I'm sure Lev mentioned that the ritual executions came after the Prohpet's death. Not sure about the face scarring, although I think the WLF refers to them as Scars even in the earliest mentions.
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I'm sure Lev mentioned that the ritual executions came after the Prohpet's death. Not sure about the face scarring, although I think the WLF refers to them as Scars even in the earliest mentions.
Oh with everything going on with the Seraphites and how they gut people, I thought we were gonna end up with her and Mel hung up and the baby cut out of them. Thankfully they never went there.
Anyone else notice that the Seraphite symbol is a sideways Jesus fish with a slash across it?
That would've turned the game into edgelord torture porn, luckily they had some form of restraint with that. Dude in the first Seraphite area getting gutted was nuts though.
There just doesn't seem to be enough room for subtlety for the gaming audience. They key of most visual mediums is show, don't tell.
This is the reason why we get Kojima games of long scenes of exposition where characters literally explain everything by word.
It happened so quickly: was it Yara who shot Issac to death, thereby allowing Abby and Lev to escape?
I guess I assumed Yara was already a goner by the time Issac arrived.
I guess I assumed Yara was already a goner by the time Issac arrived.
Did you know that, in one of these human and infected scenarios, if you grab a human enemy and a clicker comes your way, the clicker will actually grab your human shield and kill them, giving you time to run away? lol I saw a gif of somebody doing it on twitter
Edit: Beaten!
This is both awesome, hilarious, and infuriating because I didn't know you could do that
lol yeah it just got posted. That's great and I wish I'd known
Teenage girl begging for her not to kill the older male that she beat to an inch of his life before the final blow..... Anyone could infer that was his daughter. Yet she still showed no remorse or even thought about it, she made her have to see him get his head cracked open and have to live with that memory (which severely fucked her up). Not only is she just naturally cruel, she is like an animal that doesn't stop till her prey is dead. Ellie when she was battered and bloodied would have had to watch Dina die before being killed herself if Lev didn't intervene. She doesn't function any other way.
At least Ellie was going to give Mel and Owen a chance (but they went on the offense) and she plainly would have let Mel go if she saw she would have known she was pregnant. She didn't need a moral compass child character tagging along to have that level of humanity. Abby is a product of her trauma like many other characters, but some become bigger monsters than others and she fully embraced being the worst she could be outside of moments with the two Scar children (which she could barely explain herself).
I've got my problems with the story and pacing, but this "Joel isn't in the game!" argument is nonsense. He's all over the game. In the beginning and during the flashbacks, sure, but also during the rest of the game. Just because he isn't there physically, doesn't mean that he isn't in much of the game. The absence of Joel is quite possible the biggest character in the game.
It's the same thing that happened with Life is Strange: Before the Storm. Max isn't in that game physically, but the absence of her is just as much of a main character as Chloe and Rachel. Max being absent from Chloe's life during that period dictates how she acts. Same thing is happening here with Ellie. She is constantly thinking about Joel, and so is the player. He isn't absent from the game at all, he's actually in it for an exhausting amount of time.
It's the same thing that happened with Life is Strange: Before the Storm. Max isn't in that game physically, but the absence of her is just as much of a main character as Chloe and Rachel. Max being absent from Chloe's life during that period dictates how she acts. Same thing is happening here with Ellie. She is constantly thinking about Joel, and so is the player. He isn't absent from the game at all, he's actually in it for an exhausting amount of time.
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This is something I've been thinking for a while as well, I don't want to be harsh here but it seems true. I think people ignored how to analyze literature works in English classes and as such they aren't aware of how to think critically about nuanced plot points. They don't understand narrative or how certain things work. That combined with MCU and people get watered down material. Hell, I remmber some people being confused about certain things in endgame that was simple for me.
I also rewatched BB recently, hated Walt by the end as everyone should. What a great character devolution
ya there's a lot of ppl that are upset that Joel and Ellie don't have plot armor, I guess they wanted a plot that revolves around the two of them again where neither of them pay the price for the most selfish act ever committed by a person
Yeah, Yara shoots him in the back and the wolves all riddle her with bullets
Ellie is 100% in the wrong in this game btw.
