The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

[Bullit]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

I know what you mean, but my point of posting the video (and his point of making it) was that opinions are sometimes only as limited as their scope or understanding. This video is to ensure that people can first see the complete package from all points of view, and then decide at that point whether they believe their opinion is still as valid for themselves as it was before.

If somebody made a comment "I hate cereal because it tastes too dry," and then somebody else mentions that cereal tastes really good if you add milk, that person probably should consider adding milk again before reinforcing their own believe of not liking cereal. That example may sound ridiculous, but that's the point: the person isn't seeing it as a whole just yet. They are so very one-sided... not in their opinion, but in their perspective. See the whole thing for what it is, first.

One thing that a lot of people don't know about this series (Pts 1 and 2) is that this has been Neil Druckmann's vision for this story's framework for a long time, and by that I mean a couple of decades. Yes, things have been reworked over and again, but the revenge storyline wasn't just an afterthought. That being said, the reason the first game didn't include this was because there were other frontrunners who believed that revenge wasn't a strong or redeeming enough story bit for the gaming audience, but it might mean something else to somebody if they understood this was not a spontaneous decision for the game to go the route that it did. The first part doesn't exist without the same mind that already had the second part in mind to begin with, for better or worse.

I agree with most of what you are saying. But in my opinion this guy does not do that. He dismisses right off the bat peoples point of views that are different than his. His constant derision of Joel as a character and he comes right out and says if you feel a certain way you just don't understand. THAT is elitist crap.

I disagree that this was Druckmans story from the beginning. Too many good writers left the company during production for that to be the case, at least the way I look at. But I don't care about that. It was his story to tell the way he wanted to tell it. I am fine with that. It is their IP they can do whatever they want with it. I am not one of these people who is going to yell and scream "We deserved better or a different ending"

But this game did not work for me. I thought the writing was weak and for me there were too many things that just did not make sense or were done badly. I am glad people like it, truly. But I am entitled to not like something as well. I don't ask folks to defend why they liked it, I should not have to defend why I didn't.

I can guaranty I am in a way different place than 99% of people who have played both of these games. Yes that effects how I view the game. Emotional story driven games are supposed to do that. So when people tell me I am wrong or that I just dont understand because I don't like a GAME it is actually very insulting and just shows how shallow folks on here and around the garbage dump world of the internet can be.

Edit: Not referring to you in anyway. Never had issues with you and didn't mean it too seem that I did

[Blzer]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

I agree with most of what you are saying. But in my opinion this guy does not do that. He dismisses right off the bat peoples point of views that are different than his. His constant derision of Joel as a character and he comes right out and says if you feel a certain way you just don't understand. THAT is elitist crap.

I disagree that this was Druckmans story from the beginning. Too many good writers left the company during production for that to be the case, at least the way I look at. But I don't care about that. It was his story to tell the way he wanted to tell it. I am fine with that. It is their IP they can do whatever they want with it. I am not one of these people who is going to yell and scream "We deserved better or a different ending"

But this game did not work for me. I thought the writing was weak and for me there were too many things that just did not make sense or were done badly. I am glad people like it, truly. But I am entitled to not like something as well. I don't ask folks to defend why they liked it, I should not have to defend why I didn't.

I can guaranty I am in a way different place than 99% of people who have played both of these games. Yes that effects how I view the game. Emotional story driven games are supposed to do that. So when people tell me I am wrong or that I just dont understand because I don't like a GAME it is actually very insulting and just shows how shallow folks on here and around the garbage dump world of the internet can be.

Edit: Not referring to you in anyway. Never had issues with you and didn't mean it too seem that I did

No problem, you're good.

As far as what I put in red, what I mean is Druckmann's original vision when he made his pitch for TLOU. I know that Hennig and such had different ideas in place when writing Part 2, but after Bruce Straley was out of the picture, Druckmann wanted to take ultimate control to complete his original vision, and that's what he did. Now just a precursor, I use "original vision" loosely because there were going to be some character differences, even though there were still similar thematic and plot elements.

In college, Druckmann had a group assignment tasked to pitch a game concept to George Romero. He developed a story titled "Project NOTLD" (which stands for Night of the Living Dead), which focused on a cop with a heart condition protecting a girl during a zombie apocalypse, and every time his condition acts up you switch as playing the little girl; the idea was shot down. After college, he pitched a game idea called The Turning with similar aspects, only it turned into a criminal who lost his daughter and tried to redeem his past by transporting a little girl across the country to a safe location, and when he is in trouble with his old partner because of his past she ends up saving him by killing the partner.

