I absolutely love this game. I like it more than part 1. I didn’t hear any leaks, so after I beat it I read around to see why people hate it. Honestly, nothing makes sense. The only flaw of the story are all of the conveniences that happen.

I can’t understand being upset that Joel has an unceremonious death. That’s the world. An idiotic critique imo. I can see people seeing Abby as unlivable, but I grew to like her quickly, and her purpose is crystal clear. I don’t understand the critique that she is not important to the story. Also, I read that the leak was that Joel is killed by Abby and then you play as Abby, so it sounds like people were mad at that going in.

There is no such thing as objectively better. Art of all forms is subjective. It’s a fruitless argument, like debating if apple pie is better than cheese cake.

Just some random thoughts I had because I can’t stop thinking about this game. I work as a mental health therapist. As a therapist, a big part of my job is trying to force people to consider context and perspectives, especially in their relationships. It’s something that I think that I need to work on as well and I think is missing in the world.

To me, the biggest theme that I took away from the Last of Us 2 was just that; try to understand context and perspectives. That behaviors in a moment may be inexcusable but they may also be explainable and knowing that explanation can take change how you chose to respond to that initial behavior.

I think there’s something to be said for how successful the game was at delivering that, and its other, messages. But for the people who are upset with the very concept of the game, I wonder if they have considered that they themselves may need to better work on their empathy and not that the game should focus more on a fulfilling revenge story.

This isn’t meant to call anyone out in this thread. Rather, I wonder if some of the vitriol we’ve seen elsewhere may be explained by a lack of empathy in difficult circumstances. Or maybe within the context of video games. I will say that in the little bit that I’ve seen of a few people streaming the game, those that flat out don’t want to play as Abby because they don’t want to know her perspective make me feel a little gross.

@plan6: Not really duder :) cheesecake is clearly better anyway but it would be more like comparing a store's previous cheesecake recipe (that most people liked) to it's latest one (which a whole lot of people didn't) which makes a lot of sense if you like cheesecake.

In direct comparison with the first game, the second hasn't been as well received and the fanbase is split. Everyone's got their subjective opinions and they're the important thing in the end but a broad view of the quality of the title can't be found in one opinion.

For every person saying it's great, there's another saying it's bad. If you really want to make a semantic argument try this instead: The general consensus is that TLOU is a better game than TLOU2.

I really did not enjoy it, could have a fair amount to do with being bad at the game or just not getting the combat and finding it unsatisfying and frustrating. I also didn't really enjoy the ending

Jesus this was an exhausting part to read. If you ever find yourself counting diverse characters in a story and wondering if diversity has been forced in a game to ruin a story, you've lost the plot. You also classified Abby as being a part of this diverse cast for being... buff?

It's exceedingly hard to take this kind of rhetoric seriously. You'd reject any of a million plausible explanations for how post apocalyptic Seattle might not fit the modern day demography because the mere existence of too many diverse people made you perturbed.

That speaks for your own biases much more than it does the games "wokeness". There doesn't exist a game where diversity was the reason a game was bad. When a bad game has diversity, it's not because it took so much mental energy to come up with a non white character. I'd be willing to bet any game that is bad was bad for reasons that had nothing to do with the cast of the crew in the game. Bad writing is bad writing, and while we can agree that this story has a shit ton of pacing issues I'm rolling my eyes out of my skull at how people think "forced diversity ruining a story" is still a valid concept in 2020.

This isn't to say box ticking and diversity points doesn't happen, but just that when you start squinting hard to fit something into the "forced diversity" box you end up implying that diversity needs a reason to exist while being white cis and straight is totally fine and without any question in a game.

I feel like the deep narrative hole it digs itself is too far an obstacle for the player to come out the other side with a satisfying experience. To sum up, I feel like the story is manipulative in an unfair and not cool way. If the legs of the story were told in a different order, or motivations were slightly different, then the story would have an easier time getting the player on board with the choices made.

There are dozens of small conversations that are heavy handed, going beyond poking your ribs and saying "See what we did there?" and instead are thrusting your skull into a desk demanding your attention at the thing they think is so clever.

The game is a technical marvel, and the combat is excellent, however mostly unchanged from the first game. They added a dodge button and getting back into stealth is more emphasized, but there isn't much more variety compared to the first game.

To top it off, the game is too long and paced strangely. It would have been a better experience if it was six hours shorter.

