I finished The Last of Us 2 last night. I'm a long time Naughty Dog fan so, unsurprisingly, they've once again made a truly impressive experience. Not only in their narrative execution but visual depth and variety. I have some thoughts. Spoilers ahead.
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So as the player I'm forced to repeatedly press Square to carry out actions that I don't want to. My lack of agency, in a character blinded by revenge, was never satisfying. I know Ellie cares Joel was murdered and wants to burn the world, but I don't.
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I thought playing from Abby's perspective was extremely well done, and I felt real empathy for her. But that made playing from Ellie's perspective feel even hollower. Now I the player have insight into Abby's character and motivation, and still have to press Square. No options.
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Redemption stories are very played out of course, but redemption for the villain certainly felt novel. However, even at the beginning of the game, Joel being murdered, I thought "Yeah, that seems fair for dooming humanity." So I was already set up to root for Abby.
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By the end of the game I didn't empathize with Ellie. The opposite. I felt she absolutely should have failed for bad decisions. Anyway, I got through it. The game had a... nearly hopeful ending. Maybe? But not really satisfying, just a set up for Part III.
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One gameplay gripe was ammo. Ammo was a total limit instead of inv + clip. So you could only hold, say, 8 shotgun rounds total. Even if you loaded 2, you couldn't pick up 2 more. Which made it feel game-y. It dinged my immersion consistently.
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That's a minor thing, though. The game is obviously a work of art. One thing that constantly stuck out to me was the LDs masterful use of lighting and color to direct player progression. A lot of variety and unique choices made that should serve as influence for others.
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AND as a completionist-type player, helped me understand where the points of no return were. Only once in the whole game did I go the wrong way and leave a room unexplored behind me. That's pretty impressive for the variety and amount of explorable space.
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A truly incredible experience top to bottom, which I'm sure I'll think about regularly for years to come. I just hope this is the series' Empire Strikes Back and Part III will be less about hate and division and more about unification, love, and rebirth.
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End of conversation
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I was rather disappointed that in the scene where Abbie shows up at the theater she doesn't reiterate all the shit she and Joel did, pointing out the negative spiral of hate and violence. While unnecessary it would've been more human. Almost makes no sense she didn't kill Dina
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