Oh my. The map. The ***** map, dude. I thought the writing couldnt get worse than those opening couple of hours - outside of the general pointlessness narratively of Abby's entire section, anyway - but my God, the contrivance of this moment. Some of the worst writing I've experienced in anything.
I had to log off after the boss fight I guess? Against Ellie in the theatre and just walk away for the night. Come back to the game fresh when I am not so irritated.
Maybe it is just the fresh rage I am feeling, and I will soften on it over time, but on the whole I kinda hated Abby’s stretch of the game if I am being honest.
There were a couple of nice sequences, cool set pieces and upgrades, but it all sorta felt like this was done as like a cheap way of making the audience care about Abby, and there was almost no narrative reason why all this stuff couldn't have been given to Ellie.
This is the more terminal issue with this stretch of game for me, is just that it feels so narratively lost. Like I've already said, I am happy I wasn't gaslit, but the game never did anything at all to justify why the character change even happens in the first place.
The whole Yara/Lev tangent we go on feels like it takes place in a different videogame. Any attempt to endear us to the antagonists through this section (if that is even what it is trying to do?) fail. Abby being a WLF has remarkable little bearing on any of this. I mean basically none at all, and could have created some unique gameplay moments that may have justified the character change had they used her role in the organization more.
And again, this is all mostly centred around a conflict which basically exists outside of Ellie’s story that we came here for, and really has no bearing on Ellie at all, the character we actually care about. Oh and it also includes multiple really frustrating difficulty spikes. Like I can't think of another game I've played where it goes off for like ten hours and just tells a completely disconnected story for seemingly its own amusement and then just returns back to the game you were playing before.
I feel like you could easily cut most of this entirely and the only result you get is a better paced game, with a lot less bad writing (as this includes some of the worst writing outside of the opening couple of hours), bloat and filler.
Any parts of this you leave in, would also make far more sense if you just played as Ellie all the way through. You could have used Yara and Lev as ways for Ellie and the audience to learn more about the conflict between the Scars and the WLF if you think this is even relevant which I kinda argue it isn’t really? Like I guess it is some nice world building, but it sorta distracts from what the core of this story is for no real meaningful gain. But it feels like has even less of a purpose when you are playing as Abby.
Like what was the point of all of this? Part 1 was already long over by the time this tangent comes to a close, and yet I feel like so much more happened in Part 1.
@Pizzamorg The game was like what I would have imagined a PS5 game would be at the time. It was a truly remarkable achievement on the PS4 Pro, and that combined with the enjoyment of the actual gameplay and encounters themselves is what kept me going. I genuinely enjoyed the game whenever the storytelling didn’t get in the way, which became a huge problem once you flipped over to playing as Abby. Sure, what happened to her father obviously really sucked for her and I get her wanting revenge, but at the same time she’s really no better than Ellie but the game sure makes it seem like you should think Ellie is worse most of the time. That’s BS, and goes back to why I was playing the game in the first place. I nearly didn’t finish the game because of stuff like that, but I did.
The theatre sequence you just brought up was the near breaking point for me. I already didn't want to be playing as Abby, although I had warmed up to it a bit until it kept dragging on and on. Forcing me to fight Ellie, even though there couldn't be fatal consequences because it's a flashback, was nearly the last straw for me. Like I've said many times already, I was playing the game for Ellie, not to fight against her. It was one of the few sequences I've ever experienced where I literally had to force myself to actually play through the sequence and not just take the game out and call it.
I don’t regret playing the game. It is a technical masterpiece in more ways than one, especially for the hardware it was released on. I just hate the things it did with the storytelling, effectively cursing the character the whole first game built us up to love basically, and for me nearly ruining what could have been the absolute masterpiece people claim it to be.
So I rolled credits. Beat it in around 20 hours. Online it seems to suggest the game should take you anywhere between 25 to 40, but I got achievements for things like all weapons etc, so I can't have missed anything major, so I dunno why my playthrough ran so short. I don't really care though, I am pretty glad this is over.
I thought the ending was a total mess, I guess I missed the flashcard, so for the longest time I thought I was in some kind of dream sequence as Ellie lay unconscious on the Theatre floor, dreaming about her ideal future. It really took me a while to register... oh no, this is really happening.
That baby looked fake, the farm looked fake. Somehow Dina and her baby survive, despite Dina getting her face pummelled into the floor repeatedly (she also has no real visible scars from that, either). Tommy also somehow survives getting shot point blank in the head. Okay.
And then we go to Santa Barbara and have to deal with the goofy Rattlers and I just feel like I am in a different game entirely. Although grown up Ellie with that haircut, killing dudes with a shotgun in that dirty white tank. Forgive me Joel for these thoughts I am having.
Then we finally get to Abby and Ellie decides to spare her for absolutely no reason at all. Okay. Cool, cool, cool, okay. Right. Cool cool cool. I mean Ellie has killed like 500 people in this game, and was still killing people seconds up until this moment, but we get to the antagonist we have been chasing this whole time and just go... nah, think I'll let you live I guess. Well, this game has been a massive waste of time then. Oh and Ellie's family abandon her or whatever the ***** happened at the end there. Love you giving a middle finger to both of the characters we love in this game, man. What a load of *****.
I know I wrote a perhaps overlong, rambly, review of Part 1 (although I appreciate the kind words people said about that review) but I am going to have a harder time doing that with Part 2.
I like to take notes when I play a game, and then sort those notes at the end. Looking at something as a whole, then working my way inwards in a more detailed way. However, I took remarkably few notes during Part 2, possibly because I was sharing my experience on this forum along the way, rather than privately in a Google doc but I also just don't really know how I feel about the game as a whole well enough, to really create a core of thought to build any commentary out of.
It seems like very few people are 'meh' on this game and this cloud has sorta hung over me the whole time playing it. I do not hate this game, but I do dislike it. Do I dislike it in a genuine way, or would I too be one of the self proclaimed haters if I hadn't had my expectations set so low by all the hatred I'd heard for this over the years? I can't ever know.