Then when he worked with Bruce Straley at Naughty Dog, they refined this concept once more to start crafting the "original vision" of The Last of Us, which included a point after the events of TLOU where...

Spoiler

Tess looks to exact revenge on Joel by killing him, because Joel killed her brother (the surgeon). She would capture and torture Joel, only for you to take control as Ellie and come back to rescue him.

Time would jump all around where you play as Joel as he gets captured, and watch him be tortured and up to the point where Tess holds him hostage at gunpoint. You hear a gun shot, cut to black and this is where we rewind time to see how Ellie gets up to that moment in time.

This aspect got shot down for the first game. Neil even wanted to kill Elena in Uncharted 2. He's a pretty dark guy, I guess; not much levity to work out in his concepts.

So, character switching, revenge, and time jumps were always a part of his vision. Clearly for a Part 2 game to occur, they needed to extend the plot of this more, and this is where we start to see some of the things that occurred.

I'll agree with you that the words he said seem to hint at the fact that he's saying "I'm right and you're wrong," but I think he has a bit more dry humor and it was poking through a tongue-in-cheek way here, like his video title in and of itself (he knows what he's doing when he writes that, just look at the top comment and his response), and regarding map layout he says: "I'm either really stupid or the levels are confusing, and since I refuse to accept any of my mistakes, I'm going to blame the video game this time." This is banter with his audience. So yes, he does come on heavy with his opinion, but his demeanor was consistent throughout and it is for the sake of a hot-take in my opinion.

Regardless, the reason I posted the video hasn't changed. As I said in my post when I made the video: "It kind of makes things a little more levelheaded when you think it through." I didn't say his opinion was right or anyone else's was wrong; I wanted to leave emotion at the door and allow everyone to perceive the story as it was intended to be written and what it means regarding its structure. People don't have to agree, but it would be nice for them to see every aspect instead of narrowing their scope entirely.

As for the story, it's not like I'm completely in love with it either, but my coming into this story is so far different from everyone else:

Spoiler

Some people here probably know that I like to see as little of something (that I already know I want to experience) as possible, so when an E3 gameplay trailer came out I clicked Play and scrubbed the video super briefly to notice Ellie kissing some girl. I closed it out because I think I had already spoiled myself enough then and there, but strangely in my head I thought a few things:

1) This is much later in time (which it is).
2) You are playing as Ellie this time around (which ya do).
3) Some time in between Part 1 and this one, Joel had died.

Then commercials pop up where I see Ellie but hide away the rest of the time, I buy the game and the cover shows Ellie on it, and this whole time I'm thinking: "Hey, Joel is dead." Even when I start playing the game, any moments when I see Joel in the beginning, I'm thinking they are either flashbacks or just a prologue. Then when Joel goes venturing out with Tommy, I'm thinking "Okay, so this is probably where he dies and the game takes off."

So I guess the problem for me was I expected Joel to die, but for so many of the wrong reasons. If I watched all of the trailers like everybody else, I would have seen Joel in a bunch of shots that ND placed him in and assumed that he was still a part of the journey, and then I would never have thought the things that I did. I guess it's my doing by seeing about two seconds of that gameplay reveal that "Joel is dead" was always sadly in my mind from the jump. I guess I didn't see the reveal trailer a couple of years before that which still shows him either.

So I screwed myself over in this sense, sadly enough. Anyway, like I said, I'm not completely in love with it, but I am for different reasons. My main ones are:

Spoiler

The time jump leaves us at a cliffhanger that we don't get back to forever. They should have just played the days in sequence, but not for the same reasons the YouTuber mentioned, though he does have a point. This would also help with the abilities portion of the two characters; one reason I didn't like playing as Abby is because I had to upgrade everything again after upgrading Ellie so much. Now I had to do these things all over again from scratch, rather than slowly building over time and not having it feel like such a detriment for me. Perhaps playing this game again in + mode will make this become not so much of a problem.

I also feel like almost every moment in this game was all for naught, though I mentioned this in an earlier post already. "I'm going to kill you, Abby! Wait, no I won't." "I'm going to save you, Yara! Wait, no I won't." "My name is Isaac and I will have importance in this game! Wait, no I won't." "I'm going to kill you, Ellie! Wait, no I won't." "I'm going to kill you for real this time, Abby! Wait, no I won't." Obviously there were consequences along the way such as many deaths, Dina's departure, and two of Ellie's fingers, but not much story advanced as a result of everything that happened. Now, the YouTuber did inject something in my mind where he does have a good point, in that this story really does have more than just revenge in mind, and it's more about forgiveness when you see the whole picture. I do like that thought. I also like how it shows that Ellie forgives Joel as well, and Joel had redeemed himself (I love the final scene of them).