You could make a case for Joel with his decision at the end of the first game with him choosing to save Ellie. Simply because the fireflies were shown time and time again to be incompetent buffoons and the chances of them getting a cure with sacrificing Ellie is...shall we say highly questionable. Not to mention them doing it without telling Ellie beforehand is the definition of EVIL. So it was hard for me not to sympathise with Joel's decision at the end of the first game and it made sense. Now Joel is certainly not a "good" person based on everything else he did both in the first game and in the 20 year time gap. If Tess and Tommie are to be believed and everything we as players saw, Joel is a shit human being as much as anyone else in that world. So he ultimately had it coming. That said, him saving Ellie was the right choice given what we know.
Unlike with Joel however there is pretty much NOTHING you could say that makes Ellie's quest for revenge seem justified. She kills so many people and could not let go of Abby even after one of her friends was shot in the head and her pregnant girlfriend got her face smashed in and Tommy was wounded. How much more evidence did Ellie need to know that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH? She managed to kill plenty of Abby's friends, that you could even make the case makes them more than even. But no, Ellie even after Abby spares her for the second time and Ellie having a chance to live a normal life, she still goes stubbornly after her and loses two of her fingers and Dina in the process!
Ellie is a VILLIAN in this game. She does nothing even remotely good by the end. So i don't agree with the notion that the game should have had Ellie kill Abby. It would have completely made the character irredeemable.
You could make a case for Joel with his decision at the end of the first game with him choosing to save Ellie. Simply because the fireflies were shown time and time again to be incompetent buffoons and the chances of them getting a cure with sacrificing Ellie is...shall we say highly questionable. Not to mention them doing it without telling Ellie beforehand is the definition of EVIL. So it was hard for me not to sympathise with Joel's decision at the end of the first game and it made sense. Now Joel is certainly not a "good" person based on everything else he did both in the first game and in the 20 year time gap. If Tess and Tommie are to be believed and everything we as players saw, Joel is a shit human being as much as anyone else in that world. So he ultimately had it coming. That said, him saving Ellie was the right choice given what we know.
Unlike with Joel however there is pretty much NOTHING you could say that makes Ellie's quest for revenge seem justified. She kills so many people and could not let go of Abby even after one of her friends was shot in the head and her pregnant girlfriend got her face smashed in and Tommy was wounded. How much more evidence did Ellie need to know that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH? She managed to kill plenty of Abby's friends, that you could even make the case makes them more than even. But no, Ellie even after Abby spares her for the second time and Ellie having a chance to live a normal life, she still goes stubbornly after her and loses two of her fingers and Dina in the process!
Ellie is a VILLIAN in this game. She does nothing even remotely good by the end. So i don't agree with the notion that the game should have had Ellie kill Abby. It would have completely made the character irredeemable.
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Human bite can fuck up a finger to where it'd need to be amputated. Clean off is possible, but not likely. It's more limited by your jaw than teeth.
I was talking about when Ellie goes after her the second time. She fully deserves it at the beginning of the game, but after she lets Ellie and Dina live for the second time, she had paid off her debt and Ellie should've just let it go just like how Abby lets go of Ellie killing Owen.
thanks for the reply. I hadn't considered that Ellie's forgiveness of Joel would have been impeded from killing Abby
Here's the thing: they pretty much all have it coming. Joel knew he couldn't completely get away with murdering everyone in that hospital, but after the Fireflies dissolved he let his guard down. Abby was stupid to think that she could get away with bashing Joel's face in in front of Ellie and get off free. Ellie didn't plan on letting any of them escape alive but she was stupid to keep going with it after Abby beat her ass into the ground.
That's just how revenge is. You don't win. The only way to win is not to play. Abby figures this out early between Owen, the WLF vs. the Seraphites, and Lev, and lets Ellie go realizing that this shit is over. All her friends are dead. Had Ellie just let it go, Abby would've died on that beach and Ellie would've lived happily with Dina. But she couldn't let it go. It stopped being retribution for Joel. It became her solution to make the nightmares stop. She allowed it to consume her and became a monster. Abby's not absolved of anything but she did try to stop the cycle (again another parallel to God of War, lol)
This type of revenge plot is pretty common (which is actually a problem I have with this game and why i referred to it as pretty standard), but the best example I can figure is probably True Grit
Completed it last night. I let it sink in and...
