Revenge is bad, mmkay? It's not fun, guy!

 I finished my revisit to The Last of Us part 2 in order to give it a fair review. As you may know, this game has been very controversial, mostly due to narrative choices.

"You're just a racist, homophobic neckbeard, who can't stand strong women!"

This is the kind of BS that blocks any criticism of this game. Wouldn't be surprised if that was part of Druckmann's plan.

Most of the criticism against this game is literally about the story... Not simply about Joel dying, but how many things didn't make sense or were implemented poorly.

There is a HUGE disconnect between the narrative and Gameplay. The characters deal with pain, loss, PTSD in the cutscenes. Once I'm in control, I'm forced to mow down hundreds of non-infected. Beat them with a steel pipe with some scissors taped to it, blow them up with impromptu land mines or pipe bombs... coping with trauma! 

Abby's muscles are bullshit. 

No one else... well aside some Hammer wielding Brute  Seraphites, look as big as her. HELL, even the game itself likes to remind you that she is freakishly big. 

And this was something tacked later on.

B-but *insert stupid gameplay element here*.

I've already mentioned that Gameplay and Narrative have a huge disconnect. Also, gameplay throws logic out the window.

B-but the cows and protein!

Military group with thousands living on thw stadium need to ration food. Also, if the WLF had enough resources for Abby to easily become She-Hulk, wouldn't it make sense to have ALL OF THE SOLDIERS LOOKING LIKE CANSECO? Punching infected left and right.

So, she used steroids...

OK, Outbreak day was 9/26/2013... the game is in 2038. Most steroids have a shelf life of 2-3 years. TLOU2 is 25 years-ish from outbreak day. There is no way the steroids would even work... don't you dare invoke the stupid pill popping game mechanic.

But real live women have gotten that big!

In controlled conditions with a healthy diet, healthy regimen, and canseco juice... and it's hard. Now add being 20+ years into a world ravaged by the fungal apocalypse. It ramps up the difficulty a lot much more.

But her mass is symbolic of her state of mind... just as Ellie's changed for the...

Let  stop you right there, Zack Snyder. I get the idea of Abby "becoming a monster" in order to get "justice" and she begins to shed mass as her world crumbles around her as a side effect of her vengeance. It's a nice idea, poorly executed. Not to mention that it keeps the horribly sexist notion that in order for women to be empowered, they must become more masculine.

Now that I got Abby's muscles out of the way, let's move on...

Revenge is bad, mmmkay!

Both playable characters are at different points of their revenge plan. Only Abby received Satisfaction... partially, but more on that later. Then her life unraveled. Ellie on the other hand has her life unravel AND IS DENIED ANY satisfaction. The game forces you to be violent WITHOUT ANY OTHER REAL CHOICE and then admonishes you for such actions.  Which brings me to my next problem:

The dual playable characters was badly implemented:

I was supposed to see both sides of the story and get how much of a funhouse mirror both sides were. Problem is that I have NO REASON TO CARE ABOUT ABBY and her story is Half the game.

Personally, I think we should have started with Abby and her crew further back on their journey to Jackson in order for the player to know the Salt Lake Crew and better prepare us when we have to control Ellie. Humanizing Abby BEFORE the Pro Am Tour.

 The way the game does it, males people not want to see Abby's side. All they see is roid rage bitch killed Joel, she must die!

What I'm going to suggest is a crazy idea.

Maybe we should've played the "full game" as Abby then after beating the game we'd unlock Ellie's side of the story with the Third option being a combination of both stories summarized in something close to the game we got.

Joel Miller:

His death sucked, because Joel acted out of character and it royally sucked, because he was nerfed and fridged. Forcing a character to act completely opposite to what they are in order to serve the plot is a sign of mediocre writing.

His death was expected, but it was cowardly done in a cutscene. There's no real satisfaction of beating the monster. It happened by sheer coincidence (badly written plot).

The Flashback scenes are a grim reminder of how this game could've been much better:

STEVEN THE STEGOSAUR!!

