The Last of Us Part II Review (Sony PlayStation 4, 2020)

Admittedly I didn’t have a PS4 through most of its lifespan. That’s why I was forced to skip the Last of Us 2. Video games weren’t a focus for me at the time and so the immensely positive critical reviews fell on my deaf ears. Don’t get me wrong. I loved the first game. Honestly I just didn’t think it needed to be elaborated on. I did want the story to continue but was worried it would make the original less enjoyable. That’s what most sequels do after all. After playing through the original again I decided that it might be time to give the second part a chance. I went in with low expectations. The Last of Us Part II absolutely blew me away. It isn’t quite as good as the original, but I’ll be darned if it didn’t leave a lasting effect. Let’s check it out.

The original Last of Us showed us a world facing the apocalypse at the hands of zombies. These undead creatures are controlled by cordyceps. These are real life fungus that control insects, but this strain evolved to take over the brains of humans causing them to be aggressive and destroy all life. The first game depicts a journey between a broken man named Joel Miller (who lost his daughter during the initial outbreak) and a young girl Ellie Williams (who has natural resistance against the infection) as they traveled the country to deliver her to scientists to develop a cure. That didn’t work out. The Last of Us Part II picks up four years later. The two returned to the survivor outpost at Jacksonville Wyoming and have built new lives.

Unfortunately their relationship is now strained. While on patrol Joel and his brother Tommy rescue a young stranger named Abby who is accosted by and trying to escape from an army of infected humans. This leads them to a safehouse established by Abby’s group. Unfortunately they seem to have a bone to pick with Joel, and hold him down while she beats him to death with a golf club leaving Tommy, and Ellie (who went out to check on them) to helplessly watch. Having completed their mission Abby’s group leaves and returns to from whence they came. Both Ellie and Tommy are bent on revenge. They discover the group is based in Seattle Washington, and separately make the cross country trek to avenge the death of our original protagonist.

The plot in the original game was focused around redemption. Ellie taught Joel to forgive himself for his daughter’s death, and Joel made Ellie move past the survivor guilt. The Last of Us Part II is based around themes of revenge and forgiveness. It’s also one that I didn’t necessarily like. While Ellie is the main character you also play as Abby. You get both sides of the story with an absolutely ton of backstory. We already know Ellie’s so the focus is on establishing Abby as an actual human being, and trying to make the player relate to her. While the first game was a masterclass of storytelling I think the second misses it’s mark. Abby’s flashback sequences are long winded, boring, and largely annoying. The final sequence is an amalgamation of both characters. While I still found Ellie amazing, Abby was trash from start to finish.

I’m not sure that’s what the player perspective that the developers were going for. I’m not going to spoil the ending but based on the entire premise and execution it definitely feels half baked. It seems pretty clear that the ending sequence is supposed to invoke the same emotions in the player as it does in Ellie. That just didn’t happen in my case. Honestly the conclusion left me confused mostly. I think this is because of how poorly the developers developed the character of Abby. The writers got too long winded and downright boring when designing her scenarios. I realize that most players love the ending but for me I was left with an empty feeling. It took away from the original game just as I feared it would. Considering the universal acclaim this title gets for it’s storytelling I think it must just be me.

I realize I spent a lot of time with this game’s story. More than I usually do. That’s because storytelling is such a major aspect of this series. It is however time to get to the gameplay. The Last of Us Part II is very similar to the original in this regard. This is a third person shooter with advanced AI and a lot of survival horror elements. You have limited ammunition but can deal with enemies in several ways. There are also multiple enemy types. You have to deal with both the infected and normal humans as you play. While living enemies will take cover and coordinate with one another the undead generally use less strategy and just swipe and bite. Basic gameplay has you running around a variety of different environments dealing with enemies and gathering supplies while moving ever forward.

Stealth is still an absolutely huge part of gameplay. This is handled largely like it was in the original. If unfriendly characters see you a white meter starts filling on the sides. When it’s full you’ve been spotted and they’re going to attack. This goes for human and zombie alike. You have new elements to deal with here though. For one thing you can now hide in the grass. Naughty Dog added the ability to lay down and army crawl. Ellie can do this and remain out of sight even when enemies are seemingly looking right at her. This mostly comes in to play in the beginning of the game, but you’ll find situations wherein it’s helpful throughout.

The benefits of sneaking up on an enemy are numerous. For one thing they can’t attack or warn their friends. You can either choke out the living or stab undead in the head with Ellie’s knife. As Abby you still have to construct shivs from raw ingredients. This is one of the reasons why it feels so different to play as each separate character. Unfortunately you can be seen while performing these stealth kills, and humans will notice if there’s suddenly bodies laying around and go on alert. When you make noise (such as when firing a gun) it alerts all enemies within the vicinity. Enemies however also generate noise. As both Ellie and Abby you can listen by holding down R2. Other characters are displayed as white silhouettes, but only when they’re within range.

