The sniper bit is one of my favorites in the game. There is a moment during it when you enter the garage and Tommy starts shooting at the cars in order to draw out the infected, which is exactly what he tells Ellie to do during one of the flashbacks. When that happened, I knew it was Tommy for sure, and there was this mix of like "you motherfucker, using what you taught me to do against me!" and also "I really don't want to get to him and kill him." Good shit.
The thing is the sniper bit and that flashback was so far between one another and that’s why people really don’t get that “you motherfucker, using what you taught me to do against me!” when they’re playing that specific section
I mean, no matter what we all think of the game as a whole, it definitely had its great moments. I think we can agree on that. And fighting Tommy was one of them. Tho my favorite part was the dinosaur museum.
Crazy thing is....I truly believe Ellie did have a happy ending, we just missed the clues... another TH-camr commented on the letter you find at the farm when you are with Dina and the baby. It's from the baby's father's mom saying they will always have a place in Jackson if they choose to come back home. And, if you notice.....when Ellie leaves to fight Abby at the end....she's not wearing the bracelet Dina gave her....but when she returns...the camera zooms in on her hand ...we were focused on the fingers missing but looked completey passed the fact that now she is wearing the bracelet, possibly meaning she has already been to Jackson...and is living with Dina......she just went back to the farm for the guitar....but decided to leave it. That represents her finally being able to accept Joel's death and end the cycle of revenge. Here's some more things to back this claim...... 1. When she comes back to the farm...she's not hurt or not wearing any of her weapons. 2. She doesn't seem surprised that everyone is gone when she enters the house. She doesn't call out Dina's name or anything. I think people were so caught up in "Revenge" that they missed all of these details. I wish I could remember the TH-camrs name who pointed the letter and the bracelet out but sadly I don't remember... he/she is the real hero.....I just added more context and details to back their theory. Btw this isn’t my original idea, it’s from someone else
pretty much everything i was thinking too. the ending was somber but hidden behind the clues was hope as ellie left towards the sun. "when you're lost in the darkness, look for the light"
@@majaquinn it all depends on if ND is taking a break to do something else first or go straight to it. Plus I don't know the game dev cycles for a gen that hasn't started yet, games may take longer or around the same time
This is a super insightful analysis. I have a different take on the "decides Abby is worthy of sparing, for some reason" perspective. Ellie's central conflict is survivor's guilt. She resents Joel for (in her view) robbing her life of meaning. We see examples throughout the story: her backlash against Joel after Dina kissed her and her reprimanding of Joel for micromanaging her routes. He keeps getting in her life's way, she thinks. Right as Abby is dying, Ellie flashes back to her final conversation with Joel and abruptly achieves a moment of clarity. She was unconscious when Joel made the decision to rescue her from the Fireflies. And she was put unconscious without being told the surgery would kill her. She had absolutely no agency in that event. Joel's comment that he would totally make the same decision again if he could go back means something new to her in that moment. No matter what, her life was never going to have that particular meaning. Meanwhile, she's two years beyond her fruitless quest in Seattle after leaving her partner, child and new home. She's in California, drowning this woman for what she thinks is closure. That's not the closure she needed, though. She didn't need closure over Joel's death. That's not her real problem. Her real problem is survivor's guilt. Her quest (and Abby's imminent murder) are not only failing to add meaning to her life; they're also subtracting from it (she's wasting time on nothing). She breaks down weeping at that thought and tells Abby to leave. She's been pursuing the wrong closure, this whole time. She doesn't spare Abby because Abby's worth sparing. She spares Abby because she realizes that Abby has been a distraction. The game ends as she sets out to take her life's meaning into her own hands. And otherwise, she killed WLF and Scars for the same reason we killed them: She needed to get to Abby, and they were very in the way.
