The Last of Us Part 2- Masterpiece or Mistake?
The video game industry is no stranger to controversy. Going all the way back to Mortal Kombat in the 90s, with the now laughable pixelated blood and dismemberments, the "horrors" of what parents feared Grand Theft Auto exposed their innocent children to, and more recently with loot boxes and broken/unfinished games at launch. Lately though, the controversy surrounding some newer titles has become more nuanced, making ripping people's heads off in an arcade game almost quaint by comparison. And this is where The Last of Us Part II comes in.
The original, released in 2013, is still deemed a masterpiece by gamers and critics. Not only did it provide intense gameplay and great level design with a post apocalyptic America as its backdrop, but it still serves as a milestone of how far video games have come in terms of storytelling. Showing how two survivors of a horrific outbreak can form a bond, even in the worst of times, only for their trust to be broken at the very end due to a selfish but understandable decision. It's a story that most gamers agree ends on a perfect, morally ambiguous note, and that a sequel could possibly tarnish its reputation.
The original casts a long shadow that its sequel would always struggle getting out from under, never mind the 7 year gap between the two games, making expectations unrealistically high from the get go. But with the shocking leaks released just a few weeks before Part II's release date, the outrage that the game was met with was nothing short of a disaster. From plot points describing the death of a beloved character, political views that fans deemed unnecessary, and a divisive antagonist leading the charge, The Last of Us Part II seemed doomed before it even hit shelves.
Despite the insane backlash, Part II broke sales records, surpassing even the much loved PS4 exclusive, Spider-Man at launch. People were finally able to play and stream the game and allow themselves and their audiences to judge the game for what it was. The result: they either loved it or hated it. There seemed to be little to no middle ground between the two. From one end, IGN gave it the rare score of 10/10 saying it was a masterpiece and on the other end, many streamers seemed to have an active disdain for it as they played Part II for their fans.
So, finally, being a fan of the original and not seeing a clear way to judge Part II other than playing it, I decided to buy it and experience it myself.
Sneak, shoot, loot (Repeat)
Before we get into the more controversial bits about the game's story and characters, I wanted to start with the most important part of any game, the actual gameplay. In my opinion this makes or breaks any game, the story can be great and you can love the characters, but if its not fun to play, what's the point? And for the most part, I really enjoyed playing this.
Part II stays pretty close to the original's formula as far as its gameplay goes. You mostly follow a linear path throughout abandoned towns and small sections of big cities, either sneak or fight your way through waves of infected or gun toting enemies, then once the area is cleared, you dig around for tools for crafting, bullets, blunt objects, or health in order to survive the next section. This is sometimes interrupted by scripted quick time events or boss fights. It's a basic gameplay loop but it's surprisingly still as addictive as the first game's.
The gunplay and hand to hand combat was the highlight of this game for me. It's really satisfying to sneak around an enemy's campsite or a group of infected in a creepy, abandoned building and slowly take them out one by one. Or just decide to blast your way through with homemade bombs and well placed shots to your enemies heads. There's a variety of ways you can approach a combat situation, and the fact that your resources and bullets are limited, matched with intelligent enemies that will team up, call out your position, and flank you, always makes for challenging and intense encounters.
Graphics, Character Design, Level Design, Sound Design, etc.
Despite hearing everyone's problems with this game before I played it, this is the one part of The Last of Us Part II that I wasn't worried about. Naughty Dog has a reputation in the gaming world because of the way their games look, sound, and feel, and the same applies with this entry. From being caught in a blizzard at the beginning of the game in Wyoming, to the shores of Santa Barbara at the end, Part II is stunning to look at. The term photorealistic has been thrown around a lot with every new great looking game, but it definitely applies here. Whether its something grand like escaping a burning colony on horseback or simply watching the water fall off you character as they crawl out of a river, the level of detail is insane. Match that with great sound design that emphasizes the blast of your weapons and impact of the bullets (bringing a great crunchiness to the combat), that amplifies the horrifying cries of the infected, and even picks up the small clank of glass when you step across it and muffled steps in the snow, making it a thoroughly engaging experience.
