The Last Of Us Part II: A Spoiler Heavy Review · 9:25pm Jun 23rd, 2020
To preface this review. I played The Last Of Us Part 1 a week before part 2. It was actually the first time I played the game, and I was blown away by the sheer beauty of its storytelling. The setting and gameplay was also a joy, and it felt so special and unique.
So, knowing from the leaks of part 2 that it was gonna be completely different left me wary. Out of context, of course, I thought. In context it might be better than what it seems on the surface. It was, but not by a large scale as it should have been.
I, however, still enjoyed the game quite a bit, but was left disappointed in other aspects. That is what I’m going to discuss today.
Also, as the title suggest, heavy spoilers for the whole game ahead. If you don't want to know the most important scenes, including the ending, do not read this review. I want to be as thorough as I can with my thoughts, so I won't be like most internet critics and leave out spoilers.
What I am going to compliment this game first on is its settings for audio, subtitles, and accessibility. You can change the dynamic range to what you want, the subtitle size, and so forth. Even settings for those disabled and unable to aim at a proficient level. It’s crazy how much detail is put into that, and I wish more games going forward will do this.
It makes it where more people can enjoy your game, and that isn’t a bad thing in the slightest. Plus, I enjoy having the option to mess around till I get exactly what I want in terms of set up.
Now, let's get this out of the way first, this game’s story is nowhere near the level of the first. Is it the worst thing I have ever seen? Not even close, hell, it ain’t even what I consider outright bad. It’s more so a story with many highs, but with a messy execution and mixed character moments thrown in. It loses a lot of the heart of the first.
Let’s talk about that in detail.
Joel gets killed way too early on in the story, and in an impactful way, aside from the impact it left on general audiences and fans of the first game. He didn’t die protecting Ellie, he didn’t die from a spectacular showdown. He simply was beat over the head with a gold club from a character, as of that point, we had no idea about. That is, if you didn’t see the leaks.
He died pitifully before Ellie, his surrogate daughter. That is not how you do a major character death, and it is no surprise many players left the game at that moment. It was the worst handled part of the entire game, and should have been done a thousand times better.
Look, I ain’t a perfect writer, but if it were up to me, this is what I would do. First, have Joel die protecting Ellie, showing his love for her one last time. This time, instead of him failing to save his daughter and having her die, he dies instead from successfully protecting her. It would have been more poignant.
Second, have him die later on in the game so we have more time for him and Ellie to shine. We get flashbacks of them, which is some of the best parts of the game, no surprise, but we seriously needed more focus on the stars of the last game. It’s what made the last one so special.
Lastly, give us Abby’s backstory before she offs Joel. We would have still despised her, but at least understand why she wants Joel dead.
There is also the issue of Joel not being in character going to Abby’s base near Jackson. Joel is a cautious man, and we’ve seen him not be trusting to anyone but those dear to him. He would have suggested going somewhere else to hide out in the meantime.
For example, when he ran down the hunter in the first game who pretended to be injured. He knew he was faking it, and thus charged head on. He ain’t trusting of others, that was what made him opening up to Ellie so impactful to his character. It was lazy, and forced so he could die the way they wanted to. Don’t force your characters to act out of character so the plot can advance. That's real bad writing. The plot should serve the characters, not the other way around.
That isn’t what we got, so Joel is dead pitifully, and we are sent on a revenge story to track down his killer and bring justice to his name. Which, might I add, I was fully for given the tortuous scene I was made to watch. It was like a distilled game version of a panic attack, I swear.
This is where the game truly takes off and starts to actually show its major strength, that being its improved gameplay, visuals, and sound design.
This is probably the best looking game I have played. I was constantly blown away by the sheer detail and scale of the environment and lighting effects. This game’s cinematography is in a class of its own, and it has to be seen to be appreciated.
This is backed up by a new sense of verticality and options to combat. In one section you can dive underwater to get between different areas of conflict, and in the next you a whole city block to run through every nook and cranny to find a vantage point.
