Reviews

The Last of Us Part II was a massive disappointment, at least from a narrative standpoint. Unfortunately, even while other aspects of the game may be brilliant, at the end of the day it is a narrative-driven game that has a flawed narrative. Let's get the pros out of the way. 

Gameplay-wise, TLoU 2 is pretty great. They've improved on the stealth and combat gameplay from the first game and created a solid system, with crafting and upgrades providing the requisite progression. Encounters were at times difficult but always engaging, especially when playing as Ellie. There were some truly cinematic moments which were awesome to experience. New characters of Jesse and Dina were excellent. The flashbacks with Joel and Ellie were heartwarming, even if I wish they weren't delivered as flashbacks (although the one where Joel reveals the truth was pretty effective). 

But here is where the problems begin. Joel is killed by Abby in the first two hours of the game, which no one is going to be happy with - everyone loved Joel. The circumstances of his death make him seem dumb and naive, which is really out of character for Joel, but EVEN PUTTING THAT ASIDE his death never reaps the payoff it needed. I really enjoyed the first half of the game because I was anticipating that eventual payoff where Ellie gets her revenge, but that moment never came. Ellie never kills Abby. I would have been okay if the game ended at the farm, because at least Ellie would've had a new life with Dina and JJ. But to see her leave the farm, travel all the way to Santa Barbara and still not kill Abby is so mind-boggling. Ellie ends up going home, losing everything without achieving anything.

Naughty Dog makes you play as Abby for the other half of the game and tries to humanise her and emphasise the theme of perspective, but I was never going to care about her after what she did to Joel. She was unlikeable, her friends were unlikeable, and when she started to care about Lev and Yarra I didn't buy it. The game tries to convince you that she's a good person when you're preconditioned to think that she isn't, because she's killed our favourite character, who saved her life, by the way. Yes, Abby's dad was killed by Joel, but we don't know her dad. We know Joel. We know Ellie. That's the bottom line. Getting us to care about the character that killed Joel was never going to work, and Naughty Dog should've known that. 

However, Neil Druckmann and Naughty Dog knew exactly what they were doing with this game, in that everything was deliberate. It's just that those choices that they made were poor. Big risks MUST have a fulfilling result, and most of them didn't in this game. Taking risks isn't in and of itself a commendable act. It's pulling off those risks that makes the game, and when you don't pull them off you just look pretentious and self-indulgent. The game is depressing and makes you feel so empty by the end, and the themes that the narrative was trying to evoke were poorly executed. The Last of Us Part II has great elements, but they are almost completely undermined by a narrative that punishes you for caring about certain characters. There's a million ways this game could've been rewritten and instantly been made better as a result, but unfortunately those versions were not the game we received.

Looking at the game as a whole, it's not bad. You can't ignore the elements that are well done. But the narrative is so flawed, and in a narrative-driven game, that's a massive problem. 

Journal Style Review:

Interesting start story wise. Gameplay feels very static though. It has a AA feel, not AAA. The graphics and art style are pretty generic. They aren’t atrocious but they aren’t very interesting either. 

Early on I’m interested in the upgrades this game has to offer. I’m not excited about the enemies though. I feel like fighting mimics and robots and other goo monsters will lose its satisfaction Pretty quick. Although I don’t have any psi abilities yet, that might increase the satisfaction. If this game turns out to be better than it initially feels it will have to be because of the story, the puzzles, and probably most importantly it’s going to need a well balanced rpg system where I have to pick and choose which ways to upgrade my character and gear effectively. It seems like it might do a pretty good job at that though. I like the way they deal with materials and the fabricators. I’m liking the neuromod skill trees. I’m struggling to decide which upgrade to unlock next, that’s the way it should be.

This game feels clever. I get the sense it’s well thought out. Which makes it a bummer that the handling is so poor. Why does the movement and gunplay feel so rough.

I have to give the game credit for one of the best video game jumps scares in awhile. Pushing buttons on the screen to calibrate it and then a phantom appears behind and I was caught completely off guard and yelled and jumped. Well done game. You got me. 

The game has been getting better and better. Im enjoying it more even though the combat is still not great. The dynamic between which psi abilities you upgrade vs other upgrades vs fabricator purchases is well done. And although the gunplay is still not great, the different ways to tackle combat has expanded. Do I use this piece of equipment or lead with a psi blast etc etc. I’m starting to see some of the appeal the combat has to offer.

I stopped playing 5 hours in to play Ghost of Tsushima. It is going to take a bit to remember what I was doing and to get back into it.

I’m dying a lot. Its partly because  I was rusty and I burned through my resources so Now I have like no ammo. But it’s also because I’m trying to kill everything so I can explore and loot every area, but I’m getting the sense I shouldn’t be playing that way. Some areas are too tough early on that it isn’t worth the resources. 

I’m slowly re learning the style of the game. Playing Prey after GoT is a big change up. GoT is so casual and peaceful and Prey takes a lot of focus. I’m getting there again though.

This game is alright. That’s how I feel about it. It has some fun clever moments, but also the combat and gameplay is pretty bad. It has some fun resource management and upgrade tree options, but also sometimes I just get lost or die doing the same thing for multiple times in a row because I put myself in a hard position.

This game is best played in sessions of reasonable length. You can’t just pick it up and play for 30 mins. Ideally you sit down and play for 2 hours. Also I haven't tried but I can tell this isn’t a game to play stoned.

The nightmare is a cool idea but it doesn’t work. You just hide in a random area or even better leave the room and it doesn’t find you. It isn’t intense like they are going for, it’s boring.

Loads times are not fast enough. 

The gloo gun is really fun to use to climb to new areas. It’s very creative. 

I dislike the zero gravity parts. The controls are so awkward, it’s not fun.