I also didn't like how Jesse and Manny were forgotten about so quickly. Now, I was actually totally okay that their lives ended practically mid-sentence, though I really think you can only do that once because it becomes less impactful the less time around, so I would have preferred Jesse's was instant (because the two fight anyway) and Manny's was slow so that Abby could go back to him after Tommy falls off the pier. Either way, I legitimately don't know if either character is mentioned again. I think Dina mentions Jesse and Joel to Ellie before she departs for Santa Barbara, but once they die they are kind of erased from everyone's memory. It was kind of strange.

So yeah, the story bugs me, but not because:

1) Joel is killed mercilessly.
2) We play as Joel's murderer for an extremely large portion of the game.
3) Ellie is gay and has lesbian sex.
4) There is a transgender character who is both deadnamed and whose gender is cynically used against him in the story for cheaply exploitative purposes.

If these are the controversies of this game, count me out as caring about any of these. I believe if these are spun the correct way in one's mind, these actually come into the story's strengths for certain people, which they did for me.

Anyway, thanks for lending your contributions. I think this game can be healthily discussed and there can be a nice, wide range of opinions. However, I do wonder how this game would be received and for which reasons if the first game was treated the way the YouTuber mentioned it at the end of his video (assuming the first game is still well-received, which it likely would have been).

[Bullit]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

I am not going to quote your whole post or go to in depth right now I as just don't have the time.

But I completely disagree with your point of leaving emotions at the door when being critical of the game from either side. This IS at its core and emotionally driving narrative, designed explicitly to invoke a reaction from the "player" I think if your try to remove emotion from it then you are both taking away from the game and what it means whether you liked it or not.


For example..........dont read if you don't want to hear about my life in general

Spoiler

I played the first game barely 6 months from the time my own daughter passed away unexpectedly. I went into the game completely blind and in a not real good emotional space. When Joels Daughter was killed I literally sat on the floor and wept for hours. It truly is a pain only a parent who has lost a child can understand.

So I finished the game with that emotional baggage influencing both my "enjoyment" and opinions of the story. This left me with an emotional connection that most players will not have with the characters of this story.

It is this emotional impact that made the story what it was to me.

With 2 I just did not have that connection. Was this because of my own emotions regarding these characters. Of course it was. Do I hate the way they developed the new characters, the writing, the whole contrived feeling I get from the story? Yes I do. Can this all be layed at the feet of my own emotional attachement? Probably.

But that doesn't lessen the fact that I just did not enjoy the game. I did not enjoy it because of any pseudo political or social reasons. I just didnt like the story the way they layed it out. Again I dont feel cheated or that I am owed anything from these developers because they did not tell the story I wanted to be told. Its not my story to tell. I experienced the story the told. I did not enjoy I, unlike a lot of people on both side of the discussion, moved on.

I wont stop buying Naughty Dog games. Hell I rarely buy new games anyway. Why should we? They will be half price in 3 to 6 months anyway. I just picked up Odyssey complete for like $14.

So anyway long, probably unneeded discourse over.

Peace

[Blzer]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

I am not going to quote your whole post or go to in depth right now I as just don't have the time.

But I completely disagree with your point of leaving emotions at the door when being critical of the game from either side. This IS at its core and emotionally driving narrative, designed explicitly to invoke a reaction from the "player" I think if your try to remove emotion from it then you are both taking away from the game and what it means whether you liked it or not.


For example..........dont read if you don't want to hear about my life in general

Spoiler

I played the first game barely 6 months from the time my own daughter passed away unexpectedly. I went into the game completely blind and in a not real good emotional space. When Joels Daughter was killed I literally sat on the floor and wept for hours. It truly is a pain only a parent who has lost a child can understand.

So I finished the game with that emotional baggage influencing both my "enjoyment" and opinions of the story. This left me with an emotional connection that most players will not have with the characters of this story.

It is this emotional impact that made the story what it was to me.

With 2 I just did not have that connection. Was this because of my own emotions regarding these characters. Of course it was. Do I hate the way they developed the new characters, the writing, the whole contrived feeling I get from the story? Yes I do. Can this all be layed at the feet of my own emotional attachement? Probably.

