Revisiting the Controversy of The Last of Us Part 2

[Music] The Last of Us Part Two is without question one of the most polarizing and controversial games to ever exist its predecessor The Last of Us Part One remains to this day as naughty dog's magnum opus a game that simply just did everything right with an incredible story unbelievably complex characters and a high stakes hypothetical question that still has people talking to this day The Last of Us Part One is a game that many people still talk about over a decade later for all the right reasons but it's sequel well let's just say people talk about this game still to this day for many reasons in 2020 Naughty Dog dropped the long awaited sequel to their Masterpiece and the response was interesting many hailing the game is a masterpiece with an even winning game of the year but there were just as many people trashing it as a complete disaster that spat on the legacy of the first game so the narrative tends to be with The Last of Us Part Two your either love it or you hate it but strangely enough I think both sides have a point if you think this game is a masterpiece I kind of get it if you think it's straight garbage again I get it look there are many games that I love there are many games that I hate and there are many games that I think are just fine but then there is The Last of Us Part Two a game that still to this day I constantly swing back and forth as to whether or not I love it or I hate it so given that The Last of Us Part Two got a remaster recently I decided to replay the game to see if my opinions of the game had changed after the last few years and well I've got a lot to say so we're going to dive deep into this story the characters within it the controversy the game playay and the world of The Last of Us Part Two in this retrospective look into one of the most controversial games of all time the story of The Last of Us Part Two is truly something many people will die on the hill that this story is just as good as the original and many people will die on the hill that it's an absolute train wreck The Last of Us Part Two is a story that deals with hatred Obsession perspective and the endless cycle of Revenge thematically The Last of Us Part Two has a lot going for it and at times it absolutely Nails its key themes but sometimes it falls to the Wayside in its own complexity the basic gist of this game story is Joel's past comes back to haunt him and as a result Ellie is set off on a vengeful quest to bring his killer to Justice in its simplest form that's all this game is it's a Revenge story but the narrative flips multiple times leading to things going a little all over the place with altering perspectives constant uses of flashbacks to fill in the gaps of the current Day events and much more it's a story that went for something bold but the line between bold and stupid is a fine line and the story Treads that line the entire way through so let's go through that story now I'm obviously not going to cover every single thing that happens as this is a very long story with a fair bit of filler so we'll cover the stuff that I think is important from a story and character standpoint so we pick up shortly after the events of the last of us part one where Joel explains to Tommy that he destroyed Humanity's chance at a cure by Saving Ellie although shocked Tommy understands and even says that he'd have done the same thing obviously as he was there the day Sarah died it's fair that Tommy would be super understanding as to why Joel did this I also find it very interesting that straight off the bat they had a character directly addressed the hypothetical debate fans had for so long regarding the first game's ending but regardless it was nice to see Joel shed some of the burden that he was carrying to Tommy it makes sense narratively that Tommy should know what happened at the hospital due to where this game goes we then get to see how Joel and Ellie are living their life in Jackson now that the chaos from the first game is over Ellie is a little closed off Joel is nervous to even talk to her obviously he's bearing a very heavy load with the LIE he told her about what happened at the hospital we see Joel bring out a guitar and play Ellie the song that the two of them joked about in the first game now the symbolism of the guitar becomes very important throughout the game and here it was just a really nice scene between the two with a sense of dread on the horizon I must admit I still think this is a perfect start to the game I love that the game opens with Joel and Tommy talking about what happened at the hospital and I love how they showcased Joel and Ellie's Dynamic shift but this is kind of just the prologue of the game as the game properly picks up 4 years later Ellie is now 18 and we start to see how she lives her day-to-day life in Jackson they have a sense of normality they go on routine patrols she's developed relationships away from Joel with Jesse and Dena being the main two with more under the surface for both Ellie and Dena specifically but it becomes known that Ellie and Joel aren't really on the best terms as of this moment it's not said but it's heavily implied that she found out about Joel's lie which is something that we find out about further in the story now this is where the game takes a massive turn very early on in the story we find ourselves playing as Abby who is absolutely swo and makes me question my bro spit so Abby is a former firly that got a tip that Tommy Joel's brother was in Jackson and well she's here to get some Revenge for her father who was the surgeon that Joel killed when he saved Ellie at the end of part one yes this is a little contrived but not out of the Realms of possibility Joel killed a lot of people that day and he was always going to have to face his consequences one day and I guess this was a decent enough way to carry that out at least at face value so aby's traveling with her group including characters like Owen Jordan Mel Norah and Manny all of which become important later in the story but then we flip back over and we're playing as Ellie once again this is a problem this story has it jumps around a lot the first game was such a straightforward and linear narrative but this time round they really made an active effort to throw the game's pacing off by jumping to different perspectives and flashbacks this becomes more of a problem later in the story but hey at least we're actually playing as the character that we want to play as now so we go on routine patrols with Ellie and Dena we get some World building and some development on Ellie and dena's relationship and you know it's a little High School cheese but given that Ellie is 18 the dialogue pretty much checks out but then we flip perspectives again and we're back playing as Abby through a series of contrived circumstances Abby crosses paths with Joel and Tommy Joel saves her life from a hoorde of infected and they eventually