I found myself agreeing with the kotaku (I think it was that one) that found the story to be rather ham fisted at some points. Like the whole thing with the dog bothered me, the game up until that point has made it clear you should be killing those dogs and it will be a problem for you if you don't, but then we get to pet the dog and play fetch with it in a kinda "oh see? Some people loved that dog and Ellie went and killed it. Wasn't that a terrible thing Ellie did? Killing someones pet is a very bad thing to do" It really did feel like the game thought so little of me that it had to insist on showing me that killing is wrong and it has consequences over and over.

Most of the "gratuitous" bits of the storytelling sat fine with me, this is a series so full of subtlety that I generally grant it leniency when it gets a little more simple minded like the car chase with Jesse that randomly grants you unlimited ammo, or the boss fight with a tank from the first game - or more generally the Bloater enemy type. For me, the only time I can remember really rolling my eyes wasn't even the finger dismemberment, but just a few hours earlier when Abby fights one of those Irrationally Strong Enemies who's even more irrationally strong than all the rest and he behaves like a fucking lunatic and basically shrugs off Abby tearing his jaw from his skull.

I love dogs but they are a huge nuisance in games so I am almost single-mindedly focused on killing them when they show up in combat scenarios. The dog petting and the option to play fetch was a silly way of trying to give the attack dogs the same empathetic treatment as Abby (especially since the first dog, Bear, seemed to share a name with at least 5 other dogs in their regiment) since dogs that ruthless are probably not going to be a good hang, but I get why Naughty Dog included it. The Last of Us 2's biggest flaw is its ambition to summarize an entire generation of video game development, and at some point that means you've got to have an animal to pet and call a good boy. For me, I can lump that in the "alright fine" category.

@plan6:

That's plan false. Take a philosophy class to know that's untrue.

@justabard: I didn't count them. It was off recollection. And on M y 2nd play through I found more. But that's besides the point. The point is, it starts feeling like they spend so much time forcing inclusion, and as you say box ticking, that they forgot to sure up the story. And, yes, writing characters in just for the sake of writing a character does take away from enjoyment. I'm sure we can all name characters that were absolutely unnecessary to the story. I'll start, rose in TLJ.

And as everyone seem to ignore in order t make red herring argument, I've already stated that romance in these games dont work. Unless it's a game like Beyond Two Souls or Life is Strange which is nearly 100% story. I'd prefer developers cut ut the cringe.

Absolutely, there can exist characters that are unnecessary. But you're ignoring the issue and standard you're setting for writing by strictly looking for diversity when an unnecessary character appears. And complaining about TLJ is only going to make me take you less seriously. Any criticism you can levy at this game and either game isn't fixed by removing the diversity in the game. You know why? Because unless you sincerely think that you can't enjoy a game if it has too many diverse characters - which would make me never take you seriously again - the issues of writing can be solved while still including those diverse characters. Diversity isn't the problem in these games, the problem is bad writing. I can agree that the last of us has some serious pacing issues but if you saw this game with only white guys and "demographically accurate" people the game would be no less weak in writing in pacing in the areas we talk about.

And I'm being extremely generous to your take that a post apocalyptic seattle CAN'T stray from the original demography without being unrealistic. That's so laughable and you need to seriously step back and look at what you're saying. There's no such thing as "forced diversity" ruining anything but people's expectations for the cast in a story. And I'm fucking fine with that when the detractors are making the weakest of weak sauce points like you are

No where in your response do you have enough self awareness to realize that the framework for being annoyed with diversity forgets how often lack of diversity makes no sense many other games and stories. It points to the fact that you don't care about diversity and are unknowingly pushing for less realism for the sake of "normal" white straight faces as a default. The moment that default isn't there you jump to the conclusion that it needs a reason to be there, as if anyone but a white guy needs a fucking reason to be in a video game in large quantities

@justabard:

I edited the post you quoted to add a second part.

As for your post, youre completely right. Changing every character to a white male wouldn't change the story or enjoyment. That's why I said it's mostly unfounded in the first post. However, it really does get to a certain point that I feel like something like this could have happened (and this is me completely spewing out of my behind) in a meeting.

Druckman: Okay, we got the options to help include blind and deaf players. That's awesome. What do we have for characters?

Random guy: Well, we have Ellie, of course, as the main character. Here is the concept art for her girlfriend, who we are thinking just got out of a heterosexual relationship. We are going to add more racial demographics for characters as well. Now, we are having trouble justifying a way to get Abby in Jackson and Ellie in Santa Barbara.

