The Last of Us Part II Review (Adravil)
Works good on the Steam Deck OLED. Thanks!
At 15 W TDP and 800p resolution, we receive 30+ fps. There's a dedicated Steam Deck graphics preset with, for the most part, Low settings + FSR 3.1.0 and a 30-fps-targeting Dynamic Resolution. On these settings the game may not look astonishing to someone, but to me, it looks very good at least, especially as for the Steam Deck. But, of course, the beginning of the game is quite calm, and we'll see what fps and image quality we'll get when the real action starts taking place.
The XeSS upscaler (of unknown version) is also available. As well as AMD Anti-Lag 2 and AMD Frame Generation. A bit strange that I don't find HDR (I may be blind), but since in most games where I test it, it just washes out colors instead of increasing contrast, I don't see it as a big loss.
If you try to disable Dynamic Resolution and upscalers, but keep any Anti-Aliasing (say FSR AA), you'll get the same ~30 fps (again, in the calm environment at the beginning of the game). What, in other words, means that (1) the Deck can handle the game at 30 fps on its own, so the game should (at least should) look good in most cases (I assume at least rainy forest in the second half may be hard); and (2) that FSR and Dynamic Resolution will kick in only during graphically intense scenes (action).
No denuvo, very nice graphics and good optimization, $35 in my courty -- I count this as a more than an adequate price. I think it's worth it.
The story is probably known to everyone, so there's really no point in explaining it. But still, if for any reason you've never played it: I can recommend it to you. To me, it wasn't too gore (what's good, because I'm not interested in pointlessly meaty, bloody, zombie themes), but instead it was psychologically heavy enough for me, and so it was pleasing. Kind of a sad and scary movie, with a not less sad ending. But the key thing is that scariness is caused not by enemies or environment. It's caused by playable characters themselves. Them, losing their minds -- that's what led me to respect this game. Love it or hate it -- the quality level of this game, from my point of view, is nowhere near to be questionable.
Separately, I'd like to admit and praise accessibility options incorporated in many Sony games and especially in TLoU series. Life happened to decide not to test me as harshly as some of the others (at least yet), but I know that many people (let even them be a minority on the global scale) across the planet value that you care about them. And I do value that too. And if they allow me to be their voice for a moment -- I'd like to say "thank you". I want them to not feel separated, and you make that happen. Maybe not for all, but at least for some. Thank you.
Take care, have a peaceful life, and see you around. Don't hesitate, think what you do, but do what you must.