The Last of Us Part 2(No spoiler review) · 11:46pm Jun 23rd, 2020
So I stayed up late last night and pushed through The Last of Us Part 2. I wrote another blog about the first game and the controversy surrounding the release of this one, so now I just want to talk about this game.
The gameplay: is good.
The replayability: is alright.
The music, the graphics, the scenery and dialogue, those are all good. Solidly good.
Glitches? Didn't notice anything game-breaking.
But, and this is the big one coming up, what about the story? How's the story?
It's... eh. 5 out of 10.
It feels like the game was made by two different teams that had two different stories to tell and then all of a sudden were asked at the last second to put them both together. Now, when I say "5 out of 10," that's not terrible. Usually in exams, a grade of 50% isn't passing- 60 or 70% is. But just saying 6 out of 10 would be a bit too generous... while saying the story fails is a bit too harsh. So, not 50% out of 100%, it's just 5 out of 10. The story is passable, but that's about it.
There are some very intense moments in the game, but these moments more contribute to the gameplay rather than the story. The story is not an action story, so praising an exciting action scene during an emotional drama is like praising a good joke in a tragedy. It doesn't feel like it's doing it justice. However, they are worth mentioning because I as a player did feel quite a bit, more so than the average game. There are parts that are heartwarming and sweet, really touching and others that got the heart racing or pissed me off.
It's an experience. A game is more than just a story, it's an experience. The Last of Us Part 2 delivers in this regard.
There are parts of it that I don't like. The game has been so anticipated and so heavily-teased it almost feels like a lot of the footage broadcast was intentional misdirection. Deception. "We've been lied to!"-kinda stuff. It looked like we were promised more of an open-world in this game and that doesn't last very long. Basically, there's only one big open area you can visit briefly and it has a few locations and that's it. If you were looking for a majorly-updated open-world game like Metal Gear Solid 5(we don't talk about Metal Gear: Survive), or GTA, you're in the wrong place.
There are some reviews saying it's a lot worse than I'm describing it. I... really don't think so. It's a long game and we see a lot of different relationships. It may even be too long. If your standards for storytelling are pretty high, you probably would find Last of Us Part 2 kind-of boring. Predictable, even. Compared to books and movies, there aren't many video games that are praised for their story alone, however, so for fans of just games, it might be seen as decent. Last of Us Part 2's story is not as good as The Last of Us or its DLC, Left Behind.
However,
Stories are not just meant to entertain, illicit emotions or convey feelings. They can and often are more than just art too look at. This is where I get a bit more in-depth because when it comes to the game's ability to convey a message... it does so very well. The story does have a message for its audience, just as the last game did, one to make you think. And while it does not do that as good as the last game, it does this one thing quite successfully. The Last of Us Part 2 is very good at conveying its message.
It was said that The Last of Us, the first game, was about love. It was also said that The Last of Us Part 2 would be about hate. And it is. It very, very, very much is. The message of the game is not just conveyed through the story, but also the gameplay and for this reason, it stands out as a unique experience about the concept of hatred itself. Like it says on the top, I'm not going to spoil anything, but the game has a message about hatred. It is very VERY effective at getting it across.
The game does repeat this message and some of the other messages and themes a bit unnecessarily at times. It drags on and on in a few places, the gameplay and the game itself becomes repetitive but there's a lot of content. It's a journey and if you are one of the players that just pushes through it, you're probably going to get worn out, like the characters. I know I did.
So, for the story alone, it gets a 5/10. It's a bit predictable, gets repetitive, there's not a lot of exciting twists, it gets really long and there's a lot that feels out of place, disjointed or just entirely unnecessary. But it does get its point across very effectively.
The game is about twice as long as the first one, or at least it feels twice as long. The epilogue feels kind-of like it's trolling us and is honestly something I'd probably cut entirely if I had the choice. It does not end on a cliffhanger or anything, and the possibility of a Part 3 is open, but not definitively open. It's a different story and a different game from the previous entry, so disliking one and not the other also can come down to your preference between the concepts of hate and love. Which one do you want to see more of in a story? Which one do you want the characters to deal with more, is the question.
There are no overt political or religious messages in the game, despite possible rumors. None of the relationships between the characters are forced or contrived. The good moments are the intense ones and the sweet ones, the ones that make the experience really unique. The bad ones are the ones that leave a bad taste in the mouth or that you feel are just stupid. There's nothing glaring that makes you ask "Why are we even here, why can't I just skip this?"
I feel that the main problem is that it really feels like two different stories combined. You play as two different characters- Ellie from the last game and a new girl, Abigail Anderson, who usually is just referred to as Abby. Abby has her own friends, family and relationships and we explore her story about halfway through the game. We're introduced to her life and her relationships well after we've grown accustomed to the first group of characters. There is a disconnect between Abby and Ellie that I won't get into, but the way we are introduced to Abby makes it feel like another game and another story entirely.