I'm a gameplay first guy and I have to say, purely based on controls and how the game is crafted, this is by far Naughty Dog's best work. Thanks to the Corona thing I played two thirds of the Uncharted Remastered Collection and I played the original Uncharted. Well... during TLoU II I sometimes thought about that game thinking "man, Naughty Dog really grew over the last thirteen years." In their other games, something would go wrong with niggles in certain setpieces and you'd die cheap deaths. In this game hoewever... there is nothing cheap to see. If you die, its your own fault. At a certain point I'm underground and I see a Shambler and try to shoot that guy right of the batt; problem is, there are runners and another Shambler there which results in me getting ripped apart. If you rush an enemy blindly and shot in the face, thats your own fault.
But both situations are dumb, because there are plenty of ways to approach your enemy en kicking their butts. Ellie and Abby are great to play as. Even Abby, with her more bulky build is quite nimble but can beat the everloving crap out of opposing enemies. I saw others mentioning it, but the options in TLoU PII for movement and combat are somewhat comparable to MGS V. Crawling through the grass, sneaking up on baddies, sneaking past them or outwitting their furry friends. it really feels smooth. Especially gunplay, while not an obvious focus feels more natural compared to earlier ND titles. Btw, maybe its just me, but I had way more fun sneaking around and going for the stealthkill rather than just go guns ablazing. The latter is fun, but with limited ammo I'd rather take my time and clear the area first through stealth.
And if stealth wasn't an option... there is always distractions. There were only a few moments, but I absolutely loved the parts where you could distract WLF's by throwing a bottle and luring out the infected. Seeing them panicking at the sight of Clickers and Runners never gets old. Its also pretty nifty that you can clean up the scraps afterwards. Speaking of fighting, I feel the encounters in this game are far more balanced and fun. I remember playing the original, where encounters weren't bad or anything, but a few kind of dragged. In II that doesn't seem to be the case; encounters feel just right in pacing, with the only obvious outlier being Hillside, which made sense as that area was at high alert. That was the only area in the game that went on a bit too long. Overall though I think that thanks to the more movement options and the addition of certain enemy types like dogs, Shamblers and Stalkers the game became more diverse. The only enemy type that wasn't too great was the Brute, but they appear not a lot which does not bog down the experience too much.
Which also helped the game in regards to encounters and dicovering are the amazing enviroments. Seattle, despite its desolate state and still harboring infected is absolutely breath taking. The variety in area's is great too. The opening area is a bit open world, but it quickly trades it in for a more linear path and despite being linear, I feel the game really shows some diversity in its area's. From downtown area's, to houses and even abandoned aquariums, its been a joy. The real star in this case are the parts with Abby, in which she leaves the stadium (very cool to see that they turned a stadium into living space, like the idea and excecution a lot!) , the fanastic bridge event with her and Lev, the descent in the hotel and Ground Zero. Fascinating area's to explore. I can go on and on, but in terms of design, gameplay and overall atmosphere TLoU PII has it all. Outstanding. Its in my top 5 for the last couple of years in regards to games which are a joy to play. (For reference, other games I find amazing to play are Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Oddyssey, Smash Ultimate and Resident Evil 2)
Now for the story... hoo boy. That was a lot. It's a good old fashioned revenge story. I avoided spoilers so I came in fresh, but if there was one thing I was certain of was that Joel was going to bite it. It's a shame really, because at his core I really like Joel. I know that after the release of the original many are, (still actually) debating if Joel was a selfish, murdering psychopath. Honestly I always felt that the world post outbreak made Joel the man he was and acted like any other animal; survive at any cost.
