In what way is TLOU groundbreaking? I greatly enjoyed the entire package but the gameplay is nothing revolutionary, especially compared to Mario 64.
If someone only plays mainstream games though, I guess I could see that since it's so different from the norm, in a good way.
The Last Of Us was the first game that really connected narrative and gameplay. I've nevern seen something like that before and I didn't think something like that was possible in games.
For years I've been arguing that its impossible to tell very good stories in video games.
Mainly because interactivity is something you can't have in a good story. A good story is good because the characters are good. The characters are unique and deep and when players get to be such a character it doesn't work because you need to give some of the choice the characters would make and therby some of the identity of the characters to the player.
I still think David Cage is doing it wrong. You can't have a good story when you let the player decide what the characters should do. That shit makes your story and everything in it replacable and good stories aren't replacable.
So I thought a game needs compelling interactivity to be a good game and a good story can't have interactivity because you want to tell a story of characters that aren't the player.
So all I expected from games was good gameplay and maybe a entertaining, but flat, story. Like action or fantasy movies. Good action/fantasy, combined with some flat storytelling, ideally creating a deep universe, like LotR for example. Maybe some cliché characters some players might relate to, some standard motives like friendship, courage, honor, but nothing interesting overall.
And that was pretty much what I experienced in games and I was fine with that. I thought thats what the medium is capable of and I loved it.
NaughtyDog proved me wrong and showed me that videogames can be so much more that what they have been for the past decades.
They showed that you can have compelling gameplay(interactivity) that not only does no harm to the story and the characters, but also improves the experience.
NaughytDog didn't let the player make any important choices. The player isn't the one who should make choices, the characters are. Player choices would've destoyed the game.
NaughtyDog did let us play the characters, though. We could experience first hand what it is like to be up against a horde of hunters. What its like to be in a dark basement crawling with infected. What its like to know that you only have 2 bullets left and more enemies that you could possibly kill with two bullets.
The story became more intense because we experienced what the characters went through.
And the gameplay became more meaningful and intense because we had these great characters.
I don't think any other game achieved something comparable.
So yeah, the gameplay is nothing revolutionary. Its top notch 3rd person action gameplay. Its actually the most enjoable 3rd person action gameplay I played last gen(imo), but it does nothing groundbreaking when it comes to gameplay mechanics. But I don't think thats necessary for it to be the best game of all time.
The connection between gameplay and narrative was groundbreaking.