I will say I genuinely hated the bookends of this game, I thought the Abby section of the game is borderline totally pointless, but otherwise everything else was just kinda... eh to me. There are no moments I love in this to counter balance the moments I hated which is why I say I dislike it overall, but I dunno, those moments I hated create just sort of a blackhole of apathy for me.
It is a technological marvel for sure, it is generally more fun to play than Part 1 just purely looking at it mechanically as a game, while still staying mostly true to the gameplay experience of Part 1 (mechanically). Only with more encounters that feel like cinematic set pieces, which I enjoyed.
I guess the most damning thing I can say, is while I am sure I will play Part 1 again in the coming years, I sorta have no desire to ever play Part 2 again. This playthrough has felt like enough for me. Honestly beyond any discussions we may have out of this post, I think I'll honestly be happy to never think about this again and just pretend I am still living in a world where I hadn't played this yet.
I suffer through some really miserable gameplay in Part 1 at times, because the heights of that game surrounding Joel and Ellie's story are worth experiencing over and over again. It is also a near perfectly paced package, tightly telling its narrative and getting out of there, which prompts me to want to reexperience it again and again.
As fun as some of the set pieces and encounters are in Part 2, that is more in the context of how generally not fun Part 1 is to play, not that I think they are these masterfully designed engagements in all videogaming, that are of such a high standard they are worth experiencing over and over again. The gameplay improvements are just not enough in isolation, even if they improve this experience during your one time playing through it.
And also now knowing how flabby this is (despite my apparently shorter than average run time), knowing now that whole stretches of the game and almost the entire game itself honestly is all just kinda one massive exercise of futility, and knowing that it is going to deliver some true narrative low points that absolutely spit in the face of characters, and a game, I truly adore, with absolutely zero high point moments to counter balance these lows...
Yeah, there is nothing here to make me think I ever want to experience this ever again.
@Pizzamorg Just don't say I didn't warn you! Thanks so much for posting your running commentary on the game - it has been a pleasure to read and I have to admit that I'm kind of relieved that there's somebody else out there whose feelings on it so closely mirror my own! What are you going to play next to decompress?
My pleasure... I think?
I was thinking next I'd tie a plastic bag around my head and scream into it for four hours while I throw projections on my wall of images of my family just to chase one last feeling that mirrors that of playing Part 2 before I go play Mario Kart or something and eat some ice cream.
@Pizzamorg Genuinely sorry that it ended up such a colossal waste for you. Not necessarily because I felt differently, but well… because it’s just always better to enjoy the games we play rather than extract misery. 😅 That sucks.
Ah well, beyond my guilt for recommending a game which ended so poorly, I am glad for you that it’s over. You played through it at a quick pace so at least the suffering was short-lived.
I’ll share a few more details thoughts and responses on the other spoilery thread.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
So I have become quite excited about the Last of Us again after the announcement of the Last of Us 2 Remake. I should maybe wait to replay the game until the remake arrives but its honestly a little bit hard to do so. The announcement of the remake was actually little shocking to me in a sense (had no idea that it would happen). Now January 17 cant come fast enough.
Started playing the game yesterday and I've played it for 9 hours thus far. Absolutely insane to me how engrossing this game is as I wasn't expecting to get as addicted as I am with it now. This is actually the first Naughty Dog game that I'm genuinely enjoying. It could be because games like this appeal to me more now that I'm older. I played the first The Last of Us on PS4 back in 2015 and that was 9 years ago. In other words, I was a teenager back then. I remember liking the gameplay but it wasn't that captivating and I didn't care much for the story. With Part II, I'm absolutely loving the gameplay and the story is good, although it has slowed down a bit now. Not much is happening and I haven't met any new characters. But hopefully that will change soon.
I do have to mention how great the (first?) semi open-world area was. I feel like that was a trend with most first-party games on PS4, i.e. even though it's mostly a linear game, there are still some open-world areas here and there. And it was really fun to explore it! It wasn't overwhelming at all and it was very rewarding, both in terms of new equipment but also story moments.
My personal problem with the game is that I have to explore everywhere and loot everything, lol. I have to stop myself because I can't carry any more ammo/resources so there's no point in spending that much time exploring. It's fun looking for stuff but I'm at a point now where resources don't feel as scarce anymore.
It's great how much emphasis there is on stealth but I also feel like there should be more mandatory shooting sections. Otherwise you'll get rusty with your shooting once you find yourself in such a situation.
One final thing I have to mention is the fantastic checkpoint system. It feels like the game saves every ten seconds, which is super useful as mistakes can occur every now and then and I don't want to restart entire sections because of that.
I plan on maxing out Ellie and Abby's weapon/player upgrades on my 1st New Game+ save file.
My question is instead of finishing that NG+ run and then starting a 2nd NG+, can I just immediately leave the save file and start another NG+ without losing the upgrades?
After I've fully maxed out both their weapon and player upgrades to be clear (and the game saved me doing so).
I don't want to play thru the game fully three times, and I still have to do a Grounded NG+ run with permadeath.
I'm just going to tag @Th3solution and @Metonymy here, since I've mentioned starting The Last of Us: Part II to you both. I'm currently about 15 hours into the game, having finish Ellie's first part and being only a short ways into Abby's reaching the aquarium flashback thus far. I know a lot of people absolutely love this game to bits, so I'm going to tread lightly with my thoughts!
I've been having a good, but not great time with the game so far. For some backstory, I have played the first game in the series and enjoyed it well enough. It was never an all-time favourite of mine, but I appreciated what it was and thought it had a really great ending. I also enjoyed the TV series, so the narrative of the first game is still fairly fresh in my mind. And before I go on, I should preface that I was never very invested in Joel and Ellie's relationship. I don't know why, but I've just never deeply connected with those characters like many. Hence why playing its sequel wasn't necessarily a priority for me either, but it seemed like the perfect time right now for various reasons. I'll start using spoiler tags from here on since the thread is marked no spoilers.