Seeing him die though did tug on the heartstrings. Hating Abby was the first feeling I had, but I kind of had a feeling we'd discover down the road the reason why Abby wanted him dead. But the amount of hatred from Ellie... damn. Hell, Tommy joined in as well. Just some observations about the story;
- I think in the end, as in the actual end, this was a perfect ending considering the bleak world Ellie and all the others are living in. I think some would have liked for an happy ending, but I like the fact that they decided on Dina leaving the farm. I think in the end she knew that Ellie is so damn broken, that living with her would only cause more heartache. I think Ellie, on a psychological level, is so torn on being alive and escaping Salt Lake, that she never will be happy. Although she did make a good choice with letting Abby go and deciding that forgiveness is a thing.
- A first switching to Abby at the end of Day 3 felt a bit on the nose. I believe it was cheap, but an understandable choice to show what kind of person Abby is and in what environment she lives. But as the story unfolds, they really knocked it out of the park by presenting her character. She's not that different compared to Ellie and even Joel. Deep down she's not a bad person, but living in a world with the virus made her this person. But it's the little things I'm really enjoying actually. Like her design; she's not the typical female character we would normally control in videogames. (Like a sex symbol) Her physique is comparable to that of swimmer with those arms. Another thing is her fear of hights. Its a small thing, but I like it that high places have a an effect on her.
- I think I like Abby's relationship with Owen the best. It's feels really genuine and there is an obvious attraction between both of them. Every scene between them had some form of tension between them.
- The only downside to that relation is Mel; while I think her character design is pretty great (she's so plain, you don't see that a lot in video games), but she doesn't really offer much in the overall story. Yeah she gets pregnant with Owen's kid and eventually killed off by Ellie who is distraught by this action, I feel that she's... there? I believe that if you cut her out from the story, nothing really significant is missed.
- They could have done more with Lev as well; I know, he served his purpose by explaining the Seraphites, who they are, what they were, why they are so agressive now, but it would be cool to know more about him. I mean, born a woman, identifying yourself as a man/warrior, those conversations must have been harsh. Especially with his mother.
- But maybe that's part of the story; the story is about Ellie and Abby, and everything else in the background is just noise. Crazy cult is crazy, WLF's are harsh, that's all there is to it. Although I have to say, that whistle the Seraphites use is terrifying.
- I know some people would complain about "walking sections" in these games, but Ellie and Joel at the museum is one of my favourite moments in the game. Maybe my favourite. It's one of the few moments where Ellie is truly happy, with Joel beaming as well. That moment in the pod with Joel giving her a tape with mission control dialogue is amazing. It's akin to the Giraffe moment in the original actually, even happier. I really felt the connection between the two.
- Btw, as much as I hate Tommy for riling up Ellie to go to Santa Barbara, I really like him at the beginning when talking to Joel about how he and Ellie left Salt Lake City. The "I think I wouldn't have done it differently" is a cool brother moment between him and Joel. Still, it seems that he likes Ellie too. He lost his eye and his leg doesn't work the way it should. Why did he push her so much to go after Abby?
- I like Dina, at first I didn't feel the connection between her and Ellie. That did change on the farm. I really like how they were happy together. But alas... Ellie had to fuck it up. Her pleas for her to stay were heartfelt though, that scene was good.
- About the end... that last battle between Ellie and Abby was perfect. No words. No one-liners. Just two women, desperate to reach their goals and fighting an awful fight. It was brutal, raw and straight up hard to watch/play. The struggle could be seen in every motion, attack or scream. Also, holy crap at Abby; she was destroyed during her captivity. It was hard to see here so broken, skinny and fragile.
By all means, the story isn't perefct. The performance of the actors/actrices is great, full props for that. The dialogue could use some work. Some characters could have used more, for some it have would have been better to be cut out from the story. The pacing is not perfect in both the story and the gameplay. But these are minor niggles and overall I think I have played my GoTY. Naughty Dog continues to impress. Whatever Dr. Uckman will do in the future (wink wink), I'll be there to play it.
... can it be Savage Starlight? :D
I'm a gameplay first guy and I have to say, purely based on controls and how the game is crafted, this is by far Naughty Dog's best work. Thanks to the Corona thing I played two thirds of the Uncharted Remastered Collection and I played the original Uncharted. Well... during TLoU II I sometimes thought about that game thinking "man, Naughty Dog really grew over the last thirteen years." In their other games, something would go wrong with niggles in certain setpieces and you'd die cheap deaths. In this game hoewever... there is nothing cheap to see. If you die, its your own fault. At a certain point I'm underground and I see a Shambler and try to shoot that guy right of the batt; problem is, there are runners and another Shambler there which results in me getting ripped apart. If you rush an enemy blindly and shot in the face, thats your own fault.
