Topic: The Last Of Us Part II - OT (No Spoilers)

@Octane I'm surprised to read there were complaints about the pacing. Thought it was really well done.

@colonelkilgore the museum flashback is such a good one, glad to hear you really liked it. Such a nice moment between the two of them.

@NedStarksGhost I've seen complaints about pacing and I've seen people suggesting that it would be much better if the events (including both main parts of the game and the flashbacks) were arranged chronologically... which sounds like a surefire way to absolutely ruin the game's narrative to me

@Voltan some people just don't understand that out-of-chronology flash backs are inserted where they are for a precise point... be it a reveal, an emphasis or whatever. We are all entitled to our opinion of course but comments like that do annoy me

@NedStarksGhost @velio84 @render @Jimmer-jammer @JohnnyShoulder @Thrillho @Voltan @Col_McCafferty @Keith_Zissou

I finished the story on TLoU2 yesterday morning and have been powering through to get all the collectibles and upgrades since then… so I’m finally free to discuss it.

I don’t think that I can put it into words how impressed I am by the game. To make a sequel to many peoples game-of-the-generation (PS3), many peoples game-of-the-decade, just an absolute seminal game… there is so much potential downside to the process. I think under the circumstances, the most any realistic person could expect would be something that is very good… but that doesn’t necessarily have the same boundary-breaking effect on narrative (as the boundaries have already been broken) as the original. As surprised as I was to discover, the sequel is actually better in every regard… and just as (what I imagine will go on to be) seminal an experience. I am naturally quite hyperbolic when chatting over things I like… but in my mind, it’s the perfect sequel. The best narrative in gaming ever (as I’m sure that you are all aware… but not everyone is. The quality of a particular narrative is far, FAR more than merely how interesting the plot is)… and I’m not ashamed to admit, actually made me cry at one point.

And while the gameplay is the ‘weakest’ facet of the overall package, it is still head and shoulders over the original in this regard and actually plays really well. The eventual Factions 2 should be mind-blowing with how well this plays.

@Voltan Ha really? I wonder if these same people have ever watched Memento.

😉

@colonelkilgore It sounds like it impressed you as much it did me. I think it almost elevates gaming narrative to a different level, the equal of most premium TV shows on Netflix or BBC or HBO. It's probably too bleak for some people and other choices were too much for them but I loved it

It does what a great sequel should do,bit expands upon the world and lore and story of the first and takes established characters in new directions, as well as introducing new ones.

I think it's a masterpiece.

Yep, a stone-cold masterpiece! Although totally different subject-matter and themes etc. it just reminds me of how The Godfather part 2 improved and expanded on (imho anyway) The Godfather. It was a much darker movie… and one that played a lot with out-of-chronology story-telling for extended periods of time. It also annoyed some of the fan base (although fan bases were a very different ‘thing’ back then) to see Michael (the original’s protagonist and beating heart) descend into absolute darkness.

@colonelkilgore I felt the same. It was a perfect story for the bleak world they’ve created. Even though I went in without any expectations I still found the end result unexpected. It was a brutal story from start to finish and I’ll admit that it moved me way more than I thought it would. I found my mind wondering back to the place where the game ends and thinking through how it led to that point. The decisions the characters make are decisions that we all might make given that set of circumstances and that for me makes it more poignant as it almost seems unavoidable.

For such a brutal story it is also beautiful in how it’s told, how it does what it does to invoke these emotions in you. How it makes you actually feel anger, sadness, loss, hope even is a tribute to how well the characters and world have been built. The only downside to the game is that you only get that first play through once.

@velio84 I honestly hope I never have to find out

@Voltan If you ended up in that world I can imagine Take On Me might have a bit more edge to it 😂

@render regarding the end… I’m so glad that Ellie didn’t actually kill Abby… I know to some it may seem like such a waste after she left her home and happy-family-unit but I think it took that last journey and what eventually happened for her to psychologically ‘put-the-ordeal-to-bed’. And as with many works of great narrative and character-development, it mirrored the fact that Abby had indeed let her go on two separate occasions.

@velio84 yeah I actually really liked Abby… and totally empathised with her motivations. And that is coming from someone who has a proper man-crush on Joel!

@colonelkilgore Yeah I agree with ya, defo one of the best stories I've experienced in a video game. Sure there have been good ones like in BioShock, Mass Effect, the first Wolfenstein game last gen, but tlou2 is on a whole other level.

Some of the story decisions ND made were risky as they knew it would upset a part of the fan base. But i thought the game was all the better because of it. They could have played it safe but I'm just as many people would have moaned about that too.

@JohnnyShoulder hear, hear 🍻

@colonelkilgore Glad to hear you enjoyed it! Like most things gaming related, the ones who didn’t have similar feelings as you tend to be in the very vocal minority.

