The Weekly Stuff #336 – The Last of Us Part II Review & Discussion

Naughty Dog’s latest, darkest, and most ambitious game to date has arrived in The Last of Us Part II, and today’s episode is a long, in-depth conversation about a game that is difficult to digest, but absolutely worth the effort of engaging with and discussing. The first game is, of course, one of our favorites – it was on both our Top 10 Games of All Time lists – so this sequel has been hotly anticipated. And while one of us has more complicated feelings about the final product then the other, we both agree that there’s an awful lot to talk about with this extraordinary sequel, from how it continues the story of Joel and Ellie, to where it takes some of the biggest themes and ideas from the original, to the new characters and environments it introduces, to the many gameplay improvements that make this one of the best-playing Naughty Dog games to date. This is one of the longest discussions we’ve ever had about a single game, but I also think it’s one of the most interesting, and I hope you’ll agree. Enjoy, and if you need more Last of Us content, the first game happens to be one of the few we’ve reviewed multiple times on the show – here are links to all our Last of Us-focused episodes:Original Last of Us Review (Episode #54)Original Last of Us: Left Behind Review (Episode #78)5-Year Anniversary Last of Us Retrospective (Episode #249)Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!Follow Sean Chapman on Twitter! Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.comSubscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://www.japanimation-station.com Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vKSubscribe to our YouTube channels! Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcastSupport the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuffOriginal Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman