I have been a passionate fan of Last of Us since even before it got released, which is silly I know, but there is something about Naughty Dog that I trusted back in the PS3 era, not just from their Uncharted series but from the very first teaser of the TLoU, the mood, the style, that Gustav sound, I felt that game was going to be something special and I was VERY talkative about it back in the day on the PS3 upcoming games thread (very much like a couple of members I see on this thread, lol), arrogantly telling people off for not trusting in ND as people worried about Ellie being some kind of burden to the player until this E3 event happened, that special moment when Ellie throws a brick with a delicious expletive...to the glorious applause of the audience and probably everyone who was watching on the internet at the time, well I did!).
It was also the moment that made almost everyone dispel any doubts, the moment that everyone was now sold on the potential of The Last of Us. I also felt Ellie would be really important and even pre-ordered the Ellie collector edition (there was a choice between Ellie and Joel). I could have been totally wrong about the whole thing of course and that the game might turn out to be a pile of dung but thankfully, I wasn't and it had become the greatest game I ever played. I loved Joel and Ellie's journey so much I also bought a lovely statuette of them imported from the US which I have towering above my beloved star wars action figures. I see there is a TLoU2 photo thread, so I'll post it in there.
But I'll fast forward, I am rather different now. I don't watch trailers, just teasers and I don't post thoughts on threads until I played a game, or watched a movie.
So with that said, I am finally ready to give my thoughts on this game because I have just finished the game...twice!
The first playthrough left me emotionally exhausted.
I had avoided all news and reviews but I got the gist it was going to be a brutal game as an episode of BBC Click warned. But so was the first one, I said to myself, knowing that Click presenter Marc Seizlak isn't really a dedicated gamer.
Then I realised what he meant. I was thinking brutal to be the unprecedented graphical realism of killings that the first game depicted but maybe cranked up a notch this time around. But it wasn't that at all. This....this was emotionally brutal. Off the mental scale brutal, knocking my previous number one emotionally draining game, Life is Strange, off its perch. When the first narrative jolt occurs just a couple hours in, I was in shock...almost needed counselling! I mean what the hell, I did not embrace myself for that!
But in Naughty Dog's and Druckmann's narrative power, I trust...
...and whoa did they deliver on that trust.
This was the most powerful, epic and unforgettable narrative gaming experience I have ever had to date. I think this has surpassed the first game for me as a gaming narrative experience. But man, it was a shockingly unexpected grittier direction than anything I could ever imagine.
It's compelling storytelling with great gameplay mechanics that felt a tad more flexible than previous ND games which I do have to admit despite being a huge fan, can be somewhat sluggish and restricting even in the more cavalier Uncharted games. But that's the choice ND makes to ground our protagonist with relatively realistic movements appropriate to the character we control but not too realistic to the extent of killing the enjoyment. Its a fine balance and I think they got it perfect here in the context of this gritty as hell instalment.
There are other powerful narrative games that can rival this but most of the ones I have played are of the limited gameplay type or smaller production indies, such as Heavy Rain, Life is Strange, Her Story and What Remains of Edith Finch. None that I know of have the same balance of high-quality gameplay, seamless cinematic transition, fleshed-out characters, and visual/sound production style. Sure we got the big AAA epics like Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Days Gone, Bioshock trilogy, Mass Effect trilogy (my all-time favourite RPG) and ND's own Uncharted series that are considerably bigger on the story, and you know what, I probably have more "fun" playing those games too. But none matches the all-round impacting experience that Last of Us part II delivers. It's just simply in a league of its own.
What really stands out for me overall is the character evolutions and moral complexities that we as gamers are forced to be integrated into with an emotional binding to the characters. There are two outstanding characters in this game and one is as we expect, Ellie, whos emotionally complex journey is astonishing for a bloody console game. But there is another very surprising new female character called Abby, a brute force fighter with seriously complex motives and I now see after playing the game, is infamous on the internet....for the wrong pathetic reasons. God, I hate this world. Abby has moments that were badass and other moments that were... wtf. I so loved this complex character. May the internet bloaters rot in hell.
And so I played it a second time, straight after finishing it. I needed to see the whole picture in detail now that all the revelations are revealed making sense of little things like the background chats of enemies, the letters and environmental details that tell a story in itself as such collectables do in many other games. Even the superhero cards were fun to read and collect. One card was a supervillain called Dr Uckmann...is Druckmann trying to express something personal there?!
Fresh off the first playthrough, it was a 10/10 masterpiece but I was truly rattled from the experience. Would I still give it that rating, the second time around, now that the plot turns and character reveals no longer apply?