Beautifully said, i only desagree with your final accessment, i think Ellie did not find new meaning in life, the complete opposite, i think she lost it cause of her survivor's guilt in the end. It mirrors exactly her worst fear as She puts it in the first game, "i fear ending up alone". I think Neil wrote the ending to be as tragic and ironic as possible. I personally dont like it, nor the direction of the narrative, as piewdiepie said: it is but a shallow reflection of what "the last of us" is supposed to be, a ghost of the emotional ride the first one was. But i do respect the try to make something different with the tone of the game, even though it failed for me and many others. And Abby, in the end i did not want her to die, not because i cared about her, but because i cared about Lev, i would have connected with Abby had She shown some remorse or even some compassion for what She has done to Ellie, its ironic how She did to Ellie what Joel did to her, but never actually aknowledge or reflect on it, thats what was missing for me to care even a little about her.
Not only survivor's guilt is her motivation in the epilogue, but also ptsd. I think that it was absolutely brilliant to make Ellie being haunted by Joel's death to the point she slowly goes insane. She literally states in her diary that she can't live like that anymore, otherwise ptsd will consume her and she can hurt not only herself, but Dina and little kid. Imo, that is what forces her to seek closure with Abby and Tommy simply triggers that. I think that this example is the best ptsd case in gaming history.
Absolutley! At the End of the Brigmore witches, I liked Daud better than Corvo, who in hindsight is a pretty weak Protagonist for the Main Game. All we know about him is that he loves his daughter and his Empress/Lover. Daud on the other End was an paid Assassin for Set Empress, who suffered from the consequences of his Action, and tried to make it up by saving Emily without anyone ever knowing about it. Definitly the better Character.
With Daud he was just the blade that killed the empress but Hiram Burrows was the hand holding the blade. That makes Daud easier to empathise with. What's more we were given the choice of whether he deserved to live or not. Also his voice is awesome :)
I agree with everything but the "one more death was too many" Ellie didn't let Abby go because she wasn't strong enough to kill her, but because by that point she already forgave her, just when you are about to drown her you flash back to Joel playing his guitar, now, this isn't a "oh it's not what he would've wanted" moment, the memory is about Ellie telling Joel that she's gonna try to forgive him, even if she doesn't believe she can, that is what happened at that moment, Ellie realizes the only way to let go of her guilt and pain is to forgive Abby rather than taking revenge, she already killed everyone else involved and what did she get? PTSD, she knows finishing her won't give her what she wants and will just repeat the cycle, this time with Lev hating Ellie
@@Lord_Alimdor It isn't tho, the fact that it was in vain is exactly the point, because it truly doesn't matter, she did what she did because she wanted, and she didn't kill Abby because she wanted to, Ellie was a selfish person from the start of the game all the way to the end, the fact that she murdered probably hundreds of people just because she wanted to get to 5 is completely in character, and in the end she lost what she already had too, so it wasn't in vain, cause stuff did change, and it didn't go unpunished, cause she lost the only opportunity she could've had at a normal life, GoT is another story entirely and this game is masterful in it's writing
And besides, even if she did kill Abby the deaths still would've been in vain, cause she wouldn't have gotten closure in any capacity, which was what she wanted, she would've walked away as empty handed as she did in this ending, except now, Lev maybe has a future and Abby lived instead of dying crucified
I literally HATED the switch in the game, I refused to do any exploration because I just wanted to become Ellie again... This changed as I began to experience the storytelling. When Abby met Manny and got shot at I actually got mad, and wanted to see the sniper dead... Then it was Tommy and I was so confused... Didn't know how to feel or what to do... This game did a number on me. And I absolutely love it.
I think it would have been nice if we were constantly changing (when you end day one with ellie you go to day 1 with abby and then day 2 ellie then day 2 abby) but maybe that could have been to confusing
Theres no shortage of snipers in the "last of us" world, They were banking on your either forgetting and being surprised, or feeling proud that you remembered.
The game really tests the limits of the player's empathy. By the end I just wanted them to just move on. They both lost so much. I'm glad Ellie kept her humanity by the end.
