The Last of Us Part II

[DarkAmbient]

Endings do not make or break a game. A great game with a crap ending is still 99% great 1% bad.

A bad ending can ruin a great story, and the story is the central pillar that held up The Last of Us. The gameplay itself wasn't anything special but it was visually impressive and the music was great. But what really made it a special game was the story of Ellie and Joel and their developing relationship as they struggled towards their destination. It was superbly written. It would take a heart of stone not to be moved by the story. It felt real, and it made sense.

Without giving away spoilers, the sequel does not appear to respect what made the first one so great, and I am left wondering why the writers thought the conclusion made any sense.

[Jshadowhunter]

Endings do not make or break a game. A great game with a crap ending is still 99% great 1% bad.

Not when the story is centric to the whole game. If you've played something for a good story, in the end, if the ending is bad, then what was the point of playing if you don't get a satisfying conclusion? You've basically wasted your own precious time you could've invested into doing something else. That's why I can never go back to playing Mass Effect 3. Sure the middle is fun, but the end just makes a person say "What's the point?!"
The ending is what makes or breaks entertainment. Or has the last few months not taught you anything?

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I think this will basically be the main problem with the game if some of the early negatives are true:


2020 is already as bad as it can get, hey, why not drown people into even more depression, right?

[Skorpionss]

I Assume you didn't actually play mortal kombat? It in no way was censored or made politically correct there are plenty of skimpy women through out the story. updated characters designs you don't like isn't censorship. at most you have Edd Boon making a stupid tweet which doesn't actually work in the context of the actual game.

I assume you didn't actually play DA:I either as there is no lack of attractive females either.

Andromeda was a train wreck of the game in every way one botched character model doesn't actually mean any thing and there's nothing pointing to ti being malice and not incompetence.

And battlefield 5 would be exactly what i expected, the dubious claim that having women at all is PC.

so a total of zero examples then.

Are you sure you're talking about MK11? There is not a single skimpy female outfit in the original line-up, maybe there are some skimpier alternate outfits, I don't know that, but the main outfits are conservative as fuck, compared to some of the male ones, and definitely compared to their designs from previous games.

And I did play DA:I, gave it up after 10-15 hours at least 3-4 times, just couldn't care about any of the romance-able female characters (not that that's the only reason I gave it up and never compelted it, just a small part of it). And yeah it's personal preference on my part, I didn't like any of them as much as I liked the females in DA:O or DA2.

And you'd be right about andromeda if it was actually botched (as in a bug/by mistake), because most of the visual bugs have been fixed in patches, but Sara's face hasn't, that leads me to believe it was actually an intentional decision to uglify her. And not to mention that Cora looks like Mrs. Potato head, unlike the earlier concept arts.

And yeah Having women in a story where they don't belong is the very definition of diversity for the sake of PC, there is no other way to put it. They could have re-created an actual event of an actual woman fighting in WW2, since there were plenty, they chose to insert fake ones in a scenario that actually happened. I would have loved if they made a mission or 2 about Lyudmila Pavlichenko defending the motherland (mostly because I love sniper play, and because she was bad ass).

[Acidbaron]

Look forward to it but i am honestly going to wait for PS5 to come out and grab it in a sale on there. If a PC release isn't happening.

[Witchblade77]

bad ending absolutely can ruin a story (though in case of Mass effect 3, lets be honest here, the game itself had a ton of storytelling issues beyond the ending - but that ending didn't just ruin the last game, it invalidated the entire trilogy and that is why it was so bad)

as for ending of the last of us 2... I'm not getting my game till tomorrow and at the pace that i play, it will take me a while to get to the ending, but impression I'm getting is a sort of Ellie goes down the same footsteps as younger Joel, in some ways mirroring his journey - and remember, we are never shown how he acted in those early days, but we do know that he has done a LOT of bad shit and had falling out with Tommy because of it. but at the end Ellie decides not to continue that cycle and does NOT go through with her revenge. i think people are really mad that she doesn't kill Abby or something? which.. if she did, she would have learned nothing - sparing Abby is what shows growth. but this is going by most recent leaks, without playing actual game - i cannot make any definitive analysis, personaly

but that sounds like a fitting ending to me, so far

[A Chozo]

Can someone please explain what the outrage is about? I've seen so many people QQ, but i cant put my finger on it.
Do people hate masculine looking females or lesbians? Im confused. I've read somewhere that the main character (ellie?) dies. Didnt RR Martin learn us thats not a problem for a story?

