The Last of Us Part 2 in 2021: Was It Really THAT Good?

when i finished the last of us part two i had a hard time not thinking about it it's a kind of game that sits with you minutes hours even days after the credits roll i went to sleep thinking about it and i woke up thinking about it and still one year later this experience asks more of the player than any other game i've played it forced me to consider the consequences of the hero's journey it confronts the bleak realities of naughty dog's post-apocalyptic world through the lens of hate instead of hope part 2 tears down the walls we often build around our protagonists by revealing each and every side of the conflict it doesn't paint anyone as heroes or villains but as survivors it's one of the most uncomfortable games i've ever played it's one of the most impactful games i've ever played now that it's 2021 and people moved on to the next big controversy i think it's time to look back and ask was the last of us part two really that good a popular criticism of the original game is that it had shallow gameplay it's a means to an end something to do between point a to point b with regards to the third person shooting or the linear exploration by far the best quality of these systems is how refined they feel not how deep or engaging they are but at the same time i don't think it's fair to slap the simplistic label on part two's gameplay and call it a day there is depth here in decision making and trade-offs how you manage to string these elements together in order to move forward simplicity is not always a dirty word to me either especially when the element of spectacle is so powerful that i'm captivated by what i'm seeing i don't have to tell you just how jaw-dropping this game looks and feels almost every single second especially after the ps5 upgrade i think the nature of games criticism asks us to seek a well-rounded experience from every game that we play no the last of us part 2 does not deliver the ultimate gameplay experience it's also not the most well-rounded game in that sense it doesn't push the envelope for the genre and there's few meaningful evolutions of its systems beyond a few mechanical differences you can go prone you can jump you can swing on ropes you can dodge enemy attacks ellie and abby are more agile than joel so it makes sense to see this natural progression we have a few new tools to play around with through the crafting system but their function is largely the same it's either to distract or to deal damage fortunately the level design is incredible and probably the most innovative addition to gameplay i found my ability to navigate each encounter far more satisfying thanks to crawl spaces and narrow gaps areas are wider and they're taller affording a level of flexibility that makes combat encounters feel like a sandbox but where games like dishonored give you a bunch of tools to approach any given situation part two is confined by its roots in realism our protagonists mostly respect the laws of gravity and don't have magical powers now this can be interpreted as a lack of creativity or at worst laziness but i don't agree with either of those sentiments i see the value in delivering an authentic gameplay experience and i found myself appreciating those limitations more than i was annoyed by them every encounter revolves around a core gameplay loop that feels like a game of hide-and-seek ellie and abby can attack enemies head-on then have the option to evade the others in the group regaining the element of surprise this is relatively easy thanks to the expanded number of hiding spots and opportunities to navigate levels enemy ai isn't the best it's pretty simple to lose your enemies if you need to but it was never so awful that it detracted from my experience there are three primary approaches to combat in this game you can go about it quietly you can go in loud or a combination of the two it's absolutely possible to tackle every single level in stealth aside from a few set pieces that force you out of hiding for the first half of the game i tried to be as stealthy as possible with ellie headshotting enemies with my bow and taking advantage of her switchblade's unlimited charges felt deeply rewarding when i managed to take them out one by one unseen on the flip side i went loud as abby i shot everything that moved and chucked pipe bombs with reckless abandon i found this dichotomy that i created between two distinct gameplay styles extremely satisfying ellie and abby's arsenals are completely different and that keeps things fresh too it helps that this game does a good job of pacing out its weapon unlocks it was always nice to see new guns introduced deep into the experience i have no problem admitting that no single element of part 2's gameplay is just mind-blowing and unique but the fact is it looks great it feels great and it serves its purpose and what is truly unique and i thought mind-blowing is how it blends together while i tried to be all stealthy or all action most of the time the situation devolved to the point of needing one in order to do the other i can't tell you how exhilarating it can feel to bounce between these two modes i'd open fire on a group of scars as abby drawing enemies to my position only to crouch down and maneuver to a better angle and finish them off with a pipe bomb as ellie i'd fight the wlf by molotoving the dog which allowed me to sneak around and pick off the others for the rest of the encounter at its best and more often than not this gameplay loop left my heart pounding part 2 can absolutely turn into a shooting gallery i mean if you sit behind cover you can pick enemies off but i found the ai does their best to flank you and before they could do that i was usually out of ammo and needed to run away let's talk about enemies for a moment here most humans function largely the same shooting ellie and abby on site standing in full view of any single enemy for more than a second results in severe damage they communicate with each