But that doesn't lessen the fact that I just did not enjoy the game. I did not enjoy it because of any pseudo political or social reasons. I just didnt like the story the way they layed it out. Again I dont feel cheated or that I am owed anything from these developers because they did not tell the story I wanted to be told. Its not my story to tell. I experienced the story the told. I did not enjoy I, unlike a lot of people on both side of the discussion, moved on.

I wont stop buying Naughty Dog games. Hell I rarely buy new games anyway. Why should we? They will be half price in 3 to 6 months anyway. I just picked up Odyssey complete for like $14.

So anyway long, probably unneeded discourse over.

Peace

I shouldn't have said "leave emotion at the door" the way that I did. What I kind of meant was: people sometimes dislike things when they don't go the way they had planned or hoped. Of course, one of those things was:

Spoiler

They hoped Joel would be alive throughout the majority of this story, when in fact he was barely in it at all and was killed.

Your anecdotal evidence for emotion is exactly what I think Druckmann was going for here, only instead of sadness now it becomes animosity. Unfortunately people are turning animosity towards the game (I don't mean you) rather than the story bits, or people aren't understanding why the story attempts to shift our animosity towards sympathy halfway through.

Anyway, you're totally in the right to not like the story. I'm whatever about the story, it's different and it's there, so it's cool. They definitely could have done different things and there is one thing in particular which I would have loved to see be more impactful that wasn't, but it's whatever at this point in my book.

So, I'm sorry I used the phrase I meant. I didn't intend for it that way. They want us to be emotional; what I was saying is one's opinion of the game should normally be enhanced by emotion, not hindered by it because they can't see past it for the bigger picture of the story. As you so eloquently put, a character's death in the first game drives negative impact in a very positive way. The game is better because of it. This isn't always the case, of course.

Off-topic, but what I really learned from this game and wasn't sure of before is: can the infected live for years on end without any source of food? That's what seems to be the case, at least.

[JazzMan]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

I’d say the main thing I don’t like about the story, in retrospect, is that...

Spoiler

Literally everything that was done was all for naught. From Ellie’s perspective, it just left everyone dead around Abby except for Abby, and now Dina is gone and Ellie can’t properly play guitar anymore.

Spoiler

Dina didn't leave Ellie. When Ellie goes to Santa Barbara she leaves Dina's bracelet behind. You can't find it on/in her backpack or on her wrist. When she returns to her old farmhouse she has Dina's bracelet on. So she probably returned to Jackson a bloody mess, Dina found her and they reconciled, hence Ellie having her bracelet in the final scene. And then Ellie goes to the farmhouse some time later to get her old things, where she then realizes that she can't play the guitar anymore and leaves it behind.

[NYJets]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

I still haven't put together my full thoughts on why I didn't like this and at this point I'm not sure if I have the energy to do so.

I will quickly say I would have liked them to cut out a 10 hour section of the game. This would have got the game out 12-18 months earlier. It saves Sony 10s of Millions of $ and fixes some of the issues a lot of people had. I don't think the sales would have suffered going from a 25 hour game to a 15 hour one.

Which part?

I’ll admit towards the end the gameplay became a bit of a grind and it was tempting to lower the difficulty down so I could just fly flew it. But I was always engaged in the story so I’m not sure what I would have cut out


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[YuNgWuN]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

Yea I wouldn't cut anything out.

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[georgiafan]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

Which part?

I’ll admit towards the end the gameplay became a bit of a grind and it was tempting to lower the difficulty down so I could just fly flew it. But I was always engaged in the story so I’m not sure what I would have cut out


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Spoiler

I would have removed the whole section where you play as Abby

[YuNgWuN]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

Spoiler

I would have removed the whole section where you play as Abby

Just a small part haha. That was my favorite half by a mile.

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[Blzer]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

Spoiler

I would have removed the whole section where you play as Abby

Curious, if the first game didn’t exist, where does your preference on the gameplay elements/story bits you incurred stand?

[georgiafan]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

Curious, if the first game didn’t exist, where does your preference on the gameplay elements/story bits you incurred stand?

Spoiler

The gameplay wasn't the issue for me I rate that as 10/10 for both characters. Even if you take out the 1st game which is hard to do I wouldn't have liked playing as Abby. I wouldn't have the connection with Joel so his death doesn't effect me so by default I guess I would have hated Abby less.