Druckman: Eh, theres plenty of time to deal with the story. I want more. What else do you got for characters?

Random person: Well, we can make references throughout the game. They can stumble into a book store and see rainbow flags. Couples writing notes. Thing like that. But, sir, we cant find a way to get Abby to be in jackson.

Druckman: Alright great. I want you to have a couple more ideas for me by the end of the week.... oh crap, the meeting is running out of time... well, screw it. Have abby just bump into some random traveler from jackson who bumped into joel despite WLF killing on site, infrastructure has gone to shit, everywhere is infected and infested, the whole world is over ran by cannibals, marauders, rapists, cultists and extreme militant groups. Shit, how do we get Elle to California? Fuck it, I like that idea so much just use it twice.

@phillipcat: seriously man, your point is bull the moment you say "you're right that nothing would have changed if there wasnt diversity"

We're just going off a hunch that doesnt sound realistic in any way in your hypotheticals. Just because you're ignorant about how easy adding a diverse cast in a game would be without detracting from the writing teams ability to make a story doesn't mean you have a point here.

"Idk how the process went down but I'm gonna spitball to fit my narrative" won't cut it. Reexamine the biases that got you here and move on

I thought the Joel bit was contrived, but it had to be otherwise there wouldn't be a game.

The bit Brad mentioned on the Bombcast was extremely uncomfortable to play, but echo's "If I were to lose you i'd surley lose myself", she lost herself and was driven by an niggling obession, in the end she managed to realize this and let it go.

@justabard:

Forcing things is not easy and resources are limited.

@phillipcat: ok so nothing new is being said here. Forcing diversity is a non issue that you've used nothing but "hunches" to justify. I'm not here for that. If you wanna look at a real comparison of resources being used in tangible ways look at how tlou2 spent so much time on animations that they didnt realize that it made for a funner killing experience that directly antithetical to the games message. See how materially different that comparison is from "I assume they spent more time adding a buff girl for no explicable reason". I can only ask so many times how you think what you're doing isnt just bias run rampant in favor of letting games with basic white guys in the cast be what they are with no scrutiny on casting choice affecting story

Finish the conversation with someone else.

@diamond_lime:

You can easily write a story that's not contrived. We all agree ellie going to SLC makes sense, right? She probably wrote a note to joel stating such which is why hes right behind her. We all agree that Joel following her makes sense, right? Why wouldnt it make sense then that Abby, who was in SLC 2 years ago, still be in SLC and that's how Joel and her run into each other? Joel didnt trust Ellie for nearly a third of part one. Makes no sense 4 years later he starts trusting groups of people despite hunters still attacking jackson. And now that Joel dies by following Ellie, she blames herself. On top of which, this gets rid of the problem people have with Abby. Which is that she hunted, maimed, tortured and brutally murdered someone in front of their daughter. It could easily been committed out of anger of the moment having the man who killed your father right in front of you. Thus making her at least able to be sympathetic towards

@justabard:

I didnt realize the animators are the same people in charge of character creation and story :-/

@phillipcat: are you trying to imply the financial and physical cost of that level of detail is unrelated to other parts of the game? Is this all you have left to work with?

You havent had a point for like 4 posts

@justabard:

I explicitly stated I didnt realize the same people of animations, which you tried using in your point, were the same people in charge of characters. Because they're not. Regardless if you like it or not. You're the one that mentioned checking boxes and this very much feels like that

@phillipcat: What happened with Joel seemed unnecessarily prolonged and for someone seeking justice seemed sadistic, I didn't feel any sympathy for her, and neither did her friends despite doing nothing to stop it.

Her arc was that of redemption, she knew she was a bad person and tried to redeem herself by helping Yara and Lev.

@diamond_lime:

You're partly right. It was prolonged and sadistic. Extremely contrived in order for it to take place too.

Her friends, however, did sympathize with her. Mel even said something like this, "he got everything he deserved and probably should have had more. I just wish I didnt take apart of it." Nora said, "I still hear his screams. And you know what, he deserved all of it." You should go look at the concept art. It shows a knife in his back and him crawling with them all standing around.

As for her redemption, it was terrible executed because of what we said above. Prolonged and sadistic. It makes her irredeemable. But they try to force it anyway. And the messed up part? Joel wasnt that catalyst for it. Owen was. Abby shows no remorse for it by saying mel hasnt spoke to her even though she wanted it just as much as everyone.