Exactly! Man, I really hoped that if I didn't press "Strike" something else would unfold, but no....forced to do things against my will. Super effective storytelling, in my opinion. :)
@@WhoCaresInc21 Of course, what I meant was that I was conflicted in doing what the character was doing, which is exactly how the writers intended the scene(s) to play out. Simply great :)
This was 100% a test on the player's level of empathy. I feel it is natural to hate Abbie at the start, but if by the end you still want Ellie to kill Abbie then that's a little worrying
I get the writers intentions in the sniper scene but as someone who wasn’t spoiled, I almost immediate knew that the sniper was Tommy. I mean the game foreshadows his sniping ability when he trains Ellie and moreover if you follow the days and relate it with what Ellie would be doing at that time, it makes it even more obvious. So this “trick” really didn’t work for me.
Me too. But that goes for almost ANYTHING these days. I’ve read, seen and played so much, I’m hardly ever truly wondering what is going on in a scene. It’s why I care more about the overall story.
Yeah, I think it kinda misses the point to say the narrative whiplash was because the player doesn't suspect the sniper is Tommy. If anything, the game has specifically led the player to suspect that. The narrative whiplash is because you're playing as Abby, and you know Abby doesn't care if that's Tommy or not, she's gonna go track him down and kill him for all the WLFs he's killed. You probably like Tommy, but you *have* to go hunt down Tommy and try and kill him.
The two showdowns completely broke me. While playing as Abby in the theatre I wanted to cry because I thought Ellie, whom I've learned to love through 2 games, was gonna die by my hands. And playing as Ellie in the ending, trying to kill another character I have come to love, I just kept thinking that I wanted them to stop and become friends instead, all this violence is completely unnecessary. I salute Naughty Dog for this amazing gaming experience! Edit: I have never ever gotten this many likes before. Thank you guys so much!
I really love Abby too, at first just for her looks, but then later as a character as well. She is constantly trying to do better, she fails and things fall apart around her, but not because she is a bad person. Probably the most three dimensional character ever in a videogame.
@D- licious The game shows that literally no person is entirely good nor entirely evil. Like come on, we've seen different dimensions of all characters we've been playing as. Joel is a selfish a**hole (he even says himself in the first game he's been on both sides), but he's got good sides too. Ellie starts her journey as the innocent girl who gets blinded by hatred because she didn't have time to forgive her father figure. Abby begins her story blinded by hatred and the thought of vengeance, but back in Seattle realizes that avenging her father hasn't given her any peace. So she's starting to see the war between the WLF and seraphites from a completely different perspective, rending it pointless. She can't undo her murdering act, so she tries to get redemption by protecting a kid everybody wants to kill. To many extents her redemption arc is the same as Joel's in the first game. The game shows that we're all human beings and that there's different sides to the same coin. Nobody is entirely good, nobody is entirely evil. We're all in a grey zone, watching what could happen to us in post apocalyptic world. So yes, I do love Abby, because the grim world has forced her to do the best she can to survive but still maintain her sanity. Despite her flaws she shows over and over again that she wants to do better
@D- licious I wasn't replying to you, bruh. Your thinking is completely 2 dimensional, no wonder you see everything as an agenda. Guard dogs that are trained to attack intruders, attack Ellie, OMG, how they set her up as bad what an agenda! Also when Abby was going to kill Dina, it was exactly the result of her finding the dead bodies of Mel (who was also pregnant) and Owen, who she was in love with. She has no idea whether Ellie killed them in cold blood or accidentally, or in self defence. But either way Ellie, Dina and Tommy are all responsible for their deaths. You can't just ignore that because it doesn't fit in your contrived narrative. I lost all respect for Joel at the end of TLOU, not becuase of what he did, I'd probably have done the same thing. But for how he lied about it later. That was not bravery, that was selfish, he was only protecting himself and his desire to hold on to Ellie at that point. So when he meets his end, I really couldn't feel sorry for him. How he could look in the mirror each morning is beyond me. I'd have went off to live alone as a hermit. But he just lived it up like a good father until Ellie found him out. And Ellie still forgives him. Which shows Ellie is a good person deep down as well, they never tried to make her out as bad. As for Tommy, I've always found something to be off about him. If anyone is a real bad person in this story, is Tommy. I think he is just a ruthless killer, a sociopath. My immediate thought about him when Joel confides in him at the beginning, was that this guy is creepy, and he doesn't seem like a very nice person. That was before anything else happened! In some ways Tommy is the igniter of everything bad that happens to Ellie. He goes after Abby first, then he urges Ellie to go after her again at the end! So if anyone is to blame apart from Ellie for loosing her guitar fingers it is Tommy. Remember, Abby didn't want to fight her, it was Ellie who threatened Lev to coerce one final confrontation. They didn't need to force Abby on me, I'd have liked her anyway. And not because of the dog scene, that had nothing to do with it. By the end of the game, when I was playing as Ellie, all I could think about was saving Abby somehow.