other swarming in on your last known location from multiple angles that effect certainly helped the flow of the hide and seek loop but it also made enemies feel easy to deceive i would have liked to have seen the occasional smart guy of the group who says hey she might be throwing us off don't fall for that i guess you could say that's the entire purpose of the dogs for the wlf which are capable of picking up your scent and revealing your location i always prioritize these dogs because they close in quickly and they hijack the entire encounter if you let them but with the dogs out of the way wlf fights felt very similar to the fireflies just fighting another paramilitary group with guns i suppose that's the point right but they felt a bit underwhelming by the end the seraphites though they were more unique the way they communicate via these chilling shrill whistles made my blood run cold every single time i came across them their arsenal consists of mostly bows and melee weapons which was a welcome change of pace too getting hit with an arrow is about as brutal as watching ellie have to dig it out of her shoulder i appreciated the way this mechanic disrupted the flow of combat and it forced me to change tactics the scars also had these heavy brutes which were some of my favorite fights of the entire game i mean when abby duels the one whose ear she bit off coming in for round two and defeating her left me feeling triumphant oh and this guy at the very end of the island chapter talk about intense i'm pretty sure my body produced a quart of sweat during that sequence alone in santa barbara we get to see an entirely unexpected faction in the rattlers i wouldn't have even mentioned these guys if not for their unique protections every encounter had a couple of enemies wearing helmets and body armor which prevented one-hit kills and completely altered the dynamic we're given a silenced smg to offset their extra protection but it left me wondering why did the wlf have this stuff of course i appreciated the change of pace here but fighting the rattlers actually made the wlf feel like the weakest enemy type in the game the chained infected mechanic was super cool to see too and i would have liked to have seen that used earlier in seattle last and least of all at least for me is the infected save for a few highlights the infected are the least interesting part of the last of us universe to me and yeah not much change in the sequel functionally runners and clickers feel the same as they did before i was especially disappointed with clickers since they're so easy to take down with ellie's infinite switchblade having to get shivs and have them on hand added a necessary mechanic that i was thankful to see return during abby's chapters stalkers were a bit more compelling especially since i hate anything that crawls on all fours i appreciated the parts where they bursted out of the wall or surprised me on the other side of a narrow passage ultimately though they feel like a missed opportunity because of how easy they were to take down what would have really scared me was to see them crawling on walls and ceilings like the lickers in a resident evil game finally the new type shamblers most of these fights felt exactly the same as bloaters just big bullet spongy foes that force you out of cover to avoid their acid however similar to the stalkers there are a few set-piece moments that made them shine the arcade encounter with present-day ellie and the pitch black hotel with flashback alley these parts feel like they were lifted straight from a survival horror game the lighting the music the pacing the giant infected charging through walls and obliterating anything in its path these felt like proper boss fights speaking of that basement hospital section with abby was impeccable the rat king had me running scared for my life completely forgetting all i'd learned the past 20 hours i'd played seeing this thing split into two and then losing track of the stalker half just it scared me shitless the rare opportunities i had to see these enemies fight each other though were special i loved that i could draw infected into a squad of wlf and see them ripped to shreds this one moment in mind sticks out to me in the outskirts of seattle where the gun fight with the wlf attracted infected in a nearby building they swept through and just massacred the entire group while it definitely felt like it was staged it left me wanting to see more of those seemingly dynamic situations [Music] difficulty played a huge factor for my overall enjoyment flat out i believe i had a better experience than i would have had otherwise because i chose to play this game on hard in this post-apocalyptic world i didn't want to coast through i wanted to struggle to earn it more than a few times i found myself completely out of ammo and craftables having to rely on instinct to scrape by in these moments is where i found my deepest appreciation for part two's gameplay in the back of my mind i knew that if i didn't properly prepare or i didn't conserve resources i'd just be screwed in the next fight if i didn't hit my shots i'd have to find a way to avoid conflict in order to progress i don't know if i would have felt that if i wasn't forced to and i'd go so far as to say that i wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much i know it's pretty much a joke to compare every game to a soulsborne experience but similar to those kinds of games i found it rewarding to barely survive it felt appropriate for the world and for the tone of this narrative at the same time is it fair to expect players to play on a harder difficulty to get the most out of an experience the accessibility versus auteur conversation is yeah a rabbit hole on its own so i won't spend much more time here i'll just say that i enjoyed the hell out of the challenges this game threw at me and i can see how combat would feel shallow if it's not actively engaging for the player we have to talk about the brutality of the combat