Obviously, we all know the big opening twist that Joel dies. That wasn't a surprise to me either, just by being in the gaming sphere over the last five years. Not necessarily an issue, since I still found the scene to be well-executed and the whole proper introduction to Jackson to be quite interesting and fun. Once we got to Seattle is where the game slowly fell apart for me however. We're really supposed to buy into this quest of revenge as the main drive of the game, but since I'm not so invested in Joel as a character and, frankly, think he's a bad person, I never really was on the same level as Ellie where I felt the need to kill all these people to get back at them. For her motivation to be so asynchronous to mine was already a slight issue, but I feel like the main problem is how... and I am almost scared to say the word, but... boring Ellie's first half of the game is.
Don't get me wrong! The game is a technical marvel. It's absolutely stunning and the gameplay is so well-refined, I almost hesitate to criticise it at all. I just didn't have much fun playing as Ellie in its opening half. And not in the good way of: ''This game is so dark, I'm having no fun!'' Just genuinely finding her section to be poorly paced and plotted. I get that our quest for revenge is supposed to be what gets us to keep going, but I couldn't shake the feeling that for most of the time absolutely nothing was happening at all. We need to find Abby and kill anyone who was responsible for Joel along the way, but we either find everyone: 1) already dead, or 2) dead within the next 2 minutes. I'm barely interacting with any NPCs along the way, which I always found to be the first game's strength, and I'm just stuck with Ellie moving from building to building, from combat encounter to combat encounter. There's a few setpieces that I considered to be ''big'' moments, like the whole events with Nora in the hospital. That was masterfully done and so engaging, but I'm soon finding myself back scrounging through Seattle at a snail's pace to a great scene again five hours later. It felt incredibly repetitive. The environments weren't varied at all and the enemies were constantly the same with few introductions of new types of threats. The gameplay loop of stealth --> stuff hits the fan hit the exact same way in every encounter. Nothing really changed the formula up.
Again, I feel like my investment in Ellie's quest for revenge was supposed to be what kept me going in these times, but I don't find that to be an excuse for poor pacing or uninteresting encounters. It's not an excuse for barely anything to happen, and for when I do reach my momentary goal, to get absolutely no satisfaction from reaching it. Maybe the lack of satisfaction was the point. To put you in Ellie's shoes where your hunger for revenge only grows. Instead of having that effect however, I only found my resentment towards Ellie's story to grow. I couldn't wait to get to Abby's part and get out of her shoes. To be introduced to new locations that don't look the same every time and to meet new NPCs to have actual story beats with. As much as I like Dina as a character too (she's very likable), I found her to be incredibly obnoxious during gameplay. The amount of times she would stand in my way, actively walk into my way or not help out during combat at all when I'm trying to sneak was frustrating.
Despite my lack of investment into the Joel/Ellie duo, it is what drove the first game forward and what kept things interesting. Seasons changed, locations changed. Joel and Ellie stayed the same, but constantly developed into a real father/daughter dynamic. It was (bitter)sweet, and then the ending hits with an absolute gut punch of a scene. The only dynamic we have similar to that in Ellie's portion is her relationship with Dina, but I didn't find that to be as inherently interesting. There's no real development in their relationship. They set the stage for it in the early moments of the game, and we're just girlfriends from there on. The father/daughter-dynamic between Joel and Ellie meant that you were forced to feel a sort of protective instinct towards your companion. With Dina, it doesn't feel like she needs me. That's totally fine of course, girlpower and all that, but it does remove that inherent instinct from the equation and instead left me with nothing to emotionally connect myself to Dina with outside of: ''Oh, she's nice.'' It doesn't help that she then ends up staying back for a large portion of the later stages (for obvious reasons), so I'd just check in with her every few hours. There was no replacement then... and now I'm solely left with a protagonist whose motives I don't identify with, stuck traveling through a city where I don't find the locations particularly interesting to play through despite the strong visuals and combat encounters where I felt like I was doing the exact same thing over and over again. The repetition of that all just really got to me.
So, now I've finally reached Abby's section, and... my god, is it night and day. Her opening flashback where you meet her father and find out it's the doctor Joel killed in the first game is the first time the game made me feel the actual emotions that it tried to get from me for a long while. I soon find myself in a really, really cool stadium with lots of NPCs and new people to meet. It felt like a world had opened up that the first half of the game didn't make me feel it was capable of at all. They suddenly realised that walking through the exact same looking Seattle for 13 hours is no fun, that having side characters to engage with was integral to the first games success, that the game should pace its narrative and action setpiece moments quicker than once every 5 hours... where was this energy the whole half of the game? I am flabbergasted by how much more I've started to enjoy this game with this switch in protagonist. And honestly confused by how they managed to do the legacy character so dirty by giving her such a... and I'm sorry again, boring campaign. I'm actually excited to boot the game up again and see what's going to happen to Abby, her group and the whole WLF community. I know that when I have 2 hours to play now, I'm going to see more than just grass and similar-looking buildings. I know I've been quite down on the game so far, but it feels for the first time that it's entered an upward trajectory. For my sake, I hope it stays that way. Even if only to make sure I don't need to return to this thread later on to say that: ''Actually, it got worse again and I didn't really like the game after all.'' I know how much it means to so many. I'm probably never going to reach that level of admiration for it, but I hope I will at least eventually be able to see what others do in it, whether or not I feel as strong about it emotionally.
So, that's my long-winded, probably controversial thoughts about the game so far. Again, I am hopeful for the second half of it! I really want to like the game more than I did in its initial hours, so I'm praying I'll get the opportunity to with this back half.