New enemies like the dog, shambler, and stalkers make it where you can’t just stay in one place and pick people off one by one. You have to be on the move, or risk getting detected and having a showdown that ain’t worth the cost. This game, like the first, has that survival horror aspect of item management. Resources are limited, so I found myself carefully aiming my shots properly, and trying not to be detected. I also tried not to craft items I didn’t need in favor of more vital options such as health kits and silencers.
This is all backed by a thumping bass soundtrack that heightens the intensity of the combat and actions Ellie takes in her search for revenge. There is also the brutality of the gore and visual effects.
The game wants you to feel bad for all the killing, npcs now shout out each other's names when they are killed, even the dogs, but the intense gore only really made the kills more satisfying to pull off as I was pretty damned upset over Joel’s death. It made it feel like Ellie was really out for blood, as you would imagine since she just lost her father figure.
So, the opposite was shown. I became more and more desensitized to the brutality, and just found the usual satisfaction of planning out my killing spree before executing the plan in motion. It’s the strategy behind it all that makes it engaging, not a sadistic sense of blood lust, as some puritans would have you believe. It’s cathartic.
And it’s in these moments as Ellie that we get some cool story moments. Ellie comes across one of the people in the room when Joel was killed, her saying how much she enjoyed seeing the man cry in pain as he was tortured. When you trap her in spores, which Ellie is immune to, and you are given the prompt to bloodily torture and brutalize her while the music reaches a bassy crescendo, you can’t helped but be sucked in. That’s when the story is at its best, in cathartic, and messed up sequences like that.
There is also build up, such as when you are riding a boat through the stormy weather as you make your way to an Aquarium where Abby is supposedly hiding out in. The sound design, environmental storytelling is what makes it stand out, even if the story aspect doesn’t hit high notes like the previous installment.
This is what makes me think this game isn’t as bad as people say it is. It’s no 3, 4, or 5 out of ten in my book. I can’t really give a definitive rating, but I’ll try later on in this review.
It’s at said aquarium that you, through protection of herself as she interrogates two more of Joel’s killers, she accidentally kills a pregnant woman. This, of course, made me go “Oh fuck,” as Ellie collapses from the trauma and a heart beat grows louder and louder until it is all we can hear before she is snapped out of it.
I found that moment to hit really hard, and was probably the best moment for Ellie’s development outside of the flashback sequences with Joel.
Those, those were truly the best part of the game, and goes to show why Joel needed to be in the game more. His and Ellie’s relationship is the heart of The Last Of Us, and it was taken too soon. We see Ellie’s interest in science, her even teaching Joel a few things about space travel.
There is a quote from this I enjoy when Ellie is asked why she likes space travel so much. I am paraphrasing.
“They didn’t have to do it, but they did anyway. It’s ballsy.”
We indeed didn’t have to go to the moon, but we did because we felt the spirit to do so, to go where no man has gone before. It was, as she said, “ballsy.”
That’s Ellie's part, and this is where the story goes to ‘average’town. We are forced to play as Abby, the killer of Joel, for ten odd hours. Her character just doesn't stand out. She is at every opportunity given a moment to make us feel bad for her so Joel’s death seems more reasonable. It’s so forced down our throats that I ended up just feeling so ‘meh’ by the end of it. Her being the daughter of a doctor Joel killed just feels forced for the sake of making her sympathetic. It could have been done so much better.
But we have to slog through it to get back to a character we actually care about, and it sucks. Aside from a few cool gameplay sequences, that is only because the gameplay and setting is strong, not the narrative behind it all.
Aside from one moment where you are pinned down by a sniper, which as you force your way up to them, realizing who they are as they kill the guy who spat on Joel’s dead body, you begin to cheer for the sniper as they try to get bloody revenge. The sniper being Tommy, Joel’s brother. It was a really cool stand-out moment.
Abby also tries to have her take care of and bond with a young child as she treks across a war torn Seattle, an obvious parallel to the first game. And that was the best part of it all, as her little companion was a pretty cool little dude, and you want to protect them, but it doesn’t help this part of the game too much. Simply put, I did not want to play as Abby, and while her weapons and skills are cool, her as a character is something I’m not interested in.
