Ludonarrative Dissowho? What if Ellie and Abby’s blood grudge was about which esoteric PS2 game they stan? In The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, you can unlock, equip and blood-stain t-shirts that rep games of the era like Siren and War of the Monsters. Beyond the delightfully silly cosmetics, though – should you grab it? I’m going to go out on a dismembered limb and say… probably! Now that TLOU2 is on PS5, I’d argue it’s the ultimate prestige game you can buy on the platform (sorry, Ragnarok, but you were too big and boring sometimes, as much as I love you).
If you haven’t played it yet, you can check out my review of the base game for NME if you want to read my thoughts about what you’re getting without all the ‘Remastered’ bells and whistles. I’d be hard-pressed to pick a game as HBO and meaty, literally and figuratively, as this. The story will pull all manner of difficult emotions out of you, and you’ll recover by indulging in its nightmare-inducing combat system, an adrenaline-pumping cornucopia of blood, guts and terror.
This PS5 remaster, though. Naughty Dog has brought the sequel up to speed graphically, with native 4K, smoother framerate, DualSense integration and a bunch of LOD stuff I don’t understand. It’s stunning, to the point where I’d blow a poor dude up with a double-barrel shotgun and be compelled to turn to my partner like, “Ewww!!! Look at that! What the fuck?”. This happened on multiple occasions. I won’t consider the level of research and sleepless nights that went into getting all the bloody viscera stuff to look as terrifying as possible. It feels odd to laud, but ‘Best In Class Gore’ is an award this game could comfortably win.
Other than its unbelievable looks, though, the ‘Remastered’ additions are meaningful and cool, especially if you’re only dropping £10 on the PS Store upgrade. The Lost Levels constitute three small missions cut from the game for various reasons. You can probably wrap them up in about an hour and a half, but there are excellent commentary nodes spread throughout where Naughty Dog developers explain what’s going on and how they compensated for the cuts in the main game. These commentary nodes extend to the actual campaign, too, which is the main thing tempting me into a full replay when I get past the other review games I’m currently drowning in.
Miracle missions
Some pretty difficult decisions were made regarding these levels, especially regarding the pacing of the broader story, and if you’ve beaten the campaign, you’ll undoubtedly find the studio’s choices illuminating. I won’t spoil them here, but tiny details, especially in the flashback Jackson ‘Party’ sequence and the Boar Hunt, add profound retroactive emotion to scenes from the campaign now that we know the developer’s early intentions.
Ultimately, it’s more humbling proof that with projects at this level, it’s a miracle they even make it out there, and even so, there are always painful compromises to be made. Druckmann intros each level and apologises for the state they’re in, which is funny given how playable they feel. I got a lot out of it, personally. If you’re a big fan of everything TLOU, there are some reveals here that will mean a lot to you.
Besides that, there’s a Guitar Free Play mode, like a little WarioWare minigame / viral content machine for those who can be bothered. Additionally, Naughty Dog has brought some handy hearing accessibility options to the game, which, as you may or may not know, is extremely handy for me personally. I still had most of my hearing when I reviewed The Last of Us Part 2. Now I don’t, so the addition of arrows that point to the person talking in the scene and Speech to Vibrations, in particular, has kept me from getting clubbed to death in the trendy new roguelike mode, which took up the lion’s share of my review period.
Before we get into the superlatives, I will say that No Return is fun but not as exciting or expansive as God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla. That’s mostly down to the fact that it’s not a narrative experience – and I mean, how could it be? So, fair enough. Essentially, you play as characters from the game (some of which weren’t previously playable – Dina, Jesse, Leve, Tommy, Yara, Mel and Manny) in combat engagements complicated by randomised mods, factions and locations.
Each character has buffs and debuffs. Tommy, for example, can’t dodge but is sturdy against melee attacks and wields a devastating sniper. You’re ranked on how well you complete each encounter and rewarded with three types of currency that you can spend to buy weapons, mods and recipes at the little hub between levels.
Each run is only so long as you strive to reach the other end of the Alan Wake 2 case board and begin a boss encounter. It’s a set structure with little room for genuine mystery, but it’s still good fun (and bloody challenging if you want it to be). A nice touch is that you can create a custom run, turning off mods, factions, and encounter types as you wish. This is ideal if you want to smash through the characters and unlock all the features as quickly as possible by the way…
The gore gambit
Tricky overarching challenges (like completing an entire encounter in melee as Abby) allow you to pick up new weapons and character skins, mods and gambits. Gambits are mini-challenges within levels that reward you with a boost of currency, which forces you to play a certain way instead of sticking to your formula, which is always a smart way to keep a roguelike interesting. Broadly, the game does an excellent job of making you do this anyway, as character unlocks are sequential, so you’ll have to play as Dina, Jesse, and Tommy to ultimately get Joel, and so on.
No Return is a moreish timesink if you haven’t got any ‘new’ games to play and are craving more of TLOU2’s unique combat. The crunch of the guns and the clunk of a hastily upgraded blunt weapon still light up my brain after all these years. I consider myself quite seasoned in the roguelike department, yet it still made me sweat in the later levels, with its Molotov rain showers and foggy battlefields keeping me on my toes.
Taken together, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is a bit of a no-brainer. If you’re new to the sequel and just wrapped up the recent Part 1 remake or even the HBO show, this is a beautiful opportunity to get deeper into the world and continue the tale in an uncompromising fashion.
For those who already own it, it depends on how much you enjoyed it in 2020. You don’t need this if you’re just a casual fan, but if the story meant a lot to you, as it did me, The Lost Levels alone is worth a tenner to add illuminating depth and primary insights to elements of the narrative. And No Return is nothing to sniff at either, quickly extending the game by another 20 hours if you’re keen on the combat and bored of repeating static encounters.
