I have now finished The Last of Us Part 2. There is something that just nags at me, and I'm wondering on other people's opinion.

The first half of the game, the mechanics feel like they took TLOU1 and improved them. Infinite knife/shiv, no balance walking, no pushing boards on water. Then, you hit the middle of the game, and it's like they took TLOU1 and dropped in the exact same things. Have to craft shivs to kill clickers, you get a flamethrower, you can lose your balance and fall to your death. Does anyone else think this game feels built by two different teams with two different agendas?

@ginormous76: When I hit the midpoint, the same thought crossed my mind, however it didn't seem to pose a problem in the long run, since they give you more ways to deal with the clickers than in the first game.

This is what I experience although I did only play it on the normal difficulty setting.

@ginormous76: The way it that it played out felt like they were trying to emphasize a parallel between joel and the player character through gamelan as well as story

I think Abby and Ellie play differently to emphasize the difference in their characters. They also have somewhat different skill trees and different weapons. I really didn't find shiv management to be a big issue, in part because there are still none of those damned shiv doors in the second half of the game, and in part because you have many more tools to take care of clickers than you do in the first game.

I do not think the two halves feel like they were built by different teams, just with different emphases because they wanted the characters to play differently.

I think it was also an attempt to make things feel a little mechanically fresh because it's such a long game and in the end it doesn't have that many mechanics. That's also I think why you have the boss fight in the hospital, which felt like something from a Resident Evil game rather than anything out of TLOU. They just wanted to mix things up.

The first half also had a lot more vehicle stuff in it (I don't remember if there's any direct control over vehicles in the second half) and again I think this was to differentiate the sections.

I think it was very much done on purpose to differentiate the two halves of the game. Personally I found the more stealth-focused first half more enjoyable than the more combat oriented latter half. The idea that 18 is the maximum amount of rifle bullets a soldier can carry on her drives me crazy especially since you see her losing another magazine with every reload.

I agree with the posts above that this was a deliberate choice to reflect the characters that you're controlling. Ellie is more sneaky and fragile, outnumbered and overwhelmed, and her knife was a staple of the first game, so you're given more abilities and weapons that allow you to sneak and be elusive. Abby is more of a powerhouse, being able to chain together heavy melee attacks and given less subtle weapons like pipe bombs and flame throwers, with her silenced weapons much more situational - if you're going to try to stealth through the second half of the game then you're still able to do that, but I really liked the way you're pushed to be more aggressive (as that's not typically how I approach games like this)

I elaborated more on this in one of the other threads but everyone else already touched on most of my basic arguments in favor of these characters' designs. I'll just add in terms of the Abby balance mechanic, it plays into her fear of heights in that she can't handle even moderately raised by relatively unsupported platforms without it affecting her balance. It might be annoying but it's one of the many ways this game puts its mechanics, and its sense of the world its building, ahead of whatever might strictly make the player happy or keep them comfortable.

Abby is also just supposed to feel a lot more like Joel, I think, both to remind the player of what it was like to move a little more confidently through this world as well as draw some mechanical parallels between Abby and Joel that might subconsciously convince the player to root for her; as "manipulative tactics" go (it's a shame that's becoming a negative buzzword regarding this title since all games are manipulative) I think it's one of the stronger, less heavy-handed instances of that, right down to the shot late in the game of her and Lev that's a deadringer for the old days of Joel and Ellie.

I agree with folks above and just wanted to add that I think the more action oriented playstyle of Abby is a nice reprise from the classic sneakery you experience as Ellie in the first half. After 15 hours I finally started intentionally getting into firefights which I actively avoided with Ellie, and it was a really welcome change of pace. Those pipebombs were used very liberally in clicker territory, and when I got the flamethrower I got strong Ripley from Alien vibes as I cleared out floor after floor of that skyscraper.

@humanity: That whole section in the skyscraper/sky bridges was pretty incredible, especially when the fog clears. I thought they were saving the frame rate, so when it cleared out I actually got a real feeling of actually being that high up (which really helped sell abby's fear of heights)

I immediately got Joel vibes when I tried stabbing the first clicker I ran into only to get told I didn't have any shivs, and getting eaten. I was just so used to having Ellie's indestructable knife on me :D

When playing as Abby I usually stealth killed a few enemies but didn't bother going back to it if I was caught. You still have to run around to survive, and without using the listening mechanic it was still pretty fun and tense. The Ellie parts started feeling like a slog by day two but Abby's parts just flew by to me.

@theonewhoplays: I think thats also because Abby had more interesting levels to traverse as a whole. Ellie is mostly going through the ruined city, but Abby has that great section in the hospital, the skyscraper, the island, even making your way to the skyscraper it was cool how the rapids had transformed part of the city into Venice. The latter half of the game definitely felt a lot more varied and creative.

That’s an interesting theory. Personally, I just thought “oh, because Abby doesn’t carry a knife, I gotta craft shivs” but I can’t believe somebody like Abby wouldn’t just bring a knife with her. It’s not like Ellie’s knife is special in some way. Felt weird but whatever. Made me mix my play style up a bit.

I think the developers just wanted to make the two characters mechanics different enough that it wouldn’t just feel like a character reskin.

@humanity: 100% agree. Abby’s levels were better and she’s just a more complex and interesting character IMO.