The Last of Us Part II

[Yriel]

Everyone else was a fucking scumbag. Which I don't mind necessarily, I like my fiction rather dark and bleak. But I have no idea how/why players have animosity for Abby by the end. She is the most sympathetic and her theme is handled well for the most part; throughout the whole second half Abby is so over the top comically THE TERMINATOR by the end she is wasted away because she embraced her humanity and compassion. That's sympathetic and admirable.

Not some psychopath bitch without an ounce of humanity left unable to strum a guitar. Only further cementing the awful decision Joel made in the first game.

Get the fuck out, Ellie, you psycho.

My guess would be because they liked her from the first game and hate that she is written in a way that makes her the bad one and Abby the good one. I mean, they are not real people, this is done intentionaly by the writers that way and probably people don't like that.

[Darththeo]

The drop off % is literally relative to total games sold. Game 1 sells 100k first week and 10k next week, game 2 sells 1 mil first week and 100k next week. They had the same % drop genius. This is why using the niche game excuse is meaningless, sorry the math flew over your head. The only one failing to understand the argument is yourself. You are sure gonna be a sad nancy once this game joins the 15 mil club with Spider-Man eh?

Given you can't read what people are saying and think sales = good game, your opinion is trash. My prior post was LITERALLY converting Spider-man into a similar circumstance to TLoU and IT STILL WOULD HAVE HAD A LOWER drop rate. I was mistaken with God of War, as it had a smaller drop than Spider-man, so it falls here too.

A niche game is going to have a higher drop percentage as well, anyone who understands the concept of "niche" would understand that it is a smaller audience and will NOT perform the same as a triple A title. Also, you specifically picked a game that sold BETTER than expected. You cannot compare a niche game to a triple A title, it is again, akin to comparing an independent film with a big budget blockbuster, it doesn't make any sense.

[Stormdash]

As far as I can tell, Lev and Yara were the only two characters in the Seattle area that weren't quintessential scum and reprobates. The Salt Lakers are scum, Isaac is super scum, the default WLF mentality are scummy, and to me not in any visible way morally superior to the Pittsburgh hunter or TWD's Saviors. Other than Lev and Yara, think the best answer to avenging Joel would have just been to dig up a nuke in a Wyoming silo and send it into the Fuck Fedra Gate on horseback.

I relented and played through it, taking the argument that "well, watching every cinematic and multiple let's plays isn't the same" and... it turns out, no, nothing really changed. The Bears are who we thought they were.

Some notes from gameplay

- didn't care about the dog thing. Naughty Dog/Druck have made clear that they don't care about ludonarrative dissonance* and that gameplay isn't canon; so I indiscriminately killed them out of convenience and either stealthed or just rambo'd sections according to the general mood of the hour. I never spare lives in stealth games because, well, it's usually harder. The dogs you can choose not to kill are non-canon, and the dog you canonically have to kill is the only one that you shouldn't feel bad about; Ellie's choice is "give up and die" or kill the dog and your choice is a player is throw away half your investment and stop playing or kill the dog.

- It's very jarring that Abby must just... not recognize Tommy at the Marina, I guess? Doesn't make any connection about the 'trespasser' situation? Otherwise you'd think she'd be at least a little torn about going back to warn Owen in that instance. But her brush off to Yara seems like she did recognize him, so... yeah, it just feels off. Very plot-driven moment, and the plot says they are going after Lev.

- Everybody that insisted "Abby is really guilty and self-doubting, it's false that she felt better after killing Joel, you just didn't play it"... yeah, no. That was, as the meme goes, a fucking lie. There's no sign that she's particularly chewed up by it. The closest the game even gets to making you think she feels bad about torture as a general concept, not specific to Joel, is Lev's question about it which she didn't even answer. Mel felt bad about torture. Owen felt bad because Owen's a bit of a bitch. Abby, Manny, Jordan? Pretty okay with it.

- Speaking of, I wonder what the hell Abby ever does tell Lev about the man Lev shot in the leg with an arrow for her, or the women he helps her fend off. Who the "trespassers" are and why? You'd think that given that Lev is also hunted, it would be an interesting thing to draw a compare/contrast between. I wonder if she'd just make sure to put a "they are bad people" spin on it or if she'd actually reckon with how her and her crew's actions had brought this.

