I remember when the first game arrived on the PS3. After having been exposed to games like Left 4 Dead, Doom, and other games centered around zombie/demonic entities, I avoided this one for the long time because I thought it was going to be another pointless boom boom shooty shooty type of game, though the logo did admittedly pique my interest a bit. When I got my first PS3 some time later, even though I had invested in a fair few games, games such as this and Uncharted (which I'll tackle in future reviews) weren't ones that were on my radar.
It wasn't until I had gotten my first PS4 that I decided to give both Uncharted - The Nathan Drake Collection as well as The Last of Us Remastered a try...and boy am I really glad I waited on both properties.
First off, I'm sure both games looked fine enough for their PS3 versions, since remasters don't remake a game completely if you ignore how the term has changed nowadays, and focus on the actual remasters which just shine up what's already there to look nicer on a better system/specs. So keeping
that definition in mind, you have to give some credit that these were already pretty good looking games dolled up a bit to have some of that newer-gen shine and polish.
Second off, both blew me away in how interesting they both were to play for differing reasons. Uncharted was very much a different type of Tomb Raider series with a male protagonist that was normally just as interesting in different ways as Lara Croft was, and The Last of Us was a really unique for its time story driven survival type of game with some unique elements sprinkled in.
What were those elements? Well, let's diverge from this and get right into it. And just as a heads up I will definitely be getting into spoilers for the first game and expansion as well as the second game (which I'll be putting spoiler tags for the second). If you want to avoid them, don't open the spoiler tags.
StoryYou star as Joel Miller, a former single dad turned scavenger after a fungal infection grips the world (well, the US at least) and sends it into a post apocalyptic dystopia where infected are rampant in the streets and people fight to survive. After a job goes wrong, you're tasked with making sure a young girl named Ellie makes it safely to the Fireflies; a group that causes chaos in the streets with the intention of having folks rise up against the tyranny of the FEDRA troops. As it turns out, Ellie may be the key in bringing humanity out of this dystopian present and back into some semblance of normal once more.
Alright, so rather than my usual thing, I'm going to break it down into the good and bad aspects. Thankfully, the goods far outweigh the bad, but there are still bad areas that exist.
The Good*The Pacing: This is a game that really takes its time with the story, but never in a slow and tedious type of way. Characters have enough time to develop and grow and act as people, dialogue is given a lot of care, and the characters are given plenty of time to process and feel emotions without moments dragging on forever. I never found myself going "Oh my god get on with it already" because of slowness, but at the same time I never had a hard time keeping up with what was going on because of things going fast. This was a very perfectly paced story.
*The theme: For some folks, outside of maybe Marvel movies the idea of intermixing contradictory themes can create a potential mess of confusion and just feel that it's messy, unrealized, and unfocused. The Last of Us is one of those exceptions to where it juggles the themes of surviving in a hopeless dystopian zombie apocalypse in a darker, occasionally intensely darker tone...but also moments of lighthearted calm and peacefulness, giving the players a bit of light in sprinkled throughout those darker moments. It gives the game a wonderful balance of specks of hope throughout this apocalyptic timeline...but at the same time gives consistent reminders that this isn't a happy vibes story and that there is always this feeling of hopelessness, despair, and overall it just juggles what emotions you should be feeling and does it extraordinarily well.
*The Characters: Everyone in this game aside from the long list of enemy minions and infected has a purpose and a meaning. Joel is given a very tragic backstory via the prologue to help players understand his inner turmoil and to help them understand why he is the way he is. Ellie, likewise, is given an equally tragic backstory via the Left Behind expansion as a way to help players understand her a bit more, and what drives her personality. Both are given ample dialogue and moments between each other to build a sort of father-daughter/friendly chemistry between them, and we get plenty of moments to witness as they grow as characters, make mistakes, make difficult decisions that may be morally grey or outright selfish versus right, and other interesting and exciting moments. Likewise, outside characters such as Joel's brother Tommy are given perfect time on the screen to give us an idea of him as character before and after the outbreak. Marlene is shown to be a somewhat complex character that loves Ellie almost like a big sister or mother, but reluctantly is willing to sacrifice her for a greater cause. Sam and Henry are excellently crafted characters in showing how far a bond between brothers can tragically go, and the game isn't afraid to go as far as it takes. As mentioned, characters are given plenty of time to feel emotions and mourn, paving a proper road to character growth and development through showing as opposed to telling.
*There is no clear villain: Aside from the bandits and infected, there is no real clear antagonist in this game. There's minor threats such as the leader of a group of survivors that resort to cannibalism for a steady food source, but even then the game makes it clear that there's more to this group than what we see on the surface level. The Fireflies are a group that causes chaos around the nation, but with the intent of giving freedom back to the people away from the clutches of the FEDRA soldiers who impose martial law in this new world. FEDRA imposes ruthless aggression and martial law, but with the intent of keeping the infections down, keeping rations stable, and overall keeping some sembiance of security even if it's not one that will keep morale high amongst the people. The before mentioned cannibalistic group is absolutely bad on paper, but is presented as a group that just wants to survive and has to resort to drastic measures to keep their people alive and fed, and is revealed as only going after the Joel and Ellie because Joel killed many of their people in one of the areas they visited during their journey to find the Fireflies. Even the main character and Marlene have negative edges to them with Joel having been a scavenger that killed innocent people to survive, and Marlene being alright with sacrificing Ellie to ensure a cure is made that can save humankind. In the end, it's a game of exceptionally morally gray, and I actually really love both how it had that rather than a clear villain as well as how it handled it.