But, by the end of it all experiencing her perspective of all this bloodshed, we are sent to have a fight with Ellie, and we are the ones who have to beat her face in. And, well, I didn’t want to. I was still with Ellie, and wanted her to undertake her revenge once and for all. I think it would have been stronger than what we got for the actual ending, but I'll get there.
I say this because she could have learned from acting on this revenge that she gained nothing but new scars from the trauma she experienced, never truly able to recover from her dark deeds. I think it would have done the moral of the game more justice.
It’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy Abby’s part of the game, it just doesn’t hold up to how well executed the brutality of Ellie’s part was. Sure, story aspects irked me, as I mentioned, but she was just so much better as a character, and the way the game frames the action really sold me in the moment. I was on the edge of my seat.
Only in a few sections did Abby have me at the edge of my seat. So, overall, her section weakens the game quite a bit.
After Ellie and Dina are spared, Jesse dying in the crossfire, and Tommy getting injured, we are sent forward 18 months into the future. Ellie and Dina have a farmstead outside Jackson. Dina has her kid, and they seem to be happier than they were on their trek for revenge. That is, until we see the PTSD side effects Ellie is experiencing from her memories of Joel, and it is impressively effective. I was really getting the feel of her pain, and it shows quite well the victim of trauma and regret.
That’s when Tommy gets a lead on a woman built like an ox traveling with a young child in Santa Barbara California. Ellie and Dina deny going after her, Making Tommy pissed as he wants Joel’s death and Jesse’s death not to be in vain. Though Ellie and him killed everyone involved with Joel’s death but Abby. Technically, they killed more than she did when it came to a pursuit of revenge. So, to me, Abby did feel consequence for her actions. It just isn’t as satisfying if she was the one to pay the blood toll personally.
And Ellie feels this too, as she can’t help but go out to seek her reconciliation with her feelings of loss for Joel. Dina doesn’t want this, it’s an emotional scene I enjoyed, and Ellie commits to tracking down Abby and Lev.
We see Abby’s perspective as she finally tracks down the remnants of the fireflies, like she wanted to do after the events of Seattle, but ends up getting captured and turned into a slave for the group known as “The Rattlers.” Those who try to escape turned into an example by either being forced to be bitten by an infected or hung up on a pole by the beach side to die from starvation or dehydration.
It’s when Ellie, through trials and tribulations, makes it to her after tearing down The Rattlers base of operations, that we cut her down for trying to escape. She is no longer built like a brick shithouse, and is instead more or less out size. Though, that is strange, because she was taller before, so that was a continuity issue. Ellie, from what it seemed, was gonna let her go, but she doesn’t let that happen as visions of Joel flash before her eyes, and she forces Abby to fight her. Abby didn’t want to, but Ellie was willing to kill Lev if she didn’t.
The fight was real fun, but as we are about to drown Abby and kill her once and for all, another vision of Joel flashes across the screen, and Ellie lets Abby go. She screams out, “You took him from me!” And we are left with her staring out into the ocean.
See, here is my issue here. If this was supposed to show revenge mattered little, then killing her would be more effective, as she would be left there with nothing but more blood to her name and nothing else. Because when she gets back home, Dina is gone, implying she couldn’t handle Ellie's obsession with getting revenge.
She would have lost everything from her act of trying to set Joel’s death right, and while I wouldn’t have liked it greatly, it would have been more satisfying than what we got. Also, she lost two fingers in the fight, no longer able to play the song Joel taught her at the beginning of the game, leaving her no way to honor Joel in the best way she could. It’s so bitter that it just leaves a sour taste.
Bad endings can be done good, but it wasn’t heard, it was just a messy execution. That describes this game's story well, actually. Good ideas, bad execution. I loved the gameplay, I loved the setting, I loved the musical score and sound design, I thought the story was a five out of ten. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t all too good either. It’s what drags the game down the most, and while my thoughts might have made it seem like I completely despised it, that is not the case. There were many moments I mentioned that were well done and I enjoyed it greatly.
It kept me engaged, which is more than I can say for games I consider to have absolute trash fire stories. I honestly don’t like rating games, because my thoughts are a lot less resolute than what a score can give. It doesn’t accurately describe my thoughts as neatly as my many words here have.