escape and Retreat back to where we first met Abby and her entire group are still there now I seriously have a huge problem with all of this to be honest the fact Abby just happened to stumble across Joel like this just seemed a little lazy for from a writing perspective like this is just one of many coincidental dominoes to fall that leads to Joel's death but what also really grinds my gears here is how Joel and Tommy just don't have their guard up at all around Abby or the group and it's very well implied throughout both games that you can't trust anyone in this world I find it hard to buy that Joel would let this happen at all you could argue that being in Jackson for 4 years kind of made him a little soft but Joel knows better than anyone what's out there and what people are capable of I mean look what he did at the hospital so the fact he was so chill about the entire encounter is just strange to me and doesn't link up with the character established in the first game and the problem is this is basically what SEALs Joel's fate Joel is now in a room surrounded by people who traveled all the way to Jackson to kill him and Abby realizing who Joel is shoots him in the leg but asks for a Tor so she can bring out her preferred weapon of choice and Happy Gilmore Joel in the head but then we swap perspective again and now we're playing as Ellie Jesse alerts Ellie that Tommy and Joel are missing and she does everything she can to find out what's going on this moment actually does work quite well because you the player know Joel is in dire need of help or he is literally going to die perhaps he already even has so as the player you're super invested in scurrying to find him Ellie eventually stumbles across a ski lodge with a man screaming we of course know that this is Joel and then we're treated to the not so pleasant site of Joel's near lifeless body on the ground with Abby standing over him with a golf club and then right in front of Ellie the final blow is struck so Joel is now dead and Ellie gets knocked out and then is woken up by Dena I'm sorry Jesse they're down [Music] here I will say Joel's death definitely brought forward the emotions that the writers were going for and I think the execution of Joel's death literally and figuratively was well done but my problem is a how early in the story this happens and B the fact that the events that led up to Joel's death were a result of lazy writing trying to force a situation I know a lot of people get mad at the fact that Joel dies in this game but to be honest Joel was always going to die in this game actions have consequences and let's be honest Joel deserved his death a million times over but the way they got there through lazy writing and how early they killed him off just felt so disrespectful to the character but this sets the stage for the Revenge Quest that The Last of Us Part Two ultimately is when we see Tommy and Ellie mourning over the loss of Joel Ellie wants to rush off and make Abby pay for what happened and Tommy is having trouble convincing Ellie to give him some time to prepare accordingly there's a sequence where Ellie visits Joel's grave and walks through his house and I don't care how much you might not like this game's story but but these moments are amazing this is what I mean when I say I go back and forth between loving and hating this game like you've got Joel's death coming at the hands of a poorly introduced character in bad writing but the aftermath and Quiet Moments following his death hit really hard and seemed to have had a lot of thought put into it just the shot of Ellie sitting next to Joel's grave or Ellie walking through Joel's house looking at possessions and remembering the love both Ellie and the player had for this character like this is good [ __ ] they gave players a moment to grieve Joel's death and take in The Quiet Moments before the chaos that ensues it's down moments like this where the game thrives and that's consistent the whole way through but as great as these moments are we then find out that Tommy has left to go find Abby in Seattle and left Ellie behind so Maria gives Ellie her blessing to go as well as giving her supplies although no men to go with her now I absolutely hate that they felt the need for Tommy to leave Ellie and Jackson to go and find Abby this never made any sense to me at all and as much as I break this story apart dissect it I still don't like that the riters went this way they seemed intent on having you follow Tommy's trail of Destruction which is interesting but him leaving Ellie and Jackson knowing what Joel meant to her just never made any sense not to mention he knows Ellie is just going to follow him anyway which just puts her in danger like Tommy doing this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and it's seriously bugs me anyway we kick off the adventure with Ellie and Dena and head to Seattle to find Abby and the wlf who she's a part of along the way we get more backstory on Dena specifically and we get small dialogue moments that hint how Ellie is ready to inflict a lot of pain on people in this journey we also get some really nice moments with Ellie reflecting on Joel through symbols such as the guitar Ellie's version of Take On Me is a really nice down moment of this game there's a lot of emotion behind it and honestly it's one of my favorite parts of the entire game and it's moments like this that despite how much this story frustrates me at times I just love I can't help it it's kind of one of the final down moments before the story really kicks into gear as Ellie and Dena arrive at an old wlf base camp they realized that someone got there and killed them all before they could we find two dead people in a room which mirrors what Joel did in the winter section of the first game you get one of them silently to point on a map where something specific is and if the other person matches it then you know they're telling the truth it's cool to see Joel's brother using the same technique that we saw him use Tommy being ah head of Ellie like I said previously is a cool idea as you get to follow the breadcrumbs which is interesting but again I still find it hard to buy that Tommy would have just up and left Ellie and Jackson like he did it's one example of this game having a great idea but in order for that idea to exist something happens that just doesn't make sense from a character or story standpoint but regardless we then crossed paths with Jordan who was one of the people who was there the day that Joel was killed he was the one who wanted to kill Ellie whilst Abby and Owen stopped him Ellie eventually breaks free and kills him crossing a name off the list of the people who were there when Joel died Ellie and Dina follow some more leads that lead to a TV station and along the way we get some seeds planted which get explored in the ABY section of the game we also get more Tommy breadcrumbs and the first hint of Dena being sick eventually Ellie and