@@fabiancorrea8279 Mel was heavily pregnant and its very unrealistic that she'd be able to do the things she did. It's also baffling why you'd take a heavily pregnant woman on a mission like that
@@dominicfrancis3356 It wasn’t really a mission, they were just traveling from the stadium to where issac was.... as he wanted to talk with them..... that’s why they let mel go because it wasn’t supposed to be high risk + mel and manny were both pushing for mel to go
On reddit, someone said that they didn't like tlou2, and ever reply was either "you probably don't like it because theirs gay people in it" or "that's not your opinion, your just going off of what big TH-camrs say" and that just pisses me off.
Have you seen Twitter? Yeah. That's pretty much wildfires too. Like some people can't take a fact seriously. I pointed out that Lev is born as "Lily" and the game shows you that Lev is technically a girl, only to be called a Transphobic. What a revelation. I guess I'm Transphobic now.
To this day, I don't believe Joel killing the Fireflies to save Ellie was villainous. 1. There was no guarantee they could reverse engineer a vaccine by removing Ellie's brain. At the hospital level, you find an audio log that spells out that this had the potential to work, but they had been doing experiments long before this and nothing worked. Ellie could have been the cure or just a unique mutation that can't be replicated. Either way, that isn't something you should rush to surgery without further testing. 2. Let's say Ellie's sacrifice would have created a vaccine, but the world is still stuck in an apocalypse. We've seen major cities taken over by ruthless hunters and cannibals roaming the wilds. None of that is going to go away in a heartbeat with a cure, especially when the world's economy and infrastructure is in shambles. There's a strong likelihood that they'd refuse to go back to everyday life after years of relying on their survival instincts and preying on others now that one of their many concerns has been solved. Let's also not forget that the Fireflies are against the military, the only group imposing order. They may want a cure, but they could just as easily keep it for themselves in a bid to seize control. They haven't exactly been honorable heroes, which leads me to my next point. 3. Ellie was never given a choice to save humanity. Marline says it's what she'd want, but what does it say about a group of people who want to save the world if they're willing to butcher an unconscious 14-year-old girl without explaining the situation to her first? Nothing was stopping them from waking her up and hammering out the details, but they were willing to sacrifice her on the slim chance that it could work. Joel made the same choice any loving parent would in that situation, and while it didn't help the world in any way, it ensured that everything they went through wasn't all for nothing. There's a real emotional weight when Joel risks everything to save this girl he's grown to love as a daughter and throwing it all away on bad odds and flimsy logic isn't a purely selfish thing to do. It's a moral gray area Druckman decided to ignore to generate cheap tension between Joel and Ellie in the sequel and ensure he dies a broken, miserable wreck who should have known better. I don't buy for a second that Joel would give his name and address to a group of strangers on a dime, even if they did help them survive a pack of Infected. Every person wants to survive in this world, but that doesn't make them good people. Joel of all people should know this as his time as a Hunter and the way he instructs Ellie in other scenes. It was disrespectful to character, and it was the catalyst for a 25 hour murder spree where the character learned nothing, didn't develop throughout the experience, and didn't accomplish anything but a mountain of corpses in the end.
Thanks for your elaborate input about almost everything that has bothered me regarding the sequel, we have to remember that Joel's decision to save Ellie had more factors backing it up, more than just his love for her, while it was still by far the biggest deciding factor. Remember that Joel never believed the Fireflies' mission to return the world it used to be? And throughout the first TLOU we can see what humanity has become. Absence of law and order, people robbing, killing, raping each other, lot of different military, terroristic groups pursuing their own interests. Do you really think that they could simply return to the old days after all of that savagery? Joel knows that there is no return, he has known ever since he lost Sarah. Remember, it wasn't the infection that killed her daughter, it was a normal human. Plus if u find and listen all those tapes that the Fireflies left behind, u will learn that they weren't even sure that cure would work. So there was no way that Joel would have let his beloved Ellie die, for that hopeless mission that he knows would never succeed, to develop the cure that might not even work at all. And in TLOU2 he is portrayed as selfish, stubborn, oldish dumb man, how are we supposed to believe that?
I would also add that the Fireflies are utterly incompetent. They're repeatedly shown losing ground, every location that's supposed to be theirs is decrepit or overrun. One of their scientists get bitten by their own monkeys that they're experimenting on. And they almost gun down Joel and Ellie while Joel is clearly nonhostile, and trying to resuscitate an unconscious girl. Like, seriously, these are the guys that people want to blame Joel for not trusting with surgery?
4. The fireflies screw Joel out of their agreement. They have him take this girl across the country and then knock him out, don't pay him and take his guns
Probably not even the world. Do people really think that the fireflies were really going to just give the cure away for free to everyone from the goodness of there hearts? More likely they would keep it for themselves and would only give it those who swear allegiance to the fireflies.
My problem with whole plot is it's childish and naive. I can fully understand Joel choosing Ellie over cure (she is daughter substitute) but Abby, sorry but no. Whole Abby's camping feels forced, like someone is trying to tell you his right is righter than yours. And most of all inconsequence Abby helps worst enemies because they saved her life but at the same time ignored it when Joel and Tommy saved her. That whole story is politicaly corect tale offending one's intelligence
Logically, Joel made the right choice. There was no guarantee that they could make a cure that works, and if you believe the theories, killing Ellie would be the single worst thing they could do.
@@mythmage8231 Did he make the right choice? If there's a 50% or 30% or 20% chance of stopping the zombie apocalypse you try. The girl you bonded with over the last month isn't worth it...
Just to offer an alternate interpretation of the finale of the first game, Joel's actions were NOT selfish. He and Ellie where in a compromised position and the Fireflies took advantage of that, kidnapping Ellie and leaving Joel no choice in her fate other than the violent path. The Fireflies took away both Joel and Ellie's agency to take a gamble on a cure that, if you read the collectible memos leading up to the ending, you discover wasn't guaranteed and the Fireflies had done this to other immune people before Ellie with every experiment resulting in failure. Knowing this, the Fireflies acted in desperation and Joel responded in kind. I'd say the surgeon was an innocent bystander in this, but he had raised a scalpel to Joel, he wasn't going to let him save Ellie, so he chose his fate. Joel even acted more logically than Abby by killing Marlene on his way out because he even vocalizes that she'd just come after them. Obviously the narrative heard by everyone else would be that some psychopath butchered the freedom fighters to steal their shot at a cure, but the players understand that the Fireflies, like a lot of "freedom fighters", aren't good people.
Great statement, but I would like to add something I pointed out to friends. If they went ahead with the surgery and somehow it turned out to be a success things still wouldn’t be any better. At that point when Joel and Ellie get to the hospital, the Fireflies are running on fumes. They are on the verge of extinction. Taking that into consideration, they also were working out of a old dirty hospital with old technology. If they were able to successfully create a cure, they don’t have the man power or the resources to synthesize mass quantities of it. Marlene wouldn’t go to FEDRA for help to get more of the cure synthesized. She would use the cure as a power move to gain leverage over FEDRA. She would fail spectacularly and end up getting killed. The hospital gets raided, and in the crossfire the cure is destroyed, and it’s back to square one.
Not to mention that even Ellie didn't get agency in this, which was entirely necessary to make what the fireflies did even remotely justifiable. Not to mention that the fireflies, like you said, aren't good people, they were more than likely going to leverage the cure on the off chance that they got it. On top of that, they deliberately misinformed the characters as to the nature and risk of what they were about to do, so even if they did give Ellie the "choice" it would have been misinformed, so they were still lying either way. From the perspective of a father, Joel was correct, from the moral perspective, which he learns on the way to make his choice, he is correct, from a political standpoint, he was correct. He didn't do anything wrong and I'm sick of him being treated by the new creative team like he did. His hand was more or less forced.
I think Ellie and Dina were not good companions in a story. They were just too alike and had not enough friction to write something exciting. Early on Dina tells Ellie how she killed her first man when she was like ten years old, while Ellie was fourteen. She always ups Ellie and it sounded like bragging. I thought they would set something up to reveal, that Dina is actually completely useless in a firefight. But they didnt and it was just a strange conversation. What i think was missing here were the infected. In the first one there was really this dread that the threat of the infected was looming over everything. People were willing to do terrible things to survive. Like rob anyone that comes by, or even resort to cannibalism. Yet in the second part societies are stable enough to start wars in between them, which was really off putting. A war is, was and always will be a giant waste of time, resources and lifes. And here come the Seraphites, a cartoonishly evil group of religious zealots that is okay with maiming children for trivial things. Seeing this, i can only conclude that Joel was right to save Ellie in the first game. If the infected take such a distant third place after the WLF and the Seraphites regarding the conveyed threat they pose... the world building is not at its best. When Jesse was standing there in that trailer scene i was silently fuming. I really felt betrayed, that fucking trailer swap felt like outright lying, just to squeeze out a few more sales. In every interview and trailer they were promising the audience that this game would be an opportunity to reconnect to Ellie and Joel and the dynamic between the two. To me this is not borderline false advertising, its outright fraud. Naughty Dog/Sony knew, that Joel and Ellie were the elements that sold the game and since Neil Druckmann is very much overrated as a writer ("I need to build tension. So lets kill one of the most beloved character of this generation during the tutorial") they just never prepared anyone for this weird narrative.
Good points. With the Joel scene in the trailer that's actually Jesse, it just seemed odd to even include it in the trailer. At least the other Joel scenes where they aged him up were actually in the game. He wasn't even in the scene in seattle. And yeah I was so excited for the seraphites but we didn't learn enough about them seeing as they were featured so heavily. They're just cliche. Only cool thing was the whistling
I agree with many of your points but i take a firm stance on the poor execution of Joel’s death. I think if the game wanted to show both Joel and Tommy softening up, then they should have showed that better. The first time we meet Tommy in Part 1 Joel and Ellie are greeted with weapons from their community. This community is not full of push overs. Plus in Part 2 we see patrols are continually being conducted. In one flashback we see Joel still cautious about Ellie wearing her mask and then taking on a bloater by himself (and winning). You don’t just lose 20 years of experience and this shows that, unless the game needs Joel to die to push the plot forward lol. Also, how does Ellie become for proficient at surviving and I’m supposed to believe that Joel gets worse? Part 2 did not do the leg work to show this change in Joel, which is part of the reason why his death feels poorly executed. Overall I enjoyed the video, good job :)
Critical Nobody thanks! I really liked how you broke down the other scenes I did not cover in my videos. Your reasoning was easy to follow and it showed even someone who enjoyed the first game but didn’t love it, saw the many writing issues in this one! The part with Mel (pregnant lady) was really interesting. Naughty Dog could have executed that better to convey a better sequence and tension!
Joe, The Alternative Gamer i also feel the fireflys were not justified at the end of 1. They didnt give ellie the actual choice of living. They just went on the chance that she would save the human race. What happens when she isnt a actual cure? Well ya just killed a little girl with no actual payoff.
Agree very much i doubt knowing Joel as we do he would of even helped Abby. The main issue here is trying to put a version of todays beliefs into a world like the one portrayed in tlou its just plain silly
As you pointed out, the one kill you have to do at the end of TLOU is the doctor. Even then though, it's done in semi self defense since he was holding a weapon and threatening Joel. Though the way the doctor was presented before that scene in TLOU2 is a bit more competent with a weapon then shown in that scene. Not to mention, I never felt that Joel doomed the world. Only the FireFlies believed they could make a cure from Ellie, but at the same time were doing it in the most round about, half assed fashion. There is no reason to kill her when all you need is a sample of the fungus cells, and it would be far better to keep the hose and fungus a live to run tests instead of killing and trying to keep it preserved with what tech they have left. That said, I feel there is no redemption for Abby, no matter how much they try to humanize her. She tracked down and killed Joel in cold blood, even after he saved her from the hordes of infected, she still went through with the plan. She sat for 6yrs premeditating the murder of Joel, and when she finds him, enacts what she can. Meanwhile, Ellie, while not in the right, is more understandable. She's still hot blooded, and in the moment. She watched her surrogate father be tortured and killed before her, and immediately set out to find the killers with her anger and rage still full in her heart and guiding her. She offers each of Abby's group a chance to live, just wanting the woman who killed her father and nothing more, and each attack her instead, causing her to kill them in self defense. As for the morality of the game, you hit it on the nose. We're supposed to believe these characters are remorseful for their actions... after seconds earlier you're wading through the corpses of infect, scars, and wolves alike like a grim reaper. Making any poignant moment lose impact and power since it's just another body, or thing you're forced to do. I'll be honest though, the MOMENT the game switch to Abby's quest.. I lost all interest and had to force myself to play the game. It just felt.. dull and tacked on.
You know what makes the Fireflies look worse in this regard? They had 12 other immune people before Ellie, and all of them died to the same thing that the Fireflies were going to do to her. Had they gone through with it, Ellie would probably just be another death caused by their incompetence. Joel was right to take her back, even if he wanted a cure.
@@magnatcleo2043 Wait!? Where did you learn this? There was a mention of test subjects on the tape, but I think that was them trying to make a vaccine/cute without someone immune.
@@marbles8641 Actually, I forgot that it was removed from the proper game, so I don't know if that's still canon or not. It was going to be in the game originally.
@@magnatcleo2043 I think this is one of the main things which make the first game so morally ambiguous. Some argue that Joel deemed humanity, then there's the evidence of the Fireflies failing tests, then there's people who are willing to take that risk if it means a chance that it works. There's alot of different branching paths but instead they make out Joel to be completely in the wrong in Part 2.
@@falcononpc9845 No, Joel isn't entirely in the wrong, but from what our characters know (because they didn't hear about the other people because it was cut from the game) Joel was a bad guy, Ellie wants to mean and she's angry she couldn't make that choice and joel made it for her, The people who see joel as bad are the ex fireflies, Ellie is ready to forgive joel the day before he is killed. Stop labelling shit black and white
@@introvert6705 I get that, but who didn't KNOW that there are 2 sides to every story. Did you need a videogame to tell you that the perceived bad guy has a perspective, and in their eyes they feel justified. It also doesn't respect the medium of videogames, because unlike books and movies, the choice is not mine, but the characters we see/read. In a game, I make the decisions that the game wants me to, then it wags it's finger at me for making them.
@@ummfada we know there are two sides but we wouldnt understand abby if we didnt play as her and see her character arc. Also i dont know what you mean with wagging the finger at you the game never judges the player.
@@introvert6705 what is there to understand?,that she was taking revenge from joal for something he did to her,and that she's accually not a bad guy,did you seriously not get that only after you played as her??
Adding in to the discussion about Joel's death, I am in the camp that Joel died too early (along with everything else about contrivance). 1) If we spent more time with Abby 2) if more sympathetic qualities from Abby were on display from the start 3) If we spent more time with Joel, to show how his character developed after the events of the first game That could have made Joel's death more palatable.
everything would have worked out if abby had joined Ellie's group, becoming friends, only to discover joel's true identity and betraying them, torturing joel to death in front of ellie
Also, change the world significantly enough to justify Joel's character shift. It doesn't seem like the world is safe enough to justify Joel "going soft", as many claimed he did.
@@magnatcleo2043 true, living in a peaceful community does not change anything, try going to a veteran to tell him that all the awareness he built up in the last decades will reset in a few years, even if he still goes on missions. It will be funny😂
With Veteran it's instilled into you for years by an unforgiving general and or sergeant... I believe that is different than surviving and having the choice to do as you please. Again just stating...nothing malicious 🙂
@@simonanvil4617 Joel didn't really reset, Tommy said Joel's name way before and Mel, introduced himself, he can't walk around Jackson with a fake name, plus Abby was looking for Tommy and Tommy knows Joel is his brother. And even worse during the incident when they were getting away from the runners and clickers, Joel says Tommy's name as they fight the hoards off. It's just natural to say a loved one's name when in danger. Even in the game, the man not only told Ellie to wear a mask just in case someone shows up, but he took a bloater down with machete to save Ellie... His instincts and attitude were still shown, but he states "I'm getting old" wouldn't an old man try to settle ? There are many factors that went into his death, nevermind the notes scattered through the game talking about Jackson. Just pointing this out dude, no hate or anything like that, I just want to tell the facts 🙂
I'll always argue that Bruce Straley was the person that reigned in Neil Druckmann, without him we get TLOU 2 with him we get TLOU 1. Edit: okay, this whole Joel got soft cause he lives in Jackson thing is such a weak argument, and I'm so sick of it. First off joel has 20 years of living in survival mode I don't know about you, but 20 years fighting to survive versus 3+ years of comfort ain't gonna change a man THAT much. Secondly Joel has been shown to be a man who'll do anything for the ones he loves, even in the first game Tommy alludes to this by saying he didn't feel like the things they did back then were justified, but Joel nonetheless still wasn't apologetic for what he did. With all that in mind when, if Joel has much more to lose I don't think Joel will suddenly mush up, and trust strangers, much less strangers that are armed to the teeth like Abby's group. Thirdly do you really think Joel doesn't think or assume he'd be hunted down for doing something like kill a base of the fireflies? Mind you Joel also was a hunter before a smuggler. 10 or 15 years of hunting would probably net you people who want to have revenge for what you did to friends or love ones. So I don't really see this Joel being not wary of strangers. Lastly Joel even before the apocalypse was already distrustful of people. Remember the family Joel left on the side of the rode, just because Joel doesn't want to take a risk? All in all this whole Joel becomes soft thing is SUCH a bad plot point, especially considering this starts of the entirety of the story.
@@CriticalNobody Yeah pretty much. Btw did you know they initially made Abby be part of Jackson? She actually teams up with Ellie, and eventually learns that they are the people she was looking for, but scrapped it because the game was too long( which tbh they could've trimmed a lot of the stuff in so that they could set it up like that).
I can buy it. Ever since Sarah died, he was kind of a miserable, angry man who lived a horrible life and did a lot of heinous things. But post TLOU1, he's the closest to being happy he's been in a long time. He's got a life with Ellie now, he's pretty much reconciled and bonded with his brother again, he has something much closer to a normal life and pleasures than he's ever had post outbreak, etc. I do think they should've done a better job showing this softer side though and its still a bit out of character for Joel to not be more cautious. Hell, even before the world had completely gone to shit, Joel was totally fine leaving a couple and their child on the side of the road to minimize risks to his own family. In TLOU2 We see Joel once during the prologue, then the only time we see him after the time skip is during the PGA 2038 scene. So I can sit here and infer that he's gotten a bit soft all day, but they never really show you that. At least before that scene. Flashbacks do help though
10:40 Even in the first game's PROLOGUE, Joel was completely untrusting. Remember, he insisted on NOT picking up a small family that was begging to be picked up, even when he didn't know what was going on with the virus. 11:15 Again, no. We know full well The Fireflies' plans had a 100% chance of failure. It's basic procedure to take a sample, not kill the host. There was nothing stopping them from taking a sample of the parasite, they gave Ellie no choice in the matter, and they've been causing rampant terrorism from the get-go. 31:15 It just seems comical that she left the safety of a comfy home to roam around zombies while carrying an infant around. What a stupid decision.
About the third part - she most definitely didn't move out on her own. How would she transport all the furniture and whatever? She had someone pick her up in a truck and drive back to the town from the tutorial, that's my guess.
[SPOILERS IN THIS POST] I think it's really shitty what they did to Ellie. They pretty much gave us the first game and made her extremely likeable and got us all attached to her, then they spent the second game pretty much taking away everything she had and making her the most miserable person on Earth. What's also baffling is that, in the game, Ellie and Abby never really.. talk. Like, Ellie never asks Abby why she killed Joel. Never asks what Joel did. Abby never asks if Ellie killed all her friends - she just assumes it. All these two do is scream threats at each other. It makes their rivalry feel sort of half-baked if they've never exchanged any dialogue beyond screams of anger and grunts of pain.
@@doogallas in real life, lots of people cannot fix their relationships due to miscommunication. it would be so cheesy if they allowed Abby and Ellie to "talk things out"
@@KoneeKawa It would be yeah. Although if you have a story where everything could easily be avoided by a short conversation, it's probably not a good story.
@@doogallas popular classical literature usually surrounds miscommunication: pride and prejudice, wuthering heights, the great gatsby- the list goes on. great stories are about human nature and human nature often means we are blinded by our own emotions and assumptions. not saying this game is literature, but it's commonality to compare stories to greats
The game's problems actually start with the previous game. Abby wants Joel dead because he killed her father, a man that the first game absolutely would not allow you to take out non-fatally. No matter what you do, that surgeon will die, even if you shoot him in the foot. It was also clear that the vaccine they were hoping for was just a pipe dream. The reality of the situation is that Ellie would have died for nothing because these idiots had no idea what they were doing. They lacked the competency, the capability, and most likely the actual willpower to actually distribute a vaccine that in all likelihood would have done nothing due to how far the world had gone. The fireflies weren't the saviors of humanity, just another grey faction in their world. So Joel and Ellie make their way over the course of a year across the country chasing after them, each time they get close they see the results of the Fireflies and it doesn't inspire confidence imo. Add that when they get there, Joel is knocked out while Ellie is drowning and when he wakes up they tell him they can create a vaccine, they just need to kill Ellie to do so. He couldn't have been out that fast and they are already jumping to a lethal option. They then tell him to F*** off without giving him his things back let alone the things that were promised when it all started.. Which means he would have likely died within a day of leaving the hospital. Of course, the actual event that sparked the fight against the fireflies was one trigger happy member trying to shoot Joel because he paused, which coincidentally happened right after he passed by his things. I think at that point he felt that he was screwed either way and this way he had a better chance at survival. I really cannot fault him for defending himself from people he helped.
Not to mention that, in the real-world, there's no such thing as a vaccine for a fungal infection (which is what cordyceps falls into). It may have just been a plothole, but it also could've been the ultimate indicator that the Fireflies' plans wouldn't have worked. Even if they made a vaccine, the Fireflies were shown to be a violent terrorist group, so what's to say they wouldn't have used it to maliciously push their own agenda?
I'm mostly in agreement with you, The ending just felt like a cop out. I didn't learn anything about myself or feel challenged I just felt bored. The SECOND Abby and Lev got captured I knew this was going the "you've suffered enough" route. They pulled the same shit in Max Payne 3 with Serrano and it felt just as unbelievable there. In fact, Max Payne 3 as a whole is a good comparison to TLoU2, takes itself too seriously and meanders when it should just GO there. For such a violent game with such interesting risks taken with the narrative, they really lacked bravery with the outcome.
I actually liked MP3's ending way more, even though, you know, MP2 already finished on Max letting go of his wife and child. Partly because there were 3 games worth of suffering, Max legit just looked tired, which in my headcannon is also why he's much more vulgar.
