Amazing game imo but damn it's depressing

[GrantVernonHart]

It's good games actually but it's just bad at execution especially story

 

Game awards totally a gimick why tlou2 win for narration? Thats totally wrong ?

[Life-is-Torture]

Sometimes depressing is beautiful, never heard someone talking shit about movies like "Se7en", "The Pianist" or "Idi i Smotri" for being too depressive.

 

I just hope ND and Sony doesn't give a shit about the crybabies and give us another TLOU sequel.

I want it, I need it.

[Akirasolid]

On 3/9/2021 at 6:08 PM, dieselmanchild said:

This is exactly how the writers wanted you to feel. TLoU2 is one of the most emotionally manipulative stories I’ve ever experienced, especially in regards to the character assassination of both Joel & Ellie.

 

The dual perspective thing is quite an interesting idea on paper. I don’t object at all to the way Abby is humanized so we can start to empathize with her and understand why she did what she did, and I really love the idea of exploring that grey area of morality - the fact that in the end, NOBODY, not Ellie or Abby, is exactly right or wrong, good or evil etc. That every single person has lost precious pieces of their soul trying to walk the razors edge and survive in this unforgiving, apocalyptic hell they find themselves in. The world forces you to become hardened, or die.

 

But I think where the writers failed is in the execution of this idea, and in actually portraying this properly in a balanced way. Instead, the game spends an exorbitant amount of time & energy tearing down Ellie (to the point that her character does not even remotely resemble the girl from the first game) and making her into an evil, heartless shell of a human being while crafting Abby into a noble and sympathetic hero. And they do this by lazily copy-pasting the exact same “redemption” plot arc from the first game.

 

The reason the ending of the first game was so great was because of the moral ambiguity. You are thrust into the grey, where Joel does a bad thing for a good reason. But it doesn’t tell you how you should feel about it, you’re left to ponder the ending on your own and decide how you feel, and this is why the debate over Joel’s choice rages on to this very day, almost a decade later.
 

TLoU2 fails in this regard and instead felt very heavy-handed to me. The game tells you exactly how you should feel about the events that happen, and clearly portrays one character as being much worse than the other. I was disappointed.

 

I had no issues with the story they were trying to tell or how depressing it was in the end. I liked what they were trying to do but I felt they didn't succeed in telling it. I'll quote someone else because they said it better than I ever could.

 

*Spoilers below if haven't played TLOU2*

 

 

"Honestly, I thought the story was kinda trash, in no small part due to the order of events as presented to the player. I think we all expected Joel to eventually get the business side of things, but it happening so early and in that manner felt wrong. Then we spend the next half of the game feeling anger at this character who we are hunting with Ellie, only to switch over to her? And I know that was to empathize with her which might have worked except for two things: the aforementioned killing of Joel, and the fact that her character is a terrible person. She actively screws over people she calls her friends and leaves them dealing with the fallout of her wake. If you want to bring me around to liking a character, don’t make her unlikable.

What we liked about Ellie is her positivity and hopeful nature in the situation, and it is through his relationship with her that Joel is redeemed as a decent guy in the first game. Abby starts off on the wrong foot and as they say, and as the creators should have kept in mind, first impressions are everything and you only get one chance to make one. The developers forgot this in place of shock value, and the game suffers from a lack of disengagement during the second half as a result; I didn’t really care about Abby, I just wanted to know what Ellie was doing." -DEMETRIUS

 

I don't think the games story was "trash" but I felt like it failed at making me sympathies with Abby. It didn't help that, after she kills Joel, we still don't know anything about her and we play as Ellie for like 10 hours before we even get to know Abby as a character. And after going through the city killing Abby's friends we switch over to play Abby, mind you, she kills Jesse, and presumably Tommy at the time right before the switch. So she definitely had the bar low from the beginning. And even playing another 10 hours as Abby the game fell flat on trying to sympathies with her. 

