Que han hecho una segunda parte dices? Que me escucho la cancion de los creditos cada vez que vuelvo andando a casa dices? Que cada vez que pienso en el me emociono dices? Pues si, fue GOTY el primero y merecidisimo el segundo.

De los graficos ni me hables, porque la historia lo solapa todo. El destino de joel, era obvio, un mundo donde el ojo por ojo prevalece, tenia que acabar pagando por sus pecados.

Y toda la travesia de Ellie de venganza, bof, menudo GOTY.

Where do I even start with this one? (Scroll all the way down to the end if you want to see this whole essay summed up, without spoilers and straight to the point.)

A few bad apples prevent me from giving this a higher score than I want to. The story is phenomenal but I can't just ignore all of the stuff it did to piss me off. So here we go, the gloves are off at this point.

1. Abby. I wanted to see Abby's story since the end of Ellie Day 2 because I felt Ellie's segment of the game was being drawn out and all the stuff we were hearing about Abby in the background sounded way more interesting than what we were doing at the moment. So when it came time for when we switched gears and the game rewinds the tape and has us play as Abby, I was beyond excited. However, this is where the game gets a little messy. I liked all of Abby's flashbacks. Hell, I even liked Abby. I found her reasons to be be completely justified. I don't like that we barely get to spend time with her dad to really feel the impact of his death, but it works only because he's supposed to as a reminder that Joel pretty much killed a bunch of people that were just trying to save the world. For that reason (and the added context that he didn't want to kill Ellie, but rather felt obligated to for his cause), his death works. Abby's thirst for vengeance works. Despite the idea being lazy, they managed to do just enough for it to work. I think that's one of the game's biggest mistakes. It does the bare minimum to make a story beat work. It works, but you can't help but feel like they could've done better. Let's go back to the hospital flashback. How effective would it have been to see the hospital get shot up from Abby's perspective? She starts hearing gunshots and hiding in a room hearing all of the soldiers around her get executed by Joel. As she finally gains the courage to go and possibly save her dad, the job is already done. You start to feel her trauma because you see it. Not just her reaction to the aftermath, but WHEN IT WAS HAPPENING. She starts to see her home, her family, her cause all shattered in one afternoon. Then everything she does later on in the game starts to make sense. She doesn't ever want to feel that weak again, so she starts working out. She feels guilty for not being able to save her dad and you feel that because YOU SAW IT. She starts to see that same helplessness in Yara and Lev, which makes her want to save them. Her intentions would be clear from the start rather than being a mystery until the end of Abby Day 2. THIS GAME HAD SEVEN YEARS TO BE MADE AND I THOUGHT OF THIS IDEA IN TWO MINUTES. I feel like we would've understood Abby at a deeper level if the game didn't settle for less with her story. However, I want to emphasize that what we did get wasn't bad either. The conversation she had with Owen in the boat scene did a good job to show that deep down, Abby is broken. She doesn't want to be associated with the Fireflies and wants to hang on to her hatred for the world because of the hospital incident. And due to her hatred for Joel all of these years, she not only pushed away someone she loved at the time, but lost her humanity. Although it took forever for Naughty Dog to tell us that this isn't just a forced way to make you like Abby and it actually has a more nuanced purpose in her arc, it was still effective when it was revealed. When Owen tells her "maybe we stopped looking for the light", he indirectly makes her realize that ever since her dad's death, she wasn't the same. She didn't have a shred of optimism left in her. But through helping Yara and Lev, she did. Her selfless act reminded her of her roots, which is why her final dream was her dad smiling back at her. It's something he would've done, and she can finally move on from her trauma and make amends with her past. This one moment is awesome, but it's also important to note that if this one moment was missing from the game, the entire story would've fell apart. And it really didn't need to be this way.

