2/5 ★ – Elesh's review of The Last of Us Part II.

The Last of Us Part 2 is a game I often struggle when I think about. Because I don't think its inherently a bad game. It had good controls, a good soundtrack, great performances, and the story was at least okay. But it was so much of a step backwards in terms of character writing, pacing, game flow, and story from the first one that it felt so much worse than it actually was. I think there are two critical issues that make it very hard for me to love The Last of Us Part 2. The first is Abby. And before anyone gets up in arms, I don't think Abby was a bad character or that Laura Bailey didn't do an absolutely spectacular job with the character. But the way they introduced Abby to us made me hate her. And then, out of nowhere, I had to spend 20 hours playing as this character I wanted nothing to do with. It just didn't work for me at all. It made the entire latter half of the game pure misery. I just wanted it to be over. Which leads me into the other critical issue.... The game just refused to end. They had 3 or 4 places that would've been way better places to roll credits than the one they chose, but they just refused to end it until they'd stretched the game, to quote the immortal words of Bilbo, like butter across too much bread. As the game continued to crawl towards its ending, I slowly stopped appreciating the experience. Horror games are best when they maintain the atmosphere and keep the experience limited in duration - nobody wants to be in a state of constant tension for 40 hours. But if you break the tension too often or for too long, its hard to get it back and the effect is lessened. And, I think, that was the core flaw of TLOU2. They definitely couldn't keep the tension going for the entire game, but they also had to try since the game was so long that every time they broke it, the rest of the game suffered as a result. In the end, it seems like they forgot what made the first game exceptional and steered towards making a more mainstream shooter. The controls were improved, but the overall experience was really, really mediocre and, by the end, I was just happy it was over.