 

Joel wasn't a hero in my eyes he was just someone who did anything to survive. I had no problem with Joel's death at all, I just felt like he should have died later on in the game to build Abby up before she did it.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Akirasolid
Spoilers

[dieselmanchild]

10 hours ago, Akirasolid said:

I don't think the games story was "trash" but I felt like it failed at making me sympathies with Abby. It didn't help that, after she kills Joel, we still don't know anything about her and we play as Ellie for like 10 hours before we even get to know Abby as a character. And after going through the city killing Abby's friends we switch over to play Abby, mind you, she kills Jesse, and presumably Tommy at the time right before the switch. So she definitely had the bar low from the beginning. And even playing another 10 hours as Abby the game fell flat on trying to sympathies with her. 

Yeah. I found it hard to sympathize with Abby and her character arc for multiple reasons, one of which was that you never really fully understand her motivations for her behaviour. We understand why she wants to kill Joel of course, but everything after that that comprises the bulk of your time playing with her stops making a lot of sense.

 

We are introduced to Abby as a brutal, ruthless killer as she smashes Joel’s head to pulp in front of Ellie. And then later when we get to play with her, we see and hear enough from the characters and environment to establish that she’s one of the WLFs most ruthless, bad ass soldiers, that she kills indiscriminately without remorse, and has literally turned her body into a weapon to aid her in this endeavour. Unlike someone like Joel or Ellie, Abby is not just killing for survival, she’s killing for sport. We are told she’s about as cold blooded as they come and this is why she’s so highly valued by the WLF command. She’s a killing machine with ice in her veins.

 

But then for some inexplicable reason, she is moved into completely betraying her people and everything she believes in to help a couple of her enemies after they cut her down from the rope. I can understand why she’d let them live after they save her life, but instead she completely abandons and betrays everything and everyone she knows to run off with Lev.

 

I thought copy-pasting Joel’s “redemption” arc from the first game onto Abby’s character was really lazy, especially since it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Based on everything we know and are told about Abby early on, her sudden decision to run off and become Lev’s protector feels out of character for her. In fact it feels pretty obvious that the only reason that whole redemption/saviour storyline with Lev even exists and is dragged out for so many hours is so that we (hopefully) come to see Abby as a good person and a sympathetic character. You can really feel the writers’ hands guiding your emotions through that latter part of the game.

 

Now with Joel, his redemption arc made complete sense because right from the opening scenes we know what happened with his own daughter, and we get to see and experience the way he grows to love Ellie as if she was his own blood. In a way, it’s like Joel gets a second chance to save his daughter, and within Ellie he also finds a reason to live and push forward in a world that has turned him into a cold and hardened man. He’s surviving, but he’s lost a lot of his humanity and has become an empty shell of a person until he meets Ellie and she helps remind him that there are some things in life worth fighting for.
 

This is also why it’s so easy to empathize with Joel’s agonizing dilemma at the end of TLoU - we completely understand how he feels and why he makes that choice. The reason that Abby suddenly becomes a good person at the flick of a light switch is a lot less clear.

[TheAbyssWalker61]

9 minutes ago, dieselmanchild said:

Yeah. I found it hard to sympathize with Abby and her character arc for multiple reasons, one of which was that you never really fully understand her motivations for her behaviour. We understand why she wants to kill Joel of course, but everything after that that comprises the bulk of your time playing with her stops making a lot of sense.

 

We are introduced to Abby as a brutal, ruthless killer as she smashes Joel’s head to pulp in front of Ellie. And then later when we get to play with her, we see and hear enough from the characters and environment to establish that she’s one of the WLFs most ruthless, bad ass soldiers, that she kills indiscriminately without remorse, and has literally turned her body into a weapon to aid her in this endeavour. Unlike someone like Joel or Ellie, Abby is not just killing for survival, she’s killing for sport. We are told she’s about as cold blooded as they come and this is why she’s so highly valued by the WLF command. She’s a killing machine with ice in her veins.

 

But then for some inexplicable reason, she is moved into completely betraying her people and everything she believes in to help a couple of her enemies after they cut her down from the rope. I can understand why she’d let them live after they save her life, but instead she completely abandons and betrays everything and everyone she knows to run off with Lev.

