The Last of Us Part II – A story game that has amazing graphics and a messy story

The Last of Us Part 2, sequel to the first game, is a third-person singleplayer action game where you play as Ellie and Abby on a revenge journey through a zombie apocalyptic world while collecting parts, crafting items, and killing enemies.

The best part of the game is the graphics and details. The scenery is breathtaking and details even on the grass look amazing. Areas feel big and full of items to collect, like crafting parts and notes. Roaming in these areas feels relaxing, but in combat, the stealth way to kill enemies is frustrating in the big wide areas since they seem to see me anywhere. Mostly my combat started with stealth but always ended in a big shootout.

Game mechanics haven’t changed much from the first game: you move and shoot in third-person and craft items like bombs to kill enemies. The gameplay is enjoyable but gets repetitive after a little while. There are few puzzles with ropes and safes to have a little change, but the rope puzzles feel easy and every safe code is always somewhere near.

The worst part of the game is the story. It’s two separate stories of Ellie and Abby and how their stories merge. Ellie’s revenge story drags a lot and mostly nothing happens: it’s just going to a location, killing a person in a cutscene, and repeat. Every kill in cutscenes makes Ellie more gloomy, but it felt weird since the people and dogs killed to get there didn’t matter at all.

Abby’s story feels more deep and meaningful. A lot happens when you play as Abby, like a great boss fight and a conflict between two factions, but it felt like Abby was out of place. Abby’s story felt like it was full of side quests and it didn’t have anything to do with Ellie.

First games side characters had a story arc. Here most of the characters are there just to die. The most potential story wasted was Ellie’s partner Dina’s story. Dina is with you from the start of the game with almost no context of who she is. Their love story and other characters stories felt like they’re skipped to focus on revenge.

As a zombie horror fan, it felt disappointing that clickers (the zombies) and the apocalypse had no part in the story. It was fun to fight clickers, but they were just in-game obstacles. In the first game, every character did what they did to survive, where even the evilest character had reason in his actions. Here everyone has a safe home and food, clickers aren’t a constant threat and characters kill for revenge, religion, or just being plain evil for no explained reason. Maybe it’s human nature to kill for these reasons when everyone has food and a safe home, but here it felt like poor story writing because the game didn’t really feel like talking about human nature or how things changed between the two games.

The revenge story is bland, generic, and doesn’t feel to take the first game into much consideration. The story structure made this all a messy experience. It went back and forward with flashbacks even within flashbacks. The story felt like it came to a climax many times but it always kept on going.

Play this game if you want to experience a game with great graphics, but if you want a story and characters as great as the first game you might get disappointed.

 

Game info

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Developer: Naughty Dog

Platforms: Playstation 4

Release Date: 19.6.2020

Genre: Action-adventure

PEGI: 18

The pictures are promotional pictures from Playstation’s official site of the Last of Us Part 2 game.

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/the-last-of-us-part-ii-ps4/

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