Nothing to do with masculine looking females or lesbians. There hasn't been much outrage about Ellie being gay or whatever.

1 - One of the protagonists of the first game dies in a non-inspired way, where he put himself in a situation through completely out-of-character behaviour.
2 - The antagonist who kills him has disproportional anatomy that's absolutely impossible in the setting portrayed by The Last of Us unless she has access to body-enhancing drugs and frequents some post-apocalypse academy for fitness.
3 - The PoV shifts and you play as the antagonist for a while.
4 - They shift protagonists once more back to the original girl, and at the end, instead of ending the life of the aggressive antagonist, she has a memory of the person who dies and decides to let the other woman go.
5 - The old high-acclaimed trailers show a lot of the protagonist who dies, but the actual game's scenes show that he's not in the scenes shown in the trailer anymore.
6 - Lots of complaints about Naughty Dog's crunch culture, old relevant devs leaving, etc.

It's not that the guy dies, it's [I]how[/I] he dies. The strength of tLoU has always been the story, not it's unimpressive gameplay. The moment they botched the story was the moment people went nuts.

It was supposed to subvert expectations, but now we know that they were talking about expectations for good character writing.

[A Chozo]

That's the weird thing about TLoU2, anyone who starts to criticise it inevitably have to deal with "it's because you hate X gender/ sexuality" - when in reality, no one disliked TLoU because of female or gay characters the first time around, why would they the second?

It's like several complaints / groups at this point.

1 - People who dislike gay / trans characters are shitting on the game (which imo is absolutely wrong);
2 - People exposed to the leaks learned that the plot is completely bogus and it's Game of Thrones Season 8-tier, comparable to the plot of the new Star Wars Trilogy;
3 - People upset that Naughty Dog is accused of crunch culture and that they got rid of many of the old devs who made fan-favorite games.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Are you sure you're talking about MK11? There is not a single skimpy female outfit in the original line-up, maybe there are some skimpier alternate outfits, I don't know that, but the main outfits are conservative as fuck, compared to some of the male ones, and definitely compared to their designs from previous games.

And I did play DA:I, gave it up after 10-15 hours at least 3-4 times, just couldn't care about any of the romance-able female characters (not that that's the only reason I gave it up and never compelted it, just a small part of it). And yeah it's personal preference on my part, I didn't like any of them as much as I liked the females in DA:O or DA2.

And you'd be right about andromeda if it was actually botched (as in a bug/by mistake), because most of the visual bugs have been fixed in patches, but Sara's face hasn't, that leads me to believe it was actually an intentional decision to uglify her. And not to mention that Cora looks like Mrs. Potato head, unlike the earlier concept arts.

And yeah Having women in a story where they don't belong is the very definition of diversity for the sake of PC, there is no other way to put it. They could have re-created an actual event of an actual woman fighting in WW2, since there were plenty, they chose to insert fake ones in a scenario that actually happened. I would have loved if they made a mission or 2 about Lyudmila Pavlichenko defending the motherland (mostly because I love sniper play, and because she was bad ass).

Mortal kombat 11 has no fear of showing skin If you actually play it and not just give it a glance that’s easy to see. Literally all they did with the main designs was try to make them fit with the worlds there suppose to be from as it’s the whole focal point of key parts of the story unlike previous games.

So ya no point for DA.

Almost All of the characters look like mr potato head one looking ok is the exception Not the norm so again there’s no reason to point to malice and not incompetence when the whole game looks like trash.


It really isn’t as people will say women don’t belong in any story where they are actually being competent/not scantly clad. Women just existing won’t ever be pc.

[Zenfoldor]

Endings do not make or break a game. A great game with a crap ending is still 99% great 1% bad.

What you've stated is completely logical. I find the same with movies. However, I also feel the ending quality weighs more heavily on audience perception than on professional critics. I believe that due to that same logic, professional critics tend to review movies based on their entirety. However, audiences tend to focus on the ending.