Spoiler alert for this comment but did you notice the subtle context clues at the end of the game that indicate Ellie and Dina got there happy ending after all? it's just a theory based on small context clues given at the end of the game. But yes, perhaps Ellie got her happy ending with Dina and JJ after all. Something important nobody noticed Ellie is wearing the Dina's bracelet on her right wrist at the end when she returns to the farmstead indicating quite some time has passed and they must have reunited before that scene takes place because her wounds are healed up and everything. She only returns to that farm to leave the guitar behind Before Ellie leaves to pursue Abby to California, a letter in the farmhouse from Jesse’s mother says that they’ll always have a home in Jackson should they choose to return to that community. This makes it pretty clear where Dina and the baby ended up at the end. But did Ellie ever reconnect with them? Apparently, when Ellie heads to California, she is not wearing the bracelet that Dina gave her. Multiple images of the fight with Abby confirm that it is indeed not on either wrist at that time. However, when she’s back at the farmhouse, the bracelet is once again on her wrist. Ellie’s wounds have also healed, and it seems to be later in the year-fall, instead of the blazing summer heat. Ellie also doesn’t have any of her weapons on her, all of which seem to indicate this scene may not be immediately when she returns home from confronting Abby. The theory goes that this is some time after Ellie got back. She’s already reconnected with Dina and the baby back in Jackson, and her wearing the bracelet shows that they’ve made amends. Ellie returns to the farmhouse to get the guitar-notice that she doesn’t seem surprised the house is empty or even call out Dina’s name. When Ellie sits down to play the guitar for the first time since losing her fingers, she realizes just what her pursuit of vengeance cost her, losing what Joel had given her. She sets down the guitar, says goodbye to that part of her past-both his death and his betrayal of her in the first game, two things she had been struggling with-and looks forward to the future and what she still has. So perhaps Ellie and Dina got there happy ending, the player just didn't get to see it at the end. We just have small context clues that hint she reunited and they went back together in Jacksonville
** Ending Spoilers ** There are so many points in the story where small changes would make it flow better. Even without changing the direction that they were going for. Even with Ellie and Abby's final confrontation, instead of a fight where Ellie lets her go for some reason leaving the audience pulled out of things and annoyed. Have her walk past all those poles with people the slavers strung up as examples. And when she gets to Abby, she's just already dead. So she fought and sacrificed everything to come for her revenge and that person is already gone. You could then have a scene of her cutting down Abby and kicking the body in frustration as she realized what she gave up for nothing. Then as the player we'd feel some of the same frustration of not being able to take her out rather then just being annoyed that Ellie lets her go for no reason.
True, but that would ruin any chance of the next sequel that is already likely planned: The Last Of Us: Revengence (DLC Planned Parenthood Edition later with a group of pregnant ladies roaming around killing shit)
If the roles were flipped and Abby killed Ellie instead of Joel he would've ripped Abby apart with his bare hands yet I'm supposed to believe that Ellie thinks that Joel wouldn't want her to finish Abby off? The fuck outta here.
You missed something though. That part was when ellie was trying to forgive Joel, and then she figured out if she couldn't forgive Joel anymore she was gonna forgive Abby it's kinda obvious
I gotta say joel didn’t doom the world. It was already doomed and we didn’t know for sure if killing Ellie to “attempt” to make a cure would even work. On top of that. Ellie was unconscious from almost drowning and they weren’t even gonna let her make s choice or let her know what was gonna happen. Then they threatened joel and forced him out without letting him see her. Joel has been surviving for so long just because he’s been in a nice area for several years doesn’t get rid of being skeptical of everyone. It was a cheap death done wrong and out of the characters behavior just to make this a story with Abby in it.
No you weren't even asked, it's up to you to sympathise or not by the end. You just play as her to understand a point of view. As the saying goes "Walk a mile in someone else's shoes". No malicious intent from the comment dude 😅 Just wanted to say how I felt about it when I played and finished.
Ryan Edie it sort of doesn’t feel that way, since it’s set up to manipulate the player into feeling bad about what Ellie did. It also feels like failing to sympathize with Abby makes the third act fall flat. At least, that’s what I got out of it.
Alot of the story beats in the game is manipulating you to feel a certain way. Like doing a QTE where you kill a dog and having a flash back of the dog playing fetch. Literally beats you over the head that you must feel bad.
@@moonmoon2479 You are right about the "If you don't feel anything for Abby the third act can fall flat". The reason I won't say it is manipulation, is because of what manipulation really means. E.g. The killing the dog incident happends only once and it is taken out of your control barring the QTE itself... the act of killing the dog was in self defense. In gameplay you have every choice not to kill the dogs; at the very beginning of the game you also pet a dog as Ellie. To manipulate someone can be seen as underhanded, exploitative or even devious, I could easily say many games manipulate you emotionally so you feel something. It is still up to you, if you feel this way ultimately. Many people wanted Abby to die just because of what she did, in this case I could say ND manipulated you emotionally by killing him (Joel). So I wouldn't use "manipulate" like that y'know? But that is just me 🙂 But yeah if you don't feel it for her, even just a bit then it does fall flat and ND (naughty dog) did put some of their eggs in one basket so to speak. 😅 But that is me personally.
@@espio329 Ellie plays with a dog at the beginning as well, you have every right to just leave the dog the very first time with Abby, I'm unsure about the second time, but I completely dislike the second time because you are meant to be looking for Lev. I looked back at the second time like , the time it took us to play with that dog in THAT moment we probabaly would have stopped Lev from starting the boat 🤣🤣 Many games try to manipulate you emotionally, but i feel manipulate is a strong word to use, because of the connotations. As usual when someone is manipulated it would imply some sort of devious intent or could be seen as even exploitative. Which don't believe is the case, the QTE occurs once when you kill the dog and that was in self-defense you can easily not kill any dog in game. I've done this, I've killed the owners but not the animals, unless they are aggressive, in that case I kill the dog first to be tactical (played it on hard first time, the reflexes were ridiculous from the AI). But yeah you have the choice.
Your argument that Joel is a selfish bad guy seems to be shared by Druckmann and this is the single most important thing about this game that I and many others would disagree with. The Fireflies were going to murder Ellie in her sleep for a CHANCE of a cure!!! The so called innocent doctor then points a scalpel at Joel when he want to take her off the operating table. This is the core issue of the games story. They FAIL to provide a sufficient reason to kill Joel and relatable reason why we should care for scumbag Abbeys scumbag dad! This is why the game is a failure in storytelling. It doesn't help that ND have barely changed their basic game play design since Uncharted in 2007. 13 years and 7 games of the same game play bar adding a rope or going prone. Lazy but normally gets through by the games looking amazing and having great characters. They got the graphics right this time only.
@@RSrunner88 the audio logs you find throughout the hospital implied that it is very much just a chance. There is no guarantee that the procedure would render a viable cure, the only guarantee is that Ellie would die.
@@RSrunner88 just because a doctor would give his life doesnt mean its implied that he would make a cure.. at all.. they where hoping for a cha crew with Ellie and there was a chance that it wouldnt work
@@RSrunner88 it doesn't matter what the fireflies thought. by the ending of the first game, we knew that they were terrorists who were on their last legs and didn't have any intention of giving joel his payment. they were going to kill a girl without her consent and either kill joel as soon as they got him out of the hospital or throw him out of their safe zone without any of his weapons that he came there with. and assuming they even could create a vaccine, there's no way they could've mass produced it AND restored order among all the factions and that's assuming their motives were pure and they wouldn't let that power go to their heads which again, seems like what they would do.
To be completely fair regarding the Jesse argument; Seattle probably has more than one entrance, giving Jesse the opportunity to get into the city and overtake the girls. Plus, Ellie went to Hillcrest in response to hearing about a trespasser that she thought was Tommy but turned out to be Jesse, so i think it makes perfect sense for him to 'show up' like that.
@Adam Sunderman Jessie actually does have his own thoughts. He questions Ellie numerous times, about going back Jackson so Dina can be sage, how much he looked up to Joel, how he felt about being told if that she was pregnant and even after being told he quesrioned her in relation to the topic. Hell he even takes it upon himself to leave Ellie when he thinks that what she was doing (going after Abby) was insane. His death signifies the fact that any character can die in the world, the same way Tess died in the original game. She 100% was useful just as much as her, I hope the post doesn't look malicious as I just wanted to get across that he has moments that show he is a decent character, he doesn't have to do something incredibly outlandish to justify it... that's just a thought and opinion though 🙂
@Adam Sunderman Well said! Dude we can hash it out but ill come back to the comment somewhere down the line since I'm super tired haha. I will say this about Jessie maybe you are right in certain instances. Since to really ingrained himself as a character with more motive, he could have been a little more emotive. 😅 I'm trying to write myself, so I'm taking the time to gather information here there and everywhere before I can get back to it. This conversation is very eye opening and I think others can learn from it too. Discussion never has to turn sour due to disagreement. 🙂
Jesse is nothing but a token character that only serve to impregnated Dina and died like a pathetic idiot. Just blindly went through a door without being cautious or take cover and he's apparently Tommy's best man.
@@zeroskaterz92 Fair, but I don't entirely agree on that. No malice I personally just don't agree with that statement 😅 There is no true way to die in the world of the last of us besides (and this my opinion) either going in blind on purpose or through cowardice, they had no Idea the situation past the door, since it happened instantly. You state it as if he ventured into no man's land when that is not the case, he is by no means a fully fleshed out character sure... but he was not just there to impregnate (That's what I think). You can say I'm wrong and that's cool, but I believe you haven't really thought about his death and how it happened. Also to add this at the end... im quite sure Ellie did the wxact same thing at the start when she went to go and rescue Joel. 🙂 I wanted to add this specifically so you can see the parallel, Jessie went in for someone he cared about, the same thing Ellie did.
@@triple_r_va Ellie barged in without fully know what happened as she didn't expect Joel to end up like that. She didn't even know there were people there. Jesse literally heard a ruckus and just barged in like a fucking idiot. Also the fact that Ellie was stupid enough to leave the map so that Abby could find them. So what are you on about? It baffles me how tryhard you really are to comment on every posts that don't share the same view as you. How much of a tryhard you are to defend this shitty game, came up with bunch of excuses and telling people how wrong they are and how right you are. Gtfo here.
@@dksamaritan5200 honestly im more of a guy that likes plot twists that get reinforced on a second viewing not just dumb shit where the writer wanted to shock you Like in ex machinca where the protaginist wasnt randomly picked to spend some time to spend some private time with the ceo through a lottery system but instead the ceo hand picked him to test out a turning test robot and used his position to make the offer attractive and the lottery system to make it look random
@@thewhitewolf58 I can get that, but a plot twist does happen, just in the notes more than anything. (Spoiler of course) You find out Issac was: Wanted by Fedra (the original games government) Created The WLF, signed a treaty and then broke the treaty later on between the WLF and the Seraphites (scars) to cover his ass because he kidnapped and (i think) tortured the leader/prophet and (basically) created/made the cult way worse. So he started the new war again to cover his ass and end them. This was a very good freaking plot, just sad you don't get more of him a little bit, it is good lore though! 😅🤣
I just *DO*. *NOT*. *SEE*. How the writers think we should actually feel sympathy for Abby. Joel killing her father was not out of malice. Abby killing Joel was *PURE* malice. Abby KNOWS the pain she's inflicting on Ellie because she's been in the exact same position but she does it anyway. Ellie is *VISIBLY* distraught by torturing someone to death (like Abby did) and murdering a pregnant woman. Abby's response to learning that the woman she is about murder is pregnant is "Good." Im sorry but compared to what Joel did, Abby is in NO WAY justified in any of her actions. There isn't a single point in the entire game where she shows a shred of remorse for her actions. Even to the very end Abby STILL takes from Ellie while receiving zero punishment. I feel like the only way they could even come close to making Joel's sins comparable to Abby's would be to make a DLC/game about Tommy and Joel during the 20 year gap in the first game and even then that would be very difficult to pull off.
Abby's doing just fine with her revenge, she didn't seem to care about anybody other than Owen and maybe rando Danny who she seemed a bit sad seeing dead in a single scene. Others not so much, not even mentioned and hell knows how many of her friends she killed herself for a kid she met two days ago. So the moral of the story is: Revenge bad unless divine powers of Dr Uckmann are biased towards you.
Come to think about it, Arbiter didn't go out of his way to fucking kill Master Chief because he knows that Master Chief ain't the only one responsible for destroying the Halo ring, its the entire UNSC. Plus the added layer of the Prophets ordering the Brutes to have him punished because of his "failure" even tho it was thousands of Convenent troops failing at their job of safeguarding Halo, which planted his seed of betrayal against the Prophets.
Thats a little bit of a stretch. Iomi lost the tips of his fingers but still had the rest which makes it possible (tho challenging) to play the frets pretty normally. He did not lose entire fingers.
It's kind of ironic that the gameplay in the sequel, makes Joel desición about not giving Ellie for a cure the right one. I mean, the sequel isn't about the infected anymore, yes there are infected in the game, but they feel like side quest enemies more than a real threat. Is almost as if humans are more dangerous than the infected they were looking a cure for. The sequel should have been about the infected even more than the first one, in order to make Joel's desición about saving Ellie have real consequences.
I completely agree, this sequel shows that Joel did the right thing by taking away humanity's chance for the cure because it's not the infection that make people miserable but it's themselves who make that world miserable🥴
to be fair the first game kinda had that feel as well. 20 years after the outbreak humanity proved to be as stubborn and adaptable as always. various settlements were popping up as fast as they were being taken down. You had runners like Joel who were presumably keeping up trade and communication between said settlements. And the zombies were more of a mild inconvenience that everyone worked around with the raiders and cannibals being far more dangerous.
@@kyriss12 It did, but it did also show the issues with the infected, many characters died in the 1st game because of them, they were a big deal even if it was the norm. The sequel treats them almost like the infected from Sunset Overdrive.
Now that you said that: I didn't play the game for some time, but didn't they add a single new Zombie and called it a day? Next to the Rat King, which was something for sure.
11:11- 11:50 Gotta respectfully disagree on philosophical grounds. Joel's actions at the end of tlou were actually the most virtuous, principled, and selfless thing he's ever done in his life. Fireflies thought it was good to subvert Ellies explicit consent so that she could die for the "greater good" (I know the medical industry today (especially in these times) holds these sentiments). However, this was fundamentally & objectively immoral, as the mindless order-followers got what was coming, and so did Abby's dad. The only argument for Joel's actions being bad is him lying or if YOU, the player, killed the two other doctors in the room. To call Joel's actions selfish is to call Ellie selfish (if she wanted to live). He didn't doom the world, as there was no guarantee that a vaccine/cure would be found (your scientism & technocrat is showing), there are still humans existing in the world who have the ability to learn and figure out the virus. Its completely understandable why former Fireflies would see him as the bad guy though.
We have to remember that Joel's decision to save Ellie had more factors backing it up, more than just his love for her, while it was still by far the biggest deciding factor. Remember that Joel never believed the Fireflies' mission to return the world it used to be? And throughout the first TLOU we can see what humanity has become. Absence of law and order, people robbing, killing, raping each other, lot of different military, terroristic groups pursuing their own interests. Do you really think that they could simply return to the old days after all of that savagery? Joel knows that there is no return, he has known ever since he lost Sarah. Remember, it wasn't the infection that killed her daughter, it was a normal human. Plus if u find and listen all those tapes that the Fireflies left behind, u will learn that they weren't even sure that cure would work. So there was no way that Joel would have let his beloved Ellie die, for that hopeless mission that he knows would never succeed, to develop the cure that might not even work at all. And in TLOU2 he is portrayed as selfish, stubborn, oldish dumb man, how are we supposed to believe that?
Another thing about the "Revenge Bad" narrative that sort of shoots itself in the foot, is that the "Revenge Bad" lesson seems to only apply to Ellie and not Abby. Ellie loses her friends, her father figure, the love of her life, and the ability to play guitar via the loss of her fingers, therefore also losing her last physical connection to Joel. Abby... loses her friends yes, but that's kinda it. So revenge is fine for Abby by comparison? I'm writing this as someone who has not played TLOU1, so I'm very much an outsider. I can sympathize with TLOU fans though because I'm a Star Wars fan... i kinda know what it's like lol.
Not to mention the dissonance between the story and the gameplay. Just like with movies, it's perfectly A-Ok to murder dozens upon dozens of random people, but the main antagonist? Who has a name and a face? Oh no, we can't go there! That would make you a bad person!
@@FatfighterXD1 technically she did chicken out she didn’t kill Abby after almost dying I call that a Chicken move if I do say so myself and it isn’t even that justified
Except in Abby's case, her losing her friends is directly caused by her not finishing off Ellie. So, the lesson doesn't work even more, because her loss is the result of her showing compassion to a clearly dangerous person.
Abby also gets hope, finds out the fireflies still exist and has a companion in Lev, she lost a bunch and in the end gets to continue with both those rewards, her life saved by someone she took everything from herself
Even though the story isn’t as good as the first game I still really enjoyed the gameplay and combat. Honestly I fee that if they just moved some scenes around they could’ve made people feel more for Joel’s death. Like do all the flashbacks first then go forward to the start of the game. Eh it ain’t perfect but still enjoyable and fun to play.
You've mentioned before that you played Metal Gear Solid. Have you thought about reviewing all the metal gear games like you did with Splinter Cell and Hitman? Great video man!
It's funny bc they could've actually had a more impactful ending if they had killed Abby in front of Lev, bringing things full circle. Maybe even having that scene shown through Lev's perspective as well as Ellie's.
"Naughty Dog has a strong reputation when it comes to crafting narratives in their games" Hmm, well not really. Aside from the previous Last of Us game, they really don't. Not to say Crash Bandicoot or Uncharted are distinctly poorly written, but lets be honest complex emotional, thematic, narratives was never the point of those games. At most the Uncharted games show strong character writing at times.
i hated this game but that argument is utter horse shit. Uncharted/ last of us/ crash bandicoot/jak and dexters biggest flaw was that NONE of them were original. But it didnt matter because they were such powerfully written charcater and storys ( well...Bandicoot and Jak were more like traditional kid games) . Especially Uncharteds Amy Hennig is one of the GREATEST video game writers of all time. Uncharted set the bar high for those chessy hollywood movie games filled with fun gameplay, awesome dialogue/ performances and a pulse pounding journey. Then The last Of Us came and BLEW IT ALL OUT OF THE PARK followed by Uncharted 4 which in my opinion was just as good and EXCELLENT end to Nathan Drakes JOurney. Well...except the Neil Druckmann parts ( Sam Drake is NOT the enemy, hes the ally...and Nadine Ross is by far my most HATED video game character of ALL TIME....actually Nadine and Abby should go bowling together) the majority of Uncharted 4 was crafted by Amy Hennig. So i dont think the games leading up to this were OVERRATED AT ALL.....BUT this story was a mess, Joel should have died but not like that and NOT that soon. Everything that made the original a masterpiece was WIPED OUT all in the name of another annoying Male Feminist. What retard would go into this project and say we are going to eliminate the bond of Joel and Ellie so that the player is filled with anger and hatred towards our game. Druckmann thinks hes the Nolan of video games but hes not as clever as he likes to think. Hes just a cocky, ignorant dweeb who doesnt give a shit about the audience....you know the ones that MADE HIM WHAT HE IS TODAY
im on the last of us 2 HATE BANDWAGON too....but this has got to be a joke right?? Amy Hennig is one of the GREATEST writers alive. Her stories may not be original but they are always excellent and fun
This is very fine and fair review of the game. I really like it (your review, not the game, obviously) and agree with most of the points you made. Except for what you said about Joel's death. Allow me to explain why I think differently: - You already said that it was a very convenient coincidence that led Abby to find Joel and even if other stories have the same bad storytelling, it still is bad storytelling. - I don't buy the excuse of them being so trusting because they lived for some years in safety. Joel was being shown as not very trusting even before the outbreak. And then he lived 20 years in this post-apocalyptic world. Does that get undone by around 4 years in "relative" safety? They still had to deal with infected and in the first game we got shown that they had to defend against bandits too. Also Joel and even Tommy knew what he did to the Fireflies, they should be wary of someone coming for revenge. - They let their guard down because she helped them survive an onslaught of infected? It was them who saved Abby and then they fought together to survive. Ellie fought together with David in the first game too. Didn't really make him seem trustworthy either. - Is Joel getting his just desserts for what he did? Maaayyybbbeeee...but it still doesn't change the feeling that we liked Joel and wished for something better. And the revenge is not justified. They won't safe humanity killing him. Joel didn't kill the doctor out of hate, neither did he torture him. And couldn't Abby at least show a bit of hesitation killing someone who saved her life? Or at the very very least refrain from torturing him? - Did Joel essentially doom the world? Many give this argument, but I think making a vaccine wouldn't change the world this much. I mean this game itself tells us humans are the real monsters. Getting infected starts to be a secondary concern here. And the already infected wouldn't just instantly vanish. Sure, humanity would get a chance to get up on its feet, but Jackson shows they have a chance to do this even without a vaccine. Arguably, many points at the end of the first game made me doubt the goals and abilities of the Fireflies anyway, but I know that was not part of the emotional dilemma ND tried to convey to us. But yeah other than these points, I agree with nearly everything you said!
Thank you!! Honestly, I’ve seen so many arguments about the vaccine dilemma and you’re the only other person to bring up the fact that humanity is screwed in this game, whether there’s a vaccine or not. The first game shows us that hunters, bandits and especially people like David and his group, would still remain even if the Fireflies managed to create some miracle vaccine. Nature’s already taken back the world in TLOU at this point, and is leaving humanity to either kill each other or just die out naturally.
@@amy.m7753 There is actually good video about that: th-cam.com/video/j7cmtOlPQ6Q/w-d-xo.html This doesn't take into account what happened in part two, because it's two years old, but it has some strong arguments regardless.
I can see your point but I can still sympathize with how Abby reacted. Joel essentially doomed the world for selfish reasons. Maybe not to the extent that Abby thinks, but still from her point of view, this man killed your father: a kindhearted doctor who wanted to help save humanity, just so he could spend time with Ellie because he missed his dead daughter. I would be furious. One of the main lessons in the game is how vengeance doesn’t solve things, so I think it’s very intentional that she goes to unnecessarily brutal lengths to get vengeance. However, in the end, her anger and violence lead to most of her friends being killed, and the same thing goes for Ellie. It’s not some groundbreaking new thing like some are saying, but I think just reducing it to “lol revenge bad” isn’t doing it justice.
@@eziospaghettiauditore8369 she is punished. A bunch of her friends get killed by Ellie. Her tracking down Joel to murder him brought her much more suffering than any positive gain, and created a new enemy for her in Ellie.
To the arguments saying that Jackson softened Joel: No community is perfect. It was even presented that Jackson has assholes who'd come at you for no good reason (ex. bigot sandwhich). And for someone as paranoid and as untrusting as Joel in the first game, I honestly doubt 4 years can change a very doubtful character. I, personally, have a very hard time trusting people. And I think that even if I lived in a community like Jackson, I'd still be extra weary of people from the outside especially after Ellie's and Joel's encounter with David (the cannibal pedo from tlou1). It's just a bit too much that Joel and Tommy entered that place without their backpacks, Joel stepped into the middle of the group, and Tommy introduced himself and Joel for the third time. Tommy introduced himself and Joel to Abby like 2 damn times while they were being chased down by the hoard. It's just so weird.
@JamesHLanier OKay that smartass remark at the end was totally uncalled for, and you're wrong simply put but I won't insult your intelligence because of that, just your arrogant remark that rubbed me the wrong way. And if you remember anything from the first game: the first thing that Maria did when Joel and Ellie first went there , someone from this so called friendly community you're talking about it, was hold them at gunpoint, and only when Tommy confirmed that Joel's his brother did she stand back. And then a little while later the town was immediately under attack from a bunch of random goons. Now all of a sudden it's a friendly community with traders and shit passing through without a care in the world, pffft come on now.
@JamesHLanier Pretty sure that tell me your lost thing was sarcasm and the main reason they didn't shoot them on sight or weren't generally more hostile towards them was because Ellie was a child back then. Pretty sure their recruitment process was never as naive as meeting a bunch of strangers and deciding to randomly invite them back to their safe community, the way to grow this community would have been to slowly and cautiously allow people in that you know by having people you already know and trust vouch for them or by neutralizing them first and then searching them to make sure they weren't coming to raid your town. Abby was obviously armed and Joel and Tommy had no reason to believe she wouldn't just turn her gun towards them at any point, like how do they know she's not a bandit who just happened to have been ambushed by zombies when they came across her? or how do they know her group wouldn't just use the information Tommy's naively put out to raid the town later just like the incident from part 1? The way Tommy and Joel just leisurely walked into that basement was some of the most hilariously awful and inconsistent writing I've ever seen. Besides, this whole hoards of zombies scenario is contrived bullshit to begin with, throughout the entire game you encounter infected that are just roaming around individually and are pretty easy to sneak up on, but when the plot calls for it a hoard of zombies just comes out of no where to push the plot to where Neil wants it to go because he's too lazy an dishonest to figure out a believable and consistent way to move his story forward. It's not the first time it happened in the series and it felt just as cheap and stupid every other time it did. I always wondered who are these infected, who did they use to be, how did they get infected, everyone in this universe seems perfectly capable of taking them on , so where do these newly infected people come from , why are they always so close to each other, if one infected infected a non-infected, wouldn't that newly infected person try to kill them and move away from this area afterwards, all of the infected enemies in these games are roaming close to each other , have no backpacks or weapons on them and seem to bear no resemblance whatsoever to the characters we encounter. TL:DR a hoard of zombies attacking out of nowhere is typical piss poor writing.