@Tjuz Oh my friend, Tj… I have good news and I have bad news… 😂
First off, thanks for sharing your impressions of TLoU2. I enjoyed reading them, even if they are wrong. 😑
But seriously. I can follow your thoughts and I understand. If something I love and cherish doesn’t click for you in a piece of media, it’s allowed. It merely rips my very heart from my chest, stomps on it, and drains all solace and joy from my soul… it’s ok.
To comment specifically —
I’m kidding, and I know that Joel is maybe a very specific kind of hero. Ellie too. There may be a certain American cultural connection to these characters, I don’t know. But you’re not wrong about the plodding nature of the storytelling during that section after Joel is killed when they are heading out to hunt down Abby and Co. It didn’t drag for me or seem boring, but I can see how it would if you weren’t attached to the locales and the characters. The Dina observation is also a reasonable point, in that she just kind of become the girlfriend and there’s not as much fostering of the companionship like there was with Joel and Ellie in Part I. There’s few relationships that can carry so many unsaid emotions as a father-daughter, and so two lovers, two friends, or even a mother-son or mother-daughter bonding wouldn’t portray the same dependent emotions, I’m guessing. And that’s where the cultural stuff plays a role.
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So the bad news is, if you don’t like Ellie and hope to never deal with her and her plight again, then you’ll need to prepare yourself to be disappointed. However, I feel like any possible (trying to be spoiler free here) future dealing with Ellie are much more exciting and varied than what you experienced in the first half of the game.
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Now for the good news — you seem to like Abby so you’ll be happy to hear she is a really major character all the way through and if you like her now, I feel like you grow to like and appreciate her even more as the game progresses.
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What’s supposed to happen, and what most players complain about, is that everyone is all excited to play as Ellie, the girl they grew to love in the first game. And they have their world torn apart when she has to watch her adoptive dad brutally tortured and murdered right in front of her. Then the player has an immediate hatred of Abby because of this. And they relish running around as Ellie and hunting down this horrible villain character. And then… when Naughty Dog turns the table on them and makes them play as Abby from her point of view, everyone is supposed to get really upset and start to throw their controller and refuse to play this game and play as this character they hate. Then, over time, the players who stick with it grow to admire, appreciate, and even root for Abby. And the player is left with this dilemma in their minds, their whole world turned upside-down, trying to figure out what are these conflicting emotions that Naughty Dog is manipulating me with?!
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But you didn’t read the memo. You immediately hated Ellie and loved Abby. So you robbed yourself of the whole epiphany and moral conundrum you’re supposed to be feeling! 😂
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The other good news for you is on the NPC front. You’ve already met some with Abby and are starting to get some variety in the storyline and some interaction with other people and their plight and viewpoints. Well, there’s more of that. There’s some really good characters still to come, so it’s worth it for you to stick with it for that too.
I will be very curious to see how it all lands for you. Like I say, some of what you have in front of you will answer some of your complaints. But other significant parts of the game will probably just be doubling down on things you don’t like. Regardless, I can’t wait to read the final analysis! And after you finish, I’ll link you to my TLoU2 review to read and see how it compares to your final thoughts. 😄
@Tjuz Thanks for the tag! Honestly, I have a lot of issues with The Last of Us Part II, so no worries there. Perhaps even more controversially, I actually think the show fixes some of the issues I had with the game 😬 Anyway, I don’t want to say too much until you’ve taken the whole thing in. I will say that I consider it a flawed masterpiece, so it’s by no means all doom and gloom for me. Good luck!
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” -C.S. Lewis
@Th3solution Hahaha, I'm glad you appreciated reading my thoughts even if we are on the opposite side of the spectrum! I tried hard not to make it sound inflammatory or anything to anyone who likes the game, because I know I can get a bit heated or factual with my wording where all of it is obviously just my personal opinion. I hope your heart has recovered a bit from the last thoughts, because I've now finished the game and am back to stomp on it all over again. Just kidding. I'm a lot more positive on it than I was the last time having played had the whole of Abby's journey and seen the ending. So, without further ado:
Yeah, Joel is obviously supposed to be a very conflicted "hero". The game acknowledges as much with this sequel and the way Ellie behaves towards him. I have no problem with that. I like a good character that has very grey morals, but the game shouldn't expect me to then automatically root for him and love him like you would with a squeaky-clean archetype more easily. The first game is supposed to do a lot of the heavy lifting there of course, and I'll say it worked on me for the most part at the time... until the ending. I can understand why Joel did what he did, but I don't like it. I don't think he's a good person. And for him to then actively lie to Ellie about it afterwards is what solidified him to me as a well-written character, but one I don't have a fondness for. For him to do everything in the name of Ellie and his selfish need for that dynamic only to betray her trust right after is such a hypocritical stance to take for a person. Great writing, but something I couldn't look past on a personal level. To then have the major event that sets all this in motion be his death is perfectly good storytelling, but again, to expect me then to still have that level of fondness and admiration for the character feels presumptuous to me. Especially considering it was their choice to end the previous game on such a dour note where the main protagonist comes off incredibly poorly. The fact that I can even discuss that particular moment at such length is a testament to the great writing of that ending (and why I mentioned I loved it), but the second game seems to try to ignore the damage it did to his character by expecting you to be horrified at his death.
That's probably as well-worded as I can write it in terms of why Joel's death didn't hit for me in the way the game seemingly wants it to. I acknowledge it did for many others, presumably like yourself, but it does set me off on a very different note with this story like you said. I don't feel an internal need to avenge the death of someone I'm not upset about dying. I'll try not to fall into repetition, so yeah, that's exactly why that first half of the game felt like such a drag and antithesis to how I felt playing. The game is trying to fight my instincts at every point to make me care where there's just no room for me to. Like I said, I felt the locales and setpieces were largely uninspired too. Moments of greatness like the confrontation with Nora or the chase in the subway splattered through many, many hours of roaming around same-y looking areas on a wild goose chase I don't care for. I'm sure that my motives not being aligned with Ellie at all did a lot to make me start resenting her and her narrative sections. By the end, I didn't feel differently about Ellie at all. I just was more and more annoyed with her over time.
