Leveling Up Your Game

The Last Of Us 2 Review – The Good, The Bad, and The Uglyy

The Last of Us is one of my favorite games from the PS3 generation. I found it to be a perfect balance blending the cruel dark evils of the world with the positive, optimistic, and emotional growth of not only the main characters, but the earth itself begins to reclaim the abandoned cities during the worldwide pandemic.

Before I get into reviewing The Last of Us 2, I would like to share some of the biggest reasons I was excited for this sequel after waiting a long 7 years.

As I played through The Last of Us Remastered in preparation for it’s sequel, I remembered why I loved the first in the series so much. I will assume that if you are reading this review, you are okay with spoilers as I will be going into detail about many of my thoughts on both games.

From the very first scene in “The Last of Us”, you see how cruel a world plague by a violent pandemic can be. People are becoming infected and panic ensues. When Joel loses his daughter, she is killed by a human meant to protect them. This set the tone for the entire series and it pulled me in fast.

As you continue through the game, you see how broken and cold Joel is. He appears to have never properly grieved the death of his daughter, and it shows in his personality throughout the game.

When he meets Ellie, he is very clear that he plans to “complete the mission” by delivering her, but wants nothing to do with her beyond that. As the story unfolds, the two grow together and you start to see them both become change and build a very strong bond with each other.

I found the beauty of the first game to be the relationship and bond that grew between Joel and Ellie. Ellie had lost everyone she loved in her life and Joel lost his own daughter. They were able to help each other heal and create a bond that closed many of the wounds they had experienced in their lives and grew to truly love each other.

Enter “The Last of Us 2”.

*** SPOILER ALERT: THIS IS WHERE YOU SHOULD STOP READING IF YOU HAVE NOT COMPLETED THE GAME***

The Good

I pre-ordered the Collector’s Edition over a year in advance and was anxiously awaiting it’s release. I got the game in the mail, took photos the sweet Ellie statue (as well other cool swag) and posted the photos to my Instagram. I was ready to get started playing!

Rather than being a typical review where I break the game down into categories like story, characters, game play, graphics, etc… this review is just going to me sharing my thoughts of the game as a whole.

As I began playing the game, the visuals were absolutely stunning. Every environment in the game was not only beautifully designed, but the complexity and detail were unlike anything I have seen in a game before.

I constantly found myself looking at every tiny little detail like brushing my shoulder off a tree covered with snow. As I brushed past, the snow fell naturally as if it would if I had done it in real life.

I wanted a candy bar from the vending machine and decided to swing my baseball bat at it… and it actually broke! The things small details you have always tried to do in older video games actually worked in this game. There are so many times in this game where I would just stop and take in the sites and really appreciate the environments, the lighting, the audio, and the attention to detail that went into developing this game.

On top of the amazing visuals, the world is much more expansive than the previous games. Entire city areas were completely explorable with secrets and stashes hidden all over for you to find and collect.

Not only can you explore all of these open areas, the controls are incredibly well done so as you are exploring, you are hopping through windows, climbing up buildings, squeezing between cracks in the walls, and overall the combat just feels much better than the first one.

Combat is improved and the melee kills feel just as satisfying.

So as I started playing, the game revealed that there was some tension between Joel and Ellie. After the ending of the first game, it’s no surprise that there would be issues between the two in this sequel. But what direction were they going to take things?

Would Ellie be furious at Joel? Would Joel even tell Ellie the truth? What would her reaction be if he did?

I had so many questions that I was looking forward to having answered.

So I continue playing, loving all of the action scenes, finding all my secrets items and stashes so I can upgrade my weapons and characters.

Then all of a sudden, like a smack in the face… there was the scene everyone was talking about. Joel getting captured and getting beaten to death with a golf club!

I sat there is pure dread as I Joel was beaten to death with Ellie begging for his life.

The character I had watched grow and overcome all his emotional issues and become like a father to Ellie, completely helpless being beaten to death by a new character while Ellie was pinned down and forced to watch it happen.

