Spoilers, obvs.
So going into this amidst the flood of toxic waste that is the discourse online about TLOU2, I didn't expect it actually turn out to be something I'd call a fairly faithful sequel to the original. It improves on the gameplay to an enormous extent whilst embracing and evolving on the storytelling concepts the first game brings up. Even as it's tearing down the relationship between joel and ellie, it improves upon it and wraps up that story well. Even if it wasnt particularly neccessary. On top of that, the game goes all in on embracing the way both games don't cast judgement on the characters themselves with the framing. TLOU2 essentially boils down to two of these characters smushing together and truly embracing the consequences of it, which you witness from both perspectives. And at it's best, it's really effective. Viewing these twisted spirals of pointless violence from both sides leads to some really powerful moments. A lot of which involve friends being shot in the face uncerimoniously. Maybe a few too many.
That core conceit is built on a world of absurd levels of violence/consequence and a "no country for old men" degree of 'well you can also just get fucked by unrelated things out of nowhere', which is where things could probably start to fall down for some. TLOU2 teeters on the line between achieving it's hyper-realistic immersion and a shlocky snuff film, and I can definetly see some people's suspension of disbelief breaking and never coming back due to this, along with some more questionable elements (playing with the dog, all the enemies screaming out each other's name as they bleed out, Ellie killing Mel). And since this is such an emotionally driven game, with character actions being dictated by rage rather than logic, once you've checked out looking at it from outside a layer of immersion i'm sure looks a bit stupid. Ellie chasing Abby to santa barbara is blatantly not a well thought out act.
The issues of the story I actually have mainly come down to pacing and a couple of elements not being developed or built up right. Pacing is a particular problem for the first 2 days of Ellie's part, with seemingly nothing happening for a large proportion of the game other than Ellie killing a bunch of people. Whilst Abby has her Sidequests with Lev, Ellie is just left chasing leads and getting into hijinks for an unreasoable amount of time. There's good stuff in these sections but about 10 hours of very little after a strong opening is a bit annoying in retrospect.
On Abby's side, the Scar x WLF subplot feels a little tacked on, and the Scars themselves dont really get enough time devoted to them outside of Lev, who is a great companion and very likeable.
The split campaigns also leaves a chunk of the supporting cast a bit underdeveloped. Dina's relationship with Ellie feels a bit rushed and would have worked better imo as an existing thing before the game's start. Tommy, Owen and Mel could have done with another few scenes each, and even Lev and Yara could have done with more time to flesh them out and build up the relationships. It's not a huge issue and god knows the game has enough quiet time as it is, but maybe the characters could have been consolidated a little bit.
I know i'm rambling but the peformances, animation and general technical prowess of the whole affair really elevates it. The heightened realism approach of TLOU2's visual design is a huge factor in it's successes and it not losing people imo.
Now, gameplay. I wont touch on it much because frankly it's far less interesting to talk about, but it's a massive improvement throughout, with some of the absolute best environments and level design of a thing like this ever. If there's any game that shows the value of production values, its this, as every room of every arena feels handcrafted and like it has it's own cool way of having combat encounters. The differing toolsets of Ellie and Abby are also enhanced over the first game, and are fun to mess around with.
Main problem with the gameplay is the difficulty. It's too easy to lose guards on any difficulty selection and the systems can easily be gamed if you really want to. It's a shame because the thrill of being hunted and hunting can be legitimately fantastic.
But the big issue here? Lack of Multiplayer. Yes, I know it's probably coming at some point in some form, but TLOU1's multiplayer was really the best gameplay experience the game had to offer, if not the best part of the game altogether - and it's a massive dissapointment for me right now to not be using those cool tools the game has in the challenging environment the first game had.
Overall, I think this is the better last of us game, and probably Naughty Dog's best singleplayer experience. I think the story is definetly a milage may vary thing, but the enormous improvements on gameplay and the environements cements it for me. Not a perfect experience, not the best storytelling in a game ever, messy and not for everyone, but definetly worth checking out.
