Casey Murrow

SPOILERS AHEAD: Gameplay and Visuals: Before I get into my issues with the story, let me start by saying the gameplay is absolutely impeccable. Every hit and shot can be felt, and every bit of combat and stealth flows seamlessly. The infected are scarier than the last game, and a sense of urgency and weakness can be felt throughout almost every encounter. Visually, it is easily one of the best looking games on PS4, but that is what one comes to expect when purchasing a Naughty Dog title. Story: As far as the story is concerned, there are multiple key flaws. First, Joel’s death within the first couple hours of the game is horribly written and executed. We meet this random new character Abby, and for initially unknown reasons, she slaughters Joel before our and Ellie’s eyes. Joel’s death did absolutely no justice to him and his character. In the first game, Joel would have been reluctant to help Abby in the first place due to his justifiable distrust of strangers. It was also disturbing to me that after Joel and Tommy basically save Abby’s life, she mercilessly kills him. Joel’s death alone bothered me so much, that it almost made me stop playing. Secondly, I have a huge issue with having to play as Abby for nearly half of the game. I 100% DREADED having to play as her. I would intentionally jump off cliffs and run into crowds of infected and enemies and die because I hate her so much. She is extremely unlikable and seeing her kill Joel so early in the game made me hate playing as her for every second. Joel is like a dad to a lot of us. As far as the ending is concerned, I don’t have as big of an issue with this, but it still left an empty feeling for me. Sort of as if there was no winner or loser, which is what Naughty Dog was trying to accomplish. I wanted to see Abby pay for what she did, but I understand and accept as to why Ellie granted her mercy. My most enjoyable parts of this game were the flashbacks when you run around and bond with Joel and Tommy as Ellie. If I played this game a second time through, I would intentionally skip over the parts with Abby, and mainly savor the parts with Joel and Ellie, a bond I believe we should have experienced earlier in this game. Final thoughts: I’m not sure if this game is truly worth it. If you buy it, the only parts I found myself REALLY enjoying where the parts with just Joel and Ellie, maybe because I loved the first game so much and we didn’t experience those father daughter bonding moments. The Abby parts are truly atrocious, and Naughty Dog failed to make her this likable semi-antagonist that they were trying to accomplish. They did absolutely no justice to Joel, and it’s truly sad to see arguably the best video game character ever meet such a rushed and unfortunate end. The gameplay is really awesome though, and it looks spectacular. If you care a lot about the first game’s story, I don’t suggest playing The Last Of Us Part 2. If you’re a gamer who solely loves a game for the playability and visuals, this is probably right up your alley. The only reason that I’m not giving it 1 star is because the gameplay was so well done. For me, the awesome gameplay definitely doesn’t justify a butchered story line. If they make a 3rd last of us, I certainly won’t be buying it. Shame to see such a poorly written story to what I thought would’ve been an awesome game.