I sat in silence.

The anger and trauma Ellie felt, I felt it too. My heart sank for her, I had no thoughts, I couldn’t believe what I was watching.

After I collected myself and began to try and rationalize what had just happened, it was very clear that the emotional ties they had created in the first game were so strong that a scene like this impacted me so heavily.

The same anger Ellie felt toward Abby (the villain who did this), I was feeling it too. I wanted revenge. I wanted to track this girl down and get payback for what she did to Joel.

This one scene sparked an anger in me that the developers intentionally wanted me to experience. They wanted me to feel that anger. They wanted me to want to kill Abby. They wanted me to feel the power of revenge and how it can consume you.

It was one of the most powerful scenes I have seen in any video game and it had served it’s intended purpose. As bold as it was and whether you agree with the developers or not, this scene invoked feelings that rival any in the entertainment industry that I’ve experienced.

The feelings you have for Joel is a testament to how well the characters were developed in the first game.

Over the next few segments of the game, you return to a memory Ellie had with Joel where they visited the museum to look at Dinosaurs and visit a space exhibit. Joel planned an entire day for Ellie to have a nice birthday.

It is one of the most emotional scenes I have ever played and it drew attention to the strength and bond the first game created between it’s characters and the player. They way the two characters interact and appreciate each other is remarkable. The most minor details sprinkled throughout the games all add up to this one scene where Joel shows that he has truly paid attention to all the things Ellie loves and what brings her happiness.

Despite being in the midst of a worldwide viral pandemic and the world has gone to complete shit, the two of them are able to appreciate the finer details of life that make us human.

Moments like this are the reason Joel decided to save Ellie. No matter the cost he would do it again if he was given the choice. Through the game, many characters are asked what they would do were they in his shoes and it was their daughter who would be killed to provide a vaccine and it really puts into perspective that almost everyone would do the same.

However, when you’re on the opposite side and see the scientists and other innocents being killed in order to accomplish that goal, the lines aren’t so clear.

Despite whether anyone agrees with Joel’s actions or not, when he is brutally murdered just moments before, the impact of having Ellie there begging for his life and he’s beaten with a golf club leaves a lasting impression.

It was nice to see Ellie recounting some of the most beautiful moments they had shared showing us just how much she loved Joel and why their bond was special.

The game continues along full of fast paced action, suspenseful battles with clickers, and eventually leads up to a cliffhanger scene where Ellie is face to face with Abby.

This is where “The Last of Us 2” takes an interesting turn.

The Bad

Instead of seeing where this scene heads, we get a very abrupt cliffhangar situation and instead of playing as Ellie, we are now switched to playing as Abby, the character who murdered Joel.

I remember thinking to myself, “Oh, this is interesting. I’m going to play a few scenes as the villain!”

Then, as I was exploring the areas, I realized I had started picking up gears, pills, and teaching manuals.

“Wait, how long are we going to be playing as this character?!?”, I thought to myself.

It starts off with a strong scene of Abby with her father and saving a trapped Zebra. I rather enjoyed these first couple scenes with Abby and I thought it was a very interesting way to allow us to see into Abby’s point of view and see what caused her to become the evil woman that she is.

As we continued playing as Abby, we kept unlocking more and more skill trees and I realized that they were actually planning on having us play as her for a long time.

After a little while, I started to feel incredibly disconnected to the game, the characters, and felt like the developers were really trying to force a lot of thoughts on my experience.

Rather than allowing me to play as Abby to discover that she had a right to hold such a grudge against Joel (since he killed her father), they never really got the character of Abby to land well for me. While I was sympathetic that Joel had killed her father and it was right for her to have a serious grudge against him, her character just seemed forced and felt like a cliched plot device to me.

This led to an extreme disconnect for me. The characters no longer seemed natural and the bonds the characters around Abby that were building seemed like the developers of the game were trying too hard.

