Just played The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part 2 back to back

Overall, I’d say it was a great experience. I think the first one has a better story and the second one has better gameplay.

The first game; wow what an amazing story. Truly a transcendent video game experience for me. I think it’s the first time a game’s story ever made me so emotionally invested in it. How broken Joel was and his unwillingness to get close to Ellie, only for it to happen anyway. Getting to the end and thinking you’ve saved the world, only to realize that there won’t be any happy ending. The horrid decision that Joel was forced to make. How haunting the city sewer was and seeing those dead kids. The beauty of watching nature retake back what we’d built over it, the giraffe scene. Just pure brilliance. The gameplay was a lot of fun as well, even if a bit repetitive at times. A 10/10 and one of my favorite games of all time.

I don’t really get all the hatred/masterpiece stuff I’ve seen for the 2nd game. The gameplay was phenomenal, but I thought the story was just okay. I thought there were some pacing issues and it was a bit over the top, melodramatic. I thought it did a great job of showing us it’s a cold, dark world and everyone is morally grey. Really loved that we got to see things from Abby’s POV because I felt the biggest missed opportunity story wise in the original was making the people Ellie met in the woods so over the top evil. I really wished they explored the Fireflies being not heroes angle, that we briefly saw a flash of at the museum. I’d say it was a good video game story, but not an amazing story that had me thinking about it for days after like the first one. I probably had too high of hopes for it coming directly off that amazing ending of the original. It’s hard to make a great sequel in all works of art. I did love some of the new gameplay stuff, the stalkers who you couldn’t hear. The introduction of pipeboms, the general war setting we got to see with Abby. I’d give it a solid 7.5/10