The Last of Us Part II PS4 Review

The Last of Us Part II PS4 Review – A fantastic but bloated sequel

How do you make a follow up to a classic game such as The Last of Us? With the Last of Us Part II Naughty Dog’s answer was to take a few risks, although still delivering a sequel that is very much along the lines of what made the original game play so well. The sequel is also driven by a powerful and emotional plot, and it’s here where most of the risks were taken.

Ellie and Joel are back, although events have now fast forwarded five years. The father-daughter like relationship now has more tension due to how the original story ended, and things quickly escalate from hereon. I don’t want to spoil too much here, but the narrative is another success for Naughty Dog, there’s a larger cast of characters, and there’s plenty of memorable moments. A major new character is also introduced in Abby, although how she fits into the dark tale isn’t something I am going to spoil here, although let’s just say that she is another well fleshed out character. Overall, there’s a grimness to everything, which means that this isn’t a game you should play if you want to be cheered up, but it’s a fitting tone all the same, and it feels all the more real because of it. Voice performances also add to the realism, and they are once again amongst some of the finest performances you’ll ever hear in a game.

When it comes to gameplay options, The Last of Us Part II champions accessibility in ways that many games don’t. The difficulty can be customised to a great extent, and this includes the amount of damage you take as well as the frequency of checkpoints. Other options include the accuracy and aggression of enemies, the frequency in which allies kill enemies, the awareness of enemies during stealth encounters, as well as the quantity of ammo and supplies, and more. Then there’s an exhaustive set of options for those with vision, hearing and physical issues, which are things that are ignored all too often by other games.

When it comes to sequels, it’s often the old adage of bigger means better, and The Last of Us Part II is no exception to this rule. The richly detailed environments in this sequel are certainly larger than the original game, although this is no open-world action adventure. What the bigger environments allow for is extra exploration, with landmarks often being there to help guide you to where you are supposed to go next to further the story. These more open environments are a nice addition, and it makes the game world in general feel larger without going down the often predictable open-world route. A ruined world has never looked so good.

“The Last of Us Part II may have additional realism and bigger environments, but it still does play very much like the original game.”

Yes, the visuals are outstandingly good, and even with the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, it currently still stands as one of the best-looking console games ever released. Character detail is strikingly realistic, and the cast have some of the most fantastically lifelike facial expressions that I have ever seen. You know how the characters are feeling by just looking at them, and it also extends to the violence in the game as well. Killing enemies here results in wide eyes and startled expressions, with Ellie’s face meanwhile filling with rage as she carries out the brutality. All of this does make things feel unsettling, although it also goes some way in helping humanise those you kill as well. If other enemies notice a kill or come across a body, they’ll even call the victim by their name. It all makes for a disturbingly realistic atmosphere, with lifelike animations, beautiful environments, a smooth 60fps If you are playing on PS5, as well as top-tier sound design. All in all, The Last of Us Part II is a technical marvel and a hugely impressive achievement. It’s just a shame about the crunch that was most likely required to get to this level of marvelousness.

The game may have additional realism and bigger environments, but it still does play very much like the original game. You’ll still be doing a lot of scavenging, finding weapons, ammo as well as crafting tools, and you’ll also be facing off against the undead as well as human enemies, making use of both guns and melee weapons. The game has its loud action moments, but there’s also emphasis on using stealth, and a new crawl maneuver allows you to hide in the grass as well as behind low objects.

It’s also quickly apparent that the AI has been upgraded. Enemies work together and can see you from quite the distance away, and if you are spotted, they’ll continue to look for you as opposed to returning to their typical routes after you hide out for a while. There’s definitely no dumbing down here, with the game offering a decent challenge even on the normal difficulty level.

Taking around 25+ hours to complete, The Last of Us Part II is quite a bit lengthier than the original game, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing as more of The Last of Us is welcome, although it’s a bad thing because a certain number of hours in it does feel as if the game has outstayed its welcome and should have finished two or three hours earlier. In this case bigger doesn’t equal better, and I definitely never felt that the original game outstayed its welcome in this way. There’s also issues towards the end of the game in which the increase in enemy number feels like an unfair way to increase the difficulty of the game, particularly as they are such high in number that I felt that there was too many to take on in a fight, while also being spaced in a way to be difficult to avoid when trying to get around them.

The Last of Us Part II PS4 Review

I certainly don’t think The Last of Us: Part II is a perfect game then, and in some ways it is actually worse than the original game, but it’s definitely still one fantastic game that has plenty of memorable moments and also plays even better than the original. Sure, the game could have done without some of its later bloat, but that’s not taking away from everything that it does so well. Comprised of an engaging story with equally engaging gameplay, and not forgetting to mention that it is also a magnificent technical achievement, The Last of Us Part II is still a game that must be played and experienced through to the end.