My guess is that purpose of Abby as a character was to show that depending on which side you are on, there are always good guys and bad guys. As we play the game as Abby, Joel and Ellie are the extreme villains running through murdering hundreds of people and serving their own purpose in the belief that they are the ones who are right.

I really enjoyed this approach because it is a unique look at the story behind the villain. I have honestly never played a game where you actually play as the villain for an extended period of time, especially one that was so intently made to appear so evil and violent.

However, I believe Naughty Dog severely failed at accomplishing this task for a few reasons.

The Ugly

While it is okay to give us a glimpse into the villain’s point of view, it did NOT work to force the player to play over 10 hours as the villain. As I continued to play as Abby, the plot became so detached from the game’s earlier events that I no longer felt a connection to either plot line.

When introducing us to Abby as a playable character, Naughty Dog’s intended purpose was likely to give us a chance to experience a story from the other side. As we run through video games, it is common to just slaughter all the enemies and never once think about the consequences of what the results of those actions really are.

The ugly side of this is that yes, Joel and Ellie have killed hundreds of people without thinking twice about it. Naughty Dog failed to emphasize that the player is not given a choice in experiencing the game any other way. Yes, we all felt bad shooting the scientists in the finale of the first game, but it was either that or let Ellie die.

From Abby’s point of view, she had to walk into that surgery room and see her father dead on the floor at the hands of Joel.

This would have been very powerful had Naughty Dog executed it properly.

When attempting to get the player to relate to a brand new character (let alone one that just brutally murdered a beloved character), proper steps should have be taken.

For example, had we played as Abby a few times more leading up to Joel being murdered, players would not have had such a violent reaction to being forced to play as her. The important part of understanding the other side of the story is not the aftermath, it’s the actions leading up to what created the villain in the first place.

I feel like Naughty Dog kept forcing how horrible Abby’s life was as a result of Ellie’s actions and would let it go. They just kept forcing misery upon misery to drive home the fact that both sides kept killing the other’s loved ones.

Rather than being shown that yes, Abby has a right to see Ellie and Joel as villains, Naughty Dog is just going to keep driving home the same point over and over again that there are casualties on both sides.

10+ hours playing as Abby was overkill. It removed me so far from story after a few hours that by the time I finally caught up to the sniper and realized it was Tommy, I honestly had forgotten that Tommy was even hunting her down.

Lastly, about Abby’s character in particular, I felt Abby was a strong character. She wasn’t a likable character, but she was a strong character. She had very strong traits, was perfect for showing us the effects a characters actions like Joel’s could have on all the victims, and she was very polarizing which is good for a character to create such powerful emotions in a player.

The problem was that she is not a strong enough character to warrant playing as her for over half of the game. Especially, when playing as her character meant abandoning the characters you grew to love for the entire first game.

But in the end, playing as Abby failed most for me because I did not find her relatable as a character. Time and time again, she made decisions that were not in-line with the situations we were experiencing with her. She was selfish, mean, violent, unapologetic, and often just completely out of touch with human emotion.

I’m sure this was intentional as a way to show the mental destruction Joel’s actions caused in her, but in terms of having the player be okay playing 10+ hours as her, this was a huge miss. Everything about the transition from playing as Ellie to playing as Abby was just ugly.

And speaking of ugly, there was a very odd scene between Abby and Owen that I have a feeling did not land well for anyone.

In the end, I’m just left baffled at how the developers thought that Abby’s character was worthy of 10-15 hours of game play. It was like they were intentionally making her a character they knew would piss everyone off.

The developers seem to have created her story and personality to force us into experiencing the emotional after-effects of Joel’s actions first hand.

The problem with doing this is that they are forcing thoughts on the player rather than allowing us to experience and decide for ourselves.

The beauty of the first game’s ending is that it let the player decide whether they thought Joel’s actions were right or wrong. Some think him lying to Ellie was the right choice (myself included), others thought it was flat out wrong to lie to her.