the animations can be shocking to the point of eliciting a physical reaction i caught myself wincing every time ellie slits someone's throat the last of us part two is the most realistic depiction of violence i've ever seen it's gross and it's uncomfortable enemies choke to death on their own blood they scream when their limbs are blown off and they beg for their life before you're able to execute them it's all done for effect and it absolutely affected me there are several moments that stick in my mind as horrifying we'll get to those when we talk about the story but within the context of gameplay i found the ultra violent combat to be extremely effective lockstep with its purpose in the narrative like a lot of games out there you're just not going to get much out of exploration if you don't take the time to do it but unlike many games it's absolutely worth the time it takes in this one i can't even begin to describe how much the visual fidelity of part two rocked my world it's the most impressive looking video game i've ever played there's not much else to say here i'm not savvy when it comes to explaining why it looks so good i don't know exactly how naughty dog pulled it off but i don't care because they did the vistas the weather the lighting it's the kind of photo realism that forced me to stop what i was doing and just stare this is a feeling we've learned to expect from shorter linear aaa games but here it just keeps on going 20 hours in after the third setting change i still hadn't picked my job off the floor the sheer scope variety and attention to detail is flat out hard to believe although i am the kind of player that will obsessively explore every single nook and cranny for loot a lot of the motivation behind my exploration was intrinsic i checked everywhere because i wanted to soak in this visual piece of art and when every single solitary square inch feels handcrafted not a single area felt unpolished i was rewarded for that time the game's earlier hours in jackson are cutscene heavy and while it's pleasing to look at there's not a ton to explore but then part two throws this massive quasi-open world area at you in seattle the ability to roam several blocks of downtown gives off the impression that you'll have that level of freedom throughout most of the game but it turns out that you don't for that reason this section almost feels like it's making up for how on rails the first two hours of the game are in any case it's an opportunity to explore to your heart's content and it's justified by how rewarding it is i especially appreciated the detail of the hand-held map which forces you to use a map in order to figure out where to go instead of relying on waypoints and ui similar to the first game there's dialogue and sometimes set pieces triggered based on the locations you're visiting which further motivated me to check everywhere that i could my favorite example of this is the guitar cut scene in the music shop ellie's somber beautiful acoustic version of take me on is a powerful little set piece that is completely missable if you don't find it after this area exploration is never this wide open again and i would have appreciated more of these open-ended sections because it's one of the strongest naturally rewarding areas to explore in this entire game but i get it i understand why the narrative demanded more linearity moving forward the rest of seattle and santa barbara later on maintain this level of detail despite being less open of course there are extrinsic motivations for exploration too i'm a completionist so i made it my mission to find as many hidden items that i could naughty dog placed dozens of collectibles around each environment i found ellie's trading cards to be a charming brief respite from the bleakness of the narrative and a callback to her love for all things comics and superheroes from the first game this sort of connection didn't work as much for abby's quarters but i did it for her because it reminded her over dad the most gamified reason to explore is to scavenge for materials again i did this religiously partly because the difficulty demanded it but also because it just feels appropriate for this world if i were surviving i'd want a rifle through every location that i visited crafting and weapon upgrading while getting a few more bells and whistles you'd expect from a sequel serve their purpose and don't seek to innovate so much i will say that like every animation in the game i found the workbench customization very pleasing to watch on the other hand player upgrades felt more robust training manuals unlock upgrade paths which added a degree of choice in gameplay artifacts supplement the narrative and safes offer some light puzzling but don't break really new ground for the series but again it's the small details i like that ellie pulls out her backpack to craft something that's just really immersive for me speaking of puzzles i've seen criticism for the lack of environmental puzzling compared to the original game where there were some obstacles requiring joel and ellie to work together to overcome they involve placing ladders and planks to cross gaps faring ellie across water and using generators to power doors it's true part 2 has less of these moments but i can't say that i miss them all that much beyond being an excuse for ellie and joel to work together and bond they weren't ever mechanically impressive to me i didn't go into part two expecting more from puzzles so i wasn't really disappointed to see less of them you could say that the ability to jump effectively replaced a lot of this type of puzzling since some of the levels require you to climb and jump to move forward naughty dog steers you towards the right path thanks to clever level design and the use of landmarks my biggest gripe about exploration though is that in the course of my obsessive tendency to search everywhere more than a handful of times i chose the right path before i was able to clear a location and there are points of no