2. Owen. Again, as I previously mentioned, I thought the flashbacks were great. I also really liked Owen as a character due to how he contrasted with Abby with his optimism and beliefs, which later contribute to Abby's arc as a whole. And then they completely shit the bed by introducing a fucked-up love triangle subplot. Not only was it completely unnecessary (considering Ellie kills him off two days later), but it just makes him a piece of shit. He not only decides to abandon his pregnant girlfriend, but then sleeps with his ex (Abby, who KNEW about the pregnant girlfriend and did it anyway) and then tries to bag both of them and take them to Santa Barbara with him all of a sudden? It is character assassination at its finest, not only for Owen, BUT FOR ABBY TOO. In a phase where the player is trying their best to empathize with a character they already hate, YOU CAN'T DO THIS. This is literally the #1 way you get me to dislike the person you want me to care about, and this is coming from someone who liked Abby after seeing her backstory. This is the stupidest part of the game hands down. It tests the player's patience, and not in a good way. The only reason I even found it within myself to forgive Abby is because she realized it was a mistake and the game not only punishes her for it, but cleverly uses it to make Abby start to realize she is a piece of shit. I think it was a really smart way to use a story fault to your advantage, but the fault shouldn't have happened in the first place.

These are the major gripes I had about The Last of Us Part II. If I were to break down every little thing I had an issue with, we'd be here all day. But I can say the same for its strengths. The last time I saw a story this bold was Black Ops 2's campaign. (If you know what I'm talking about, you can already see the similarities.) And Black Ops 2 is one of my favorite stories of all time. Seeing this game take the themes of that story and take it to another level was actually fascinating to watch unfold. I have never played a game that had this many gray characters with no real heroes or villains. After a certain point, you understand all the chess pieces but don't know what trajectory the game will go. The way it constantly subverts expectations again and again in its final act is honestly superb, and the performances from absolutely everyone involved is stellar. The game tricks you into thinking it's a story about revenge, then reveals it's a story about closure and forgiveness. But in my eyes, the story was about consequence. Joel's actions at the end of the first game completely changed the trajectory of these two girls' lives, and the story is about how you come back from that. It's about two people in two completely different sides of the cycle of violence. As Abby is learning to get out of the dark place she is in, Ellie is entering head first into it. And the game goes "You wanna see what happens next? Keep playing." I haven't experienced anything quite like it.

And to close out this giant review, I'm going to delve into gameplay. If the story is a flawed masterpiece, the gameplay IS a masterpiece. The gameplay aspect of this game alone is a 10/10. Everything from the asymmetrical level design, new mechanics and ideas, environmental storytelling, notes, gore, detail, hostile AI, narrative design, and combat gets a 10/10 from me. From a technical level, this is also a 10/10, with some of the best graphics in the business. This is the best combat I've ever had my hands on in a video game other than Devil May Cry 5. They took the first Last of Us' combat and made it more fluid, fleshed out, gritty, and polished. Not to mention the enemy AI's intelligence here is spot on and incredibly smart. This has got to be the only game where the hardest difficulty felt fair, because it genuinely always felt like you were outsmarted by your opponent and nothing more. When you die, it is ALWAYS your fault. No glitches. No bullshit. None of that Part 1 Survivor and Grounded crap. The Grounded mode in this game is the definitive way to play the game. The game also has custom difficulty options to truly curate your own playstyle. Want to encounter harder AI but without dying instantly? Turn up the enemy difficulty and turn down your player difficulty. You want a ton of ammo and John Wick your way through enemies? Turn down the resources difficulty. You want your teammate AI to actually be useful? Turn up the allies difficulty. You can tweak that game and play it however the fuck you want. That and the amount of accessibility and quality of life options here make life easier for those who need it. Everything from Auto Pick-Up to Text-to-Speech to Puzzle Skip options to Enhanced Listen Mode telling you where all the collectibles are for an easy platinum. It's all here. The level design is also superb, making it to where you can play each single encounter in a dozen ways if you want. Some pathways lead to hidden areas with either an extra encounter or two if you're itching to explore or even spots with extra dialogue. They even have an open-world section similar to Uncharted The Lost Legacy if you're really itching for some exploration. There's something here for everyone, and the amount of player freedom in how you play the game makes this some of the best gameplay Naughty Dog has ever given us. Shit, it's probably some of the best gameplay in AAA gaming as a whole. I wholeheartedly believe that. The pacing of the game never felt slow because the gameplay carried the game so hard. Even during the dry segments in the story, the gameplay never failed to keep my attention. Absolute perfection. The team behind this game that crunched and worked their ass off to give us this should take a bow. I fucking applaud you guys.

Long story short, 7/10 story, 10/10 gameplay, and my overall experience with it was a 7.5/10. Give it a shot if you haven't and form your own opinion on it. But in my eyes, it's a flawed but competent sequel. Had a blast.