The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4) Review

 The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4) 3.5/10

[THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!]

"What the fuck!?"

That was my reaction once I beat this game. The Last of Us Part 2 is an action/horror survival game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, with the game being released on June 19, 2020 for the PlayStation 4. The game would later get a Remaster for the PS5 and ported to PC. Prior to the game’s release, leaks of the game’s story were released online, creating a lot of hate towards the game and its controversial story. Despite this, Last of Us 2 would go on to be crowned Game of the Year and became one of the most polarizing games in history.

As a huge fan of the first game, I didn’t want to believe the leaks. I tried to stay away from any spoilers, with myself only getting exposed to a few memes here and there. I chose to keep my preorder and eventually I got to play it. As I played through the game’s story, I found myself growing more sour towards it by the minute and by the time the credits rolled, I was livid. I don’t care what all the apologists say about the game: this shit sucks and I still can not believe it won Game of the Year and is STILL regarded as one of the best stories in gaming history. I am genuinely baffled because this just ain’t it. I have a lot to talk about, so let’s begin.

Our story takes place 4 years after the events of the first game. Ellie is now 18 years old and Joel is starting to become an old man, with the duo living with Tommy and his wife Maria in Jackson. One day, Ellie and her girlfriend Dina go on patrol to make sure no infected are getting close. A blizzard hits and the two take shelter inside a house. While stuck, Joel and Tommy are clearing another section that's filled with infected. Enter brand new character Abby. Abby and her crew are hunting down Joel for personal reasons. Eventually she finds him and corners Joel and Tommy. Joel gets tortured and is on the brink of death. Ellie eventually rejoins with them and is then restrained by Abby's men. Ellie then watches as Abby bashes Joel's head in with a golf club. Ellie and Tommy are left alive. After some mourning, Ellie vows revenge against Abby. She tracks her down to Seattle, which is where the rest of the game will take place.

So before I get into the main story points, let's talk about the characters. Every single main character in this game felt off, except for Tommy. I can kind of understand Ellie being the way she is because of teenage angst and because of the revelation about what happened at the hospital. Even then, she felt different from how she was in the first game. As for Joel, Joel is not who he’s supposed to be. You mean to tell me that Joel, an overly cautious and rugged man would just casually befriend a group of strangers? Hell, why did Tommy do this too? This whole scene of Abby and her men subduing Joel and Tommy was completely out of character. And then we have our new characters Abby, Dina, Jesse, Owen, and several others. All of these new characters kind of suck. I kinda liked Dina, but that’s about it. I do have to ask: why did the WLF allow Mel to go to the front lines? She’s 8 months pregnant! She shouldn’t be anywhere near any action and instead should be taking care of herself for the baby.

So the story is split into two perspectives: Ellie and Abby. A big chunk of the game takes place in Seattle in a 3 day time span. The game continues with Ellie as she hunts down Abby and her friends which eventually leads to a confrontation on day 3. Right before this fight, the game then cuts to Abby's side of the story and restarts back to day 1 of Seattle. The game then *tries* to develop Abby and have us feel for her. Apparently, Abby's father was the one that was going to perform Ellie's surgery back in the first game. Obviously Joel kills him and rescues Ellie. Abby has then sworn to get her revenge on Joel. I'm not going to get into Abby's side of the story because it's useless. There's no reason for her to have so much screen time and "development". Also, because the game flashbacks with Abby back to Seattle day 1, there's no tension with Abby because you know that she's going to be fine by the time she reaches Ellie. All the shit that Abby goes through is for naught because the pacing for this game is garbage.

There's two main issues with the game: The pacing and Abby herself. Certain sections of the game last way too long while other sections and cutscenes are cut too short. There's also some unnecessary parts of the game (such as Abby's entire side of the story and especially her unwarranted sex scene with Owen). Then there's Abby herself. The only character development that Abby should've gotten is 1. Joel killed my dad so I want revenge and 2. Her connection to the WLF (the militia force that runs Seattle). There was no reason for us to learn about her entire squad (except Owen and Mel). Her entire story about her meeting the Scars was completely unnecessary and didn't add anything to the greater story of things. Some minor world building, but I genuinely didn’t care for this. But even with all of this screen time and development for Abby, at the end of the day she still felt like a very shallow person. The game tried so hard to have us care about Abby, but by the end of the game, I could care less about her. The game has this side plot about 2 Seraphites that went AWOL and Abby forms a bond with them and it feels like they were trying to recreate what Joel and Ellie had and IT DOESN'T WORK! You can't recreate what they had like that. 

The ending is trash. Ellie tracks down Abby to Santa Barbara. Abby has been kidnapped by a group of raiders and is being used as a slave. Ellie finds her and releases her from a pillar that she was hanging from. Abby then rescues Lev and they start heading for a boat to escape. Ellie says "I can't let you leave" and they have one final brawl. Ellie is about to drown her and then in the last, final second, she sees one last flashback of Joel and she lets her live, telling her to get out of there. This ending is fucking shit. Ellie went all of this way to kill her and in the final moment she's like "nah I can't do this". She was literally losing sleep and having nightmares, saying "I need to finish this" so that she can have closure. And the whole "final flashback of Joel" thing is bullshit. If Joel was on a revenge quest to avenge Ellie, he would've killed Abby right then and there.

