4.5/5 ★ – jamoygali's review of The Last of Us Part II.

Refer to my large review dump on a separate note, and just know that I absolutely loved this game. I’m gonna stick with my 4.5/5 (or even 5/5), because recently I just watched this Cosmonaut Variety video on the game, and I have to admit he does offer some pretty good perspective that warps my opinion a little bit. The biggest problem I could have with this game is its pacing, where technically there’s no crossing of Abby’s storyline with Ellie’s until the very end, besides seeing all her friends dying and such. Cosmonaut made an interesting hypothetical where he pointed out if it all happened chronologically, where you play as Abby’s story, then switch to Ellie’s right after just to KILL them, I have to admit, it would have been insane to experience. But of course, it sounds a bit problematic and difficult to pull that off (since no credibility has been established for Abby to even be playable at this point), but I do believe this route is still possible, and would have probably gone down as a far more digestible story to fans than it is now. What I noticed and learned from Cosmonaut however, is I find more of my enjoyment and quality of experience from character writing, dialogue, and relationships, and The Last of Us Part II kinda nails this for me, so that’s probably why I enjoyed it so much versus having a slightly bogged pace. Either way, I’m still in love with this game, I still listen to the soundtracks from time to time and I’ll still remember my grace period of about 2 months where my mind couldn’t get off this game: that’s how much it affected me and I love it to shit for having a story do that to me.