But you were right for the second half! I enjoyed it a lot more. Despite knowing that Abby is equally capable of all kinds of monstrous things in her past, I felt a lot more sympathetic to her. Unlike Ellie, I also felt like she was growing as a person and actively trying to become her best self. Aided by her companions or not, she started making more and more of the morally right decisions. It was a very interesting dynamic, and one that I find way easier to empathise with than Ellie going out on a rampage. She also came across to me as a far more mature character in how she views the world and the people in it. She seemed to have actual morals, to have good things that drive her and to have a dream. Ellie had none of that. I'll grant that we weren't with Abby in the moment where was consumed by rage, so maybe I would've viewed her very differently if I experienced that from her point of view as well. But I can only go by what the game shows me, and that's a notably more likable character who puts others' needs before her own.
I became quite fond of Abby's group of misfits (excluding Mel, who was a pain in my butt). I found them all to have fun, interesting personalities and felt genuinely sad when I knew each of their fates. It's the emotion that the game wanted me to have for people like Joel and Jesse as well, but only came out in this latter part where I felt far more engaged. It didn't feel like the game was telling me how to feel anymore and going against my nature. It just let me play and organically start loving the characters I came across. The highlights there are by far and away Yara and Lev. The dynamic they have with Abby is the similar father/daughter dynamic they used in the first game, and it worked on me here all the same. The only exception is that these two are clearly a lot more capable at fending for themselves than Ellie ever was in the first game. I found Lev's plight to be genuinely heartbreaking, with honestly one of my favourite moments of dialogue regarding trans representation I've seen. I'll repeat it here since it's such a minor moment I doubt you can pin-point exactly what I'm talking about:
Lev: "Did you hear what they called me?" Abby: "Yes." Lev: "Do you want to ask me anything?" Abby: "Do you want me to?" Lev: "No."
That very short exchange probably didn't mean a lot to many people, but I found it incredibly gut-wrenching while heartwarming at the same time that he finally found someone who accepts him as he is. And more importantly, had absolutely zero questions about the situation. A great piece of dialogue writing that has stuck with me ever since that short moment. And that’s exactly the type of character moments Abby gets that make her all the more likable to me. She’s more than a person on a quest for revenge, which Ellie never was in the first half. The way their relationship evolves too to the point they become partners felt incredibly earned. Something I never felt with Ellie’s relationships with Jesse and Dina who are just introduced here, but we don’t really see anything about their dynamics develop in a meaningful way. You do have the opening with Dina where they give them some good character moments, but once again, it felt more like the game telling me: “By the way, this is your girlfriend” than it felt like I chose to love her like I did with Lev.
All of this really just reverted completely how many people feel regarding the characters to me. It’s funny. I struggled with the Ellie/Abby confrontation at the theater, so I pulled up Google to see how I need to approach this and beat Ellie. When I went on a thread discussing the moment, all I saw was people saying stuff along the lines of: “Just let Ellie kill her and stop there.” It was crazy! Like I was living in a whole other world. But then, despite the fact that most of these people were probably quite toxic and in it for different reasons, the game turned it around on me and made me feel the exact same way. In the final fight where I’m playing Ellie beating up Abby, there was nothing inside of me that wanted to do that. I don’t want to beat up Abby. I want her to leave, find the Fireflies and live happily ever after with Lev in tow. I was so judgy of these other people hating on Abby, but then found myself doing the exact same thing with Ellie only hours later in their end-game confrontation. I guess that’s the beauty and the curse of the game. Whichever way you fall, you’re going to have possibly a horrible time with one half of the game depending on how personal you take its events.
I struggled with Ellie because I didn’t care about her anymore. She wasn’t my protagonist. Other people struggle with Abby because of the exact same reasons. Then there’s the people who manage to end up loving both and can be the Switzerland of the fandom. I wish I could say I fall in that group, but I did end up… and this is a strong word but true, hating Ellie by the end of it. If you were one of my friends who I’ve talked about it while playing through, you’d have heard me moaning and complaining about how much she annoys me and how I hate her. Even worse and possibly slightly sociopathic, I was delighted to see her returning home to an empty farm missing two fingers. The fact that she had a good life with Dina and JJ, that Abby had let her go a second time... and she still had the audacity to seek her out again and try to ruin her life after already killing everyone important to her? A switch just turned. There was no coming back from this anymore between me and Ellie. I spent the whole last few hours begrudgingly playing her, only soothed by the fact that I knew my actions were going to save Abby from a horrible fate. She made her choice and now she has to live with it. Was my delighting in it maybe a bit much? Sure. But after what I felt she put me through the whole game, there was a sense of satisfaction knowing that she did not have the happy ending she hoped for. But you were right, in that the final section Ellie has as the playable character was a lot more interesting and better designed than any of Seattle ever was. I had fun there.
Ultimately, all of this speaks for good writing. I can moan and complain about Ellie all I want, but any piece of media that makes me feel as strongly about it as this did is inherently well-written. Well, unless you’re really just hating on the quality of something. So, props to Naughty Dog for making an emotional rollercoaster of a game where I went completely off-track but somehow landed at the same spot by the end as my fellow riders. Though, myself probably with more happiness of how it all worked out than my polar-opposite fans of Ellie. I do have issues with the game’s design still beyond the writing in terms of that first half. I do think it was incredibly boringly designed beyond my issues with the character. I do think Abby had way better locales and setpieces that Ellie’s section not once came close to. So no, I don’t think it’s a masterpiece. It has too many ruts and badly paced gameplay/writing in that first half for me to sing its praises for anything beyond the efficacy of its writing overall, but that second half did elevate it in my mind a lot more than I was previously scared of it not doing so. I’m happy I played it. I’d never replay it. It’s a game of ups and downs in all of its aspects, but it comes together just in time for it to be a great game in my eyes. I understand the game, and even though it didn’t always seem to understand me, we came to an understanding by the end.