But both situations are dumb, because there are plenty of ways to approach your enemy en kicking their butts. Ellie and Abby are great to play as. Even Abby, with her more bulky build is quite nimble but can beat the everloving crap out of opposing enemies. I saw others mentioning it, but the options in TLoU PII for movement and combat are somewhat comparable to MGS V. Crawling through the grass, sneaking up on baddies, sneaking past them or outwitting their furry friends. it really feels smooth. Especially gunplay, while not an obvious focus feels more natural compared to earlier ND titles. Btw, maybe its just me, but I had way more fun sneaking around and going for the stealthkill rather than just go guns ablazing. The latter is fun, but with limited ammo I'd rather take my time and clear the area first through stealth.
And if stealth wasn't an option... there is always distractions. There were only a few moments, but I absolutely loved the parts where you could distract WLF's by throwing a bottle and luring out the infected. Seeing them panicking at the sight of Clickers and Runners never gets old. Its also pretty nifty that you can clean up the scraps afterwards. Speaking of fighting, I feel the encounters in this game are far more balanced and fun. I remember playing the original, where encounters weren't bad or anything, but a few kind of dragged. In II that doesn't seem to be the case; encounters feel just right in pacing, with the only obvious outlier being Hillside, which made sense as that area was at high alert. That was the only area in the game that went on a bit too long. Overall though I think that thanks to the more movement options and the addition of certain enemy types like dogs, Shamblers and Stalkers the game became more diverse. The only enemy type that wasn't too great was the Brute, but they appear not a lot which does not bog down the experience too much.
Which also helped the game in regards to encounters and dicovering are the amazing enviroments. Seattle, despite its desolate state and still harboring infected is absolutely breath taking. The variety in area's is great too. The opening area is a bit open world, but it quickly trades it in for a more linear path and despite being linear, I feel the game really shows some diversity in its area's. From downtown area's, to houses and even abandoned aquariums, its been a joy. The real star in this case are the parts with Abby, in which she leaves the stadium (very cool to see that they turned a stadium into living space, like the idea and excecution a lot!) , the fanastic bridge event with her and Lev, the descent in the hotel and Ground Zero. Fascinating area's to explore. I can go on and on, but in terms of design, gameplay and overall atmosphere TLoU PII has it all. Outstanding. Its in my top 5 for the last couple of years in regards to games which are a joy to play. (For reference, other games I find amazing to play are Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Oddyssey, Smash Ultimate and Resident Evil 2)
Now for the story... hoo boy. That was a lot. It's a good old fashioned revenge story. I avoided spoilers so I came in fresh, but if there was one thing I was certain of was that Joel was going to bite it. It's a shame really, because at his core I really like Joel. I know that after the release of the original many are, (still actually) debating if Joel was a selfish, murdering psychopath. Honestly I always felt that the world post outbreak made Joel the man he was and acted like any other animal; survive at any cost.
Seeing him die though did tug on the heartstrings. Hating Abby was the first feeling I had, but I kind of had a feeling we'd discover down the road the reason why Abby wanted him dead. But the amount of hatred from Ellie... damn. Hell, Tommy joined in as well. Just some observations about the story;
- I think in the end, as in the actual end, this was a perfect ending considering the bleak world Ellie and all the others are living in. I think some would have liked for an happy ending, but I like the fact that they decided on Dina leaving the farm. I think in the end she knew that Ellie is so damn broken, that living with her would only cause more heartache. I think Ellie, on a psychological level, is so torn on being alive and escaping Salt Lake, that she never will be happy. Although she did make a good choice with letting Abby go and deciding that forgiveness is a thing.
