The Last of Us Part II - Review Thread (MC: 93 / OC: 93)

[DonFerrari]

Carl said:

DonFerrari said:

Do agree that for a second gameplay short after finishing the first the game can be unsatisfying. Perhaps do the opposite and put maximum difficult so you can enjoy more combat and not totally know how to breeze through fights?

With PS5 version and easy to skip cutscenes that shall also make it easier to people to do the second playthrough. And sure they should have made an easier quality of life to chapter selection and the pills and tools keep accumulating anyway so you don't need to really do 2 plays.

My first playthrough was on Survivor and aside from a handful of encounters (I'm looking at you Hillcrest, Mall and Hospital), the majority of encounters were fairly straightforward to stealth through and take people out one by one. When they had dogs it became a pain. I suppose turning it back up to Hard or maybe even back to Survivor would make things a little bit more fun but... I dunno.

I explored pretty much everywhere in my first playthrough despite missing out on a bunch of well hidden artifacts and were nowhere near fully upgrading on pills or tools. I don't think that's actually possible to do on Survivor.

Maybe I'm just worn out on the entire thing after 2 complete playthroughs of the original for the Grounded trophy and a full playthrough of this all back to back.

No matter the difficulty or how well you search the most you can get of pills and parts is 80% of needed to maximize, so don't fret over it.

On the collectibles some are really out of place to make it almost impossible to find without a guide (even if you have the sonar ability)

Carl said:

In terms of infected enemies...

Spoiler!

What are peoples thoughts on future enemies?

Outside of the obvious shift to cordyceps evolving and starting to infect wildlife, what else do you think we could be seeing? Shamblers will forever be unique to a more water-based climate on what the game tells us while Bloaters will generally remain as the 4th stage infected "sub-boss". The Rat King will remain as a unique enemy type, based on it being in a unique situation for 25+ years.

If going forward they introduce new infected based on environment and time, I'm really curious as to how they'll expand on enemy-types in future installments and the locations they choose.

I liked the comments made in-game about Las Vegas and how the infected could be heard from far out due to just how many thousands there seemed to be. A game based in or around one of the bigger cities of America that has a failed QZ and hasn't been taken over by rival factions could be really interesting. The military from a neighbouring city trying to regain a big city that fell to infected. Large numbers of infected instead of small packs of 3 or 4, more opportunities for them to introduce other "joined" infected (Joined clickers coming at you? Evolved stalkers that can cling to the wall or roof? Large groups of runners chasing you down?)... I'd be down for that.

I'd also *really* love to see them go beyond the "human" looking enemies and go more body horror, finally utilizing the concept art from the original. Imagine having things like this coming for you.

I guess desert could really put a lot of different mutations.

Immersiveunreality said:

BraLoD said:

Spoiler!

I think the Rat King should be rarely if ever used again, because of the unique conditions it needs to develop, maybe its better to let it go and focus on a full bloater evolution.

I have to say I simply loved the infected on this game, they are now REALLY completely apart from each other, in the first game I felt like stalkers didn't work THAT much different from runners, now they are awesome.

I think they could introcude two new stages like on this game, something new based on the envyroment like you said and an new max stage after the bloater that is not an unique case like the Rat King, so we could even imagine the two duking it out and who would win xD

I hope the game actually leave the USA if the series goes on, I really liked to hear Abby talking about other countries with Lev on Santa Barbara, maybe then they could make a new experience based on how people there combated the infection, like they went on living on the woods on houses on top of trees or they build and undergroud city complex or something, and how different cultures are taking the new world now.

I hope there are no infected animals, tho, if there where it would have been happened already by now, unless some places they tried to find the cure by testing on animals and it actually infected them and got spread out, but I really don't want to have to kill animals.

I would like to see a giant beehivelike structure of mold with a core that gives birth to workers that go out to hunt for meat to feed said structure and can fuse with it walls to recover energy.

It is a funghus that infects insects not the opposite =p