- It's so odd to me that Ellie even wants a 'fair fight' with Abby when it's not really started as one anyway since she keeps her knife. She has her pistol in her waistband still the whole time they are scrapping. The way I thought this worked was, when you were at the end of a long term quest for revenge, even against someone who had saved/spared your life before, you just shot them when they were unsuspecting and savagely beaten them while they were helpless?

- as worthless as the WLF and Seraphites were, how completely degenerate both groups seemed compared to the comfortable idyll of Jackson, the game never does anything more nauseating than all the effort it puts into whitewashing the Fireflies. The Fireflies being remembered in TLOU 2 were not the same assholes depicted in TLOU. The WLF basically were the Fireflies with a higher level of self-awareness.

- I genuinely hope that Isaac's rushed invasion of the Seraphite island led to near total mutual annihilation of both factions, because I can't think of two who deserve it more (the Fireflies having mostly been wiped out). While I'm guessing if anything it's more likely that Abby going AWOL accelerated his timetable, I sure hope it was more the "trespasser" incursion that motivated him to strike sooner than intended (I think they meant to go the following morning right?)

*speaking of Naughty Dog's relationship with ludonarrative dissonance, it was really a bit immersion breaking to be systematically stalking and slaughtering Scars without Yara objecting verbally at all. I mean, there's really no basis in the cutscenes for her to be okay with wholesale murder of the people, they clearly still believe in the 'prophet' etc, she and Lev just wanted to go their own way. The closest any character gets to even caring about gameplay is Lev being like "dude, you killed those wolves".

The gameplay improvements were somewhat more than I originally perceived watching, although I actually thought they overcooked it a bit with the craftable ammo and HUD-based swapping. Disappointed they saved their best bosses and setpieces for the Abby campaign, really adds to the sense of "you will like her more, dammit" pressure from the hand of the author. For it being the final push in the game, the Rattler base should have been at least as epic in scale as the journey through Haven.

You can tell how much the work on UC4 influenced play design, but I actually found it frustrating in a lot of instances, because it doesn't really commit to being the full freeclimbing mad house and having the attack from behind objects/attack from above options.

7/10. I originally guessed that I'd full review this as a 6/10. With better writing it's one of the best games ever made, but it wears its tiresome nihilistic relativism around its neck like an albatross.

[RuneDK]

Finally beat this game. Spoilers ahead, and not im not spoiler tagging them cause it's been a month

I thought the first game was over-rated. Now I'm not saying it was bad, but I didn't think it deserved best game ever made.. That is personal opinion. However this one struck all the cords for me when it finally got going.

Joel absolutely deserved what he got...despite it absolutely sucking. What made that scene worse is simply the end credit when Ellie said she wanted to try and forgive him. I was still initially angry when the scene happened.

Up until Seattle Day 2 for Ellie, I thought the game was very eh...It still took some time into day 2 for it to take off to me...but the story telling took off and really didn't stop. From Seattle Day 3(Ellie) to the end I couldn't put the controller down. The rat king or whatever it was called in the basement of the hospital...holy shit what a nerve racking encounter...the anxiety I got was equivalent to when Im in the final ten in a BR.

I hated Abby after she killed Joel...but once you play her story she becomes a likable character. I felt her side of things REALLY elevated this game because we saw why things happened through the lens of both characters. That is fantastic story telling.

I also understand the complaints about pandering. My issue was never that Dina and Ellie were a thing..my issue was they completely went out of their way to pander to a specific demographic. Which it's their game it's their right to do whatever. However I can see how it turned a lot of people off. If they didn't want to continue that's on them however because once you get past the pandering the game becomes something absolutely incredible.

It's a solid 10 for me despite having a slow start. It's currently my 2020 game of the year. I am installing Ghost of Tsushima now so maybe that will take over for my pick this year. However for now, it's absolutely going to TLOU2.

[Fencers]

- Everybody that insisted "Abby is really guilty and self-doubting, it's false that she felt better after killing Joel, you just didn't play it"... yeah, no.

That is completely stupid. There is no real extrapolation between Abby helping the kids and feeling bad about what she did to you-know-who. I totally agree with your assessment on this point.