Dena make to the TV station and find that again everyone there is dead but this time by someone that is definitely not Tommy Ellie then stumbles across a bag with Polaroids that have everybody that was in the room when Joel died names and all this is just way too convenient and one of the many gripes I have with how this game relies so much on happen stance to keep the plot moving but we continue on with the journey and along the way Ellie is forced to reveal her Secret by taking her mask off in a Spore in Ed area in front of Dena which goes back to the line Ellie mentioned earlier about her being immune to Dena which Dena Shrugged off as a dumb joke they end up seeking refuge in a movie theater which is where the bulk of the game's major moments take place amidst Ellie's reveal Dena says that she might be pregnant which is something that honestly I just don't think this story needed at all like dena's reaction to Ellie being immune you know a pretty world breaking deal is completely overshadowed by Dena being pregnant which I know that dena's pregnancy is there to mirror Mel's pregnancy I get what they're going for but why overshadow Dena finding out Ellie is immune I just found this very strange to be glossed over and to be honest pulled me right out of the scene Ellie being immune is a massive deal but Dina it's it's just nothing but realizing that Dena is now a burden on the journey Ellie takes some time to call off and we get an incredible moment where Ellie begins to sing the song that Joel sang to her in the game's prologue I Ely loose we then get arguably one of the best sequences of the entire game and it's a flashback of Ellie's birthday where Joel takes Ellie to a museum now I have a love hate Rel relationship with these flashbacks because the flashbacks with Ellie mainly tend to be absolutely 10 out of 10 incredible but many of them not all of them completely throw off the game's pacing this flashback specifically is an incredible moment of this game it's a light-hearted enjoyable slower period of the game that offers some of the best moments The Last of Us Part Two has to offer I do okay are you [ __ ] kidding me you're welcome kiddo earlier in the game in Joel's house you can actually see that he was reading space for dummies which reflects what we see here with how much Ellie loves the idea of space highlighting the love that Joel had for Ellie and the effort that he showed to understand her interests it's flashback moments like these where it makes it difficult to say this game is Just trash because I mean it it's just not as much as this game story frustrates me moments like this just have me completely lost lost in these characters and reminds me why I loved them in the first place toward the end of the flashback Ellie stumbles across a firefly symbol with the word Liars written under it Ellie reaches for a bite mark which tells us that this is still something that is firmly entrenched in her mind which makes sense seeing as Ellie grows more suspicious as she gets older but after the flashback Ellie hears through the radio that a lone male has been spotted and they of course assume that this is Tommy so Ellie sets out by herself to go and find him after some really cool combat sequences Ellie finds Tommy except it's not Tommy it's Jesse now this was a really controversial moment of the game for reasons outside the story in the game's marketing Naughty Dog dropped a trailer where in this Scene It Wasn't Jesse it was Joel making people angry with naughty dog for misleading players what the hell are you doing here I think i' like let you do this on your own what the hell are you doing here you think I'd let you do this on your own again this isn't really a story issue but if we're going to cover the game's controversies here it's worth mentioning regardless you escape the surrounding wlf and infected with Jesse in a dynamic gameplay section which is pretty damn great I'm not going to lie you then head back to the movie theater Jesse and Dena are EX's which makes things a little bit awkward for Ellie and just as the scene has time to settle with thrown into yet another flashback with Ellie and Tommy doing some target practice in this flashback we see Ellie and Joel not getting along as well as they did in previous flashbacks indicating that something has happened since then now it's in this flashback where we get to go through a proper gameplay sequence with Joel and Ellie get to kill some Infected we get to explore much like the first game in the flashback Ellie comes across a dead body and a clicker these were two people that fled Jack in order to help what remained of society and save some lives and from here we get a truly great scene we traveled across the entire country to bring me to the fireflies I had so many questions for them why did you pull me out of there while I was still unconscious because I let them run their tests and when I saw that they were useless I got us out of there how do you know they were useless maybe if you you just would have given them more time they could have figured something out there was no cure there's nothing that could help these people or anybody else I know you wish things were different I wish things were different but they ain't so Ellie is clearly still holding a lot of survivors guilt because of her immunity and starts to question Joel on his lie it's clear that the bird and Ellie carry through the first game has only gotten worse as she's gotten older and as she's gotten older she started to piece together that Joel's lie doesn't really make sense she does ask Joel a pretty dumb question in this cut scene though that being how come she hasn't come across another person that's immune despite it being extremely obvious why a lot of people actually chalk this part down to bad riding to be honest I'm actually going to go into defense of the Riders here which I don't really do very often with this game I think this is more to do with the fact that Ellie is still 16 she's still extremely young and she is absolutely desperate to find answers so this never really bothered me at all but of course Joel remains adamant that there was no cure and then we have the final shot of the flashback which lingers on the two dead people making you wonder that if Joel never took Ellie from the hospital would these two people still be alive this is an excellent flashback and I absolutely love this game when it's just Joel and Ellie the problem is there just isn't much of that we get thrown back to the present day and we set off on another quest to go find another one of aby's group members Nora in a hospital on the way we're introduced to the scars the enemy of the wlf and they come more into play when we play as Abby later in the game Ellie eventually finds her way to the hospital after taking out several w F members she finds Norah and we get one of the better moments in the game where Ellie's lost for Revenge truly takes [Music] over this is