- A first switching to Abby at the end of Day 3 felt a bit on the nose. I believe it was cheap, but an understandable choice to show what kind of person Abby is and in what environment she lives. But as the story unfolds, they really knocked it out of the park by presenting her character. She's not that different compared to Ellie and even Joel. Deep down she's not a bad person, but living in a world with the virus made her this person. But it's the little things I'm really enjoying actually. Like her design; she's not the typical female character we would normally control in videogames. (Like a sex symbol) Her physique is comparable to that of swimmer with those arms. Another thing is her fear of hights. Its a small thing, but I like it that high places have a an effect on her.
- I think I like Abby's relationship with Owen the best. It's feels really genuine and there is an obvious attraction between both of them. Every scene between them had some form of tension between them.
- The only downside to that relation is Mel; while I think her character design is pretty great (she's so plain, you don't see that a lot in video games), but she doesn't really offer much in the overall story. Yeah she gets pregnant with Owen's kid and eventually killed off by Ellie who is distraught by this action, I feel that she's... there? I believe that if you cut her out from the story, nothing really significant is missed.
- They could have done more with Lev as well; I know, he served his purpose by explaining the Seraphites, who they are, what they were, why they are so agressive now, but it would be cool to know more about him. I mean, born a woman, identifying yourself as a man/warrior, those conversations must have been harsh. Especially with his mother.
- But maybe that's part of the story; the story is about Ellie and Abby, and everything else in the background is just noise. Crazy cult is crazy, WLF's are harsh, that's all there is to it. Although I have to say, that whistle the Seraphites use is terrifying.
- I know some people would complain about "walking sections" in these games, but Ellie and Joel at the museum is one of my favourite moments in the game. Maybe my favourite. It's one of the few moments where Ellie is truly happy, with Joel beaming as well. That moment in the pod with Joel giving her a tape with mission control dialogue is amazing. It's akin to the Giraffe moment in the original actually, even happier. I really felt the connection between the two.
- Btw, as much as I hate Tommy for riling up Ellie to go to Santa Barbara, I really like him at the beginning when talking to Joel about how he and Ellie left Salt Lake City. The "I think I wouldn't have done it differently" is a cool brother moment between him and Joel. Still, it seems that he likes Ellie too. He lost his eye and his leg doesn't work the way it should. Why did he push her so much to go after Abby?
- I like Dina, at first I didn't feel the connection between her and Ellie. That did change on the farm. I really like how they were happy together. But alas... Ellie had to fuck it up. Her pleas for her to stay were heartfelt though, that scene was good.
- About the end... that last battle between Ellie and Abby was perfect. No words. No one-liners. Just two women, desperate to reach their goals and fighting an awful fight. It was brutal, raw and straight up hard to watch/play. The struggle could be seen in every motion, attack or scream. Also, holy crap at Abby; she was destroyed during her captivity. It was hard to see here so broken, skinny and fragile.
By all means, the story isn't perefct. The performance of the actors/actrices is great, full props for that. The dialogue could use some work. Some characters could have used more, for some it have would have been better to be cut out from the story. The pacing is not perfect in both the story and the gameplay. But these are minor niggles and overall I think I have played my GoTY. Naughty Dog continues to impress. Whatever Dr. Uckman will do in the future (wink wink), I'll be there to play it.
... can it be Savage Starlight? :D
You don't really pay off a debt until the other person says you do. That's the problem with revenge. It's over when you say it's over.
Now comes the part where Ellie straps herself into two massive tires as punishment and enters the Twisted Metal tournament.
finish the game today.
My opinion:
storywise - Disapointed that Ellie didn't finish off Abby. I liked the overall story but i think they killed Joel too soon. I'd have liked more time in jackson to connect to Dina and Jesse. Jesse in particularly feels very empty to me.
graphicwise i found it super disapointing. Characters are extremely well detailed but the world is... small, bland and with little interactivity. I'd have loved if half the time they spend on animations and characters models would have been to the other stuff in the world. It is extremely immersion breaking when these super detailed chars are fighting in a table that looks smudge.
It also has way too much motion blur and doors/barrier to push. Those are super boring.
Storybeats and graphics aside i enjoyed the gameplay a lot. It felt exactly what i wanted. It upgrades a lot of issues of game 1 while offering a lot of options to approach an encounter. The maps also feel much better designed.
