Honest opinion.

[Sunny]

19 minutes ago, Raidou Kuzunoha XIV said:

 

The main thing I've been spoiled on is:

  Reveal hidden contents

Joel being killed off fairly early on, by Abby.

 

But it's not the first time I've been spoiled on a game before playing it, and I still look forward to eventually playing it regardless. May try to bump up its priority on my backlog and play it sometime in 2023.

 

 

I highly recommend it, just be warned for what you'll see, off topic, you like Raidou Kuzunoha, I loved both games so much, I'd pay high bucks for an HD remaster, I still can hear Helel infuriating sounds when moving around, best demon worse voice ?

[VegaMan-X4]

57 minutes ago, Raidou Kuzunoha XIV said:

Weirdly enough, those kinds of descriptions of the game are what have me interested. Many of the games I've played throughout the years that have tragic stories often feel like they're holding themselves back to some extent, like they're cautious taking risks or exploring less-than-appealing human emotions in depth, so they play it a bit "safer", which is understandable. From the sounds of it, this game doesn't pull its punches and it intrigues me for it. Probably isn't the kinda game I'd want to play all the time, but I'm all for putting myself through psychological trauma via the realm of fiction once in a while.

 

Try The House in Fata Morgana. Not much of a game but far more shocking and better written story with great characters and a wholesome conclusion.

Which you already did. My bad.

Edited December 2, 2022 by VegaMan-X4

[Darling Baphomet]

1 hour ago, Raidou Kuzunoha XIV said:

Weirdly enough, those kinds of descriptions of the game are what have me interested. Many of the games I've played throughout the years that have tragic stories often feel like they're holding themselves back to some extent, like they're cautious taking risks or exploring less-than-appealing human emotions in depth, so they play it a bit "safer", which is understandable. From the sounds of it, this game doesn't pull its punches and it intrigues me for it. Probably isn't the kinda game I'd want to play all the time, but I'm all for putting myself through psychological trauma via the realm of fiction once in a while.

 

Yeah, to be fair I'm more sensitive than most. I can handle graphic violence (especially when it's justified in one way or another) but it's depictions of suffering that drag on that really get me, and the game has a lot of that.

 

Like I said, I think it's a good game with a great story, it's just an extremely emotionally exhausting one.

 

But yeah, I think games typically don't tend to venture as dark as some other forms of media do, at least in terms of emotional suffering. I guess you need something more dramatic and engaging, like monsters coming to kill you or whatever else. The term 'trauma porn' more frequently gets used to describe TV shows / movies / books that go overboard with depicting the suffering of marginalized groups, seemingly only for shock value, which gets quite exhausting due to the sheer frequency of it.

 

1 hour ago, Sunnyburrito said:

I just beat the game while ago, the part you mentioned made me feel nauseous, like a hole in my stomach, it was horrible, that's pretty much why I said if one brand Abby as the villain it's because they didn't get the point of the story, no one in that game was in the "right",  I honestly felt sorry for everyone there.

 

Honestly, by the end of the game, I sympathized more with Abby than Ellie. Abby overall seemed much more reasonable, she was just an outsider, so to speak, while Ellie and Joel were familiar to us. After the ending I don't think I'd want to play a third game unless it follows Abby or a completely new set of characters.

 

[Sunny]

9 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

Honestly, by the end of the game, I sympathized more with Abby than Ellie. Abby overall seemed much more reasonable, she was just an outsider, so to speak, while Ellie and Joel were familiar to us. After the ending I don't think I'd want to play a third game unless it follows Abby or a completely new set of characters.

 

 

Same here, Ellie blind anger and violence was far worse than anything Abby did, after that unlikely alliance between her and those two characters she changed in my eyes, it showed a side of her I didn't expect, I think a good idea for a 3rd game would be an alliance between Ellie and Abby, where the infection is front and center again, where they together need to overcome the ghosts and sins of the past towards a common goal, a vaccine maybe, like the first game was about love, the second hate/revenge and the third would be redemption, I think it would be cool.

[Dry]

2 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

Sony is promoting more stuff like this and their political alignment is left leaning. Neil Druckmann himself is a leftist and he practically ousted Amy Hennig.

Indeed. Unfortunately there’s always gonna be those people who won’t admit to it simply because you replied. Proof of bias.

 

2 hours ago, TheDragonfly44 said:

Congrats on making by far the most cringe post I've seen on these forums.

Meh, I’ve read (far) worse user posts on this website over the years.

 

2 hours ago, Newtbludger12357 said:

Actual donkey brained take.