@JamesHLanier Okay buddy, you can go back and read my comment and see how at no point did I insult you in any way shape or form, and here you are being pretty rude for no reason when we're just having a discussion. Insulting the other party doesn't automatically make your arguments more sound if that's the tactic you're going for but I digress. "How was it sarcasm?" How was it not? Do you politely ask someone to tell you that they're not trying to attack your community because they're simply lost, she was obviously expressing her suspicions about them in a sarcastic way, but fine that's not a huge point to get hung up on anyway so let's leave it at that. Now regarding the situation with Abby I never said they should've shot her instead or any of her friends. Now as for why wouldn't her friends , if they had malicious intents, shoot Joel and Tommy on sight, because simply put you have a better chance at incapacitating someone after earning their trust rather than outright trying to kill them and have them possibly kill you or one of your people (which is exactly what happened, if they knew who Joel was the moment he and Tommy walked through the gate, it would've still been the smarter move to act friendly first, try to have them let their guard down and then attack them the same exact way they did). Refer back to the cannibal dude from the first game, look at how friendly he was towards Ellie, he helped her survive the zombie attack and was trying to earn her trust to make her an easy prey, Joel has lived in this world for over 20 years and he should be perfectly aware of that at all times: teaming up with a stranger to defeat some infected and seeing them acting friendly towards you afterwards aren't enough reasons to trust them, not in this one particular scene apparently because .....? And they didn't save them from the hoard out of the kindness of their own heart, the hoard was coming towards them too, they had a shared interest throughout this whole sequence, again not a reason to fully trust them afterwards . They should've immediately scouted the area while still outside to make sure no more infected are in sight, and then immediately tried to leave, but walking into their basement, right in the middle of the room, acting all relaxed like that and reveling vital info such as your names and the location of your settlement, come the fuck on!!!! As for the infected, their placements seems to have always been done in both games in a way that would only serve two purposes, gameplay design and plot convenience. You want to lead a main character into a trap, throw a hoard of zombies at them, you want to give the player some challenge, throw a hoard of zombies at them, you want the player to grasp the mechanics of the game bit by bit , have them placed separately with enough breathing room between them... etc And these hoards you're talking about the player's character was always capable of taking them on on their own without any issues. Heck you'd think that after spending that much time in this area, Tommy and Joel would have had enough experience that they would've preemptively packed enough resources with them to deal with situations like these. The resources you gather as a player throughout the random areas you go through were always enough for the player's character to defend themselves in these situations, and yet Tommy and Joel who are settled in this well protected and seemingly relatively rich town, didn't even have a single bomb or molotov cocktail on them, .(which apparently was the only thing needed to deal with this hoard). Again all of this was for the sake of plot convenience and nothing else: the way they conveniently ran into Abby (what are the odds) and the way they leisurely walked into this basement and Joel walking right into the middle of the room like he's known these people for years, they were showing ZERO signs of caution, their body language, dialogue , everything in that scene was just so wrong on so many levels. Final point, the infected, apart from the clothes they're wearing, nothing about them makes any sense, how close they're roaming to each other, the lack of weapons or backpacks lying nearby, and more importantly WHERE DO THEY EVEN COME FROM, like who are they? None of this was addressed in your original comment and yet you felt confident enough to condescendingly insult the other party, gimme a break dude.
@JamesHLanier @JamesHLanier Because had they tried to do that right away, Joel and Tommy would've immediately acted in self defense and possibly injured some of them, having two people walk into the middle of a room where they're surrounded from every which way by people they think are friendly towards them and thus letting their guard down is obviously a more guaranteed approach than attacking them head on when they're still outside of your home and either of them can easily shoot at you and try to climb over a fence or go for any other escape route. And the exact location doesn't matter that much anyway, getting their trust first to make them vulnerable would've been the most important part, and Joel and Tommy walking into that basement was just more generosity from their side to make things even easier for them. And the blizzard wasn't that intense anyway, so it wouldn't have affected their assault whether by making it easier or more difficult. I only used the cannibal dude from the first game to demonstrate a point , what he did afterwards is irrelevant to the situation with Abby, and btw you can notice in Abby's facial expressions once Tommy awkwardly in the heat of the battle revealed their names (for no reason whatsoever) that she knew who Joel was, she was just waiting for the perfect moment to blindside him, and obviously both Joel and Tommy know that there are probably a lot of people after Joel after what he did at the fireflies hospital, so revealing their names was still pretty stupid no matter how you slice it. They use a pretty piss poor excuse as to why they can't go back to Jackson and instead have to go to Abby's hideout,, which is that the horses can't make it all the way back there, seriously????? Like you haven't thought of that before you went out during this crappy weather, what were they even doing there: the line "the horses can't make it all the way back" implies that they were pretty far from Jackson, why??? You go to a far away place from your settlement as just two people in such awful weather for what??? Why didn't they have more people, are Tommy and Joel new to this world or the surrounding environment of their settlement, do they really lack the experience to take into account possibilities like these, what if they'd never run into a stranger that just so happened to have her crew conveniently holed up at a nearby house, what would they have done then?. The way they conveniently run into Abby at this particular spot and how they're forced to go to her place makes absolutely no sense and it's a prime example of bullshit plot convenience. And regardless of how small or large Abby's group is, Joel and Tommy don't know that, for all they know they could be a part of a bigger faction: the bandits in the first game didn't seem to have been phased at all by how well guarded Jackson is, why should Tommy and Joel assume anything different about Abby's group or any bigger group or faction that they could potentially belong to. I also don't understand how Abby who supposedly already knew who Joel was since Tommy reveals that pretty early on, didn't mention that at all to Owen when they walked into that basement, she had to wait for them to say their names again and for everyone to act surprised like "ohhhh so this is the Joel we've been looking for" before shooting him. The part regarding patrols seems like more bullshit to me, like what do they go on patrols for, if the community is well guarded why do they go out of their way to patrol such far away areas, why didn't you run into any of these patrols in the first game when approaching the settlement, and patrol groups of TWO !!!! All what you're doing at this point is justifying bullshit with more bullshit, even your enemies factions , which are supposedly just as big or even much smaller than Jackson's community, seem to have more crowded and reliable patrols. You send out two persons on their own during a blizzard to an area that is two hours away where you know there could be a lot of infected when you're standing strong with 20 families, logic????? Like how did this community even manage to survive for that long if all they could afford is a measly group of 10 people thinly dispersed intp groups of two across the surrounding area, and why do they even send out patrols that far to begin with? Like if you're literally going out of your way to travel to an area that is two hours away just so that you can kill a bunch of mindless creatures that can't harm you if you just stay the fuck away from them, then you seriously need to reconsider your priorities.They should just die from the cold weather and/or starvation on their own, like you don't even have to do anything about them. And when Joel and Tommy went missing, did Maria have no one better or no more people than three teenagers to send out to look for them, seriously ? Now for the part regarding the infected, I don't even know where to begin. "people from the old world"? ,"survivors"? "why backpacks everywhere"? because simply put all of the survivors across both games carry backpacks with them for resources. There's nothing that characterizes or humanizes any of the infected people you come across, nothing to explain where they're from, no notebooks or pictures or even weapons (except during specific scripted parts), nothing, just conveniently placed ammo and supplies for the player to be able to make it through the game, that's it. If a teenager like Ellie or Dina can go on mowing down dozens of them, then anyone who's fairly experienced in using firearms or self defense can probably do just as much if not more than that (think about where the military, cops....etc went during this whole thing, that's the level of bullshit you get from a cliched zombie apocalypse setting), which means that the infected to non-infected ratio, given how relatively stupid and easy they are to kill (compared to an actual human or any other predator in the wild), the harsh weather conditions, the deadlier already existing wildlife, seems hugely out of proportion. That's not to mention the specific conditions that need to be met for someone to get infected in the first place: you need to be attacked by a single zombie and just struggle enough for them to bite you in way that wouldn't kill you in the long run from blood loss. If you don't struggle enough they'll kill you and give you no chance to turn into one of them as the death animation strongly implies that they rip out a significant chunk of your neck, if you're attacked by a group and you're overpowered , they'll eat you alive. Plus the measly human bite force can't even penetrate through heavy winter clothes such as leather jackets and what not (luckily you can try that yourself at home) , so if you literally just raise your arm and let them bite onto that and then reach for your weapon , you greatly reduce the chance of getting infected. And most of the zombies in the snow levels seem to be pretty well dressed and don't show any signs of having been bitten (that applies to all of the other infected people, you can justify this with spores, but these only show up during select few sections across both games), sooooo???
@JamesHLanier Thriving on friendly trade and recruitment doesn't necessarily mean interacting with strangers and immediately trusting them with the location of your home and offering supplies. Like, you don't go on the internet just buying off of anyone/making transactions. You look them up, find reviews, or any other indication that they're trustworthy. Now you may argue that Abby's trustworthy since they saved each other but Abby doesn't represent her whole damn group. Tommy and their whole town wouldn't survive if they just trust anyone in a post-apocalyptic world. Well if you use your brain for MORE than 2 seconds maybe you'd realize that that scenario doesn't make sense in the world they live in. A lot of people pose as good people (ex. David and his gang) and just because you live in a good town doesn't mean you forget about the harsh reality that's waiting outside. It's honestly stupid that Joel let his guard down just cause he's living the "good life in Jackson" 4 years after he saw his baby girl beating a guy's head in with a machete while being visibly traumatized. You can even see that Abby's whole demeanor changes the moment they mention their names to her. If that wasn't a clear sign that something was off then idk.
remember how Bioware said they want people to keep talk about Mass Effect after the ending that is ME3? I think ND wants the same thing for this game as well, only both of them goes about it the wrong way What they should've done is have TLoU2 focus on Abby and her only, build her up the way Joel and Ellie is in the first game. Then in the inevitable TLOU3, pit them against each other
One way I think this could've worked is like you said, have this game be solely about Abby. Have it be set during TLoU1 and *don't* reveal who she is initially. As far as the player knows for most of the game, she's just another survivor. Build up to a reveal at the end where the player as Abby walks through the aftermath at the hospital, only then revealing at the end that the surgeon was her father. Basically, give the players a chance to properly connect with Abby *before* revealing who she is. Have the 3rd game be about that conflict between Abby and Joel/Ellie, because at that point most of the playerbase would be attached to both sides and would be genuinely conflicted about what to do.
They should've made the game about forgiveness and solidarity, not purely about revenge. No one forgives anyone at the end, no boxes are checked, no conclusions made. Joel killed someone and got killed. Abby killed Joel and got out scot-free, even got rewarded for that by being saved from certain death. And Ellie didn't kill Abby and still got punished. What's the point then?
I must disagree with the commonly accepted idea that Joel "selfishly saved Ellie to have a daughter over saving the rest of the world." The world is basically fucked. The cordyceps plague is little more than an afterthought, even at the point in the story when Joel brings Ellie to the Fireflies. The infection is little more than a new obstacle that must be overcome...most of the threat in the story is generated by other people. Which is fine, but...what good would a cure do? Especially to someone who has a giant fugal body growing out of their skull, which has been cracked like an egg? A cure would be nice, sure....but people aren't really dying from cordyceps anymore. It came, burned fast, and now smolders. It has already ended civilization as we know it, leaving only scattered enclaves. You don't encounter THAT many infected throughout either game. What good would sacrificing a perfectly immune girl do? Little to none. Now, I will say that they could look into others like her, and it's pretty selfish of Ellie to go full rug-muncher and forgo the opportunity to pass on her immunity to children, but that is a conversation for another day.
Well actually the ‘anti gay Christians’ are doing more good than eli and Abby are since they’re kinda protecting those immune in a sense and propagating that gene where Eli dating someone she can’t propagate that with isn’t causing any conflicts of interests of her which would’ve been pretty good story writing there and Abby basically is doing the opposite of the fire flies goal by endangering those infected and killing innocent people- babies in the womb In the first game the ‘cure’ didn’t even seem all that viable and was pretty much ‘it’s a long shot if it even works’ as well as the condition of the hospital and people there was under par for what they wanted to do The flash back basically made the guy white and the hospital squeaky clean
The Last of Us 2 to me feels they took too long to tell the story and yet was too short to get us to know the characters that were introduced. I felt we got to know Jesse and Dina alright, but I have no reason to care about most of the characters on Abby's side. First off, they were for the most part already seen as dead on Ellie's story. So I was not given a reason to really care about the characters on Abby side. And I cannot believe Lev would have such an affect on Abby (describe as the #1 Scar Killer) would care about killing a pregnant lady.
3 things about Joels death that are objectively bad: 1) Joel and Tommy growing more friendly to strangers after living in Jackson doesnt make any sense in this game. Their new trust of strangers is not stupidity, it does not mean they suddenly forget 20-30 years of survival and agree to go to a compound filled with armed strangers who they dont know and jsut give up their names it comes in the form that they helped Abby survive in the first place, old Joel and Tommy would have let her die and ran away because of the danger involved in helping her (They helped her survive, not her helping them survive as you said), new Joel and Tommy risk their lives saving her. To back this up literally in the same game you see Joel being exactly as cautious as he was in the first game or even more so. Like grilling everyone who gos on patrols with Ellie, you remember the speech from Jesse about how over protective Joel was being saying to be careful on the patrols? and also the scene where he is on patrol with Ellie and sees spores and gives a big lecture that even though theyre alone ellie should still wear a mask to hide the fact that she is immune because he doesnt want strangers to find out should anyone accidently see them. The game actually disagrees with itself here. 2) When Joel was being beaten and Ellie walks into the room, she literally had a gun pointing at Abby who was torturing Joel and doesn't shoot? Ah because the whole game would be over then right at the start. 3) Also it makes no sense for the WLF to leave Tommy and Ellie alive after killing Joel, you said they completed their mission but think about this for just 1 second they literally spent 4 years hunting Joel as revenge for Abbys dad, yet they kill Joel in front of his brother and what looks like his daughter who is screaming "I will hunt you down and get revenge on you for killing Joel" which is exactly what Abby did yet she doesnt think they will come for revenge doing the exact same thing she jsut did? Ah yes because the game wouldn't happen at all then without this contrivance.
A very meh revenge story. In the end I can always play games with better revenge stories and just forget about lou2. One of my personal faves will always be the original god of war trilogy.
Ellie got the shit beaten out of her, Dina got her face caved in, Tommy took a bullet to the head, Jesse dies, and somehow they're able to get out of Seattle alive... what?
@JamesHLanier Think about it. It took so much just for them to get into Seattle, it probably would've been hell for them to get out. I'm not saying they left immediately, but the chances of them surviving were low. Ellie's injuries would've taken weeks to heal and that's assuming she isn't getting proper medical treatment for them because they're in an abandoned movie theater and the amount of stress Dina went through (taking an arrow through the shoulder, getting her face bashed in, falling through a glass ceiling, and surviving a fall off a bridge), it's a miracle she didn't miscarry even though realistically, she would've. Tommy gets shot in the head, granted he survives (which is already pushing it), he likely sustained brain damage which could explain his sudden fit of anger at the end of the story where he talks to Ellie. Now take all of these factors I just explained and place them back on the road for a 12 day walk to Jackson and to top that off, they likely have to deal with infected on the way back and even if they were able to call survivors from home for help, it would've taken them 12 days to get to them, plus they'd have to deal with any infected or survivors on the way. To me, this game is very poorly written and could've been so much more. If you enjoyed this; good for you, but that makes no sense to me.
But to tell me that I'm objectively wrong for having a different view on something than you, in a way makes you wrong. Believe me, I wanted to like this game, but I couldn't. Just because you see things in a different perspective or context doesn't make you special and it doesn't make you "objectively right" either. Same goes for me. If you like this game and you don't think it's poorly written, congrats go get a cookie, but for me and quite a lot of other people, we don't. A story can have thousands of different interpretations from people and I think this game is a poorly written mess. Nothing that anyone says to me will make me think otherwise and I don't wish to make you think another way either. I'm glad you could enjoy a game I couldn't, but don't call me wrong for having a different opinion or thoughts than you.
Yeah but like, you were SUPPOSED to feel nothing at the end. Neil played you like a fiddle with his genius. Plus, you were probably struggling to process it all with your blatant homophobia, bigotry, anti-feminism, closed-mindedness, and general chudness. The above is what I’ve read for the last two weeks every time I attempt to make legitimate, well thought out criticisms of this game’s story, writing, and narrative execution. I’ve never been accused of being a bigot or anything like that in my entire life, until now.....because I don’t like the game you like? Okay. TBH, and I mean no disrespect; I feel like there is a real maturity gap between the people who think this is brilliant, and those that find it a bit of a mess. Ya see, when you get beyond 30, your tolerance for bullshit plummets dramatically.
You basically also described how Kojima fanboys defend Death Stranding's "genius story" with that first paragraph, not just TLOU2 fans defending Druckmann's "genius story". Idk if you used "played like a fiddle" intentionally, but nice one.
TBH if you swap "...who think this is brilliant, and those that find it a bit of a mess" around then your last paragraph is pretty much the exact thing I've read from people who loved the game. Maturity? You would think you would be able to easily see through all the bullshit then, not just the bullshit you agree with. People who outline why they love the game are getting riddled with bullshit replies calling them a myriad of names just like you're saying you received, they might be different names but it's still all bullshit. Go and look at videos that went into why they actually really liked the game and check the vitriol, it's foul. I don't think your maturity shows through whether you enjoyed tlou2 or not but in how you respond to people with different opinions then yours.
@@DionCutajar No, delivery man simulator PERFECT, you no smart enough to get smart story, you shoot man, we give man pizza. You destroy, we carry many many resource to make a street. I personally like Death Stranding, I see the flaws, but I've finished the game and would do it again. There can be as much criticism as they want, if I wanna deliver a Pizza to a terrorist so be it.
This is a very solid summation of the writing problems. I'm in much the same boat, where I don't object to any of the big narrative strokes but... I just have no interest whatsoever in replaying it.
23:34 there this cool game where you play with different characters (you just play as the Harbinger but follow their storyline) and see their story in different perspectives . this game pull it the best. it call "Omensight" . where you play as the Harbinger . you play the same day over and over but you choose what part of which character to follow . it the last day and it lead to doom and your job as the Harbinger to know what caused the doom at the end of the day and you follow the lead to what may caused that doom . that game made by Indie devs and they pull the multiple perspective better than anything i saw before
Saw someone else pit this on a video but When ellie leaves shes not wearing dinas bracelet but when she returns to the house she is and is not shocked to find it empty so is probably with dina in jackson.she simply was going back for the guitar but left it behind just like everything shes done.
Ellie most likely traveled to Jackson first to tell Tommy about what happened in Santa Barbara (maybe even pulled a Joel and lied about Abby's true fate), and then ran into Dina on her way out. The two probably got into a spat and if Ellie did in fact lie to Tommy, she told Dina the truth that she let Abby go. Dina told her she left Joel's guitar (along with the rest of Ellie's stuff) back at the farmhouse, but gave her the bracelet as an act of forgiveness.
They really needed a dialogue interaction between Ellie and Abby about why they were doing what they were doing. Does Ellie ever find out that Abbys dad was murdered by Joel? The whole thing is out of context between the 2. The game is already long, but what should have happened is when Ellie finds Abby at the very end they have this conversation while she’s hanging there. Then this Seraphite leader, whom we NEVER see other than the graffiti on all the walls, comes out and murders Lev on the spot. Then Ellie and Abby fight together to save their own lives and avenge Lev.
The Seraphite leader you're talking about is dead, she was killed by the WLF and now the cult has become more violent because of that and miss interpreting her teachings. The point of tlou2 was that these characters don't get to talk or get closure. Because they're on different sides. I hate the final fight because honestly the characters should have left wordlessly after Santa Barabra and that be the end
@@TheThirdPew hello Ellie from the last of us 1 on PS3 and the left behind dlc pack. I, Abby from last of us 2, am a mirror of your own actions yet show a better sense of forgiveness. Oh look over there it's the seraphite leader who you find a grave off and is mentioned multiple times to have been killed by the WLF isn't that cool and we'll written
That's what's pissing me off: at the end Ellie broke the cycle of violence, and should've proved to the player from a narrative standpoint that giving up the revenge is moral and fulfilling. Instead, the game tells us that there is a point of no return after which you may as well finish the job, nothing's gonna change. Ellie lost everything despite completing her arc. This is bad writing, it doesn't bring any catharsis, it leaves the viewer frustrated. It's a flaw, not an viable artistic choice.
Manipulative is the best way I'd describe this game. Gigantor is wholly unlikable if you don't let the cheap tricks and happy dogs make you forget how terrible she is.
And practically is; that game is also full of bullshit contrivances and forced moralism and guilt-tripping you for things you had no way of knowing would happen.
Whole heartedly disagree with the interpretation of the end of the first game. Joel did exactly what I wanted him to, it wasn't selfish, it was human and taking the other road would have been a cold and psychopathic act. It also appears to have not doomed mankind as there are still large settlements and when you can describe a characters surroundings as idyllic, it hardly seems like the apocalypse. Outside of that a great review, you deserve a Hancock "Good job". 👍
I do think it was selfish, but I don't consider Joel a villain for it and it would've been extremely out of character imo for him to do anything else. Throughout the game, we see some of the worst humanity has to offer, with people usually being a bigger threat than the infected. Hell, even Sarah was killed by a person, not an infected. So for Joel to be told humanity might be saved if he lets his daughter die again, Joel would say screw 'em every time. He won't let his daughter die and this world isn't even worth saving. Besides, the Fireflies didn't get Ellie's consent or even let her know what was going to happen. Is Joel just supposed to sit by and let them kill her? Even in TLOU2, doesn't Abby's dad say he wouldn't make the same sacrifice or something along those lines?
@@RGR490G Exactly, what kind of world would we deserve if we had to sacrifice a little girl to get it? There's no point in saving humanity if we to lose ours along the way
@@orijimi In that case I would argue he had reclaimed it by the end of the game. Someone without humanity would have shrugged their shoulders said "For the greater goooood" and walked away.
Big thanks to Ridge for being my first sponsor! Support me by supporting them: www.ridge.com/NOBODY Use Code “NOBODY” for 10% off your order I sure hope this video was a hole in one! If not, I'll settle for it being on par with my other stuff. The last thing I want is for it to be a bogey...Ok, I'm done. If you'd like to see more of my content, here's the Critical Nobody playlist - bit.ly/2M3r65U
I like how nobody is talking about how in the first game the surgeon in the first game is black compared to the second game's surgeon. Important update: apparently it's confirmed that Jerry had the same VA for the first game...
@@AAA-hd5dv alright, fine. But the characters do not look the same _at all_ when comparing the first game. They decided to recreate the previous characters minding every small detail but not the doctor? They look completely different.
@@troypowers750 Strange that the usual suspects who would immediately scream "whitewashing" if a character is drawn with even 0.0000000001% lighter skin, say nothing about this, and just blindly defend it against any form of criticism.
