MVPleb
62 reviews liked by MVPleb
Heroes of the Storm
2015
Played since the alpha and loved it pretty much the whole time. Internet people can be a bummer but if you have a good group of 5 to go in with there's a ton of fun to be had. I still play intermittently; in fact I just got off a great five stack and this game is just as fun as ever, even if it's missing a bunch of the old maps and modes.
Here's hoping some of that Microsoft money revives it. I want to see it become Microsoft's MOBA; put Master Chief, Marcus Fenix, Alduin, Senua... could be a hell of a thing. In the meantime I'm just grateful Blizzard keeps the light on for those of us still enjoying it.
Abathur main for life.
Here's hoping some of that Microsoft money revives it. I want to see it become Microsoft's MOBA; put Master Chief, Marcus Fenix, Alduin, Senua... could be a hell of a thing. In the meantime I'm just grateful Blizzard keeps the light on for those of us still enjoying it.
Abathur main for life.
A game as good as it is depressing
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
Sure the combat could be better but if you think its bad clearly you've never impulse mega flare permafrost dancing steel into stagger will-o-the-wykes lightning rod gigaflare zantetsuken level 5-ed before and it shows :/
I struggled a good bit throughout my playthroughs of Final Fantasy XVI. It is now the third mainline game in the series I've beaten but at the time I started it I had intended it to be my first. Its a series I've always known i needed to try to get into, and the demo of this game was absolutely amazing, it completely blew me away. I was very unexpectedly hyped for this. And playing it I was like oh yeah this is def 5/5 material, after the Garuda fight I was so sold on the game. The music is fucking fantastic and I've never seen such awesome boss fights. But then after that the game felt like it had already peaked. There are still great boss fights through the rest of the game but they never were as impactful as the first 10 or so hours were for me. I felt myself increasingly disinterested in the plot and all the lore and by extension - the game itself.
All that changed near the end when I finally actually started doing side missions. I surprisingly ended up becoming quite fond of all the side characters in the Hideaway and to a much lesser extent the different characters out in the various towns and villages. The game has a pretty damn good cast. It was around that point that I was pretty hype for the end. And for the most part the finale delivers. Its plenty epic, and I was having a great time. But in the end, I was a bit disappointed in how everything wrapped up. That's not to say that there's really anything wrong with the ending, it just wasn't what I was wanting. How i feel about that is how I feel about Final Fantasy XVI as a whole. Plenty of great moments, but in the end still just a little disappointing.
Now that I've explained that I still think FFXVI is great, I have a lot more to complain about. Mostly minor things but it all added up over my 90 hours spent with the game. Some minor annoyances like enemy phases being tied to health bars so sometimes when you set up a stagger and start unleashing, the game just lets them sit there and recover without taking damage and you being unable to do anything for like 20 seconds before the next phase begins. There's also some battles in the wild where if the fight naturally goes a little further than where it started, enemies may just become immune and run back to their spawn point at full health. There's also without fail after every big boss, a main quest that's meant to let things settle but it just kills the pacing and feels like the game is wasting your time by dishing out forced side quests, sometimes several in a row. In the more dungeon-y areas the game is also pretty bad at leading the player along, there were several times I ran completely in the wrong direction because it doesn't make it clear what doors you can open unless you're right next to them. My final complaint is that Final Fantasy mode, the supposed hard mode for NG+, is a complete joke. Now I'm sort of glad it wasn't hard because it made the platinum obtainable for me and now that i have one for a mainline game in the series I don't ever have to bother again. But like, the games idea of hard is give every enemy 50x as much HP. For normal enemies it ain't nothin a level 5 Zantetsuken can't solve but any enemy with a stagger bar doesn't actually feel harder to fight, they just take ages to fucking kill. Even though i skipped every cutscene and did minimal side content, my FF playthrough felt longer than my first where I did basically everything. It just isn't very fun.
So that's about all of my thoughts with Final Fantasy XVI. But to end on a more positive note: Jill is hot and Titanic Block + Counter is one of the most satisfying moves of all time.