 

I thought copy-pasting Joel’s “redemption” arc from the first game onto Abby’s character was really lazy, especially since it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Based on everything we know and are told about Abby early on, her sudden decision to run off and become Lev’s protector feels out of character for her. In fact it feels pretty obvious that the only reason that whole redemption/saviour storyline with Lev even exists and is dragged out for so many hours is so that we (hopefully) come to see Abby as a good person and a sympathetic character. You can really feel the writers’ hands guiding your emotions through that latter part of the game.

 

Now with Joel, his redemption arc made complete sense because right from the opening scenes we know what happened with his own daughter, and we get to see and experience the way he grows to love Ellie as if she was his own blood. In a way, it’s like Joel gets a second chance to save his daughter, and within Ellie he also finds a reason to live and push forward in a world that has turned him into a cold and hardened man. He’s surviving, but he’s lost a lot of his humanity and has become an empty shell of a person until he meets Ellie and she helps remind him that there are some things in life worth fighting for.
 

This is also why it’s so easy to empathize with Joel’s agonizing dilemma at the end of TLoU - we completely understand how he feels and why he makes that choice. The reason that Abby suddenly becomes a good person at the flick of a light switch is a lot less clear.

Joel did nothing wrong, i would do the same if i  had a daughter , in a world like that i just care about mine not mankind 

[kfree7]

Life is depressing. 
The last 2 years have be depressing. 
 

[emailking]

On 9/15/2021 at 1:31 PM, dieselmanchild said:

But then for some inexplicable reason, she is moved into completely betraying her people and everything she believes in to help a couple of her enemies after they cut her down from the rope. I can understand why she’d let them live after they save her life, but instead she completely abandons and betrays everything and everyone she knows to run off with Lev.

 

 

I believe she does it because she feels guilty about what she did and the effect it had on her friends, and she wants to stop feeling guilty about it,

[TheRedMaverick]

The game is visually stunning and the gameplay is dynamically entertaining, but the story feels contrived to me. With Part II, the story steers the characters along the plot like it's on rails and questionable character decisions disengage you from connecting with virtually any of the characters. The first game had believable characters whose decisions felt natural and allowed the story to flow like a beautiful tapestry; every sequence and cutscene earned rather than forced by the plot.

 

The first game was incredibly depressing at times and explored some dark themes just like the sequel, so for me that has no bearing on my feelings about the sequel. By no means did the first game have a "good" ending, yet it made perfect sense and was the grand culmination of the entire game up to that point. The sequel failed to live up to the extremely high standard the first game set and felt extremely disjointed to a point where it becomes laughable (the beach scene). I understand using nuance to tell your story but the sequel just felt off almost the entire way through (although there were definitely some flashes in the pan at certain points especially with some of the flashbacks).

 

A year later, and I still think about how disappointing this game was for me.

[emailking]

What's wrong with the beach scene?

[TheRedMaverick]

On 10/20/2021 at 0:50 AM, emailking said:

What's wrong with the beach scene?

They did a poor job of selling it. You understand what the developers wanted you to feel in that moment where Ellie sees a flashback of Joel and at that very moment, forgives him for what he did thus releasing her from her quest for vengeance, but the entirety of the game prior to that does nothing to build upon that. All of Ellie's gameplay, even just before you get to the beach, is fueled by hate and Ellie stops at nothing to kill Abby, even leaving behind the people she loves the most. A convenient flashback happens and completely unravels those emotions? It's very Deus Ex Machina with the probable intention of keeping Abby alive for any future sequel and does not feel natural. Ellie has 0 knowledge of anything Abby experienced prior to being kidnapped, so although it might makes sense to you, the player, why Ellie spares her, it doesn't make sense in the context of the actual characters and story. The characters become marionettes that only serve the plot and it sucks you out of the story completely (although the game loses you well before that anyway).

The game seems like it would be interesting on paper, but when you actually see it play out and contextualize it with the narrative/gameplay structure, you realize that this was an idea that should have been shot down almost at its inception. I respect Naughty Dog for trying something unique, but in my opinion they didn't execute it properly and it led to an absolutely miserable and unfulfilling sequel that pales in comparison to the first one. Just my opinion of course.

 

[emailking]

Ohhhhh, I thought you meant when she arrives in SB. ?