@phillipcat

The sympathy for her was mixed, Mel said she was a shitty person, and Owen said something passivly aggressive to her, like maybe he should hunt down the people that killed his parents.

@diamond_lime:

Yeah. We dont see anything from Leah, Danny or the one with the hat. I forget his name.

Nora, Manny and Mel definitely feel justified in her actions and state he should have gotten worse. I think Mel calls her a shitty person for other reasons than that though. I'm on my 2nd play through to plat and just finished Day 1 with Abby. Mel is reserved towards abby but doesnt show resentment. That is till Abby sleeps with Owen. I think mel's biggest issue was just her participation.

Owen definitely had 1 foot out the door before Jackson. He only went to Jackson because of Abby. Joel's death definitely hits him the hardest. I need to pay attention to his parts coming up.

When you get the first flashback to Abby when she was a kid with her dad was a big "oh shit" moment for me that helped contextualize the Abby section where I grew to like the character a lot.

Overall this is a game that will stick with me for a long time. I think it was a bit long but only because the intensity of the game and bleakness of the world is hard to take for the 32 hours it took me to finish.

Some side notes, really liked Dinah and Lev and their story arcs are great, loved the ending when Elly is struggling to play the guitar in the empty house. I also loved that it ended without our two female leads killing each other, they both are finally able to move on and Elly can finally remember Joel without seeing his head smashed in.

@arcitee:

The game being too long seems to be mentioned quite a lot here.

I think they could have ditched the going back to the island bit, I felt like Abby should have left on 1 trip instead of going out again on another.

I was trying to visualize how it would end up knowing what happens to the characters, and I honestly thought that that Mel and Owen would have been found after the Hospital trip and not later on.

Somethings bothering me about the decision the doctor made about Ellie and how people agree with him, no one asked Ellie if she was okay with it, seems like another contrived bit of story.

@diamond_lime: I assume that is on the fireflies, they were desperate and didn't like or trust Joel, they probably put her to sleep and started prepping her before the Doctor even arrived.

@diamond_lime: Set a side the fact Ellie would have said yes, she pretty much said so.

The chance to save millions at the cost of one life seems and easy choice, why ask? they would have done it anyway.

@thepanzini

It might be an easy choice to make, but she would die without knowing that she helped.

@diamond_lime: Did you really need a cut scene with the doctor spelling it out? Considering that was the whole point of the journey Ellie's immunity was going to be used to make a cure, Joel even gives Ellie the option to turn back at the university which in reply Ellie says it can't be for nothing.

@nodima:

The dog petting and the option to play fetch was a silly way of trying to give the attack dogs the same empathetic treatment as Abby (especially since the first dog, Bear, seemed to share a name with at least 5 other dogs in their regiment) since dogs that ruthless are probably not going to be a good hang, but I get why Naughty Dog included it.

You are hugely discounting how well a dog can be trained. Watch police dog training videos. Dogs do very well with "on the job" and "off the job" behaviors. Playing with the dog didn't bother me because it was just another look into the fact that these were different people with different motivations, not just monsters.

@thepanzini I didn't need a cut scene, but if there had been the whole twist and following drama wouldn't have worked, because she would have known why Joel got her out of the hospital.

@diamond_lime: Ellie already knows why and knows Joel is lying, it's the underlying reason for part 2.

@thepanzini: I doubt most main characters (Tony Stark, Cap, Master Chief, Lara Croft, etc.) would allow a kid to be killed for an experiment and chance at a cure. I don't look at Joel as evil or some huge asshole for stopping it.

I think their world is too far gone for a cure. Hypothetically, if they killed Ellie and successfully created a cure then what? The fireflies are going to mass produce the cure, get everyone or most people vaccinated, while fighting the wolves, scars, and probably dozens of other groups plus they'd have to clear out the possible millions of infected?

We can hardly deal with a virus in our world, but a world worse than The Walking Dead is going to do it? Good luck. I love TLAU1, but that's an issue with that game and this game probably should've moved past it by ignoring it. Also, there being one doctor in the world and one immune person left seems a bit convenient. Them trying to create a biological weapon that only kills the infected is really their only way back that seems plausible.

@thepanzini But she didn't know, that's why she went back to the hospital to look for information.