Thanks for reading <3
-----TLDR----
+ Great cast
+ Amazing soundtrack
+ Awesome boss fights throughout
- Story quality and pacing is wildly inconsistent
- Didn't like the way it ended
- Too many little gameplay grievances that add up
Nancymeter - 85/100
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #278)
Time Played: 92 hours
Completion #6 of November
Completion #210 of 2023
I struggled a good bit throughout my playthroughs of Final Fantasy XVI. It is now the third mainline game in the series I've beaten but at the time I started it I had intended it to be my first. Its a series I've always known i needed to try to get into, and the demo of this game was absolutely amazing, it completely blew me away. I was very unexpectedly hyped for this. And playing it I was like oh yeah this is def 5/5 material, after the Garuda fight I was so sold on the game. The music is fucking fantastic and I've never seen such awesome boss fights. But then after that the game felt like it had already peaked. There are still great boss fights through the rest of the game but they never were as impactful as the first 10 or so hours were for me. I felt myself increasingly disinterested in the plot and all the lore and by extension - the game itself.
All that changed near the end when I finally actually started doing side missions. I surprisingly ended up becoming quite fond of all the side characters in the Hideaway and to a much lesser extent the different characters out in the various towns and villages. The game has a pretty damn good cast. It was around that point that I was pretty hype for the end. And for the most part the finale delivers. Its plenty epic, and I was having a great time. But in the end, I was a bit disappointed in how everything wrapped up. That's not to say that there's really anything wrong with the ending, it just wasn't what I was wanting. How i feel about that is how I feel about Final Fantasy XVI as a whole. Plenty of great moments, but in the end still just a little disappointing.
Now that I've explained that I still think FFXVI is great, I have a lot more to complain about. Mostly minor things but it all added up over my 90 hours spent with the game. Some minor annoyances like enemy phases being tied to health bars so sometimes when you set up a stagger and start unleashing, the game just lets them sit there and recover without taking damage and you being unable to do anything for like 20 seconds before the next phase begins. There's also some battles in the wild where if the fight naturally goes a little further than where it started, enemies may just become immune and run back to their spawn point at full health. There's also without fail after every big boss, a main quest that's meant to let things settle but it just kills the pacing and feels like the game is wasting your time by dishing out forced side quests, sometimes several in a row. In the more dungeon-y areas the game is also pretty bad at leading the player along, there were several times I ran completely in the wrong direction because it doesn't make it clear what doors you can open unless you're right next to them. My final complaint is that Final Fantasy mode, the supposed hard mode for NG+, is a complete joke. Now I'm sort of glad it wasn't hard because it made the platinum obtainable for me and now that i have one for a mainline game in the series I don't ever have to bother again. But like, the games idea of hard is give every enemy 50x as much HP. For normal enemies it ain't nothin a level 5 Zantetsuken can't solve but any enemy with a stagger bar doesn't actually feel harder to fight, they just take ages to fucking kill. Even though i skipped every cutscene and did minimal side content, my FF playthrough felt longer than my first where I did basically everything. It just isn't very fun.
So that's about all of my thoughts with Final Fantasy XVI. But to end on a more positive note: Jill is hot and Titanic Block + Counter is one of the most satisfying moves of all time.
Thanks for reading <3
-----TLDR----
+ Great cast
+ Amazing soundtrack
+ Awesome boss fights throughout
- Story quality and pacing is wildly inconsistent
- Didn't like the way it ended
- Too many little gameplay grievances that add up
Nancymeter - 85/100
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #278)
Time Played: 92 hours
Completion #6 of November
Completion #210 of 2023
Insanely fun sandbox, very charming world, but wow is that another shrine?! I wish there was more variety in the gameplay, and that includes bosses, temples, enemies, quests, everything. Its like the Skyrim problem but with a more fun open world.
Hi-Fi Rush
2023
As someone who isn’t a fan of rhythm games, Hi-Fi Rush single-handedly and after playing one level made me appreciate a rhythm game. Where the beat of the rhythm is interconnected in the level design, combat, tutorials, soundtrack, plot and more. Creating a weird mash-up I didn’t expect to play so well. And yet Hi-Fi Rush surpassed all my expectations to do so.