the first time Ellie really goes over the line on her vengeful Quest Nora was going to die anyway but she chose to make it slow and this did affect her we then cut to a shot of Ellie standing outside the theater with a shaking red right hand this is honestly my favorite shot of the entire game I absolutely love it clearly shaken by what she just did to Nora Ellie mentions to Dena that she got her to talk but more importantly this is where Ellie finally opens up to Dena and says I don't want to lose you now if you've played the first game you know that Ellie's biggest fear is being alone which ties into the game's ending which we will of course get to later trust me we're then thrown into another flashback 2 years earlier at the hospital where the ending of the first game happened Ellie's suspicions have grown to Breaking Point and she's gone back to the hospital herself to try and find out what happened she finds a recorder which a firefly Left Behind after the events of Joel's rampage now I know this game is heavy on convenient moments to progress the story and I've seen some people complain that the recorder was one of those instances but these recorders were everywhere in the first game in the hospital too and nobody complained about that so this gets a pass Mark for me the Firefly talks about what she's going to do next find another group or find Joel and Ellie but even if they found Ellie or someone else that's immune it would be for nothing as the only person who could develop the vaccine is dead this obviously being the surgeon that Joel killed now having obviously taken off from Jackson to get to the hospital Joel managed to track Ellie down but this time Ellie knows Joel has lied and forces him to come clean tell me what happened here if you lie to me one more time I'm gone you will never see me again but if you tell me the truth I'll go back to Jackson no matter what it is just say it TR making a vaccine would have killed you so I stop them oh my God don't you [ __ ] touch [Music] me I'll go back but we're [Music] done this is one of the best moments of the game for me easily Ellie learning the truth is a massive moment and explains why her and Joel weren't on the best of terms at the start of the game I couldn't have really imagined a better way for Ellie to find out to be honest this is always how she was going to react and this game does take some missteps absolutely but Ellie finding out the truth was not one of them we then snapped back to the present day Jesse asks if Dena is pregnant and then Ellie confirms it so they contemplate heading back to Jackson but logically they decide to find Tommy first before they turn around so so Ellie and Jesse head out to go and find him we get some great character building for Jesse through optional dialogue where Jesse mentions that he would have come to Seattle with her if she just asked him I got to admit I actually really like Jesse in this game and I think he is criminally underutilized eventually Ellie and Jesse end up disagreeing on what to do next all Jesse wants to do is find Tommy and get the hell out of Seattle all Ellie wants to do is find Tommy but through finding Abby it's clear that her Lust For A revenge is still completely taking her over so they disagree and they part ways the first time I played through the game I was originally a little confused that Ellie would do this as it just doesn't seem like something that Ellie would do but upon replay it's kind of the point Ellie is losing herself in her pursuit of Revenge this makes complete sense considering what she'd gone through to this point Ellie eventually makes it to the aquarium where Abby supposedly is you sneak around a little bit and you kill a dog that attacks you which is an important point that I will come back to later as you spend a lot of time with this dog when the narrative flips Ellie eventually finds Owen and Mel but no Abby she tries to get information out of them both but things get out of hand and she ends up killing both of them Owen's dying words mentioned that Mel is pregnant and upon realizing this it completely destroys Ellie this is why Dena being pregnant was introduced to the game to give this moment even more power and although it is effective at conveying how Ellie is really going too far I still don't like how dena's pregnancy was brought up in the first place and her immunity was just glossed over regardless though Jesse and Tommy find Ellie after the damage is done and quickly take her away whilst a shot lingers of a pool of blood that is flooding towards Ellie's map which has their location we then cut back to the movie theater and we get a scene with Ellie Jesse and Tommy planning their route back to Jackson Ellie reluctantly agrees that it's time to go home but before they do Tommy heads to the front of the the the and we hear some strange noises so Jesse is abruptly killed by Abby which I just found kind of annoying to be honest but I understand why they went for it this way you can legitimately die in the blink of an eye in this world and this does convey that so Abby has come after Ellie because she killed all of aby's friends but the thing is Ellie came after them because Abby killed Joel It's a cycle of violence where does it end that's one of the biggest themes of this game and it briefly comes to a head here but before we can find out what happens in this Scene It just ends so the perspective of the game has now flipped and we are playing as Abby now straight off the bat I do not like this at all I understand the point of wanting to show an alternative perspective of a situation we've already seen as looking at things through a different lens can be really interesting from a story point of view but in the context of a video game I don't like that we switch things up and have to then play 10 to 12 hours as Abby not to mention this completely halts whatever pacing the game had we were building to a climax and then all of a sudden we were taken all the way back to the beginning again this time from someone else's perspective it just really really killed the pacing of the game all this perspective shift really does initially is it angers the player it makes them want to stop playing and it begins to manipulate the player into sympathizing with Abby and tries to turn Ellie into the antagonist remember at the start of the video where I said this game is bold but the line between bold and stupid is a fine line well I think the line was crossed here I like Abby I think there's a basis for a super interesting character there I just don't think creatively speaking for a video game this was the best idea but I'll address that issue more as we go along into the story so we spent some time playing now as Abby with her father Jerry the surgeon who was going to operate on Ellie we free a zebra which was the writer's attempt at mirroring the scene where Ellie Pets the giraffe now it turns out this flashback is actually on the same day that