The Last of Us Part 2/Remastered (4/5)
Again, expect an addendum for specifically Part 2 Remastered.
I have played through Part 2 A LOT more then I have the first game's story. As such, I have A LOT to say about it. Also because, I feel TLOU1 doesn't have THAT much to say about it. EXPECT SPOILERS. I WILL be talking about the game's ending and story progression.
This game's ending sucks ass. Ellie's Jackson and Seattle Day 1 are great. Abby's chapters up to Santa Barbara are great. I feel that Ellie's latter Seattle parts and The Farm progressively get worse and worse as the story goes on. But, let me talk about the half/half character split.
I like it. I think it works really well.
I feel people put themselves AS Ellie, rather then experiencing Ellie as her own. The game’s Abby half is showing the consequence of Ellie, not the player. It’s interactive TV, experience it as such. You are bringing these characters to THEIR decisions and THEIR written path. This game is NOT an rpg, do not experience its story like it like it is. You will miss the point of Abby if you fail to recognize that.
Killing the dog as Ellie and then getting back to that as Abby with a “wow that was fucked up” shouldn’t make you go “why are they telling me I'm fucked up”, it should make go “Wow, Ellie is fucked up!” because that was Ellie’s written decision. You aren’t playing as John Fallout, so don’t experience the story and actions like you are. You are not responsible for Ellie’s or Abby’s actions, don’t act like you are.
Getting back to the game's actual story progression. I feel Ellie's motivations fall apart as the game continues on and on. I can at least somewhat understand during Seattle, as she IS there I can understand her really pushing to finish the job. However, everybody else in her life is going "don't fucking do that. that's stupid. why are you doing this." and Ellie just keeps pushing on without giving herself any real reason at that point. I think it truly falls apart in Day 3. Like yeah sure, Tommy is still out there, but even the people around Tommy have the same feeling, that he shouldn't have gone out over it. That vengeance in Ellie doesn't sit right because It doesn't feel like she should even be pushing for it anymore during Day 2, let alone Day 3. I don't understand having Owen and Mel killed other then shock value. I'm not even sure why Owen was protecting Abby so bad.
And then we get to The Farm, and I feel every motivation Ellie has falls apart. She has a family, she has a good life, and she completely throws it away for a vengeance fight she DOESN'T EVEN WIN. She's having horrible PTSD from the whole thing, yeah, sure, but that doesn't really back up her motivation. I think Tommy was stupid even for coming. And like, yeah, sure "oh but if Ellie didn't come Abby would have died anyway!" but, I just think you can just get rid of Santa Barbara entirely.
However, I do think the fight with Abby and Ellie is one of the best scenes in the entire game. Despite me saying all that shit about that, it gives a unique experience seeing what WAS you playing the game, with all the abilities and weapons, now fighting you. It's a super unique experience and feeling that I don't think I've ever seen another game do. I've seen a few games where you fight another playable character, but it never feels like you're ACTUALLY fighting what you as a player would have available to you as that character. This fight truly feels like you're fighting what player Ellie actually has to her disposal.
I do think the best way to describe Part 2's gameplay upgrades is that it's basically TLOU Turbo. It is significantly faster and sprinting has a lot more use cases in fighting. Really everything is faster in this game, Joel is quite slow of a man. Weapons are generally more accurate then weapons in the first game. Even Ellie's automatic weapon is significantly less inaccurate then Joel's was and actually a pretty decent option in combat.
General movement has been improved, I feel exploring is just significantly better in Part 2. The way characters naturally move and interact is also better, and I feel like they consistently move realistically as they provide conversation between each other. They really do convey character feeling in movement really well, especially when Abby is walking across the crane.
The game is designed pretty well, I never found myself struggling with puzzles in this game like I did TLOU/P1. There's parts where if you miss the correct way to go, your partner will call to you and actually point to where to go.
I absolutely love the upgrades to Human AI in this game, mainly in relation to voices. Every single enemy GENUINELY has a name. Other enemies will call out a certain person is dead. These call outs are SO useful, they give you such an easy sense to know where they are without listen mode. I heard a lot of shit for this being something they did to 'guilt the player', but it really adds to the game's combat mechanics and I think it was a good move. It doesn't really feel like they're guilting you for killing. It makes the world feel more real.
I haven't really touched on the graphics, and that's because there's not a lot to say. The game is EXTREMELY realistic, and I think the first game to truly hit photorealism. It was AMAZING to see this game running on PS4 Pro at 30fps. So much of the world is actual physics props and it is a lot of fun to mess with them. One of my favourite effects is the glass shattering, It's so satifsying every single time. The game added ropes as a mechanic, mostly related to some kind of puzzle. The rope physics are super impressive, they move very well and are used decently often. Seeing ropes realistically collide with the world and then be able to use them is still crazy to me.
Remastered Addendum: Now, I REALLY like No Return. However, this is not a No Return review, I will do that separately. Remastered somehow managed to break the Story Mode entirely. Every single time I play the story I get constant issues with the game not loading areas. I'm on stock PS5 hardware, It's not the PC port at all, I'm not using any external drives. It's just outright broken and I don't know how they managed to break it. The original game runs PERFECT on my PS4 Pro and PS5 through BC. Now, I recorded all my footage for this review via Remastered, because I knew I was going to do No Return. I have nearly 15 minutes of footage of this game having some kind of issue and I only played for about three hours total. Part of Seattle Day 1 as Ellie, Eastbrook Elementary plus most of The Tunnels, and Part of Seattle Day 2 as Abby, The Shortcut and The Descent. I've had these issues since Remastered launched and I've reinstalled this game 3 different times so it's not an install issue at all, It's just broken.
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