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I finished the game tonight. Long story short of my hot take: although the core gameplay is good (albeit dated), the game's story and characters are so thoroughly awful that I genuinely wish TLOU II had never been made. Disclaimer: I count The Last of Us among my favorite games of all time. I could talk all day about why it is an amazing game. I am probably more invested in it than I should be. If you somehow love TLOU II, feel free to disregard my post rather than try to respond because boy am I far too emotionally invested to see TLOU II as anything other than a legacy wrecker on par with Game of Thrones Season 8, the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, and *insert your prefered cultural benchmark here*. I fear it devalues the first game because now it sits in the back of my mind whenever I think about the first game. Disclaimer 2: Because I loved the original so much, I consciously avoided all media and hype around the game other than the initial teaser trailer (in 2015? I think?) to avoid spoilers. Consequently, I do not know anything about this game's development nor any of the internet drama that has been alluded to on this page of the thread. Forgive my ignorance if I cover something that is old news or a touchy subject. Onmi posted:Unfortunately, this all falls apart, if instead of responding to Joel's death with "gently caress Abby, I want to kill her" you respond with "Alright, gently caress off, Naughty Dog." I was going to make a long(er) effortpost but this sentence effectively sums it all up for why I hated this game. "Alright, gently caress off, Naughty Dog" is a sentiment that I carried throughout. Just... everything - from the story, to the characters, to the themes - is so transparently manipulative and poorly executed. I can't believe this game came from the same developer as the first. When I think about how meticulously crafted the first game was in terms of uniting character, story, and theme so that I - as Joel - was willing to slaughter an entire hospital to save Ellie, and compare it to I - as Abby - immediately letting Ellie kill me in the vain hope of rebelling against what Naughty Dog was trying (and failing) to convey and ending the stupid story already, I just feel dismay. Special mention goes to the pacing of this game, which should be studied by all game developers from now until the end of time about how not to tell a story. Good lord, the loving balls on Naughty Dog to think that interrupting the climax of the story to go back and tell it from Abby's perspective - and thereby put it off for like ten hours - was a good idea. Once it was clear I was gonna have to play through all three days again - instead of seeing a series of vignettes or something similar - I think I actually exclaimed "Get the gently caress out of here". In other words: "Alright, gently caress off, Naughty Dog." While Abby is bad enough in how the game desperately foists her upon us to try to get us to empathize with her, it is remarkable how unlikable all of the new characters are. I did not give a single poo poo about any one of them. Compared to the likes of Tess, Bill, and Marlene, I cannot help but wonder what the gently caress happened. Speaking of wondering what the gently caress happened: the ending left me with such an awful taste in my mouth. Unlike the first game, where the character of Joel and I were so in sync that it's scary thanks to successful convergence of game and story, Ellie sparing Abby at the last possible moment was such a kick in the balls. Even after the game had done everything to try and make you feel bad for Abby, including literal torture at the hands of literal slavers, my first reaction was - again - "Alright, gently caress off, Naughty Dog." There are stories where the main character sparing the target of their revenge can be a satisfying conclusion that represents some kind of existential triumph. This is not even remotely close to being one of them. I still can't make sense of Ellie's last second change of heart. In my mind, it feels like if Ellie spared David. The best parts of the game (story-wise) were the slice-of-life vignettes that built upon the relationship between Ellie and Joel that was so fundamental to the first game. I wish the rest the game had followed suit. Also what the gently caress no multiplayer? In It For The Tank fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Jun 22, 2020 |
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Jun 22, 2020 11:44
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 06:03 |
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Assuming that we can't just axe the story and start again from scratch, a potentially more interesting way to tell the same story while maintaining the unusual non-linear, multi-protagonist story structure would be to start with Abby on Seattle Day 1. Things proceed like the game but explicit references to Joel's murder would be removed so Abby and her friends only vaguely reference recently tracking down some evil bastard and taking revenge. Intersperse the story with scenes with Abby and her dad showing how much they love each other, which gradually hint more and more that he was the Firefly surgeon until it is revealed just before you get to the theatre on Day 3. There, you confront Ellie and you're like "woah wtf". Then time rewinds to show Ellie's story and you see Abby and her friends, who you have presumably grown to like in the first half of the game, brutally torture and kill Joel. The game proceeds with Ellie's perspective and you end the game with her putting her switchblade through Abby's heart in the theatre and cut out the unnecessary coda with the Rattlers. Or not, who cares. By putting Abby murdering Joel first, they permanently turned much of the audience (if the general user reaction is to be believed) against her. Try as they might, walking back from that and earning the audience's empathy requires much better writing than what they gave us. So, since they were committed to the ill-advised dual-protagonist story structure, a better option probably would have been to just tell Abby's story first and make the audience root for her until they pull the rug out from under you and then switch to Ellie.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:56
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James Howell put it best in his unfinished analysis of the original game that the real message of The Last of Us is that you should always pay your freelancers.