Joel and Ellie reached the hospital in the ending of the first game we get a scene with marleene which takes place just before we see her after Joel wakes up in the first game Marlene understood that Ellie's death was necessary but here we actually get to see the moment that led her to that point and I actually really liked this we also see Abby mentioned to her father that if it was Abby that needed to be sacrificed she'd want to do it the game is again trying to mirror Abby with Ellie because they are extremely similar they both had to watch their father or father figure die and they both would have sacrificed themselves for a cure but a lot of this game is exploring how they went down different paths in their quest for Revenge Abby chose to spare Tommy and Ellie Ellie didn't choose to spare Norah Jordan Mel and Owen the game spends the next 10 to 12 hours trying to turn Abby essentially into the good guy which narratively is extremely brave because this is the person that just killed Joel and it's for this reason that a lot of people absolutely hate this game and I completely understand however some people think this is a busy narrative decision and it's commendable and therefore they applaud it I can see both sides personally I lean toward the side of this was an interesting idea in concept but wasn't executed well nor does the concept really lend itself to a video game especially one that's this long anyway we go all the way back to Seattle day one now we're going through those 3 days in Seattle from aby's point of view instead of Ellie's we see where Abby lives and how she lives now that she's no longer a firefly we get a fleshing out of the wlf their hierarchy and aby's place within it how the wlf live is basically a direct mirror to Jackson It's relatively peaceful people people are nice enough but they do what they need to do to survive the first few hours of aby's playthrough is just trying to get you to like Abby and her friends to flesh them out and also to flesh out the wlf conflict with the scars we learn that something happened with Owen that ended up in a wlf member called Danny dying so Abby defies Isaac's orders to go and find him I'm just going to say this now Isaac is so underutilized in this story he barely does anything despite the game portraying him as super important and not to be messed with and it is also worth noting that in this scene we do get the seeds planted of the wlf invading the Scar's Island which becomes a big deal later in the game but we then cut away to a flashback of Abby and Owen when they were younger and this flashback just lets you know that there are a couple and Owen found this abandoned aquarium which is of course the place where Ellie ends up killing him not going to lie this flashback sequence was a little boring to sit through as is the case for most of aby's flashbacks theond on the nose nature of the flashback mirroring the museum flashback earlier in the game with Joel and Ellie was something that was just annoyingly distracting it's clear what the game is trying to do at this point they want to show the parallels of Ellie and Abby but they just overdo it throughout the entire story there's no Nuance to it and it just feels forced the further you go after the flashback you go back to the present and continue on your quest to find Owen along the way you get caught by scars and then you go straight back into another flashback which takes you back to just before Abby and her group head to Jackson Abby explains to Owen that she has a lead on Joel's location the reason behind it is some fireflies were picked up at the walls in Seattle and Tommy was a firefly therefore the dots connected to Joel apparently to be honest I found this to be a really poor way to explain how Abby ends up finding out about Joel's whereabouts again it falls back into the problem we spoke about earlier regarding key elements of the plot relying heavily on coincidence it is stated that it's just a lead and nothing concrete but still out of all the ways they could have linked Abby to Joel 4 years after what happened at the hospital and this is what they go for not to mention Tommy left the fireflies 10 years ago by this point how would they know even roughly where he is you can play all kinds of mental gymnastics to try and justify it but it comes down to one thing lazy writing not to mention technically they've gone to Jackson to look for Tommy when they actually find him and Tommy mentions his name they barely react at all which is just weird given this knowledge it's only when Joel is mentioned that anyone reacts so it feels like this scene where Abby tells Owen about the lead with Tommy it's just an afterthought sprinkled in it is frustrating that the thing that seemed to be given the least amount of care in how it happened in this game was Joel's death almost everything leading up to Joel's death was a matter of coincidence and I find that incredibly frustrating again I'm not mad that Joel died in this game it would have been weird if he didn't but the way in which his death came to be is so fundamentally flawed anyway we go back to the present and Abby is about to be killed by the scars but is saved by Lev and Yara because Abby well helped save Yara Le and Yara are two defected scars that team up with Abby to escape despite them being enemies you eventually do escape and then you go your separate ways but it's clear for whatever reason that these two had an impact on Abby one that will be Revisited soon so Abby continues on with her quest to find Owen and she eventually does he's at the aquarium drunk this actually leads to a good scene in which Owen opens up about what happened with Danny and that he doesn't want to fight anymore and just wants to be normal and peaceful but then it's abruptly ruined by Owen and Abby randomly starting to bang like I don't know man it's so weird we then cut into a dream sequence where Abby walks to the end of the hallway and instead of seeing her father there she sees Yara and Lev so Abby starts to have these impulses to help them so she does just that she brings them to the aquarium so Mel can heal Yara as Mel trained under aby's dad but they don't have the supplies necessary so Abby has to quickly go to the hospital the very same hospital that we went to with Ellie when she killed Nora so that's what we do but we take a shortcut and the shortcut plays into aby's biggest fear that being Heights I guess this was some kind of thing to make you sympathize with Abby I guess it's something that helps humanize her at least the writers thought so across this journey we start to see Abby and Lev get a little bit closer yes they are trying to mirror Joel and Ellie here and whilst it humanizes the characters a little bit it's distractingly obvious what they're doing it's one of my biggest problems with the second half of this game they try way too hard to get you to like Abby it's so on the nose that it pulls you right out of the