@D- licious It's also called being an asshole. You're seeking attention from someone who has no interest in giving it to you. Trying to force a conversation that they don't like to have. Stop BEING an asshole and accept that people have differing opinions. Or just go back to Twitter where all the non-humans live.
@D- licious If you're unwilling to read arguments that doesn't comply to your own world view, but then write novellas yourself about why the game is bad, then you shouldn't even discuss this topic at all. There are a lot of valid points written in these texts but you're too afraid to be wrong or what? If you can't face the arguments then I'm done with this discussion. (Besides, dimensions is exactly the word for it. The word has multiple meanings (or should I say dimensions?). Look it up.)
I feel the only failing of the game was the monumental whiplash of going from the climax of Ellie's story to the start of act 1 for Abby's. Abby had finished protagging after she killed Joel, and the first handful of her scenes following the perspective switch felt aimless because she no longer had any desire driving her actions, and needed to start a whole new arc from scratch. It was the stalling of momentum that made the switch so frustrating. It took me a couple of hours to really twig that this was more than just a truncated handful of flashbacks; it's an entire game-within-a-game. This was compounded by the plot of Abby's half having almost nothing to do with Ellie's half, except the handful of points where characters from the two groups intersected. Having both sets of characters caught up in a unifying set of surrounding problems and goals would have given Abby's half more drive. I think it's worth living with the few flaws in order to have such an ambitious story. Naughty Dog set themselves a monumental task in trying to overcome the reflexive tribal instinct that we all slip into so terrifyingly easily. The story of both games shows us time and again that it takes place in a world so brutal that no one is allowed the luxury of remaining a good person with clean hands. And yet we can't help but make judgements of right and wrong based on who we knew first or who we like more.
I agree to an extent, I felt that same jarring grinding halt of the momentum and at first I couldn't help but think what a monumental failure that choice was, and even considered taking a break from the game. If a lot of players stopped at that moment out of frustration, I think they would miss the big picture. Within an hour or two, I was ALMOST as invested in the character of Abby as I was in Ellie, and I didn't want the ride to end.
I agree. But man, when I got to Abby day 3, that climax made my heart race like never before. It's just unfortunate that it makes the player kind of want to rush through Abby's segment.
Watch Nathan Ed’s Review, Abby did not have peace after killing Joel, she was still having nightmares. Those nightmares stopped after saving the children
I think the devs could have mixed the perspective more, which would have alleviated the problem. Make the game go more like: Beginning (until Abby kills Joel), then Seattle Day 1 Ellie, then SD1 Abby, SD2 Ellie and so on. I think this could have helped and made it easier for people who disliked the story and its structure. Still, in the end the game worked for me quite well (in both Abby/Ellie fights I just wanted both of them to stop fucking fighting and try to talk it out), but I can see how a mixture of expectations, assumptions and different taste prevents others from enjoying it as much (or at all).
I completely disagree about the sniper scene. I knew straight away that Tommy was the sniper, I felt impressed rather than oppressed by the gameplay segment as he shot the cars to lure infected towards me, and I knew Abby wouldn't kill him when we caught up to him because he was fine and dandy in the theater with Ellie the next day.