This can’t be right. The donkey is the mascot of the US Democrats and it’s clear AJ ain’t one of them.

 

 

[Darling Baphomet]

2 minutes ago, Dry said:

This can’t be right. The donkey is the mascot of the US Democrats and it’s clear AJ ain’t one of them.

 

Christ, if you're licking AJ's boots of all people's you really should start reconsidering your life choices.

[Boorish]

47 minutes ago, Dry said:

Proof of bias.

wtf are you even talking about?

 

4 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

It literally screams SJW, ‘I hate Joel therefore I need to kill him’ because I don’t like the traditional masculine male. 
 

Abby is practically the new standard for women in video games. Literally the opposite from the glory days of John Carmack creating fantasy power masculinity, Duke Nukem being a sex machine and magnet to women, and women being limited to certain roles in entertainment. Lara Croft served as the exception, and she was nowhere near as hate filled, despicable and psycho as Abby is. 

This is literally incoherent deranged shit. What does this even mean?

[Bloke]

Threads like this are the reason why I will never play this game.

[RayIshimura]

It's kinda stupid how tlou 2 got stuck with the "SJW " label just for having gay people, a buff woman, and an implied Trans character, Games like Red dead 2, Deus ex, GTA, Fallout, etc are a lot more political and a lot more "left-leaning" for whatever that's even supposed to mean, I don't even like tlou 2 but the fact that the discussion about the quality of the game keeps on getting derailed because people just have to get in that they dislike LGBTQ+ people existing, gets me almost as irritated as the tlou franchise as a whole.

 

I would recommend you play the game, while I don't like it myself, from what I have seen a lot of people have a great rezones with it and if you are one of those people you will have the time of your life and if not then you at least played the game, which is a lot more then most people did before disliking it. 

Edited December 2, 2022 by RayIshimura

[Xillynoc]

4 hours ago, Raidou Kuzunoha XIV said:

 

I've unfortunately already been pretty spoiled on TLOUS 2 anyway, despite trying my best to avoid spoilers, the internet was rife with them for quite some time, and continues to be.

Man, I got spoiled on the Joel thing in the comment section of a Metal Gear Rising song (of course, it was Armstrong's theme). Literally nowhere was safe from that shit, it felt like.

[AlphaLiquid-X]

On 11/22/2022 at 11:05 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

So... here's the thing...

...I say this as someone who absolutely loved TLoU, and though TLoU Part II is better in every single way...

 

...yes.

 

The violence in the game is absolutely grotesque at times - it's deliberately so. 

 

TLoUII is one of the few games out there trying to make a legitimate point about the futility and horror of pursing violence, and the poisonous nature of vengeance.

It does it well - and a big part of that is in making the player see things from multiple sides of a conflict, humanising the people on both sides... and having the violence be so sickening and horrific to see - and forcing them to engage with it, from both ends - that the point lands.

 

I actually think it's not just a great game, but an important one - and that it succeeds in every aspect of that central thesis statement - but it only succeeds as well as it does, by really amping the viciousness of that violence... and the empathy the player has to the people involved.

 

It makes the player recoil, and hate what they are forced to do at times.

Because that is the point of the game, I don't think it is gratuitous - but given what you said, I do think you should know going in that, yes, there is some really fucked up stuff in that game, and it's designed to make you recoil.

 

This right here is right on the money. Ultimately, the game is a rejection of the typical revenge story and thus showcases how destructive the desire for revenge actually is. And in order to do that, it has to brutal and downright bleak at time. Unfortunately, as some people in this thread have already shown, there are those who are simply too blinded by their hatred of LGBTQ+ individuals and anything that doesn't support their misogynist views to actually engage with the point the game is trying to make in any meaningful way. 

Edited December 2, 2022 by AlphaLiquid-X

[megacoolermensch]

i want to start this game so bad i have it installed. but first must furnish the first game oh no

 

sorry i cant answer op question 

Edited December 2, 2022 by megacoolermensch

[Sunny]

46 minutes ago, AlphaLiquid-X said:

 

This right here is right on the money. Ultimately, the game is a rejection of the typical revenge story and thus showcases how destructive the desire for revenge actually is. And in order to do that, it has to brutal and downright bleak at time. Unfortunately, as some people in this thread have already shown, there are those who are simply too blinded by their hatred of LGBTQ+ individuals and anything that doesn't support their misogynist views to actually engage with the point the game is trying to make in any meaningful way. 

Well I'm gay as the agenda so that's probably why I loved it.