If I'm being honest a lot of that does tie into the "political stuff" which is a subject that I would rather not get into.

If you wanted to keep a few of the parts as playing as Abby in like the hospital flashbacks fine. However all the flashbacks with the guy I didn't care anything about was a waste of time since he wasn't a likeable/noticeable character.

[JazzMan]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

Spoiler

I liked playing as Abby

It took me a minute to get around to accepting her. I remember after doing her first flashback scene with her dad and the hospital, then starting at Seattle Day One all over again but with Abby, I had to stop playing for a couple days to think about what the hell was going on. When i came back to it, I was as glued to the game as ever. She was a lot like Joel to me which I loved, I mean they pretty much have an identical arc - cold, calculated killer who isn't afraid to get their hands dirty, ends up growing a soft spot for a teenager in peril and takes them under their wing.

Abby was awesome, and it really made me anxious as all hell once we finally went to Santa Barbara with Ellie. I thought for sure Ellie was gonna kill her in cold blood. But man seeing Abby like that toward the end shocked the hell out of me. She wasn't Claire Matthews anymore

[kingkilla56]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

Spoiler

I just couldnt get past the shock open of the game. I dont remember Joel torturing the doctor, so when Abby tortured Joel, any possibility of me, idk liking her went out the window. So while ND was trying to get me to feel bad about killing dogs or killing a pregnant woman, or killing a sweet doctor, I couldnt help but get annoyed, because it felt like ND was just trying to make me feel bad for buying their game. They were making me feel bad for ever playing this franchise. As if I actually had a choice in ANY of those actions. Most of which happen in forced cutscenes.

As for Abby, at no point does Abby show regret or understanding toward Joel. By the end of the game when she is slaughtering WLFs...her comrades...her friends, Im thinking to myself "ND wants me to like her?". She is killing allll these friends to save Lev, but ND wants me to feel bad that Joel killed alllll those Fireflies to save Ellie? You would think somewhere along the line she would realize she is acting just like that evil man from Jackson, and perhaps show some sign of understanding toward him. Not even forgiveness, just empathy? The only regret or remorse she shows is that her nightmares havent stopped after killing him. So her revenge was worthless. Wow. Incredible.

And dont get me started on Ellie. Was I suppose to dislike her the whole game? I'll save yall a long read and leave it at this: In Part 1 Ellie gives Joel an entire emotions speech about "Everyone in my life leaves and abandons me, everyone except for you Joel". Its a big character moment between them. One that has a significant influence on Joel's decision to save her in the end. HE REFUSED TO ABANDON HER. In Part 2 however it becomes "How could you Joel, my life could have mattered but you ruined it". Im sitting there watching this scene absolutely DUMBFOUNDED like "why isnt Joel putting her in her place about the reality of the situation. Cut the **** Ellie". At no point in Last of Us 1 did Ellie ever say or imply that she was willing to die for that cure, or anything for that matter. But this game decided to retcon it to make Joel out to be a monster.

And that is really my biggest issue with this game. The story structure is bad, the motivations dont add up, and worst of all its as if the game actively forgot what actually happened in that first game, and decided to rewrite the first game just to make us feel bad.

Oh and that ending, talk about piling on the misery. Yikes man, Ellie hadnt lost enough I guess, Im wondering how she even survived the game the way ND was writing her into the ground.

Like I said it was a good game overall, but that story was a dud for me.

[georgiafan]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

Spoiler

I 100% agree with the above post the story makes no sense when you step back and look at the specifics of it. They had to go into the game with the ideal of how do we kill Joel off quickly so we can highlight new characters. What did they gain from killing him so quickly ?

They still kept Joel around to market the game which was misleading because I came in expecting to see a follow up from the 1st game and that never happened.

Its not like Abby is some innocent person who has never done anything wrong. She killed plenty of innocent people in those 10 hours. So both her and Ellie are equally evil if you just look at the 2nd game.

[Jr.]

Re: The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4)

Spoiler

I 100% agree with the above post the story makes no sense when you step back and look at the specifics of it. They had to go into the game with the ideal of how do we kill Joel off quickly so we can highlight new characters. What did they gain from killing him so quickly ?

They still kept Joel around to market the game which was misleading because I came in expecting to see a follow up from the 1st game and that never happened.

Its not like Abby is some innocent person who has never done anything wrong. She killed plenty of innocent people in those 10 hours. So both her and Ellie are equally evil if you just look at the 2nd game.

I think your last sentence is the whole point of the game. None of them are innocent

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