As one of the more controversial games to launch in 2020, I would like to premise this review with a few notes. While I enjoyed the original title, I am not a huge Naughty Dog fan and instead simply consider myself a fan of The Last of Us series. I always chose Spyro over Crash and never got into the Uncharted series. Hell, I didn’t even agree with the ending to the first game, but neither did some of the game’s audience. However, Naughty Dog knew that not everybody agreed with the first games ending and took that into account when writing The Last of Us part 2.
This game is easily among my favorites and above all, I enjoyed the story and how it made me see both sides to force me to make a moral decision on who I agreed with. On top of this, they didn’t make it a choose-your-ending type game either and simply let the events unfold as they will while leaving the player to root for the side they agree with most. But since this isn’t a movie, the gameplay also plays a role in the review and is where there isn’t a flawless response to this aspect of the game. Let’s divulge further.
Story
After adjusting to their new life in Jackson, Ellie begins going on patrols as many others do to fulfill the scavenger and clean up role for their new home base. During a standard patrol with her partner, and soon girlfriend, Dina they are interrupted by another scavenger named Jesse to inform them that Joel and Tommy never checked in, indicated something happened.
Following a short hunt and tracking to find their location, Ellie ends up witnessing a tragic incident that sends her on a quest for revenge for what a group, known as ‘Wolves,’ have done - particularly focused on Abby, the offender. This trip is accompanied by Dina and is full of twists, turns, parkour, and danger. But nothing will slow Ellie down from exacting her vengeance!
Gameplay
Bringing back a lot of aspects from the first game with virtually no changes was definitely a positive move. This gave us the ability to craft items in the same way we knew how - grab material while making progress through sections and use them to craft various tools that you know how to make. Not to mention the general sense of investigating areas to make sure we don’t miss anything important, finding hard-to-see areas for progress, and creatively finding ways to get past both enemies and obstacles.
There were new aspects brought in to the action though. In fact, there were so many new ways to fight people I doubt I went through and utilized them all. You can do anything you can think of though, from basic headshots for a quick kill to shooting a human enemy in the leg to grab them and throw them at an oncoming clicker. Of course, I prefer to sneak around everybody if possible and avoid combat to save materials for the unavoidable fights.
Sneaking was easiest in this game when more than one enemy type was around. For instance, if you are being approached by a group of Wolves in the same area as a few clickers, you can throw a distraction towards the Wolves to get the clickers to begin attacking them. During their combat, you can slip by without being seen. You can also do simpler stuff, like lay prone-style on the ground in tall grass to make yourself hard to see while still making slow progress.
You don’t want to forget to look around in each area though. There will be plenty of notes you can find lying around and often a safe nearby. Safe codes are typically found on notes; sometimes directly and sometimes hidden in the words. You can’t always just look for numbers and have to at least skim the notes if you hope to open each safe. These safes contain tons of material and occasionally a recipe book to let you learn to craft something new.
Overall, there are a few main things you are looking for aside from crafting materials. Scrap metal for upgrading your weapons when you find a workbench, Supplements for upgrading your character with one of many traits, Notes for story clues and safe codes, and Collectibles; trading cards for Ellie and coins for Abby.
I did like how smooth the gun handling felt and when you would upgrade the gun or character to have better handling, less recoil, more damage, or whatever it may be, you could actually notice a difference. It does have a solid set up for organizing your weapons how you would find most suitable and it is even more improved on the controls tightness and player-driven style than the first title was.
AI is a big thing in the game as well as you will find yourself partnered with somebody a lot of times. I never saw my AI doing anything stupid or wasting time, plus they were always at least a little helpful in combat. Their main use to the player, outside of the story reasonings, was to provide a hint system to help guide the player if they spend too long in one area and need help finding where to go next. Luckily, the hint system extends to moments when you are alone as well, so don’t feel that you have to rely on any AI at any point to continue.
Visuals
This was one of the most aesthetically pleasing titles I have played so far! The emotions always showed on the faces and helped bring out the moments, the environment wasn’t just matching and was actually among the better views of the game as it often gave beautiful scenery when not in the middle of combat, and everything in the game just went together nicely to pull off the visuals.
Sounds
Definitely an asset to the game, the music choice and sound effects used help make the game more immersive. There were moments that were heavier than others, even when mid-gameplay, and you could feel the moment thanks to the musical score used to build these moments up.
Replayability
This game is a long one as it is, but there is a lot of things hiding in plenty of optional areas. If you are looking for a different ending or something, this game won’t have any reason for you to return to it. However, if you like fully completing games and going through each area the game offers, there is still plenty to do after you beat the game - given you didn’t do it all on your initial playthrough.
What Could Be Better
Sometimes the game felt a little bit repetitive in the set up itself. While there was no forced backtracking and you were always in a new area, the formula of encounter, then loot, then move just seemed to be all I was doing over and over. Sure, each encounter was a bit different, but unless it was a boss, it wasn’t all that different. Plus, I am pretty sure I killed more humans than I did infected and that just simply doesn’t bode well with an apocalyptic-based horror action game.
While the sound effects they used were spot on the majority of the time, there would be some times that the screams or reaction of the enemies that get shot were a bit exaggerated. What I mean by this is that there was more than one occasion where I shot one in the chest or head, creating an insta-kill, but yet they let out a scream like they were set on fire instead of being given a quick death.
My main complaint though is when there would be parts introduced to the gameplay only to never be seen again after the section. For me, the most noticeable aspect to get a whole scene where I learned to interact with them just to never see them after that scene is the traps. Maybe I just got lucky for the entirety of the game after the initial trap scene, but I doubt that is the case. If you introduce something to a game, I expect to see it again at some point in the game, even if that is only one more time.
Also, there was an occasional performance drop in my playthrough. Sometimes random parts of the environment would just disappear or get blurry, both of which broke the immersion of the story. It didn’t happen a lot to me, but I know it happened more to others and it honestly shouldn’t be happening at all. It is a PlayStation 4 exclusive title so why are there any issues with it running on the PlayStation 4?
Conclusion
The Last of Us part 2 is a game with a gripping story that makes players look at their own moral choice in a tough situation. It had me wondering if I sided more with Abby’s plight or Ellie’s vengeance and then took me through a story that didn’t care about who I liked better. I feel that it was well worth the $60 I put into its purchase, I enjoyed my initial 23-hour playthrough I had, and I am looking forward to going through it even more thoroughly very soon!
