So, I'm not including this game in my usual "What Have You Been
Playing" thread for a variety of reasons. Firstly, because I have been
playing this on-and-off for several months, so it wouldn't really have
fit in a single post. Secondly, I don't actually own the game and only
got to play it on a friend's PS4 whenever I visited (when,
essentially, I was 'house-sitting' when they were out... and yes, I
played with their knowledge I was doing so).

So the whole experience was different enough that I didn't feel it fit
in with our regular month-end round-ups. Finally, I felt this game
deserved a lengthy post all of its own where I worked out my own
feelings about it. Hence this separate post just focused on this
single title.

Anyway, on to my thoughts about the game...

--------------------

I have such mixed feelings about "The Last of Us Part 2". In pretty
much every aspect - gameplay mechanics, narrative, setting,
characters, sound, visuals - it's an outstanding game. So why am I
left so dissatisfied?

It's easy to point to the game's strengths. It's production values are
absolutely top notch, with some of the most beautiful post-apocalyptic
(green apocalypse) visuals I've seen. It's not just the high-quality
textures and modeling; it's their artistic use and variety. Very few
areas of the game look anything like any of the other parts (there's
maybe a few too many 'skulking through the train yard scenes). The
motion capture is extremely well done, with such a wide array of moves
- and transitions between the moves - that I almost never felt like I
was watching some canned animations, but rather that everything was
custom designed for the situation. The sound design is excellent too;
between the voice-acting, the sound effects, and the random Foley and
barks, everything feels very real. The music design is less exciting -
honestly, I have a hard time remembering if the game even /had/ a
soundtrack - but that was probably intentional. The music was designed
to highlight the emotional intensity of the game, rather than push it.
That makes the soundtrack less memorable, but no less skillfully used.

Mechanically, the gameplay is quite satisfying too. It's an evolution
of the preceding game in the franchise; a mixture of light
platforming, combat and stealth, enhanced with more skills and
weapons. Traversing the game-world is fun - even if it is still a bit
too linear for my liking - and the combat remains incredibly intense.
The two main characters - Ellie and Abbey - have similar play-styles
and abilities, but while Ellie's levels focus more on exploration and
stealth, Abby's adventures are more combat focused.

The narrative is extremely strong too, focused largely on Ellie's
search for purpose in her life, and the cost of choosing revenge as
that purpose. It's surprisingly deep and subtle (for a video game, at
least) and makes for a fairly well told yarn. It's also, sadly, the
game's biggest failure.

Look, I love stories in games. I know that a lot of gamers don't care
for it; "If you want a story, go watch a movie or read a book!" they
insist. But I think a good narrative only enhances the adventure. It
gives meaning to my actions beyond the simple challenge of accruing an
ever-growing number of kills or points. I totally understand that some
gamers want to focus only on the mechanics, and that's fine. I'm
totally in support of games that fill that need - heck, I even play
some of them myself. But the idea that stories have no place in video
games at all? No; that's ridiculous. I feel that most of the top-rated
games earned their spots BECAUSE of their inclusion of strong
narrative and characters, not despite them.

But "The Last of Us 2" is an unfortunate example of taking that idea
too far. Too often the needs of its story overwhelmed the needs of the
game. As a stand-alone novel or movie, "The Last of Us 2" would
probably have been much more satisfying, but as a game? It was
overburdened. And I don't mean simply by its length or too many
cutscenes; rather, some of the decisions made to support the narrative
and messaging of that story worked against the needs of the players.
Because while a book can be written solely to suit the author's
purpose, an interactive medium like a game must take into account the
desires of the player too.

(note: from here on there will be spoilers)

Let's start with a simple example: the death of Joel early in the
game. The main character of the original game, players spent dozens of
hours with him, struggling together with the character as he fought
his way against incredible odds as he battled his way across a
destroyed America. He was a beautifully realized character and -
seeing the world through his eyes - players came to empathize with
him, understanding both his cruelties and kindness. So his sudden
death at the start of the game felt like something of a betrayal.

Now, narratively, this serves a purpose in the game. It gives Ellie
the reason for her own adventure and - more importantly - serves as a
reminder of how terrible and sudden death can be in the
post-apocalyptic setting of the world. And killing off the main
character of a previous game isn't unique to "The Last of Us 2"; other
games have done similar, and it can be a useful gut punch to players,
informing them that 'shit just got real'. And by itself, Joel's death
isn't a bad idea. But such acts need to be handled tactfully, or you
alienate your players.