I'm not sure what you debating here, internal logic consistency? In the world presented in The Last of Us do you really not believe the Fireflies wouldn't kill Ellie even if she didn't want to die.

The Fireflies are the closes thing to good guys in The Last of Us universe and still looking for a cure its pretty much sematics weather they could get a working vaccine yet alone distrubute one, because if not now when the old world is dying the equipment, skills and people needed are disappearing this could be their last shot. Also Ellie wasn't the only one but see has the highest level of immunity they've seen, and thats setting a side Ellie would have wanted to try to make her immunity mean something.

Jackson is a safe walled community where they joke about Joel trading with travelers half his stuff for a small bag of coffee beans, is it really hard to imagine a Firefly enclave doing the same with vaccine having it slowly spread throughout the world.

Joel isn't evil I never said he was on the contrary saving Ellie was Joel's final act in his redemption, at the start of part 1 Joel is a survivor only out for himself but by the end of the game Joel regains his humanity caring for Ellie even at the point to depending on her.

Despite Halo being is a pulpy adventure the back story is quite horrific the spartans were creating by kidnapping children to fight in war, Shadow of the Tomb Raider has Lara invertedly kill thousands at the start of the game. The Last of Us has good reasons behind all of its characters actions and motivations their are no good or bad people just degrees.

@diamond_lime:

I havent stated it specifically but that's the exact reason it was going to be murder.

@arcitee

No, joel is doing CPR on Ellie when the fire flies find them. He gets knocked out. Owen runs to tell the Doctor she arrived as they are performing tests. The Doctor gets there and makes the determination surgery is the only way. Joel wakes up to Marlene telling him about the surgery.

@thepanzini

Informed consent is a pretty BIG freaking thing with doctors. Assuming is idiotic. During the discussion Joel could easily ask what the chances of actually producing a vaccine was. And the Doctor would have to say 0

@thepanzini:

You lose all credibility when you say the fireflies were the closest thing to good. They were an extremist terrorist group. Or are you forgetting the firefly the spray painted liars in the museum? And the horrific acts they did in order for him to kill himself. Even the doctor mentions them.

Closest thing to the good guys was FEDRA. They were the ones in charge of building the walls. Taking in refugees. Passing out rations. Killing infected. Enforcing the law. Were they corrupt? Probably. Did they ultimately fail in their mission? Yes. But we know from Part 2 through notes that WLF overtook FEDRA and weren't any better.

@phillipcat: FEDRA in Boston became a police state exercising absolute power, conscripted people into the military, drafting civilians to preform work duties both inside and outside the quarantine zone, setup military boarding schools training children to become soldiers.

Calling Fireflies good guys is poor wording maybe least worst option better but I don't see how that invalidates any of my points. All we see in the first game is a harsh military regime, bandits and cannibals, certainly no one looking for a cure. What we know Ellie was prept for surgery seemingly without consent, because they saw no other option.

I agree about people being so upset about both Joel dying and how he dies. This game would be nowhere near as effective as it is if that didnt happen when and how it did.

And as far as Abby goes, holy shit they did what I did not think could be done. There were moments in the game where I actually was conflicted about who I was rooting for. By the end of it, I tried not to press square in that last fight scene as much as possible, and I am so glad ellie let her go. So glad.

I also dont see or hear a lot of people talking about the sequence when you are trying to survive Tommy sniping you down the street. That whole section was extremely intense and effective to me and it was such a great moment realizing it was Tommy. The game is filled with these oh shit moments that were so damn satisfying.

Oh god. If you haven't played the game, dont expect your opinion to be taken seriously.

You cannot even begin to understand and appreciate the layers and intricacies of this story and how it is told without playing it.

Major eye roll to people like you tbh. It is why meta critic is a joke.

Poe's law is strong with this one. I cannot tell if this is serious.

Also, props to the poster who articulated "Why I didn't spend $60 and 30 hours of my life on the Last of Us 2" in a reasonable fashion.

Edit: also straight up LOL that the idea that FEDRA was anything but a group of jackbooted thugs.

@plan6:

If you cant think critically about the different factions then maybe you shouldn't comment?

FEDRA was still taking in refugees and guarding the walls. They were still clearing the infected. They were still passing rations out. They were still providing schools.

@thepanzini:

The only reason they were looking for a cure is because a deranged doctor had some idealistic notion that he could do it instead of accepting reality. They really are no better than the saraphites purging the non believers