*The World building: It's very easy to say that most of the work is done for the game creators since the game takes place in real life locations such as Boston. That, however, is not entirely true since there's still a lot that has be done to distinguish it from the actual place and make it something unique to the game. The world of The Last of Us very much does that with giving good explanations as to everything such as why so much has been destroyed (due to consistent bombings by the military to contain the virus and failed), letters that can be found throughout the game that explain events from before and directly after the outbreak as well as various tidbits about things that happened right before you arrived there, and also various dialogue and letters that explain what caused the outbreak, how different folks handled it or handled being infected themselves whether bitten or otherwise, and so on. The Infected themselves are also interesting in their variety from the Runners that are freshly infected and thus look much more human, to Clickers who were infected some time ago and thus have much more fungal features (as well as other quirks) and are normally found in places where spores thicken the air, to Bloaters who are some of the worst and most dangerous type of Infected encountered in this game who were infected for several years and look not even close to human in the slightest.
The Bad*The Split Narrative Focus: This is exclusive to the Left Behind Expansion, and amusingly is something I'll actually be praising the second game for since I feel like it did it a lot better. Doing a proper split narrative is difficult, and I don't feel like Left Behind did it well nor even needed it to be perfectly honest. The DLC has Ellie and Riley for the cover image, and to its credit much of the DLC is devoted to the story of the two of them and I thought it was very beautifully done. The problem is that for some reason it also decides it wants to cover the gap of when Joel was hurt in the University skirmish and the events with the cannibalistic group after Ellie had stitched him up. I may get disagreement on this, but this part of the DLC was largely unneeded and added nothing to the story except to A) Explain how Ellie was able to patch up Joel even though we didn't really need to know that (It's like explaining how a character was able to make themselves a bowl of cereal that we saw them eat in a later scene. Sometimes we don't need to shown every detail) and B) Show that Ellie had grown to care for Joel enough to want to help him...something that we'd already seen in the base game scene when she was crying out for him when he passed out, and when she was both looking for medicine for him and throwing the before mentioned group off his trail by giving them the runaround so that they wouldn't find him. Overall, the base game already established enough to where the DLC bits that jumped to that were 100% unneeded filler that could have added much more to the Ellie/Riley part. On top of that, it kept jumping in between the two like an episode of Once Upon a Time, where Ellie would enter into an area or get pinned down in the present, and then it'd jump back to the past and continue the story of Riley/Ellie, and vice versa. When I was eager to see the next scene of the past part of the DLC, it'd jarringly switch back to the present day for a continued treck through a decently destroyed looking mall, but an overall "meh" adventure through it with a singular purpose versus the Riley/Ellie bits having significant character moments for both of them. Overall, was not a fan and was really wishing it was just focused on Riley/Ellie.
GameplayAlright, so really everything about this game screams boom boom shooty shooty game at first glance once you get into the meat of it. Your character has guns that they can upgrade at modding stations and have limited ammo that they pick up on the field or from folks that they kill on occasion, you can sneak around and do stealth kills on unsuspecting enemies, melee attack them with breakable weapons you can find...overall this game really screams at being that type of game.
However, let me stress that this is absolutely not that kind of game, and is much more of being able to survive and be smart about when/when not to fight. And in fact, the game even suggests this early on by letting you know that ammo is a very tough thing to find (though depending on your difficulty mode this isn't entirely true). But this is especially emphasized when you meet some of the Infected...particularly one known as a Clicker (one that can't see you, but can very much hear you when you're too loud, and is immune to a stealth attack unless you have a shiv handy).
In more situations, you want to be incredibly stealthy and sneak past enemies, or stealth kill if you absolutely have to. Like most stealth-type games, enemies have sightlines that, if you stay in them too long, they'll attack until you either kill them or run and hide. You can also use bottles as a distraction tool not only to lure enemies away, but in the case of areas with infected and human bad guys you can lure the infected to attack them and give you a chance to escape.
Adding to this is the Listening mechanic, which if you've played games like Tomb Raider or Batman with the sense mechanic, you'll have an idea what this is...although it does have some quirks compared to those games. As I said, it's a listening mechanic, meaning you'll only see enemies while they're making sounds. At first, this is an easy peasy way to get around enemies since they're always making some sound whether it's a runner/clicker making noises, a group of bandits constantly talking, or something of the like. As you progress through the game, human enemies will be sneakier and quieter, making it harder to track them with this mechanic unless you find a way to get them to make noise or wait it out long enough for them to say something...adding more to the thinking on your feet and surviving smartly aspect. I'll also add that you sneak even slower when this mechanic is being used, and I strongly recommend it for moving past or sneaking up on Clickers without them sensing you (since even sneaking too fast can make sound, and sneaking while using the Listening mechanic will give you the perfect sneaking speed for them).
Along with weapon modding (which you gather scraps that you find to use), crafting is a big emphasis in this game. As you find random ingredients on your travels that you can snag from opening drawers, finding on dead bodies, or just find laying around, you can craft things on the go from health kits and shivs to different types of bombs to use on enemies. Be very careful with when you do this though, as accessing the crafting menu absolutely does not pause the game...so enemies can still find you and/or attack you during this. The same goes for when you have enough pills to access your upgrades...and if you use a health kit (which will not heal you until it's filled the shown amount completely...and an enemy can interrupt it at any time before completion and render it useless). Weapon modding is essential in helping reduce movement sway while aiming, or helping with factors such as reload speed, kickback, or similar with your guns. This is normally done in locations free of enemies, so there's usually no worry of potential attack during this.
Environment is a big factor in this game beyond things just looking pretty. You'll be using areas to your advantage as cover from searching enemies, vaulting over holes in the wall, crawling through holes, swimming, finding secondary routes when you encounter a locked door, all the good stuff. It's never to a degree like something such as Uncharted or Infamous where it'll be parkour and having light feet. On the contrary you're more likely to be calling on your partner to get help vault them over a ledge and finding a way up, or using a ladder to climb up higher, or using a plank as a makeshift bridge between buildings. In one particular city you'll have an added obstacle of explosion traps that you either have to work around, disarm with a bullet/arrow, or trick an infected into walking into.