But, I feel it would give a reflection of how I compare to other critics of the game. So, if the gameplay, sound design, environments, and so on technical aspects are 9/10 to sometimes 10/10, the story is at best a 5/10 and truly drags this game down drastically. Now, this wouldn’t be important to games with not much focus on the story, but the story is what sells these types of games more so than gameplay, as this is a single-player, narrative driven game. Key words being narrative-driven.
At best the game would have a 7/10 in total, but that ain’t accurate. To me, this game gets a 6.5. I jumped back and forth on my thoughts a lot, and this is what I believe to be the most accurate score I can muster compared to my thoughts I tried to clearly convey in this review today. If you still want to play the game, despite knowing all the spoilers I just talked about, then I would wait for a sale. I don’t believe buying this game at full price would be worth it, as you will more than likely not be invested in the story, the main point of this sorta game.
That is, if your personal taste is anything like mine. I encourage everyone to form their own thoughts from actually playing the game in full, as your opinion will matter more than mine if you enjoyed it, as I can not take that entertainment away from you. Hell, you might even be able to add onto my thoughts and maybe make me see your perspective and make me reconsider my thoughts. You never know.
(This song was featured in the game, from Joel playing for Ellie. I have found a new favorite song by Pearl Jam, and that is one of the best parts from playing this game).
~ Not Enough Coffee
I agree with a bunch of things you say here. Me personally graphics and visuals aren't what make a game great. Sure that can be argued, but what makes a game great is the story you get from it. I grow up playing old school RPG's where story was everything, and graphics were an afterthought. Games like Legend of the Dragoon are perfect examples of this. The graphics were pretty bad for the time of its release and the voice acting was subpar at best. The story, lore, and battle system we got from that game overshadowed all that .
Playing 10 hours with a character that killed an out-of-character Joel leaves you disconnected and unsatisfied, to the point you gotta force yourself to finish the game in hopes of that much needed revenge ending. During Ellie's and Abby's fight, Abby actually bit off a few fingers from Ellie, and mere seconds later, Ellie lets her go. Logically it makes no sense to me whatever. Messy execution and a plothole ridden story really ruined this game for me and I'm happy I got my full refund when I returned this game.
5291848
Yeah, for sure. I have played games from every generation, and graphics, while adding to immersion, don't fully sell a game for me. The original Metal Gear Solid hasn't aged well in terms of looks, but it has an atmosphere that is still wonderful to be immersed in, and while over the top and convoluted, I can't helped but be sunk into the story the game tells.
I also played a lot of old school RPGS, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, so on. Though, Super Nintendo sprite work still holds up in my opinion. It's the fact they don't have triple AAA facial recognition and acting that today's games have, yet tell engrossing stories that leave them as timeless classics.
I am glad, however, for playing the game. Not because I really, really enjoyed it, but because I was able to fully form my own thoughts without letting myself succumb to the hate hype train. It's why, despite not liking the game all too much for where it counts the most, I still encourage others to play and beat the game before fully forming their own opinion on it. I believe in finishing a product before reviewing and analyzing it.
It's also important to have some breathing room for reflection, so you may come to grips with your thoughts more thoroughly. That's how I am, my thoughts changed drastically a few days after finishing a game, movie, song, what have you. The time to reflect and analyze is just as important as the experience to me.
Personally, if they had structured the plot and characters better, it could have been a much better game. Maybe ended it with Abby and Ellie's first fight or the like. Or have a choice, a morality system. Will you have Ellie remain, in part, the kind, yet wary, girl Joel thought of as a daughter, or will you become a monster?
5292003
Essentially, being forced to do horrible crap is not as impactful as having the choice between two distinctly bad/gray options and trying to figure out in your head which is better and more justified. It hits home better for the lesson of morality the game essentially preaches to you.
5292036
Yup, if it had been tweaked more, it could have been an amazing game. Alas, the director had to wank all over it
Nice review dude
5292215
Thanks, I tried to be as concise as possible with this one, considering how much I had to say about the game.
I have neither the time nor the inspiration for the games, but I really like such reviews!