What's surprising about The Last of Us Part 2 is that it flips what I liked and disliked in the first game. I suffered through the gameplay of The Last of Us for the story's sake; playing the sequel is a joy, and its story is such a horrendous misfire I'm still struggling to process it.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why THIS is the story Naughty Dog chose to tell in a sequel to The Last of Us. It's not profound; it's not thought-provoking; it's not revelatory. It's just misery on top of misery with an extra helping of misery for 20+ relentless hours. (1)

Part 1 works because Joel is not a superhero video game protagonist. He's a man with obvious faults who's faced with extremely hard choices and fucks up. I can root for him, uncomfortably. Part 2's Ellie, on the other hand, is a reprehensibly cruel idiot who l stopped rooting for pretty much immediately.

I really enjoyed the most daring creative decision in Part 2 - playing half the game from Abby's perspective - but her redemption story not only felt a little repetitive but made me even more angry watching Ellie make the wrong choice over and over and over, more times than I thought possible. (2)

There are moments in this game that affirmed my faith in Naughty Dog and that I think will stick with me for a long, long time. (3) Those moments will keep me coming back no matter what they do next. But here, It's a real shame those moments aren't in service of a better overarching story.

(1) I made a conscious choice not to play this game when it released in June 2020, in the heart of the misery of the pandemic and at the tail end of the agonizing Trump presidency, and in retrospect that's maybe one of the five best decisions I've made in my entire life.  

(2) It felt like this game knew I desperately wanted it to end and repeatedly refused just to make me miserable.

(3) A few favorite moments:

- Ellie and Dina hook up during a blizzard
- Oh shit, it's actually Jesse
- The hanging at the TV station
- Ellie experiences Apollo 11
- Chasing Nora through the hospital
- Ellie learns the truth about the Fireflies
- Seeing the elementary school alive this time
- Abby struggling with the Seraphite bridge
- Lev's backstory
- Whatever the fuck that thing was under the hospital
- The backstage fistfight
- Ellie carrying the baby