***
@Metonymy Speaking of controversial! The show doing a better job at it than the game? I'm sure you'd be crucified by many a gamer for that one. I sure hope so, because I'm not looking forward to reliving Ellie's half in TV form after all of that. I do wonder how much of the bad reception to the TV show was TV fans going through the trauma that gamers did five years ago vs. what was or wasn't actually badly adapted. I'll definitely have to give the second season a whirl at some point this year, and I'll get back to you on it!
@Tjuz Thank you for your thorough breakdown. I enjoyed reading your thoughts, I really mean that. I’d like to respond, and have a lot of my own thoughts but I’ll do that later today. I want to gather them together and have them make sense as a reaction to your views and thoughts you shared.
In the meantime, as promised, you can read my review I left over on the review thread here:
It doesn’t quite go into the narrative discussion that I want to share later but it can give you an overview of what I was feeling right after my playthrough a couple years ago. My thoughts have largely stayed the same, although over time they’ve evolved slightly.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Tjuz
So I do want to respond to some of your thoughts. And this is all in the spirit of having fun discussing the games we play and how they affect us. Please don’t feel as if this is some criticism against your perfectly valid opinions. I just wish to share my own for comparison and see what you think.
And here’s where I wish we had the TLoU2 spoilers thread still open. Alas, it looks like it has been nuked so I’ll have to tag everything like you did.
I’ll start with the Joel discussion, and I’ll summarize your first couple paragraphs, if I may, for clarity of my thoughts, that you struggled early on because “the game expects you to be horrified at the death of Joel, after characterizing him as a flawed and deceptive person” —
I completely agree with you about the complexity of Joel. He’s not, as you so well put it, a “squeaky clean” knight in shining armor type of hero. His redemption arc from his dark past is halted by his selfishness and deceit. I think you’re right that a lot of fans didn’t quite see him for what he was, a selfish liar, and chose to rage when he was killed. Honestly, I wasn’t in that camp. I think my emotional attachment wasn’t to Joel, per se, but to the relationship of Joel and Ellie. Their relationship is also complex, for sure, as this messy co-dependence that ended in a lie at the end of Part 1, but could have gone happily-ever-after, if that lie was never revealed. I didn’t feel the gut punch because Joel was killed, rather because Ellie lost her adoptive father, and in a way that left her feeling such guilt due to how poorly their relationship had been going. Survivor guilt is a real thing. I’ve seen it many times in people I’ve known and even in my own family, who lose a loved one that they are mad at and are perhaps estranged from, and the guilt they feel when the person dies while they are on bad terms is a huge burden and carries horrible conflicting emotions.
So, for example, I think the story could have had the same impact (for me at least) if it was the other way around — if Ellie is killed brutally and unexpectedly in front of Joel. His revenge and redemptive arc could have been the same and served as the same narrative device. So for me, it’s not the death of Joel that was disruptive, but the death of the relationship.
Now all that said, I know you felt their relationship was dead already. And perhaps in your experience there was a disconnect with Ellie from the jump and you couldn’t relate and just simply don’t like the character, or at least the character she became she got older in Part 2. And that’s all perfectly acceptable and reasonable. Fortunately, ND gave us another protagonist! 😄
I’m pleased that you related with Abby better. She does have a great character progression and I found it quite fascinating that the player grows to appreciate and care for her, so long as they’re open minded and willing to see things from a different perspective. It’s quite a character whiplash from the ‘golf club wielding’ Abby to the ‘friend to Lev’ Abby and the ‘merciful to Ellie’ Abby. Despite my relating more to Ellie at first, I grew to appreciate something about each of the lead women in the story (yes, I am Switzerland 😂), and that’s a testament to good character development, imho.
But I think many players, even the Ellie apologists, felt similarly as you with the post-farm rage. As you put it — “The fact that she had a good life with Dina and JJ, that Abby had let her go a second time... and she still had the audacity to seek her out again and try to ruin her life after already killing everyone important to her? A switch just turned. There was no coming back from this anymore between me and Ellie…” I think the self destructive revenge of her character drove a lot of us crazy. And you’re correct - she kinda got her just rewards. She flushed her happiness away and lost everything — her family, and even her ability to play guitar, which was a running theme through the games and a symbol of her connection to Joel.
But I am really happy that you related so well to Abby and her crew, especially Lev. But you’re right, that even though so many of the game’s haters were mouth breathing bigots who made their disdain for the game all about politics and close-mindedness, there were still those who liked Ellie for valid reasons, or like you, related to Abby for equally valid reasons. So I think you nailed it when you said, “I guess that’s the beauty and the curse of the game. Whichever way you fall, you’re going to have possibly a horrible time with one half of the game depending on how personal you take its events.” You’re going to feel uncomfortable beating up Ellie, or uncomfortable beating up Abby, depending on your camp. Unless you’re Switzerland and you feel bad trying to kill either one. 😅
As a final note, I do want to highlight something that I became aware of months after I completed the game — Druckmann (born in Tel Aviv) apparently was pretty open about the game being an allegory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And I would suggest it’s applicable as a metaphor for most wars or feuds in general. That is, these conflicts back-and-forth get so out of hand, that after a while you can’t even remember how it all started, and yet each side continues to propagate the conflict. Each side feels like the other started it and each attack on them must be reciprocated to “get even”. Each time Ellie killed one of Abby’s group, they had to kill one of Ellie’s, and so on…. The same illustration is there on the larger scale in the game also between the Scars and the WLF. The two factions continued to fight and didn’t even know what they were fighting for anymore and it is all just such a waste. So much bloodshed and destruction, and for what? Some old vendetta that has spiraled out of control and keeps getting propagated by the cycle of revenge and violence? At some point, someone needs to say enough is enough. Forgive and forget because no one is winning here, and everybody loses.