I suspected it too from the start because many of the scenes previously mentioned that there was a lone sniper taking out the WLF and they were looking for him. Ellie even mentioned to Dina that it had to be Tommy and that was where they had to go to find him.
I mostly agree. As soon as Manny said "trespassers", I knew it was Tommy. I already did my best to keep hidden, so for me this whole segment was never about killing the sniper, Tommy; it was about not getting killed because I already respected his prowess in survival.
agreed. i actually thought it was pretty obvious that tommy was the sniper and obviously he wasn't going to die there. now at the end when we were Abby fighting Ellie, i was terrified. haha
literally the only thing i dont like about the story is how it was arranged with all its flashbacks and stuff. i think if they put it a bit more into chronological order the humanization of abby wouldve been more effective and also i personally prefer the more straight forward aproach to story telling. other than that i think this is actually a pretty damn good game
Agree. Also, that chronological order would give a little more meaning to Joel's death, as we get to know Abby's quest prior that. ND prioritized on the shock value there, wich is sad.
@Andrew Gray And yet that was exactly what Ellie was preparing to do to Abby TWICE when seeking revenge; Abby kills Joel to avenge her dad's death, spares Ellie, Ellie leaves base for revenge, Abby spares Ellie (and Dina) once again after they killed all her friends, and Ellie still goes out for revenge once again. That's what people aren't getting about this game, especially if they still hate Abby in the end. Both Abby and Ellie wanted vengeance from the unjust acts that were done to them and their loved ones. Abby wanted vengeance on Joel because he killed her dad and Ellie wanted vengeance on Abby because she killed Joel. But it was like a constant cycle of loss. Because with each revenge story whether it was Abby's or Ellie's both parties lost even more loved ones, that could have still been alive if they have just moved on. Neither of them are not just for wanting to kill the other but it still would have been unjustly to do so because someone else would be hurt from the loss and then maybe they would want to gain revenge too and so on and so forth - its a cycle. Until they realize that killing each other won't stop the pain, the hurting, the suffering there will be more. That's the point of the game, to forgive and forget or at least move on if you can't forgive the past because that's all it is since nothing is so black and white either. Abby is neither villain or hero and Ellie is no hero nor villain. They're just people trying to live. That's life.
What bothers me the most is that Abby never got to tell Ellie why she actually killed Joel. Ellie knows Joel killed the doctors but she didn't know the main surgeon was Jerry; Abby's dad. Ellie thought Abby was mad because Joel prevented the development of a cure... of course she is mad about that, but she killed Joel specifically because of what he did to her dad. During the confrontation between Ellie and Abby, when Ellie puts her hands up she says "I know why you killed Joel, he did what he did to save me, there's no cure because of me I'm the one that you want." Abby assumes she knows why Abby killed Joel, since Ellie literally says she knows why, but she actually doesn't. They never had a chance to talk, not even in the last horrific scene... it's all just very sad, but it is a very very good game, flawed in some ways, but very very good nonetheless.
I would’ve been more sympathetic with Abby and her friends if they questioned themselves whether they got the right guy or not. Any kind of regret or fear from Jackson followed them to Seattle.
the doctor in tlou1 is a different person, they look different from what Jerry looks like even the skin color is different, and whats more interesting is that people discovered the 3D model used for the doctor in TLOU1 is named "Bruce" so Jerry is a total retcon, Abby's story wasnt even preplanned, they could have made an actual continuation of the first game than go with random abby and her guilt tripping contest.