Overall, as I said this is a survival game in every way that matters without throwing a hunger/thirst/sleep meter in the mix and just making it more about surviving being killed by others. Outside of forced fighting areas (there's a couple), it gives the player various ways to get out of situations whether it be casualty free, using stealth to take down enemies, or to run in guns blazing and hope you don't get killed.
GraphicsAs I mentioned, this is a very pretty game. There's that saying of how some games are more like interactive movies than games, such as Until Dawn and similar genre games. The Last of Us is very much an interactive movie in a much better way. Rather than just walking around and making choices via dialogue and occasional controller movements (or non-movements in Until Dawn's case), The Last of Us is still very much a game where you're doing a lot while also enjoying the story and cutscenes, and all of it flows like a beautiful interactive movie you're experiencing on the big screen.
The graphics in this game very wonderfully emphasize this feel...especially on the PS4 remaster. The environments to this day are still stunning and I love the overall scale to things. Cities actually felt like cities in both look and scale despite the added touch of them being virtually destroyed and nature-retaken cities. I'll give a more apt comparison in TLOUP2's descriptor, but I was just overall impressed with how this game handled the cities that you work through, as well as the scale of the buildings themselves that you visit.
I also mentioned that this game really did a wonderful theme balance between light and hopeful, and dark and foreboding. This, again, was especially well emphasized in the graphics when it came to simple aspects such as the weather, where there would be moments of beautiful sunny days with greenery growing from part of the building you were currently walking through, to snowy blizzards with incredibly heavy fog, to terrifying areas covered in fungus and the air thick with spores where you knew it was only a matter of time before you heard the terrifying sound of the Clickers.
Like another game which I'll mention later, I was impressed by even how well character visuals came across, and really applaud how well the motion capture was done in this game. I don't know how well it came across in the original version, but in the remaster it came through splendidly. Expressions were never questionable due to restricted graphics/movements and it was always easy to see just in look alone how someone was feeling, or that they were very seriously trying to process something being said. Tormented characters were able to show it off very well in expressions, and you as a player knew those moments when someone was on the verge of ending their own life simply because you could read it incredibly well just in how the game's visuals expressed the character's body language and emotions on top of the top notch voice acting (which I'll cover in the later section).
The places themselves had a lot of personality, and I never found myself rolling my eyes at identical places being used, since every visited place had their own unique quirks and charms to set them apart. I mentioned this in the story bit, but even the Infected were very wonderfully handled with not only how different they were in their overall nature, but also how they looked based on how far into infection they were...with the more recently infected looking more or less completely human, and the longer infected gaining more and more fungal features until you got an infected like the Bloaters which were anything but human anymore.
Overall, for a PS3 game I was beyond impressed at how well it made itself look on multiple levels, and it was great seeing that on an even cleaner scale with the PS4 remaster. Even today I still find it hard to believe this was a game from practically 9 years ago since it still looks like it could have been on par with a game released within the last 4-5 years.
Music and soundsI know I usually put sounds with voices, but I'm changing it this time because whereas music is normally just background noise, this is one of those games where it has a bigger purpose. A couple of times, I've likened this to being like a truly interactive movie, and much like the graphics, the music also greatly emphasizes this fact. Much like a good movie soundtrack, The Last of Us uses music in key moments when it wants you to feel things or help emphasize a moment, and of course when you encounter an enemy and want to charge in guns blazing (and on occasion when you sneak). Other than those moments, music for the most part is completely scarce so that you can just take in the environments and overall game. There's occasion where a song might play in the background while you explore, but it's much more common that you'll be traveling in silence with only the occasional sounds of nature, enemies conversing, clickers/runners making their sounds, or gunshots in the distance.
The music that does play is very well done, and I actually do love that it's not a dominant feature that plays constantly throughout the game, since in my opinion it'd feel as out of place as if a Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack was playing through every single moment throughout the movie with no quiet moments. This game, like a good movie, had a really good balance of those quiet moments and times where music was needed and thusly presented.
Sound wise, everything fit very well with the vibe of the game. The sound of clickers actually had me somewhat anxious whenever I would enter an area because their sound was incredibly distinct that it was always easy to identify. There were no unintentionally awful sounds that were jarring or out of place, and overall everything in this game sounded excellent.
VoicesLike basically everything else I've talked about, voice work in this game was absolutely top notch. Troy Baker is always an excellent choice for a voice actor, and I couldn't imagine anyone else for the voice of Joel since he gets across the character so perfectly. I'm actually incredibly nervous for the apparent upcoming live action series with Pedro Pascal because, despite him being a good actor in his own right, Joel just has a sort of gruffness to him which comes across incredibly well with the voicework by Troy, and I don't have any faith that Pedro Pascal is going to be able to give that same kind of performance to where something is going to be lost which is no fault of his, his voice just isn't at the level that Joel's should be and that Troy Baker was able to get across flawlessly.
Ashley Johnson is a similar vibe with Ellie, for differing reasons. I was actually really surprised when I saw that Ashley looks almost nothing like Ellie since it's very easy to forget. And much like Troy with Joel (who I always have to remember looks completely different than Joel), it's because their voices fit so well with the characters that I automatically assume in my head that they really didn't alter the character much from the motion capture (IE Norman Reedus' Death Stranding character literally being him), and that the character talking is really just what the voice actor looks like.
That's pretty much the vibe I get with all the characters and really how well I think the voice acting was handled. Everyone sounds exactly how they look in the game. There was nobody grating, nobody giving a less than stellar performance, and overall it was very well done all around.