I see a lot of misunderstandings of plot, theme, and narrative by players of this game. I think that is partly what leads to ridiculous notions like the one above. Ludacris.

[everydaygamer]

That is completely stupid. There is no real extrapolation between Abby helping the kids and feeling bad about what she did to you-know-who. I totally agree with your assessment on this point.

I see a lot of misunderstandings of plot, theme, and narrative by players of this game. I think that is partly what leads to ridiculous notions like the one above. Ludacris.

It's implied that while she doesn't regret killing Joel she does regret how she went about doing it and it's that guilt that lead to her deciding to help Yara and Lev so that she could "balance the scales" as she says. It's also made clear that killing Joel did not actually help her in any way as she continued to be haunted by the memory of her father's death even after she killed Joel.

[Darththeo]

It's implied that while she doesn't regret killing Joel she does regret how she went about doing it and it's that guilt that lead to her deciding to help Yara and Lev so that she could "balance the scales" as she says. It's also made clear that killing Joel did not actually help her in any way as she continued to be haunted by the memory of her father's death even after she killed Joel.

Nope, that's not even implied. She helps the kids out because of memories of not being able to help save her father. She has zero regrets about killing Joel or how she killed him.

[Fencers]

It's implied that while she doesn't regret killing Joel she does regret how she went about doing it and it's that guilt that lead to her deciding to help Yara and Lev so that she could "balance the scales" as she says. It's also made clear that killing Joel did not actually help her in any way as she continued to be haunted by the memory of her father's death even after she killed Joel.

That is true. But there is an expressed doggedness to Abby insisting what she did was at the least needed ( for her) and where regret may lay is in the relationship degradation between herself and Owen mostly.

Especially after Owen tells her about you-know-what after Abby does you-know-what.

I do think Abby is sympathetic, I do not think she expressly sought resolution or absolution from the deed specifically. So much as from, the state of hatred/anger that ultimately destroyed her family.

The game is pretty vague in that regard.

[everydaygamer]

Nope, that's not even implied. She helps the kids out because of memories of not being able to help save her father. She has zero regrets about killing Joel or how she killed him.

There are several conversations between her and her friends where she questions if they think what they did was right to which they all agree he had to die but that they aren't comfortable with how Abby handled it. This is meant to show how Abby has doubts over her own actions and is looking for some kind of validation for them from her friends.

[Darththeo]

There are several conversations between her and her friends where she questions if they think what they did was right to which they all agree he had to die but that they aren't comfortable with how Abby handled it. This is meant to show how Abby has doubts over her own actions and is looking for some kind of validation for them from her friends.

Friends concern over Abby action =/= Abby doubting what she did or how she did it. That is weak evidence she is questioning herself at all.
Owen clearly wanted her to drop it before they ever even considered it.

Especially given we know two of her friends (Nora and Manny) felt Joel got off easy, so there are 4 friends that we know their opinion (Owen, Nora, Manny and the pregnant lady whose name is escaping me at the moment.)

And given the dream sequence that proceeded her going back for Lev and his sister was based on her finding her father's dead body, anyone who thinks that had anything to do with how she killed Joel, just seems too much of a stretch for me. It is connecting Lev and Yara to her father, not what she did to Joel.

[Stormdash]

It's implied that while she doesn't regret killing Joel she does regret how she went about doing it and it's that guilt that lead to her deciding to help Yara and Lev so that she could "balance the scales" as she says. It's also made clear that killing Joel did not actually help her in any way as she continued to be haunted by the memory of her father's death even after she killed Joel.

It isn't implied in any but the most reaching and inferential ways, and even at that if it's implied at all, it's implied to be as much about Generic Scar #12 than about Joel. More, in fact, since it's Lev or Yara she's talking to when it's hinted around.

Nope, that's not even implied. She helps the kids out because of memories of not being able to help save her father. She has zero regrets about killing Joel or how she killed him.

Yeah I found it kinda humorous that the way this dream/vision comes to her is in basically imagining that hospital room as a place where innocent children are killed for the supposed good of the community. I'd like to think her subconscious at least understands what the Fireflies were.

Friends concern over Abby action =/= Abby doubting what she did or how she did it. That is weak evidence she is questioning herself at all.
Owen clearly wanted her to drop it before they ever even considered it.