One of the things I enjoyed most about Part II was its variety in environments and enemies. Every section seemed to introduce a new, overwhelming threat. From being caught in an overgrown park in Seattle with a band of crazy cultists, steering a rickety boat through a flooded city, or being trapped in subway tunnels with disgusting new forms of infected, I was always caught off guard and impressed by what the developers threw at me.
Also a quick brag for Naughty Dog going above and beyond in order to make sure gamers with disabilities can play this game as well. Thanks to the extensive adjustments you can make in the settings menu, you can honestly set this game to play however you want. Whether it be small things like making the dialogue captions as large as you like (and changing the color) or big things like changing the entire color scheme of the game in order to make seeing important items or enemies as easy as possible for any player to spot. I just thought that was really cool that they went through that much extra trouble so that as many people as possible could play and wanted to point that out.
Now on to the main story. I decided to go through the big three characters and break down their stories as I went. Before I start, I wanted to point out that even though I had major problems with the characters and their storylines, I think that the voice acting behind them was incredible. Once again Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson kill it in their roles as Joel and Ellie, especially Ashley Johnson. Her portrayal as an older, grittier Ellie is phenomenal as she has some really tough, heart breaking scenes she has to get through and deserves whatever awards she gets for this. I also really liked Laura Bailey's voice work for Abby. In my opinion, she had the toughest acting job in the game. Not only did she have to match the talents of Troy and Ashley, but she had to voice a worthy antagonist that also had to come across as likable enough to play as for a good chunk of the game. Considering all those factors, she did an incredible job with this role. (I also just found out that Laura Bailey is a Mississippi native as well, so that's a plus.) The supporting actors were great across the board also, whether they were important secondary characters like Shannon Woodward as Dina, Stephen A. Chang as Jesse, or one of the many human enemies you fought your way through, there wasn't a weak performance in the bunch.
Alright, the big one. Yes, I agree with most of the outraged fanbase, I hate the way Joel was killed off by Abby. A man that in the first game could spot a trap a mile down the road, wouldn't just walk into a house full of strangers and be caught off guard. I know that this is what launches off the rest of the game but it could have been handled better. Did Joel do a selfish thing by saving Ellie despite that meaning he was robbing humanity of a possible cure? Absolutely. This action deserved a consequence. I'm not arguing that Joel didn't deserve Abby seeking revenge on him and I'm fine with the fact that he dies in the game, just not like this. It also irritates me that various people online or on podcasts say he deserved what happened because he was a terrible person. To that I say, there isn't a good person in the world of The Last of Us. It's a brutal place to exist and you have to do terrible things to survive it.
My other problem is the way Joel was presented here. I know his actions would cripple anyone but his world weariness in the time period leading up to his death, seemed to drain him of most of his character. And since most of the flashbacks are through Ellie's perspective, Joel mostly comes across as a worrying father. Where is the guy that I saw cut through waves of soldiers in order to save Ellie from the Fireflies? Where is the guy that gives that cutting "You're treading on some mighty thin ice here" speech to Ellie when she pressed too hard about his daughter? At times, you see flashes of the man he was in the last game, but it's not nearly enough. It just feels like they wasted a great character and demeaned him to a plot point.
Before playing Part II, I replayed the original and the Left Behind dlc, and was reminded of how much I loved Ellie as a character. Despite the fact that she was raised in a terrible situation, she always had a since of humor, a smart mouth, a longing to understand things about the old world, and a nerdy love of art and comic books. Ellie was also intensely loyal and kind hearted and she wasn't afraid to call people out on their bullshit. She offered a great counterpoint to Joel's seriousness and the bleakness of the world around her.
