Recently I talked about how the Red Dead Redemption Remaster was not that bad. While it was not bad, it was a very bare bones remaster, and calling it a remaster is probably a step too far for some people. One game that does deserve to have remastered in the title is The Last of Us Part II Remastered for the PlayStation 5. I just played through this over the last week and loved it just as much as I did when I first played it on the PlayStation 4 a few years ago.
This is just storytelling at its finest in a video game. I will give a spoiler alert warning here as I may ramble on about a key plot point so please do not read on any further if you have not yet played the game. Taking place a few years after the events of the first game, Joel and Ellie are getting on with life in Jackson. Jackson is a thriving community and Ellie has settled in really well, working hard and making some great friends. However, things with her and Joel are a little frosty, to say the least.
As well as playing as Ellie, The Last of Us Part II introduces us to Abby. Abby is a jacked up young woman with revenge on her mind and she has her sights set on Joel and this is what puts her and Ellie head to head. One of the things that this game does so well is make you hate Abby at first, but they come to understand why she did what she did. It is fantastic writing and I am very interested to see how this is pulled off when the second season of the TV show airs. This is such a great story from start to end, a story about revenge and not being able to let go of things that are hurting you.
The Last of Us Part II was already a tremendous looking game on the PlayStation 4 and I do think that it looks a bit sharper here. The textures are slightly better and I do think if you have played the original, you will notice a difference. It is not as huge a leap from the original game or even the PS4 Remaster to The Last of Us Part I on PlayStation 5, but there is a difference. I will say that if you have HDR turned on, you may end up having to crank the brightness up, on my TV the HDR was good, but it was way too hard to see in some of the darker areas. Basically when it comes to the visuals, what we have is a great looking game that looks a bit better. If you played the original, you already know how great the voice acting is, it makes you fully believe that these characters are real people.
The gameplay is the same as it was before. Although I imported my PS4 save data and it automatically unlocked all of the trophies, including the platinum, I am not sure if I like that or not as I had planned to play all the way through this to get that platinum trophy again! It adds in some missing scenes that were cut from the original game and while these are lacking polish, it is awesome how they did this. Plus, you can play these with the commentary on and hear why they were cut.
Perhaps the biggest new feature of The Last of Us Part II that got people excited was the new roguelike survival mode, No Survival. I had a lot of fun with this, you start off being able to pick between Ellie or Abby, but each of these can unlock a further four characters, each one having their own loadouts as they start. You have a board that lets you see what your run can be, you have assault and survival type stages where you either have to kill wave after wave of enemies or survive until the time runs out, each run ends with a boss fight at the end. While there is no multiplier, you can get allies to help you on certain stages. It may not have any story like the awesome God of War Ragnarök roguelike mode did, but I still think this is a lot of fun and quite addictive too!
If you liked The Last of Us Part II on the PS4, you will love The Last of Us Part II Remastered. At the end of the day, you are getting this for $10/£10 as part of their upgrade program and I think that is a great deal. It is not even a full price game if you decide that you need that actual PlayStation 5 copy in your collection. I love this game and think that this remaster was handled as well as it could be without fully remaking the game. I am very excited to see what the future of The Last of Us is!