The Last Of Us Part 1's Remake Isn't Better, It's Only Different
Video games love photorealism. In the '90s and '00s, when realism wasn't possible, we had a lot more variety of art styles and a greater variety of artistic expression. That still exists in places today (The Artful Escape, Persona 5, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Borderlands, etc.), but we seem to be moving away from it, especially at a triple-A level. In the '10s, video games thought they had realism down, but into the '20s now we're convinced we really do have realism down, so it's time to remake all the games from the '10s. No prizes for guessing what will happen in the '30s. The Last of Us is the latest game to get this treatment, having already had a graphical update once, and it just feels hollow.
The Last of Us Part 1 certainly looks better in the upcoming remaster, if by 'better' you mean 'the characters look more like real people, but still look like video game characters, so will need to be remastered again in the future'. But 'better' as in 'I prefer it'? This is obviously subjective, but the answer is no. Given how beloved the original game is - frequently proclaimed as the greatest of all-time - I can't imagine I'm the only one. Were the rest of you really having to keep down your vomit at the horrendous visuals as you ploughed through the dated gameplay, yet still able to sing its praises?
Related: The Great Debate: Does The Last Of Us Need A Remake?
I loved the original blorange tones, replaced in the latest offering by washed out grey. I know Joel and Ellie and Tess as they looked in 2013, and while Joel and Ellie's tweak somewhat works given my familiarity with them in Part 2, Tess just looks like a completely different person. It's more realistic, not just in a one-to-one graphical comparison but in that she
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