ReplayabilitySolo wise, aside from playing the expansion again, this is really one of those games that doesn't need multiple playthroughs. Not because there's nothing to do, since you can always try to find the various letters and try to mod your weapons/upgrade your character to their max limits. But more because much like a good movie, it's one of those things that deserves one great playthrough and then putting it aside once you finish so you can savor what you experienced. Or in the case now, move on to the sequel to continue the story.
Multiplayer wise, I'll let you know if I ever bother to try multiplayer. Not every game needs a multiplayer option to it, and The Last of Us is absolutely no exception to that.
OverallOverall, don't be like I was and avoid this game because you might think it's a pointless boom boom shooty shooter game. This game deserves absolutely all the recognition that it was given, as well as all of the awards it was given and nominated for. This is a very beautifully made game that goes far beyond the surface of what folks may expect of it, and tells a really fantastic story (minus unneeded bits on the Left Behind DLC) on top of having still to this day lovely graphics, excellent voice acting, great gameplay, and a great musical soundtrack. If you haven't played this game before, I highly
highly recommend you snag a PS4 and give it a shot.
Alright, so I've talked up extremely highly of the first game and for the most part the expansion...so how does Part II hold up in comparison as a sequel?
Weeeeeeell, that's kind of a tough one. Much like the first game, it actually took me a good while to try this game out, although less time than the first since Part 2 only came out in 2020, and I played it within this last month up until yesterday. Unlike the last one though, I was actually interested in playing this one ever since it was announced, but lacked the means to do so since I had given my PS4 to my uncle when I was supposed to go to China. However, I did admittedly have a bit of pause when I had started hearing that were there controversies with the game in how it represented some of the characters, and I was admittedly a bit nervous.
Playing through it though, I'll admit it was somewhat problematic...but definitely not for what any of the supposed controversies were saying. The LGBTQ+ elements were handled just fine, Lev was a perfectly fine representation in my opinion of a trans person...especially since the game makes it 100% obvious that his coming to terms and coming out of it was exceptionally recent, and the issue with the deadnaming was also a non-issue in my opinion for reasons I'll get into when I discuss the story. Also, I'll be hitting heavy spoiler area with the story and will contain it to spoiler tags, so read at your own peril if you're wanting to play this still.
So where was it problematic for me? Well, let's dive into it, shall we?
StoryContinuing right where The Last of Us left off, Joel and Ellie have made a life in Jackson after the ending of the first game. Joel confesses what he did to Tommy, who swears to take Joel's secret to his grave. Ellie still feels like something is off with what Joel told her, and over the years their relationship gets rockier. During a routine patrol one day, everything goes completely wrong when a group murders Joel in cold blood. Swearing vengeance, Ellie takes off after the group no matter what the cost, doing whatever it takes to bring the group to justice for what they've done.
Alright, so damn, where do I even begin? First off, I love that the game jumps right away into showing Joel really feeling the weight of what he did at the end of the first game. It's not something he did and got over, but you can tell it really was something that emotionally was a huge thing for him that he has to live with. I also love that they're still going with Ellie just knowing deep down that she's not getting the whole story even though she outright is trusting what Joel is telling her.
I also really enjoy that the game really keeps that intense prologue feeling that the first game had, but changes it up a bit. It's no longer a tear jerking kind of prologue ending where you want to cry along with Joel after he lost someone close to him...but now it's absolute shock as you watch the character you spent the entire first game as being killed brutally while Ellie is forced to watch and attempt (and fail) to beg for them to spare him.
For the most part, the game keeps the vibes story-wise that the first game has to a somewhat lesser but definitely understanding degree. There's still some happy moments peppered in, but these are normally either in the beginning or in various flashbacks to earlier times rather than the present. This is actually completely understandable given that the core premise of the game itself, and thus the feeling of the game, is 100% completely different. Whereas the first game was just about getting safely to the fireflies so that they could have the cure...this game is completely about vengenence. Making the people who killed Joel pay with their lives for what they did...at least for Ellie's part of the game.
Yes, again this is a game with a split narrative...only this isn't a split between just flashbacks in time. In this game, you control another character named Abby, who you'll know very quickly as the woman who led Joel's murder. At first, you'll be very confused as to why this switch happens since the first instance is in the prologue. You'll get an idea very early on that she's after Joel when her and her friend/ex continually mention "him." And as the player, you'll be pretty surprised (but also pretty not) when the twist happens leading up to the event.
But that's not the only time you'll play as well.
This game essentially has 4 acts: The prologue, the Ellie chapters, the Abby chapters, and the "Why did they do this?" chapters. Once you finish the Ellie chapters, you'll be met with an event that happens in which the scene cuts out on a cliffhanger, only to start the Abby chapters which you play Abby's story in how it parallels with Ellie's, and learn about her as a character leading all the way up to that earlier cliffhanger, which plays out until the end now. After that, you have my least favorite part of the game which I call the "Why did they do this" chapters which virtually serves little to no point except to make characters we know and have grown to love/understand suffer Dumbass syndrome. It's a section that completely took me out of the vibe of the game and completely lost me, before ending on a somewhat terrible note different than 1's morally grey ending.
Alright, now that I've said that, let me get into spoiler territory so I can get in even deeper.
Spoiler
First off, I actually loved the small insignificant-ish event that ended up being a major twist in this game.
If you assumed that Abby and their group was after Joel because he killed the Fireflies in Utah...you're only partly correct. In reality, it's because you ruthlessly killed the Doctor that was about to perform the operation, who it turns out was Abby's father. The game foreshadows this early into Abby's chapter when she's looking for him in the zoo area, and Owen refers to him as "Doc" thus suggesting that he's a doctor. The game continually emphasizes this in the same scene with him being told that Ellie made it to Utah and that she's the one that's immune.