So going into this amidst the flood of toxic waste that is the discourse online about TLOU2, I didn't expect it actually turn out to be something I'd call a fairly faithful sequel to the original. It improves on the gameplay to an enormous extent whilst embracing and evolving on the storytelling concepts the first game brings up. Even as it's tearing down the relationship between joel and ellie, it improves upon it and wraps up that story well. Even if it wasnt particularly neccessary. On top of that, the game goes all in on embracing the way both games don't cast judgement on the characters themselves with the framing. TLOU2 essentially boils down to two of these characters smushing together and truly embracing the consequences of it, which you witness from both perspectives. And at it's best, it's really effective. Viewing these twisted spirals of pointless violence from both sides leads to some really powerful moments. A lot of which involve friends being shot in the face uncerimoniously. Maybe a few too many.
That core conceit is built on a world of absurd levels of violence/consequence and a "no country for old men" degree of 'well you can also just get fucked by unrelated things out of nowhere', which is where things could probably start to fall down for some. TLOU2 teeters on the line between achieving it's hyper-realistic immersion and a shlocky snuff film, and I can definetly see some people's suspension of disbelief breaking and never coming back due to this, along with some more questionable elements (playing with the dog, all the enemies screaming out each other's name as they bleed out, Ellie killing Mel). And since this is such an emotionally driven game, with character actions being dictated by rage rather than logic, once you've checked out looking at it from outside a layer of immersion i'm sure looks a bit stupid. Ellie chasing Abby to santa barbara is blatantly not a well thought out act.
The issues of the story I actually have mainly come down to pacing and a couple of elements not being developed or built up right. Pacing is a particular problem for the first 2 days of Ellie's part, with seemingly nothing happening for a large proportion of the game other than Ellie killing a bunch of people. Whilst Abby has her Sidequests with Lev, Ellie is just left chasing leads and getting into hijinks for an unreasoable amount of time. There's good stuff in these sections but about 10 hours of very little after a strong opening is a bit annoying in retrospect.
On Abby's side, the Scar x WLF subplot feels a little tacked on, and the Scars themselves dont really get enough time devoted to them outside of Lev, who is a great companion and very likeable.
The split campaigns also leaves a chunk of the supporting cast a bit underdeveloped. Dina's relationship with Ellie feels a bit rushed and would have worked better imo as an existing thing before the game's start. Tommy, Owen and Mel could have done with another few scenes each, and even Lev and Yara could have done with more time to flesh them out and build up the relationships. It's not a huge issue and god knows the game has enough quiet time as it is, but maybe the characters could have been consolidated a little bit.
I know i'm rambling but the peformances, animation and general technical prowess of the whole affair really elevates it. The heightened realism approach of TLOU2's visual design is a huge factor in it's successes and it not losing people imo.
Now, gameplay. I wont touch on it much because frankly it's far less interesting to talk about, but it's a massive improvement throughout, with some of the absolute best environments and level design of a thing like this ever. If there's any game that shows the value of production values, its this, as every room of every arena feels handcrafted and like it has it's own cool way of having combat encounters. The differing toolsets of Ellie and Abby are also enhanced over the first game, and are fun to mess around with.
Main problem with the gameplay is the difficulty. It's too easy to lose guards on any difficulty selection and the systems can easily be gamed if you really want to. It's a shame because the thrill of being hunted and hunting can be legitimately fantastic.
But the big issue here? Lack of Multiplayer. Yes, I know it's probably coming at some point in some form, but TLOU1's multiplayer was really the best gameplay experience the game had to offer, if not the best part of the game altogether - and it's a massive dissapointment for me right now to not be using those cool tools the game has in the challenging environment the first game had.
Overall, I think this is the better last of us game, and probably Naughty Dog's best singleplayer experience. I think the story is definetly a milage may vary thing, but the enormous improvements on gameplay and the environements cements it for me. Not a perfect experience, not the best storytelling in a game ever, messy and not for everyone, but definetly worth checking out.