Level design is neither too complex nor too simple, and while it does conform to a linear fashion, it doesn’t overstay its welcome by injecting fresh level changes that work organically and don’t feel forced. This coupled with the combat to the beat makes it so fights don’t become fatigue battles, but genuinely work in favor to complement the rhythm to give off an extra dose of damage. And yet it is not strictly required to go in sync with the music at all. I primarily played off-sync and scored decently well in my rankings. There are even very tutorial-friendly and accessible options in the settings to help players like me who are extremely garbage at rhythm games. And it does work!
Gameplay isn’t just full of battles either. Platforming is here that isn’t too difficult nor too easy. As you progress further in the game, these sections evolve along with the combat to enhance the gameplay formula into something new and fresh. And I found the experience very enjoyable since it complemented the level design very well.
Hi-Fi Rush emulates colorful and stylish visuals reminiscent of one of my all-time favorite games: Jet Set Radio Future. And it works to its favor a great deal, making the setting come alive and vibrant with every color in the rainbow you can think of. Enhancing every corridor, cutscenes, and during boss stages. But not to the point of oversaturation or adding new colors to cross off a checklist. It is balanced equally, to create a varied amount of levels here. And thereby eliminating copy-and-paste design.
I liked the main cast and all of them integrated well into the plot with enough screen time to be relative and not used as a character for the sake of having them to induce a plot device. They feel human, developing alongside Chai(The protagonist) to make the game become something more than just a “videogame.” Also, I adore the references upon references here from so many other games and media. I won’t say any here, but it's best to experience that for yourself. It’s not as plentiful as ready player one does. Where it stacks references and references for the sake of doing so. Here it is integrated fluidly and makes the writing and dialogue great.
Storywise, I feel it was executed wonderfully. It doesn’t win any awards for most wacky or playing it too safe. But the story beats were enough to hold my interest and continue playing more and more. And I think at the end of the day that is what’s most important. To keep players invested in not just the gameplay, music, world, story, and characters. But, the act of playing on and on and holding your interest is a major design philosophy developers keep in mind.
The whole world and NPCs are fascinating to learn about and provide interesting dialogue to flesh out the background of the corporate work structure for new and old Vandelay robots. And as I continued further into the game, it is not all set in one point of view either, there are multiple stances each bot has to say about their job, unsavory practices, or just general gossip here and there. It enhances the game to the point I wanted to learn more about the Vandelay corporation.
Overall there is a lot of care and thought here by the developers of Tango Gameworks, and I am very interested in the next game they’ll release moving forward. I genuinely believe this is a very strong GOTY contender for 2023. And in my honest opinion a must-play for anyone who desires to see an idiot try to take down a big corporation. Watch how that turns out.
9.5/10
Level design is neither too complex nor too simple, and while it does conform to a linear fashion, it doesn’t overstay its welcome by injecting fresh level changes that work organically and don’t feel forced. This coupled with the combat to the beat makes it so fights don’t become fatigue battles, but genuinely work in favor to complement the rhythm to give off an extra dose of damage. And yet it is not strictly required to go in sync with the music at all. I primarily played off-sync and scored decently well in my rankings. There are even very tutorial-friendly and accessible options in the settings to help players like me who are extremely garbage at rhythm games. And it does work!
Gameplay isn’t just full of battles either. Platforming is here that isn’t too difficult nor too easy. As you progress further in the game, these sections evolve along with the combat to enhance the gameplay formula into something new and fresh. And I found the experience very enjoyable since it complemented the level design very well.
Hi-Fi Rush emulates colorful and stylish visuals reminiscent of one of my all-time favorite games: Jet Set Radio Future. And it works to its favor a great deal, making the setting come alive and vibrant with every color in the rainbow you can think of. Enhancing every corridor, cutscenes, and during boss stages. But not to the point of oversaturation or adding new colors to cross off a checklist. It is balanced equally, to create a varied amount of levels here. And thereby eliminating copy-and-paste design.
I liked the main cast and all of them integrated well into the plot with enough screen time to be relative and not used as a character for the sake of having them to induce a plot device. They feel human, developing alongside Chai(The protagonist) to make the game become something more than just a “videogame.” Also, I adore the references upon references here from so many other games and media. I won’t say any here, but it's best to experience that for yourself. It’s not as plentiful as ready player one does. Where it stacks references and references for the sake of doing so. Here it is integrated fluidly and makes the writing and dialogue great.
