Project 64 I think it's definitely worth talking about. One of the biggest buzzkills in video games is losing a significant chunk of save data. Even in games I actually like, if I lose a ton of save data, my playthrough usually ends there. So imagine how I felt when died with 4 Jinjos and 83 notes in Bubblegloop Swamp and realized I had to do it all over again. This is a bit more forgivable by the Jinjos, but there are 100 damn notes per stage. Why would anyone want to spend the next half hour retracing the steps they had already taken? Extra lives become absolutely pointless when a death is basically a game over anyway. Oh and quitting the game counts as dying too because why would they take into consideration that people have lives outside of bad video games. Remember how people like to complain about 100 coins levels in Super Mario 64? Why is it suddenly ok when this game the exact same thing? Wouldn't it be easier to stomach in Mario when the game is significantly faster, easier, has a better camera, actually has more than exactly 100 coins per level, and the stars are completely optional?
This game is absolutely carried by its charm and presentation, which are admittedly really good. That's the only reason I can see as to why people hold it in such high regard. If the game was a visual novel, I probably would've enjoyed it, but with Mario 64 coming out two years prior I can't help but wonder why people ever bothered with this game. And now people are telling me that the sequel isn't as good? Yeah, I'm just going to give up on this series and move on to the next game on my backlog. I have never been so excited to play Danganronpa Ultra Despair Girls.

After playing this game for 12 hours I can safely say I had zero fun between the first boss and the Abyss Watcher boss fight where I stopped. Everything either felt way too easy to be in the a game like this, or was way too annoying for me to squeeze any fun out of having my butt kicked and slowly overcoming it. A lot of this has to do with how long it takes to get back to a boss after you die. It can take up to 3 minutes just to get back to the boss you died at and good luck making it back without taking damage. The first boss is the only one that doesn't suffer from either of these problems and is really what I wish this whole game was. That being said, it is incredibly addictive and hard to put down so I don't really feel comfortable giving it a low rating but I just can't with this game anymore.