[Alos88]

"The game is amazing, 10/10!".                 
"Don't bother it sucks"                                   
You can really tell who read the initial question and who didn't, lol. To answer you question, the game is brutal, uncompromising and sometimes hard to look at. Idk if it's realistic but it feels realistic compared to the relatively gore free ragdolls most games go for.  Even beyond that, the themes of the game are heavy and depressing, to the point where even if you could turn the gore off I still wouldn't recommend it to you.

Edited December 2, 2022 by Alos88

[TheRedMaverick]

There's a lot I can say about this game but to boil it down, it's my least favourite game of all time.

 

I'm not saying it's a bad game. Visually and technically speaking, the game is stunning, but it's also not groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination. The gameplay is extremely similar to the first game with a couple of enhancements. With the first game, the gameplay is a vehicle to deliver the incredible story from moment to moment, but with Part II, a game twice as long as the first and not nearly as well written, you'll feel like you're riding a bike uphill. Day 1 in Seattle starts off promising where at least the gameplay seems to go in an interesting and unique open world direction, but it quickly reverts back to the same formula as the first game, and the story will no longer distract you from it.

 

The story is atrociously bad. I don't just mean because of the major plot points. I mean every character you cared about in the first game becomes an unlikable husk of themselves (with maybe a few exceptions) and every new character does very little to get you to care about them. The game does its best to try to convince you that this is just what happens in a post-apocalyptic world where revenge is your fuel, but it doesn't pull it off. The plot is forced on you by contrived character decisions and you start to wonder if maybe this was a scrapped version of the story that somehow became canon (spoiler alert, it kind of is: https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/09/the-last-of-us-original-plot-ending-and-villain-revealed)

 

The game is, in fact, the typical revenge story despite how others may feel about it. The theme that revenge will ultimately destroy you and everyone you care about has been done to death and done better in other games for that matter (God of War, Red Dead Redemption)

 

You'll get the fringe who hate the game because of its inclusion of a trans character etc. but this is the extreme minority. This game is controversial because of its subpar writing, unbelievable/unlikable characters, and unrewarding story.

 

There's a reason this game is so controversial. If you loved TLOU, this may be a game you have to play to see it to the end, like the last season of Game of Thrones or Dexter, but if you watched either of those shows and wish you hadn't watched the finales, you may want to skip this one.

 

[lettmon]

I just love exploring the post-apocalyptic world with rich visuals, which you are doing 90% of the time in this game, and the stealth-action gameplay is right up my alley. The violence when it happens is hard to watch at times, but I mean it is polygons. Maybe I was desentisized by watching 2 let's plays of this game when it came out, it is really no big deal now that I'm playing it. I understand the people who were disappointed with the story, but what did they expect - a soap opera about Ellie and Joel playing house in Jackson and going hunting? I think everyone knew that

Spoiler

Joel would die

in the sequel.

[Gothozi]

My honest opinion about this game is that I personally don’t like how it went. The entire game is just pure depressing and hard to play through the story. In Part 1 there is some depressing moments but in more of a balancing way. Although my favorite part about this game is the gameplay and how beautiful the graphics are. If you want to go for the platinum or go for the full 100%, then better hang on tight. 

[Alos88]

1 hour ago, TheRedMaverick said:

 

 

You'll get the fringe who hate the game because of its inclusion of a trans character etc. but this is the extreme minority. This game is controversial because of its subpar writing, unbelievable/unlikable characters, and unrewarding story.

 

 

Do you mean Abby? Because Druckmann has said time and time again she was not intended as a trans character at all, he really didn't like this interpretation (probably because it lead to her getting even more hate for less excusable reasons)

[BrandedBerserk]

9 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

It literally screams SJW, ‘I hate Joel therefore I need to kill him’ because I don’t like the traditional masculine male. 
 

Abby is practically the new standard for women in video games. Literally the opposite from the glory days of John Carmack creating fantasy power masculinity, Duke Nukem being a sex machine and magnet to women, and women being limited to certain roles in entertainment. Lara Croft served as the exception, and she was nowhere near as hate filled, despicable and psycho as Abby is. 
 

Sony is promoting more stuff like this and their political alignment is left leaning. Neil Druckmann himself is a leftist and he practically ousted Amy Hennig. Long time writer who gave us Uncharted and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.

 

The story of The Last of Us Part II is pretty left wing. And it was pretty clear where Naughty Dog and YouTube were standing politically when they were constantly removing peoples videos regarding the leaked footage in early 2020. 
 

There’s more but I already said enough. Unfortunately I spoiled the story by watching livestreams and I was basically disgusted with it. 
 

