Review of "The Last of Us Part II Remastered" released today!　The story takes advantage of the PS5's capabilities to deliver an even more immersive experience, plus addictive new NO RETURN content!

The Last of Us Part II Remastered ("Part II") for PS5 will be released on January 19, 2023. This is a remastered version of The Last of Us Part II, which was released on PS4 in 2020 and won the Grand Prize for Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2020 held the same year.

In this article, we will provide a review of this title.

The story of revenge between two men, made even more realistic and depressing with the addition of the PS5's performance.

The story of this game begins five years after the previous game, "The Last of Us". In America, where civilization has collapsed due to a mysterious fungal pandemic, Joel and Ellie, once on a long journey across continents, are now settled in a place called Jackson. However, their previously peaceful situation takes a sudden turn when they encounter Abby and her friends, former members of Firefly, an organization that also appeared in the previous film. Ellie vows revenge and sets off on a long journey to Seattle in pursuit of Abby and her friends.

The PS4 version of the film has been reviewed on this website, so you can read the details of the original version there, but the theme of "Part II" is revenge and its chain of events, which is a complete change from the previous film in which the trust and affection between Joel and Ellie were described in detail, and the story continues to be heavy from the beginning to the end.

The violence in "Part II" is similar to that of the previous film, with bat and crowbar blows to the head and knives slashing throats while the players are being strangled, but in this film, allies shout the names of fallen enemies and shout abuse at Ellie. I felt as if I was being confronted with the fact that the enemies are not just NPCs, but are living, breathing human beings in the world of "Part II," and even though I had already played the original version, it was mentally demanding.

As the story progresses, the story is now told from Abby's point of view. Although Abby is supposed to be nothing more than an enemy to Ellie and the players, we learn that she has a clear motive for her actions and that she has a life as a human being herself. The key to this film is that it is not simply about Ellie and her friends being righteous and Abby and her friends being evil, and the journey of revenge from Jackson to Seattle will make the players as well as Ellie question whether it is really right.

The features of the PS5 version mesh well with the PS5's features, giving the original version's story an even more immersive feel. One is the "adaptive trigger" on the dual-sense controller, which changes the weight of the L2 and R2 buttons depending on the situation in the game. For example, if you are shooting a small weapon like a handgun, you only need to apply a little force, but if you are using a heavier weapon like a shotgun, you need to push harder than usual.

Such a feature is not compatible with multiplayer. The priority is on reaction speed to take down the enemy player as quickly as possible, rather than on the playing experience gained by the strength of the trigger. If the story is important, the weight of the trigger helps to create a sense of reality, and if the enemies are well-defined and well-directed, you can feel the weight of attacking them. Perhaps adaptive triggers are more appropriate for a film like "Part II."

The other is pure picture quality: the PS5 version supports 4K quality, which allows us to see shades of shadows, changes in the landscape caused by rain and wind, and the facial expressions of the characters more clearly. I played the game on a 4K monitor, and I could not see anything in the dark, and the scenery that gradually emerges as the flashlight shines through the distance is also precisely rendered.

The subtleties of the characters' facial expressions are also more precisely portrayed than in the original work. Since revenge is the central theme of this film, the faces of Ellie, Abby, and many of the other characters are grim. I felt that I was able to understand the story of "Part II" more deeply, thanks to the fact that I could more easily understand their changes when they were cursing or glaring at me.

NO RETURN," a new content in which the player must conquer a series of randomly generated stages.

NO RETURN" is a new content exclusive to the PS5 version. This content is a stage-clearing type, in which the player is required to attack a series of stages that are randomly generated each time he or she takes on a challenge, returning to the base to strengthen the items and equipment he or she has acquired along the way. The player repeats this process to defeat the boss that awaits at the end. The element of randomness is important; in other words, there is no set strategy or route. If you die in the middle of the game, you have to start over from the beginning, and you will lose all the equipment and items you had until then.

There is a rule called "Encounter Type" in the stage, and different types of "Encounter Types" are randomly generated. Various variations of rules are set up, such as "AASAULT" to wipe out enemies that attack in stages, and "HUNT" to survive for a certain period of time while defeating the onrushing enemies.

In NO RETURN, most of the supplies must be procured in each stage and will be depleted quickly if the player is blindly defeating enemies. It is important to take some countermeasures, such as using the preparation time before the battle starts or gathering supplies while hiding from enemies.

The stage strategy becomes even more interesting when special effects called "mods" are added. Mods, which are added to various stages at a certain rate, have a variety of effects, such as lowering enemy health or restoring health by defeating enemies with melee attacks, and affect the player's strategy in various ways.

The player chooses the stage to proceed to, taking into consideration his or her supplies and equipment, the field in which each stage takes place, and the contents of the mods that accompany each stage. At first, the player will have a lot of trouble in the early stages because there is so much to think about, but once the player finds the type of encounters and weapons that he or she is good at, he or she will be able to gradually establish his or her own strategy and advance, albeit gradually, to the deeper stages.

At first, players can only control Ellie and Abby, but once they meet the requirements for a particular character, they can control others such as Joel and Tommy. The characters have distinctly different strengths, such as learning how to make bombs from the start or gaining 50% more "supplements," which are used to learn skills. The initial equipment also differs, so depending on the character, the skills to be learned and weapons to be strengthened will also change.

By taking advantage of the PS5's unique strengths, such as 4K picture quality and adaptive triggers, "Part II" brings an even more immersive experience to the story that was already complete in the original version. The new NO RETURN mode is a simple yet profound mode designed to be played over and over again, and its random elements have the potential to make it impossible to play through the game half-heartedly. This is a title that can be recommended not only to those who like big titles, but also to those who have already played the previous titles.

• Title Information.
• TheLastofUsPartIIRemastered
• Genre: Survival action
• Compatibility: PlayStation5
• Release date: January 19, 2024 (Friday)
• Price: Package version Retail price: 5,480 yen (including tax) Download version Retail price: 5,480 yen (including tax)
• CERO: Z (only for ages 18 and up)

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