Storywise, I feel it was executed wonderfully. It doesn’t win any awards for most wacky or playing it too safe. But the story beats were enough to hold my interest and continue playing more and more. And I think at the end of the day that is what’s most important. To keep players invested in not just the gameplay, music, world, story, and characters. But, the act of playing on and on and holding your interest is a major design philosophy developers keep in mind.
The whole world and NPCs are fascinating to learn about and provide interesting dialogue to flesh out the background of the corporate work structure for new and old Vandelay robots. And as I continued further into the game, it is not all set in one point of view either, there are multiple stances each bot has to say about their job, unsavory practices, or just general gossip here and there. It enhances the game to the point I wanted to learn more about the Vandelay corporation.
Overall there is a lot of care and thought here by the developers of Tango Gameworks, and I am very interested in the next game they’ll release moving forward. I genuinely believe this is a very strong GOTY contender for 2023. And in my honest opinion a must-play for anyone who desires to see an idiot try to take down a big corporation. Watch how that turns out.
9.5/10
Star Fox Adventures
2002
I sincerely apologize to say that this is one of my favorite games. Top fifteen, maybe.
But this is Not a Star Fox game. This is Dinosaur Planet. It honestly should've stayed that way, and it's really frustrating that Nintendo didn't trust the product enough on its own merit and felt they had to shove Star Fox in. I say this as a Star Fox fan. Seeing how the game was nearly completed on its own before the complete overhaul was heartbreaking. I recommend watching any YouTube video that documents and talks about it. Its honestly fascinating.
This game is gorgeous on the GameCube. The visuals were great for the time, and I have too many fond memories of playing this game and wandering all over the planet to explore it. It slogs for a minute at the second "level" with Moon Mountain Pass, but gets more interesting from there.
It's a game that can't help but be silly because it knows its silly (mostly from Star Fox being there, to be honest). Rare did an exceptional job with this one. It really sucks that this game is responsible for tarnishing people's trust in the Star Fox series, though. And I agree that it did.
But take it for what it is, if you can. Just enjoy a silly little adventure about talking animals and talking dinosaurs. You'll really enjoy the unique environments and game world.
But this is Not a Star Fox game. This is Dinosaur Planet. It honestly should've stayed that way, and it's really frustrating that Nintendo didn't trust the product enough on its own merit and felt they had to shove Star Fox in. I say this as a Star Fox fan. Seeing how the game was nearly completed on its own before the complete overhaul was heartbreaking. I recommend watching any YouTube video that documents and talks about it. Its honestly fascinating.
This game is gorgeous on the GameCube. The visuals were great for the time, and I have too many fond memories of playing this game and wandering all over the planet to explore it. It slogs for a minute at the second "level" with Moon Mountain Pass, but gets more interesting from there.
It's a game that can't help but be silly because it knows its silly (mostly from Star Fox being there, to be honest). Rare did an exceptional job with this one. It really sucks that this game is responsible for tarnishing people's trust in the Star Fox series, though. And I agree that it did.
But take it for what it is, if you can. Just enjoy a silly little adventure about talking animals and talking dinosaurs. You'll really enjoy the unique environments and game world.
Cocoon
2023
I never gave this game much thought from the glimpses I've seen of it up to release, but the quadruple combo of it being a shorter game published by Annapurna that got high review scores and is day one on Game Pass made it very hard to ignore. I'm glad I didn't as I can confidently say that Cocoon is so far my favorite Indie game of 2023.
The game never tells you how to do anything, which is one of my favorite things about it. It just feels intuitive, and its solely up to you to figure things out. I got stumped a lot but outside of something I'll get to in a bit, it basically never felt like the game was unfair. And even when things seemed impossible, every single time I found out the solution I was impressed with how clever the game was. The puzzle design is just simply excellent here and it feels consistently rewarding.
Now there is a reason this game is missing a star. A few smaller issues first: I didn't really care about the art style. It feels a bit generic but its not a bad looking game either so not really a negative. The soundtrack also exists. Its fine I guess, but I never really noticed it which feels like a missed opportunity. Also if this game has a story, its very vague. I'm sure there's some deeper meaning to everything but it very much takes a backseat. These three things are fine and didn't really bother me as the gameplay is still very engaging but they do stop me from fully loving it.