@@Acueil the guy looked completely different is all I'm saying, but in the second game he's a completely new model. I now it's confirmed that it was the same VA and the skin was just unreadable at the time, but I was merely saying how the doctor was not the focus of the game...until the second game came out. What the real argument is why is there diversity if it doesn't make sense in this universe? After all, minorities with the exception of Southern Americans statistically hang around the coast and rarely around rural areas, and they don't make even half the population compared to white people. Of course these statistics mean nothing, but apparently a lot of game characters these days seem to be mostly women in power or are important characters...in game universes regardless of historical or time period context. FC6: 7/10 major characters are women...in the conservative not Cuba is a prime example. The Canon character apparently is a woman...huh? I would ignore that if it weren't for the fact that we're having it shoved down our throat. The trans missions that seem to not benefit the Guerillas at all, the odd design for Abby, the weird reason for Mel to be running around without causing a miscarriage, you starting to see my point? I'm fine with a diverse cast of characters as long as it's realistically implemented like in Saints Row up until 2.
@@troypowers750 I was agreeing with you. I made a jest about the people who claim to be progressive and would cancel any artist that happen to draw a dark skinned character with ever slightly lighter tone, would not even try to do the same with Neil's team.
I found plenty of character decisions that honestly makes no sense yet people seem to either ignore or fail to catch in Ellie's segment, like these: 1. Abby's friends being incredibly stupid and not killing Ellie and Tommy in the beginning. Mel told them their names, they saw your faction's insignia and they know all your faces. Not killing them will not benefit you in anyway and we're supposed to believe that these guys have survived this long with this slow mentality? Abby not wanting to continue and kill both of them is also very out of character considering in her segment, she literally talked about how killing Scar children is very much justified so her character kinda makes no sense. The only thing that makes sense is Owen because of the story he later told to Abby. So this just happens so the story could progress rather than it being character motivated. 2. Maria letting Ellie go makes absolutely no sense when you consider her character. She is very intelligent and protective (if you have played the first game). There's a reason Jackson has triumph for so long. Her not listening to Tommy and locking Ellie up is very out of character. You might say that she wants Ellie to find Tommy to bring him home cuz she doesn't want any conflict with the WLFs. But out of every single person in Jackson, why would you send the most emotionally effected person in the whole world to prevent someone from murdering the person that mentally destroyed them? It is such careless writing. Why won't you just send anyone else? Again, it is more to progress the story rather than being character motivated. 3. The moment Ellie and Dina was captured by the WLFs, Jordan, the person who intends to spare them by being the dumbest survivor to ever exist and instead of shooting the person who killed his ally, he instead holsters his gun and chokes Dina in the slowest way possible which gives Ellie time to kill him. This again, makes no sense. Since his literal first appearance on screen was him being the one arguing with the team and he is the one most adamant in killing Ellie and Tommy. Even if his reasoning was to "interrogate her", why would you need Dina alive? You just need 1 survivor from Jackson, cap Dina's head off and be done with it. That should've been his mindset if his character was consistent. 4. Dina willing to give her gas mask to Ellie after hers broke is the definition of an anime level relationship development (It speeds up everything). She was just in a relationship with Ellie for like a week, maybe less and she is now willing to kill herself for her? Really? And it gets dumber cuz minutes later, she tells Ellie that she is pregnant, so you are willing to kill yourself and your baby just for the sake of someone you met for a week? Seriously? Those are the only big plot holes I found in Ellie's segment that people aren't talking about. I would also add Joel's death on that list but everyone is talking about that even tho these are bigger problems imo. I dislike the game's story cuz I think it sorta disrespects the original's concept which was their characters. Not only did they make some old characters act stupidly but they also made their new character braindead. I find Dina and Jesse to be meh characters and not really interesting. I don't buy the relationship with Ellie and Dina and there doesn't seem to be any attempt in developing them so the writers just started off with them already in love. It's a teen drama love triangle story that I don't think belongs in TLOU and it's also awkward sometimes. I honestly think that Jesse and Dina (mainly Jesse) wasn't given a prominent role in the story so it kinda makes them pointless characters and are solely there just to make sure the player doesn't feel lonely during gameplay (Which is why the meme about Jesse being a sperm donor isn't baseless mind you)
Some people do discuss those issues, usually summed up as "Stupid amounts of plot armor." That and, yes, Abby's double-personality; she's a sadistic torturing bitch except when she's randomly SUPER-forgiving and nurturing of innocents. All valid points.
I love how TLOU2 takes risks and tries something new but the story just falls flat for me, and personally I think Joel's death is brilliant in concept, I know, I know, but just hear me out. Catching the player off guard with the character you played for (basically) the whole first game is something that really never happens in any games or movies for that matter, but Naughty Dog just did not write Abby correctly. The game wants you to feel for Abby but after I saw her kill Joel I just could not empathize with Abby. This could have been fixed adding Abby's flashbacks before she killed Joel, or they could've made Abby more likeable but that's just my opinion.
I found Abby to be way more likable than Ellie or Joel, tbh. At the very least, she caused far less deaths than Joel and after killing him did nearly everything she did for the right reasons.
@@WaddleDee105 Valid point, and I agree with you to an extent. I think Abby is a more innocent person in all, but seeing her kill Joel, who we went along for this ride with in the first game, before we learn anything about her just put me off. I think in general she hadn't done as much wrong as Joel, but Joel was someone I could empathize with even though he did a lot of bad stuff, and with Abby it seemed Naughty Dog just could not find the right way to make you empathize with her. My opinion though and I tend to have picky opinions.
@@WaddleDee105 the game literally tries sooooo hard to get you to sympathize with Abby. She's petting dogs and shit while Ellie literally gives up a perfect life to go on a murder spree for no reason besides for Tommy telling her to. Absolute bullshit.
@Evan Holtz Abby’s more “likable” because the game tries so damn hard to manipulate that side of the story. Despite embarking on the same quest of revenge Abby’s never allowed to have the same warts as Ellie. Rather than feel like an actual person she feels like an unbelievable plot device the game tries to _force_ you to sympathize with so you can feel bad.
One other example I can name dealing with similar narrative device is criminally underrated Nier:Automata. And does it sooooo much better than TLOU2 whilst simultaneously dealing with a lot of serious themes juggling them at the same time.
It feels kinda weird how depressing and hopeless the ending of TLOU2 is considering that the game paints sparring Abby as the correct moral choice. It makes me think that the ending would be more fitting if Abby died in the end instead of being spared
23:38 I can give a good example of this although is a prequel and the characters dont interact directly: YAKUZA 0 2 chapters or so we change the perspective of the game and their stories are so well written we never ask "when the fuck am I gonna play as Goro or Kiryu again?" *you had no excuse ND NONE*
14:15 come on, I liked Jessy. And I did not like Dina that much. And I liked Ellie even less. Maybe it's just me. But if it were true that, like you said, Dina and Ellie had a good chemistry, then the game would be an almost-masterpiece for me. But heck no! Ellie and Jessie had better chemistry in the 2 minutes of screen time they share! Maybe they should've gone to Seattle as a group of three, and that'd save the game? I don't know.
This review is incredible. Well-written, charismatic, and logically crafted with an appropriate amount of emotional injection. It perfectly encapsulates the tragically missed potential this story had. was patiently awaiting your word on this game, and I’m so happy it came. Bravo, Critical.
Finally someone who gives his opinion in a nuanced way! I've watched a lot of videos about The Last of Us part 2 en you are the first person that gives me that. Great vid! I also think the story has so much potential and the execution of it could have been much better. I'm not a big fan of this game but i hope that Naughty Dog still dares to take risks. Even though i was kinda dissappointed I can't help to still respect them for that.
Within the beginning of the spoiler section what I’ll say about Joel’s death is that I mostly think it was fine except I don’t understand how Abby wouldn’t hesitate before killing him, and slowly at that. He just saved her and helped her through a giant mass of infected so I think it’s a little dumb she didn’t hesitate, otherwise I’m also fine with that.
Or how dumb she looked when she was surprised Ellie killed her friends. Abby seriously thought that she would kill Joel and go back to Seattle with her friends scott free? That there wouldn’t be any repercussions? Plus her saying she let Ellie live and this is how she repaid her was a stupid statement. It made her look really dumb in my opinion.
@@221Prohunter Nah if someone killed my dad I would give them a severe beating at least no matter the reason, which is what Abby does, she only kills him after Owen tells her to
Hey Craig, been watching your videos since your original Minecraft let’s play on your old channel however many years ago. One of the first youtubers I really enjoyed. Your Humiliation Rage videos never got old and I managed to get my gamer tag in one of them lol. Your new video content is very well done and I personally really enjoy how you tackle the history and background of the series. I hope things are going well for you
My brother and I liked the first part Later when Part 2 was announced we found ourselves in a casual talk about it and eventually he said: "Yeah, Joel's totally gonna die" I agreed It's...funny that even we saw something like that coming
I really hope that TLOU 2 is just forgotten after this entire fiassco is done, this game is kinda just a shit stain on one of the best games of all time.
The problem with Abby and her group sparing Ellie is the fact that she yelled "I'm gonna kill all of you!". Hinting that she has no plans of just letting this go, and understandably so. So letting her and Tommy live is a huge mistake.
I am a exclusive pc gamer and was truly disheartened to see such a great single player game get a worse sequel then got s8 story wise , btw I don't know much abt tlou story but the main characters looked awesome and saw the spoilers for tlou 2 on Facebook and dude like wtf , they could have done a spin-off and done part 2 later , and I literally shed a tear when !!SPOILER ALERT!! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joel got bashed in the head. and died 😢 even when not knowing much abt the character
Naughty dog can write good stories but the new head chef seems to only write about sjw topics and contrived plot twists (such as sam in uncharted 4 not dying and not getting killed off despite pissing off a 3rd world prison by killing so many gaurds) this seems like he wanted to max out the plot twists
@@davisjohn-d6h due to my work for which I mostly use a pc so it's goddamm easier to have the game shortcut on my desktop then on a gaming box you have to buy separately
I really love watching your more elaborate reviews, started watching your channel when you first reviewed Resident Evil HD remake, keep up with the great content mate.
Great video. I for one is the 0.0001% that does not care about the story or the characters. I love the last of us because of its unique take on zombies. Was very excited to fight and experience the new infected "shambler" and the boss fight was a real treat. Killing of various faction grunts + blowing up dogs with explosives was just icing on the cake.
JOEL did the RIGHT thing by saving Ellie. You can't make a vaccine for a fungal infection, killing Ellie would have saved NO ONE. The fireflies were idiots that didn't understand science, and thats not an opinion thats a fact. Which makes this whole game seem even more pointless, I didn't even think that was possible.
Spoilers ahead I hated that they even made this game and addressed the moral dilemma of what Joel did at the hospital. It was so perfectly nuanced in the first game with themes of a lack of resolution hurts worse than loss itself (notice the death camera and the sudden cuts away from big traumatic events like Henry and David) and for the second game to just make a canonical judgment of "yeah Joel is bad guy" feels so flat and shortsighted that they'd just completely steamroll over the morality. Joel traded the world that he felt apathetic at best towards in order to save his soul and that's something I think everybody can latch onto even if you disagree with it. The the incompetence of the fireflies or the chance to save the world I don't think are relevant questions because it was never about the world or fireflies,it was about Joel. That's why I also despised the way they killed Joel. The moment I saw the reveal of tlou2 I knew Joel wasn't surviving but to just kill him in the first 2 hours after like 15 minutes of screen time felt very cheap and like they just used that emotional connection the player already had with Joel to make the plot happen. You mention that Dina and ellie have good chemistry and after playing through the game twice now I just dont see any chemistry between any of the characters. None of the characters have personality or dynamics between them besides sort of lev and Abby. I initially thought that ellie and Dina would have a dramatic dynamic of Dina being sort of emotional and poetic about their love for eachother and braving the harsh world for the sake of justice but maybe she'd have little experience in the wild world so she would be confronted with brutality and bloodshed that she'd never even seen before which would make the load heavier on ellies back because she got Dina into this situation but no Dina and ellie are the exact same person with the exact same personality and its like that with every character in the game. Everybody acts and talks the same because Naughty Dog didn't want to waste time fleshing them out because they existed to just be dramatically killed and then forgotten about like they were characters in a slasher movie and ellie was an indie Jason Voorhees I found ellies story hollow and directionless and abbys story just confusing. Ellie doesn't have any sort of forward momentum to finding Abby and I thought the whole vacation to Seattle was completely unjustified because I was not moved by Joel's death. Abbys story is confusing because they go for a redemption arc similar to Arthur's in rdr2, which this game clearly had a bit of inspiration from, where Abby starts out bad but through saving lev and Yara and giving them a second chance, her soul is redeemed but she never actually does anything wrong. Yeah torturing Joel was wrong but there was some sort of justification, besides that one event Abby does nothing wrong and still feels guilty, she even says the she feels guilt when talking to lev or Yara about why she's helping but she never says what she feels guilty about or even brings it up any other time besides once off handidly in an optional conversation. I think they were going for Joel saves Abby and Joel is the enemy so Abby kills him despite his kindness which she feels guilty about so when the same situation happens with Yara and lev, who are supposed to be scars, her enemy, she instead saves them. But Yara and lev weren't her enemies because they were in opposition to the scars and hadn't done anything wrong unlike Joel who killed her dad. Then later on Mel says something like "you aren't fooling me by helping these kids, did you have a change of heart or was it Owen" and then I was like oh damn, I had completely forgot that Mel and Owen were even together because they talk to eachother like once, so I thought there's be like this love triangle but then Mel does a complete 180 off in a different direction and is like" you're a piece of shit Abby, you always have been" and I burst out laughing because what the fuck are you talking about. Abby never does anything wrong besides kill Joel, which Mel is there for and Manny says she didn't like it, but she still went knowing they were going to kill Joel and was even one of the people that said they should kill ellie and Tommy too. They made a redemption arc with nothing to redeem. It seems like they were trying to redeem her to the player for killing Joel and not redeem herself in her own eyes because she never expresses any guilt over killing Joel which is why I think a lot of people feel like the game was telling you you have to sympathize with Abby and not convincing you to through her actions and words. This has been my essay on the last of us 2,i hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
Mostly agree, though something she does in the game which is also wrong is having sex with owen, while his girlfriend is pregnant. I assumed mel lashing out was cause she figuered that out, but i cant quite remember. Also it is implied that she has killed alot of scars to the point where she is called isaacs best scar killer or something like that. I know that those just like the "no names"(well technically other characters shout out their names when they find the body so it o name is really correct but well) she kills throughout the game, and i know those are situation where its kill or be killed, but she could still feel guilt about it
They honestly could’ve just had tommy killed and joel went on the revenge quest for ellie to come find him and most of the community would’ve been fine with the game.
The Last of Us Part 2 was everything I expected it to be, an mediocre sequel, with mediocre characters, decent writing at best and directorial decisions which made me think if the main objective behind the game was to just create an controversy. And just as I expected after it released, the controversy exploded, burned for few months and then everyone forgot about the game. 10/10
11:15 I agree with a lot of what you've said, but this is objectively wrong. The Fireflies drugged Ellie after she nearly drowned (never even waking up) put her on an operating table to be cut open and killed for their personal gain/beliefs. Not only did they not give Ellie that personal choice, they told Joel he couldn't see her and threatened to kill him if he put up a fuss. As I see it: they pinned Joel in a corner and gave him no other options than to go offensive and take Ellie back. The second game proves that if they would have waited and let Joel see Ellie and explain the situation to them both, She would have willingly given up her life. So the "getting his comeuppance", is factually wrong. I will way that in their (Abby and friends) eyes he IS the enemy and I can see why they would think he is evil, but stating that he deserved that fate for saving Ellie and dooming humanity is completely incorrect. :/
The Last of Us II (as a person who's seen a lot of it's story and the drama surrounding it) is a frustrating game because I can see something that could've been fucking amazing. Yet they fall short every fucking time they have a chance to take the game and story to a direction that could've been so compelling. It would've been so much more compelling if you could choose to either play as Abby or Ellie first and players could have the option of choosing to continue Ellie's story or let their curiosity lead them and find out who this "Abby" is. It would've been so much more grimly beautiful to see Ellie begin to show less remorse with every kill she makes in gameplay. I can see a really good fucking story and premise in the game. The scenes when taken by themselves can be fucking good but as a whole, they're the writers trying to manipulate the audience in the worse ways. This game is fucking depressing and not for reasons it intended.
TheMarsCydonia the issue is that the people that say it’s amazing are giving emotional appeals about the game and what emotions they feel, the people saying it’s terrible are people that say the writing booted them out of believing the plot is natural and can not get back in. I personally think that is the mark of a bad story.
@@moonmoon2479 So both are giving emotional reasons... You're right since the people who hate the story often do so because how they feel about Joel's death, how they feel about Abby, etc
TheMarsCydonia well, I wouldn’t say their reasons are emotional. It’s believability that causes issues. For example, Joel’s death. (Too convenient that Abby just runs into Joel. Joel way too trusting of Abby’s group) Or Abby’s character. (Friends generic, manipulation to try to get you to like Abby and hate Ellie, Abby given too much screen time at once in an awkward spot, Ellie far more affected by terrible acts that Abby.) When it’s easy to tell the devs are trying to push something and skip over making it natural, players pick up on it, and the whole thing feels false. So they get disconnected from the story and can’t get back in.
@@moonmoon2479 Sure it's convenient that she runs into Joel... But not unrealistic, people run into each other all the time and it's certainly convenient to the game as opposed to "Abby never runs into Joel, the end". I also hear often people say "way too trusting" but without ever giving any other story beat explaining what they should have done, besides "being devoured by the horde". They always reduced "Too trusting" to "gave them his real name" as if it Joel should been so paranoid that he should have given them a fake name. And given Henry and Sam a fake name or given the whole of Jackson a fake name except for Tommy. Joel should have been so suspicious as to pretend all the while he's in Jackson that he's not Tommy's brother. But no, Joel should be this suspicious only in this very instance that has upset them. I can't see it more than an attempt at rationalizing their feelings. Just like their feelings about Abby, etc.
"it a game that thinks it far more profound then it is" I think the people that think this story of second game is profound might be too emotional, which is why the story works for them.
10:58. Would have to disagree here. Joel knew he would be hunted for the rest of his life after what he did. Plus he was a Hunter. He was one of the bad guys for a while. He knows how to survive and not put himself in a dangerous situation out numbered with armed strangers with no way out. Joel didn't live this long being complacent. A better plot would have been if Ellie's love interest killed him after Ellie convinced the town to let this stranger in.
On my second playthrough i looked at the map of seattle and the area that you meet jesse at is at the northeast part of the map, ellie and dina came in further south.
I was truly so excited for this game due to the atmosphere and everything it built and gave with the first however, some games do not need a sequel. This one of them. It got me so irritated that I stoped midway and never finished it off. The story is so weirdly paced and even if I love the first I just couldn’t do them same with this one I found myself pushing and not enjoying my time when playing it that I just called it quits. Also, the whole playing as Abby and then Ellie meh it was weird. Anyways… glad to hear your voice Craig!
if the doctor didn't go for the knife Abby would have been justified. it's this fact that makes Ellie more justified than Abby. Ellie deserved justice and in the end, she never got it and lost everything in the process. everything the first game built between Ellie and Joel this game destroyed. that's why everyone is mad with this game. the first game leaves you with hope this one takes it away. I just want to be clear Joel killing that doctor was not murder it was in defense of himself and Ellie. Abby on the other hand, that was straight murder and she gets away with it.
I find funny that Dina, being only 1 month pregnant cant do nothing, meanwhile Mel goes in missions, climbs stuff etc etc lol
To be fair people are different, but yea i get what you mean
Dina caught a fever for whatever reason because of it. Mel was healthy. Big difference
@@fabiancorrea8279 Mel was heavily pregnant and its very unrealistic that she'd be able to do the things she did. It's also baffling why you'd take a heavily pregnant woman on a mission like that
@@dominicfrancis3356 It wasn’t really a mission, they were just traveling from the stadium to where issac was.... as he wanted to talk with them..... that’s why they let mel go because it wasn’t supposed to be high risk + mel and manny were both pushing for mel to go
Except Dina's 19 and Mel is in her mid-to-late twenties.
On reddit, someone said that they didn't like tlou2, and ever reply was either "you probably don't like it because theirs gay people in it" or "that's not your opinion, your just going off of what big TH-camrs say" and that just pisses me off.
Reddit, like all other social media platforms, is just a cesspool of dumbasses that can use a keyboard.
@@wertminkefski3857 ^This
@@wertminkefski3857 An echo chamber of so-called "edgelords" who make pathetic Pepe memes and denigrating shit just because it made them laugh.
Try r/TheLastOfUs2.
Have you seen Twitter? Yeah. That's pretty much wildfires too.
Like some people can't take a fact seriously. I pointed out that Lev is born as "Lily" and the game shows you that Lev is technically a girl, only to be called a Transphobic. What a revelation. I guess I'm Transphobic now.
Hands down the most underrated aspect of this video is that South Park clip.
Which episode BTW? Oh also next time you're streaming and you see the username lapqmzks , that's me , cool hanging out with your bruh, take care
some guy it’s the second episode of the second season. Cartman’s mum is a dirty slut p2 I believe?
@@doggydude98 Thanks man
this was not the last of us game
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Dude these days even South Park itself is underrated.. but oh how this world needs it
To this day, I don't believe Joel killing the Fireflies to save Ellie was villainous.
1. There was no guarantee they could reverse engineer a vaccine by removing Ellie's brain. At the hospital level, you find an audio log that spells out that this had the potential to work, but they had been doing experiments long before this and nothing worked. Ellie could have been the cure or just a unique mutation that can't be replicated. Either way, that isn't something you should rush to surgery without further testing.
2. Let's say Ellie's sacrifice would have created a vaccine, but the world is still stuck in an apocalypse. We've seen major cities taken over by ruthless hunters and cannibals roaming the wilds. None of that is going to go away in a heartbeat with a cure, especially when the world's economy and infrastructure is in shambles. There's a strong likelihood that they'd refuse to go back to everyday life after years of relying on their survival instincts and preying on others now that one of their many concerns has been solved. Let's also not forget that the Fireflies are against the military, the only group imposing order. They may want a cure, but they could just as easily keep it for themselves in a bid to seize control. They haven't exactly been honorable heroes, which leads me to my next point.
3. Ellie was never given a choice to save humanity. Marline says it's what she'd want, but what does it say about a group of people who want to save the world if they're willing to butcher an unconscious 14-year-old girl without explaining the situation to her first? Nothing was stopping them from waking her up and hammering out the details, but they were willing to sacrifice her on the slim chance that it could work.
Joel made the same choice any loving parent would in that situation, and while it didn't help the world in any way, it ensured that everything they went through wasn't all for nothing. There's a real emotional weight when Joel risks everything to save this girl he's grown to love as a daughter and throwing it all away on bad odds and flimsy logic isn't a purely selfish thing to do. It's a moral gray area Druckman decided to ignore to generate cheap tension between Joel and Ellie in the sequel and ensure he dies a broken, miserable wreck who should have known better. I don't buy for a second that Joel would give his name and address to a group of strangers on a dime, even if they did help them survive a pack of Infected. Every person wants to survive in this world, but that doesn't make them good people. Joel of all people should know this as his time as a Hunter and the way he instructs Ellie in other scenes. It was disrespectful to character, and it was the catalyst for a 25 hour murder spree where the character learned nothing, didn't develop throughout the experience, and didn't accomplish anything but a mountain of corpses in the end.
