The Last Of Us Part II - Review

If there's a question on your mind about Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us Part II and just what type of game it is, then I hope this review gives you a fair idea about that. As is necessary to mention, the entire post is spoiler-free, so feel free to read it in its entirety without having to worry about reading something that spoils your experience of playing the game.

First and foremost, I’d like to address the elephant in the room. I’ll go out on a limb and wager that if you have heard about this game, I’m sure you have heard about the extremely divisive opinions that people have about it. Having opinions is fine and it’s great if you want your opinion to be heard, but I absolutely do not promote certain methods (check the tweet below) that people take to make their voices heard. As a gamer, I completely understand being passionate about the games we play and being connected to the world of the game, but to personally call out the people who have made the piece of art in the first place, is something that I cannot and will never support.

Having said that, I fully support the creators of the game. I may or may not agree/like all aspects of the things expressed in the game, but that does not give me the right to attack the creators.

On with it, then...

The Last Of Us Part II is set in near-future versions of Jackson and Seattle. As we learned in the first game, humanity’s numbers are dwindling as a result of the Cordyceps Virus, which finds it’s way to humans and that causes people to lose their minds as the virus (which grows on the brain of the host) becomes the controller of their actions. This has caused people to adapt to, sort of a hunter-gatherer mentality which ultimately leads to adopting a ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ approach to situations. All this happened in 2013 of the in-game calendar. The first game was set 20 years after ‘Outbreak Day’ and the second game is set roughly 5 years after the events of the first game.

At it's core, The Last Of Us Part II is, I feel, about relationships and the actions one takes because of the importance of those relationships in their life.

In The Last Of Us Part II, you play as Ellie, who is immune to the virus, now living in Jackson, in her late-teens. Her and Joel have found a community (which originally, Joel’s brother, Tommy and his wife were a part of) and a life to look forward to. Jackson is relatively peaceful. There’s electricity. There’s plenty of food. And they party and have get-togethers within the community itself. Occasionally, some of the capable members of the community are sent out on patrol to ensure there are no infected people in the surrounding areas of the region. Such is life for them and both Joel and Ellie have come to terms that, after the horrid events they have gone through (the first game), this life is fine for them.

Things however, take a very violent turn for Ellie as she goes through a traumatic experience. Some people wrong her in such a way that it sets her on a path of revenge which leads her to Seattle. The rest of the game is based there. It further elaborates on how Ellie goes about getting the revenge she thinks she deserves to get. Without getting into spoiler-territory, this is the best way I can describe the over-arching story of the game.

Characters and the narrative

Naughty Dog’s writers have an excellent track record of fleshing out the characters of their game in the best way possible. It’s one of the things that made the first game achieve the legendary status it now holds. It’s the same for the characters of this game, too. Writer/Director Neil Druckmann and his team have carefully crafted the characters of the game and it’s evident by the excellent writing and narrative direction of the game. The characters in the game are written with meticulous detail and the overall narrative of the game attempts to showcase that in the best way possible.

Having said that, I still feel that a couple of (very important) characters could have been given a little more structure, from a narrative perspective. Maybe some more details about their backstory which would explore their personality a little more than the game currently does. What ends up happening here, is that the interactions between Ellie and those characters ‘seem’ important because of the dialogues and the interactions, but as a player I’m just wondering how is Ellie so close to these characters that were nowhere in the first game. That causes a bit of disconnect. I (the player) don’t care for the characters as much I (Ellie) do.

Maybe that is something that will be explored in a future DLC (like Left Behind was to the first game). But, as of now, there’s no announcement of that. It might seem that I’m being too critical about such a trivial thing, but my expectation only stems from the fact that Naughty Dog are such masters of story-telling and character progression, that it’s a high-bar that they’ve set for themselves, and I don’t mean this in a negative way at all. I respect the effort they put in making their games and this is just another thing I expect from their games, which I found impacting my experience of The Last Of Us Part II. In fact, this is but a minor grievance I have about the game’s narrative as the rest of the story is certainly one of the best I have played in a long time.

The game sets out to make you feel uncomfortable, uneasy, tense, nervous, and all other emotions in-between, and guess what, it succeeds exceptionally well. I personally was angry when the character was supposed to be angry. I was sad when the characters were sad.

Now read that previous sentence about 10 times and just replace ‘anger’ with 10 other emotions and the game made me literally feel those emotions. Such is the magnitude of the impact the game has on you while you play it. Very few pieces of content, across all forms of entertainment, have been able to deliver such a unique experience and Druckmann and co. have etched themselves as master storytellers. This kind of story-telling is extremely rare in video games and something I’ve experienced in only a handful of games in the last 20 years or so that I’ve been playing games. From a story/narrative/writing perspective, the game is certainly one of the, if not the best game there is.