There are just so many decisions Naughty Dog went with regards to the story that you just don’t expect a games developer to do and no one comes out as a winner in the end.

The second run for collectibles is pretty easy especially for Ellie if you use the infinite ammo modifier now you have the silenced automatic rifle!

I’m just glad that in the second half of the game I didn’t need to fight the Rat King again!

@Thrillho ahh that’s cool, I didn’t use any of the modifiers… I did have a quick squint prior to my ng+ run (as I think you mentioned something about them previously) but I couldn’t find them… and I just wanted to plough on etc.

I actually didn’t mind that fight tbh… just went all-out flamethrower and Molotov on him and he fell ‘relatively’ quickly. Good thing I didn’t have to fight him on the second go though as I used all my flamethrower ammo in Abby’s opening section though.

@colonelkilgore before I post my reply, would you mind reminding me how to do spoiler tags? I can’t for the life of me remember even though I’ve been taught before 🤦

@Jimmer-jammer yeah no problem just start the spoiler with then insert your spoilerific take… before ending with. You’ll have to press quote on my post to see the actual commands though 😉

@Jimmer-jammer Quote me to find out how to do spoiler tags. jimmer jammer in his jim jams

@colonelkilgore @JohnnyShoulder Thank you kindly!!

Glad to hear the game had such an impact on you! A lot of the controversy around it doesn’t make much sense to me, however the game is not completely free from criticism for my part. There are several key plot beats that, in the moment, didn’t work for me at all. I wrote extensively about this in a thread I started a while back (before I understood what threads are, how they work or the general function of the forums all together), but I strongly feel that the games narrative does suffer somewhat from its structure.

This isn’t about pacing or what have you. What I’m trying to get at is that certain emotional moments were wasted on me because of a lack of understanding up to that point. For example, what happens when Ellie runs into Mel and Owen actually made me burst out laughing at the time as it came across to me as cheesy and just didn’t ring true.

We know almost nothing about Mel up to that point. In Owen’s dying breath, he tells Ellie that she’s pregnant. This is a revelation to Ellie. All of the killing up to that point hits her like a ton of bricks as she pulls the jacket away to confirm that she’s pregnant, like none of the other 200 people she brutally murdered up to that point could have been. It establishes a weird common ground amongst strangers, where killing is one thing but God forbid they might be pregnant! When I take the story as a whole, it works, but the moment itself was wasted, and it’s a big moment. I think it would have worked better for me had Ellie organically discovered the pregnancy, not be informed by Owen in the way that she was.

I also feel that Lev’s entire arc is criminally underdeveloped. There’s no nuance to his story at all. When you lay out the arc on paper, it’s: boy goes against the rules of his religious cult, boy leaves cult but longs for resolution. How is this conundrum solved in the world of The Last of Us? Be liberalized by your true saviour, a “woman of the world”, return home and kill your mom. This story deserves so much more than that, especially with the modern, real world socio-political climate this so obviously wants to bring light to.

I’m in the camp of wishing the ending played out differently as well. I firmly believe Ellie should have killed Abby (don’t hate me). Not because I hate Abby (I think Abby is a fantastic character) but because I think it would have been a more effective resolution for the audience, and a more believable resolution for Ellie. I appreciate where they took it, but for Ellie to finally go through with killing Abby, in front of a horrified and distraught Lev, would have been the true, undeniable revelation for Ellie as she would see herself in Lev. She would have put Lev through exactly what Joel put Abby through, and what Abby put Ellie through. Then it would hit her. It’s admittedly more devastating than what we got, but it’s more believable.

Anyways, I don’t mean to sound like I’m tearing the game down, I absolutely love it. It’s a masterpiece, though a somewhat flawed masterpiece for me. I could write a much longer reply on all of the things the game does brilliantly, but I think it’s unfair to point out any criticism of it as unfair. There is a lot of that out there - read: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2020/11/15/the-last-of-... - but I do feel that this game crumbles slightly under its own ambition. Glad you enjoyed it, man.

Edit: just a word of warning if you read that review. It’s a painful read!

@Jimmer-jammer
Not sure if you missed the fact that Lev is a transgender person or you just think it doesn’t affect his story.

@Voltan no that wasn’t lost on me. I frankly don’t have a deep understanding or much experience with this topic or transgender people so I’m not going to pretend that I can speak about this in any meaningful way but I guess for me, if someone identifies as the opposite gender, it just begins and ends right there. I accept that and think singling them out as anything else or something in between seems counter productive. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong but that’s how I feel. Really, that’s exactly how Abby approaches Lev…So I guess it’s more the latter for me. It’d be nice to read some impressions of how this was handled from folks who identify with Lev. A piece that goes beyond the surface appreciation of representation and digs into the meat of the story.