The game then drives this home a bit more by having a scene with him and Marlene, with Marlene initially 100% reluctant to kill Ellie for a cure because of how much she cares for her, only for it to be revealed that Abby's dad convinced her...although somewhat reluctantly himself when Marlene questions what he'd do if it was Abby in Ellie's position. The game then drives the point home completely by replaying the scene where Joel killed him, revealing that he was in fact the doctor killed, and also revealing that Abby had made her way there when hearing the alarm...only to find Owen standing over her dead dad and figuring out that Joel had killed him.
This single insignificant act being turned into a twist was a really great choice. Not only did it give Abby an actual understandable motive (Joel killed her dad, so she killed him in vengeance), but it also followed the morally grey thread of the original game and really gave it extra purpose: Was Abby the villain in this considering what Joel did? Was she justified in her action, and was Ellie justified in wanting to hunt her down?
Unfortunately, I'll get more into that in a bit when I hit the "Why did this happen?" area. Right now, I'm going to pivot to another area of the Ellie chapters I enjoyed...which was the Joel/Ellie flashbacks.
This game had quite a few of them to strengthen Ellie and Joel's relationship, even through the rocky moments. In my opinion, these were some of the best parts of the story...especially with the eventual reveal of the truth of what happened at the hospital. Admittedly I was worried that it was going to be a post-death kind of reveal where Tommy would eventually blab about it, she'd hate Joel past his death...yadda yadda. I don't like badly done liar reveal scenarios, and that would have been one of them.
The fact that it was something Ellie just had a hunch on and figured out herself by going back to the hospital was great. I loved how she confronted Joel on it not in a confrontational way, but in a "Tell me the truth and I'll go back with you and stay no matter what, lie to me again and I'll leave for good." way. I liked how despite how upset she was in learning the truth she did indeed go back and distance herself from Joel, but you learn that eventually she grew to be alright with him again because despite being angry at what he did (since she felt like he took away her life having meaning), she wanted to try to forgive him and obviously eventually did. Overall, once again the Ellie/Joel bits were a huge strength of the game, even if much of them were flashbacks.
Dina and Ellie's chemistry was also very well established, and I enjoyed both of them as a couple. Jesse and Manny were exceptional characters that their deaths surprised me a bit. Overall, characters in these chapters were very well done and very well handled all around.
The Abby Chapters continues this. After the cliffhanger where it leaves you unsure of Ellie's fate when Abby confronts them, the game takes a sudden shift to that zoo scene I mentioned earlier with Abby and her dad. It then goes into those mentioned areas where the game shows you what she was doing during each day at the same time that Ellie and Dina were in Seattle.
What I love is that this game drives home that Abby is absolutely not necessarily a villain as much as just someone who wanted to get some vengeance and closure on her father's killer. After killing Joel and sparing Ellie, Abby went back to Seattle to live her life with her group known as the Washington Liberation Front...a large group composed of many ex-Fireflies as well as others who were fed up with the FEDRA and retaliated much like the Fireflies did before they largely disbanded after the events in the first game. Those who disagreed with the WLF and believed them to be as tyrannical as the FEDRA formed another group known as the Seraphites, who congregated on a small island on Seattle...though they also are all over the mainland killing any WLFs and trespassers.
It's nice because again this is a game where neither faction is completely good or evil. The WLF shelters people inside of the the Stadium (which is absolutely modeled after Safeco field) where they have fields, homes/shelters, plentiful supplies, and overall have the feel of being generally peaceful areas with outposts in various parts of Seattle. However, the negative side is that Isaac is ruthless against trespassers and Seraphites (which the WLF folk call "Scars" since they do in fact tend to have physical scars. Likewise, the Seraphites themselves outwardly are presented as religiously peaceful folks who will give each other words of affirmation and prayer, and seem to have a lovely well put together life on the island they inhabit. However, very early in they're presented as religious/cult fanatics, making constant murals and shrines to their "Prophet" that they worship, and leaning onto the religious contradiction vibe by banning the use of old world weapons...but keeping exceptions when it suited them. Likewise, despite this peaceful exterior they're also strategic killers, having a huge advantage of stealth and using whistles to signal each other when needed. On top of this, they're shown to be close minded and unfavoring towards rule breakers or "sinners", shown by their stringing up and killing of "apostates" who were once seraphites as well as any other trespassers or WLFs. Despite all of this, again they're not inherently an evil group so much as an incredibly morally misguided group who believes deep down that they're doing good, and doing what they need to survive.
Now, on this note I'll go into deeper why I said I don't agree with the deadnaming controversy, or really any of them that surrounded Lev, the transgender character.
Part way into Abby's chapter, Abby is knocked out and almost killed by the Seraphite leader in the scene that you may know from one of the early trailers where she's hung on a noose. She saves Yara from being killed, and both are saved by Lev who appears to save Yara, who in turn has Lev cut Abby down for saving them. From then on, the three of them escape and eventually form a bond with each other when Abby attempts to help Yara with her shattered arm, and eventually goes back to save them after realizing she had left them in potential danger.
While Abby and Lev go out to look for the supplies to help with amputating Yara's useless (and lethal if left alone) arm, they're met with resistance by Seraphite soldiers on the way to the sky bridge, who continually refer to Lev as "Lily" to drive home to the player that Lev is in fact a transgender character.
At a glance, I can see why some would be angry that Lev is being deadnamed in the game. However, there's things to consider here:
A) The village that Lev and Yara are from was established to be such a religious-fanatic gender-traditional type of village that they even mentioned that Lev's assigned role was to be a wife to one of the elders. On top of this, they even had a rule against women shaving their heads as they considered it a sin (and sinners were more than likely put to death), so it was obvious from the get-go that this was absolutely in no ways a progressive kind of village with any progressive minded people, with even Yara admitting she yelled at Lev for his inner feelings at first and told him to keep them to himself before she came around.
