I need to make a confession, I never loved the first Last of Us, I thought it was a competent action game with exemplary graphics, but I never felt attached to the characters by the time the credits rolled. I appreciated its ambition and the ending was genuinely thought provoking, unlike most other video games. So I was not initially hyped for The Last of Us Part 2, but that quickly changed as the release date was drawing closer, so I ended up pre-ordering a copy, which is something I hardly ever do.
The bulk of the game is set four years after the first, where the main characters, Ellie and Joel, have settled in a walled off town called Jackson, in the state of Wyoming. From the get go there seems to be a partial sense of normality that has returned to the world, at least in Ellie's own life. The narrative takes a dramatic turn of events early on, leading Ellie to leave her relative comfort and journey to the city of Seattle searching for vengeance. It's not long after you arrive that the plot begins to twist and turn as you learn more about two factional groups, who are vying for control over what is left of a city that's been ravaged by nature and the loss of humanity.
In gameplay terms, little has changed, although I rather enjoyed the inclusion of a jump button. So there's far more platforming than I expected, which was a nice surprise. Outside of one particular area of Seattle, the game is relatively linear as you go from one point to the next, but the areas you explore are far bigger and multi layered compared to those in the first game. I loved exploring every nook and cranny for supplies, especially after a heavy gun fight.
Because of the relative scarcity of ammo and supplies, I tried to play as stealthily as possible, which is a lot easier said than done. So I ended up shooting my way through enemies far more than I intended. The combat can be clunky and a little awkward, and nothing more than just functional. However, it's always engaging because the feel of the weapons is extraordinary satisfying. On the standard difficulty I found myself with just enough ammo and supplies between each area, I never once felt overpowered or too desperate. The melee combat is rather simple but effective in its raw violence and tension. There is nothing elaborate about it, it basically boils down to you timing a dodge and then countering by hitting the square button. Every connecting hit you make is extremely gratifying. Word of warning, melee combat only works well when you are equipped with a weapon such as a baseball bat or a machete. Using your fists or a standard knife takes longer and only works when you are confronting one enemy at one particular moment. Like the guns, these melee weapons can be upgraded, but their durability does not last long.
The enemy AI is challenging for the most part, human enemies have an almost perfect aim, and they do try and flank you when you are pinned back. But it was the infected that are the most challenging foes. If you make one mistake in a roomful of them, prepare to be aggressively rushed down, and once one of them locks onto you it can be a excruciatingly frustrating to fend them off. There are different enemy types for both the infected and the human cannon fodder, but outside of the way they look and the factions they belong to, the human enemies are generally carbon copies of each other. The various forms of infected will require a little more strategy to kill from one type to the next. One of the most deadly are the clickers, who will kill you the second they grab hold of you. It is a huge credit to the design team that they look so disgusting, and just thinking about them makes my skin crawl.
Combat is made easier by a typical upgrade system that you use via the supplies you collect. It comes in two forms, on the one hand you can upgrade your character's more personal traits such as their health bar or crafting speed. The other side is to do with the weapons, of which you can refine and retool at various work benches placed in certain areas you travel through. While the upgrade system is by itself rather basic, it gels exceptionally well with the overall flow of the game, as you will want and need to explore the intriguing environments for supplies in order to survive.
Speaking of the environments, they do for the most part leave you with a variety of choices on how you wish to get past enemies. The environments and overall graphical fidelity of the game is truly gorgeous, the lighting effects and vistas of the exterior locations are the best that I have seen on the PlayStation 4. But these small moments are deceitful and contrast with the majority of the locations you explore. While some of the exteriors of the world look beautiful on first look, the interior locations are grimy and unsettling, the basement of a particular hospital was the most disturbing place I explored.
The Last of Us Part 2 is a rare game that manages to make its locales an intricate part of the story, rather than just a backdrop. You will notice subtle details in each of the rooms you visit that will tell you something about the people that inhabited them. Whether it's the way a living room or bedroom has been decorated, or the placement of a particular item. One small nuance that I really liked was when you use the work bench to upgrade your weapons. As soon as you have selected the upgrade you want, the character will take apart the weapon and then piece it back together.
Like the first game, The Last of us Part 2 succeeds in being a cinematic experience, and it works most of the time. The cutscenes are finely directed and the performances are wonderful, as well as the animations which can be truly grisly with the realistic violence. This is helped with a consistently good script, a perfect example of this is with the in-game conversations between the characters, which are rather charming, and they provide a little rest-bite between the action.
The first half of the game is a straight up revenge plot, where you take control of Ellie, in the second half of the game you take control of a new character called Abby. When this change in direction occurred I did for a brief moment sigh in disbelief, because the story appears to grind to a halt. But by the end of the game I was more invested in Abby's story arc than that of Ellie, and she has the best action set pieces and the more interesting locations to explore. One particular boss battle reminded me of Resident Evil, which made it all the more enjoyable to defeat.
I don't have too many complaints to make, nothing that stopped my enjoyment of the game. From a gameplay perspective, changing weapons can feel a little finicky. From a story perspective, the pacing can be a little erratic with the narrative switching backwards and forwards, because some of the flashbacks don't initially execute on their premise. But they do become important within the grander context of the narrative.
It took me twenty six hours to complete the game over three days of playing, and I was invested from beginning to end. Which is a sign of an excellent experience, as I said from the outset, I never loved the first game and I was never compelled to go back to it. But having completed the sequel I will return to it at some point over the coming months.
The Last of Us Part 2 is a game that every PS4 owner should experience at some point, but be warned, it is dark and grim, and sometimes gut wrenching. But it's not to be missed, even if you don't find yourself liking the story, there is a great survival horror/action game beneath it all.
Verdict: 5/5