story I understand that you want to make Abby relatable and likable and to humanize her but realistically how is that going to go down when we know she killed Joel you know one of the most iconic and beloved video game characters in history after something like that happens the majority of people aren't going to care if you try and humanize Abby by showing she's afraid of heights like I don't hate Abby I hate how hard the riters tried to get you to like her nothing about it felt natural regardless of that though Abby eventually gets to the hospital but is snitched on by the w Ulf soldiers there and gets handcuffed Nora eventually finds her and frees her but tells her that the medical supplies aren't here because they've already been taken the only place left that they haven't cleared out is the bottom levels of the hospital which was ground zero for the outbreak in Seattle I actually dig the hell out of this and thought it was really interesting to go to where it all started in this city specifically if you take the time to read the notes left by some of the patients it's really interesting and pretty damn sad to be honest you eventually do find medical supplies but you are not alone down there there is something else down there that is not the typical infected once you eventually defeat it which was a [ __ ] of a boss fight I've got to say you eventually escape the hospital and you go back to the aquarium Yara is okay and you have some moments with Alice the dog that Ellie killed earlier in the game you feel bad yet do you good that's what the riters want Ellie is the dog murderer Abby is the dog lover again super on the nose manipulation to get you to like Abby and not like Ellie we then get another dream sequence but this time Abby opens the door to see her father alive which is meant to convey that Abby has kind of come to terms with his death and has processed it fully we then get more conflict with Mel that contradicts the actions of Mel as a character for the entire game she's a pregnant woman who knows fully well she's pregnant but she's trying to lecture Abby about how she's a piece of [ __ ] when she multiple times put herself in the firing line of scars infected and also went to Jackson again whilst knowing she was pregnant like what I know Dena stupidly put herself In Harm's Way when she thought she might be pregnant as well but she didn't go lecturing people about how much of a piece of [ __ ] they are whilst doing something that stupid I just cannot stand the hypocrisy from Mel's character in this game and I think she is just an awful character but that's not important because what is important is that Lev has decided that he wants to go back to the scars to talk to his mother which is just dumb and an excuse to get a massive set piece on the island and on top of that Owen volunteers to go and help and for some reason Abby tells him to get his priorities straight like why is every single character at this point in the story such a hypocrite you've got Mel lecturing Abby on how much of a piece of [ __ ] she is when she knowingly pregnant put herself In Harm's Way multiple times and now you've got Abby telling Owen to get his priorities straight like Abby didn't you just bang this dude that has a pregnant girlfriend like what it's also worth mentioning that this is the last time Abby and Owen see each other alive so it just feels like any effort to develop the two of them so far was kind of just pointless but with that out of the way they go on their journey to go and save Lev we actually get a really cool section of the game where we play as Abby despite it having yet another major contrivance you try to avoid a sniper in a pretty fun sequence but Manny is there the only remaining member of aby's group that we didn't see ell kill I know really convenient at least the riters were consistent with making things Ultra convenient for the plot it's reveal that this sniper that they're avoiding is Tommy which makes sense because Tommy would be closing right in on them at this point in time Manny is then killed in identical fashion to Jesse but Abby holds Tommy off with the help of Yara and they eventually make their way to the island and all hell breaks loose looking for L the reason being the wlf invasion of the island that was spoken about earlier with Isaac is currently taking place while we're looking for Lev yes very convenient timing we eventually find Lev and he killed his mother because she kind of freaked out and these people are just nuts and L was forced to defend himself when we try to escape Yara dies and we get an underwhelming end to Isaac again who was portrayed as a character that was way more important than he actually was not to mention we get such a cliche with the way he dies you know a character gets turned into swiss cheese is obviously dead but oh no they're not because they need to save the main character it's so lazy but now it's just Lev and Abby and they try to really develop the bond between the two of them here but it's just the most budget Joel and Ellie Dynamic imaginable and I had a really hard time buying into it but they eventually escape the island and then things get pretty spicy Abby returns back to the mainland and the aquarium and she arrives just after Ellie killed Owen and Mel and remember how Ellie conveniently left the map behind earlier well that's so Abby can find them at the movie theater and that's where we pick back up the cut scene resumes where the Ellie portion of the story stopped this then leads into a boss fight but here's the kicker you don't play as Ellie and fight the person that killed Joel no you play as the person who killed Joel and you have to now try and kill Ellie this is by far the thing that annoys me the most about this game minus the way Joel's death came to be I remember the first time I played this boss fight and Ellie killed me I audibly cheered without even meaning to that is how pissed off I was that I had to play as Abby Abby eventually wins and goes to kill Dena but Lev says no so Abby doesn't do it by this point I'm kind of just kind of just at my wits end with how it's all panned out to be honest because that's pretty much it Abby spares Ellie's life again and that's how the meat of this story is wrapped up it's one of the most anticlimactic endings you could possibly imagine the kicker is also this wasn't the ending there's still more we fast forward into the future to the game's proper ending the ending of this game is kind of like an epilogue it's really strange how they structured it all it it's it's always felt kind of weird moral of the story is Ellie and Dena have left Jackson Dena gave birth to a baby boy named JJ as in Jesse Jr that I actually did like justice for Jesse my guy deserved better we get some really nice moments between Ellie and Dena it seems like they've kind of got their happy ending but Ellie has severe PTSD episodes of Joel's death making it clear that she is by no means over