Gameplay

The gameplay is a neat iteration of the first game. It builds on it in meaningful ways and never feels overwhelming, never too difficult, nor too easy. The difficulty options in the game are ‘Very Light’, ‘Light’, ‘Moderate’, ‘Hard’, and ‘Survivor’. The level of challenge I experienced was optimal for the ‘Moderate’ difficulty I was playing the game in. Much like the first game, the level of enemies and the resources you can scavenge from them or from the world depends on the difficulty you choose. However, what’s different this time, is that there are aspects of the game that you can assign a difficulty level to. For example, if I’m someone who wants a challenge during the enemy interaction sections, I can set that to ‘Survivor’ but the resources difficulty can be set to ‘Light’, since I don’t wish to spend an extended period of time trying to find them. This is a welcome change and I wish more games had this option. This gives players a good amount of flexibility and allows them to play the game how they want to play.

All interactions with all enemies can be completed either stealthily or simply going ‘all-weapons(not always guns, mind you)-blazing’ head-on. The game feels amazing in both play-styles. This is slightly different from the first game as that relied on stealth a little more than aggressive playthroughs. Whether it’s a pistol, rifle or a shotgun, all guns pack a punch and feel absolutely amazing to handle. Every gun feels different and the weight of it is reflected in how much the target reticle moves while aiming and how much Ellie gets a kickback after every bullet fired. Every bullet fired must count as they are scarcely available throughout the world and the tension it creates is an important facet of the survivalist world the game wants to portray.

This brings me to the melee attacks. My oh my, the melee attacks. This game’s melee feels like someone has decided to take the punches, kicks, stabs, and baseball bat flings from the Mortal Kombat games, make it as grounded and realistic as possible, and add in superb voice acting of people shrieking and writhing in pain as they are being stabbed, choked or straight up breathing their final few breaths. It will make you uncomfortable but that’s what you will need to do to survive in this world. The melee attacks are satisfyingly disturbing. What adds to the disturbing aspect is that Naughty Dog has even gone as far to name every single human-NPC so that the moment you kill someone, a colleague of theirs will yell out the name of the person you just decided to finish off. Who knows, that “random-looking-Mike” you killed might just have a family or friends or siblings that he was looking after.

Crafting is an important part of the game, too. Throughout the game world you can find magazines that open up a different variety of crafting options. Better health packs, better ammo, silent ammo, bows, Molotovs, are just some of the things you can craft. It’s not too elaborate like it might be in some proper RPGs, but it’s iterative of the options given in the first game and the main reason why the game promotes scavenging for materials.

Graphics/Animations/Performances

The graphics/animations/sound are all departments that Naughty Dog does not need any comments on. Even before the game was released, gamers had a certain level of confidence on Naughty Dog in terms of these aspects, simply going by their track record. But Naughty Dog have truly exceeded expectations, and then some. Every frame of the game has a certain level of beauty in it, despite the harsh setting of the world. The lighting plays such a crucial role in delivering that experience. HDR implementation is great and it adds immensely to the experience.

The animations in the game are a cut above the rest and that includes NPC animations, too. Every movement of every character is pronounced and feels realistic. The way Ellie runs, jumps, crouches, goes prone on the ground, gasps for breath if she runs a long distance are all top-notch. The animations are yet another reason why the gameplay feels so tightly controlled and the melee attacks have an added feel to them.

This brings me to the performances of the characters. Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey and Troy Baker seemed to have given a part of themselves to their respective performances and that is evident in the superlative voice-acting of the game, especially Ashley. She has taken Ellie to a different level and the difference between the Ellie of the first game and the second game is very realistically portrayed. There are certain scenes in the game that tugs at your heart because of the nuanced performance by Johnson. Whether it’s the lines they were given or even some nod or gesture they perform, coupled with the writing of the game, this is hands-down one of the best games in terms of the performances by the actors involved.

Conclusion

Whether it’s the technical aspect of the game, the gameplay, the performances of the voice-actors, the story or the narrative, everything adds up so well, like one cohesive unit, that it ends up being one of the best games of this generation.

Having said that, The Last Of Us Part II is not a “happy” or “fun” game, in terms of how people consider “games” to be. Certain sections of the game are truly stressful to play through. Some might argue and say that considering what’s going on in the world at this time, this is a game that’s not needed at this time, and I understand that sentiment. I just hope people simply respect what the creators of the game set out to create and experience this game for what it is – what the cycle of revenge could mean and how that cycle can impact you, or sometimes more importantly, even the relationships you have around you.

Overall Score: 9.5 out of 10

The Last Of Us Part II is available now via retail as well as the PlayStation Store. The game was reviewed on a PlayStation 4 system with a purchased copy. The total playtime was 26 hours and 49 minutes for one playthrough of the game on the ‘Moderate’ difficulty setting. All images used in this review are from PlayStation’s official The Last Of Us Part II game website page.