Unfortunately, after seeing the flashbacks leading up to the main story, you can see that the truth about how Joel saved her from the Fireflies has broken her. The girl we play as in Part II is largely a different character. Where the original Ellie was confident and friendly, this version of her is bitter and withdrawn, she rarely gets along with the townspeople she's grown up around and seems to have trouble connecting with even those that are close to her. And after Joel's death in the beginning hours, her character regresses even more to just a spirit of vengeance, with very few instances of her old self coming to the surface. In any other games I wouldn't (and haven't) minded characters that are just people seeking revenge. In this case, however, I wanted to play more as the fully realized character I enjoyed playing as before...you know, the reason I bought this game in the first place. I understand these experiences would break and change anybody, but I, as a player, still have to play as them for hours on end, I'd like to enjoy my time with them.
But despite my dislike of how they went about writing Ellie this time around, playing as her was very involving. After Joel's death, Ellie is joined by her girlfriend, Dina, as they track down his killers. Her story is broken down into 3 days in Seattle with flashbacks occurring after big moments in the story. Day 1 was a stand out for me and one of my favorite parts of the game, having you travel through a massive area of Seattle as you try to find ways to get through blocked areas of the city. For a few hours it feels like an open world game as you rummage around abandoned buildings and fight infected as you search for collectibles and necessities. A highlight is when they break into a music store where Ellie finds a guitar and plays "Take on Me" for Dina. Its charming as hell and one of the few moments in the game where I felt these characters really connecting. There's also a bank vault in this section that you break into that has a fun Uncharted Easter egg in it. Honestly, I would have loved if this would have been most of the game. As much as I like the linear nature of the Last of Us games, this was really fun to explore.
The rest of the Seattle days are full of you fighting your way through sections with different armed human enemies and groups of infected as you start to take out more of Abby's team. Another highlight being an escape from armed enemies into an old subway tunnel, where you're also surrounded by the infected and the only thing to light your way is the red glow of a flare. Its claustrophobic and stress inducing and its one of the things this series does best.
This all leads to Ellie killing two of Abby's closest friends, (one of whom is pregnant, but Ellie shot her before she realized that). YIKES. Leading Abby to finally come and confront you, where you then switch over to Abby's storyline.
And in walks this year's most divisive character. From the moment stills of her and her plot line were released, the internet was ablaze. Even a month after the game's release, I'm still seeing people from both sides of the argument posting about her. But does she live up to all the hatred or love that people are heaping upon her?
When it comes to her character design, much like the game, people either love it or hate it. Women with muscles aren't new to video games but they're usually very lean. Abby on the other hand is built like Tom Hardy from Warrior, and naturally people have strong opinions on this. It's obvious that Naughty Dog wanted to push back on how they see that women in games are overly sexualized, but in my opinion, I think they over did it. It would have been possible for her to still be muscled up and intimidating without her stirring up your audience this much. It's just too risky of a move to pair this design with a character that people would already hate for her actions.
Either way, as I started to play as her, although I never grew very attached, I did understand where she was coming from. Joel killed her dad (Ellie's would be surgeon that would have killed her to extract her immunity) and she wanted revenge. But as the game moved on from Joel's death, my real problem with Abby started. It wasn't her physical build, it was the fact that most of her story had very little to do with Ellie and her friends coming to seek revenge. The entire time I played as Ellie, I imagined that Abby was right behind me, trying to stop me from getting to anyone else she cared about. But while playing as Abby, I realized that her story took me further and further from Ellie and the rest of what I viewed as the main game.
The game leads you through Abby's younger days with her dad up until his death, then skips past Joel's death until it catches up with Ellie's days in Seattle. And although I started to enjoy playing as Abby pretty quickly, I realized that the writers were doing too much to make her more likable. Where Ellie had problems being social, Abby is cheerful when she talks to people in her colony, where Ellie is having to defend herself and kill the dogs that are attacking her that belonged to Abby's group, Abby is loving all over them and playing fetch. It was just a cheap move to make Abby more relatable and I felt like I was being manipulated.