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Jun 23, 2020 21:43
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Bruh, you can dive backwards?
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Jun 24, 2020 18:26
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bobjr posted:So are the WLF and Seraphites just gone now by wiping each other out? I do think Abby's turning on everyone was a little too rushed considering how high up and respected she seemed to be among the Wolves it felt too much like they were trying to get Abby to be seen as good. Although it is not fully articulated, the impression I got is that the Scars "win" (or, rather, the Wolves lose). The Wolves' invasion is repelled because the Scars prove to be extremely - and unexpectantly - well mobilized, Isaac is killed by Yara, and the last thing you hear regarding the conflict is a Wolf on the radio panicking because basically everything is going wrong until his voice turns to static. Haven is admittedly burned to the ground, so the Scars take losses as well, but if you look closely during the cutscene where Abby and Lev escape it seems that the Scars are overwhelming the Wolves. Plus, either Yara or Lev discuss how the Scars have contingencies to protect its children and probably their elders. Meanwhile, WLF has lost its central leadership and sacrificed a huge portion of its strength on this disastrous invasion. In the lead up to Day 3, you hear a lot of Wolves complain that they're taking a huge risk and that Isaac's plan is questionable. The implication seems to be that Isaac was putting everything on the line, so anything other than a total victory means WLF is done for. Presumably, WLF's noncombatants will survive and may endure inside their fortified bases but in all likelihood the Scars will take Seattle. I don't know how well this jives with the "eternal war" analogy that people are interpreting but the entire conflict ceases to matter once the story moves on from Seattle. Ellie obviously has no stake in it and Abby defects to go rejoin the Fireflies In It For The Tank fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jun 27, 2020 |
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Jun 27, 2020 15:00
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I assume its a combination of Scars, Tommy, and Ellie.
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Jun 27, 2020 21:02
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Tommy "Kazuhira" Miller: Why are we still here? Just to suffer?
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Jun 28, 2020 20:46
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I just went back and rewatched the scene where Abby and Lev find the discarded map and dang, Ellie really did circle her secret hideout where her pregnant girlfriend is hiding. Looks like all those blows to head have taken their toll. Or maybe the mutated growth in her head is pressing down on her brain.
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Jun 29, 2020 22:04
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Hey Lev, what do you think the circle in the middle is?
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Jun 29, 2020 22:10
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RareAcumen posted:Abby's been in the WLF for what, 4 years and that's somehow too obscene to come back from? I think an important distinction between Joel and Abby is their motivations for commiting violence. Joel and Abby both kill a lot of people. However, Joel is primarily motivated by self-interest and survival, whereas Abby is motivated by hatred and vengeance. Joel ruthlessly murders a ton of people but he takes no pleasure in it. He resorts to violence simply because it is the most expedient way to propser in TLOU's world. He's learned the hard way that violence is inevitable and necessary (whether he is correct is a different matter). The vibe I get is that Joel was a hunter for many years who preyed on innocent people untill Tess reined him in and taught him that the threat of violence is often sufficient to achieve his goals, hence why he is her enforcer at the start of the first game. Therefore, Joel is dispassionate and "rational" with his violence, in the sense that he won't gently caress with you unless you gently caress with him first (see: Robert). He murders and tortures for a reason, even if the reason is as shallow as "he had information I wanted to know and he wasn't talking fast enough" or, in his hunter days, "he had supplies I need". It's horrible but there's a twisted logic to it no doubt informed by twenty years of living in a post-apocalyptic world. Ignoring how one could argue that Joel was acting in self-defense or that the vaccine is a pipedream, killing the Fireflies in the hospital had a specific purpose: to save Ellie, who has become a fundamental and necessary part of his life. He tortures Ethan with the groinshots and slaughters the Fireflies because he needs to find Dr. Doolittle before he cuts Ellie open. There is a method to Joel's madness; he is not doing it simply because he likes it. Abby, on the other hand, wants to hurt people. I won't go so far as to say she enjoys it but I think it is evident that she kills to satisfy her lust for revenge (whooooo). That's the only reason I can think of why the Salt Lake crew would join up with WLF, a private army eternally warring with a dehumanized enemy over territory that the Salt Lake crew have no connection to (as Owen says). Essentially, she and her friends are soldiers of fortune who joined the first PMC that would offer them security and the opportunity to kill people. WLF