Finishing it a second, time I can say absolutely, I do. Despite knowing what's coming, the game was just so nuanced and dramatic, and emotionally affecting as the first time around, the only thing that I no longer have is the anxiety and foreboding fear for where this is all going...which actually made me feel so much more at ease this time so I could focus a lot more on the fun mechanics, making different choices in my combat and weapon preferences. Oh, by the way, I did replay this in new game plus mode so I didn't need to skill up from scratch. I also ended up getting platinum on the game, something I only do if I love a game enough and with Chapter Select, it was fairly easy hunting down those elusive collectables of which the journal entries and letters were my biggest desire to getting all because they added extra texture to the narrative.
Thinking about it more, the narrative structure and character drama remind me of the great Lindoff's TV series Lost. Yes, the GREAT Lindeloff and I don't give a toss what others think, especially those who hate him because of how it all ended! He is a master writer of character journeys and moral complexities. I see so much influence of that series here right down to the nonlinear and parallel perspective structure of the narrative. There may be other influences of TV shows and films that I may not have seen but I do see a lot more of Lost in here, because of the character change of perspectives throughout. Tarantino may have made this kind of nonlinear storytelling a cool trick but his stories don't delve deep into the changing perspectives of characters. If I was to look at possible non-linear movie narrative influences, I think this would be more akin to Orson Welle's Citizen Kane as we observe the best and worst of characters and their motives.
I think I clocked 65 to 70 hours playing on the first playthrough, in normal difficulty, which actually feels like the longest Naughty Dog game ever...but every second of it was terrific and the pacing was IMHO just right. There are many deliberate slow burns interspersed with cranked up tension. Talking about tension, how about that soundtrack? Man, that was brilliantly atmospheric with some standout thrilling beats and some amazing sounding instruments that have an innovative hybrid sound of bass strings and percussion that channels a little bit of Hans Zimmer's Inception.
But there are no main theme tunes this time around. The first game, (which now feels like a lightweight Disney movie in comparison!) had a couple of standout theme tunes, "The Path" and "Last of Us" with an overall vibrance and melancholy in minor keys to the whole soundtrack. Even the Left Behind DLC (greatest DLC ever!) had a further two great theme tunes to boot, "Fleeting" and "Left Behind". But this game has none that's easily identifiable apart from a slower apprehensive version of the original Last of Us theme tune, otherwise, it's mostly incidental music, atmospheric riffs and dashes of haunting melody abstracts. I am still yet to listen to the whole soundtrack in isolation but I feel this one is overall relentlessly sombre, often dark with seldom moments of uplift. While I adore the main tunes of the first game, I think what we get here, is an appropriately more mature and complex concoction of sounds that only a master composer in Gustavo, could deliver in his own unique style that marries into the game intrinsically. The first Last of Us game will still be the soundtrack that I will always go back to for my listening enjoyment as I suspect I won't get as much enjoyment from this sequel soundtrack in isolation because of that dominance of incidental music...but I can't judge yet until I do listen to it, which I will try to do tonight.
The second playthrough was much quicker as it was in Game plus mode with skills carried over from start and of course, my combat ability is very honed in by now.
As for visuals, what can I say, Ellie, Joel, Tommy, Abby, Jessie and a plethora of other characters all feel like real people, that I care about (or gleefully hate!) and it's come to a point in this remarkable era of gaming, where I don't want to believe these characters are CGI motion capture! They just seem so damn real, their expressions, nuances and I want to adopt Alice. I stood in that stadium, watching the ears of the cows twitch, the little lamb being more curious than the elder sheep, the dogs cutely sniffing for...oh crap, me...better hide. No wonder I took 70 hours to complete this. There are also little things that are an improvement such as the AI of np partners smart enough to get out of enemies sight, a notable immersive killing flaw in the first game, nicely rectified this time around.
I could go on but I think it's time to summarise. Seven years on from its release, the first Last of Us was still the greatest character-driven, cinematic narrative game I have ever played.
Then the sequel arrived.
10/10
EDIT: PS about that teaser, that was uh..."Naughty" Dog of them to deceive us, wasn't it?! Love the deception, though. But...I can now see it has brought up much hate. Not sure if I want to trawl through other people's opinions here now as I hate being affected by negativity....but I do care to know some stalwart members' thoughts, I just don't know if I can stomach the hate in between, if there are any, as I can see there is a "The Last Jedi" level backlash for this game on the internet. I shall not comment on that, though as I actually don't care. But I feel it important to privately message Naughty Dog my support in what I hope will be an ocean of support...and poor Laura Bailey for that matter. Doing that know, as I feel quite depressed about society today. I was looking forward, eagerly to posting my thoughts on the game after my second playthrough, then I caught up with the old news and I felt utterly deflated...but you know, I realise nothing really has changed over the million years of humanity...we just simply have something called the internet to expose what we truly are...a mixture of the good, the bad and the clickers...actually, I am being unfair to the poor clickers.
2nd EDIT: whoa,
@fallinlight, I was referring to you earlier in this post but I was nowhere near that amount of posts...you could compile and publish that into an analysis book!
3rd Edit: Forgot, I'd like to thank
@Stockholm for encouraging me to post my thoughts on the game. It felt good to share it.