Right off the golf club, I should say that I won’t be giving 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered a score. The reason is I don’tღ think you can score this as an experience without considering the five-star game that is The Last of Us Part 2,🐼 but most people will check this out specifically to see what the new features amount to, and I wouldn’t give those a perfect score - that’s okay, perfect scores are rare. No easy number this time kiddo, just a bunch of words.

The best place to start might be my preconceptions. I have great respect for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Naughty Dog, and subsequently 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:have not enjoyed seeing 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sony’s flagship studio flounder at (and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:then cancel) a live-service endeavour in the midst of repainting their two apocalyptic masterpieces. The first game’s remaster was expected to be ‘The Last of Us Part 1 with The Last of Us Part 2 gameplay’ which 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:wasn’t what materialised. This version, though, has been pitched as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:more of a Director’s Cut, available forꦡ just a $10 upgrade if you own the original in any form.

I was still apprehensive, but having played the remaster now, I understand what it’s going for. Letting us look behind the scenes with The Lost Levels and giving us director commentary throughout the finished campaign is a bold, possibly important step for the industry as development becomes ever more secretive, players become emotionally detached from (and even resentful of) the people who make games, and journalist🃏s are shady interlopers hoping 🥃and praying for leaks or scandal.

Unfortunately, while there’s a valiant effort made here, it doesn’t go far enough. We get three Lost Levels, which were originally scripted for the game and p✨artially developed before being cut. But all three of these are Ellie levels, and two have a very similar feel to them.

These two are the Jackson Party and The Hunt; the former sees Ellie spending time in Jackson prior to dancing with Dina, and the latter would have taken place just before The Farm. The Jackson Party gives us a wider slice of everyday life in town, and introduces some inversions on typical mechanics - the workbench would have been used to mix a cocktail, we throw ♔balls at fairground games as we would bricks at enemies, and even play ‘Clicker Tag’ with the children. It’s a different side of the game, but with the most common criticism being that it already runs long, it’s a good cut.

This section also has 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the origins of Ellie’s tattoo, giving further depth to the section.

The Hunt I’m a little more disappointed to see left on the cutting room floor, showing us track a wounded boar through the forest, only to return home with rabbit to eat - a more nuanced way to show Ellie’s PTSD and the lingering impact of her trauma than the lamb, while raising tension around Dina’s fate. The commentary here describes the refinements a boss encounter goes through, an༺d the level of thoug🎐ht required each step of the way, and is probably the best example of what The Lost Levels can be.

The other Lost Level, presented as the second of the trio, has far more gameplay and shows Elliꦚe solving a puzzle in a sewer that was cut for pacin🐬g. The commentary here is more technical, explaining how and why puzzles are built, how level design trains players’ expectations, and why ideas shift after focus testing.

The Last of Us can sometimes feel too ‘polished’ with its reliance on focus testing and audience retention, and if nothing els♚e, this section is an effective right-of-reply for the Naughty Dog way. It also includes an all-time great The Last of Us moment that was unfortunately cut, that I’ll leave for players to discover themselves in the sewer tunnels.

How these Lost Levels work is you can play them as normal, and dotted around the level 💝are speech bubbles - click them, and a developer describes something about the process, similar to how Valve has approached the feature in its library of titles. Unfortunately in the main game, it doesn’t work this way. Instead, the commentary is only there for cutscenes, and is extremely crowded, featuring Neil Druckmann, Halꦐley Gross, Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, Shannon Woodward, and Ashley Johnson all talking over each other.

Rather than the incisive and informative nature of The Lost Levels, where one individual person talks through each specific element, this has the feeling of a bunch of pals hanging out for a watch-along party. Some people will find something of value in this unstructured podcast-style ‘hey remember how fun this day was?’ easygoing delivery, but it’s not the peek behind the curtain it could be. The stop-start n𓄧ature doesn’t aid this rhythm either.

Then there’s No Return. You can read my full thoughts on the mode here, but in brief, it’s a fairly good roguelike with excellent variety between characters and fun gimmicks. However, there’s not that much level variation, only Ellie and Abby have interesting unlockables, and there’s no attempt to stitch it into something with the narrative weigh🔴t of God of War Ragnarok V෴alhalla.

In short, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is definitely worth the upgrade price, as well as b🃏eing the perfect version of the game if you’ve sat out so far. But while The Lost Levels are intriguing, they’re short and only ꦜfocus on Ellie, while the dev commentary probably isn’t what you’re looking for. No Return is solid, but feels tacked on. Much like the recent remaster of Part 1, it won’t fulfil your wildest expectations, but it does make one of the most impressive games of all time a little bit better.