clearly has non-military personnel among their ranks but Abby and all her friends chose to be soldiers. They're enthusiastic about it too: Abby is "Isaac's top Scar killer", and she admits she'd like to torture Scars on Day One after the ambush as payback for what she endured. So, unlike Joel, there's a sadism to her character: she tortures for the sake of torture, she murders for the sake of murder. So, Joel and Abby both murder a fuckton of people but it's like comparing a professional criminal who murders when it is expedient to a war criminal who indulges in violence and murders for sport (or pleasure, or to sate her need for vengeance, or however you wish to characterize it). Neither are good people and they're both despicable but there's something especially heinous about the latter. Side note: this is also why I don't buy into the idea that Abby redeemed herself. She saved Lev, yes, and learns that revenge ain't all it's cracked up to be and it won't allow her to properly process her dad's death. That's great! However, her first instinct is to return to the Fireflies, who are themselves a paramilitary group (read: terrorists) that "assasinate soldiers and blow up military checkpoints". So basically, she just traded one gun for another. And you can't even say she is joining out of any kind of high-minded ideal like she believes the purported mission statement of the Fireflies (to restore the world to how it used to be) because she voluntarily leaves Ellie behind - twice - after learning that she is the immune woman that is the alleged key to creating a vaccine that will allow the Fireflies to accomplish their goal. Granted, the second time Abby was not in any state to subdue Ellie but you'd think she'd say something when she got to Catalina Island that the literal miracle that they have been looking for for twenty years is right under their noses in Santa Barbara*. *Disclaimer: I'm not American, I don't know the geographic relationship between these places. However, I'd say the Fireflies still had a good shot at picking up Ellie while she was injured and alone in California. Then again, Abby knows where Ellie lives, so I suppose there's no rush; she can rat out Ellie whenever she feels like it. Still a wasted opportunity though. I bet the Fireflies are going to be pissed that they'll need to go all the way to Wyoming.
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Jul 1, 2020 07:15
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Seedge posted:If you wanna get all grognard about it, he's standing in the middle of the room surrounded by eight to ten soldiers with no weapon in his hands. The gently caress was he going to do? Not stand in the middle of the room where he would be surrounded by eight to ten soldiers with no weapons in his hands in the first place? Softening up or not, that's unbelievable behaviour now in the not-apocalypse. Ignoring the fact that they're all armed strangers and you should be wary about not having any of them not in your line of sight (not that it matters since Tommy would have been able to see Abby pick up the shotgun and turn to face her brother and still did nothing): say you're meeting a group of people for the first time and they're arranged in a circle. Do you stand in the middle of the circle with your back to half the group at any given time? No, because that's a really vulnerable and uncomfortable position to be in regardless of your current circumstances. There are dozens of ways to get to the same outcome (Joel crippled, Tommy unconcious) and they chose one of the most bizarrely contrived ones. In It For The Tank fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jul 3, 2020 |
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Jul 3, 2020 17:18
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Perfectly Safe posted:There is nowhere good that you can stand in a room with eight soldiers that want to kill you. The only place to stand and not die is outside the room. The point is to not to put yourself in a position where, if it turns out the group of armed strangers are soldiers that want to kill you, that you are surrounded and helpless. Joel didn't know that Abby's group meant him harm but demonstrated a startling lack of circumspection in not considering the possibility and standing in such a way that he was flanked on all sides, unarmed, and unable to see half the people in the room at any given moment. He might as well have worn a sleepmask and blindfolded himself since he was apparently so relaxed and comfortable. If he'd lingered by the door with his back against the wall, he could still get overwhelmed and subdued without looking like as much of an uncharacteristic dumbass. Instead, it was like "Joel needs to be incapacitated, let's just move this poo poo along".
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Jul 3, 2020 19:12
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Necrothatcher posted:Thanks for the lesson in tactical awareness in post apocalyptic survival situations 👍 You're welcome. The best part is you can take my advice and apply it to real world here and now because "Be mindful of your surroundings" is actually one of the the most rudimentary self-defense concepts you can learn. Literally even children are taught it. Stay safe out there xo
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Jul 3, 2020 20:02
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"You'd just come after her."
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Jul 5, 2020 23:02
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Baby JJ, I guess. More of a prop than a character though.