B)Even if there were other progressive folks in this village, the game also established that the time between Lev accepting himself for who he was, to cutting his hair to feel like himself, to running away with Yara because of being now a fugitive because of his transgressions was exceptionally short. In fact, if I recall, at most it was a matter of a short few days between each, with maybe a day at most between him cutting his hair and him and Yara running away...so nobody in his village would even know him as anything but his deadname.
So the outrage for that was confusing, considering especially A, but also B.
The story between the three of them was great, and I especially loved the journey through the island. I was actually somewhat devastated when Yara was killed since I had grown to like her as a character, and really loved the sibling relationship her and Lev had and was actually rooting for them having a life on Santa Barbara. I love that Lev was there with Abby when she discovered Owen and Mel murdered, since it really added to their dynamic that he was there with her and was even the one to give her the map that showed where Ellie's group was.
And speaking of that, now I'll dive into talking about why I hated the "Why did this happen?" chapters.
While this section technically starts in Santa Barbara after the game's obvious false ending, I'm going to start right where the game's story problem starts...which is that afformentioned cliffhanger.
I'm starting it there, because this is when Dumbass Syndrome starts to infect the characters.
First off, I mentioned how Abby ambushes Ellie's group at their hideout, which is the theater they've been hiding out at. At first, I was highly excited and anticipating what was going to happen after Ellie revealed that she knew why Abby was after them: because Joel killed the Fireflies in Utah and deprived them of being able to make a vaccine using her. The scene cleverly revealed that, had Abby's reaction, made it look like she was going to kill Ellie, and then switched to a new scene, and I was really anticipating what was next.
When it went through Abby's episode, there was that huge "aha" moment when it was revealed that the doctor who was going to do the operation was her dad, and that Abby's whole motive was avenging the death of her father. So after going through all of that, I was even more eager to see what would happen next. Was it going to be revealed to Ellie in the continued scene why Abby killed Joel? Were they going to begrudgingly make up and go their separate ways and learn to move on after all the shit they'd been through?
Actually, no. When the cliffhanger bit continues, it turns into a fight against Ellie. When you're about to kill Ellie, Dina interrupts and you almost kill her. Only when Ellie reveals that Dina is pregnant does Abby begrudgingly spare her on the condition that both of them leave and never come back, and then walks away.
I was almost floored by the stupidity of that scene alone. At any time when Ellie came out with her "reveal" about Joel, Abby could have stopped, said something along the lines of "For the record, I killed Joel because he killed my dad." And made it known that her dad was the surgeon who was supposed to operate on Ellie. After the unnecessary fight with Ellie when she decides to spare Dina, she could have said it as she was leaving after telling Ellie to do the same. For some reason, someone somewhere decided "Hey, so let's not have Abby correct Ellie's misunderstood reasoning and tell her the truth." And let that scene play out as it did.
But wait, there's more.
After that, Ellie and Dina decide to take up Abby's generosity on sparing their lives and live on a farm like Dina has dreamed of. Dina gave birth to her and her deceased ex Jesse's child JJ, and it feels like the game is hitting a sort of sweet epilogue/ending with Ellie telling JJ that she'll tell them her stories someday when they're a lot older, suggesting that she's settled down despite having some obvious personal demons that she's still working through.
And then the game should have ended there.
But no, there's more.
Ellie and Dina get a visit from Tommy, who has been putting feelers out for where Abby is, and finally has a lead in Santa Barbara. Dina, of course being the rational adult here, insists they be done with this Abby vengeance BS and learn to move on and be happy. Tommy, obviously catching some of Abby's earlier Dumbass disease, berates Ellie and Dina because Ellie made him a promise to make Abby pay, but Ellie doesn't want to do that anymore, so Tommy has a temper tantrum like a child over it despite being a fully grown adult. Ellie, of course, decides "Why try to move on with a family?" and tries to sneak out only to be caught by Dina, who embraces her and pleads her to move on and find closure and enjoy being a family with her and JJ. Despite Dina's pleas and eventual threat to not be there if Ellie leaves when she realizes her pleas aren't good enough, Ellie decides her vengeance is worth more than having a family and leaves.
And this is where the game completely lost me for good, and never tried to get me back. From this point on, you're hunting someone that you as a player know isn't an actual antagonist but was in fact doing her own path of vengeance after both her father and her friends were all killed, just as Ellie is now doing. Not to mention she in fact spared Ellie twice despite all that Ellie did in her own misunderstanding of things since she had no desire to kill Ellie in the first place...just the person she swore vengeance on. But the game continues on this path like it's completely okay because Ellie needs that closure on Joel's death.
And despite seeing the crazy folks she encounters in Santa Barbara and the barbaric things they do to folks, even commenting on how barbaric and crazy they are...and seeing an obviously very weak Abby hanging on a wooden pillar pleading to be let down while watching her struggle to free Lev and escape to a boat while even guiding Ellie to where the boats were despite everything...even that wasn't enough to not only deter Ellie from her at this point ridiculous vengeance crusade by having the severely weakened Abby fight her, but to the threat of Ellie killing Lev if Abby refused to fight in her severely weak state (which you are treated to seeing in Abby's facial expressions as you the player begrudgingly are forced to fight her). The game does give Ellie a pretty bad injury in her side after a sharp broken branch stabs her when she's caught in a trap and strung up, but it was a completely unnecessary fight that I thought really hurt Ellie's character and walked back on some of the great character development she had.
The game then ends with Ellie unsurprisingly going back to the farm after that ridiculous fight and letting Abby and Lev go, seeing that Dina kept true to her word and left for good, and Ellie going up to her art room to play guitar while we learn about how she decided to try to learn to forgive Joel for what he did (which we already guessed happened since the whole game's plot was a crusade to avenge his death...something you wouldn't do if you carried a hateful grudge for the guy for what he did).