what happened Tommy shows up to their house and I have no idea how Tommy is still alive the dude cops an absolute beating in this game and he's still alive like the plot armor is insane I like Tommy a lot but like how are you alive man well he's alive because the story needs to happen he's been putting out feelers about Abby and someone mentions that they traded with a girl that was built like an ox traveling with a kid with scars on his face in California this tracks as we know Owen wanted to go to California so the player connects the dots and we know that it's clearly Abby if it wasn't obvious enough already we see Ellie clearly affected by Tommy's lead and Tommy understandably is frustrated with Ellie because he obviously can't go and avenge Joel because of his condition Ellie at this point is really struggling internally and kind of just letting Dena call the shots here when it's clear what Ellie really wants to do Ellie then has a sleepless night clearly affected by what Tommy said and if you explore the house you can see what Ellie has been riding down since they left Seattle she's in a very dark place mentally and Abby still haunts her she goes to the guitar and we get a flashback of what happened the night before the start of the game we see what happened between Ellie and Dena how Joel reacted to protect Ellie from Seth and how Ellie just doesn't want his help it's pretty heart-wrenching to sit through and see how distraught Joel is by this I don't know man just anything with Joel by this point just makes me so sad so Ellie feels like she still has a job to do before she can truly let Joel go before she can really move on my interpretation of this was she was always feeling insane amounts of guilt for how treated him before his death and killing Abby would somehow help her get closure so she leaves Dena and she sets off to find Abby we then change perspectives again and we're playing as Abby again thankfully this time it's not for long I've just got to point out look at the shoes Lev has on have these Riders ever not heard of subtlety I know I'm beating a dead horse mentioning how on the nose the parallels between Abby and Lev and Joel and Ellie are but I can't not mention it this was just funny to me regardless of that Abby and L are trying to find the Firefly Outpost that Owen mentioned earlier in the game they think they found it through a radio call but they're ambushed and kidnapped by a group called The Rattlers we then switch perspectives back to Ellie in the boat house Abby was rumored to be at but she's not there as by this point she's been captured for quite a while Ellie then begins her quest to find Abby and along the way gets caught in a trap and is found by the same people that found Abby and L except Ellie gets the upper hand and finds out where Abby is I will say Ellie should be dead before she's even found by these people she gets impaled by a tree and hangs upside down for God knows how long she should be dead but forgetting about that Ellie eventually finds the base and we get to just mow down wave after wave of these Rattlers and it is a lot of fun Ellie creates a diversion by releasing prisoners so they can occupy the guards while she sneaks off to go find Abby by this point Abby is weak near death and kind of just accepts that Ellie is letting her and L leave but then Ellie puts a knife to Lev's throat which I've got to say doesn't make any sense the Ellie that was drunk on Revenge earlier in the game and got unhinged probably would have done this absolutely but Ellie has been living with Dena raising her own child since then why would she put a knife to another child's throat it's a major leap that doesn't make any sense given what's happened in the time that passed since the events in Seattle we eventually get a drawn out fight sequence Ellie is on the verge of drowning Abby but stops and lets Abby and Lev go breaking the cycle of violence yeah it's pretty damn underwhelming look I get the game wants to say something about the endless cycle of violence and when does it end but there is just nothing even mildly fulfilling about the ending of this conflict nothing Bittersweet nothing even truly thought-provoking it's just nothing and it's made even worse because when Ellie returns to Dena and JJ they're gone leaving Ellie with the realization that her biggest fear that being being left alone has come true all because of her desire for Revenge which thematically would have made way more sense if she'd killed Abby but she let her go so the punishment for being the bigger person and breaking the cycle is losing everything and being alone like it just doesn't make make any sense but the Saving Grace of the ending of this game is the final flashback you're such an [ __ ] I'm not trying toit I was supposed to die in that hospital my life would have [ __ ] mattered but you took that from me if somehow the lord gave me a second chance at that moment I would do it all over again yeah I just I don't think I can ever forgive you for that but I would like to try I like that okay I'll see you around Yep this ended the game on a huge high note for me the flashbacks with Ellie in this game are my favorite parts and the final flashback is no exception one of the parts of this game that ate away at me the entire way through is how Joel must have felt before his death because the girl he saved and loved like a daughter began to turn on him and although he did deserve that it's hard to watch a man that was so broken and then fixed by this one person get crushed by that same person just before his death so when Ellie says in the final flashback that she wants to try to forgive him and you hear the cracks in Joel's voice afterward that was something that I just seriously needed overall this story is a bit of a mess there are moments that I absolutely love and would without question put on par with the first game's highs mostly the flashbacks when this story focuses in on Joel and Ellie I love it and these moments alone make me look at this game with not just hate but love but ultimately I think this game took way too much on and the writers completely buckled under the scope of the game that they went for The Game's plot is heavily dependent on coincidence not just once not just twice not just three times but over and over and over again it's not a well-written game at all which is a shame again considering how well written the first game is the first game was about love this game is about hate and it has some interesting themes but the more you dive in and the more you analyze this story The more you realize it just does not hold up the first time I played this game I liked the story but I had some issues with it upon replay and analyzing it very closely for this video I've massively soured on the story I wouldn't say I hate it but its glaring flaws are simply way too big to ignore now the game play and the world of The Last of Us Part Two in start contrast to the story