Abby gameplay was genius and really fun.
I hope they make a part 3. I really enjoy the sneaking around of this game, as well as the duality of the infected VS human encounters.
My opinion:
storywise - Disapointed that Ellie didn't finish off Abby. I liked the overall story but i think they killed Joel too soon. I'd have liked more time in jackson to connect to Dina and Jesse. Jesse in particularly feels very empty to me.
graphicwise i found it super disapointing. Characters are extremely well detailed but the world is... small, bland and with little interactivity. I'd have loved if half the time they spend on animations and characters models would have been to the other stuff in the world. It is extremely immersion breaking when these super detailed chars are fighting in a table that looks smudge.
It also has way too much motion blur and doors/barrier to push. Those are super boring.
Storybeats and graphics aside i enjoyed the gameplay a lot. It felt exactly what i wanted. It upgrades a lot of issues of game 1 while offering a lot of options to approach an encounter. The maps also feel much better designed.
Abby gameplay was genius and really fun.
I hope they make a part 3. I really enjoy the sneaking around of this game, as well as the duality of the infected VS human encounters.
It's still possible to play the right-hand guitar, either left-handed upside-down (restrung in reverse or not),or right handed with different tunings and fingerings ( I saw Les Paul do it with three usable fingers on one hand and two usable fingers on the other). So I interpreted that scene as Ellie just giving up, even though she mentally restored her connection to Joel right at the end of the final fight. Her status as being alive will always be her primary connection to Joel.
The facial expression she makes during this part is incredible. You sometimes forget that this is a video game character.
she looks so badass here tbh
I don't disagree but I also think the gaming press let critical discourse atrophy by becoming a PR vehicle and slavishly going along with the game industry's culture of secrecy and outright deceptive practices. And then it got worse when everybody with a webcam became an 'influencer'.
Even now, rather than trying to educate their audiences about how to approach a complex piece of media, a lot of critics are spoilercasting about how ignorant and wrong the naysayers are about this specific title or treating the game's developers with well-meaning but unhelpful praise and reverence.
Ugh fuck yeah she does. Only missing a bandana to complete the look imo.
she looks so badass here tbh
Me neither because you lack the context of the last flashback at the time but Ellie did remember it when she's drowning Abby and it's when she stopped, then you learn that the flashback was about Ellie willing to find a way to forgive Joel so, I put things together and realized that she found at that moment the way to forgive him. All I had to do then was to understand why, but this is how I see it.
Credits rolling for me. Finally get to partake in the other side. Can't wait to read the first spoiler thread lmaooo
FUCK that ending. i can't believe they managed to top the first game in about every aspect. The game felt long at times, but that ending made it all worth it and all the more powerful.
Its like playing the gunfight scene from No Country for Old Men for 30 hours
FUCK that ending. i can't believe they managed to top the first game in about every aspect. The game felt long at times, but that ending made it all worth it and all the more powerful.
Its like playing the gunfight scene from No Country for Old Men for 30 hours
Truth, I ended up liking Owen more than I thought I would and poor Jesse.
In her rampage she does inadvertently end up bringing down that Rattlers. That's something.
This isn't sick, just cringy. You have to wonder if these people even played the first game.
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In my opinion, one of the things that make this game so great is the total deconstruction of the concept of hero and villain. Sure, Joel was a shit human being when seen from the perspective of someone considering him as the Other. But when you dig deeper, you see a man completely consumed by grief, a mentally ill man broken by loss. Same goes for Ellie. Somebody seeing her from afar sees a person consumed by revenge just wanting to do awful things. Look a bit closer, and you see somebody robbed of the chance to forgive the most important person in her life, a mentally ill woman blinded by grief.
It's why the structure of the game is so powerful. I think it really is a great exploration of our relationship with the literary concept of the Other.