Thanks for your elaborate input about almost everything that has bothered me regarding the sequel, we have to remember that Joel's decision to save Ellie had more factors backing it up, more than just his love for her, while it was still by far the biggest deciding factor. Remember that Joel never believed the Fireflies' mission to return the world it used to be? And throughout the first TLOU we can see what humanity has become. Absence of law and order, people robbing, killing, raping each other, lot of different military, terroristic groups pursuing their own interests. Do you really think that they could simply return to the old days after all of that savagery? Joel knows that there is no return, he has known ever since he lost Sarah. Remember, it wasn't the infection that killed her daughter, it was a normal human.
Plus if u find and listen all those tapes that the Fireflies left behind, u will learn that they weren't even sure that cure would work. So there was no way that Joel would have let his beloved Ellie die, for that hopeless mission that he knows would never succeed, to develop the cure that might not even work at all.
And in TLOU2 he is portrayed as selfish, stubborn, oldish dumb man, how are we supposed to believe that?
Also vaccines don't work for fungus
Definitely.
I would also add that the Fireflies are utterly incompetent. They're repeatedly shown losing ground, every location that's supposed to be theirs is decrepit or overrun. One of their scientists get bitten by their own monkeys that they're experimenting on. And they almost gun down Joel and Ellie while Joel is clearly nonhostile, and trying to resuscitate an unconscious girl. Like, seriously, these are the guys that people want to blame Joel for not trusting with surgery?
4. The fireflies screw Joel out of their agreement. They have him take this girl across the country and then knock him out, don't pay him and take his guns
I wonder how many parents would be willing to let their child die for the sake of the world.
Especially for a world like the one in these games.
Probably not even the world. Do people really think that the fireflies were really going to just give the cure away for free to everyone from the goodness of there hearts? More likely they would keep it for themselves and would only give it those who swear allegiance to the fireflies.
Just because something is understandable doesn't mean it isn't villainous and ultimately wrong
My problem with whole plot is it's childish and naive. I can fully understand Joel choosing Ellie over cure (she is daughter substitute) but Abby, sorry but no. Whole Abby's camping feels forced, like someone is trying to tell you his right is righter than yours. And most of all inconsequence Abby helps worst enemies because they saved her life but at the same time ignored it when Joel and Tommy saved her. That whole story is politicaly corect tale offending one's intelligence
Logically, Joel made the right choice. There was no guarantee that they could make a cure that works, and if you believe the theories, killing Ellie would be the single worst thing they could do.
@@mythmage8231 Did he make the right choice? If there's a 50% or 30% or 20% chance of stopping the zombie apocalypse you try. The girl you bonded with over the last month isn't worth it...
Drama and specially shock value don't justify bad writing, period.
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@@lilmupp875 thx
I love the game, but the writing is weak.
it suck here why
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I love the game and it’s story
I was SHAKING at certain parts including the ending. I didn’t want Abby to die
Just to offer an alternate interpretation of the finale of the first game, Joel's actions were NOT selfish. He and Ellie where in a compromised position and the Fireflies took advantage of that, kidnapping Ellie and leaving Joel no choice in her fate other than the violent path. The Fireflies took away both Joel and Ellie's agency to take a gamble on a cure that, if you read the collectible memos leading up to the ending, you discover wasn't guaranteed and the Fireflies had done this to other immune people before Ellie with every experiment resulting in failure. Knowing this, the Fireflies acted in desperation and Joel responded in kind. I'd say the surgeon was an innocent bystander in this, but he had raised a scalpel to Joel, he wasn't going to let him save Ellie, so he chose his fate. Joel even acted more logically than Abby by killing Marlene on his way out because he even vocalizes that she'd just come after them. Obviously the narrative heard by everyone else would be that some psychopath butchered the freedom fighters to steal their shot at a cure, but the players understand that the Fireflies, like a lot of "freedom fighters", aren't good people.
That is what's great about the first game's ending. Different takes and interpretations
Great statement, but I would like to add something I pointed out to friends.
If they went ahead with the surgery and somehow it turned out to be a success things still wouldn’t be any better. At that point when Joel and Ellie get to the hospital, the Fireflies are running on fumes. They are on the verge of extinction. Taking that into consideration, they also were working out of a old dirty hospital with old technology. If they were able to successfully create a cure, they don’t have the man power or the resources to synthesize mass quantities of it. Marlene wouldn’t go to FEDRA for help to get more of the cure synthesized. She would use the cure as a power move to gain leverage over FEDRA. She would fail spectacularly and end up getting killed. The hospital gets raided, and in the crossfire the cure is destroyed, and it’s back to square one.
True
Came here to post something similar, glad someone already spent the time going over the nuances.
Not to mention that even Ellie didn't get agency in this, which was entirely necessary to make what the fireflies did even remotely justifiable. Not to mention that the fireflies, like you said, aren't good people, they were more than likely going to leverage the cure on the off chance that they got it. On top of that, they deliberately misinformed the characters as to the nature and risk of what they were about to do, so even if they did give Ellie the "choice" it would have been misinformed, so they were still lying either way. From the perspective of a father, Joel was correct, from the moral perspective, which he learns on the way to make his choice, he is correct, from a political standpoint, he was correct. He didn't do anything wrong and I'm sick of him being treated by the new creative team like he did. His hand was more or less forced.
I think Ellie and Dina were not good companions in a story. They were just too alike and had not enough friction to write something exciting. Early on Dina tells Ellie how she killed her first man when she was like ten years old, while Ellie was fourteen. She always ups Ellie and it sounded like bragging. I thought they would set something up to reveal, that Dina is actually completely useless in a firefight. But they didnt and it was just a strange conversation.
What i think was missing here were the infected. In the first one there was really this dread that the threat of the infected was looming over everything. People were willing to do terrible things to survive. Like rob anyone that comes by, or even resort to cannibalism. Yet in the second part societies are stable enough to start wars in between them, which was really off putting. A war is, was and always will be a giant waste of time, resources and lifes. And here come the Seraphites, a cartoonishly evil group of religious zealots that is okay with maiming children for trivial things. Seeing this, i can only conclude that Joel was right to save Ellie in the first game. If the infected take such a distant third place after the WLF and the Seraphites regarding the conveyed threat they pose... the world building is not at its best.
When Jesse was standing there in that trailer scene i was silently fuming. I really felt betrayed, that fucking trailer swap felt like outright lying, just to squeeze out a few more sales. In every interview and trailer they were promising the audience that this game would be an opportunity to reconnect to Ellie and Joel and the dynamic between the two. To me this is not borderline false advertising, its outright fraud. Naughty Dog/Sony knew, that Joel and Ellie were the elements that sold the game and since Neil Druckmann is very much overrated as a writer ("I need to build tension. So lets kill one of the most beloved character of this generation during the tutorial") they just never prepared anyone for this weird narrative.
Good points. With the Joel scene in the trailer that's actually Jesse, it just seemed odd to even include it in the trailer. At least the other Joel scenes where they aged him up were actually in the game. He wasn't even in the scene in seattle.
And yeah I was so excited for the seraphites but we didn't learn enough about them seeing as they were featured so heavily. They're just cliche. Only cool thing was the whistling
Bro how long did it took to write that?
YES!!!!! Thank you, someone who gets it
Think it woulda been cool Ellie seeing visions of Joel
The infected in the first game are dummy clowns and they are a lot more prominent in 2 and more threataning, also font forget that ellie is immune 🤡🤡
I agree with many of your points but i take a firm stance on the poor execution of Joel’s death. I think if the game wanted to show both Joel and Tommy softening up, then they should have showed that better. The first time we meet Tommy in Part 1 Joel and Ellie are greeted with weapons from their community. This community is not full of push overs. Plus in Part 2 we see patrols are continually being conducted. In one flashback we see Joel still cautious about Ellie wearing her mask and then taking on a bloater by himself (and winning). You don’t just lose 20 years of experience and this shows that, unless the game needs Joel to die to push the plot forward lol. Also, how does Ellie become for proficient at surviving and I’m supposed to believe that Joel gets worse? Part 2 did not do the leg work to show this change in Joel, which is part of the reason why his death feels poorly executed.
Overall I enjoyed the video, good job :)
I enjoyed your video breaking down that scene.
Critical Nobody thanks! I really liked how you broke down the other scenes I did not cover in my videos. Your reasoning was easy to follow and it showed even someone who enjoyed the first game but didn’t love it, saw the many writing issues in this one!
The part with Mel (pregnant lady) was really interesting. Naughty Dog could have executed that better to convey a better sequence and tension!
YES THANK YOU! This is exactly the point of My bigest problem with the setting of Joel's death.
Joe, The Alternative Gamer i also feel the fireflys were not justified at the end of 1. They didnt give ellie the actual choice of living. They just went on the chance that she would save the human race. What happens when she isnt a actual cure? Well ya just killed a little girl with no actual payoff.
Agree very much i doubt knowing Joel as we do he would of even helped Abby. The main issue here is trying to put a version of todays beliefs into a world like the one portrayed in tlou its just plain silly
As you pointed out, the one kill you have to do at the end of TLOU is the doctor. Even then though, it's done in semi self defense since he was holding a weapon and threatening Joel. Though the way the doctor was presented before that scene in TLOU2 is a bit more competent with a weapon then shown in that scene.
Not to mention, I never felt that Joel doomed the world. Only the FireFlies believed they could make a cure from Ellie, but at the same time were doing it in the most round about, half assed fashion. There is no reason to kill her when all you need is a sample of the fungus cells, and it would be far better to keep the hose and fungus a live to run tests instead of killing and trying to keep it preserved with what tech they have left.
That said, I feel there is no redemption for Abby, no matter how much they try to humanize her. She tracked down and killed Joel in cold blood, even after he saved her from the hordes of infected, she still went through with the plan. She sat for 6yrs premeditating the murder of Joel, and when she finds him, enacts what she can.
Meanwhile, Ellie, while not in the right, is more understandable. She's still hot blooded, and in the moment. She watched her surrogate father be tortured and killed before her, and immediately set out to find the killers with her anger and rage still full in her heart and guiding her. She offers each of Abby's group a chance to live, just wanting the woman who killed her father and nothing more, and each attack her instead, causing her to kill them in self defense.
As for the morality of the game, you hit it on the nose. We're supposed to believe these characters are remorseful for their actions... after seconds earlier you're wading through the corpses of infect, scars, and wolves alike like a grim reaper. Making any poignant moment lose impact and power since it's just another body, or thing you're forced to do.
I'll be honest though, the MOMENT the game switch to Abby's quest.. I lost all interest and had to force myself to play the game. It just felt.. dull and tacked on.
You know what makes the Fireflies look worse in this regard? They had 12 other immune people before Ellie, and all of them died to the same thing that the Fireflies were going to do to her. Had they gone through with it, Ellie would probably just be another death caused by their incompetence. Joel was right to take her back, even if he wanted a cure.
@@magnatcleo2043 Wait!? Where did you learn this? There was a mention of test subjects on the tape, but I think that was them trying to make a vaccine/cute without someone immune.
@@marbles8641 Actually, I forgot that it was removed from the proper game, so I don't know if that's still canon or not. It was going to be in the game originally.
@@magnatcleo2043 I think this is one of the main things which make the first game so morally ambiguous. Some argue that Joel deemed humanity, then there's the evidence of the Fireflies failing tests, then there's people who are willing to take that risk if it means a chance that it works. There's alot of different branching paths but instead they make out Joel to be completely in the wrong in Part 2.
@@falcononpc9845 No, Joel isn't entirely in the wrong, but from what our characters know (because they didn't hear about the other people because it was cut from the game) Joel was a bad guy, Ellie wants to mean and she's angry she couldn't make that choice and joel made it for her, The people who see joel as bad are the ex fireflies, Ellie is ready to forgive joel the day before he is killed. Stop labelling shit black and white
This entire game I could see behind the curtain, seeing the writers trying their best to trick and manipulate me, but it was impossible to buy
Weird that so many people think the intention was to trick you meanwhile its only there to show you two sides of the coin
@@introvert6705 I get that, but who didn't KNOW that there are 2 sides to every story. Did you need a videogame to tell you that the perceived bad guy has a perspective, and in their eyes they feel justified. It also doesn't respect the medium of videogames, because unlike books and movies, the choice is not mine, but the characters we see/read. In a game, I make the decisions that the game wants me to, then it wags it's finger at me for making them.
@@ummfada we know there are two sides but we wouldnt understand abby if we didnt play as her and see her character arc. Also i dont know what you mean with wagging the finger at you the game never judges the player.
@@introvert6705 what is there to understand?,that she was taking revenge from joal for something he did to her,and that she's accually not a bad guy,did you seriously not get that only after you played as her??
@@introvert6705. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the game is politically motivated.
Adding in to the discussion about Joel's death, I am in the camp that Joel died too early (along with everything else about contrivance).
1) If we spent more time with Abby
2) if more sympathetic qualities from Abby were on display from the start
3) If we spent more time with Joel, to show how his character developed after the events of the first game
That could have made Joel's death more palatable.
everything would have worked out if abby had joined Ellie's group, becoming friends, only to discover joel's true identity and betraying them, torturing joel to death in front of ellie
Also, change the world significantly enough to justify Joel's character shift. It doesn't seem like the world is safe enough to justify Joel "going soft", as many claimed he did.
@@magnatcleo2043 true, living in a peaceful community does not change anything, try going to a veteran to tell him that all the awareness he built up in the last decades will reset in a few years, even if he still goes on missions. It will be funny😂
With Veteran it's instilled into you for years by an unforgiving general and or sergeant... I believe that is different than surviving and having the choice to do as you please.
Again just stating...nothing malicious 🙂
@@simonanvil4617 Joel didn't really reset, Tommy said Joel's name way before and Mel, introduced himself, he can't walk around Jackson with a fake name, plus Abby was looking for Tommy and Tommy knows Joel is his brother.
And even worse during the incident when they were getting away from the runners and clickers, Joel says Tommy's name as they fight the hoards off.
It's just natural to say a loved one's name when in danger.
Even in the game, the man not only told Ellie to wear a mask just in case someone shows up, but he took a bloater down with machete to save Ellie...
His instincts and attitude were still shown, but he states "I'm getting old" wouldn't an old man try to settle ?
There are many factors that went into his death, nevermind the notes scattered through the game talking about Jackson.
Just pointing this out dude, no hate or anything like that, I just want to tell the facts 🙂
I'll always argue that Bruce Straley was the person that reigned in Neil Druckmann, without him we get TLOU 2 with him we get TLOU 1.
Edit: okay, this whole Joel got soft cause he lives in Jackson thing is such a weak argument, and I'm so sick of it.
First off joel has 20 years of living in survival mode I don't know about you, but 20 years fighting to survive versus 3+ years of comfort ain't gonna change a man THAT much.
Secondly Joel has been shown to be a man who'll do anything for the ones he loves, even in the first game Tommy alludes to this by saying he didn't feel like the things they did back then were justified, but Joel nonetheless still wasn't apologetic for what he did. With all that in mind when, if Joel has much more to lose I don't think Joel will suddenly mush up, and trust strangers, much less strangers that are armed to the teeth like Abby's group.
Thirdly do you really think Joel doesn't think or assume he'd be hunted down for doing something like kill a base of the fireflies? Mind you Joel also was a hunter before a smuggler. 10 or 15 years of hunting would probably net you people who want to have revenge for what you did to friends or love ones. So I don't really see this Joel being not wary of strangers.
Lastly Joel even before the apocalypse was already distrustful of people. Remember the family Joel left on the side of the rode, just because Joel doesn't want to take a risk? All in all this whole Joel becomes soft thing is SUCH a bad plot point, especially considering this starts of the entirety of the story.
Well said
Yeah, it's not the strongest argument, but it's how I justified it to myself. I'm sure Neil Druckmann did that a lot while writing the script :)
Agreed. This is pretty much my argument on the whole situation.
@@CriticalNobody Yeah pretty much. Btw did you know they initially made Abby be part of Jackson? She actually teams up with Ellie, and eventually learns that they are the people she was looking for, but scrapped it because the game was too long( which tbh they could've trimmed a lot of the stuff in so that they could set it up like that).
I can buy it. Ever since Sarah died, he was kind of a miserable, angry man who lived a horrible life and did a lot of heinous things. But post TLOU1, he's the closest to being happy he's been in a long time. He's got a life with Ellie now, he's pretty much reconciled and bonded with his brother again, he has something much closer to a normal life and pleasures than he's ever had post outbreak, etc. I do think they should've done a better job showing this softer side though and its still a bit out of character for Joel to not be more cautious. Hell, even before the world had completely gone to shit, Joel was totally fine leaving a couple and their child on the side of the road to minimize risks to his own family.
In TLOU2 We see Joel once during the prologue, then the only time we see him after the time skip is during the PGA 2038 scene. So I can sit here and infer that he's gotten a bit soft all day, but they never really show you that. At least before that scene. Flashbacks do help though
10:40 Even in the first game's PROLOGUE, Joel was completely untrusting. Remember, he insisted on NOT picking up a small family that was begging to be picked up, even when he didn't know what was going on with the virus.
11:15 Again, no. We know full well The Fireflies' plans had a 100% chance of failure. It's basic procedure to take a sample, not kill the host. There was nothing stopping them from taking a sample of the parasite, they gave Ellie no choice in the matter, and they've been causing rampant terrorism from the get-go.
31:15 It just seems comical that she left the safety of a comfy home to roam around zombies while carrying an infant around. What a stupid decision.
About the third part - she most definitely didn't move out on her own. How would she transport all the furniture and whatever? She had someone pick her up in a truck and drive back to the town from the tutorial, that's my guess.
[SPOILERS IN THIS POST]
I think it's really shitty what they did to Ellie. They pretty much gave us the first game and made her extremely likeable and got us all attached to her, then they spent the second game pretty much taking away everything she had and making her the most miserable person on Earth.
What's also baffling is that, in the game, Ellie and Abby never really.. talk. Like, Ellie never asks Abby why she killed Joel. Never asks what Joel did. Abby never asks if Ellie killed all her friends - she just assumes it. All these two do is scream threats at each other. It makes their rivalry feel sort of half-baked if they've never exchanged any dialogue beyond screams of anger and grunts of pain.
every problem in the game could be resolved with a 2 minute conversation lol
@@doogallas in real life, lots of people cannot fix their relationships due to miscommunication. it would be so cheesy if they allowed Abby and Ellie to "talk things out"
@@KoneeKawa It would be yeah. Although if you have a story where everything could easily be avoided by a short conversation, it's probably not a good story.
@@doogallas popular classical literature usually surrounds miscommunication: pride and prejudice, wuthering heights, the great gatsby- the list goes on. great stories are about human nature and human nature often means we are blinded by our own emotions and assumptions. not saying this game is literature, but it's commonality to compare stories to greats
I wanna see you casually talking, with the murderer of the most important person in your life.
The game's problems actually start with the previous game. Abby wants Joel dead because he killed her father, a man that the first game absolutely would not allow you to take out non-fatally. No matter what you do, that surgeon will die, even if you shoot him in the foot. It was also clear that the vaccine they were hoping for was just a pipe dream.
The reality of the situation is that Ellie would have died for nothing because these idiots had no idea what they were doing. They lacked the competency, the capability, and most likely the actual willpower to actually distribute a vaccine that in all likelihood would have done nothing due to how far the world had gone. The fireflies weren't the saviors of humanity, just another grey faction in their world. So Joel and Ellie make their way over the course of a year across the country chasing after them, each time they get close they see the results of the Fireflies and it doesn't inspire confidence imo.
Add that when they get there, Joel is knocked out while Ellie is drowning and when he wakes up they tell him they can create a vaccine, they just need to kill Ellie to do so. He couldn't have been out that fast and they are already jumping to a lethal option. They then tell him to F*** off without giving him his things back let alone the things that were promised when it all started.. Which means he would have likely died within a day of leaving the hospital. Of course, the actual event that sparked the fight against the fireflies was one trigger happy member trying to shoot Joel because he paused, which coincidentally happened right after he passed by his things. I think at that point he felt that he was screwed either way and this way he had a better chance at survival. I really cannot fault him for defending himself from people he helped.
Not to mention that, in the real-world, there's no such thing as a vaccine for a fungal infection (which is what cordyceps falls into). It may have just been a plothole, but it also could've been the ultimate indicator that the Fireflies' plans wouldn't have worked. Even if they made a vaccine, the Fireflies were shown to be a violent terrorist group, so what's to say they wouldn't have used it to maliciously push their own agenda?
I'm mostly in agreement with you, The ending just felt like a cop out. I didn't learn anything about myself or feel challenged I just felt bored. The SECOND Abby and Lev got captured I knew this was going the "you've suffered enough" route. They pulled the same shit in Max Payne 3 with Serrano and it felt just as unbelievable there.
In fact, Max Payne 3 as a whole is a good comparison to TLoU2, takes itself too seriously and meanders when it should just GO there. For such a violent game with such interesting risks taken with the narrative, they really lacked bravery with the outcome.
I did feel some Max Payne 3 vibes there too. Although I had fun with that game way more.
“You’ll walk. With a limp!”
Atleast Max Payne's gunplay makes my pp hard
I actually liked MP3's ending way more, even though, you know, MP2 already finished on Max letting go of his wife and child. Partly because there were 3 games worth of suffering, Max legit just looked tired, which in my headcannon is also why he's much more vulgar.
Rockstar low-key ruined Max Payne with that game, JFC.
Spoiler alert for this comment but did you notice the subtle context clues at the end of the game that indicate Ellie and Dina got there happy ending after all?
it's just a theory based on small context clues given at the end of the game. But yes, perhaps Ellie got her happy ending with Dina and JJ after all. Something important nobody noticed Ellie is wearing the Dina's bracelet on her right wrist at the end when she returns to the farmstead indicating quite some time has passed and they must have reunited before that scene takes place because her wounds are healed up and everything. She only returns to that farm to leave the guitar behind
Before Ellie leaves to pursue Abby to California, a letter in the farmhouse from Jesse’s mother says that they’ll always have a home in Jackson should they choose to return to that community. This makes it pretty clear where Dina and the baby ended up at the end. But did Ellie ever reconnect with them?
Apparently, when Ellie heads to California, she is not wearing the bracelet that Dina gave her. Multiple images of the fight with Abby confirm that it is indeed not on either wrist at that time. However, when she’s back at the farmhouse, the bracelet is once again on her wrist. Ellie’s wounds have also healed, and it seems to be later in the year-fall, instead of the blazing summer heat. Ellie also doesn’t have any of her weapons on her, all of which seem to indicate this scene may not be immediately when she returns home from confronting Abby.
The theory goes that this is some time after Ellie got back. She’s already reconnected with Dina and the baby back in Jackson, and her wearing the bracelet shows that they’ve made amends. Ellie returns to the farmhouse to get the guitar-notice that she doesn’t seem surprised the house is empty or even call out Dina’s name. When Ellie sits down to play the guitar for the first time since losing her fingers, she realizes just what her pursuit of vengeance cost her, losing what Joel had given her. She sets down the guitar, says goodbye to that part of her past-both his death and his betrayal of her in the first game, two things she had been struggling with-and looks forward to the future and what she still has.
So perhaps Ellie and Dina got there happy ending, the player just didn't get to see it at the end. We just have small context clues that hint she reunited and they went back together in Jacksonville
** Ending Spoilers ** There are so many points in the story where small changes would make it flow better. Even without changing the direction that they were going for. Even with Ellie and Abby's final confrontation, instead of a fight where Ellie lets her go for some reason leaving the audience pulled out of things and annoyed. Have her walk past all those poles with people the slavers strung up as examples. And when she gets to Abby, she's just already dead. So she fought and sacrificed everything to come for her revenge and that person is already gone. You could then have a scene of her cutting down Abby and kicking the body in frustration as she realized what she gave up for nothing. Then as the player we'd feel some of the same frustration of not being able to take her out rather then just being annoyed that Ellie lets her go for no reason.
that would be interesting. I might add that maybe Lev could still be alive and so she accomplishes something good, even if it wasn't what she wanted.