In fact, on rotten tomatoes, when I see a movie with great critical reviews but a bad user score, I tend to extrapolate that the ending was likely "bad" but the rest of the movie was good.

In my experience, perceived good endings are often well received by audiences, while endings that subvert expectations tend to do better with professional critics.

I've preordered TLOU2, so we'll see how I enjoy it. I expect I will like it, but I have a feeling some other fans might not. In the end, to me, it's a piece of 20-30 hour content that I will play through once, probably thoroughly enjoy, but not nearly as much as the first one. I hope it's better than I think it will be but either way I'll be playing with the intent to enjoy the entire game. I'm hyped actually and can't wait to play.

That said, I'm way more excited about Ghost of Tsushima.

One way to think about it, if someone played the first game, it had an ending as well. What if that ending had been different? Would it have changed our perception of the entire game?

[Tech614]

I'm certain there are people who are hating on the game for the whole trans thing - but the idea it's a mainstream argument is ludicrous to me.

If you want to get technical then hating this game is not a mainstream argument period. The game will sell 10+ million and be loved by the silent majority, you know the people not looking to be mad on the internet.

Look at this thread alone, how many anti-trans comments are there? I haven't seen any

You clearly weren't paying attention to this thread weeks ago then.

Not that it matters, blind hate and blind devotion are equally toxic to consumers, yet people still practise both

Oh you're right, we should all be fence sitters... what an amazing world it would be. Again the majority of consumers could give a rats ass about this shitty internet drama and will enjoy the game. That's not "blind devotion" that's just reality.

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One way to think about it, if someone played the first game, it had an ending as well. What if that ending had been different? Would it have changed our perception of the entire game?

The original's ending was controversial and divisive as well because many didn't agree with what Joel did. Most who didn't agree with it, still enjoyed the game however. I like how the revisionist history is that TLOU1 had some universal happy ending lmao.

[A Chozo]

Oh you're right, we should all be fence sitters... what an amazing world it would be. Again the majority of consumers could give a rats ass about this shitty internet drama and will enjoy the game. That's not "blind devotion" that's just reality.

The original's ending was controversial and divisive as well because many didn't agree with what Joel did. Most who didn't agree with it, still enjoyed the game however. I like how the revisionist history is that TLOU1 had some universal happy ending lmao.

1 - Not blindly hating or devoting =/= fence sitting. Lots of critics have recognized that tLoU2 has nice gameplay but questionable plot, for example.

2 - He didn't say the first ending was happy, he insinuated it was good, which many agreed. It can be good and divisive. The new one isn't, according to many of us in this very thread. We aren't blindly hating - we saw the ending, we think it isn't a good ending, and it's not related to it being happy or not.

[Kallisto]

I'm certain there are people who are hating on the game for the whole trans thing - but the idea it's a mainstream argument is ludicrous to me. Look at this thread alone, how many anti-trans comments are there? I haven't seen any

Not that it matters, blind hate and blind devotion are equally toxic to consumers, yet people still practise both

All you had to do was check on this own thread a month or so ago and you'd see it full of anti trans posts. All you had to do was look at the E3 trailer on youtube two years ago and you'd see it downvoted to hell because of Ellie kissing a girl even though she was explicitly a Lesbian in the first game (not the expansion, the game itself.) so saying that the whole "some people" hating on it is bullshit.

People are just moving goal posts as an excuse to hate on it because they're still stuck in reactionary principles that civilized people abandoned decades ago but can't get out of because they're stuck in the basement of their parents and think the world revolves around their petty little views.

[Witchblade77]

1 - Not blindly hating or devoting =/= fence sitting. Lots of critics have recognized that tLoU2 has nice gameplay but questionable plot, for example.

2 - He didn't say the first ending was happy, he insinuated it was good, which many agreed. It can be good and divisive. The new one isn't, according to many of us in this very thread. We aren't blindly hating - we saw the ending, we think it isn't a good ending, and it's not related to it being happy or not.

you saw the SPOILER of an ending without seeing details of what lead up to it. also at least IMO, it actualy makes for a good ending. I was genuinely afraid that Ellie would have learned nothing and continued to perpetuate cycle of violence and revenge, so her choosing NOT to kill Abby - shows growth. it shows that she is finally learning for Joel's as well as her own experiences

that said, I do agree that balanced approach is a better and more nuanced option. its not all black and white, you either love it or hate it. its perfectly possibly to enjoy something while also acknowledging its flaws. and its equally possible to acknowledge that something is not very good and STILL enjoy and love it, warts and all.

