We are bad people
For those keen noses who have watched the affair hit thirty-six milestones, we will carefully avoid revealing the ins and outs of the plot—not even the beginning, as is the duty of courtesy—without concealing our reservations on the plot’s structure. Taking more risks in its emergence to better support its point has benefited greatly. The latter would have aged really badly: the recent events of our real world, along with the declarations of its director Neil Druckmann, certainly did not fulfill the purpose already painstakingly covered at the time of its release 3 years ago. Ellie’s obsessive quest for revenge will be her business as much as the player’s, a passive-active witness to her deranged behavior – a big red finger pointed through the screen that wants us to be the obvious accomplices of the hectoliters of blood pouring over her. Altar of shock valueWhatever ludonarrative dissonance it accounted for, it was already slight has been In 2008. Before lecturing us, there’s something deeply boring (metaphorically, we hear) about a game’s lazy trick of monetizing progress in lieu of pressing the square button to stick a knife in a pregnant woman’s throat.”Well then, aren’t you ashamed?With the pride of a rhinoceros in a china shop, hands on hips.
There’s no question of repeating the test – it’s the remastered part we’re interested in here. What will age very well is the always impressive technical prowess of Naughty Dog, which manages to squeeze as much as possible out of the aging PS4 to get one more graphic slap out of it. More comfortable on her younger sister, TLOU2 holds the vast majority of assets Period Graphics – There is no question of any facade renovation in terms of polygons on the screen, but small, discreet but appreciated improvements. Starting with texture, reworked to show an amazing number of details down to the micrometer, such as the seams of jeans (from the importance of choosing the right denim to survive the apocalypse) to the lines of wooden planks. There are some very messy looking areas, so one wonders if it’s a bug or an oversight, but the image quality is surprisingly clean. – We strongly recommend reducing the film grain gauge by half to get as much. Most of them.
Faithful in pixels, unfaithful in performance
Which requires that we go through the difficult paragraph of display modes – no less than 6 (!) are available depending on the monitor or television used, which is enough to make your head spin – no doubt. For the best possible configurations actually exist. Two constants though: Fidelity mode displays native 4K resolution for the first time, while Performance mode upscales the internal resolution to 1440p. No significant differences were noted in terms of display distance or quality of the 3D models, nor was the possible arrival of ray-tracing to replace the already rock-solid in-house global illumination system.
Here, it’s image quality that will take precedence over the rest, as these two comparison screenshots attest: the remastered version in 4K fidelity mode on the left, the PS4 SKU running on PS5 on the right.
Let’s first take a classic monitor scenario – 120hz or without an HDMI 2.1 panel: fidelity mode at 30fps and performance at 60fps, only very (very) rarely deviating from their target ceiling. Suffice it to say that the first fissa should be avoided as it increases the (intentional) heaviness of the gameplay, the sacrifice towards double the fluidity is quite worth the comfort of the controller in hand. The situation starts to change as soon as we switch to a 120 Hz screen – and the “Display in 120 Hz” option on the console is activated: the “Unlocked frame rate” switch then becomes available for fidelity mode and then allows you to cap is This frame rate at 40fps. This solution, already well-publicized in first-party Sony productions like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart or Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, takes advantage of the perception of movement in our eyes and our brains to deliver a more enjoyable experience. , but which in turn requires a panel capable of delivering a new image at regular intervals – in this case 25 milliseconds. Precisely, it allows you to enjoy 4K resolution with transformed fluidity, reducing the gap with the performance mode, the latter remains unchanged. If some drops in frame rate are always expected during heavy sequences (transitions on and under water, some cutscenes), the alternative is practical.
So what about a Bourgeois HDMI 2.1 screen with the variable refresh-rate option enabled? By using VRR – which allows the panel’s refresh rate to be synchronized with the game within a certain range – the two display modes can now enjoy completely free frame rates. Delivered from their respective ceilings, Performance mode aims for the stars, reaching 110fps during quiet scenes, fluctuating around 80-90 at rest, for unparalleled comfort with the controller. Finally, Fidelity mode also benefits from disabling V-Sync which sometimes reaches 50fps when exceeding the 40fps ceiling – and even if the fluctuations are persistent, VRR smooths out the in-game result to provide the best of both worlds. Our first choice for exploring the countryside, definitely.
Still in the area of commendable new features, we’ll note the presence of a slider to adjust the field of view – the field of view displayed by the game camera for those who find the original angle claustrophobic or even a gore reduction option. Otherwise on screen, the main campaign content remains unchanged; Only the most determined will be able to take part in the game in speedrun mode for honor or try out the plethora of cosmetic skins to unlock – including T-shirts. Fantavision, Ark the Lad Or Banned Siren Uniqlo will not refuse.
All the violence, just without the story
A good time tackling No Return mode, the biggest new thing in terms of pure gameplay content that assumes all the gratuitous violence of the main campaign probably had a bit too much context. Sarcasm aside – in the same spirit as other flagship franchises in the PlayStation catalog, TLOU2 sees himself grafted with a complete roguelite appendage; But the execution here is quite different and completely separate from the main plot. Each part of Sans Retort will consist of a succession of five encounters with enemies in closed arenas, with environments taken directly from certain parts of the campaign (TV stations, swamps) and whose success mechanisms will vary throughout the games. “Attack” encounters will require you to eliminate successive waves of enemies, while “Prey” will spawn a new alert mob every 10 seconds. Once the encounter is over, return to the rest area, including access to armory upgrades, but also to the item store, which allows you to exchange currency earned in each battle to craft recipes, projectiles, or weapons; It’s long enough until the final boss showdown, a challenge of such difficulty (on the default “Normal” dial) that we’re still in the editorial office trying to figure out the ending, without success.
Fortunately, Sans Retort knows how to be generous by regularly offering enough rewards to keep more impatient players interested. In addition to a plethora of specific challenges to unlock new characters, game developers will affect each attempt – with bonuses or penalties, such as long-range damage or aimed at curbing enemy health. to run Looks pretty much the same as before. The current balance remains to be reviewed though: when a good throw suddenly ends with the clicker disappearing through the magic of the RNG, it’s enough to make you want to hit your console with a golf club. There’s enough content to keep you occupied for a good dozen hours – and even more so for die-hard perfectionists, or masochists willing to push the game on real difficulty.
Another big (playable) part of this remastered edition can be found in the “Behind the Scenes” submenu – not the concept art gallery or the comments from the development and dubbing team, but the three smaller “levels” Lost: bits of gameplay cut during development that are here in all their unfinished beauty. returns, with bits of audio commentary sprinkled here and there by him Level designers related to A very playful way of recontextualizing these moments sacrificed to questions of rhythm, by highlighting with pedagogy and intelligence certain apparently innocuous elements of level design, such as the placement of lights to better highlight the interactive element, or deliberately different to set “with” A different strategy. ” player on their journey. We just would have liked to see more, a lot more, but for a studio that likes to maintain so much secrecy, this initiative is welcome.
While we’re on the subject of dirty laundry, let’s end this Turn Controller with a quick mention of the documentary Grounded II: Making the Last of Us Part II, is still absent from this remaster at the time of writing. The game’s additional content can only be found in a short trailer, teasing A behind-the-scenes dive into the making of the first game. The big question now is to what extent Naughty Dog will be willing to publish the numerous evidences of Crunch influencing the development of the game with sufficient perspective. Don’t fall into lazy self-forgiveness at the altar of the passion. Its release is planned in a post-update.launchWithout further details.