True, but that would ruin any chance of the next sequel that is already likely planned: The Last Of Us: Revengence (DLC Planned Parenthood Edition later with a group of pregnant ladies roaming around killing shit)
**ending spoilers**???.... Man did you watch the vídeo?? Is all there full of spoilers
I would have found that seriously lackluster. I preferred Abby to Ellie by far.
That wud not make sense
If anything that flashback of joel would've fueled her rage even more
If anything, the flashbacks of Joel would have made for an interesting story as their own game.
If the roles were flipped and Abby killed Ellie instead of Joel he would've ripped Abby apart with his bare hands yet I'm supposed to believe that Ellie thinks that Joel wouldn't want her to finish Abby off? The fuck outta here.
You missed something though. That part was when ellie was trying to forgive Joel, and then she figured out if she couldn't forgive Joel anymore she was gonna forgive Abby it's kinda obvious
I gotta say joel didn’t doom the world. It was already doomed and we didn’t know for sure if killing Ellie to “attempt” to make a cure would even work. On top of that. Ellie was unconscious from almost drowning and they weren’t even gonna let her make s choice or let her know what was gonna happen. Then they threatened joel and forced him out without letting him see her. Joel has been surviving for so long just because he’s been in a nice area for several years doesn’t get rid of being skeptical of everyone. It was a cheap death done wrong and out of the characters behavior just to make this a story with Abby in it.
I don't know if players were 'asked' to sympathize with Abby so much as TOLD you MUST sympathize with her.
No you weren't even asked, it's up to you to sympathise or not by the end.
You just play as her to understand a point of view.
As the saying goes "Walk a mile in someone else's shoes".
No malicious intent from the comment dude 😅
Just wanted to say how I felt about it when I played and finished.
Ryan Edie it sort of doesn’t feel that way, since it’s set up to manipulate the player into feeling bad about what Ellie did. It also feels like failing to sympathize with Abby makes the third act fall flat. At least, that’s what I got out of it.
Alot of the story beats in the game is manipulating you to feel a certain way. Like doing a QTE where you kill a dog and having a flash back of the dog playing fetch. Literally beats you over the head that you must feel bad.
@@moonmoon2479 You are right about the "If you don't feel anything for Abby the third act can fall flat".
The reason I won't say it is manipulation, is because of what manipulation really means.
E.g. The killing the dog incident happends only once and it is taken out of your control barring the QTE itself... the act of killing the dog was in self defense.
In gameplay you have every choice not to kill the dogs; at the very beginning of the game you also pet a dog as Ellie.
To manipulate someone can be seen as underhanded, exploitative or even devious, I could easily say many games manipulate you emotionally so you feel something.
It is still up to you, if you feel this way ultimately.
Many people wanted Abby to die just because of what she did, in this case I could say ND manipulated you emotionally by killing him (Joel).
So I wouldn't use "manipulate" like that y'know? But that is just me 🙂
But yeah if you don't feel it for her, even just a bit then it does fall flat and ND (naughty dog) did put some of their eggs in one basket so to speak. 😅 But that is me personally.
@@espio329 Ellie plays with a dog at the beginning as well, you have every right to just leave the dog the very first time with Abby, I'm unsure about the second time, but I completely dislike the second time because you are meant to be looking for Lev.
I looked back at the second time like , the time it took us to play with that dog in THAT moment we probabaly would have stopped Lev from starting the boat 🤣🤣
Many games try to manipulate you emotionally, but i feel manipulate is a strong word to use, because of the connotations.
As usual when someone is manipulated it would imply some sort of devious intent or could be seen as even exploitative.
Which don't believe is the case, the QTE occurs once when you kill the dog and that was in self-defense you can easily not kill any dog in game.
I've done this, I've killed the owners but not the animals, unless they are aggressive, in that case I kill the dog first to be tactical (played it on hard first time, the reflexes were ridiculous from the AI).
But yeah you have the choice.
Footnote: Halo 2 actually did a similar concept, except a hundred times better
Your argument that Joel is a selfish bad guy seems to be shared by Druckmann and this is the single most important thing about this game that I and many others would disagree with. The Fireflies were going to murder Ellie in her sleep for a CHANCE of a cure!!! The so called innocent doctor then points a scalpel at Joel when he want to take her off the operating table. This is the core issue of the games story. They FAIL to provide a sufficient reason to kill Joel and relatable reason why we should care for scumbag Abbeys scumbag dad! This is why the game is a failure in storytelling. It doesn't help that ND have barely changed their basic game play design since Uncharted in 2007. 13 years and 7 games of the same game play bar adding a rope or going prone. Lazy but normally gets through by the games looking amazing and having great characters. They got the graphics right this time only.
@@RSrunner88 the audio logs you find throughout the hospital implied that it is very much just a chance.
There is no guarantee that the procedure would render a viable cure, the only guarantee is that Ellie would die.
@@RSrunner88 just because a doctor would give his life doesnt mean its implied that he would make a cure.. at all.. they where hoping for a cha crew with Ellie and there was a chance that it wouldnt work
Thanks, this fact gets so often discarded in so many reviews...
@@RSrunner88 it doesn't matter what the fireflies thought. by the ending of the first game, we knew that they were terrorists who were on their last legs and didn't have any intention of giving joel his payment. they were going to kill a girl without her consent and either kill joel as soon as they got him out of the hospital or throw him out of their safe zone without any of his weapons that he came there with. and assuming they even could create a vaccine, there's no way they could've mass produced it AND restored order among all the factions and that's assuming their motives were pure and they wouldn't let that power go to their heads which again, seems like what they would do.
@@RSrunner88 he did butcher a bunch of kids before ellie, and no progress was made from those sacrifices.
To be completely fair regarding the Jesse argument; Seattle probably has more than one entrance, giving Jesse the opportunity to get into the city and overtake the girls. Plus, Ellie went to Hillcrest in response to hearing about a trespasser that she thought was Tommy but turned out to be Jesse, so i think it makes perfect sense for him to 'show up' like that.
@Adam Sunderman Jessie actually does have his own thoughts.
He questions Ellie numerous times, about going back Jackson so Dina can be sage, how much he looked up to Joel, how he felt about being told if that she was pregnant and even after being told he quesrioned her in relation to the topic.
Hell he even takes it upon himself to leave Ellie when he thinks that what she was doing (going after Abby) was insane.
His death signifies the fact that any character can die in the world, the same way Tess died in the original game.
She 100% was useful just as much as her, I hope the post doesn't look malicious as I just wanted to get across that he has moments that show he is a decent character, he doesn't have to do something incredibly outlandish to justify it... that's just a thought and opinion though 🙂
@Adam Sunderman Well said! Dude we can hash it out but ill come back to the comment somewhere down the line since I'm super tired haha.
I will say this about Jessie maybe you are right in certain instances.
Since to really ingrained himself as a character with more motive, he could have been a little more emotive. 😅
I'm trying to write myself, so I'm taking the time to gather information here there and everywhere before I can get back to it.
This conversation is very eye opening and I think others can learn from it too.
Discussion never has to turn sour due to disagreement. 🙂
Jesse is nothing but a token character that only serve to impregnated Dina and died like a pathetic idiot. Just blindly went through a door without being cautious or take cover and he's apparently Tommy's best man.
@@zeroskaterz92 Fair, but I don't entirely agree on that.
No malice I personally just don't agree with that statement 😅
There is no true way to die in the world of the last of us besides (and this my opinion) either going in blind on purpose or through cowardice, they had no Idea the situation past the door, since it happened instantly.
You state it as if he ventured into no man's land when that is not the case, he is by no means a fully fleshed out character sure... but he was not just there to impregnate (That's what I think).
You can say I'm wrong and that's cool, but I believe you haven't really thought about his death and how it happened.
Also to add this at the end... im quite sure Ellie did the wxact same thing at the start when she went to go and rescue Joel.
🙂 I wanted to add this specifically so you can see the parallel, Jessie went in for someone he cared about, the same thing Ellie did.
@@triple_r_va Ellie barged in without fully know what happened as she didn't expect Joel to end up like that. She didn't even know there were people there.
Jesse literally heard a ruckus and just barged in like a fucking idiot. Also the fact that Ellie was stupid enough to leave the map so that Abby could find them. So what are you on about?
It baffles me how tryhard you really are to comment on every posts that don't share the same view as you. How much of a tryhard you are to defend this shitty game, came up with bunch of excuses and telling people how wrong they are and how right you are.
Gtfo here.
Honestly cant stand this method of writing where drama and shock value take place over logic and common sense
The Last Jedi of Us.
And they have the cojones to tell us, that it's high art.
@@dksamaritan5200 honestly im more of a guy that likes plot twists that get reinforced on a second viewing not just dumb shit where the writer wanted to shock you
Like in ex machinca where the protaginist wasnt randomly picked to spend some time to spend some private time with the ceo through a lottery system but instead the ceo hand picked him to test out a turning test robot and used his position to make the offer attractive and the lottery system to make it look random
@@thewhitewolf58 I can get that, but a plot twist does happen, just in the notes more than anything.
(Spoiler of course)
You find out Issac was:
Wanted by Fedra (the original games government)
Created The WLF, signed a treaty and then broke the treaty later on between the WLF and the Seraphites (scars) to cover his ass because he kidnapped and (i think) tortured the leader/prophet and (basically) created/made the cult way worse.
So he started the new war again to cover his ass and end them.
This was a very good freaking plot, just sad you don't get more of him a little bit, it is good lore though! 😅🤣
@@thewhitewolf58 Ex machine's ending still gives me chills till this day dude! Great movie!
I just *DO*. *NOT*. *SEE*. How the writers think we should actually feel sympathy for Abby. Joel killing her father was not out of malice. Abby killing Joel was *PURE* malice. Abby KNOWS the pain she's inflicting on Ellie because she's been in the exact same position but she does it anyway. Ellie is *VISIBLY* distraught by torturing someone to death (like Abby did) and murdering a pregnant woman. Abby's response to learning that the woman she is about murder is pregnant is "Good." Im sorry but compared to what Joel did, Abby is in NO WAY justified in any of her actions. There isn't a single point in the entire game where she shows a shred of remorse for her actions. Even to the very end Abby STILL takes from Ellie while receiving zero punishment.
I feel like the only way they could even come close to making Joel's sins comparable to Abby's would be to make a DLC/game about Tommy and Joel during the 20 year gap in the first game and even then that would be very difficult to pull off.
Abby's doing just fine with her revenge, she didn't seem to care about anybody other than Owen and maybe rando Danny who she seemed a bit sad seeing dead in a single scene. Others not so much, not even mentioned and hell knows how many of her friends she killed herself for a kid she met two days ago. So the moral of the story is: Revenge bad unless divine powers of Dr Uckmann are biased towards you.
Come to think about it, Arbiter didn't go out of his way to fucking kill Master Chief because he knows that Master Chief ain't the only one responsible for destroying the Halo ring, its the entire UNSC. Plus the added layer of the Prophets ordering the Brutes to have him punished because of his "failure" even tho it was thousands of Convenent troops failing at their job of safeguarding Halo, which planted his seed of betrayal against the Prophets.
The moral of the story is to not leave any witnesses
Neil druckmann - "if she loses two fingers that means no more guitar"
-Tony Iomi enters the chat
Thats a little bit of a stretch. Iomi lost the tips of his fingers but still had the rest which makes it possible (tho challenging) to play the frets pretty normally. He did not lose entire fingers.
One of the greatest metal bands of all time
She could've just found a left-handed guitar and learn anew. Matter of fact, the re-learning process would be quite therapeutic.
To quote Peter Griffen: It insists upon itself
It's kind of ironic that the gameplay in the sequel, makes Joel desición about not giving Ellie for a cure the right one. I mean, the sequel isn't about the infected anymore, yes there are infected in the game, but they feel like side quest enemies more than a real threat.
Is almost as if humans are more dangerous than the infected they were looking a cure for.
The sequel should have been about the infected even more than the first one, in order to make Joel's desición about saving Ellie have real consequences.
I completely agree, this sequel shows that Joel did the right thing by taking away humanity's chance for the cure because it's not the infection that make people miserable but it's themselves who make that world miserable🥴
to be fair the first game kinda had that feel as well. 20 years after the outbreak humanity proved to be as stubborn and adaptable as always. various settlements were popping up as fast as they were being taken down. You had runners like Joel who were presumably keeping up trade and communication between said settlements. And the zombies were more of a mild inconvenience that everyone worked around with the raiders and cannibals being far more dangerous.
@@kyriss12 It did, but it did also show the issues with the infected, many characters died in the 1st game because of them, they were a big deal even if it was the norm.
The sequel treats them almost like the infected from Sunset Overdrive.
Now that you said that:
I didn't play the game for some time, but didn't they add a single new Zombie and called it a day?
Next to the Rat King, which was something for sure.
A cure and a vaccine are 2 different things. I don't think that a vaccine on zombies could turn them into humans again.
Asian Joel showing up saying Joel’s trailer dialogue will never not be hilarious to me.
He is a scuffed joel
11:11- 11:50 Gotta respectfully disagree on philosophical grounds. Joel's actions at the end of tlou were actually the most virtuous, principled, and selfless thing he's ever done in his life. Fireflies thought it was good to subvert Ellies explicit consent so that she could die for the "greater good" (I know the medical industry today (especially in these times) holds these sentiments). However, this was fundamentally & objectively immoral, as the mindless order-followers got what was coming, and so did Abby's dad. The only argument for Joel's actions being bad is him lying or if YOU, the player, killed the two other doctors in the room. To call Joel's actions selfish is to call Ellie selfish (if she wanted to live). He didn't doom the world, as there was no guarantee that a vaccine/cure would be found (your scientism & technocrat is showing), there are still humans existing in the world who have the ability to learn and figure out the virus. Its completely understandable why former Fireflies would see him as the bad guy though.
We have to remember that Joel's decision to save Ellie had more factors backing it up, more than just his love for her, while it was still by far the biggest deciding factor. Remember that Joel never believed the Fireflies' mission to return the world it used to be? And throughout the first TLOU we can see what humanity has become. Absence of law and order, people robbing, killing, raping each other, lot of different military, terroristic groups pursuing their own interests. Do you really think that they could simply return to the old days after all of that savagery? Joel knows that there is no return, he has known ever since he lost Sarah. Remember, it wasn't the infection that killed her daughter, it was a normal human.
Plus if u find and listen all those tapes that the Fireflies left behind, u will learn that they weren't even sure that cure would work. So there was no way that Joel would have let his beloved Ellie die, for that hopeless mission that he knows would never succeed, to develop the cure that might not even work at all.
And in TLOU2 he is portrayed as selfish, stubborn, oldish dumb man, how are we supposed to believe that?
@@faraabdiyev8436 EXACTLY.
Shit
Another thing about the "Revenge Bad" narrative that sort of shoots itself in the foot, is that the "Revenge Bad" lesson seems to only apply to Ellie and not Abby.
Ellie loses her friends, her father figure, the love of her life, and the ability to play guitar via the loss of her fingers, therefore also losing her last physical connection to Joel. Abby... loses her friends yes, but that's kinda it. So revenge is fine for Abby by comparison?
I'm writing this as someone who has not played TLOU1, so I'm very much an outsider. I can sympathize with TLOU fans though because I'm a Star Wars fan... i kinda know what it's like lol.
I guess Abby got what she “deserved” when she was a slave for 2 months and then crucified.
Not to mention the dissonance between the story and the gameplay.
Just like with movies, it's perfectly A-Ok to murder dozens upon dozens of random people, but the main antagonist? Who has a name and a face? Oh no, we can't go there! That would make you a bad person!
@@FatfighterXD1 technically she did chicken out she didn’t kill Abby after almost dying I call that a Chicken move if I do say so myself and it isn’t even that justified
Except in Abby's case, her losing her friends is directly caused by her not finishing off Ellie. So, the lesson doesn't work even more, because her loss is the result of her showing compassion to a clearly dangerous person.
Abby also gets hope, finds out the fireflies still exist and has a companion in Lev, she lost a bunch and in the end gets to continue with both those rewards, her life saved by someone she took everything from herself
Even though the story isn’t as good as the first game I still really enjoyed the gameplay and combat. Honestly I fee that if they just moved some scenes around they could’ve made people feel more for Joel’s death. Like do all the flashbacks first then go forward to the start of the game. Eh it ain’t perfect but still enjoyable and fun to play.
You've mentioned before that you played Metal Gear Solid. Have you thought about reviewing all the metal gear games like you did with Splinter Cell and Hitman? Great video man!
What makes the ending worse is that Abby dying was the original ending... but they rewrote because of the kids Abby was protecting
It's funny bc they could've actually had a more impactful ending if they had killed Abby in front of Lev, bringing things full circle. Maybe even having that scene shown through Lev's perspective as well as Ellie's.
@@starchilde8698that would accomplish nothing. Both the original and your endings have the same moral: just cut the fucking loose ends.
"Naughty Dog has a strong reputation when it comes to crafting narratives in their games"
Hmm, well not really. Aside from the previous Last of Us game, they really don't. Not to say Crash Bandicoot or Uncharted are distinctly poorly written, but lets be honest complex emotional, thematic, narratives was never the point of those games. At most the Uncharted games show strong character writing at times.
Yeah, I'd say the last of us 1 was their only game that shows any evidence of that, and it remains that way today.
i hated this game but that argument is utter horse shit. Uncharted/ last of us/ crash bandicoot/jak and dexters biggest flaw was that NONE of them were original. But it didnt matter because they were such powerfully written charcater and storys ( well...Bandicoot and Jak were more like traditional kid games) . Especially Uncharteds Amy Hennig is one of the GREATEST video game writers of all time. Uncharted set the bar high for those chessy hollywood movie games filled with fun gameplay, awesome dialogue/ performances and a pulse pounding journey. Then The last Of Us came and BLEW IT ALL OUT OF THE PARK followed by Uncharted 4 which in my opinion was just as good and EXCELLENT end to Nathan Drakes JOurney. Well...except the Neil Druckmann parts ( Sam Drake is NOT the enemy, hes the ally...and Nadine Ross is by far my most HATED video game character of ALL TIME....actually Nadine and Abby should go bowling together) the majority of Uncharted 4 was crafted by Amy Hennig. So i dont think the games leading up to this were OVERRATED AT ALL.....BUT this story was a mess, Joel should have died but not like that and NOT that soon. Everything that made the original a masterpiece was WIPED OUT all in the name of another annoying Male Feminist. What retard would go into this project and say we are going to eliminate the bond of Joel and Ellie so that the player is filled with anger and hatred towards our game. Druckmann thinks hes the Nolan of video games but hes not as clever as he likes to think. Hes just a cocky, ignorant dweeb who doesnt give a shit about the audience....you know the ones that MADE HIM WHAT HE IS TODAY
What the hell are you talking about Naughty Dog has earned that reputation with their uncharted games
im on the last of us 2 HATE BANDWAGON too....but this has got to be a joke right?? Amy Hennig is one of the GREATEST writers alive. Her stories may not be original but they are always excellent and fun
This argument is fucking terrible
This is very fine and fair review of the game. I really like it (your review, not the game, obviously) and agree with most of the points you made. Except for what you said about Joel's death. Allow me to explain why I think differently:
- You already said that it was a very convenient coincidence that led Abby to find Joel and even if other stories have the same bad storytelling, it still is bad storytelling.
- I don't buy the excuse of them being so trusting because they lived for some years in safety. Joel was being shown as not very trusting even before the outbreak. And then he lived 20 years in this post-apocalyptic world. Does that get undone by around 4 years in "relative" safety? They still had to deal with infected and in the first game we got shown that they had to defend against bandits too. Also Joel and even Tommy knew what he did to the Fireflies, they should be wary of someone coming for revenge.
- They let their guard down because she helped them survive an onslaught of infected? It was them who saved Abby and then they fought together to survive. Ellie fought together with David in the first game too. Didn't really make him seem trustworthy either.
- Is Joel getting his just desserts for what he did? Maaayyybbbeeee...but it still doesn't change the feeling that we liked Joel and wished for something better. And the revenge is not justified. They won't safe humanity killing him. Joel didn't kill the doctor out of hate, neither did he torture him. And couldn't Abby at least show a bit of hesitation killing someone who saved her life? Or at the very very least refrain from torturing him?
- Did Joel essentially doom the world? Many give this argument, but I think making a vaccine wouldn't change the world this much. I mean this game itself tells us humans are the real monsters. Getting infected starts to be a secondary concern here. And the already infected wouldn't just instantly vanish. Sure, humanity would get a chance to get up on its feet, but Jackson shows they have a chance to do this even without a vaccine. Arguably, many points at the end of the first game made me doubt the goals and abilities of the Fireflies anyway, but I know that was not part of the emotional dilemma ND tried to convey to us.
But yeah other than these points, I agree with nearly everything you said!
Thank you!! Honestly, I’ve seen so many arguments about the vaccine dilemma and you’re the only other person to bring up the fact that humanity is screwed in this game, whether there’s a vaccine or not. The first game shows us that hunters, bandits and especially people like David and his group, would still remain even if the Fireflies managed to create some miracle vaccine. Nature’s already taken back the world in TLOU at this point, and is leaving humanity to either kill each other or just die out naturally.
@@amy.m7753 There is actually good video about that:
th-cam.com/video/j7cmtOlPQ6Q/w-d-xo.html
This doesn't take into account what happened in part two, because it's two years old, but it has some strong arguments regardless.
I can see your point but I can still sympathize with how Abby reacted. Joel essentially doomed the world for selfish reasons. Maybe not to the extent that Abby thinks, but still from her point of view, this man killed your father: a kindhearted doctor who wanted to help save humanity, just so he could spend time with Ellie because he missed his dead daughter. I would be furious. One of the main lessons in the game is how vengeance doesn’t solve things, so I think it’s very intentional that she goes to unnecessarily brutal lengths to get vengeance. However, in the end, her anger and violence lead to most of her friends being killed, and the same thing goes for Ellie. It’s not some groundbreaking new thing like some are saying, but I think just reducing it to “lol revenge bad” isn’t doing it justice.
@@SOBEKCrocodileGod except Abby is never punished for killing Joel and never shows remorse. So it's a hypocritical theme
@@eziospaghettiauditore8369 she is punished. A bunch of her friends get killed by Ellie. Her tracking down Joel to murder him brought her much more suffering than any positive gain, and created a new enemy for her in Ellie.
To the arguments saying that Jackson softened Joel: No community is perfect. It was even presented that Jackson has assholes who'd come at you for no good reason (ex. bigot sandwhich). And for someone as paranoid and as untrusting as Joel in the first game, I honestly doubt 4 years can change a very doubtful character. I, personally, have a very hard time trusting people. And I think that even if I lived in a community like Jackson, I'd still be extra weary of people from the outside especially after Ellie's and Joel's encounter with David (the cannibal pedo from tlou1). It's just a bit too much that Joel and Tommy entered that place without their backpacks, Joel stepped into the middle of the group, and Tommy introduced himself and Joel for the third time. Tommy introduced himself and Joel to Abby like 2 damn times while they were being chased down by the hoard. It's just so weird.
@JamesHLanier OKay that smartass remark at the end was totally uncalled for, and you're wrong simply put but I won't insult your intelligence because of that, just your arrogant remark that rubbed me the wrong way. And if you remember anything from the first game: the first thing that Maria did when Joel and Ellie first went there , someone from this so called friendly community you're talking about it, was hold them at gunpoint, and only when Tommy confirmed that Joel's his brother did she stand back. And then a little while later the town was immediately under attack from a bunch of random goons. Now all of a sudden it's a friendly community with traders and shit passing through without a care in the world, pffft come on now.