I don’t like the left wing, and anything trying to promote the radical left wing, whether it’s in a story, a statement, or a vision, I do my best to avoid it.

 

As someone that leans heavily to the right, I really wonder where the hell you guys come up with this shit sometimes as none of what you said ever came to mind even after four playthroughs of the game. There's a lot of examples of what you're speaking of and it's a part of the reason why I no longer pay attention to most Hollywood movies, Disney and Marvel shows anymore but this one right here I just don't agree with. 

 

I personally thought that it was a great game as well as one of the most technically impressive from the last generation. Pretty much everything about it is better than the first except for the story, characters and off putting pacing as the game dragged on for too long which lessened some of the bigger moments but other than that, it's a brutal journey that stayed on my mind for quite some time. I actually applaud sony for taking such a dark turn with one of their biggest franchises and most beloved characters as most studios wouldn't even think of attempting something similar.

Edited December 2, 2022 by BrandedBerserk

[mackenzie129]

2 hours ago, TheRedMaverick said:

Snip

 

I respect the hell out of this answer, long precise and doesn't fall back on the 

WoKe or sJw RuInInG maH GaEms 

 

I liked it but I respect the hell out of your opinion of not liking it 

 

 

Some of the character writing was terrible, I couldn't stand one of the characters and honestly she was so bland that I've already forgotten her name (Ellie's partner).

 

But the story in my opinion was good it made me feel like a piece of shit in the way that I killed my way through all these people. That were "developed". But you're right god of war is a good revenge story but it takes place over 8? Games. Honesty never played redemption so I can't form a opinion on that

 

Edited December 2, 2022 by mackenzie129
Added more

[ShinySpidey]

On 22/11/2022 at 5:05 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

So... here's the thing...

...I say this as someone who absolutely loved TLoU, and though TLoU Part II is better in every single way...

 

...yes.

 

The violence in the game is absolutely grotesque at times - it's deliberately so. 

 

TLoUII is one of the few games out there trying to make a legitimate point about the futility and horror of pursing violence, and the poisonous nature of vengeance.

It does it well - and a big part of that is in making the player see things from multiple sides of a conflict, humanising the people on both sides... and having the violence be so sickening and horrific to see - and forcing them to engage with it, from both ends - that the point lands.

 

I actually think it's not just a great game, but an important one - and that it succeeds in every aspect of that central thesis statement - but it only succeeds as well as it does, by really amping the viciousness of that violence... and the empathy the player has to the people involved.

 

It makes the player recoil, and hate what they are forced to do at times.

Because that is the point of the game, I don't think it is gratuitous - but given what you said, I do think you should know going in that, yes, there is some really fucked up stuff in that game, and it's designed to make you recoil.

I couldn't have said any better. This game hits really hard because it's brutal in every possible way. You may like it or not, but it's clear ND wanted to deliver something and not please everyone for the sake of it. I'm sick of people crying like babies and screaming "wE WanTeD aNoThEr sTOry ?". 

 

Also, I'm sorry to notice that some people are so frustrated about the game, that they need to spoil the story to feel better about themselves. Really sad, man...

 

[DrBloodmoney]

2 minutes ago, ShinySpidey said:

Also, I'm sorry to notice that some people are so frustrated about the game, that they need to spoil the story to feel better about themselves. Really sad, man...

Word. ?
 

I’m not getting into a whole thing here - it’s not worth my time and I said my piece,  answering the OP to the best of my ability…

 

…but that part in particular is disappointing in the extreme, and even more so when it comes from someone who hasn’t even played the game, and who’s entire “opinion” on it is a construct built out of the brick-a-brack of other people’s opinions, and held together with alt-right superglue.

[Alos88]

I wanna bring up something important about Abby in particular, since it's a complaint I've seen that I've never gotten.
Abby having muscles is a rare example of muscles not just being there for the sake of presenting a stronger looking character. There's narrative weight to why she chose to buff up, it's to contrast with her internal feelings of weakness. After her father was killed she felt powerless, and she trained so that she'd never have to feel that powerless again... not all buff women in games are trans, and Abby's physique actually says a lot about her without needing to tell instead of show. Do I like her as a character? Not really. But in terms of writing I'd say she's written decently.

[Sunny]

My initial question was already answered a long time ago, heck I even played and loved the game already but thanks to one person the whole thing derail beyond belief, with spoilers a galore so if any mod could please lock or delete this I'd really appreciate it, I think this thread ran its course @Beyondthegrave07 @DaivRules

Thanks in advance. 

Edited December 2, 2022 by Sunnyburrito