@Th3solution I love how well-organised your review was in the impressions thread! My stream of consciousness, lengthy paragraphs can't compete with that. I totally agree with your section on how the gameplay of combat encounters is highly improved compared to the first in terms of the possibilities you have within its mechanics. It's definitely a much better system than it used to be, even if I think the first half of the game lets it down with the present level design. The Uncharted comparison is also something I equally felt while playing. Stuff like the sky bridges, and like you mentioned some of the more open design, felt lifted straight from those games. I had no clue there was even an admitted inclusion of cut content from 4 though, which is a fun tidbit to find out!
I also enjoy finding out about the behind the scenes information you mentioned like them removing ''fun'' from their questionnaires to play-testers and such. Very interesting stuff. It just shows how exact they were in approaching this game and how they wanted it to feel, knowing very well the type of reaction it was likely to get from audiences. None of it was by accident. The psychological aspect of ''submission'' you brought up was also a very interesting observation. I think you hit the nail right on the head with that one. The more a player resists, the worse they're going to make the experience for themselves. They need to meet the game where it's at intellectually, and if they refuse to do that, that says more about them than the quality of the writing itself.
I just watched a video essay about the game yesterday, and they read out a petition created at the time of the game's release that was absolutely hilarious to me. How Naughty Dog didn't give the fans what they deserved, how they should redo the game because the narrative was horribly written... it's people who cannot reconcile the difference between what they expected and the game's qualities in isolation. To so factually and pretentiously word a petition about how you were wronged by a game... and then the fact that it received over 18k signatures at the time of the video... it just goes to show how either intellectually immature to honestly engage or media illiterate the general gamer audience can be. I acknowledge it's equally pretentious for me to say that, but I think it's undeniable. It's not about the art for them, it's about validating their already existing feelings. If media consistently gives me exclusively what I expect, I'd have absolutely nothing to talk about ever. Good art generates discussion, and they wildly succeeded at that here. Obviously it's fine not to like something for whatever reason, but you need to be able to present good-faith arguments for why you feel that way at the bare minimum.
I think that illiteracy comes across with the same people who likely didn't see Joel for what he was, as you put it. It's not like that means you're barred from liking Joel as a character. Hell, idolise him all you want if that's your style. But there's a difference between how you view a character and what's on the page. The writing is incredibly clear how Joel's actions were those of a selfish liar. There's no way around that, but it's still up to personal interpretation whether or not that bothers you and how you then see him afterwards. If you can't acknowledge those basic facts, it shows a clear misunderstanding of the material. You can disagree with his fate, sure, but his fate was ultimately a natural progression for the arc he was given. That's not bad writing. That's just writing you might (rightfully or not) not like because of your own personal attachments. I don't like Ellie, but Ellie is not badly written. That distinction seems to get lost for those people who got up in arms regarding Joel.
Anyway, to try and get myself out of this tangent, I totally agree with you in terms of what you said about how the roles of Joel and Ellie could be reversed for the same narrative device. You're right in that the loss of their dynamic is what shaped the story rather than the loss of any singular character. I hadn't viewed it that way yet, so I appreciate reading your thoughts on that! It does make me wonder if the reaction to the game would've been any better had it been switched up. They'd have to come up with another good reason for this revenge arc that didn't involve the doctor first of all of course, but assuming they'd be able to, would the audience have reacted better to the loss of Ellie? To keep the protagonist of the first game the same? I think Joel's death was the right decision for the best story, but I would be interested in this alternate universe version of the game and the reaction to it.
I'm pleased for the confirmation that you are, in fact, Switzerland, haha! I think the cititzens of Switzerland among us probably had the very best possible time with the game, where you could appreciate each and every aspect of it on an equally positive level. No doubt my feelings towards Ellie coloured my enjoyment of playing the game and thus my opinion of it, so to not have any of that negativity throughout is the best possible outcome. I think you all must be a rare breed though, but possibly my fellow Ellie haters are a rarer breed? I'm not sure what the overall consensus is from the non-toxic fans there, but I imagine most probably still prefer Ellie at the end of the day. Which I'd never argue with, as long as it comes from a genuine place.
I didn't know anything about Neil Druckmann's comments regarding the game being an allegory. That's interesting. It makes it all the more timely in the current political climate when you view it from that lens. Like you said, the mouth-breathing bigots who suggested that ''politics'' ruined the game would actually have a (still invalid, but traceable) argument with that one, though obviously none of them actually viewed it in that manner. It works for any big feud or war like you said. I wonder how much of that thought process was intention from the outset vs. what it eventually morphed into and could also represent. I think the allegory is rather disattached from what is presented on a surface-level, so I doubt it was anyone's very first thought.
It makes it even funnier when you see people hating on the game for being ''political'', because after having played it, it seems to me like one of the most apolitically presented games to be accused of overbearing politics or wokeness ruining the experience. It's all incredibly character-driven, and while you can make judgments based on what is presented in regards to the WLF/Scars or the cycle of violence between the leads, all of it is more up to interpretation than anything that is directly laid out for you in way of dialogue and such. The message is there, but it's never evangelising it to you in any overbearing way. It's just showing you the journey of these characters as objectively as possible. It just shines a spotlight on, again, how bad-faith arguments continue to cloud this game. It's the same people who will tear into this game for all of its messages who continue to play other games keeping it entirely surface-level and not engaging with any of their respective messages simply because they like the game.
Whew, I hope that didn't feel like a total self-absorbed tangent and like a proper reply to you and your review at the time. I tried not to go too overboard! There's almost too much that can be said about this game, which once again, is a credit to it.
@Tjuz I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on this! I didn’t want to say too much as it’s a game that lives long in the head, and I didn’t want to colour your experience. Though I don’t share quite the same issues with the design aspects as you, there is definitely some crossover in our feelings about the experience overall.