in characters I think is legitimate Perfection the first game did a great deal in setting up this incredibly interesting world with solid gameplay mechanics that made traversing it fun and engaging but The Last of Us Part Two regardless of what you think about the story is a technical Masterpiece it builds on the fundamentals of the first game's already great gameplay and world and perfects it the gameplay improvements made here are simply phenomenal Gunplay feels tight and responsive but also fair and realistic you have to think about your encounters and this is largely down to the incredibly smart enemy AI they flank you quietly they react to your presence in a realistic manner each faction acts differently in combat sequences the seraphites are more stealth-based and communicate through whistling the wolves are more aggressive and traditional and the infected depending on the specific type all work well in their own way as for weapon upgrades this feature is now across both updated versions of part one and part two and it's incredibly simple you're not going to be able to upgrade everything on your playthrough unless you play on the lowest possible difficulty or if you're a psycho and search legitimately every single room throughout the entire game so it feels balanced and what you upgrade requires a little bit more thought with how you want to approach combat so it gives the player a little bit of choice same goes for all upgrades really do you want to improve listening distance Health level or focus on ABY specific upgrades the choice is yours and you need to cater it to your play style because at least compared to the first game there is a lot more freedom of approach with the gamees combat now the traversal mechanics are still absolutely incredible and make it so the extensive gameplay sections are fun to play through the ability to prone in this game is something the first game never had and this is a huge Improvement and I think naughty dog did a great job in incorporating it in not just traversing the map but also in combat as well you can hide under cars in grass and it just provides more variety in how you approach stealth there's also the addition of rope based mechanics also helping the world feel a little more real trying to figure out where to throw a rope to swing to was a good challenge in of itself there's also the addition of traversing the world with a boat which I thought was a very welcome Edition it makes the world feel larger a little bit more expansive in terms of gameplay I have absolutely no issues with part two I think from top to bottom it's a technically incredible experience that lends itself perfectly to the world you spend hours and hours exploring and speaking of exploring let's talk about the world that you do explore the scenery change to a major city that being Seattle definitely helped the game feel larger than the first we know it is in a story sense but literally speaking here the size is just cranked up to 11 from the last game you cover so much ground here whether you're Crossing flooded streets scaling skyscrapers or working your way down floor by floor of buildings littered with infected there's a sequence earlier in the game where you first set off with Ellie Anda where you explore an extremely open area you can skip many any areas here and just progress through the story if you want to or you can do what I did and explore everywhere you'll find clues that lead to saf to crack that gives you good rewards for doing so or you'll be able to go into a bank vault and see the notes left by people who tried to rob the vaults when the outbreak started there is always something around the corner in terms of reward for exploration so you never feel like you're spending all this time diving through buildings all for nothing the game is Just much more open than part one and I think that's something this game does deserves a lot of credit for it really suits being a little more open and less linear than the first and as much as we may criticize the story and we obviously did the game objectively Nails virtually everything technically speaking when it comes to gameplay animations and the world it's simply the top of the industry in many aspects one of those in my opinion is still the visuals the game looks phenomenal even more so with the recent remaster away from the story I simply have have no complaints for The Last of Us Part Two it's perfect in every single sense from its gameplay to its world its exploration it's a technical Masterpiece and it should be applauded regardless of what you think of the story it's ultimately one of the reasons I still have a lot of love for this game but to bring this one all together The Last of Us Part Two is a controversial game in every sense of the word and rightly so everything from the leaks the story the aftermath it's a controversial game that got people talking and still does to this day although the game played with some seriously interesting and layered themes such as hatred Obsession perspective and the cycle of Revenge It ultimately is a mess of poor writing character inconsistencies and an ending that simply makes no sense in accordance to the themes the story establishes the decision to play half the game as Joel's killer was a brave one that could have worked if the writing was a little stronger and also if the amount of time we were forced to play as Abby was cut in half condensing it and removing all the filler I stand by the fact that due to the lower level of quality of writing the story comes across as extremely manipulative and inconsistent seeing the death of one of the best video game characters to ever exist and the slow destruction of another one of the best video game characters to ever exist all of it in order to try and get you to sympathize and like a character that realistically not many people really cared for was ultimately this game's undoing the r elements of the story that I absolutely love and live rentree in my head for all the right reasons but they are overshadowed by The Game's missteps unfortunately the game play and World from every aspect is masterful and deserves endless amounts of Praise but we're here for the story first and foremost in The Last of Us game and unfortunately it just never lived up to the consistent quality of its predecessor

Channel: Game Overload

Views: 189,878

Keywords: the last of us part 2, the last of us, the last of us part II, the last of us 2 remastered, the last of us part ii remastered, joel and ellie, joel miller, ellie williams, neil druckmann, playstation, sony, ps5, joel death, abby, the last of us part 2 abby, tlou 2, gaming, retrospective, troy baker, ashley johnson, the last of us hbo, joel, ellie, the last of us ending, the last of us part 2 video essay, the last of us 2, naughty dog, the last of us part two, retrospective analysis

Id: AM59j9qcL7Q

Length: 58min 56sec (3536 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 31 2024