Now about the actual things I dislike about the game. It took me around 5 and a half hours to beat. This is a great length for a game like this, and the puzzles continued to expand and stay interesting the whole time. That being said, there were several moments that felt like finales where the game just kept continuing on after. It led to a conflicting feeling where I was enjoying the puzzles but still wishing for the game to be over. It was just a bit exhausting to be thrown for a loop that much. The only other thing I dislike about this game are some of the timed puzzles. For the most part these are perfectly fine, but in the last fourth there is three different timed sections each made up of three different parts. They're sort of like a boss battle but if you fail any part you have to restart the whole section. While other bosses do make you restart, at least they were based on skill, but this one is solely on timing. This led to a lot of having to redo parts I already knew how to just to get back to the part I was actually stuck on and it was quite frankly a pain in the ass. I don't like timed puzzles and this was a bad way to implement them. Otherwise the bosses are all sort of similar but still unique enough that their presence makes the game more interesting.
Overall, Cocoon is a fantastic puzzle game that's held back only by a handful of small things and the very occasional annoying section. None of its negatives take away from the fact that its highly creative and one of the best games I've played in an already stacked year.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far <3
Nancymeter - 85/100
Achievement Completion - 80%
Time Played - 5 hours 43 minutes
Completion #29 of September
Completion #192 of 2023
The game never tells you how to do anything, which is one of my favorite things about it. It just feels intuitive, and its solely up to you to figure things out. I got stumped a lot but outside of something I'll get to in a bit, it basically never felt like the game was unfair. And even when things seemed impossible, every single time I found out the solution I was impressed with how clever the game was. The puzzle design is just simply excellent here and it feels consistently rewarding.
Now there is a reason this game is missing a star. A few smaller issues first: I didn't really care about the art style. It feels a bit generic but its not a bad looking game either so not really a negative. The soundtrack also exists. Its fine I guess, but I never really noticed it which feels like a missed opportunity. Also if this game has a story, its very vague. I'm sure there's some deeper meaning to everything but it very much takes a backseat. These three things are fine and didn't really bother me as the gameplay is still very engaging but they do stop me from fully loving it.
Now about the actual things I dislike about the game. It took me around 5 and a half hours to beat. This is a great length for a game like this, and the puzzles continued to expand and stay interesting the whole time. That being said, there were several moments that felt like finales where the game just kept continuing on after. It led to a conflicting feeling where I was enjoying the puzzles but still wishing for the game to be over. It was just a bit exhausting to be thrown for a loop that much. The only other thing I dislike about this game are some of the timed puzzles. For the most part these are perfectly fine, but in the last fourth there is three different timed sections each made up of three different parts. They're sort of like a boss battle but if you fail any part you have to restart the whole section. While other bosses do make you restart, at least they were based on skill, but this one is solely on timing. This led to a lot of having to redo parts I already knew how to just to get back to the part I was actually stuck on and it was quite frankly a pain in the ass. I don't like timed puzzles and this was a bad way to implement them. Otherwise the bosses are all sort of similar but still unique enough that their presence makes the game more interesting.
Overall, Cocoon is a fantastic puzzle game that's held back only by a handful of small things and the very occasional annoying section. None of its negatives take away from the fact that its highly creative and one of the best games I've played in an already stacked year.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far <3
Nancymeter - 85/100
Achievement Completion - 80%
Time Played - 5 hours 43 minutes
Completion #29 of September
Completion #192 of 2023
This review contains spoilers
This review will contain full story spoilers.
I had been looking for a reason to replay this game and figured this was as good a chance as any. So I am reviewing this as the whole game and I will talk about the "Remaster" at the end. This is undoubtably one of the most divisive games of all time, but as someone who has always liked this game I am happy to see that since its release a lot more people are coming around to it. I want to take a look at the controversial narrative choices that this game made and give my own opinion on them I have a lot to say here so this will be a long one.
I think this should be considered as one of the most over hated games of all time. The vicious backlash that this got upon its release baffles me as when I first played it I found it to be one of the most harrowing and engrossing stories that I had ever seen. This game makes you feel empty by the time it is over. A brutal depiction of what the thirst for revenge can do to people, pair that with an already ruined apocalyptic world and you have yourself one of the most emotionally gut wrenching stories that has ever been seen in a videogame.