I sewered my saves and I need to get from one side of the station to practically the farthest part in a very short amount of time. A bit of a bummer. I’m essentially doing a speed run dodging past enemies and planning the absolute quickest route possible. Kind of a fun challenge but also a piss off.

Aaaaaand it turned out I could just use the lift...must have been a small goo monster nearby disrupting it that I couldn’t find.... fuck me

Pretty great final ending scene. The overall ending leading up to the final reveal was all pretty good and then I really liked the idea of the final twist. But I’m happy to be done also. Overall the game wasn’t that great. It’s a low tier B+.

Concise review:

Amazing: nothing

Great: occasional creative puzzle solving (Gloo Gun Climbing), final twist reveal

Good: Resource management system, Upgrades systems, story and atmosphere

Average: occasional creative combat solutions

Bad: overall visual presentation, enemy variety, number of times I was lost or confused

Awful: gunplay, movement, load times

Final score: B+

Often (in my experience of course), when people talks classic Zelda, always are the original one or Ocarina of Time for most of them, but ever is one more energetic and passionate person even a little snobbish who'll tell me how ATTP is the better Zelda experience and how what came after isn't as great or a rip-off, having beaten it I'm not sure if I agree with this sentence but I surely now understand why people love this game so much.

A Link to the Past starts without losing time and getting you right into the action without explaining a lot, a formula that will repeat for the rest of the game and never loses its steam or charm, after beating a dungeon you'll be prompted or hinted to get to the next one, at first the hints will be direct almost linear, but at some point in the middle of the road the game releases your hand and you're on your own, a thing that I enjoyed a lot because the map practically begs you to be explored by you, to backtrack and find every item and secret it has to offer. One of the strengths of ATTP is its cryptic nature and how important stuff that's needed to clear the game is not hinted to you by its "main" campaign, instead you need to find items on your own that are not hinted clearly, for instance, the game would tell you to get to point A to advance to the next point of the story although when you arrive to A you'll find that you can't advance but you'll notice a symbol or color of a certain item that you need, the game doesn't tell where or what it is so you need to explore the map with whatever new item you'll have and find the one thing that you don't know what it is, but you'll know when you see it, for this reason, you'll be rewarded when you explore its world in-between dungeons, although I believe this is one the game's strengths I think that it can also be one of its flaws, to some people at least,

you see,

ATTP is a game of swords, double edged swords more precisely, when you are prompted to look for an item you currently don't have, if you enjoy to explore its world it will be a fun experience even if you're "stuck" in that phase for some time, but what happens if by some reason you simply can't find said item? this could easily transform into a frustrating and long repetitive backtracking phase, the luck factor of getting something is a little high to me at least, although this only happened to me at one time I think it's worth to note if you're a player who doesn't enjoy to wander around without direction.

Speaking of double edged swords, the combat is quite mixed, one of the best things are the boss fights, a few of them are fairly easy but the more you advance the more challenging and creative they become, I specially love one that felt more like a shooter boss where you need to evade a lot of stuff that is coming right to you while trying to hit the boss with its erratic movement or that last dungeon boss fight in which if you die it means that you need to get a quite expensive magic potion and backtrack to the boss room again (that one might be quite punishing tho'), it is just frantic. The other edge here is that the combat doesn't feel as polished, the range of your attacks is fairly short even when it extends a little at some point, also it hurts a lot that you can only attack in 4 directions and not diagonally, but a lot of the enemies will hit you in every direction so you need to position yourself awkwardly quite a lot, game-play wise this will mean a lot of annoying hits and dying, this is more notorious on the late dungeons where enemies take you 2-3 hearts per hit and the screen is filled with projectiles (from invincible enemies mind you), ATTP is quite a challenging and at times hard game but given the combat it falls a little in the unfair side.

The music is fantastic, growing with OOT one can easily take that game as the OG for a lot of things of Zelda games, however I was surprised of how many classic tunes were originally from this game, and how beautifully the arranged versions of past songs sound in here. The sprite-work is quite charming also, Link is quite expressive and well animated in a cartoony and pretty way and that's for every sprite in the game, they speak volumes with so little to show. As for the story, I find it pretty great, with dark tones here and there and some twists that may not be that unexpected but are managed quite well, in particular I loved how the atmosphere added a lot to the story and how masterfully done are the tonal shifts within the world also are applied amazingly into the story.

For every dark thing ATTP has it also excels in another with flying colors, its mechanics might be double edged but that double edged sword is what makes this game so rewarding, is easily to recommend this game for Zelda fans who are looking for a challenge, but if you prefer more linearability maybe you want to skip this one or wait till Nintendo remakes it with some tweaks.

Although I recommend playing this game, I will have some serious criticals about it.

Despite doing everything in my power, trying my best at being good, saving this, forgiving that and such, I got the bad ending.

Just to be clear, Metro Exodus picks on the good ending of the Last Light.

Therefore I wont play the Exodus. It's that simple. Because my story ended with Last Light. If they included an alternative story in Exodus for this, it would be better.

If you're not going to provide an alternative, there's no meaning to the different outcomes, or as a player I will have to accept my outcome and refuse to play Exodus.

Last Light was a cool game. Had a cool story. Its mechanics were completely same with the Metro 2033. Ranger difficulty is not a difficulty but rather a gameplay style. I would suggest playing at that. You will feel very challenged, and if you want even more challange there are even harder dififuculties for you. It truly becames a survival challenge. In easier difficulties you wouldn't probably need to use your throwables, but in ranger mode, believe me, such events happened that my last and final resort was throwables. Only then you see the usefulness in them, and start to employ them even if you can manage with bullets. This teaches you how to be better at in game economy and such.