Especially given we know two of her friends (Nora and Manny) felt Joel got off easy, so there are 4 friends that we know their opinion (Owen, Nora, Manny and the pregnant lady whose name is escaping me at the moment.)

Exactly. Of the eight, only six are ever heard from after the fact, and of them, only Mel is reported to have any misgivings about what they did as a moral question in and of itself.

And given the dream sequence that proceeded her going back for Lev and his sister was based on her finding her father's dead body, anyone who thinks that had anything to do with how she killed Joel, just seems too much of a stretch for me. It is connecting Lev and Yara to her father, not what she did to Joel.

Correct again; that dream doesn't imply, articulate, or insinuate in any context that she regrets the Jackson trip in whole or part. That is 100% a bit of communal headcanon people have picked up to balance out the beatification of Abby and demonization of Ellie in the game.

[Zenfoldor]

I've started typing in this thread with my final review about a dozen times by now. I finished the game a while back. I never did post a review here like I promised. For some reason, it feels like the whole thing is cheapened when I set down to write about it. So I'll just do a short one(edit: lol, is there a short TLOU2 review?). Everything below is just my opinion. Spoilers for TLOU2(and final fantasy VII, and the SLIGHT spoilers for the anime Gantz):

When it comes to the big moments of the game(Joel's death, ending) what Joel "deserved" is irrelevant, as is the discussion about who is "good" or "bad." I just don't think it matters. Death in TLOU2 is largely arbitrary, and often times a character's death NOT having emotional context, actually adds impact. See Zack Fair's death in FFVII. Gantz the anime is another good example of how indiscriminate death can have a much bigger impact, than a romanticized one, on the viewer's psyche.

The entire game, besides the story, is just about perfect.

The story actually is really good, and I feel it could have been helped by just a few small changes towards the end.

I think the ending was well done, but I can see how it doesn't work for a lot of people. In the name of "not spelling it out" for the viewer, I'm afraid ND over-steered a bit. A bit of context into what Ellie was thinking, IN GAME, may have informed us of her shock and disappointment in the final showdown. Instead, that went completely over my head. Also, Ellie playing the strong silent type didn't help. I wish she had communicated more of her feelings and frustrations in words, perhaps with Abby herself. Perhaps a little more conflict resolution would have been achieved.

I still believe the primary reason that Ellie let Abby live was Lev.

The ending requires us to put ourselves in Ellie's and Abby's shoes, and then extrapolate what emotions we feel for ourselves. I don't like the online comments that seem to imply some of us didn't feel the "right" emotions. I think that misses the point of the ending.

On an emotional level, what the characters feel, may be spelled out by ND afterwards(as they were in a most recent and enlightening interview), but I don't think that was really the intent. I believe they are probably not wanting to say the true intent, which I believe is this.

That ending is a "The Lady Or The Tiger" ending, on a strictly emotional level. It is vague enough to allow us to project our own emotions and storyline as a continuing story onto the ending, without ever being able to be proved right or wrong. Even the meaning of the final scene with the guitar, can be interpreted in many different ways. It should have slightly different connotations for just about everyone(and you will have lots of people arguing online about how their interpretation is the correct one, of course).

The other benefit of this ending was that it leaves a nice open end that ND can take anywhere without having to retcon. The work is classy, but the decisions around how the ending was communicated, and how it is not as concretely defined and satisfying as the ending in part 1, are the only reason I deducted a point.

9/10. Great game, but not as good as part 1, imo. Turn part 1 into a movie and turn part 2 into a movie, and part 1 is the better movie, imo. Also, for part 2, depending on how you emotionally interpreted much of the game, it may or may not have impacted with a large enough negative emotional toll, to reduce replayability for some. For example, the larger first portion of the game with Ellie relies on a motivational pot of gold at the end of the rainbow(revenge against Abby), which again depending on your interpretation, may or may not materialize. This can be a type of spoiler that may be demoralizing for some. Others may not take the story into account at all on subsequent playthroughs, so it varies.

Another big winner for Sony, and I'm glad it sold well. I believe it is a tad over-rated, but again, just imo. A very solid game, that I think would be much more appreciated as a new IP by the gaming community as a whole.