This is the main reason the pacing feels so bad- while we're exploring the past and relationships of one character, at the same time, we are introduced to a new character and their past and relationships. This back-and-forth can be a good thing, but not in the same story. It would've been better if Abby's side of things was shown in a different section entirely, similar to the way Sonic Adventure 2 divided things between Sonic, Tails and Knuckles and their counterparts, Shadow, Eggman and Rouge. Combining them into one story makes it feel unnecessarily long and the characters and their fates don't feel connected.
Overall, I give the game a 6 out of 10. It has some good gameplay and some great moments but there's a lot that keeps it from being greater. It doesn't feel very organized and ultimately, isn't as good as the first one. The story could end, but doesn't feel entirely complete. There are still a few unanswered questions and if there is a DLC or another installment in the franchise, I hope it does a better job telling its story than this one. As I said though, it does a very good job getting its message across, but again, not as good as the first game.
Well said, the game, IMO, could have been much better, especially if we saw more conflict, character wise, as Abby, or if it had been structured better
5291997
I think her story should've just been separate. Games have done that before. You play as a different character, you see a different side of the story with slightly different game mechanics. Just at the beginning you have the option of either playing as Ellie or Abby, play both to see the bigger picture but each have their own story and they're separate with different themes.
5292008
Yeah, one trying to move on and try and forgive Joel, perhaps learning her dad DID try and stab him first, plus the fact that their research wasn't putting forth many results. Like, maybe they should have kept the immune alive and studied why
5292069
That is a bit of a plot hole, the fact that there were other options. They could've told Ellie first rather than just trying to use her as the quintessential sacrificial lamb. To the Fireflies, her death was just another in a long line of necessary evils, "tests" as Marlene called them that they had to get through. They were extremists when they fought FEDRA and the military, they went to extreme lengths to get their message and ideals across. Even if the military was just as bad or worse, what they still did was extreme.
So in a way, Marlene's decision to save mankind... would have corrupted it. The same way that Ozymandias at the end of Watchmen saved humanity based on a lie. It only looked like humanity was about to wipe itself out. But in reality, no matter how much you predict the future, no matter how much you know and how many variables you account for, it's impossible to know it all... until it happens.
"Humanity isn't about pure genetics. It's about never giving up hope, even now." - the Lone Wanderer
Joel understood. "You keep telling yourself that," he told Marlene. Maybe he was still in the wrong, doing what he did for more selfish reasons. He realized Ellie was something worth fighting for, worth living for and he hadn't had that since Sarah died. He had found his own humanity again after so long and he couldn't let it go. But at the same time, whether he knew it or not, Marlene was going to sacrifice Ellie to get the cure not because it was the only way, but because it was the only way she could see.
None of these characters had easy decisions. It's revealed in her logs though, that ultimately, Marlene saw it as just another test. She had already sacrificed her own humanity to save humanity as a whole. Every sacrifice she had made had made her colder, like Joel. No feeling, no emotion, not even able to feel pain. Would it have been different if Marlene had taken Ellie to Utah instead of Joel? Would they have forged a similar bond? She knew the girl as a baby, even knew her mother. Maybe Marlene had not experienced loss the same level as Joel. Maybe.
At any rate, killing Ellie for the vaccine would have doomed mankind if it had worked to salvation via sacrifice of humanity. Love truly does conquer all, but the Fireflies' hardship and desperation and losses turned them into cold, dispassionate cogs instead of people. Instead with Joel, his struggles with Ellie led to his rediscovery of his own soul. We watch him go from cold to warm, back to the father he was originally. A father whose heart burned so hot it could not be stopped, and thus melted everything in its path, including the Fireflies that stood in his way.
I'm disappointed that he died. I suppose you could say his story was over, but there was more they could have told. I really wish it had been a story about Ellie getting revenge for losing Dina, but I guess they thought Joel's death would have more of an emotional impact with players. And it does. Tommy showing up at the end of the Seattle chapter was a bit off-putting. Obviously they're trying to enforce the message that it's bad to repeat the cycle of hate, but they'd done that enough already.
Ellie and Abby, Abby and Joel were all very similar. Imperfect people who did bad shit, but who also had hearts. They didn't do what they did for no reason. Joel, however, didn't act out of hatred even when he killed Jerry. One of them, either Tommy, Abby or Ellie, one of them should've stopped and realized they were going nowhere, that revenge was only leading to more and more people suffering and dying, hate spreading hate. It seems Ellie finally realized that at the very end, and maybe Abby, too.
Honestly, the first one was so good, I'm not surprised they couldn't top it. When it comes to the story, they didn't even really come close, though. At the same time, they weren't trying to; the game was about hate. That's difficult to pull off and it's not a fun topic. Probably why people like happy, cute loving ponies so much.
5292135
True, hell, I do like that, at least, Ellie, and to an extent Abby, do try and live lives of relative peace, I do wish we could have seen more hesitation from Abby, more conflict, Trying to seperate the man who saved her to the monster who killed perhaps the only family she had