Thinking back, would killing the scientists to save Ellie be worth it at the cost of traumatizing Abby?

That is a very important question that the player should be able to decide for themselves. But in this game, the developers forced that, “No, Joel was wrong and was evil”.

The moment we started playing as Abby through the end of the game, it was not even a consideration that Joel was still justified in his actions. Thankfully, at the end of the game, they showed us that Joel clearly believed in his decision 100% and would do it again saying that, “If God gave me a second chance, I would do everything exactly the same”.

Both side should always be represented and let the player form their own opinions.

Almost every portion of the game after we started playing as Abby felt like the developers were forcing opinions and agendas on the player.

From issues about the politics of war, religion, and gay/transgender acceptance, the developers pushed what is right and wrong instead of letting the players experience the game and decide for themselves.

Rather than letting us decide whether we thought Abby or Ellie was right, they forced us into experiencing Ellie as the villain by the end of the game when we had to fight her as a “final boss” battle.

By splitting the game between two opposite characters, it made the entire game feel disconnected for both. The cohesive strong bond built between Joel and Ellie in the first game was completely pulled apart in this second one. Rather than appreciating the bonds between characters, they are tainted rather than strengthened.

Nearly every relationship in the game is ripped apart by the end (assuming the characters are still alive) and it has the opposite effect as the first game.

Starting with the moment we played as Abby, it felt like the moral of the story was that everyone deserved misery…including the player. The game became misery upon misery, death upon death.

In the end, Ellie is left all alone. Dina and Tommy abandoned her. All of Abby’s friends are dead and gone except Lev, who is the one person who showed faith in her and believes that she is not an evil person.

Overall, I would have given “The Last of Us 2” a 9/10 up until the switch to play as Abby. But this was the turning point and where a serious disconnect was created for me. I felt like the game was trying to push too many agendas and became so convoluted and unfocused that I had to force myself even to just finish it.

The Last Of Us 2 Review – Conclusion

The Last of Us 2 is definitely a blend of good, bad, and ugly.

Not only does the game dig deep into the ugly sides of human nature, but it actually pulls those aspects directly into the forefront where you can’t avoid but feel them like a stab in your chest.

The reason the ugly is so ugly is because the good is so good. The connections they have created with Joel and Ellie are so strong in us as players that when things are flipped and they are now the villains of another story, our minds recoil in disgust.

I believe this was the intended purpose by The Last of Us 2’s developers and they definitely succeeded. I despised playing the entire second half of the game as Abby. As her story unfolded, it was very powerful to see that Ellie and Joel were her story’s evil villains and Naughty Dog could have accomplished something beautiful with a twist like has never been done in video games before.

However, they just failed to hit the mark. Rather than letting the player choose which characters are villains and which are the “good guys”, they forced the player to experience “their view” of the world. They wanted to clearly show that Ellie and Joel are just as much villains as Abby and her friends are.

This makes sense in theory, but the player should have the choice to decide whether they thought Joel’s actions were justified or if he was actually an evil person for doing what he did. The ending of the first game is a perfect example of letting the player decide and judge Joel’s actions for themselves.

Multiple times throughout the game characters were asked the questions, “If it was your daughter, what would you do?”

I think Naughty Dog wanted to drive home a theme and decided to force a lot of pointless misery on the player rather than focusing on the violent truths that would actually impact the player and allow us to think for ourselves.

It’s such a shame that the game turned out how it did because the entire first half was excellent. If it were up to me, I would have still included the first few Abby scenes to give us a glimpse into the story behind the villain, removed all the filler/convoluted missions, and only had 2-3 hours max playing as Abby. This would have kept the game coherent and still accomplished nearly everything it was attempting to accomplish.

If you have played The Last of Us 2, I would love to hear what you think. Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts or send me a message on social media using the links below!

And remember…Never Stop Leveling Up Your Game!

– Dinky Dana