Straight away lets talk about one of the biggest controversies, what happened to Joel. Within the first two hours of the story, Joel is killed by the new protagonist Abby. He is killed in a brutal way with Ellie unfortunately forced to watch as Abby beats him to death. This was an incredibly ballsy move to put so early into the game, as far as i can tell most people thought that Joel was going to die in this game but from the hatred poured out online most people were not happy. In my own opinion, I don't have a problem with Joel's death, it is brutal don't get me wrong but it does make a lot of sense, Joel had crossed a lot of people, someone was bound to catch him eventually. It pushes Ellie's character in the direction she needs to go in this game and i think if the ending was handled a bit better this wouldn't be as controversial is it is.
The next and probably biggest controversy is having to play as Abby. Now when i first played this game i had a very similar reaction to most people so this time through i looked at it differently. When you really think about it Ellie and Abby are doing pretty much the same thing. Ellie is hunting down Abby for killing Joel, as Abby hunted down Joel for killing her father. Now i do think that the writers tried to hard to make Abby sympathetic which they should of realised was never going to work but her section of gameplay is just as enjoyable as the first half, so much so that it feels like two completely different games. By day 2 of Abby's section I had it felt like all the stuff with Ellie was part of a different game. While Abby's character in my opinion isn't anywhere close to Ellie's she still has a half decent arc. One complaint i have about Abby's section is having to fight Ellie, The fact that anyone working on this game thought that they had gave Abby enough development for players to like her over Ellie is insane and it is a choice that still boggles my mind.
Lastly, the ending, and this is one i fully agree with. I do believe that the ending was a cop out and should of been handled in a much different way, my biggest problem is that it completely 180's Ellie's motive out of nowhere. When you take control of Ellie during the Santa Barbara section she is obsessed with finding and killing Abby, she gave up everything she had to finish what she started, only at the last second to let her go. This choice makes no sense to me as the writers could of easily had the same ending which i think would of made it hit harder. Going down the whole "Revenge doesn't change anything" route. Having Ellie kill Abby but still being burdened with everything she has done which would still give that "It was all for nothing" ending but at least players would of had the satisfaction of avenging Joel. Instead they go down the forgiveness route, which I originally took for one of those hard pill to swallow endings which make you consider your own morals but this time upon completion i questioned it a lot more because Ellie has killed hundreds of people to get to Abby, but only takes the forgiveness route at the last second. If anyone disagrees feel free to try and explain why this was the right choice but to me this just seems like a strange choice to make, probably due to Druckmann's obsession with Abby and probably wanted to keep her alive to be the protagonist if there is to be a 3rd game.
Besides these moments I think this game is almost perfect. The story is told in strange ways, struggles with pacing at points and has an ending that falls flat, but the game still manages to tell an amazing story. With great characters and performances especially Ashley Johnson as Ellie who gives a spectacular performance. Some side characters of note that i think stood out are Lev, Tommy and Dina who all add a lot to the part of the story they are in. Tommy especially is a fucking terminator in this game.
Gameplay wise it keeps the great resource management paired with realistic shooting. Adding small differences between both characters is a good way to keep it from feeling stale. Like Ellie being able to kill clickers without having to craft shiv's. Each character gets a specific arsenal as well which keeps everything feeling different.
Visually this game is breath-taking. Speaking for both games here as the difference is almost unnoticeable. The attention to detail is phenomenal with stuff like cuts healing across the multiple days. No complaints at all here.
Now to talk about this "Remaster". Did this 4 year old game which was already a spectacle on last gen hardware need a remaster. No. But from what i have played of it, the no return mode is a lot of fun and makes up for the £10 price tag alone for me. Other neat stuff like skins and the lost levels are good editions too. I really think this should of been called Directors cut or something as I couldn't see any difference beside a bit of a better frame rate. Only looking at the remaster its no higher than a 5 out of 10. The No return game mode is good but calling it a remaster is a bit of a strange move considering it really didn't need one. But the £10 price tag is reasonable and at least they aren't charging 70 like they did for the last remake.
Overall, The Last of Us part 2 will forever be controversial, it is one of those games that will no one will share the same opinion of. However in my opinion looking past some poor writing choices and a bit to much forced sympathetically character moments this game is amazing and is one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had.