Having watched her adopted father get brutally murdered in front of
her, main character Ellie then proceeds to go off on a mission of
revenge, to find and kill the murderous gang who broke into her
peaceful community with the sole goal of beating Joel to death.
Superficially, this is a bog-standard video-game power-fantasy, but
there's a twist. Ellie is an extremely unlikable character: too
focused on retribution, too quick to anger, too manipulative of
others. There is reason for this, as we discover over the course of
the game. Having learned that Joel, in the previous game, prevented
the Fireflies from killing her to develop a cure to the
zombie-disease, Ellie feels her life no longer has purpose. She's
angry at Joel, angry at the world, and drifting aimlessly, unable to
forge meaningful relationships. She only feels alive again after Joel
is killed, because she finally has a reason to keep going: revenge.
But the narrative's message is quite clear that revenge is an
extremely unhealthy goal, and the damage Ellie's quest does to
herself, her friends and the hundreds of people who cross her path
only reinforces this message.

Which is all well and good... except as a player, as the player who is
vicariously living through and controlling Ellie - and, by nature of
the video game's mechanics, unable to do anything except what the
narrative dictates - it's incredibly disturbing to take on the role of
a psychopath. Even if I understand Ellie's motivations, she is very
much an unlikable character, and I don't enjoy walking in her shoes
for twenty or thirty hours. For all his faults, Joel's story in the
first game was much more redemptive, even if his actions were very
similar to Ellie's, which made it much easier to play his part. But
the narrative demands I act the asshole, so that's what I'm forced to
do.

Are you starting to see what I'm trying to say? There's no regard for
the player's feelings in this game. This is more forgivable in a book,
because you aren't being forced to act out the role of the psychopath;
there's a notable distance between the words on the page and the
reader. But everything is much more intimate in the game. You also
tend to spend more time with a game than you do with a book.

Eventually, Ellie encounters Abby, the woman who swung the killing
blow on Joel... at which point the game's viewpoint suddenly shifts
and we are playing as Abby. The game rewinds several weeks and we get
to experience Abby's side of the story; who she is, why she killed
Joel, and how she reacts to the horrors around her. This is another
sudden gut punch as we realize that Abby is actually a far more
sympathetic character and puts Ellie's - and, vicariously, the
player's - sadism into sharp contrast. Abby's adventures are almost
inconsequential to the main plot - fortunately, we as players aren't
forced to act out Joel's brutal murder - and, in fact, Abby doesn't
even realize Ellie's involvement until near the end of the game.

Narratively, Abby's chapters are incredibly interesting but from a
gameplay perspective? They feel like a lot of filler, designed to make
an already too-long game even longer. Although there are some tweaks
to the gameplay - Abby is a physically larger character, able to dish
out and take more damage, so she can be more 'in your face' in combat,
resulting in less stealth and more drawn out battles against more
enemies - it isn't significantly different from Ellie's gameplay. The
developers stated Abby's chapters were included to make the character
sympathetic to players and as a counterpoint to the "Ellie" levels in
the original "Last of Us" game; a goal they definitely succeeded at.
But they didn't have to be anywhere near as long and involved as they
were and the whole game feels bloated as consequence.

The last few chapters switch us back to Ellie's viewpoint, where she
first gets the beat-down she brutally deserves, then after several
'epilogue' chapters - it's revealed she hasn't learned a god damned
thing, and she resumes her chase after Abby. Again, Ellie remains an
unlikable character. At the very end, she relents and lets Abby live,
whereupon she returns home to find that her long quest has left her
friendless and abandoned. Iris out, game over.

Piecemeal, the game is a masterpiece, and I can see why it garnered so
much acclaim. But taken together, the game is something of a mess:
overly long, lacking empathy towards the needs and desires of the
player, right down to its unsatisfying ending... so I can also
understand why so many players disliked it. In almost any other
format, I think the story would have worked better, but games require
the engagement of the player and it often felt like "The Last of Us
Part 2" was purposefully working against that. None of its individual
faults were all that serious but in combination? It was all too much,
and it made the game feel top-heavy and ponderous. It's not a bad
game... but it is frustrating in how it had all the pieces to make a
great game, and still missed the target.