The Last of Us Remastered

I just worked out that I started playing The Last Of Us around July 2013 on my newly acquired PS3. I finally watched the credits roll for the first time yesterday on my PS4pro – nearly 7 years and nearly 3 consoles later.

So what gives?

Firstly it was hard to go back to to the original on the PS3 once the Remastered and the PS4 was available.

It was mainly impatience – running into hard bits – but most critically I lost some game save data in the move from PS4 to PS4pro and felt I lacked the patience to be that far back and go again. Also the save put me back in the middle of a lumber yard fight as Ellie with very little ammo and you know how it can be trying to figure out control schemes after a gap of a year or so.

It was easier just to put it aside and focus on newer games.

But I was very pleased to have finally got the time to re-focus and push through the hard bit and get through the end of the game with a couple of weeks to go  before the launch of The Last of Us Part 2.

The overwhelming impression I was left with having finally finished this game was how mature modern game storytelling could be. The Last of Us could be frantic and and “Action-y”, shooty and race-y and all the other “gameplay” mainstays we’ve come to expect but it doesn’t feel like the point here like it does in so many other games – here the mechanics seem much more to serve the story and the overall experience is far richer for it.

I won’t deny that having waited – or procrastinated – so long to get through to the end, the famous sequences were a little less impactful but I’m still tremendously glad to have finally completed this game.