Overall though, that whole bit was a mess. Abby was a dumbass for not revealing why she killed Joel to Ellie when Ellie said what she thought was the reason, Tommy was a dumbass little manchild because he got angry over Ellie not wanting to kill Abby after everything, and Ellie was a dumbass for eventually caving and losing Dina over stupid vengeance, pursuing it despite the fact that Abby was severely weakened to the point of threatening someone else's life over it, and not going through with it essentially making that whole bit pointless outside of suggesting it was "closure" at the cost of losing her family over it. It was a section that could have been entirely cut and the game could have ended right at Ellie finding some form of closure at the farm with Dina and their child.
But like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it continued past where it should have ended, and it was a pretty dumb continuation.
On to the world itself, once again The Last of Us Part II really outdid itself. For most of the game beyond the occasional flashbacks in the Ellie chapter and the...last act, the game mostly takes place in Seattle. Again, the size and scale of Seattle actually feels like the real city itself, and I can say this with a bit more certainty since I've actually been to Seattle a few times in the real world, and it very much felt like Seattle right down to the weather being normally rain to where the characters even comment on how anyone can live there when it rains all the time (which is absolutely true). To compare to another game known as Infamous: Second Son, this is the apt comparison I was talking about earlier when I was mentioning city size. Infamous Second Son is a great game, don't get me wrong...but Seattle in that game felt really small and compact compared to the real place...like they had taken all the known landmarks such as the Space Needle, science center, and some other known buildings and placed them into a smaller generic looking city. The game had some tall-ish buildings, sure, but it just felt like it was missing that massive sense of scale like, say, Spiderman for the PS4 would have when web-slinging through there.
Seattle in Last of Us Part II has a completely different feel to it. Despite being another closed-open world type of game where you get large areas to explore, but the city itself is essentially story progressed (meaning you auto-go to different parts via the story, and can't 100% free travel all over), the open areas themselves are normally large. There's different views that show off the scale of the city, building interiors are sizeable...overall again, it feels like you're actually trecking through a city rather than a "city."
If I had one minor gripe, it's that the game doesn't take advantage of Seattle's landmarks and use them as locations aside from the focus on the Seattle Aquarium (which you visit once as Ellie and multiple times as Abby). The Space needle had a really minor mention as an "Our village is near this" and you get a view of it in the distance, but you never get to visit the dystopian version of the Space needle itself (which is now on an island since much of the land surrounding is now submerged in water). The Pacific Science Center is never given a visit in any form, which it could have been interesting as one of the locations to find one of Joel's killers (which were instead another hospital, school, an unrelated one was at a TV station, two were at the aquarium, and the main lady herself came to you). In fact, a few of the big locations were re-runs including a hotel, office building, subway, and overall they kept it surprisingly generic when Seattle has a lot of unique locations they could have used, even if they had to rename them like they did with obvious Safeco field that was used as the WLF base. Overall, the world building was once again nice...but there was a lot of missed opportunities for unique places to explore in dystopian forms versus area-type retreads.
So yeah. Mostly story was fine outside of that "Why is this happening" section and the mostly fine but not explored to the best potential world building.
There were some nice additions to the Infected, which I'll get into in Gameplay.
GameplayAlright, so one area where this game really shines a bit more than the first is gameplay.
As with any good sequel, most if not all of the original gameplay in the first game is left virtually untouched and is instead expanded upon. I'm actually having a really difficult time thinking of anything was that was removed from the first game. Crafting is still a thing, weapon modding/pill upgrades are still a thing, scavenging for items is still a thing, the fighting style of being able to decide between stealth kill/no fighting/guns blazing for most scenarios is still a thing, distracting enemies with bottles/bricks is still a thing, using the environment to get around in the ways mentioned for the first game is still a thing...basically everything that was a thing in the first game is still around.
Now, let's talk about the additions.
The first noticeable addition that I mentioned right above is the addition of new types of Infected (along with the continued existence of the runners, clickers, and bloated in this game). The first is the much more common Stalker, which had a total of 2 appearances in the first game. This is quite possibly one of the more annoying of the Infected since your Listening mechanic won't work on them since they make absolutely no sound until they move to attack you. They can also potentially be one of the easier types of infected to sneak up on, since they like to hide and peek out, and rarely move even when you move around (unless they see you move, then they may follow you quickly and quietly). If you don't see them though, don't be surprised if you're walking and you turn around only to see one come up to you.
The Straggler is also a more common-ish Infected which is somewhere between a Clicker and a Bloater. Like Bloaters, they can throw little acid-spore type bombs at you that do gradual damage, though they're a bit smaller, quicker, and slightly easier to kill than a Bloater. Also like bloaters, these are infected have been such for years and are very much no longer human looking (unlike Stalkers who have been infected for less time and only are starting to get fungal features...but not to the degree of Clickers).
Finally, there's the one time boss known as the Rat king, which is essentially a mega creepy looking infected that has been such for decades...basically if one were to venture a guess, it's patient Zero in Seattle from when the infections started appearing 20ish years ago.
Along with the infected additions, there's also the addition of human characters that now wear helmets to avoid direct one-kill headshots. Obviously this doesn't add exceptional difficulty, but it's a thing.
What does add some actual difficulty is the addition of dogs that some human enemies will bring with them. And these dogs aren't just the lunging type like you'd run into in a game like Wolfenstein, but these dogs in fact have a second purpose of being able to track where you are once they get a scent. If you're using the Listening mechanic and see a smokey trail that leads to where you're currently at, it's in fact the trail that a dog has found to lead it (and its human) directly to you even if you keep moving. So you have to find ways to literally throw off the dog's trail, which you'll know you've done successfully when that smokey trail disappears and the human walking it in fact makes a remark confirming so.