As you get more experienced in the game you’ll find yourself relying on listen functionality more and more. This can also be upgraded, as can other abilities. By finding items with pill icons you gain skill points. These can be spent to upgrade both Ellie and Abby separately. Skills affect their abilities directly such increasing stamina or health, gaining new crafting abilities, increasing listening distance, etc. Weapons can be upgraded with bits which are also distributed around the various environments. Each gun (and the bow as well) have different additions you can add. This increases things like clip size, firing rate, power, recoil, stability, etc. It’s well worth your time to find these pills and bits because the game does get easier and dare I say more fun with them.

Where the Last of Us Part II excels is it’s environments. Exploring ruined cities all the while dealing with undead and human enemies alike is fun, scary, and highly memorable. The amount of detail put into every street, building, and even room is absolutely insane. You also are encouraged to search every nook and cranny of these for ammunition, crafting ingredients, and of course the way forward. The only drawback in my opinion to this is that the cities aren’t as interesting as in the original Last of Us. Most of the story here takes place in Portland Oregon. As someone from the West Coast that has been there many times I can appreciate it, but I feel like Naughty Dog failed to recreate anything iconic about the city itself. It could be anywhere. In comparison when I arrived in Salt Lake City in the original I instantly recognized it.

Portland just doesn’t feel like, well, Portland to me here. It also wasn’t as interesting of a post apocalyptic city to actually explore. The first Last of Us offered players a cross country tour with many locations including suburbs and skyscrapers. This game has those too, but all in the same backdrop. By the time you finally get anywhere else (it just happens to be California where I’m from) it’s so darn refreshing and amazing. Unfortunately this is short lived. The Last of Us Part II needed more varied environments. Yes, I realize Portland is wet and rainy. By the end of this game I was absolutely tired of it.

The developers decided to go all out with exploration by adding significantly more verticality. Both Ellie and Abby will spend a lot of time in their day simply climbing obstacles to reach new areas. In the beginning I kind of liked it. After a while though it just grated on my nerves. This feels like nothing more than filler. Yes the scope of the game is impressive, but I don’t need to spend three of the twenty five hours climbing things. It got to the point where every time a character would reference finding a way into a building I would internally shout expletives. It gets pretty frustrating.

Gunplay is absolutely fantastic however. Aiming your weapon and firing shots feels very natural and quite good. Enemies react to each hit with amazing realism. Or, at least what I would expect from mushroom powered zombies. There are several different enemy types that require separate strategies. This is the same even for humans. You have the standard soldiers and rogues. These call out to their friends and coordinate. Then there’s what the game calls ‘scars.’ These belong to a cult where they all have cuts from their mouth across the face. These guys coordinate even better to be honest. They typically are more stealthy and communicate via whistles. You can’t tell as easily what they’re doing because, after all, the voice samples are just whistles. I found fighting them to feel decidedly different than the main foes.

There’s more of a difference in the various zombie types. This goes so far that you’ll want to not only approach them differently, but also use different weapons and lure them to specific places. The standard runners just bite and swipe. These guys are fast but a little weak. Then you have clickers. These guys have mushrooms growing over their eyes so they detect the player with echo location. It’s like dolphins, if dolphins made clicking noises, looked like humans, and ate people. Yikes. They can also kill you with one bite if they catch you just right. Stalkers are next up, and my least favorite to encounter. It’s not that I found them boring or contrived. Rather, it’s because these are the only enemies that actually scared me. They hide in the darkness and try to approach using stealth.

It’s not uncommon for the stalker zombies to not only sneak up, but coordinate with one another. While all other types of undead caused me a sense of dread these guys actually made me to jump and even drop the controller several times. Bloaters are hulking masses of growth and fungus that are strong enough to easily one hit kill the player. They also explode when killed. Shamblers are the new type here. They’re functionally similar to bloaters but shoot acid at the player. It’s a decent addition and the tension definitely goes to the max when encountered. The final new zombie type is a boss. This is the rat king. This encounter only happens once but it one of the most memorable moments in the entire game. I was downright frightened and filled with adrenaline during this sequence.

The Last of Us Part II is one of the best looking games for the PS4. As I already mentioned the environments are absolutely full of detail. Little things like papers strewn about on desks, and garbage on the streets really hits home that this is a post apocalyptic world. Texture work and character models are seriously off the charts. What’s more is the resolution is amazing as well with sharp edges and a ton of detail on literally everything. The framerate has a few set backs but nothing that hinders gameplay. It’s an amazing looking game.

Music is also really good here. There’s more emphasis on acoustics here and I really liked it. Music is also a big theme to gameplay. Ellie has her guitar that Joel taught her to play, and does so in a few story instances where the player actually strums on the track pad. Classic music like Aha’s Take on Me were amazing to hear here. The voice acting however is the real high point. The actors do an absolutely incredible job. Even the NPCs you encounter sound amazing. Even the noises the zombies make are all amazing and seem believable. Really, the audio couldn’t have been much better than it is here.