One thing I hate about this game is how Ellie reacts to the revelation of what happened in the hospital. She was knocked out and then taken in by the Fireflies. They were going to perform surgery on her that would kill her. They never asked her if she wanted to actually go through with this. All they said was "bring her here so that we can make a vaccine". They never said "this surgery will kill you". Because of this, they were going to kill her without her own consent. Joel was in the right and in the wrong. Joel was right to rescue her, but he should not have killed that doctor. This was an entirely shitty situation, but they never asked Ellie if she wanted to give up her own life for a cure. This dilemma is never brought up and I hate it. Ellie never says "thanks for saving me, but you should not have killed that doctor. It's my decision if I want to give up my life. Not the Fireflies and not yours." Something along those lines. Because this is never addressed, Joel and Ellie's relationship go into shambles for literally no reason. I was really hoping the game would address this, but obviously that's not the case.

I do like the overall plot for the game though. A revenge story to show just how much Ellie has grown since the first game is a great step in the right direction. It's how this idea is done that is bothering everyone. First off, Ellie should be blood lusted similar to that of Kratos from God of War. She has the capabilities to go that far. Sadly, this is not the case. Once she reaches Seattle, she seems to have toned down which sucks. I wanted to see her go on a rampage like Tommy. Instead, she becomes a depressed little bitch that couldn't finish what she started. Now had the game gone the Assassin's Creed 2 route and be like "killing you won't bring him back" and become a better person because of this experience, I would've been fine with this. It would show that Ellie had matured drastically since Joel's death, but that's not addressed either. Like I said earlier, you can't just flash Joel for two seconds and expect the audience to understand what's going on through Ellie's head. Joel would've murdered Abby in that instant. This ending completely nullifies the entire journey and by the end, you're just like "what the fuck was that!?"

Before I get into gameplay, let's talk aesthetics. Graphically, the game looks phenomenal. Just like with every AAA Sony exclusive, the graphics look great. This game is in the same league as God of War 2018, Death Stranding, and Red Dead Redemption 2 in the graphics department.

The overall feel of the game is very dark and gritty, except for key moments here and there. There is a moment where this is just bullshit. So once Ellie and Dina arrive at Seattle, the game kind of pushes you to explore its ruins. During this, Ellie and Dina are taking this like it's some kind of fun field trip instead of a revenge quest. This completely shatters the mood of the game for a solid 2-3 hours. Instead of relentlessly hunting down the men that killed your adoptive father, Ellie goes to a music store and starts playing love songs for Dina. God I hated this part. Again, another pacing issue. 

The sound design is great and the music is just as good as the first game. Gustavo Santoalalla returns for the score and it's fantastic. The soundtrack for the game is one of its highlights. I also need to shout out the game’s sound design and accessibility features. I’m not one to use these myself, but I do appreciate the extra effort that went into this stuff.

Finally we have the acting. It’s hard for me to say if I actually enjoyed any performances here because of the shoddy writing. Despite that, I do think Ashley Johnson did well as Ellie. Also shout out to Troy Baker (Joel) and Shannon Woodward (Dina). Also, as a fan of Laura Bailey, I really didn’t care for Abby, which is a shame.

Gameplay is exactly like the first game but with some added improvement. The first major thing is that you can jump and go prone. Being able to go prone was a major plus for me. Made stealth sections much more interesting. There's also a dodge button which makes melee combat more entertaining as well. There are also added skill trees for you to progress in to upgrade Ellie and Abby. There are also new weapons and items to use, as well as collectables, but I never bothered with these lol.

The level design is very mixed for me. All levels have you go from point A to B. Certain sections are just horrible, while other sections are great. A good majority of these sections start off great but then they last WAY TOO LONG. I mainly felt this way when I was playing as Abby, but I also do remember this happening with an Ellie section (right before you team up with Tommy). But this reveals a larger issue with Naughty Dog’s game design. This worked with Last of Us 1 because that’s just what worked best for that game and its story. With Last of Us 2 trying to be more experimental and open ended, having restricted levels like this makes everything not flow as well as it should. I do think this game would have benefited from a pseudo-open world design, similar to God of War 2018. Doesn’t need to be a 3D Metroidvania like GoW, but a similar design would have been way better for what Naughty Dog was trying to go for.

In addition to all of this, there's a new infected type: The Shambler. These things are worse than Bloaters. Its very first introduction was amazing and truly terrifying. I was expecting this thing to be a boss fight. Immediately after its introduction, the game treats them as another infected for you to deal with on top of runners and clickers. Because of this, Shamblers completely lost their uniqueness and they became a massive chore to deal with. You have this amazing, horrifying concept for a new infected type and they squandered it because of over saturation. Human enemies are more interesting to deal with, especially the Seraphites.

I will say though that the boss fights are one of the highlights of the game. My favorite fight in the game had to be the Bloater boss fight during the second flashback with Joel. Just the whole set up and the fight itself was truly great. Another fight I want to go over is Abby vs Ellie 1. So after you go through Abby's side of the story, the game starts the fight. You're playing as Abby as you fight Ellie. This fight was surprisingly fun and challenging. All the upgrades and tricks that Ellie has will be used against you. It's like fighting a mini Joel. There’s also the boss fight with the Rat King at Ground Zero Hospital. This thing looked like it came straight out of Resident Evil and was a decent challenge. It actually kinda reminded me of the Mr Freeze fight from Batman Arkham City, except much more horrifying and grotesque.

Overall, the game is a mess. A shoddy story that's horrible because of terrible design choices and the gameplay is decent but is ruined by inconsistent level design. I can not recommend this game to anyone, even if you're a fan of the first game. This game completely destroys everything that the first game brought to the table with terrible choices from director Neil Druckman. This game sucks. I hate it. And I don’t want to think about it anymore.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.