[Video Games]

you saw the SPOILER of an ending without seeing details of what lead up to it. also at least IMO, it actualy makes for a good ending. I was genuinely afraid that Ellie would have learned nothing and continued to perpetuate cycle of violence and revenge, so her choosing NOT to kill Abby - shows growth. it shows that she is finally learning for Joel's as well as her own experiences

that said, I do agree that balanced approach is a better and more nuanced option. its not all black and white, you either love it or hate it. its perfectly possibly to enjoy something while also acknowledging its flaws. and its equally possible to acknowledge that something is not very good and STILL enjoy and love it, warts and all.

yeah too bad about the hundreds of people she still kills by the end of the game and the hundreds she'll have to kill if they ever make a part 3. so much growth xd

[ohiostate124]

This just keeps getting worse and worse. Its hilarious at this point.

“You need details and context!!!”

The more context we get, the worse it is.

[Tech614]

1 - Not blindly hating or devoting =/= fence sitting. Lots of critics have recognized that tLoU2 has nice gameplay but questionable plot, for example.

2 - He didn't say the first ending was happy, he insinuated it was good, which many agreed. It can be good and divisive. The new one isn't, according to many of us in this very thread. We aren't blindly hating - we saw the ending, we think it isn't a good ending, and it's not related to it being happy or not.

According to many in this thread? I must of missed the part where anyone in this thread actually played through the entire game for me to take their opinion on the ending serious. Because you know what if you told me Joel was gonna murder doctors trying to save humanity before I played TLOU I would of told you that ending is shit too without the context to go with it.

Nice try though I guess. Also save the bullshit about "most reviews saying story is questionable". There are a handful of reviews that where mixed on the story, the vast majority praised it. Go actually read them before trying this bullshit claim.

[Tech614]

You may be choking on that popcorn after you read this:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai.../#f84a83530a44

"You might be choking on popcorn cause I googled until I found an article that supports my agenda!"

No multiplayer

No shit, are you acting like this is news or came at the 11th hour? 2019 called and they want their news back.

little replay value

Once again, no shit. TLOU1 wasn't praised for it's replay value nor is any Naughty Dog game or story driven SP games in the first place. If this was really a point in the article you linked I think I dodged a bullet and saved brain cells by not reading it.

10-hour side-quest...

I don't think you know what a side quest is.

poor story. This game gon' suuuuuuck. The Last of Us was NEVER meant to have a sequel. Even the developers said many will not like the story.

Yawn the same shitty reddit takes without sources, without knowledge of the entire narrative. Yawn.

[Edge-]

No multiplayer

Which shouldn't be a surprise. MP for Naughty Dog games have always felt like an afterthought and rarely ever been a selling point.

little replay value

Subjective. There's a NG+ mode, which adds some replay value for folks who want to play it and try something different.

poor story

Not backed up by reviews.

This game gon' suuuuuuck.

Well, Erik Kaine doesn't even believe that if you read the update at the end of his piece.

The Last of Us was NEVER meant to have a sequel. Even the developers said many will not like the story.

Some have said that some may not like it, but not because it's a sequel. Because of the subject matter and the way the narrative is handled, including the detailed violence that plenty of reviewers call out.

I mean, all Kain does is highlight the more critical aspects of reviews, because he's right in saying that there's more value to focusing on the more critical elements instead of just purely focusing on "HOLY CRAP 10/10 EVERYWHERE!". That's not to say he disagrees with those scores or that those reviewers are doing a disservice, but that getting that diversity of opinion has value.

[Unclekreepy]

it's so realistic

I love that they have a Trans scene to give awareness about 5 mins into the video.

https://youtu.be/oKJRgHJ8MUg

*snip*

[A Chozo]

Nice try though I guess. Also save the bullshit about "most reviews saying story is questionable". There are a handful of reviews that where mixed on the story, the vast majority praised it. Go actually read them before trying this bullshit claim.

I didn't say most, I said lots. We'r not trying to bullshit here, so no need to misread the posts like you are doing.