As mentioned, some of the human enemies known as the Seraphites are themselves a bit more strategic in that they're much quieter and thus harder to track on occasion when using even an upgraded Listening mechanic, resorting to keeping actual audibles to a minimum while normally using precise whistles for communication when on the hunt.
If you hated the fact that Ellie couldn't swim in the first game and were worried about water being your worst enemy for that reason in this game...worry not. Ellie has learned how to swim (with flashbacks showing how and when), so swimming is once again a thing in this game, and can even be used to sneak up on enemies or avoid gunfire on occasion if you swim underwater. Boats are also an occasional addition in this game to get around, though they're not used often...so don't get used to them.
There's also an emphasis on guitars in this game, taking what was basically a cute little remark from Joel in the first game and making it a somewhat focus in this game. This takes the form of an occasional mini-game where you use the L joystick to move to the highlighted note/cord and use the touch pad to "strum" as it moves to a new note/cord. It was cute for a moment or two, but the game I feel like puts a little too much into it, and even have optional ones scattered in Seattle that do really nothing and I don't believe even net you anything for playing.
Finally, on occasion you'll have to balance on boards/narrow walkways. It's nothing new that you haven't seen before in games that use this mechanic...mainly making sure you stay in the center, since going too far on one side will throw you off without any chance of being able to recover.
And that's about it. As I said Gameplay has largely been untouched outside of those above additions, and even crafting shivs as Abby to use against Clickers still exists, despite Elly having her trusty knife and thus never needing to craft shivs when you play as her.
GraphicsAgain, this is a beautiful game that really does well in emphasizing what it needs to. Seattle despite being destroyed looks like a mix of beautiful and obliterated due to military strikes. Desolate areas look wonderfully so, areas meant to look light and beautiful are stunning. Once again, this is an area that absolutely thrives with carrying out the theme of the game very well, and I have absolutely no gripes with how everything looks.
Characters are wonderfully updated versions of their past game selves without going overboard. Ellie looks like she should as someone who aged 4 years since the last game, as does Joel and Tommy. The new characters of Dina, Tommy, Manny, Abby, and all of them look great. The updated Infected look fantastic, and again look like more updated versions of how they should look on a new console versus anything wildly different like some folks might try when given a better system/specs to work with.
Overall, this is probably my overall favorite area of the game. It just overall looks very awesome in the lighter, stressful, and even creepy or cringe-inducing moments (the ones where big violent acts are happening).
Music and SoundsOnce again, this was mostly a great area all around. The soundtrack once again really tended to fit the vibe when it appeared, though it was mostly kept to intense scenes that needed to emphasize particular feelings/ emotions that it wanted the players to feel. For the most part, I vibed with the soundtrack as I did for the first game.
Now, I say "for the most part" because I'm going to circle back to the guitar parts. I'm probably going to get flack for this, but I don't like what feels like forced music which includes singing in a game that doesn't need it. Joel's (questionable to "ehhhhhhhhh") singing bit in this game felt incredibly forced because they had his character mention wanting to be a singer in the first game. And because he wanted to teach Ellie guitar, her singing (I'll refer to you to what I said about Joel's singing) felt similar...like it had to happen because Joel did it, so now she has to because you can't play guitar and not sing.
Again, it was largely unneeded. The game could have cut any of the singing and stuck to them playing guitar, or even cut the guitar emphasis, and the game would have functioned completely fine. It felt like a weird mechanism that was supposed to act as a type of coping thing for Ellie, all because of an almost throwaway bit that Joel says in the first game that they decided to expand upon greatly in this game.
Sound wise, I'll echo what I said for the first game:
Sound wise, everything fit very well with the vibe of the game. The sound of clickers actually had me somewhat anxious whenever I would enter an area because their sound was incredibly distinct that it was always easy to identify. There were no unintentionally awful sounds that were jarring or out of place, and overall everything in this game sounded excellent.
This is virtually the same here. All the sounds very much vibed with the game, and the sounds for the new stuff/new infected continued to fit those same areas. Everything sounded great here.
VoicesAfter praising the top notch voice acting in the last game, I actually am surprised that I didn't enjoy it as much in this game. For the most part, everyone did great. Troy Baker still does great a Joel, and overall most of the voice actors were excellent.
Admittedly, I was a little bothered at how much they lowered Ellie's voice to make her sound like she was older. It also doesn't help that at many points at least from my perspective, her voice actor almost sounds somewhat disinterested in the dialogue...which I guess you could argue is more Ellie having that kind of disinterested personality as she's grown up, but I just feel like it's more the VA than the direction she was given, like maybe she didn't entirely want to come back for another game. I actually had the same problem with Abby too on occasion, to where sometimes it felt as if the VA wasn't giving her best performance because she didn't entirely want to be there, or something to that effect.
For the most part though everyone did perfectly fine, but it just weirdly in areas felt like a small step or two down from the top notch work of the first game.
ReplayabilityLike the first game, this is kind of a split thing, at least in my opinion.
On the one hand, this have stuff going for it that would make it game some folks may want to 100%, such as collecting all the documents, trading cards (Ellie) and quarters (Abby). So in that regard, it's has some replayable value to it.
On the other hand, the story itself is pretty rough both intentionally and on occasion unintentionally to where you're more than likely going to want to one-shot this game and then put it away for a while. Personally, I don't see myself wanting to do another runthrough of this game for item collecting, much like I'm perfectly fine putting the first game on the sidelines for a bit rather than doing a completionist type of run.
OverallOverall it's a harmless game where I think the controversies surrounding its review bombs were overblown. That being said, it definitely does have its share of problems when it comes