return meaning you can't turn back an explorer once you've passed them i get that this is a linear experience but man i was frustrated getting locked out before i was ready to progress after a few times i learned to be extra careful not to trigger events that would suck me into the next story beat but it still happened more often than i would have liked before we dive deep into the story i felt the need to dedicate a small section to specific attention to detail i am a real sucker for the little things and part two is chock full of them this game has the best mirrors i've ever seen i mean i think maybe some playstation 5 games prove that otherwise but before ps5 it's insane abby has such a fear of heights that when you approach a steep drop she'll start to panic angling the camera downward increases the field of view you see her face reflect how uncomfortable she is this is such a cool effect and it's so well done there are countless more examples of this that you can find in those amazing details compilation videos but those are just a few that i noticed and and yeah it just felt magical when i did [Music] all right it's time to tackle this beast of a narrative the final moments of the last of us set off almost everything we experience in part two joel is confronted with a decision in a situation that is impossibly difficult to make he found something to live for in ellie he rediscovered his humanity and what it feels like to be hopeful he reconciled with the grief of losing his daughter sarah which had been festering for 20 years he found ellie who he grew to love like his own daughter for joel and for us as the player this decision isn't really even a choice he had to save ellie we had to save ellie and yet when taken in the larger context of the setting and in the state of the world that they live in joel's actions are remarkably selfish not only for humanity but for ellie so much of her self-worth is wrapped in her immunity it gave her hope in a world that didn't give her much to hope for ellie's immunity is the guiding light in the darkness it's what kept joel and tess from abandoning her and it's what kept joel going after tess got infected it's the excuse we needed to see joel and ellie's bond grow stronger but ultimately joel's decision to save her corrupted all hope ellie had for the world he lied and told her that her immunity meant nothing because he wasn't ready to lose the one thing he loved he chose himself over ellie and he chose ellie over the rest of humanity it's something that i think we can interpret just by looking at her reaction that ellie knew deep down he lied to her then it cuts to black and that's where the first game left off this open-ended uncertain future for ellie and joel and this is where part two begins how does joel's decision truly affect ellie how will she see him moving forward naughty dog shows us what i found to be a natural progression of these characters in the time sense all of this emotional weight has to be dealt with it doesn't just disappear what happened is that ellie's absolutely crushed after saint mary's she doesn't know the truth at first but we learned that she's had serious doubts ellie confronts joel several times over the years and every time he'd tell her the same lie that her immunity wasn't unique the one person ellie trusted most in this world kept her in the dark until one night she trekked back to saint mary's and discovered the truth for herself ellie gives joel another chance to come clean it only confirms what she'd been feeling since it happened naughty dog chooses not to reveal this fact until later in the game all of the events leading up to abby finding ellie at the theater and we didn't know for sure whether ellie knew the truth to me this is meant to reinforce just how much joel meant to her it didn't matter that she knew ellie was going to avenge joel's death no matter what because she loved him no matter what and in her revenge quest she's fueled by anger over abby while still grappling with the pain of losing someone that hurt her so badly not until the very end of the game do we get to see ellie's final interaction with joel she admits that she'll never forgive him for his decision he corrupted what she viewed as her ultimate purpose in life using her immunity to develop a cure for the infection without that she didn't have meaning and that deeply deeply hurt her but even still ellie says she will try to forgive him in a lot of ways i found ellie's stubbornness as mirroring joel's and that's on purpose he struggles to confront his emotions opting to lie to himself and everyone around him in order to avoid some uncomfortable truths it took ellie to soften his heart again in order to properly grieve over sarah ironically it's joel's lies that harden ellie to the point where she isn't able to truly forgive him until long after he dies not until she goes through her own journey of forgiveness and confronting her guilt which ends up costing her almost everything we see that same parallel journey with abby i see this sort of cycle of violence and guilt and forgiveness and overcoming hardship as the central theme of part two and i just think it's wonderfully done driven by the brilliant performances of the cast and plot points that were meant to challenge our emotions i was hooked by the narrative every single step of the way including abby's perspective which we'll talk about in a bit however i think what is most impressive about part two is that naughty dog forces us to confront the discomfort of consequences and perspectives ellie is angry with joel why is she so angry we love joel he's a father figure to her a protagonist to us so why and how could she hate him this much abby brutally murders joel in front of ellie in front of us how the hell are we supposed to forgive abby she killed joel we don't care what he did we're on his side and joel didn't deserve this i felt every single one of these reactions i went through these but by the end i realize they're not only