I dug up my 2022 writings about Last of Us II for a Steam post a few days ago. Someone told me Sony makes awesome games and named this one. I'll leave out my shoulder swap video, since that person I ignored is posting.
Last of Us II is idiotic. Will get to the story at the end of my post.
The production values are nice. But that's a double-edged sword that stifles creativity. When you have over 2,000 people (I didn't make that number up.) working on a game, it's much harder for any one of them to make a suggestion. If I had worked there at the time and it was a smaller project with fewer people, maybe someone would have listened to me or read my note in the suggestion box when I said that shoulder swapping should have been allowed at all times, not just while aiming. It makes corners worse. You often can't see what you turn towards with the gun down. L3 doesn't do anything important. Just lets you look at points of interest, which could have been done with Triangle when those moments occur. What they could have done is move the flashlight to L3 and then let you swap shoulders at all times with R3, fittingly the camera stick. Also wouldn't then have to leave the camera stick to press Cross to control THE CAMERA.
Would be good if some of the upgrades weren't under abilities that you don't really want and have little if anything to do with the other. I hardly ever used the listening mode, but I had to enhance it if I wanted certain other upgrades. Those later upgrades already cost more, so why put that extra cost there for something the player doesn't want? I hardly upgraded anything, because it's generally so expensive for so little.
Aiming is weird. Partly because the game assists. The assist can't be turned off. Been like this since the first game. Uncharted let you turn off the assist. Felt often like I fought the controls.
Wish the stealth was better. Wish that merely aiming at an unsuspecting enemy with your gun didn't give them this sixth sense. Well, not quite sixth sense, but it makes them extremely attuned to the outermost regions of their far peripheral vision.
Wish you could aim your gun from low cover without lifting your head. In Uncharted 1, you could actually pop out to the side from low cover, rather than always popping up. Uncharted 2 removed that, and I don't think Naughty Dog ever really improved their cover mechanics, whether it's sticky cover like Uncharted or free cover like The Last of Us. Well, it's nice that you can crouch and lie down. That's an improvement over Uncharted. But your movement options are still so limited that it's hard to aim at any enemy without getting shot at.
I found it so lame that your enemies always have unlimited ammo and you always have maybe two bullets, if any. Makes the game way too much about coming up behind, grab n' stab, rinse and repeat. I tried a balance of Hard and Survival. Nice that you can adjust all the individual difficulty parameters. But with the meter just one lower I found too many resources, when I only really wanted more ammo.
She kills so many people to avenge one person, in a story that's supposed to be serious. If you look up the term "cognitive dissonance" in a dictionary, the definition is "The Last of Us, Part II." The story has no point. I didn't feel like what I did mattered, because revenge is a stupid motivation. It's excusable in fantasy like God of War or exploitation like Kill Bill and Lady Snowblood, but stupid in serious drama. Imagine going through so much trouble, so much danger to your life, getting killed over and over from the player's perspective, to do something for a dead person who won't come back anyway. She murders about 150 people to spare one. Joel would be so proud. It feels so stupid by the end, with Ellie looking so autistic. Story is exceedingly grim. Really don't understand the draw to that kind of storytelling. If the characters' actions made sense it would at least be more excusable.
Twenty runners, a bunch of clickers and a bloater for some guitar strings from the music shop?!
Abbie is a crappy character design. Just made her arms as big as possible and called it a day. Look at bodybuilder Lisa Lyon. Much better balance there. Doesn't look like they simply attached a man's arms and shoulders to a woman's body. I know you can find much bigger women, but they look like shit and train far more than Abbie would have time for. Abbie probably also eats an inordinate amount of WLF's food.
Reminds me, those big human enemies are hilarious. The ones who will go on with bullet holes in their faces. That guy whose jaw you cut in half, was he on PCP? Just dumb.
So much leftist virtue signaling in this game that the experience feels inauthentic.
Those 21 floors you descend without an elevator in the spore-infested building were one of my favorite settings in the series.
First game is also highly overrated. Mediocre. Never really bought into it or cared, their relationship. The first Walking Dead game did the man being redeemed through an adopted daughter better. Clickers got old quick. Just more slow, tiresome crouching.
This mentality of 'everyone is just going to become an asshole', and for the sequel Druckmann decided to spread this to the main characters.
