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  1. #1
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    Default Last of Us II (SPOILERS)

    I am making this thread to discuss The Last of us Part 2 with spoilers.

    Just share your opinions on this game and anything related to it.

    I liked the game and especially the story quite a lot, I understand some of the complaints, and making us play as Abby for so long was a big mistake.
    As a whole though, the story of Joel and Ellie was great and all the flashbacks were absolute gold, the last scene between them adds a layer of depth and tragic to the story, considering Joel died just when Ellie was starting to forgive him, such a well executed scene.

  2. #2
    Mighty Member TriggerWarning's Avatar
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    Absolutely amazing game. 10/10. Best game of this generation and maybe ever.

    I disagree with playing as Abby being a mistake as she was great and by the end of Abby's main part of the game I sympathized more with her than Ellie. I thought it was genius that they basically did with Abby the same thing Game of Thrones did with Jaime Lannister. Set them up early to be utterly hated and reviled and then subvert that by making you like them a lot by the end. I've never been more emotionally involved with a storyline or cared about the characters and story more than I have this game. For comparison I'll use Assassins Creed Odyssey. That game was fun as hell to play from a game play / stealth perspective but story wise I couldn't have cared less about Kassandra and her family. Whereas with this game every character was so well done that I was deeply affected by each of them and their deaths.

    My initial reactions were to say that the first Last of Us game was better with this being a close second. I've gone back now to play the first, having not played it in 5 years according to my save file, and I was wrong. This is better. The first has that gut wrenching opening and a great ending but the story lags a lot in between relative to part II. And II is obviously much better refined in terms of fighting / stealth. Still better than most other games out there, it just pales compared to II.

    I honestly feel that this game may have ruined gaming for me. I was playing The Outer Worlds when II dropped and paused because of this game. Outer Worlds was a good game but now just feels so hollow and going back to it is like going from eating your favorite food to eating two day old top ramen that was out the whole time.

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    3/10, as i have said in an another topic i didn't like much about it.

    The visual is impressive though, some of the best the PS4 can give.

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    Damn, two very different opinions so far.

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    Reposting.

    I have mixed views about TLoU-2. I like what it's trying to do, and I appreciate the attempt, but they didn't execute it well, and my hope is that this game inspires other developers to take their ideas and do it better.

    The central thing that upsets so many people isn't unprecedented in games i.e. creating sympathy for a character introduced to you as a villain and then later making the character playable while also potentially having the aggrieved party forgive him. This happened in DISHONORED where Corvo Attano the player protagonist sees Daud the Assassin assassinate his lover Jessamine and kidnap their daughter in the opening, right in front of his eyes and as per canon, spared Daud's life when he supplicates to him, despite having every reason and chance to kill him. You later play as Daud from his point of view. Now Dishonored is an immersive sim and not a linear action game, and obviously presentation and context is different but in theory the concept could have been done and could have won people over.

    The Last of Us Part II is a mess because it made choices that countered that. Here are some fixes...
    -- The big mistake for me is that Ellie in the flashbacks found out about what Joel did at the end of TLoU-1. To me it would have made more sense if we learned that during Ellie's quest for revenge and not in this drip-fed flashbacks after Joel died. Like for instance, Ellie potentially pardoning/sparing Abby would have made more sense if she did it out of guilt/angst/remorse about Joel choosing her over developing a cure for the outbreak. This is why dramatic consistency depends so much on timing.
    -- Abby's Dad is a total jerk. He openly admits he wouldn't have done the operation if it was Abby instead of Ellie. Abby then hears this, commisserates with Dad and therefore becomes complicit in the Fireflies' "cut open a 14 year old for a distant chance at a vaccine" stunt. So to me these two characters are total hypocrites. They understood why Joel did what he did. So to me their entire revenge was unjustified and without any moral righteousness. They understood and knew they were doing something morally wrong and when they suffered consequences they never reflected once on what they did, or take responsibility. I mean at the end of TLOU-1, Joel saving Ellie and then lying to her was definitely supposed to be ambiguous and dark, and murky in a human way. This game seems to out-and-out say that "Joel should have let Ellie die". That's going way too far in the other direction. Especially if you are going to take the perspective of the people who wanted to kill her without telling her.
    -- It would have worked in my view if Abby's Dad insisted that they conduct more tests and take the slow road while Marlene prioritizes getting the vaccine out quickly for the sake of the Firefly cause which is losing and about to be crushed (and for whom the vaccine means total victory). Abby's Dad had to be the one to say, "We don't need to kill her. We can wait. We can take this slowly" but then Marlene puts a gun on Abby's head and says "Your daughter or Ellie, make your choice". IF they had done that, or if the doctor says he will do his best to save both Ellie and Abby, then Joel killing the doctor would have that sense of miscommunication and tragic futility that the story wants to convey, where in a sense both Joel and Abby's Dad are right and Ellie and Abby are right. Instead the game humanizes Marlene and makes the doctor into a jerk. Abby's motivation to killing Joel would make sense if her father was the moderate voice of reason in an impossible situation and that he and the Fireflies died anyway. The choice they made was an inexplicable story choice. It nullifies the entire revenge theme.