justified obviously they're intentional we were meant to feel this way we're supposed to feel these naughty dog did not take pleasure in killing joel stepping into ellie's shoes i was supposed to feel the pain and discomfort of watching joel get brutalized with a golf club i was supposed to look at abby as the ultimate villain the loudest reaction that i saw during the leaks before the game came out and after launch is that joel didn't have to die some other plot point could have brought joel and ellie together for another adventure this time i don't love hypotheticals like this because it feels like we're diving into a fantasy world instead of confronting reality but again this is one of the most controversial games in recent memory so what if dina died instead a lot of naughty dog's marketing suggested that joel and ellie would go on a journey together to possibly avenge dina a huge pet peeve of mine is when games kill off a character in the very beginning without showing me why i should really care and too much of the time the game's entire plot hinges on getting revenge for that character that we just saw get killed i firmly don't believe in a dina revenge story i don't think it would have landed well at all maybe if they killed her halfway through but i don't know i'm just skeptical another core issue with a dina revenge plot is that joel and ellie would not have reunited under any circumstances it had to be something personal to them and joel didn't have that attachment to dina it would have completely undermined the weight behind the original's ending we had to see how ellie reacted to joel's lie we had to witness a natural progression of these characters that honors everything we know about them and everything we experienced in the first game including the final moments younger ellie is outspoken she's not afraid to confront anyone or to stand up for what she believes in she has a big heart and holds on to an admirable sense of hope driven by her immunity and the possibility of a cure whatever innocence ellie had left was taken from her when joel made that decision her immunity no longer mattered to her and she lost all confidence in the person that she trusted most she went so far as to tattoo over her scar which symbolically is for more than just hiding her immunity this explains to me why ellie is so cold to joel and her attitude whether we think it's fair or not is a very believable outcome after the ending of the first game even if we accept that joel and ellie shouldn't have been on good terms did joel still have to die for me the answer is obviously no of course he didn't but his death inspires a deeply challenging experience that i found immensely rewarding to see through a major theme of part two a recurring theme is seeing the consequences of your actions for joel his death is the direct consequence of his actions at st mary's killing abby's dad literally cost him his life in the simplest of terms joel killed the wrong girl's dad i think it's easy to look at that and think this is some sort of random cosmic chance like oh no joel made the mistake and he had to pay for it but i don't see it that way i i think it's an extremely tough pill to swallow here joel's death represents the very real consequences of the hero's journey the direct results of one's actions it's horrific it's brutal it shook me to my core to see ellie being held down and forced to watch it made me hate abby and while we didn't know all of the context for abby's actions at the time it created an extremely compelling reason for ellie's revenge quest i wanted to hunt down every single one of abby's friends because i felt ellie's anger too this event fundamentally transforms ellie it severs the last threads of her humanity that were barely hanging on she lost her purpose in life years ago and struggled to find another and now she lost the one person who loved her most if not for dina i'm pretty sure ellie would have spiraled out of control and become what joel was after he lost sarah someone willing to kill indiscriminately for personal gain the nature of playing video games sucked me into that role and i was willing to do whatever ellie wanted to i myself lost a bit of humanity within the context of this video game just like how we root for tony soprano or walter white in the name of revenge ellie starts doing things she never considered possible for herself beyond murdering hundreds of people she tortures nora for information on abby's whereabouts early on we see dina remark on eugene someone that she did patrols with in jackson she said she was shocked when she found out that he was capable of torturing people ellie mentions that tommy had also tortured people in the past later on they come across tommy's torture victims torture is portrayed as this monstrous shocking act and ellie later on is so far gone that she's willing to do it and we see that it's profoundly damaging for her ellie is physically shaking when she returns to the theater i interpreted this as a reminder that in this world anyone is capable of this level of brutality in ellie's case all it took was some rationalization backed by an unforgettably tragic act of violence another key event that manages to keep ellie on rails is dina's pregnancy when jessie appears he convinces her to focus on finding tommy and getting dina back to jackson and for dina's sake ellie was willing to put off her revenge quest at first when given the opportunity she chooses to chase abby to the aquarium instead of saving tommy this was the ultimate low for me with ellie i really deeply disliked her decision it felt selfish and unfair to everyone involved but i realized it was not out of her character by this point she'd tortured someone she'd killed hundreds indiscriminately whatever wounds she developed only grew deeper by this point ellie had completed her transformation into joel she was fully willing to commit heinous acts in the name of justice willing to sacrifice friends and family along the way but unlike