The game did pick up quickly with Abby though, as you head into enemy territory in search of her ex boyfriend, where you're quickly overwhelmed and captured, but luckily saved by two children who have abandoned the cult capturing you, although one gets her arm broken in the process. And this girl's broken arm led me to one of my favorite sections of the game, where you have to fight your way through a creepy hospital in order to get medical supplies for her surgery. It felt like a great section of a Resident Evil game, complete with a terrifying and disgusting boss you have to fight at the end.
Unfortunately, my least favorite part with Abby's story comes quickly after as you have to save the other kid from the island he escaped from as he returns to save his mother. It's a great section on its own and technically very impressive, with the colony being attacked and set on fire, but at this point I felt so removed from the initial starting point that I didn't care that much and was feeling the game's length. After the rescue, she then discovers that Ellie has killed her friends and now she's the one seeking revenge again.
This is where the game went off the rails for me. As Abby, you burst into where Ellie and her friends are hiding, killing one and injuring the other. You then have to hunt down Ellie and proceed to beat her into submission and break her arm. Abby then attacks Dina, who is pregnant, and nearly slits her throat, stopping only when the kid she rescued tells her not to. Abby then threatens our initial group and leaves, then the screen goes black.....you guys having fun yet? You glad you spent all that time as Ellie trying to find Abby only to play as Abby and kick her ass? Did you like seeing the woman you've been playing as for hours nearly slit a pregnant woman's throat?
Honestly it felt like an edgy 14 year old wrote this section. All the shocking scenes of this game only serve to make these characters look horrible. I know the theme is how seeking revenge only makes things worse and makes you worse because of it, but come on.
So when we flash forward, Ellie and Dina are living on a farm with their baby in Wyoming and Abby is actively searching for a remaining group of Fireflies in Santa Barbara. Abby and the kid are then captured around the time Ellie finds out Abby is in Santa Barbara. Despite Dina's begging for Ellie to stay, Ellie can't let this go and sets off to see if this time will go any better.
Months pass as Ellie searches for Abby and finally reaches her after she blows through the people that are holding her hostage. They then reach some boats and are about to escape, but Ellie tries once again to kill Abby and set things right. The fight is brutal with an emaciated Abby putting up her best fight (she even bites off 2 of Ellie's fingers), but in her weakened state, Ellie manages to get Abby's head underwater, about to win this insane blood feud, but at the last moment she releases Abby and Abby escapes.
Ellie then returns to her now empty farmhouse, plays the guitar, has her final flashback with Joel where they talk about forgiveness, then heads off into the wild.
I'm torn with this ending. On one hand it completes the theme of how revenge isn't the way to go, and that violence starts a never ending circle of violence, making forgiveness the best solution in the end. BUT Ellie killed no telling how many people to get to Abby, and when she got to the person she actually wanted to kill, she just let her go? This isn't a new thing to do in revenge stories, but it's always frustrating when it happens. Not to mention, as a player that's spent over 35 hours playing this game, the ending leaves you with a "That was all for nothing" feeling, which was probably Naughty Dog's intent all along.
Although I really enjoyed the gameplay, the story left me unsatisfied and frustrated. Even though that's the intention of the game, I felt like the creators pushed great characters into a bloody revenge story when they could have been used for a much better one. Oddly enough, Druckmann and the other creative heads at Naughty Dog remind me a lot of George Lucas with the prequels. What they desperately needed was someone to tell them what ideas worked and what didn't, some voices to pull them back when they thought they were going overboard and lead them in the right direction.
Ultimately, The Last of Us Part II is an impressive achievement where everything from the world building to the voice acting is top notch, but is weighed down by a frustrating story and mistreatment of its characters.
Score: 6.5/10
Photo Sources: IMdB
Playstation.com
Inverse.com
GamesRadar
Forbes
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