Introduction
The Last Of Us Part 2 is an action adventure game developed by Naughty Dog. It was published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PS4 in June 2020.
Review
It’s been 4 years since the events that took Joel and Ellie all the way across the USA. They’ve now settled into their life, in the little settlement known as Jackson, where they help grow food, or clear out the infected monsters that plague the world. But nothing lasts forever. Eventually some crazy events come that cause their perfect little life to get overturned, and now Ellie is on a mission of her own.
I’ll be honest, I’m very divided on the first game. I like it, but I don’t. So I was hesitant going into this one. But the story didn’t take long to hook me, and it kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire journey. I was always anxious as to what happened next, worried for the characters that I’d grown to love. The story was told in two separate ways. You have Ellie’s journey, then you have Abby’s journey. At first, I thought Abby was a terrible character. But when I hit the point in the game where I started learning about her, I came to like her more and more. Even if the motivations for her journey are a bit cliché.
One thing for sure that irked me about the story, was that it did seem to go on for a little too long. Even when I hit the sequence where I was going “the end! Woo!” I still had many hours left to go. Which in turn made me realize how it was all going to end. It made me sad when it happened though. But I feel like it could’ve been trimmed down just a touch, but that’s just me. By the end, I was kind of curious as to the motivations of Ellie’s journey as well. Only because all of the scenes in the game made it seem like it’s not something she’d care for anymore.
The gameplay is vastly refined from that of the first game. The guns feel better, the stealth mechanics work, and best of all, you can go prone, and hide yourself in tall blades of grass. This was an absolute game changer for me. I don’t know how many times I’d hide myself in grass and carefully pick off all the enemies I could. The environments definitely helped with everything. I spent most of my time stealth killing everything because I was so worried about actually needing the bullets for my guns, that I hated getting into full blown shoot outs.
The game has so many skill trees that you can uncover throughout the game, so long as you find the respective item for it, that I spent a lot of time trying to decide what skills were worth picking up to cater to my playstyle, because I felt some would be an absolute waste. Like a skill to craft bullets for a pistol that had incredibly high damage, I never ended up getting, because I played more stealthy than guns blazing. But it was nice to have it there in case that was my playstyle.
The game had some sort of open areas you could explore. There were safes that you had to find the passcode elsewhere, like in an collectible note, or on a wall somewhere. Or you could explore a side building and end up with a new shotgun! The way they blended the small explorative areas with the gameplay worked. As I was always interested in seeing what each new area held. Plus the collectibles were fun, as you learned about the survivors from each tribe. One note could be from the WLF (Washington Liberation Force) or the Scars, and how they were doing on their scouting missions. It pulled me deeper into the wonderful lore that was crafted for this entry.
The biggest issue I had with the game in the way of technical faults, is that during cutscenes, sometimes the character models would stutter between some animations. But then again I have an old base model Ps4, and this game was a powerhouse in the graphical department.
Rating
Pros:
- Thrilling Story
- Amazing Stealth
- Different Possible Playstyles
Cons:
- Graphical Hiccups On A Base Ps4
- Terrible Motives For Abby
- Game Stretches On A Touch Too Long
Summary
As someone who wasn’t the biggest fan of the first entry in this series, I was so happy to see them improve on everything for this entry. The story was thrilling and tense, the gameplay was made way better, and every step was enjoyable! I can’t recommend this enough. Just block out all the internet’s thoughts about it, then play it.
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Game & Developer Information
Developer Website: Naughty Dog
Developer Socials: Twitter
Publisher Website: Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe
Publisher Socials: Twitter
PSN Store Links: £34.99/€39.99 Europe / $39.99 North America
Trophy Information: 28. 
1 / 
7 / 
9 / 
11
Images – https://www.igdb.com/
NODE Gamers 
Great review. I think this is one of those games that requires a second play through to fully appreciate and understand everything within the game. I know it’s hard for a reviewer to do this, but the general public should play this game more than once (especially on grounded, and you get a trophy for it as well👍). I thought this game was an 8/10 as well on the initial play through, but then I played again it on grounded to 100% all trophies. This is when I realized this game is a masterpiece on every level.
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If I was still going for trophies, I probably would have played it a second time. Maybe even switched up my play style too! There’s a good chance I’ll one day replay this one day, and then I’ll try a different way for sure
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