joel ellie's justification is worse joel's dead she's not saving him by getting revenge it's a selfish errand that she's using to cope with her loss killing everyone will not bring her comfort and ultimately we see that it doesn't ellie abandons jessie and tommy to track down abby she comes across owen and mel packing up to leave for santa barbara ellie is beyond patience at this point i mean she murders them without hesitation realizing only after that mel was pregnant and very close to term she's so shaken by the reminder of dina that she leaves behind a map that we use to navigate downtown seattle this is the straw that breaks the camel's back and snaps ellie's priorities back into shape jesse and tommy managed to find each other and reunite at the aquarium forcing ellie to put her revenge quest on hold and focus on getting dina and her baby back to jackson it seemed like ellie finally saw the weight of her actions and was choosing to set aside her selfishness until the consequences of all that she'd done finally cut up to her abby bursts into the theater kills jesse and holds ellie and tommy at gunpoint and then the screen cuts to black before we get to see what happens naughty dog does something that has probably garnered the most criticism from people who've actually played the game from start to finish it's the most uncomfortable thing i think i've ever felt in a video game just before the climax that we've been building to after spending 15 hours as ellie hunting down joel's killer we're forced to play as abby not temporarily not for a small scene but for 10 solid hours this is a jarring realization it didn't fully hit me until i spent what felt like the longest 20 minutes of the entire game walking around the stadium as abby i just kept thinking is this actually happening am i going to see every single event abby experienced leading up to this moment the concept of stepping into the shoes of a perceived villain is fairly unique lots of games let us choose our morality right less games let us play as the outright villain very few force you to play through all of the game's events as the hero then switch your perspective and play the villain to see both sides it took time for me to come to terms with what part two was doing i had that urge to just put down my controller and step away it took me a while but i came around and i am so happy i did because it blew me away i found it to be a revolutionary groundbreaking choice because of its structure and what it made me feel to structure a game like this requires the devoted attention of your audience as a player you really have to be invested in this story in these characters to sign on for something like this the way i rationalized it at the moment is that out of respect for joel i have to see the other side i owe it to these characters i've grown to love what kind of person killed joel it can't have been for no reason i'm sure some of you will hear that and yeah strongly disagree with me feeling that abby didn't deserve that but it's a very real part of the grieving process to seek closure and understanding it lies on the path to forgiveness which is not where a lot of people wanted to be ellie certainly isn't there when we're yanked from her perspective i came back to the idea of joel's death not being something that i wanted to see having experienced that i was motivated even more by ellie's mission to hunt down abby the same applies here i didn't want to see abby's side but perhaps there is some experience which will make it all worth it i can see how people may view abby's section as a subversion of expectations but here i see it as a fully developed and necessary plot point to mirror against ellie once i realized the interlocking nature of these two arcs these two stories together i realized that yeah the game wouldn't have been as good if it ended at the theater if there was no black scene if it just went to their final standoff and we got to see you know abby's final decision and then we moved to santa barbara it just wouldn't have been the same abby's arc shares a lot of similarities with ellie's but with one key difference chronologically joel dies and we see how ellie deals with her obsession with revenge along the way we get flashbacks that fill in the gaps left behind by the first game then we step into abby's shoes in some ways abby's arc is similar she deals with the fallout of ellie killing all of her friends but it's a direct consequence of her actions we also see her grappling with the guilt and shame of her actions through nightmares killing joel did not bring abby peace she kept reliving the sequence of discovering her dad's death but abby's arc is fundamentally different because it shows an evolution that we don't see out of ellie until their storylines emerge again abby learns to forgive she meets yara and lev two scars who fled the seraphites at first abby is very distrusting even if yara and lev saved her from being hanged she's a seasoned scar killer abby abandons them once they get to safety but she's haunted by the fact that joel's death didn't stop her nightmares her guilt weighs even heavier when she sees the fate of yara and lev if the scars manage to find them so abby chooses to save them which surprised me given that the game had painted her as a bad guy for the first 15 hours it's difficult to see who you perceive as the villain feeling empathy usually the villain doesn't get that opportunity i didn't think abby deserved to feel like she was doing something out of the kindness of her heart and the game continues to push that idea further when lev asks abby why she's saving them she says i'm doing this one for me it wasn't until abby's shared experience of survival with yara and lev did i come around to seeing abby as not the villain it wasn't that abby's good actions excused her bad ones it was that she learned killing joel did not bring her closure she was looking for but her acts of good will and kindness actually did this lesson plays out over the