THE LAST OF US: PART II
The Last of Us: Part II | Playlist
The Last of Us: Part II | Trailer
The Last of Us Part II | Review
Warning: This is not a spoiler free review.
The Last of Us is the series that keeps on giving. The excitement, the horror, the pain! What’s better than one Ellie? Two.
We embarked upon a journey with Ellie traversing the northwest without our beloved Joel. How could they? Why did they? To be honest, our departure from Joel was arguably necessary. With him always being by her side, she would not have discovered her lowest points and recovered from them (at least this is what I tell myself to feel better). Joel gave Ellie a different perspective. Live to fight another day. I must remember that sometimes people are placed in our lives to serve a purpose and escort us to our next journey. I don’t agree with the methods in which they disposed of Joel. It gave me the same feeling as when character Glenn from the television series The Walking Dead (2010) was executed. It was brutal. My heart pained.
Episode 3 | Joel’s Dissolve
To add salt to the injury they intertwined my feelings of losing Joel to our new buff baby Abby. We spent almost equal time traversing Abby’s story as Ellie’s. We learned that she too had a father throughout the chaos and subsequently lost all of her friends due to the violence that surrounded them. That’s the point! The chaos and violence is cyclical, everyone fights but in the end nobody wins.
Episode 4 | Strumming my pain
Before Joel’s untimely execution we learned that Joel picked up a new hobby - guitar playing! In a world like this with no modern technology guitar playing brings us some sort of solace, a break if you will from the constant weight of the zombies and/or murderous cults. Unlike other games, The Last of Us Part II actually lets the players strum notes at their own will. The game guides you through such songs like “Take on Me” and Joel’s original tune “If I Ever Were to Loose You” but players may opt to try to play on their own.
Gustavo Santaolalla completed the soundtrack/score for this game and did he do it well. With every track my heart raced.
The game featured a plethora of excellent chase scenes and teased at our despair by giving us a few more heartfelt scenes with Ellie and Joel. To soften us up a bit they even gave us some shooting lessons with Tommy.
The best chase scene of the bunch had to be Ellie chasing Nora (Abby’s friend and accomplice in Joel’s murder). While I love the inclusion of characters of color in games and media, I must say it’s quite jarring to see some of them be brutally murdered - Manny included.
Episode 7 | Space Dreamin’
Ellie took her time murdering Nora. I understand that she was the first official WLF member that Ellie was able to confront and she murdered her similar to how Joel was - which is likely the reason why she killed her with such anger. I’m sure they wanted to again draw those similarities between Abby and Ellie. It was just hard to witness.
The story does do a great job in picking up where they left off with The Last of Us. Joel shouldn’t have had to explain to Ellie the reasoning behind saving her from the fireflies. The experiments they were going to use on her had no guarantee of a cure and for that reason of doubt Joel decided to give Ellie a chance. Not a chance to become some martyr but for her to live a full life. Ellie’s anger toward Joel wasn’t justified. He’d cared for Ellie during her most vulnerable times and even found her a safe haven to be able to live that full life. She is likely is dealing with survivors guilt not to mention the constant trauma of living in this world. My motto for living in this universe is to live out the rest of your days the best way you can, and when it’s your time, give them hell.
There is one consistent theme in zombie media/art. After the zombies have their initial wave of death and destruction, the threat then becomes the living. Their power stricken ego’s, their need to control, and their ever dying desire to murder becomes pungent! We saw it with the Fireflies, with the WLF, the Seraphites and finally the Santa Barbara gang. It’s all more of the same!
Episode 8 | It’s Just a Stomach Thing
There was one oddity in the game that I could not wrap my head around - which was the presence of pregnant women. Did they also do this to draw similarities between Ellie and Abby’s story? I’m not entirely sure, however Mel (an accessory to Abby’s story) and Dina (Ellie’s partner in crime) presence gave me a morbid feeling that I couldn’t shake. Were their unborn fetuses added to the story to display the savagery in this new world? Why would a pregnant women go out on armed patrol knowing the threat for her and her child? Do we care in this new world that people are pregnant before enacting violence against them? The answer is no. Nobody and I mean nobody wants pregnancy in a pandemic. Consider me horrified.
All of the enemies proved to be a threat. With the zombies, I struggled most in my play though with silent clickers. They were insanely aggressive and hard to track. Many may say the shamblers were a handful but with the proper tools and finesse you can kill them with ease. The big girls and boys from the Seraphite camp gave me a run for my money and the WLF knows how to shoot. I’m super thankful I don’t have to deal with them anymore!
Neil Druckman and the Naughty Dog team did it again. They know how to pay attention to detail! Every time I upgraded my weapons I gained an underlying excitement. I really loved the ability to collect state quarters (I actually did so in my younger years in real life) and reading through the player cards was a big treat.
If you had your own player card what would your stats be?
Brains:
Brawn:
Special Ability:
My Stats:
Brains: 80
Brawn: 30
Special Ability: Teleportation
How do you think our society would handle a pandemic like this? If our current state of things gives us any clues, I would say the exact same way Naughty Dog presented it to us. A complete chaotic, beautiful, gore filled mess.
I loved it!
AL
