The Last of Us 2 Review/Breakdown: Resting on your laurels
Having freshly finished TLOU2 I thought I would quickly scribble down my thoughts on the game and do a mini review of what I thought of the experience. Overall I thought it was a largely enjoyable experience with some groan worthy moments and excruciatingly long and boring second half.
Spoilers below:
Storytelling: 4/10
Being a largely narrative gamer, I really enjoy a good narrative and TLOU2 has left me rather conflicted. There were parts were the narrative and story flourished in particular anytime Joel was the centerpiece of storytelling in that moment. I have seen some reviews calling Ellie a deep and layered protag but I really didn’t think it was as deep as they portrayed it to be. She was a well defined interesting character for sure but I never felt as connected as I had with Joel in the previous game, Comparing it to another “Zombie” game, I found Deacon in Days Gone a more layered protag, But I do think TLOU2 is the better game overall.
And speaking on Joel, The utter disrespect to his character in this game is severe. The Joel from the first game is gone. Introducing generic father figure 101. The reserved suspicious man from the first game is gone, Openly accepting a random group of strangers from the get go where in the previous game he killed indiscriminately and trusted no one but his brother and eventually Ellie.
Joel’s death in the game was brutal, unpleasant and effective but it could have been better. There was no service to Joel as a character. He didn’t die for protecting Ellie, He died on the ground, not fighting. The ending only making this even more pointless. Some could say this serves a narrative purpose but this doesn’t do anything to fulfill my appreciation for Joel as a character. If I was in charge of re-writing that scene with as little change as possible all I would do is have Joel attempt to get up to save Ellie but be beaten down again and again, Maybe a minute extra time but would have done worlds to serve Joel some justice as a character.
Besides his death when Joel graced the screen he was the highlight of it. From the flashbacks to the beginning chatting to his brother on the way to Jackson. Following that he is used rarely in flashbacks and dream sequence or two.
What follows is a few hours of a great experience storytelling wise. Ellie’s entire first section of the game is great. But the longer I played the charm began to be stripped away from Ellie. The game is brutal and confronting with the violence you cause and see. In one cutscene after you have chased down one of Joel’s killers, Ellie flashes with one of better shows of moral dilemma in the game and Ellie coming to terms with what she has to do to survive and get her revenge. It cuts to her face as she begins to do what they had done to Joel. It cuts to black and when we return to Ellie she is covered in blood and it is heavily suggested the lengths she went to get the information she now has.
The first half of the game was brilliantly portrayed and told a engaging story. The second part of the game I found severely underwhelming, unnecessarily long and drawn out with too much time fleshing out a character. These scenes do some brilliant humanizing of Abby, Someone by this point you played as briefly before she killed Joel. My excitement for learning her side of the story which is very strong and I did understand her perspective but never came to like her as a protag. What really turned me off this section of the game was the length, It could have been easily half the length and be just effective. Their attempts to create an equal protag to Ellie failed. Maybe it was my attachment to Joel and couldn’t forgive her for what she had done, Maybe it was the writers intention but I felt like I was constantly being pressed into liking Abby, There were times where I did start to warm up to her but the length and padding into Abby’s story felt ridiculous for a character I wanted to see dead. While I wouldn’t cut that entire section of the game I would shorten it significantly.
As the game began to find a close there was a touching small section of the game with Ellie and Dina, Which I really liked and the ending of part of that is something I would have like explored more, The mental health effects of what Ellie went through. She has been through a lot and in a very human story that is something that would have been interesting to see from a narrative point of view.
I found the closing stretch just as frustrating as Joel’s death. It was pointless, I didn’t know who these people were. It could have simply be explained and put in the game as they were former WLV’s or Scar’s but instead they were a bunch of random slavers that turned people who broke the rules into zombies and chained them up conviently around their compound for some reason…
And then the final fight, It was a brilliant fight. Really sold the impact and the back and forth and sold the emotions of the moment. And as a narrative device I liked the ending, But as the player invested in the story I felt just as disrespected as I did by Joel’s death. I wanted to see Ellie get her revenge. But instead she let Abby walk. Maybe a poignant storytelling moment. But I think it would have been just as poignant if she got her revenge but had lost everything anyway.
Gameplay: 8/10
Gameplay was fine and enjoyable, Nothing groundbreaking. AI was competent and provided a reasonable challenge all the way through. But I did turn down the difficulty part way through the second half of the game of the game where you play as Abby as I was severely bored and wanted to get through parts of that as quickly as possible.
You’ll soon find that my problems start from when you takeover as Abby roughly half way through the game. You have all your weapons, abilities and progress with Ellie basically reset when you play as Abby. You can no longer instakill some of the infected since Abby doesn’t have a knife for some reason… I was disappointed after the initial arrival in Seattle when the map opened up for a short period I thought most chapters of the game would be open and wide with optional places to explore. But after that the game very rarely opens up.
Graphics: 8/10
The game looked great, But just like the first game, It really showed the age of the system it was sold on and coming from PC gaming for the large part there were lots of graphical hitches and lod problems that aren’t as common on PC. So I look forward to perhaps playing this again on the PS5.
Overall: 6-7/10
A great game that that is bogged down by an overly long second half and a lacking narrative. I absolutely commend the devs for all the work and by what some of the rumors and leaks suggest the narrative problems seem to fully land on a few people at a higher level within the company and not with the ground level devs who’s perfection is demanded and they delivered but with such oversight seeming having points to make rather than focusing on the stories to tell this game sits in a weird place for me where the game sits on a great foundation but the Narrative lets the game down in so many ways.
Would I suggest playing?
Yes. It is an experience to play and a glimpse at what AAA games can do in the future. It successfully has me excited for the next gen consoles and games.