@JamesHLanier Pretty sure that tell me your lost thing was sarcasm and the main reason they didn't shoot them on sight or weren't generally more hostile towards them was because Ellie was a child back then. Pretty sure their recruitment process was never as naive as meeting a bunch of strangers and deciding to randomly invite them back to their safe community, the way to grow this community would have been to slowly and cautiously allow people in that you know by having people you already know and trust vouch for them or by neutralizing them first and then searching them to make sure they weren't coming to raid your town. Abby was obviously armed and Joel and Tommy had no reason to believe she wouldn't just turn her gun towards them at any point, like how do they know she's not a bandit who just happened to have been ambushed by zombies when they came across her? or how do they know her group wouldn't just use the information Tommy's naively put out to raid the town later just like the incident from part 1? The way Tommy and Joel just leisurely walked into that basement was some of the most hilariously awful and inconsistent writing I've ever seen.
Besides, this whole hoards of zombies scenario is contrived bullshit to begin with, throughout the entire game you encounter infected that are just roaming around individually and are pretty easy to sneak up on, but when the plot calls for it a hoard of zombies just comes out of no where to push the plot to where Neil wants it to go because he's too lazy an dishonest to figure out a believable and consistent way to move his story forward. It's not the first time it happened in the series and it felt just as cheap and stupid every other time it did. I always wondered who are these infected, who did they use to be, how did they get infected, everyone in this universe seems perfectly capable of taking them on , so where do these newly infected people come from , why are they always so close to each other, if one infected infected a non-infected, wouldn't that newly infected person try to kill them and move away from this area afterwards, all of the infected enemies in these games are roaming close to each other , have no backpacks or weapons on them and seem to bear no resemblance whatsoever to the characters we encounter. TL:DR a hoard of zombies attacking out of nowhere is typical piss poor writing.
@JamesHLanier Okay buddy, you can go back and read my comment and see how at no point did I insult you in any way shape or form, and here you are being pretty rude for no reason when we're just having a discussion. Insulting the other party doesn't automatically make your arguments more sound if that's the tactic you're going for but I digress.
"How was it sarcasm?" How was it not? Do you politely ask someone to tell you that they're not trying to attack your community because they're simply lost, she was obviously expressing her suspicions about them in a sarcastic way, but fine that's not a huge point to get hung up on anyway so let's leave it at that. Now regarding the situation with Abby I never said they should've shot her instead or any of her friends. Now as for why wouldn't her friends , if they had malicious intents, shoot Joel and Tommy on sight, because simply put you have a better chance at incapacitating someone after earning their trust rather than outright trying to kill them and have them possibly kill you or one of your people (which is exactly what happened, if they knew who Joel was the moment he and Tommy walked through the gate, it would've still been the smarter move to act friendly first, try to have them let their guard down and then attack them the same exact way they did). Refer back to the cannibal dude from the first game, look at how friendly he was towards Ellie, he helped her survive the zombie attack and was trying to earn her trust to make her an easy prey, Joel has lived in this world for over 20 years and he should be perfectly aware of that at all times: teaming up with a stranger to defeat some infected and seeing them acting friendly towards you afterwards aren't enough reasons to trust them, not in this one particular scene apparently because .....? And they didn't save them from the hoard out of the kindness of their own heart, the hoard was coming towards them too, they had a shared interest throughout this whole sequence, again not a reason to fully trust them afterwards . They should've immediately scouted the area while still outside to make sure no more infected are in sight, and then immediately tried to leave, but walking into their basement, right in the middle of the room, acting all relaxed like that and reveling vital info such as your names and the location of your settlement, come the fuck on!!!!
As for the infected, their placements seems to have always been done in both games in a way that would only serve two purposes, gameplay design and plot convenience. You want to lead a main character into a trap, throw a hoard of zombies at them, you want to give the player some challenge, throw a hoard of zombies at them, you want the player to grasp the mechanics of the game bit by bit , have them placed separately with enough breathing room between them... etc And these hoards you're talking about the player's character was always capable of taking them on on their own without any issues. Heck you'd think that after spending that much time in this area, Tommy and Joel would have had enough experience that they would've preemptively packed enough resources with them to deal with situations like these. The resources you gather as a player throughout the random areas you go through were always enough for the player's character to defend themselves in these situations, and yet Tommy and Joel who are settled in this well protected and seemingly relatively rich town, didn't even have a single bomb or molotov cocktail on them, .(which apparently was the only thing needed to deal with this hoard). Again all of this was for the sake of plot convenience and nothing else: the way they conveniently ran into Abby (what are the odds) and the way they leisurely walked into this basement and Joel walking right into the middle of the room like he's known these people for years, they were showing ZERO signs of caution, their body language, dialogue , everything in that scene was just so wrong on so many levels.
Final point, the infected, apart from the clothes they're wearing, nothing about them makes any sense, how close they're roaming to each other, the lack of weapons or backpacks lying nearby, and more importantly WHERE DO THEY EVEN COME FROM, like who are they? None of this was addressed in your original comment and yet you felt confident enough to condescendingly insult the other party, gimme a break dude.
@JamesHLanier @JamesHLanier Because had they tried to do that right away, Joel and Tommy would've immediately acted in self defense and possibly injured some of them, having two people walk into the middle of a room where they're surrounded from every which way by people they think are friendly towards them and thus letting their guard down is obviously a more guaranteed approach than attacking them head on when they're still outside of your home and either of them can easily shoot at you and try to climb over a fence or go for any other escape route. And the exact location doesn't matter that much anyway, getting their trust first to make them vulnerable would've been the most important part, and Joel and Tommy walking into that basement was just more generosity from their side to make things even easier for them. And the blizzard wasn't that intense anyway, so it wouldn't have affected their assault whether by making it easier or more difficult.
I only used the cannibal dude from the first game to demonstrate a point , what he did afterwards is irrelevant to the situation with Abby, and btw you can notice in Abby's facial expressions once Tommy awkwardly in the heat of the battle revealed their names (for no reason whatsoever) that she knew who Joel was, she was just waiting for the perfect moment to blindside him, and obviously both Joel and Tommy know that there are probably a lot of people after Joel after what he did at the fireflies hospital, so revealing their names was still pretty stupid no matter how you slice it. They use a pretty piss poor excuse as to why they can't go back to Jackson and instead have to go to Abby's hideout,, which is that the horses can't make it all the way back there, seriously????? Like you haven't thought of that before you went out during this crappy weather, what were they even doing there: the line "the horses can't make it all the way back" implies that they were pretty far from Jackson, why??? You go to a far away place from your settlement as just two people in such awful weather for what??? Why didn't they have more people, are Tommy and Joel new to this world or the surrounding environment of their settlement, do they really lack the experience to take into account possibilities like these, what if they'd never run into a stranger that just so happened to have her crew conveniently holed up at a nearby house, what would they have done then?. The way they conveniently run into Abby at this particular spot and how they're forced to go to her place makes absolutely no sense and it's a prime example of bullshit plot convenience. And regardless of how small or large Abby's group is, Joel and Tommy don't know that, for all they know they could be a part of a bigger faction: the bandits in the first game didn't seem to have been phased at all by how well guarded Jackson is, why should Tommy and Joel assume anything different about Abby's group or any bigger group or faction that they could potentially belong to.
I also don't understand how Abby who supposedly already knew who Joel was since Tommy reveals that pretty early on, didn't mention that at all to Owen when they walked into that basement, she had to wait for them to say their names again and for everyone to act surprised like "ohhhh so this is the Joel we've been looking for" before shooting him.
The part regarding patrols seems like more bullshit to me, like what do they go on patrols for, if the community is well guarded why do they go out of their way to patrol such far away areas, why didn't you run into any of these patrols in the first game when approaching the settlement, and patrol groups of TWO !!!! All what you're doing at this point is justifying bullshit with more bullshit, even your enemies factions , which are supposedly just as big or even much smaller than Jackson's community, seem to have more crowded and reliable patrols. You send out two persons on their own during a blizzard to an area that is two hours away where you know there could be a lot of infected when you're standing strong with 20 families, logic????? Like how did this community even manage to survive for that long if all they could afford is a measly group of 10 people thinly dispersed intp groups of two across the surrounding area, and why do they even send out patrols that far to begin with? Like if you're literally going out of your way to travel to an area that is two hours away just so that you can kill a bunch of mindless creatures that can't harm you if you just stay the fuck away from them, then you seriously need to reconsider your priorities.They should just die from the cold weather and/or starvation on their own, like you don't even have to do anything about them. And when Joel and Tommy went missing, did Maria have no one better or no more people than three teenagers to send out to look for them, seriously ?
Now for the part regarding the infected, I don't even know where to begin. "people from the old world"? ,"survivors"? "why backpacks everywhere"? because simply put all of the survivors across both games carry backpacks with them for resources. There's nothing that characterizes or humanizes any of the infected people you come across, nothing to explain where they're from, no notebooks or pictures or even weapons (except during specific scripted parts), nothing, just conveniently placed ammo and supplies for the player to be able to make it through the game, that's it. If a teenager like Ellie or Dina can go on mowing down dozens of them, then anyone who's fairly experienced in using firearms or self defense can probably do just as much if not more than that (think about where the military, cops....etc went during this whole thing, that's the level of bullshit you get from a cliched zombie apocalypse setting), which means that the infected to non-infected ratio, given how relatively stupid and easy they are to kill (compared to an actual human or any other predator in the wild), the harsh weather conditions, the deadlier already existing wildlife, seems hugely out of proportion. That's not to mention the specific conditions that need to be met for someone to get infected in the first place: you need to be attacked by a single zombie and just struggle enough for them to bite you in way that wouldn't kill you in the long run from blood loss. If you don't struggle enough they'll kill you and give you no chance to turn into one of them as the death animation strongly implies that they rip out a significant chunk of your neck, if you're attacked by a group and you're overpowered , they'll eat you alive. Plus the measly human bite force can't even penetrate through heavy winter clothes such as leather jackets and what not (luckily you can try that yourself at home) , so if you literally just raise your arm and let them bite onto that and then reach for your weapon , you greatly reduce the chance of getting infected. And most of the zombies in the snow levels seem to be pretty well dressed and don't show any signs of having been bitten (that applies to all of the other infected people, you can justify this with spores, but these only show up during select few sections across both games), sooooo???
@JamesHLanier Thriving on friendly trade and recruitment doesn't necessarily mean interacting with strangers and immediately trusting them with the location of your home and offering supplies. Like, you don't go on the internet just buying off of anyone/making transactions. You look them up, find reviews, or any other indication that they're trustworthy. Now you may argue that Abby's trustworthy since they saved each other but Abby doesn't represent her whole damn group. Tommy and their whole town wouldn't survive if they just trust anyone in a post-apocalyptic world.
Well if you use your brain for MORE than 2 seconds maybe you'd realize that that scenario doesn't make sense in the world they live in. A lot of people pose as good people (ex. David and his gang) and just because you live in a good town doesn't mean you forget about the harsh reality that's waiting outside. It's honestly stupid that Joel let his guard down just cause he's living the "good life in Jackson" 4 years after he saw his baby girl beating a guy's head in with a machete while being visibly traumatized.
You can even see that Abby's whole demeanor changes the moment they mention their names to her. If that wasn't a clear sign that something was off then idk.
remember how Bioware said they want people to keep talk about Mass Effect after the ending that is ME3? I think ND wants the same thing for this game as well, only both of them goes about it the wrong way
What they should've done is have TLoU2 focus on Abby and her only, build her up the way Joel and Ellie is in the first game. Then in the inevitable TLOU3, pit them against each other
One way I think this could've worked is like you said, have this game be solely about Abby. Have it be set during TLoU1 and *don't* reveal who she is initially. As far as the player knows for most of the game, she's just another survivor. Build up to a reveal at the end where the player as Abby walks through the aftermath at the hospital, only then revealing at the end that the surgeon was her father. Basically, give the players a chance to properly connect with Abby *before* revealing who she is. Have the 3rd game be about that conflict between Abby and Joel/Ellie, because at that point most of the playerbase would be attached to both sides and would be genuinely conflicted about what to do.
They should've made the game about forgiveness and solidarity, not purely about revenge. No one forgives anyone at the end, no boxes are checked, no conclusions made. Joel killed someone and got killed. Abby killed Joel and got out scot-free, even got rewarded for that by being saved from certain death. And Ellie didn't kill Abby and still got punished. What's the point then?
I must disagree with the commonly accepted idea that Joel "selfishly saved Ellie to have a daughter over saving the rest of the world."
The world is basically fucked. The cordyceps plague is little more than an afterthought, even at the point in the story when Joel brings Ellie to the Fireflies. The infection is little more than a new obstacle that must be overcome...most of the threat in the story is generated by other people. Which is fine, but...what good would a cure do? Especially to someone who has a giant fugal body growing out of their skull, which has been cracked like an egg? A cure would be nice, sure....but people aren't really dying from cordyceps anymore. It came, burned fast, and now smolders. It has already ended civilization as we know it, leaving only scattered enclaves. You don't encounter THAT many infected throughout either game. What good would sacrificing a perfectly immune girl do? Little to none. Now, I will say that they could look into others like her, and it's pretty selfish of Ellie to go full rug-muncher and forgo the opportunity to pass on her immunity to children, but that is a conversation for another day.
The Least Interesting Of Us
I was perfectly content with the ending of the first game for 7 years
Well actually the ‘anti gay Christians’ are doing more good than eli and Abby are since they’re kinda protecting those immune in a sense and propagating that gene where Eli dating someone she can’t propagate that with isn’t causing any conflicts of interests of her which would’ve been pretty good story writing there and Abby basically is doing the opposite of the fire flies goal by endangering those infected and killing innocent people- babies in the womb
In the first game the ‘cure’ didn’t even seem all that viable and was pretty much ‘it’s a long shot if it even works’ as well as the condition of the hospital and people there was under par for what they wanted to do
The flash back basically made the guy white and the hospital squeaky clean
True
The Last of Us 2 to me feels they took too long to tell the story and yet was too short to get us to know the characters that were introduced. I felt we got to know Jesse and Dina alright, but I have no reason to care about most of the characters on Abby's side. First off, they were for the most part already seen as dead on Ellie's story. So I was not given a reason to really care about the characters on Abby side.
And I cannot believe Lev would have such an affect on Abby (describe as the #1 Scar Killer) would care about killing a pregnant lady.
3 things about Joels death that are objectively bad:
1) Joel and Tommy growing more friendly to strangers after living in Jackson doesnt make any sense in this game. Their new trust of strangers is not stupidity, it does not mean they suddenly forget 20-30 years of survival and agree to go to a compound filled with armed strangers who they dont know and jsut give up their names it comes in the form that they helped Abby survive in the first place, old Joel and Tommy would have let her die and ran away because of the danger involved in helping her (They helped her survive, not her helping them survive as you said), new Joel and Tommy risk their lives saving her.
To back this up literally in the same game you see Joel being exactly as cautious as he was in the first game or even more so. Like grilling everyone who gos on patrols with Ellie, you remember the speech from Jesse about how over protective Joel was being saying to be careful on the patrols? and also the scene where he is on patrol with Ellie and sees spores and gives a big lecture that even though theyre alone ellie should still wear a mask to hide the fact that she is immune because he doesnt want strangers to find out should anyone accidently see them. The game actually disagrees with itself here.
2) When Joel was being beaten and Ellie walks into the room, she literally had a gun pointing at Abby who was torturing Joel and doesn't shoot? Ah because the whole game would be over then right at the start.
3) Also it makes no sense for the WLF to leave Tommy and Ellie alive after killing Joel, you said they completed their mission but think about this for just 1 second they literally spent 4 years hunting Joel as revenge for Abbys dad, yet they kill Joel in front of his brother and what looks like his daughter who is screaming "I will hunt you down and get revenge on you for killing Joel" which is exactly what Abby did yet she doesnt think they will come for revenge doing the exact same thing she jsut did? Ah yes because the game wouldn't happen at all then without this contrivance.
A very meh revenge story. In the end I can always play games with better revenge stories and just forget about lou2. One of my personal faves will always be the original god of war trilogy.
Ellie got the shit beaten out of her, Dina got her face caved in, Tommy took a bullet to the head, Jesse dies, and somehow they're able to get out of Seattle alive... what?
I'm not
@JamesHLanier Think about it. It took so much just for them to get into Seattle, it probably would've been hell for them to get out. I'm not saying they left immediately, but the chances of them surviving were low. Ellie's injuries would've taken weeks to heal and that's assuming she isn't getting proper medical treatment for them because they're in an abandoned movie theater and the amount of stress Dina went through (taking an arrow through the shoulder, getting her face bashed in, falling through a glass ceiling, and surviving a fall off a bridge), it's a miracle she didn't miscarry even though realistically, she would've. Tommy gets shot in the head, granted he survives (which is already pushing it), he likely sustained brain damage which could explain his sudden fit of anger at the end of the story where he talks to Ellie. Now take all of these factors I just explained and place them back on the road for a 12 day walk to Jackson and to top that off, they likely have to deal with infected on the way back and even if they were able to call survivors from home for help, it would've taken them 12 days to get to them, plus they'd have to deal with any infected or survivors on the way. To me, this game is very poorly written and could've been so much more. If you enjoyed this; good for you, but that makes no sense to me.
But to tell me that I'm objectively wrong for having a different view on something than you, in a way makes you wrong. Believe me, I wanted to like this game, but I couldn't. Just because you see things in a different perspective or context doesn't make you special and it doesn't make you "objectively right" either. Same goes for me. If you like this game and you don't think it's poorly written, congrats go get a cookie, but for me and quite a lot of other people, we don't. A story can have thousands of different interpretations from people and I think this game is a poorly written mess. Nothing that anyone says to me will make me think otherwise and I don't wish to make you think another way either. I'm glad you could enjoy a game I couldn't, but don't call me wrong for having a different opinion or thoughts than you.
@JamesHLanier It's also okay to like something, but once again; to me, this isn't a good sequel.
Yeah but like, you were SUPPOSED to feel nothing at the end. Neil played you like a fiddle with his genius. Plus, you were probably struggling to process it all with your blatant homophobia, bigotry, anti-feminism, closed-mindedness, and general chudness.
The above is what I’ve read for the last two weeks every time I attempt to make legitimate, well thought out criticisms of this game’s story, writing, and narrative execution. I’ve never been accused of being a bigot or anything like that in my entire life, until now.....because I don’t like the game you like? Okay.
TBH, and I mean no disrespect; I feel like there is a real maturity gap between the people who think this is brilliant, and those that find it a bit of a mess. Ya see, when you get beyond 30, your tolerance for bullshit plummets dramatically.
You basically also described how Kojima fanboys defend Death Stranding's "genius story" with that first paragraph, not just TLOU2 fans defending Druckmann's "genius story". Idk if you used "played like a fiddle" intentionally, but nice one.
TBH if you swap "...who think this is brilliant, and those that find it a bit of a mess" around then your last paragraph is pretty much the exact thing I've read from people who loved the game.
Maturity? You would think you would be able to easily see through all the bullshit then, not just the bullshit you agree with.
People who outline why they love the game are getting riddled with bullshit replies calling them a myriad of names just like you're saying you received, they might be different names but it's still all bullshit.
Go and look at videos that went into why they actually really liked the game and check the vitriol, it's foul.
I don't think your maturity shows through whether you enjoyed tlou2 or not but in how you respond to people with different opinions then yours.
There's a difference between a story succeeding at telling you a lesson and a story failing spectacularly.
@@DionCutajar
No, delivery man simulator PERFECT, you no smart enough to get smart story, you shoot man, we give man pizza.
You destroy, we carry many many resource to make a street.
I personally like Death Stranding, I see the flaws, but I've finished the game and would do it again. There can be as much criticism as they want, if I wanna deliver a Pizza to a terrorist so be it.
This is a very solid summation of the writing problems. I'm in much the same boat, where I don't object to any of the big narrative strokes but... I just have no interest whatsoever in replaying it.
23:34 there this cool game where you play with different characters (you just play as the Harbinger but follow their storyline) and see their story in different perspectives . this game pull it the best. it call "Omensight" . where you play as the Harbinger . you play the same day over and over but you choose what part of which character to follow . it the last day and it lead to doom and your job as the Harbinger to know what caused the doom at the end of the day and you follow the lead to what may caused that doom .
that game made by Indie devs and they pull the multiple perspective better than anything i saw before
Saw someone else pit this on a video but When ellie leaves shes not wearing dinas bracelet but when she returns to the house she is and is not shocked to find it empty so is probably with dina in jackson.she simply was going back for the guitar but left it behind just like everything shes done.
Ellie most likely traveled to Jackson first to tell Tommy about what happened in Santa Barbara (maybe even pulled a Joel and lied about Abby's true fate), and then ran into Dina on her way out. The two probably got into a spat and if Ellie did in fact lie to Tommy, she told Dina the truth that she let Abby go. Dina told her she left Joel's guitar (along with the rest of Ellie's stuff) back at the farmhouse, but gave her the bracelet as an act of forgiveness.
They really needed a dialogue interaction between Ellie and Abby about why they were doing what they were doing. Does Ellie ever find out that Abbys dad was murdered by Joel? The whole thing is out of context between the 2. The game is already long, but what should have happened is when Ellie finds Abby at the very end they have this conversation while she’s hanging there. Then this Seraphite leader, whom we NEVER see other than the graffiti on all the walls, comes out and murders Lev on the spot. Then Ellie and Abby fight together to save their own lives and avenge Lev.
The Seraphite leader you're talking about is dead, she was killed by the WLF and now the cult has become more violent because of that and miss interpreting her teachings. The point of tlou2 was that these characters don't get to talk or get closure. Because they're on different sides. I hate the final fight because honestly the characters should have left wordlessly after Santa Barabra and that be the end
Y'all want some goofy ass Avengers shit LMAOOO
ima keep it real with you chief. that sounds like ass
@@TheThirdPew hello Ellie from the last of us 1 on PS3 and the left behind dlc pack. I, Abby from last of us 2, am a mirror of your own actions yet show a better sense of forgiveness. Oh look over there it's the seraphite leader who you find a grave off and is mentioned multiple times to have been killed by the WLF isn't that cool and we'll written
Zachary Critten or ya know, she could have faked her death and still been alive.
2:23 Haha brilliant cut there :) Up there with Joe´s " There was a sequel, Wasnt as Good"- line .)
The crazy thing is...Elle said she was scared of ending up alone. And for her actions she lost Everything.
That's what's pissing me off: at the end Ellie broke the cycle of violence, and should've proved to the player from a narrative standpoint that giving up the revenge is moral and fulfilling. Instead, the game tells us that there is a point of no return after which you may as well finish the job, nothing's gonna change. Ellie lost everything despite completing her arc. This is bad writing, it doesn't bring any catharsis, it leaves the viewer frustrated. It's a flaw, not an viable artistic choice.
The best thing about TLOU for was everyone calling Neil Druckmann , Neil Cuckman
If the game played out in chronological order, it would’ve been a better game.
Manipulative is the best way I'd describe this game. Gigantor is wholly unlikable if you don't let the cheap tricks and happy dogs make you forget how terrible she is.
I saw a quote I agree with wholeheartedly so I'll leave it here:
"Spec Ops: The Line is what TLOU II wants to be."
Yep
I mean, Walker TRIED to save Dubai and he ended destroy it, what the hell Ellie wanted?
And practically is; that game is also full of bullshit contrivances and forced moralism and guilt-tripping you for things you had no way of knowing would happen.
Whole heartedly disagree with the interpretation of the end of the first game. Joel did exactly what I wanted him to, it wasn't selfish, it was human and taking the other road would have been a cold and psychopathic act. It also appears to have not doomed mankind as there are still large settlements and when you can describe a characters surroundings as idyllic, it hardly seems like the apocalypse.