My issues are primarily around tone and believability. Too much of the sequel feels both contrived and tonally off, at least for me. Still, even though a pulpy revenge story is some real tonal whiplash after the lengths Naughty Dog went to establish a world grounded in stark reality, I do love that Naughty Dog flipped the script and took a big swing. Conceptually, I think villainizing the hero and humanizing the villain is brilliant, I just don’t think the journey ND takes is on always works all that well. That said, it struck a real chord with me, and continues to do so. It possesses an artistic integrity that I deeply respect, which is why I consider it a flawed masterpiece. It’s as frustrating an experience as it is moving. I’ll cherry pick a couple of examples.
You mention how much better Abby’s story worked for you in comparison to Ellie’s and I completely agree. Tonally, it was much more consistent and more in line with the tone and pace that the first game established. Ellie’s arc, particularly her big turning point after Killing Mel, just didn’t ring remotely true to me. This is one of those parts that I thought worked much better in the show, where this critical moment was appropriately and uncompromisingly devastating. In fairness, this works better within the totality of the plot but in the moment it was yet another ridiculous development that had me laughing instead of connecting to what was going on.
It’s a compounding effect. I can suspend my disbelief to point but one unbelievable contrivance after another eventually results in death by a thousand cuts. After Ellie inexplicably decides to leave everything yet again to implausibly travel all the way to California to improbably infiltrate yet another heavily armed faction before unlikely finding Abby just in time on deaths door to then duke it out like two rusty old rock em’ sock em’ robots to then have Ellie unconvincingly have a last second change of heart, yet again…by this point it just doesn’t feel like the same universe that was so carefully considered and established in the first game. By the time Ellie was trying to play guitar with her missing digits I found myself laughing again.
The whole thing could have worked better for me if, in the end, Ellie would have killed Abby, leaving Lev to be the one to finally break the cycle by letting Ellie go.
Again, I really enjoyed reading your thoughts (and yours @Th3solution as always). The game is an incredible accomplishment that continues to drive discussion years later. It’s really something, isn’t it?
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” -C.S. Lewis
@Tjuz No, definitely not overboard. I love it! And thanks to @Metonymy for your really interesting take as well. I think I remember some of your thoughts from discussions back around the time I played the game, and your judgement definitely still holds credence.
On the subject of the game’s metaphors, the irony is that the debating and tribalistic behavior of the super-fans vs. the haters of the game is a microcosm of the game’s message. 😅 Each camp of rating the game 1/10 or 11/10 has dug in their heels and feuded online in the same way the Scars/WLF and Ellie/Abby did in the game. Now despite the very intentional parable the game tells, that online feuding was probably unintended by the developer, and yet poetically apropos.
It’s a tale as old as time, and a curse of the human condition. In the U.S. we have a cultural reference from the Civil War era call the Hatfield-McCoy feud. It’s probably the most famous family feud in our history and is often brought up as a reference to these perpetuating and escalating conflicts between two factions (in this case two families) that starts often over some small thing and escalates into tribalism and violence. There were several murders on both sides of the Hatfield family and the McCoy family. And it was famously started over allegations of a stolen hog.
So Druckmann may have started out with the idea of this representing a symbolic lesson from the ancient and modern Israel-Palestine conflict, but the far reaching application to all cultures and wars (even the online ones) may have indeed been unintentional. In the U.S. we’re living this nightmare of open extremist polarized sociopolitical warfare in a very real and tangible sense, unfortunately. What we have today makes the Harfield-McCoy conflict seem like small potatoes, as things gradually build toward escalating civil unrest.
And as you mention, that’s the wonder and skill of good narrative’s thematic writing - universal application, and as you mention, the ability to go under the surface level at your own pace and desire to glean lessons and symbolic application as you please. Many people have criticized the exact way the story is told and the narrative flaws throughout, like Metonymy so articulately stated, and I can respect that as good-faith arguments, but it does seem like most games have those types of plot weaknesses. Having played through may games that had crazy plot development, illogical character reactions, and unbelievable stories, none of the finer details of the why’s and how’s really bothered me during TLoU2. But I definitely acknowledge that some of those things in the story were a bridge too far for some of the players who expect more from their storytelling. And like I say, I respect that and can’t deny, but only would say that such issues exist with many shows, movies, and especially video games (such as: the Deus Ex Machina tropes that fall out of the sky to wrap up a plot, the hero suddenly growing a conscience after killing hundreds of nameless people, the sad music kicking in when the director needs to remind you to feel sad, the fact that a single shot to the leg makes the side pawns fall over dead on impact and yet the hero can take a direct shot in the head and survive, when the protagonist crash lands on a planet they just happen to be in the right place, etc., etc. all these and more flaws happen in so, so many games and shows for some reason) and everyone’s tipping point is different for when the disbelief can no longer be suspended. The only time I remember feeling like I was out of sync with the narrative was the whole Mel pregnancy reveal thing. It’s supposed to make Ellie feel a certain regret because of Dina being with child, so I know what they were going for there, but I have to admit the execution of it was awkward and didn’t quite land. Children (especially babies) and animals are often presented in a narrative to signal an untouchable innocence and purity and we’re trained as spectators of the story to react to their death in climactic ways, but in this game the tone of constant gruesome murder made it hard to believe Ellie’s emotional response with its tonal whiplash, like Metonymy said. Still, even that scene wasn’t enough to ruin the momentum of the game for me, although I’ve commonly seen it listed as a moment that extinguished people’s feelings about the story.
And I suppose one of the issues with the game is it’s so well produced with exceptional graphical presentation, voice performances, music, and so when there’s several foibles of the plot then it really sticks out by contrast.
@Bundersvessel Thanks, mate. That’s very kind of you to say. I really enjoy reading about a video game experience through another person’s eyes. We all see things differently, affected by our own point of view and personal circumstances.
And it’s wonderful to see you back in the Push Square saddle again! I hope you are happy and healthy!
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
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