course of her interactions with yara and lev that's like the whole point of this section up to this point the seraphites were that spooky cult who made scary noises and gutted people ellie had no real opportunity to ask questions or learn about them not that she would have wanted to anyway lev teaches abby and the player all about their beliefs which works to humanize them in some ways but reveals their customs are deeply rooted in heteronormativity the reason yara and lev fled the scars was because lev was no longer welcome in their society lev wanted to be a warrior so he changed his name and shaved his head in defiance they resolved to leave scar island because their own mother wouldn't set aside her beliefs and accept his decision meanwhile we see abby's complicated relationship with owen through flashbacks we learn that abby and owen dated for a while but abby's obsession with joel drove a wedge in their relationship ultimately driving them apart we also see that owen is disillusioned with the wlf and their war with the scars something abby doesn't even think twice about until she meets yara and lev owen ends up killing one of the more militant wlf friends which inspires him to head to santa barbara in search of the fireflies i felt that owen's significance to abby was very similar to dina's role in ellie's ark he represents a semblance of humanity of hope he was there to comfort her when her dad died and he supports her almost to a fault even after they're not together unhappy with the group's decision to leave for santa barbara lev decides to go back and save his mom on scar island yara chases after him which draws abby away from the aquarium and opens up the opportunity for ellie to storm in and kill owen and mel there are so many cool moments like this throughout abby's chapters that give context to what happened from ellie's perspective my favorite though has to be tommy's sharpshooting set piece which is a callback to a similar sequence in the first game the gunfire that jesse and ellie hear just before they separate is coming from this fight abby runs into manny on her way to the marina he warns her of the wlf's plans to attack scar island that night this only escalates the stakes for abby and yara's mission to save lev but if i had to pick a weakest part of the game it has to be this section scar island is an incredible chapter and i was captivated by the village and its many set pieces especially the horse chase through the flaming village and the boss fight with the brute at the end even though i totally see the justification for this section you know the fact that the wlf scar conflict had been building up to this point and i genuinely cared about lev and i wanted to save him the timing just didn't land for me i really really wanted to get to the part where abby confronts ellie i was certain that we'd find lev on the island pretty quickly and then turn back around but when we got sucked into the battle i was just waiting for it to be over with i think i would have appreciated this island chapter a lot more if it didn't happen right before the climax of abby's arc we come across lev who had to defend himself from his mom which resulted in her death we also see yara sacrifice herself for levin abby these moments are powerful and i appreciated seeing these character arcs but the pacing issues just spoiled my enjoyment back at the aquarium abby finds owen and mel and it destroys her every single one of her friends is dead killed by ellie and tommy lev finds the map and yeah there's no question what comes next they both lost so much in so little time abby decides to head for the theater and we find ourselves right where we were 10 hours ago what blew me away was how different the scene felt this time knowing everything i knew now i was genuinely conflicted when abby aims at ellie tommy sacrifices himself to give ellie a chance my heart stopped when i thought tommy died but i didn't have time to process it because now i had to chase down ellie as uncomfortable as it was to take control of abby after joel's death it felt infinitely more challenging to control her now i hesitated before following her through the theater because it felt wrong and right to hunt down ellie and then came the backstage set piece which is so brilliant that i found myself awestruck by its design more than anything it's a mirror image of ellie's encounter with david in the first game one of the most intense encounters of that game but this one supersedes it by every measure fighting against ellie made me appreciate just how much of an intimidating unstoppable force she is the way she bounces between cover showering me with molotov cocktails and peppering me with shotgun blasts she pulls so many tricks out of the bag that shocked me on the receiving end i found myself fearing ellie more than any other enemy i also appreciated seeing ellie's agility matched against abby's raw strength that felt like watching titans clash together when abby finally overcomes ellie and has dina in her clutches she's ready to exact that revenge she's ready to inflict more pain ellie pleads with her revealing dina's pregnancy and just as she's ready to kill her lev intervenes he forces abby to reflect on the path she's taken to realize this isn't gonna bring her any closer to peace she chooses to forgive in the final moment when it matters most time passes and we get to see ellie and dina experiencing somewhat of a peaceful life taking care of the baby and trying to cope with all that they've been through but ellie's still suffering from the weight of all she's been through and she still doesn't have the closure that she's looking for we see this in her body language her expressions and these vicious nightmares she wants to be happy you can see that she wants to put the past behind her but she just can't and when tommy shows up with abby's exact location those seeds of doubt grow until ellie decides she has to find abby for herself and for joel ellie chooses revenge again and that