[Darththeo]

Exactly. Of the eight, only six are ever heard from after the fact, and of them, only Mel is reported to have any misgivings about what they did as a moral question in and of itself. .

Mel ... that was her name. I totally blanked.

Even a few minor changes to the story, would have made it better, imo.

[Kumorii]

I completely missed the transgender kid... am I alone in that?

I just thought he was chosen to be a wife regardless of his sex because religious sects like that tend to be fucked up in that sort of ways...

[Tech614]

I completely missed the transgender kid... am I alone in that?

I just thought he was chosen to be a wife regardless of his sex because religious sects like that tend to be fucked up in that sort of ways...

I mean did you miss the part where he said he shaved his head so he could be a warrior like the other men? Did you miss the part with them constantly dead naming him in combat? It wasn't really that subtle, unless you played the game on mute with no subtitles on. The only people I have seen miss this where a few streamers basically speed running the game and paying more attention to their dumb ass chats then the actual plot of the game.

[Stormdash]

I mean did you miss the part where he said he shaved his head so he could be a warrior like the other men? Did you miss the part with them constantly dead naming him in combat? It wasn't really that subtle, unless you played the game on mute with no subtitles on. The only people I have seen miss this where a few streamers basically speed running the game and paying more attention to their dumb ass chats then the actual plot of the game.

Constantly? Unless it happened during the chaos on the island and I missed it, it was one encounter with four mobs, and honestly if you were concentrating on killing them it would have been easy to not even notice unless you catch the optional conversation after.

[Tech614]

Constantly? Unless it happened during the chaos on the island and I missed it, it was one encounter with four mobs, and honestly if you were concentrating on killing them it would have been easy to not even notice unless you catch the optional conversation after.

Yes constantly, any time he was in combat with one of his own and they noticed him. I'm sorry you have hearing issues. The game has some great accessibility options for issues like this, you should of used them.

It's about a subtle as a golf club to the head, sorry if that comparison still gets you mad.

[Kumorii]

I mean did you miss the part where he said he shaved his head so he could be a warrior like the other men? Did you miss the part with them constantly dead naming him in combat? It wasn't really that subtle, unless you played the game on mute with no subtitles on. The only people I have seen miss this where a few streamers basically speed running the game and paying more attention to their dumb ass chats then the actual plot of the game.

Yeah, shaved his head to be a warrior because he didn't want to be a "wife". He didn't like what he was forced to become so he rebelled. Lev is a neutral name and everyone refered to him as he and he looked like a boy. Can't recall deadnaming in combat, but that is just my memory... And frankly combat "talk" to me is just information of what the enemy is doing and reacting to my actions. If this is the only place they actually point out his gender dysphoria it doesn't surprise me I missed it.

No one really mentioned it or reacted to him apparently being transgendered. Even his sister just says that he didn't want to become a wife and instead a warrior which has nothing to do with transgenderism on it's own. As I said, I just thought it was a fucked up religious cult which they are so it doesn't surprise me they take small kids, boys and girls and have them as "wifes" for older leaders.

[Stormdash]

Yes constantly, any time he was in combat with one of his own and they noticed him. I'm sorry you have hearing issues. The game has some great accessibility options for issues like this, you should of used them.

It's about a subtle as a golf club to the head, sorry if that comparison still gets you mad.

It clearly has accessibility options for people who have their head wallpapered in used feminine hygiene products, so they really did think of everything.

Lev's story and persecution and the kinda buried-lede child abuse underlinging it, the Scars in some ways struck me as actually slightly less degenerate than the Wolves. They had the constructive stretch goal of ridding the world of the infected. Sure, they're willing to kill innocents to achieve it, but when did that ever stop TLOU 2 from whitewashing a faction in the series' mythology? Their default greeting and parting dialogue about guidance and perfection was considerably less creepy than the Wolves "death be swift" Klingon larping. They even got cool ponchos and coded whistling (I wonder what job you got in that community if you just couldn't whistle? Did you have to scavenge a whistle or were you just farming?).

Gosh, it's almost as if the only community or faction in the entire lore that weren't basically giant assholes at a founding principles level was Jackson.

[Stardrift]

This thread is just Twitter users critiquing the sequel to a game they've never even heard of lmao