    I think if they found ways to address these issues then maybe the story they were trying to tell would have made sense. Abby and her Dad absolutely had to be innocent in some sense for their actions to even be concievably forgivable. If they are complicit child murderers without any remorse or second doubts then the story falls apart. Likewise, Ellie forgiving Abby needs the heaviness and guilt of her knowing and experiencing Joel's actions and confronting it, not a revenge story which happens a year after she lived through it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post


    -- The big mistake for me is that Ellie in the flashbacks found out about what Joel did at the end of TLoU-1. To me it would have made more sense if we learned that during Ellie's quest for revenge and not in this drip-fed flashbacks after Joel died. Like for instance, Ellie potentially pardoning/sparing Abby would have made more sense if she did it out of guilt/angst/remorse about Joel choosing her over developing a cure for the outbreak. This is why dramatic consistency depends so much on timing.
    That would completely destroy the story the game was trying to tell and take away one of its strongest aspects, which is just how tragic and bad timing Joel's death was in both their lives. Ellie finding out Joel lied to her resulted in their relationship being over, they had spent two years without talking to each other and just when Ellie was starting to forgive him and build that relationship back up, Abby took that possibility away from her, this revenge story is all the more powerful because of it. It would not have been the same to have Ellie and Joel have a nice relationship throughout these four years and then killing Joel, it would not be as tragic, nor as hard hitting, nor as powerful. Not only did Abby take Joel from her, she took him at the worst possible moment, she took away every possibility there was of rebuilding their bonds at just the exact time when they were about to do so.

    Not to mention that it directly relates to two really well executed scenes, like the dance scene where Ellie tells him "I don't need your f*cking help Joel", it is so hard hitting because we as viewers are pretty much convinced at that point that those were the last words Ellie ever told him and it makes us hurt all the more, then by the very end we get hit with another powerful scene to end on a somewhat brighter note while also making the entire story all the more tragic and poignant, which is where they had their last talk, when Ellie tells Joel she will try to forgive him.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post

    -- Abby's Dad is a total jerk. He openly admits he wouldn't have done the operation if it was Abby instead of Ellie. Abby then hears this, commisserates with Dad and therefore becomes complicit in the Fireflies' "cut open a 14 year old for a distant chance at a vaccine" stunt. So to me these two characters are total hypocrites. They understood why Joel did what he did. So to me their entire revenge was unjustified and without any moral righteousness. They understood and knew they were doing something morally wrong and when they suffered consequences they never reflected once on what they did, or take responsibility. I mean at the end of TLOU-1, Joel saving Ellie and then lying to her was definitely supposed to be ambiguous and dark, and murky in a human way. This game seems to out-and-out say that "Joel should have let Ellie die". That's going way too far in the other direction. Especially if you are going to take the perspective of the people who wanted to kill her without telling her.
    -- It would have worked in my view if Abby's Dad insisted that they conduct more tests and take the slow road while Marlene prioritizes getting the vaccine out quickly for the sake of the Firefly cause which is losing and about to be crushed (and for whom the vaccine means total victory). Abby's Dad had to be the one to say, "We don't need to kill her. We can wait. We can take this slowly" but then Marlene puts a gun on Abby's head and says "Your daughter or Ellie, make your choice". IF they had done that, or if the doctor says he will do his best to save both Ellie and Abby, then Joel killing the doctor would have that sense of miscommunication and tragic futility that the story wants to convey, where in a sense both Joel and Abby's Dad are right and Ellie and Abby are right. Instead the game humanizes Marlene and makes the doctor into a jerk. Abby's motivation to killing Joel would make sense if her father was the moderate voice of reason in an impossible situation and that he and the Fireflies died anyway. The choice they made was an inexplicable story choice. It nullifies the entire revenge theme.

    I think if they found ways to address these issues then maybe the story they were trying to tell would have made sense. Abby and her Dad absolutely had to be innocent in some sense for their actions to even be concievably forgivable. If they are complicit child murderers without any remorse or second doubts then the story falls apart. Likewise, Ellie forgiving Abby needs the heaviness and guilt of her knowing and experiencing Joel's actions and confronting it, not a revenge story which happens a year after she lived through it.
    I guess that is the way you saw it but I have to disagree big time, Abby's dad was not a jerk and he liked to help everyone and in any way he could, there was the specific scene of the zebra to show us just what kind of person his dad was, one who helps those in need, even animals. As for having to kill Ellie to make the vaccine, it is the only obvious choice, realistically speaking, one life isn't worth more than the vaccine for a global pandemic that has ended the world as we know it, the doctor is making the rational decision. Obviously he says that if it was his daughter, he would not go through with it, this is to mirror Joel's decision and show us that everyone in his place would have done the same, to save their daughter instead of humankind. Then we have the parallels in Abby and Ellie where we are shown they both would be willing to give their lives for this vaccine, their relationships mirrors each other and it is putting light on the subject of that decision that drives this entire game.

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