Finished my first playthrough of the game. It's actually the first campaign I completed from start to finish since Killzone: Shadowfall around PS4's launch and the first non-sports game I've played since around that time as well.
Certainly was an impeccably designed game. As someone virtually entirely removed from the gaming world (bought the PS4 on a whim, but have largely moved on from the medium), I was continually struck by the intelligent, gently paternalistic design of the game. Naughty Dog restricted user control and freedom in a way that benefited the end user experience without making the game feel prohibitively cramped, which is a pretty resounding accomplishment. Controls were tight, combat was varied, and level design was pretty tremendous as well.
At the end of the day, though, I thought it was a fairly ordinary experience. With all of its gameplay triumphs and flourishes, the game still felt as though it dragged on a bit. All of the refinement in the world couldn't save the game from the medium's typical trappings: the story was simultaneously derivative, melodramatic, and contrived; the internal morality of the game (up until the latter sections of the game) is never questioned; the game provides only a very finite amount of different types of encounters and setpieces.
Ultimately, TLoU serves as a consummate distillation of modern gaming but exhibits all of the flaws and callowness of a medium that still hasn't fully figured out a way to grow up.