I had been looking for a reason to replay this game and figured this was as good a chance as any. So I am reviewing this as the whole game and I will talk about the "Remaster" at the end. This is undoubtably one of the most divisive games of all time, but as someone who has always liked this game I am happy to see that since its release a lot more people are coming around to it. I want to take a look at the controversial narrative choices that this game made and give my own opinion on them I have a lot to say here so this will be a long one.
I think this should be considered as one of the most over hated games of all time. The vicious backlash that this got upon its release baffles me as when I first played it I found it to be one of the most harrowing and engrossing stories that I had ever seen. This game makes you feel empty by the time it is over. A brutal depiction of what the thirst for revenge can do to people, pair that with an already ruined apocalyptic world and you have yourself one of the most emotionally gut wrenching stories that has ever been seen in a videogame.
Straight away lets talk about one of the biggest controversies, what happened to Joel. Within the first two hours of the story, Joel is killed by the new protagonist Abby. He is killed in a brutal way with Ellie unfortunately forced to watch as Abby beats him to death. This was an incredibly ballsy move to put so early into the game, as far as i can tell most people thought that Joel was going to die in this game but from the hatred poured out online most people were not happy. In my own opinion, I don't have a problem with Joel's death, it is brutal don't get me wrong but it does make a lot of sense, Joel had crossed a lot of people, someone was bound to catch him eventually. It pushes Ellie's character in the direction she needs to go in this game and i think if the ending was handled a bit better this wouldn't be as controversial is it is.
The next and probably biggest controversy is having to play as Abby. Now when i first played this game i had a very similar reaction to most people so this time through i looked at it differently. When you really think about it Ellie and Abby are doing pretty much the same thing. Ellie is hunting down Abby for killing Joel, as Abby hunted down Joel for killing her father. Now i do think that the writers tried to hard to make Abby sympathetic which they should of realised was never going to work but her section of gameplay is just as enjoyable as the first half, so much so that it feels like two completely different games. By day 2 of Abby's section I had it felt like all the stuff with Ellie was part of a different game. While Abby's character in my opinion isn't anywhere close to Ellie's she still has a half decent arc. One complaint i have about Abby's section is having to fight Ellie, The fact that anyone working on this game thought that they had gave Abby enough development for players to like her over Ellie is insane and it is a choice that still boggles my mind.
Lastly, the ending, and this is one i fully agree with. I do believe that the ending was a cop out and should of been handled in a much different way, my biggest problem is that it completely 180's Ellie's motive out of nowhere. When you take control of Ellie during the Santa Barbara section she is obsessed with finding and killing Abby, she gave up everything she had to finish what she started, only at the last second to let her go. This choice makes no sense to me as the writers could of easily had the same ending which i think would of made it hit harder. Going down the whole "Revenge doesn't change anything" route. Having Ellie kill Abby but still being burdened with everything she has done which would still give that "It was all for nothing" ending but at least players would of had the satisfaction of avenging Joel. Instead they go down the forgiveness route, which I originally took for one of those hard pill to swallow endings which make you consider your own morals but this time upon completion i questioned it a lot more because Ellie has killed hundreds of people to get to Abby, but only takes the forgiveness route at the last second. If anyone disagrees feel free to try and explain why this was the right choice but to me this just seems like a strange choice to make, probably due to Druckmann's obsession with Abby and probably wanted to keep her alive to be the protagonist if there is to be a 3rd game.
Besides these moments I think this game is almost perfect. The story is told in strange ways, struggles with pacing at points and has an ending that falls flat, but the game still manages to tell an amazing story. With great characters and performances especially Ashley Johnson as Ellie who gives a spectacular performance. Some side characters of note that i think stood out are Lev, Tommy and Dina who all add a lot to the part of the story they are in. Tommy especially is a fucking terminator in this game.
Gameplay wise it keeps the great resource management paired with realistic shooting. Adding small differences between both characters is a good way to keep it from feeling stale. Like Ellie being able to kill clickers without having to craft shiv's. Each character gets a specific arsenal as well which keeps everything feeling different.
Visually this game is breath-taking. Speaking for both games here as the difference is almost unnoticeable. The attention to detail is phenomenal with stuff like cuts healing across the multiple days. No complaints at all here.