Sapphic Fury:

One of the better aspects of the game is Ellie and Dina's relationship. I've seen some people whine about Lesbians as criticism of the game. To be fair, it's only the "behind the scenes" stuff that is cringy. The actual game mostly does a great job about not making a big deal of it. Except when it tries to make a big deal out of it with the mandatory "putting bigots in their place" scene.

The Lev asking Abby if she wanted to ask about Lev's issue regarding him being formerly known as Lilly was unintentionally funny. It's right after some Seraphites deadname him by using the name Lilly. Lev asks Abby if she wants to talk about that and Abby says no. The intention was to show that Abby was woke and not simply swole. The problem is that it felt like the whole encounter with those Seraphites was to have that conversation. Which makes it look like Druckmann was trying too hard to show how woke he is. On one hand, it was pleasant that we avoided whatever preachy speech Lev had prepared. On the other hand, well, you just read my issue with Druckmann patting himself on the back.

Now going back to Ellie and Dina. The game spends way too much time making us care for Ellie and Dina, and not so much for Abby and the friends she lost. This creates the illusion that this game is about a lesbian and a butch fighting over a man.

I made a reference to Zack Snyder earlier and I need to correct myself... Druckmann can direct dramatic scenes better than Zack Snyder. But the Revenge is bad angle with a disjointed "dual stories" with an obvious focus on a series of scenes make the story not as good as it should be.

So, in order to close the story section of the review it gets a 5.0

Gameplay

Very similar to the first game with a hop option and going prone like we were some sort of Hard Viper. Combat CAN BE FUN, but it gets a bit boring rather fast when you can Overpower everything with Stealth.

But the game has many cheap one-shot deaths... most of mine involved the Rat King...

Not that Rat King... but yeah. One wrong step and boom insta-death...

8.5

Music and sounds:

Here the game excels. The voice actors do a great job despite the material they had.

And yes, That includes Laura Bailey who did a great job at voicing a shitty character. The music, as little as there is works greatly. Then again it's Gustavo Santaolalla.

10

Controls:

The controls are responsive and feel mostly natural. The only times they're "unresponsive" is when the game forces you to go slow (hiding loadtimes).

9.0

Graphics: 

As it has been with their more realistic games, Naughty Dog has done an amazong job with the graphics.

This is the only noticeable graphical hiccup I found on my entire playthrough.

9.5

Fun factor:

Yeah, this game has zero of that. Naughty Dog literally made sure of that. Sure, there are some entertaining battle moments and some engaging scenes, but most of the game you're trudging along a harsh landscape with a hollow shell of Ellie, or the Unlikable Bulk Abby. Then the ending leaves you disappointed...

7.5

Overall:

This game is so hard to properly review. Kinda reminds me of Death Stranding... in technical aspects is well done. Gameplay feels like a copy from a previous game. Story is not that great, but you can feel how the writer stroked his ego as he furiously pats himself on the back as if he was some sort of genius. Being as humanly fair as possible: TLOU2 gets a 8.2 and the biggest failure was the storytelling. It's a decent game, but many of the awards it received were bullshit.

Ellie: You're going to give me all the awards.
or else I'll claim you're a racist, sexist, homophobic neckbeard, who likes to get off to little girls like me!

I almost forgot that part... when people brought up the flashbacks where Joel and Ellie interact with each other felt more lively and natural than the rest of the game, the counterattack was calling them pedos. Weird logic, but then again, these people ignore how well received the TLOU1 DLC: Left Behind was received AND it had a gay Ellie.

But yeah, like I said at the start, Druckmann seems to be using "LGBTQ representation" as a sort of "Shield against criticism".  This "criticism shield" MIGHT HAVE influenced the judges for certain awards. From a technical aspect, this game did some great things. The accessibility options are remarkable. Sadly, they are wasted on a game that punishes you for playing it. Not by being NES DIFFICULT, but by using cheap parlor tricks to emotionally manipulate the player into hating the journey and THE GAME...