The Last Of Us Remastered Review

Welcome to the review of The Last Of Us Remastered. The original game was released in 2013 and the remastered version in 2014. This review does not contain any spoilers at all and admittedly that made it difficult for me to make this review since this game is so story driven.

The primary differences between the original and the remastered is that the original is only available on PS3 and the remastered on PS4 and PS5, original is 720p and the remastered at 1080p with a 60fps option. Additional items in the remastered version are better graphics, a photo mode and the downloadable content, The Last of Us: Left Behind is now available from within the game.

Characters

There are two main characters in this game, Joel and Ellie.

Joel is tough, harsh, old and tired. As the game plays out, we come to learn that Joel has experienced enough in his life which might make the gamer wonder, why does he even want to live anymore? Everytime he speaks, he sounds constantly exhausted and rightfully so. He’s seen and done many regrettable things in his life and he’s forced to continue doing similar actions to simply stay alive. Despite all this, the game does an amazing job of making the gamer feel sympathy for him.

Ellie’s character is a refreshing take on a strong female lead. Although she’s a young teenager she shows moments of strength that would make regular adults tremble. The most interesting thing about her character is how fascinated she is of the past, before the fungus spread. She doesn’t know what video games are, she doesn’t know what it’s like to check into a hotel and so on. Throughout the game she asks about the world before it went into ruin which is an interesting spin on her character.

While the game focuses mainly on Joel and Ellie, there is no shortage of side characters. Each one has a very unique personality and different way of dealing with the current state of the world. While side characters don’t get a backstory recap, just the interaction and dialogue with them gives an overview of what they’re like. The writing is incredibly well done.

The same can be said about human enemies. Not much is known about them and some are shrouded in mystery but in the short interactions with them, you get an almost complete picture of what they’re like as a human being.

Combat and Upgrade System

You start off weak with minimal weapons. However, the main object of the game is using stealth when possible. Your character will have a listening skill to get a rough idea of where enemies are behind a wall. Weapons and bullets are a scarce resource. You can certainly use weapons if you have enough ammo but at times it can backfire as you’ll be surrounded by more enemies than you would be able to handle. In fact the game recommends running and hiding if you get overwhelmed.

Combat overall is tough, whether you’re shooting, using melee or trying to be stealthy. The game wants you to be smart about how you approach scenarios. You can even pick up and throw items like bricks and bottles to distract enemies but in some cases combat is unavoidable.

There are two types of enemies, humans and infected. Each species has different types of enemies. For instance there are melee combat types, others with guns, others with military grade weapons and so on. As the game progresses, your character becomes stronger but so do enemies and new types of enemies appear.

Keep in mind that your character will die, alot. That’s because this game is tough, but don’t be discouraged to play it since checkpoints are rather generous and you can adjust the difficulty.

However, I did encounter one game issue that took me by surprise. I won’t get into too much detail to prevent spoilers but in one of the hardest and later levels of the game, the game bugged out on me big time. Random enemies turned invisible and killed my character, except that wasn’t the thing that disappointed me. When my character died, they respawned to a checkpoint forward in the level instead of the last checkpoint I had passed. Thankfully nothing in the game’s story was ruined for me but it’s a bit off putting these two bugs occured, thus stealing my sense of accomplishment to completing one of the toughest levels on my own.

There are two upgrade systems, one for your character and another for weapons. Both are pivotal to invest into. It’s a really easy to use system. For character development, just find meds throughout your journey and you can upgrade different types of skills. For weapon upgrades, just pickup tools and parts and you can upgrade weapons with the click of a button.

My tip, invest into the shiv skill asap. Trust me, it’ll make some tough scenarios much easier to deal with, you’ll thank me.

There’s also a crafting system. Thankfully it isn’t complicated like some RPGs, crafting items is quite easy.

Environment & Graphics

As mentioned earlier, the game takes place throughout multiple parts of the US. Some levels a decayed city, others in creepy underground tunnels and some in beautiful areas.

This is not an open world game as the path for your character to follow is rather linear but most combat areas outside allow you to move between buildings and be creative during combat.

It’s hard to believe this is a remastered game from 2014 (as I review this in 2022). Even by today’s standards, it’s one of the best looking console games. Probably one of the most underappreciated aspects of the game is character facial animations. Since a character’s emotions are an important part of the story telling, the animations do great justice to literally show emotion.

Cutscenes are a mix between in game graphics and prerecorded ones. To be honest, at times it’s tough to tell the difference between the two as both types look gorgeous.

There’s not much in terms of doing side quests. Anything outside of the main game is more about finding hidden collectables or a cache of supplies. There are a ton of handwritten letters spread throughout the game in the abandoned homes. They’re not important to the story but they added a nice touch of lost hope in this chaotic world from other non-existent characters.

Multiplayer

The star of this game is the campaign which easily overshadows the multiplayer element, but that doesn’t mean multiplayer is bad.

It’s got a strange twist that you have followers you lead during the infection. You collect supplies from multiplayer matches to keep your followers alive. This isn’t too important but is one of the reasons to make you do more multiplayer matches.

There are three types of matches. “Supply Raid” is simply open combat in which you must kill the opposing team, “Survivors” is last person standing per round, and “Interrogation” is a match type in which you must beat opposing players to interrogate them into revealing the location of their safe full of supplies which you must then try and open.

Sound

The soundtrack is incredible. It plays the perfect unsettling score when hope is minimal and a lighter tone when things finally calm down. It never becomes overbearing though, it’s always done perfectly in the background in a lowered volume to set the right atmosphere.

One of the best things about sound is the voice acting. The popular Troy Baker playing the part of Joel is done superb, to be honest I didn’t realise it was Troy until the credits. Ashley Johnson does amazing work by voicing Ellie. Watching the game’s behind the scenes development, it probably helped that they did a lot of acting in person together when capturing CGI motion and then audio in a recording studio.

There was one off putting thing about sound. While I was surrounded by infected and being stealthy, Ellie would randomly start whistling loud. This is a running joke throughout the game as she’s trying to learn how to whistle, the problem is that these practice sessions of Ellie’s occur at the worst time, breaking the tension of a suspenseful part of the game. Sometimes the whistling is so loud, I think an enemy is closer than I thought.

Voice acting from side characters is also spot on. Whether the side character has a lengthy role in the story or a short one, a lot of care was done into making the voice sound great but also ensuring the acting is top notch.

Infected enemies also sound great. From Runners behaving and sounding like mindless zombies, to the more creepy Clicker, which makes the most terrifying sound.