Outside of that a great review, you deserve a Hancock "Good job". 👍
I do think it was selfish, but I don't consider Joel a villain for it and it would've been extremely out of character imo for him to do anything else. Throughout the game, we see some of the worst humanity has to offer, with people usually being a bigger threat than the infected. Hell, even Sarah was killed by a person, not an infected. So for Joel to be told humanity might be saved if he lets his daughter die again, Joel would say screw 'em every time. He won't let his daughter die and this world isn't even worth saving.
Besides, the Fireflies didn't get Ellie's consent or even let her know what was going to happen. Is Joel just supposed to sit by and let them kill her? Even in TLOU2, doesn't Abby's dad say he wouldn't make the same sacrifice or something along those lines?
@@RGR490G Exactly, what kind of world would we deserve if we had to sacrifice a little girl to get it? There's no point in saving humanity if we to lose ours along the way
@@Haplo699g He lost his humanity way before Ellie.
@@orijimi In that case I would argue he had reclaimed it by the end of the game. Someone without humanity would have shrugged their shoulders said "For the greater goooood" and walked away.
@@Haplo699g Which is to say that if humanity can be regained, there really isn't any moral jeopardy in any of the choices he makes.
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I sure hope this video was a hole in one! If not, I'll settle for it being on par with my other stuff. The last thing I want is for it to be a bogey...Ok, I'm done.
If you'd like to see more of my content, here's the Critical Nobody playlist - bit.ly/2M3r65U
Hello there
Goob video
I like how nobody is talking about how in the first game the surgeon in the first game is black compared to the second game's surgeon.
Important update: apparently it's confirmed that Jerry had the same VA for the first game...
What that’s not true
@@AAA-hd5dv alright, fine. But the characters do not look the same _at all_ when comparing the first game. They decided to recreate the previous characters minding every small detail but not the doctor? They look completely different.
@@troypowers750 Strange that the usual suspects who would immediately scream "whitewashing" if a character is drawn with even 0.0000000001% lighter skin, say nothing about this, and just blindly defend it against any form of criticism.
@@Acueil the guy looked completely different is all I'm saying, but in the second game he's a completely new model. I now it's confirmed that it was the same VA and the skin was just unreadable at the time, but I was merely saying how the doctor was not the focus of the game...until the second game came out. What the real argument is why is there diversity if it doesn't make sense in this universe? After all, minorities with the exception of Southern Americans statistically hang around the coast and rarely around rural areas, and they don't make even half the population compared to white people. Of course these statistics mean nothing, but apparently a lot of game characters these days seem to be mostly women in power or are important characters...in game universes regardless of historical or time period context. FC6: 7/10 major characters are women...in the conservative not Cuba is a prime example. The Canon character apparently is a woman...huh? I would ignore that if it weren't for the fact that we're having it shoved down our throat. The trans missions that seem to not benefit the Guerillas at all, the odd design for Abby, the weird reason for Mel to be running around without causing a miscarriage, you starting to see my point? I'm fine with a diverse cast of characters as long as it's realistically implemented like in Saints Row up until 2.
@@troypowers750 I was agreeing with you. I made a jest about the people who claim to be progressive and would cancel any artist that happen to draw a dark skinned character with ever slightly lighter tone, would not even try to do the same with Neil's team.
I found plenty of character decisions that honestly makes no sense yet people seem to either ignore or fail to catch in Ellie's segment, like these:
1. Abby's friends being incredibly stupid and not killing Ellie and Tommy in the beginning. Mel told them their names, they saw your faction's insignia and they know all your faces. Not killing them will not benefit you in anyway and we're supposed to believe that these guys have survived this long with this slow mentality? Abby not wanting to continue and kill both of them is also very out of character considering in her segment, she literally talked about how killing Scar children is very much justified so her character kinda makes no sense. The only thing that makes sense is Owen because of the story he later told to Abby. So this just happens so the story could progress rather than it being character motivated.
2. Maria letting Ellie go makes absolutely no sense when you consider her character. She is very intelligent and protective (if you have played the first game). There's a reason Jackson has triumph for so long. Her not listening to Tommy and locking Ellie up is very out of character. You might say that she wants Ellie to find Tommy to bring him home cuz she doesn't want any conflict with the WLFs. But out of every single person in Jackson, why would you send the most emotionally effected person in the whole world to prevent someone from murdering the person that mentally destroyed them? It is such careless writing. Why won't you just send anyone else? Again, it is more to progress the story rather than being character motivated.
3. The moment Ellie and Dina was captured by the WLFs, Jordan, the person who intends to spare them by being the dumbest survivor to ever exist and instead of shooting the person who killed his ally, he instead holsters his gun and chokes Dina in the slowest way possible which gives Ellie time to kill him. This again, makes no sense. Since his literal first appearance on screen was him being the one arguing with the team and he is the one most adamant in killing Ellie and Tommy. Even if his reasoning was to "interrogate her", why would you need Dina alive? You just need 1 survivor from Jackson, cap Dina's head off and be done with it. That should've been his mindset if his character was consistent.
4. Dina willing to give her gas mask to Ellie after hers broke is the definition of an anime level relationship development (It speeds up everything). She was just in a relationship with Ellie for like a week, maybe less and she is now willing to kill herself for her? Really? And it gets dumber cuz minutes later, she tells Ellie that she is pregnant, so you are willing to kill yourself and your baby just for the sake of someone you met for a week? Seriously?
Those are the only big plot holes I found in Ellie's segment that people aren't talking about. I would also add Joel's death on that list but everyone is talking about that even tho these are bigger problems imo. I dislike the game's story cuz I think it sorta disrespects the original's concept which was their characters. Not only did they make some old characters act stupidly but they also made their new character braindead. I find Dina and Jesse to be meh characters and not really interesting. I don't buy the relationship with Ellie and Dina and there doesn't seem to be any attempt in developing them so the writers just started off with them already in love. It's a teen drama love triangle story that I don't think belongs in TLOU and it's also awkward sometimes. I honestly think that Jesse and Dina (mainly Jesse) wasn't given a prominent role in the story so it kinda makes them pointless characters and are solely there just to make sure the player doesn't feel lonely during gameplay (Which is why the meme about Jesse being a sperm donor isn't baseless mind you)
Some people do discuss those issues, usually summed up as "Stupid amounts of plot armor." That and, yes, Abby's double-personality; she's a sadistic torturing bitch except when she's randomly SUPER-forgiving and nurturing of innocents. All valid points.
Seeing the 10/10 reviews for Last of Us part 2 feels like a golf club to the head for those who actually played it.
I played it and think it’s a 10
Yeah same. It’s so boring.
I can add really small not a nitpick, but a funny notion.
Rewire guitar for left hand, stroke the strings with "non-complete" hand.
I love how TLOU2 takes risks and tries something new but the story just falls flat for me, and personally I think Joel's death is brilliant in concept, I know, I know, but just hear me out. Catching the player off guard with the character you played for (basically) the whole first game is something that really never happens in any games or movies for that matter, but Naughty Dog just did not write Abby correctly. The game wants you to feel for Abby but after I saw her kill Joel I just could not empathize with Abby. This could have been fixed adding Abby's flashbacks before she killed Joel, or they could've made Abby more likeable but that's just my opinion.
I found Abby to be way more likable than Ellie or Joel, tbh. At the very least, she caused far less deaths than Joel and after killing him did nearly everything she did for the right reasons.
@@WaddleDee105 Valid point, and I agree with you to an extent. I think Abby is a more innocent person in all, but seeing her kill Joel, who we went along for this ride with in the first game, before we learn anything about her just put me off. I think in general she hadn't done as much wrong as Joel, but Joel was someone I could empathize with even though he did a lot of bad stuff, and with Abby it seemed Naughty Dog just could not find the right way to make you empathize with her. My opinion though and I tend to have picky opinions.
@@WaddleDee105 the game literally tries sooooo hard to get you to sympathize with Abby. She's petting dogs and shit while Ellie literally gives up a perfect life to go on a murder spree for no reason besides for Tommy telling her to. Absolute bullshit.
@Evan Holtz
Abby’s more “likable” because the game tries so damn hard to manipulate that side of the story. Despite embarking on the same quest of revenge Abby’s never allowed to have the same warts as Ellie.
Rather than feel like an actual person she feels like an unbelievable plot device the game tries to _force_ you to sympathize with so you can feel bad.
One other example I can name dealing with similar narrative device is criminally underrated Nier:Automata. And does it sooooo much better than TLOU2 whilst simultaneously dealing with a lot of serious themes juggling them at the same time.
31:58 I just noticed Joel's neck muscles tense up after he lies. HOLY SHIT!
It feels kinda weird how depressing and hopeless the ending of TLOU2 is considering that the game paints sparring Abby as the correct moral choice. It makes me think that the ending would be more fitting if Abby died in the end instead of being spared
Funny enough, there was a time ND would have agreed with you.
@@moonmoon2479 Why do you say that? Did ND have different ideas for the plot originally?
Vanja Galović the original ending according to them, was for Ellie to kill Abby. They thought that was much darker.
@@moonmoon2479 Interesting. Do you have a source?
@@moonmoon2479 I see. Thank you
23:38 I can give a good example of this although is a prequel and the characters dont interact directly: YAKUZA 0
2 chapters or so we change the perspective of the game and their stories are so well written we never ask "when the fuck am I gonna play as Goro or Kiryu again?"
*you had no excuse ND NONE*
When it’s past midnight, you’re drunk and lonely, and nothing beats the comforting voice of Critical Nobody to send you to sleep.
14:15 come on, I liked Jessy. And I did not like Dina that much. And I liked Ellie even less. Maybe it's just me. But if it were true that, like you said, Dina and Ellie had a good chemistry, then the game would be an almost-masterpiece for me. But heck no! Ellie and Jessie had better chemistry in the 2 minutes of screen time they share! Maybe they should've gone to Seattle as a group of three, and that'd save the game? I don't know.
The games morale is literally the game equivalent of a Naruto backstory.
Except Naruto is better.
Its a Pain Arc but not as good
This review is incredible. Well-written, charismatic, and logically crafted with an appropriate amount of emotional injection. It perfectly encapsulates the tragically missed potential this story had. was patiently awaiting your word on this game, and I’m so happy it came. Bravo, Critical.
Finally someone who gives his opinion in a nuanced way! I've watched a lot of videos about The Last of Us part 2 en you are the first person that gives me that. Great vid! I also think the story has so much potential and the execution of it could have been much better. I'm not a big fan of this game but i hope that Naughty Dog still dares to take risks. Even though i was kinda dissappointed I can't help to still respect them for that.
Within the beginning of the spoiler section what I’ll say about Joel’s death is that I mostly think it was fine except I don’t understand how Abby wouldn’t hesitate before killing him, and slowly at that. He just saved her and helped her through a giant mass of infected so I think it’s a little dumb she didn’t hesitate, otherwise I’m also fine with that.
Would you hesitate if it was someone who killed you dad? I feel that her pain was all that guided her revenge. I loved it honestly.
Well if Hitler saved you from a giant mass of infected, it's still Hitler
@@TGP482 I still think it would be very difficult to want to kill someone instantly who just saved my life, despite who it was.
Or how dumb she looked when she was surprised Ellie killed her friends. Abby seriously thought that she would kill Joel and go back to Seattle with her friends scott free? That there wouldn’t be any repercussions? Plus her saying she let Ellie live and this is how she repaid her was a stupid statement. It made her look really dumb in my opinion.
@@221Prohunter Nah if someone killed my dad I would give them a severe beating at least no matter the reason, which is what Abby does, she only kills him after Owen tells her to
Hey Craig, been watching your videos since your original Minecraft let’s play on your old channel however many years ago. One of the first youtubers I really enjoyed. Your Humiliation Rage videos never got old and I managed to get my gamer tag in one of them lol. Your new video content is very well done and I personally really enjoy how you tackle the history and background of the series. I hope things are going well for you
“YoU jUsT dIdN’t PlAy ThE gAmE! It’S a MaStErPiEcE!”
That’s everyone on the subreddit right now
Opinions my dude
My brother and I liked the first part
Later when Part 2 was announced we found ourselves in a casual talk about it and eventually he said:
"Yeah, Joel's totally gonna die" I agreed
It's...funny that even we saw something like that coming
I really hope that TLOU 2 is just forgotten after this entire fiassco is done, this game is kinda just a shit stain on one of the best games of all time.
The problem with Abby and her group sparing Ellie is the fact that she yelled "I'm gonna kill all of you!". Hinting that she has no plans of just letting this go, and understandably so. So letting her and Tommy live is a huge mistake.
I am a exclusive pc gamer and was truly disheartened to see such a great single player game get a worse sequel then got s8 story wise , btw I don't know much abt tlou story but the main characters looked awesome and saw the spoilers for tlou 2 on Facebook and dude like wtf , they could have done a spin-off and done part 2 later , and I literally shed a tear when
!!SPOILER ALERT!!
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Joel got bashed in the head. and died 😢 even when not knowing much abt the character
Naughty dog can write good stories but the new head chef seems to only write about sjw topics and contrived plot twists (such as sam in uncharted 4 not dying and not getting killed off despite pissing off a 3rd world prison by killing so many gaurds) this seems like he wanted to max out the plot twists
Why are you an “exclusive pc gamer” even on here
@@davisjohn-d6h due to my work for which I mostly use a pc so it's goddamm easier to have the game shortcut on my desktop then on a gaming box you have to buy separately
I really love watching your more elaborate reviews, started watching your channel when you first reviewed Resident Evil HD remake, keep up with the great content mate.
Great video. I for one is the 0.0001% that does not care about the story or the characters. I love the last of us because of its unique take on zombies. Was very excited to fight and experience the new infected "shambler" and the boss fight was a real treat. Killing of various faction grunts + blowing up dogs with explosives was just icing on the cake.
JOEL did the RIGHT thing by saving Ellie. You can't make a vaccine for a fungal infection, killing Ellie would have saved NO ONE. The fireflies were idiots that didn't understand science, and thats not an opinion thats a fact. Which makes this whole game seem even more pointless, I didn't even think that was possible.
Spoilers ahead
I hated that they even made this game and addressed the moral dilemma of what Joel did at the hospital. It was so perfectly nuanced in the first game with themes of a lack of resolution hurts worse than loss itself (notice the death camera and the sudden cuts away from big traumatic events like Henry and David) and for the second game to just make a canonical judgment of "yeah Joel is bad guy" feels so flat and shortsighted that they'd just completely steamroll over the morality. Joel traded the world that he felt apathetic at best towards in order to save his soul and that's something I think everybody can latch onto even if you disagree with it. The the incompetence of the fireflies or the chance to save the world I don't think are relevant questions because it was never about the world or fireflies,it was about Joel. That's why I also despised the way they killed Joel. The moment I saw the reveal of tlou2 I knew Joel wasn't surviving but to just kill him in the first 2 hours after like 15 minutes of screen time felt very cheap and like they just used that emotional connection the player already had with Joel to make the plot happen.
You mention that Dina and ellie have good chemistry and after playing through the game twice now I just dont see any chemistry between any of the characters. None of the characters have personality or dynamics between them besides sort of lev and Abby. I initially thought that ellie and Dina would have a dramatic dynamic of Dina being sort of emotional and poetic about their love for eachother and braving the harsh world for the sake of justice but maybe she'd have little experience in the wild world so she would be confronted with brutality and bloodshed that she'd never even seen before which would make the load heavier on ellies back because she got Dina into this situation but no Dina and ellie are the exact same person with the exact same personality and its like that with every character in the game. Everybody acts and talks the same because Naughty Dog didn't want to waste time fleshing them out because they existed to just be dramatically killed and then forgotten about like they were characters in a slasher movie and ellie was an indie Jason Voorhees
I found ellies story hollow and directionless and abbys story just confusing. Ellie doesn't have any sort of forward momentum to finding Abby and I thought the whole vacation to Seattle was completely unjustified because I was not moved by Joel's death. Abbys story is confusing because they go for a redemption arc similar to Arthur's in rdr2, which this game clearly had a bit of inspiration from, where Abby starts out bad but through saving lev and Yara and giving them a second chance, her soul is redeemed but she never actually does anything wrong. Yeah torturing Joel was wrong but there was some sort of justification, besides that one event Abby does nothing wrong and still feels guilty, she even says the she feels guilt when talking to lev or Yara about why she's helping but she never says what she feels guilty about or even brings it up any other time besides once off handidly in an optional conversation. I think they were going for Joel saves Abby and Joel is the enemy so Abby kills him despite his kindness which she feels guilty about so when the same situation happens with Yara and lev, who are supposed to be scars, her enemy, she instead saves them. But Yara and lev weren't her enemies because they were in opposition to the scars and hadn't done anything wrong unlike Joel who killed her dad. Then later on Mel says something like "you aren't fooling me by helping these kids, did you have a change of heart or was it Owen" and then I was like oh damn, I had completely forgot that Mel and Owen were even together because they talk to eachother like once, so I thought there's be like this love triangle but then Mel does a complete 180 off in a different direction and is like" you're a piece of shit Abby, you always have been" and I burst out laughing because what the fuck are you talking about. Abby never does anything wrong besides kill Joel, which Mel is there for and Manny says she didn't like it, but she still went knowing they were going to kill Joel and was even one of the people that said they should kill ellie and Tommy too. They made a redemption arc with nothing to redeem. It seems like they were trying to redeem her to the player for killing Joel and not redeem herself in her own eyes because she never expresses any guilt over killing Joel which is why I think a lot of people feel like the game was telling you you have to sympathize with Abby and not convincing you to through her actions and words.
This has been my essay on the last of us 2,i hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
Mostly agree, though something she does in the game which is also wrong is having sex with owen, while his girlfriend is pregnant. I assumed mel lashing out was cause she figuered that out, but i cant quite remember.
Also it is implied that she has killed alot of scars to the point where she is called isaacs best scar killer or something like that. I know that those just like the "no names"(well technically other characters shout out their names when they find the body so it o name is really correct but well) she kills throughout the game, and i know those are situation where its kill or be killed, but she could still feel guilt about it
Would've been funny if while playing as Abby the golf club was hanging off her pack, and you used it to play fetch with the dogs and stuff lol.
12:21 "Ellie and Dina form a good duo and have chemestry together".
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA
They honestly could’ve just had tommy killed and joel went on the revenge quest for ellie to come find him and most of the community would’ve been fine with the game.
The Last of Us Part 2 was everything I expected it to be, an mediocre sequel, with mediocre characters, decent writing at best and directorial decisions which made me think if the main objective behind the game was to just create an controversy.
And just as I expected after it released, the controversy exploded, burned for few months and then everyone forgot about the game.
10/10
11:15 I agree with a lot of what you've said, but this is objectively wrong. The Fireflies drugged Ellie after she nearly drowned (never even waking up) put her on an operating table to be cut open and killed for their personal gain/beliefs. Not only did they not give Ellie that personal choice, they told Joel he couldn't see her and threatened to kill him if he put up a fuss. As I see it: they pinned Joel in a corner and gave him no other options than to go offensive and take Ellie back. The second game proves that if they would have waited and let Joel see Ellie and explain the situation to them both, She would have willingly given up her life. So the "getting his comeuppance", is factually wrong. I will way that in their (Abby and friends) eyes he IS the enemy and I can see why they would think he is evil, but stating that he deserved that fate for saving Ellie and dooming humanity is completely incorrect. :/
The Last of Us II (as a person who's seen a lot of it's story and the drama surrounding it) is a frustrating game because I can see something that could've been fucking amazing.
Yet they fall short every fucking time they have a chance to take the game and story to a direction that could've been so compelling.
It would've been so much more compelling if you could choose to either play as Abby or Ellie first and players could have the option of choosing to continue Ellie's story or let their curiosity lead them and find out who this "Abby" is.
It would've been so much more grimly beautiful to see Ellie begin to show less remorse with every kill she makes in gameplay.
I can see a really good fucking story and premise in the game. The scenes when taken by themselves can be fucking good but as a whole, they're the writers trying to manipulate the audience in the worse ways.
This game is fucking depressing and not for reasons it intended.
What is amazing is subjective. The game was amazing to a lot of people, completely terrible to others.
TheMarsCydonia the issue is that the people that say it’s amazing are giving emotional appeals about the game and what emotions they feel, the people saying it’s terrible are people that say the writing booted them out of believing the plot is natural and can not get back in. I personally think that is the mark of a bad story.
@@moonmoon2479 So both are giving emotional reasons...
You're right since the people who hate the story often do so because how they feel about Joel's death, how they feel about Abby, etc
TheMarsCydonia well, I wouldn’t say their reasons are emotional. It’s believability that causes issues. For example, Joel’s death. (Too convenient that Abby just runs into Joel. Joel way too trusting of Abby’s group) Or Abby’s character. (Friends generic, manipulation to try to get you to like Abby and hate Ellie, Abby given too much screen time at once in an awkward spot, Ellie far more affected by terrible acts that Abby.) When it’s easy to tell the devs are trying to push something and skip over making it natural, players pick up on it, and the whole thing feels false. So they get disconnected from the story and can’t get back in.
@@moonmoon2479 Sure it's convenient that she runs into Joel... But not unrealistic, people run into each other all the time and it's certainly convenient to the game as opposed to "Abby never runs into Joel, the end".
I also hear often people say "way too trusting" but without ever giving any other story beat explaining what they should have done, besides "being devoured by the horde".
They always reduced "Too trusting" to "gave them his real name" as if it Joel should been so paranoid that he should have given them a fake name.
And given Henry and Sam a fake name or given the whole of Jackson a fake name except for Tommy. Joel should have been so suspicious as to pretend all the while he's in Jackson that he's not Tommy's brother.
But no, Joel should be this suspicious only in this very instance that has upset them. I can't see it more than an attempt at rationalizing their feelings.
Just like their feelings about Abby, etc.
22:33
PSVita in the guy with the hat and hoodie's right hand. That's pretty funny
"it a game that thinks it far more profound then it is" I think the people that think this story of second game is profound might be too emotional, which is why the story works for them.
I wouldn’t say too emotional per se, but I can see where you are coming from.
I think you mean they are too stupid
10:58. Would have to disagree here. Joel knew he would be hunted for the rest of his life after what he did. Plus he was a Hunter. He was one of the bad guys for a while. He knows how to survive and not put himself in a dangerous situation out numbered with armed strangers with no way out. Joel didn't live this long being complacent. A better plot would have been if Ellie's love interest killed him after Ellie convinced the town to let this stranger in.
Thank you for saving hours of my lifetime!^^ Why didn't naughty dog just flush 100M $ down the toilet right away!
On my second playthrough i looked at the map of seattle and the area that you meet jesse at is at the northeast part of the map, ellie and dina came in further south.
Netflix is getting a splintercell show
I was truly so excited for this game due to the atmosphere and everything it built and gave with the first however, some games do not need a sequel. This one of them. It got me so irritated that I stoped midway and never finished it off. The story is so weirdly paced and even if I love the first I just couldn’t do them same with this one I found myself pushing and not enjoying my time when playing it that I just called it quits. Also, the whole playing as Abby and then Ellie meh it was weird. Anyways… glad to hear your voice Craig!
I personally loved the game, but this video was still very well done. Good job.
if the doctor didn't go for the knife Abby would have been justified. it's this fact that makes Ellie more justified than Abby. Ellie deserved justice and in the end, she never got it and lost everything in the process. everything the first game built between Ellie and Joel this game destroyed. that's why everyone is mad with this game. the first game leaves you with hope this one takes it away. I just want to be clear Joel killing that doctor was not murder it was in defense of himself and Ellie. Abby on the other hand, that was straight murder and she gets away with it.