Now to talk about this "Remaster". Did this 4 year old game which was already a spectacle on last gen hardware need a remaster. No. But from what i have played of it, the no return mode is a lot of fun and makes up for the £10 price tag alone for me. Other neat stuff like skins and the lost levels are good editions too. I really think this should of been called Directors cut or something as I couldn't see any difference beside a bit of a better frame rate. Only looking at the remaster its no higher than a 5 out of 10. The No return game mode is good but calling it a remaster is a bit of a strange move considering it really didn't need one. But the £10 price tag is reasonable and at least they aren't charging 70 like they did for the last remake.
Overall, The Last of Us part 2 will forever be controversial, it is one of those games that will no one will share the same opinion of. However in my opinion looking past some poor writing choices and a bit to much forced sympathetically character moments this game is amazing and is one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had.
Look, like clearly many people on here and everywhere else, my opinion on Neil Druckmann both as a person and as a creative has changed over time; there's no denying that. However, I also cannot deny how much I love The Last of Us Part II, despite the moral baggage both inside and outside of its creation.
That said, while I don't necessarily agree with the top reviews here calling this remaster creatively bankrupt, I do totally get where they're coming from. For the equivalent of $10, I definitely felt I got my money's worth here though. I've always loved any and all behind-the-scenes looks at games, especially when Valve does it, and the addition of Dev Commentary for the cutscenes and the Lost Levels section for this remaster is a real treat. It would have been cool to get commentary on all the levels in the main game but I understand that's a big ask given its length. Still, what is given here is more than sufficient.
No Return is the highlight of the whole package, of course. I'm usually so-so on roguelikes, unless they have some neato gimmick to them, but honestly, Part II's gameplay is solid enough that it carries the whole thing. It's surprisingly involved too, and clearly not just something they shoved in there as an extra thing. There are tiers of challenges, several game types, and a pretty nifty unlock system that carries from run to run. You probably won't spend more time on it than the main game but it's a really cool thing to have regardless, and I wouldn't be surprised if they make it a standalone release separate from the rest of the remaster.
All of the PS5 controller's gimmicks (not meant derogatorily) do switch things up for another playthrough to make it feel unique, but I wouldn't say they enhance the overall experience or are totally essential, or anything. Then again, I've already played through this a few times so perhaps it’s a different case for first-timers.
All in all, the PS5 remaster of Part II is a great addition to a truly fantastic game. I can totally see it not being worth the price for some people but I suppose that depends on how much you're willing to spend on it and how long you're willing to wait for a sale otherwise. Still, if you already love this game, this is pretty essential.
9.5/10
That said, while I don't necessarily agree with the top reviews here calling this remaster creatively bankrupt, I do totally get where they're coming from. For the equivalent of $10, I definitely felt I got my money's worth here though. I've always loved any and all behind-the-scenes looks at games, especially when Valve does it, and the addition of Dev Commentary for the cutscenes and the Lost Levels section for this remaster is a real treat. It would have been cool to get commentary on all the levels in the main game but I understand that's a big ask given its length. Still, what is given here is more than sufficient.
No Return is the highlight of the whole package, of course. I'm usually so-so on roguelikes, unless they have some neato gimmick to them, but honestly, Part II's gameplay is solid enough that it carries the whole thing. It's surprisingly involved too, and clearly not just something they shoved in there as an extra thing. There are tiers of challenges, several game types, and a pretty nifty unlock system that carries from run to run. You probably won't spend more time on it than the main game but it's a really cool thing to have regardless, and I wouldn't be surprised if they make it a standalone release separate from the rest of the remaster.
All of the PS5 controller's gimmicks (not meant derogatorily) do switch things up for another playthrough to make it feel unique, but I wouldn't say they enhance the overall experience or are totally essential, or anything. Then again, I've already played through this a few times so perhaps it’s a different case for first-timers.
All in all, the PS5 remaster of Part II is a great addition to a truly fantastic game. I can totally see it not being worth the price for some people but I suppose that depends on how much you're willing to spend on it and how long you're willing to wait for a sale otherwise. Still, if you already love this game, this is pretty essential.
9.5/10
Nice to see sony remastering yet another one of my childhood classics!