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That's how it appears on the surface but this game isn't as simple as "you killed all these ppl so you're bad", they've all killed ppl, shit happens in this world. She sets out for Abby yes for revenge, but it's more so cause she doesn't know how to handle her grief, she was robbed of the opportunity to restore her relationship with Joel. You see this when she goes after Abby the second time even though she's clearly questioning it, she's lost the pure anger that drove her the first time, and now she's just left with the grief and PTSD. She basically set out to achieve the same thing Abby did with Joel, only difference is Abby killed only Joel while Ellie killed all of Abbys friends just about. Ya she did some fucked up shit but it was through the trauma she experienced watching Joel get his skulled cracked open. I don't think it's as simple as Ellie was just on this revenge tour, although that's how it appears on the surface.
It's amusing to see people claim that those three don't understand the characters, but then want that to be done Ellie. Because is what would be happening. Ellie struggles to do all the dark shit she does in this game. But then they want her to go off the deep end completely?
Personally i find Abby choice of actions monstrous and IMO didn't deserve to live. Even most of her seem friends agree that she is mostly a piece of shit.
If there was someone that need to take care of Lev should have been Owen. From what we saw he didn't deserve what he got through.
I totally understand that Ellie didn't want to be like Abby/turning Lev like her but IMO Abby picks extreme actions all the time even when she didn't need to. IMO she didn't deserve to live after everything she did.
Yep this is my opinion too. The game has too many flashbacks, it never lets the player imagine how the tense situation between Joel and Ellie at the end of the first game was resolved, it needs to show everything in order to feel more "emotional", but at the ends it feels slow and melodramatic.
I think that the entire first game was enough to make the players understand why Ellie is angry, and the same with Abby, the entire section on Seattle makes you realize that she is remorseful and feels guilty, no flashbacks were really needed to make the players empathize with her, only patience.
And it's cute how ND thought that making the enemies shout random names and pretend that this will make me feel guiltu or something.
TLOU II tries some interesting things, but it's not subtle, it's not smart, and tries to bruteforce some sadness or guilt or whatever but it never made me feel anything special. It may work for some players, sure, but the way the story is structured feels amateurish and it seems ND didn't trust the players to be able to empatishe without a ton of flashbacks and melodramatic scenes.
What? The only friend that didn't like her by the end was Mel because she was convinced Abby was trying to steal Owen from her.
I'm starting to think gamers can't handle stories where the protagonist doesn't come out on top. It's almost like they want all game characters to have plot armor the way super heroes do in movies. Geez ppl, this isn't that sort of experience, get over it.
I mean, looking at the reaction to the narrative. I see why they don't trust the players. The whole point of the story flew over the heads of so many that It's hard for me to even fault the lack of subtlety.
Honestly, I wish the game didn't keep chickening out with regards to Ellie. So many cutscene deaths are "accidents." I don't consider them accidents, but the implication is that they are even though she's the one breaking into their place and threatening them. She stabs Vita girl in the neck because Vita girl tries to defend herself. She stabs Own & Mel because they also have the gall to defend themselves, especially when Mel is pregnant. Fuck, even Nora's death is partially absolved because she got infected running away so she was dead anyway.
The only time the game finally embraces Ellie's slip into hatred is at the end when she threatens Lev. All the other times they give an out with regards to the murders Ellie commits. I really think that was some bullshit and the game should have gone all out.
Yep, another major complaint of mine. But hell, maybe they are right considering how dumb the fanbase is.
I didn't hate Abby for killing Joel at the start. I never even needed to play as her or witness her flashback to empathize with her. The sequence where the crew kills Joel basically spells out every single character's personality such that the subsequent Abby playthrough felt redundant. Let's see, is the guy that advocated for killing Ellie for hitting him a giant piece of shit, vote now. If you guessed "YES," he's a massive piece of shit, you won today's prize. Now, can you determine whether the guy and girl who advocated sparing Ellie and ending Joel's torture are decent people? Choose your response now.
Joel told us he was a piece of shit who used to be a highway robber fucking with innocent people. So, when I see Abby consumed by personal hatred ready to beat Joel to death I'm not thinking, "man, what a piece of shit." I'm thinking, "man, what did Joel do to you? It must've been real bad." And, you can already see from the opening she gets no pleasure, no relief from killing Joel, just more pain. So, why did I need to spend so many hours hammering home just how sympathetic she is?
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That happened so fast, I thought Issac just got shot in the arm or something. Did she actually shot him somewhere it'd have been fatal?
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