pixel_mischief
5 reviews liked by pixel_mischief
Returnal
2021
i'm a bit disappointed with this one.
The Last of Us Part II tells an insubstantial, poorly structured, and badly paced story. Many situations are implausible and the message is confusing and simple. This second part does not adequately continue the story of the original game. I expected a lot from this game but I get almost nothing from it.
I'm writing a much bigger piece on this because there's so much to speak on with this game, but to say the very least, Part II is an incomprehensible mess of a game.
I have no issues with any of the "spoiler-y" bits, I'm not mad cause "lady person have muscles," or any other of that bigoted nonsense. My issue comes from the disjointed narrative, hypocritical thematic presence, and that it's (at the VERY least) 5 hours too long.
Technically speaking, The Last of Us Part II is as solid as can be. Although I experienced a few technical hiccups while playing, the game is absolutely solid on a visual and audio front. It's a total shame, though that nearly everything else surrounding the gameplay, visuals, music, and so forth run laps around any of the bits that are trying to be "artsy" and so forth.
Wasted potential is the best way to describe this game, and I honestly think we really didn't need another Last of Us after the first.
I have no issues with any of the "spoiler-y" bits, I'm not mad cause "lady person have muscles," or any other of that bigoted nonsense. My issue comes from the disjointed narrative, hypocritical thematic presence, and that it's (at the VERY least) 5 hours too long.
Technically speaking, The Last of Us Part II is as solid as can be. Although I experienced a few technical hiccups while playing, the game is absolutely solid on a visual and audio front. It's a total shame, though that nearly everything else surrounding the gameplay, visuals, music, and so forth run laps around any of the bits that are trying to be "artsy" and so forth.
Wasted potential is the best way to describe this game, and I honestly think we really didn't need another Last of Us after the first.
Utterly dreadful experience, one of the worst titles put out by AAA companies especially taking into account the conditions the game was made under, the amount of effort placed into it and the money Naughty Dog and Sony threw at this project.
One of the few things it is good at is using its photorealistic 3D graphics and animation effectively as a veneer to hide the fact that the world Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross have imagined is laughably (and ironically) one dimensional. Every person you come across is out to murder you, and you are out to murder everyone. Almost everyone in the world TLOU2 imagines has the same motivation: Kill. Is there any interesting interrogation into why they are like that? No.
For a game that they have marketed as one about 'hate' and 'violence', it sure doesn't want to explore why everyone that inhabits its world shares the same bloodlust as its protagonists. It just assumes that everyone is born with that propensity for violence without rhyme or reason, which is both laughable and I find it a lot funnier thinking about how Druckmann and Gross are begging you to extend your suspension of disbelief that far.
Abby's arms are good. The juxtaposition between how they effectively made Ellie gameplay-wise the Predator and how they made Abby basically Dutch from the same movie is one of the few good things about it, even if it's unintentional because it's a game that wants to sit you down and talk to you about violence, no matter how cool the exploding arrow works in the game.
Bad game, one of the worst in recent memory.
One of the few things it is good at is using its photorealistic 3D graphics and animation effectively as a veneer to hide the fact that the world Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross have imagined is laughably (and ironically) one dimensional. Every person you come across is out to murder you, and you are out to murder everyone. Almost everyone in the world TLOU2 imagines has the same motivation: Kill. Is there any interesting interrogation into why they are like that? No.
For a game that they have marketed as one about 'hate' and 'violence', it sure doesn't want to explore why everyone that inhabits its world shares the same bloodlust as its protagonists. It just assumes that everyone is born with that propensity for violence without rhyme or reason, which is both laughable and I find it a lot funnier thinking about how Druckmann and Gross are begging you to extend your suspension of disbelief that far.
Abby's arms are good. The juxtaposition between how they effectively made Ellie gameplay-wise the Predator and how they made Abby basically Dutch from the same movie is one of the few good things about it, even if it's unintentional because it's a game that wants to sit you down and talk to you about violence, no matter how cool the exploding arrow works in the game.
Bad game, one of the worst in recent memory.
This review contains spoilers
I've sat on my feelings on this game for months now. I think I finally realized the issue with this game, for me. The characters, I think, are not good? I'm still not sure how to express what I feel, but I find the characters lackluster compared to games like Red Dead 2, Last of Us 1, or even FFVII. The characters in this game, to me, are just extremely bland and I never had them click for me. And when I started to warm up to some, like Jesse, they just kill them off. So, to me, most of these characters just act as blank slates with very little personality for the sole purpose to accompany you during gameplay, or just to die to raise stakes in the story. I emphasize that these are my personal feelings, because clearly I'm missing something due to the overwhelming support and love for this game. This problem wouldn't have been an issue if the game wasn't so reliant on its story. The gameplay was fun and sometimes even fantastic, but the main reason people play the Last of Us is for the story, and the characters brought it down for me. I even like some of the concepts the story has, like Joel's death early on and whatnot.