The Last of Us Part II Review (boRZ)
Will be talking mainly about story, blacking out major spoilers but I will be leaving it open for spoiler talk a lot here for my final review, now that I've finally got to play it. FYI, TLOU is my All time favourite game and I don't see anything ever topping it.
I didn't like it...
I came into the game with a negative view but, to put it simply, Yes, I didn't like the second part of the game and my perception fell off a cliff having to play with this group of dumb terrorists. I think I had the game at 5/10 halfway and that's including the start of Abby scenes. I was getting a good laugh at the stadium and the pregnant lady there at the WLF is ... truly inspirational. If I was forced to have more scenes around the heavily pregant chick I would develop a brain eating fungus irl too. I'll leave it at that.
There were a lot of points critiquing the game and I think everyone was valid, and people praising the game can praise it too. But, I believe the Director of this game and team that made it, appluaded themselves and gave themselves the awards for multiple game of the years like they had made the Godfather of video games. When they didn't even make Godfather part 3 in my opinion. The whole part with Abby drained me, annoyed me and infuriated me to the point where I was thinking about skipping the cutscenes on my first playthrough. In TLOU (OG) I've played it almost 10 times and only skipped the cutscenes once in my playthrough just before part II came out, just to knock out the acheivments. I began skipping the lore letter pickups and rushed to get the game finished here, but the game just forced you to walk so many times it pained me. Also I think there should be a tag here for 'Visual Novel' too because the cutscenes got excessive with Abby. And also helping everyone up when they fall and tying their shoelaces and saying, 'Hey are you Okay?' over and over again.
Playing with the enemy faction confirmed to me a theory in the first game that if all went to plan and they did the surgery in the first game, the fireflies would be the p.o.s that they are and use it to seperate themselves from people, use the cure for evil. That's evident in how they act and even they can't stand each other and complain, and torture people daily.
There are moments when the bad guys just straight up play puppy dog eyes and then say and do the most evil thing in the game (even more sic than the start of the game), like, "and he deserved it." Right after saying, "I still have nightmares about that day." These people are truly sick and are played to be the nicest and sweetest people. I have to go and get an eye check up soon to reset my eyes because of how many times I rolled them into the back of my head.
So, about that scene. It didn't really bother me. Joel is an old man and he's lived his life. Another thing was, walking into an ambush, there were three instances that I could believe there in that sequence of events, but I can't agree with ratting out your whole base of Jackson to a group of heavily armed people you don't know while you're on your daily task of clearing out and taking note of infected and anyone coming near the heavily guarded town of Jackson. It honestly gave me a little bit of a chuckle at how dumb that little bit was.
There is enough playtime with Joel and Ellie together here and in their own flashbacks that exceeds the playtime of the Left Behind DLC so that's good. And some I never saw and really, really enjoyed some conversations and playthrough with Joel and Ellie.
I think it would've hit harder if Ellie Killed Abby in the end. But, they obviously had a future plan.
I didn't agree at first with people saying that there were too many cuts(flashbacks) until I played it and did find a problem with it. It's not confusing, I do however think the game is, confused, in a sense. It would definitely hit way harder and people would like Abby more if there was no cut after the Seraphite capture, to the hanging, and escape scene with the two kids, you could say I hated that choice and it took the wind out of me to not get to continue playing through that section without a distraction in between.
Don't get the placement of the dance scene, having it at the end and not at the beginning. It had no real substance there. It was one of the first bit of footage shown off from the game(the shot of the lights above Ellie's head), you'd have to cut/show that scene again with the part of Ellie yelling at Joel. But, it really fits at the start of the game.
FINAL NOTE:
I feel like the whole second half of the game with Abby is all completely pointless. You'd have more substance if Ellie was shown wiping her asss than any of the scenes with Abby. Or the scene at the start with Ellie sniffing her armpits, there is more depth and character and lore accurate and story in that action alone than anything Abby and her Wolf friends ever had in the whole game, and they really tried