my thoughts on The Last Of Us Part 2 so far [no spoilers at all]

What a ride. There were multiple times through the narrative where it would jerk some feelings right out of me and it was interesting to reflect and realize how I was probably reacting almost exactly how the Druck Man intended. I had to interrogate how I felt about what was going on far more than I ever had in a game. Probably the first time I've "needed a moment to catch my breath from all of this" since I played the original. Or maybe since I ran through Breaking Bad. Can't remember which I did first, but I tend to just gloss over the story in video games and check out of fiction media that's not comedic, but these three pieces of media really break through that barrier and grab me by the throat.

Gameplay was also great. Crazy polished. I love stealth games but typically try to Rambo through any game with an emphasis on it just so I can see how the AI would react but I really enjoyed sneaking around in this one. Similar to MGSV. Just felt good to pick apart a group of enemies one by one. There's some replay value here because I definitely felt like I didn't get as creative as I could've. I played on the normal difficulty and I have a tendency to preserve my good ammo so I left a lot of potential on the table as I was getting through with shivs, arrows and the pistol while leaving the heavy artillery in the backpack.

Also and I bet most of the ppl playing it don't know this … you can jump on enemies and kill them from above lile assassin's creed but in far faaaaar brutal way

One cool memory I'm going to take with me is how good I felt I was at the combat nearing the end game. Not saying the character was "levelled" up or anything but, for some reason, I was just hitting my shots and tearing through the enemies like I was actually decent at a third person shooter for once. I suck with the aim so I spent most of the game missing headshots then scrambling after alerting everyone. But, man, I was killing it there at the end. I had some slight gameplay fatigue in some sections in the midgame but I nearly done with the game .. I am almost 30 hours in

10/10 as far as I'm concerned near the end. This is a rare experience. It's heavier and darker narratively than almost anything I've engaged with so I can see how it could be too much for some but, if you know what you're getting yourself into, you're in for a hell of a ride.