fact crushes dina it reveals ellie's priorities and highlights the fact that again dina just isn't on the same level she's not dealing with the same level of grief this is another point in the game where i thought okay is this the end i think this was due to the sheer fact that we were at 25 hours and i just wasn't expecting the game to be as long as it was it was easy to forget that that would have gone against everything i knew about ellie it would be unlike her to stay safe and sound on this farm there's trouble in paradise so i knew that she had to do something when she leaves we return to abby and lev and in a similar way they seem relatively happy and safe searching for the fireflies but they end up falling for the rattlers trap an unfortunate reality of the world that they live in ellie tracks abby and lev to santa barbara and after mowing down dozens of slavers and almost getting captured herself she finds them this is where i realized that i myself the player was feeling the same weariness as ellie i was exhausted i was tired i was ready for this game to be over but in that strange sort of fourth wall breaking way my feelings felt appropriate that's exactly how ellie felt and in the same way i felt each time the perspectives shifted i was ready to help ellie seek her final revenge similar to the theater this fight was absolutely painful i was controlling ellie but i saw abby i truly saw her in all her exhaustion and i just felt bad for her she'd gone through absolute hell only to see a ghost reappear to send her to the grave just as ellie is drowning her in the final final struggle joel appears in one of their final moments together almost like an apparition himself that memory of joel makes her realize killing abby is not going to bring her peace either the weight of this journey leading to this moment still won't give her what she's looking for so she decides to choose forgiveness she returns the favor from earlier and she spares them to close out the game we see ellie return to the farm dina is gone and all of her stuff remains ellie made her choice and she suffers the consequences in a final act of closure ellie plays the song joel played for her years ago in jackson this conjures up joel and ellie's final moments together it's here we're reminded of the ultimate weight of joel's decision at the end of the first game and knowing what happened after his death experiencing the entire game you really feel all of that pressure coming to a head here in this moment ellie says that she still can't forgive joel for saving her but she wants to try they seem like they're just getting onto the path of forgiveness of mending things and making it right and the ultimate tragedy here is that they never did they never got the chance i can see why as the player this might be ultimately disappointing because you spend so long multiple times hunting down a single person only for that person to live your experience all of the rage the motivation that fuels you to go through hell with these characters but in the end you feel a sort of emptiness like you're unfulfilled naughty dog are not wizards they don't have some magical secret storytelling technique that nobody else is capable of but they did at every step of the way make me feel like the characters i was controlling they did force me to break through mental hurdles that yeah i definitely did not want to break through but i did and on the other side i recognized just how powerful that feeling is this journey the perspectives and really every single moment has such immense weight and purpose and impact i don't think there's anything quite like the last of us part two [Music] if naughty dog wanted to make a game everyone wanted to play they would not have made the last of us part two but they did and what they made will stick with me forever not because it's the follow-up that i expected and not because it subverted my expectations but because they told what i feel is a realistic outcome for a sequel and within that they force me down the rabbit hole in a way that i'll never forget the last of us part two is not a perfect video game but it made me feel things i've never felt from a video game it asked more of me than any other game and for that i am profoundly grateful to have played it just to have experienced it [Music] was the last of us part two really that good yeah i think it was i think it'll be really that good for a really long time i hope you guys enjoyed this video and if you did please let me know by clicking the like button i'm planning to do a similar type of video for ghost of sushima which is coming up on its one year anniversary next month i've got a lot more planned than just that but if that sounds like something you'd like to watch go ahead and hit the subscribe button you can also hit the bell to receive live notifications so you don't miss it you can also follow me on social media jv on yt on twitter and jv.yt on instagram for updates on all of my content if you want to chat more about any kind of game join our community discord server links for all of these are in the description below huge thanks as always to my youtube members ultra fans bill and cam super fans tipsy sergey taro k and william fans matthews spyro level 42 bloodsky and kamal and supporters nos adam mr hollow quickness ferkin j sam abhishek ferris report gabrielle abraham john tayo and sung for supporting the channel if you want to become a member to support me further click the join button below this video thank you guys so much for watching and i'll talk to you next time you

Channel: jayvee

Views: 296,327

Keywords: JV2017, JV2017gameplay, jayvee, the last of us, the last of us review, the last of us 2, the last of us part 2, the last of us part 2 review, the last of us 2 review, the last of us part 2 in 2021, the last of us 2 in 2021, the last of us 2 one year later, the last of us part 2 one year later

Id: MEhIDYiTjLw

Length: 52min 44sec (3164 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021