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Jul 9, 2020 08:59
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The Neal! posted:I wonder if this argument would have been completely avoided if they had scripted it [slightly differently] Yes, that's the point of contention: it would be possible to script and direct the scene in such a way that the same outcome happens (Joel gets kneecapped, Tommy is knocked out) while avoiding any contrivances that feel like the writers were trying to get the scene over with and just had Joel (and Tommy) behave in a bizarrely incongruent way to speed things along. No one is saying (in this topic at least, I'm sure there are people on the internet that are mad Joel didn't just go Super Saiyan) that Joel is some invincible survivor who never ever lets down his guard and would never ever be killed. But there's a logical middle ground between saying "Joel would have stood in the corner waving his gun and screaming at people to get back" and "Joel would trust these strangers and stand in the middle of a room so that he is surrounded on all sides, unarmed, and has his back to half of them at any given moment". There's becoming complacent after four years of peace and then there's the total abandonment of any self-preservation instincts and rational circumspection. Joel doesn't need to be a paranoid freak with a hair-trigger temper. But if he had: - Kept his pistol tucked into back pocket rather than completely disarming. - Stood by the doorway to the garage so that he could see everyone rather than wander into the middle of the room. - Been pleasant without being overly trusting. The scene could play out largely same way without his characterization feeling off. You only need minimal changes to produce the same result: the room goes quiet when Tommy says his name (since he was the one the Salt Lake Crew were expecting to find). Joel recognizes the very obvious tension, tries to reach for his gun, but Abby kneecaps him first because she was ready (having previously found out their names) and Joel is slow on the draw after four years of peace. Same outcome, same shock value, same implication that Joel has lost his edge, but without the "hyuck, was it something I said?" level of ignorance.
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Jul 10, 2020 06:10
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 06:03 |
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Perfectly Safe posted:Anyone can be blindsided - if, say, Henry from TLOU had secretly had a murderous beef with Joel, then he would have been able to kill Joel. Hell, Joel's blindsided by Ellie the first time he meets her - if the whole thing had been a trap and you replace Ellie with "two dudes with shotguns" then it's goodbye Joel. Anyone can, through circumstances out of their control, find themselves in a position in which they're outnumbered and outgunned. I agree with all of this and expressed the same sentiment in my post that Joel is not unkillable. But I stress that my problem isn't the outcome of the scene, it's the (pun-intended) execution. Side note based on your paragraph: the ineffective ambushes you see throughout both games is something that always makes me laugh. With the exception of Jesse in the theatre, no one ever walks into a bullet. The ambushers always go for the choke or a non-lethal melee attack. The nadir of this has to be Ellie in the theatre. She has bombs, a one-hit-kill machete, a shotgun, and she's bloodlusted, and yet she chooses to blindside Abby as she steps through the door with a 2-by-4. quote:- We have no reason to think that he completely disarmed. He's presumably got his sidearm somewhere. Eh... it's a visual medium. If something isn't established on camera, referred to in the scene, or otherwise referenced or implied in any way, it functionally doesn't exist*. I could say Joel presumably has a bunch of shivs taped to his body too or that he's carting around hundreds of supplements too as well. If they'd wanted to show Joel was armed, they would have. An example: the Salt Lake Crew could pat him down after his knee is blown out and remove a revolver that he had in his waistband. Alternatively, much like he did after being impaled at the University, Joel could have feebly attempted to draw his gun but had it kicked away. However, since we do not see a gun, he doesn't reach for one, no one mentions one, and it plays no role in the scene, it seems reasonable to conclude he does not have one. * disclaimer to anyone reading: I know some of you really want to pick this apart and say "I guess Joel doesn't have underwear cause we don't see it" or something equally asinine. Don't be stupid. quote:- The whole group wanders into the room and then stops. He does not know that they're stopping in that room until people stop walking. The only way he could have stood by that doorway would have been if he'd conspicuously walked back across the room, turning his back on most of the room's occupants as he did so. I note that Tommy, with the same information as Joel, stayed close to the door and had his back to a wall in a way that did not raise anyone's suspicions or interfere with the scene. There is nothing stopping Joel from doing the same thing, either by standing next to Tommy or in another appropriate spot. quote:- This is wishy washy. He was pleasant without being overly trusting. Sorry, this point of mine could have been clearer. I should have said "Still been pleasant without being overly trusting". I wasn't suggesting a change to the scene (which is why I did not say "rather than" like I did in my other two ideas). This was a qualifier in rebuttal to how people seemed to think that saying Joel taking reasonable precautions (outlined in the first two points) must also mean he becomes a paranoid and unfriendly weirdo who is a moment away from gunning down everyone in the room. If you watched the scene and it did not bother you, then that's fine. But to me the scene felt contrived and fits into a larger pattern in the game where the writing was unsatisfactory.
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Jul 10, 2020 18:24
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