@@johngoldfield6602 Stories aren't always pre-planned. And it's not really a retcon since that information isn't given to the player by the game. That's just a nameless doctor for 99,9% of the audience until they find out who he was on TLOU2
@@don9718 they aren't always preplanned but the cliff hanger made us think it would be an actual continuation of the story. Abby is just random her story is random and she pretty much hijacks the game when its supposed to be about Ellie and her unique trait of being immune which takes a complete backseat throughout the game, something as important as being immune to a ZOMBIE virus should be treated more valuable than just being sidelined, oh but zombies are taking a backseat too because the story is more about humans killing each other than trying to deal with the virus. also yes Jerry is a retcon and not even a clever one either considering they messed up any consistency to make it believable
Great video, however: I disagree with the notion that Ellie let Abby go because "One more death was too much", like us Ellie learned more about Abby through her journey. It was easy to kill all those goons because they weren't people to us or Ellie, but every person you kill from the Squad that took out Joel you learn something about, and it visibly harder for Ellie to kill every single one of them. By the time she reaches Abby at the end, she knows a lot about Abby, (not as much as us, but still) enough so that Abby isn't just an evil villain to her anymore, she's a person. A person that's just trying to keep someone else safe.
Ellie also spared Abbey because she broke the cycle of revenge and she was finally at peace of mind with the burden of Joel's ghost and knew sparing her would restore her humanity.
What's genius about it too is that I think Ellie didn't just see Abby as a person, but rather saw herself and Dina in Abby and Lev. In that first Abby and Ellie fight, Abby realized Ellie was the only person protecting Dina, a pregnant woman she has nothing to do with. Ellie, in that second fight, seemed to realize why Abby spared her because of the realization that Abby was the only one to protect Lev, a child she has nothing to do with.
Yeah. The editing didn’t help just write either because he used background footage of Ellie killing slavers who attacked her first....and were going to enslave her. ....Slavers. Yeah. I’m cool. Also, Abby had Lev which Ellie no doubt empathized with.
Yeah, when it flashed to Joel playing guitar I immediately remembered the lyrics “I’d surely lose myself” and I think at that moment she’s realizing how much of herself she has lost in her seeking revenge. I think she finds the best way to honor Joel moving forward would be to find herself again, and that means letting go of old hatred and not killing the person who is like Joel to someone else.
1 - they cant believe they spended $60+ usd on something that they didn’t enjoy 2 - mom only buys 1 game a year and was one that they didn’t enjoy 3 - they bought a ps4 just to play this game and didnt like it.
There is a real answer to this question. But I'm instead going to ask for you to say the same thing about Game of Thrones Season 8 and Rise of Skywalker.
@@FrankMcFuzz1 I'm just saying when you say I liked it then people say you like that bullshit. And then people say you're an idiot and you don't know what you're talking about.
My biggest problem was the timing of Abby's section. Leaving me on a cliffhanger was not the best idea. I was automatically in a rushed state to get back to what i thought, at the time to be the main story and to Ellie. I didn't mind playing as Abby at first, even thought it kind of cool to be getting a view from the other side of the fence. Then it dragged on and on and on, it completely killed the game for me. If they had shortened Abby's section and had it start right after Ellie, Jessie, and Tommy decide to return to Jackson, the whole cliffhanger thing wouldn't of been an issue. Plus i think it would of made for a far more dramatic scene when Abby finally reaches the theater. As it stands, when Abby reaches the theater we already know what happens. I think it would of played much better if we had no clue what the game was about to make us do as Abby. Aside from the quite obvious, upcoming boss fight with Ellie. I think with that small change in timing I'd of had a far better time of it.
Or make abbys sections into a whole game(references to a mysterious event that in hindsight is the torture of Joel and how Abby feels guilt ridden for it)...where we end at the theater wondering why the fuck is Ellie there. We find out in last of us part III what Abby did to Joel to put Ellie in that movie theater.
I think they should have taken the Yakuza 0 approach and slowly build the tension and dread as the two sides slowly converges and collide in the climax while also building doubt in the goodness of Ellie and the evilness of Abby.
I feel the same a the beginning. But once i get what they were trying to do with the structure i dive in in Abby story. I think the problem is not the structure is the expectation of each player.
Abby's group was so unlikeable and predictable. And it was right after we had killed them as Ellie, so it seemed like pointless filler. I think they could have cut that section and skipped to the Yara and Lev storyline, it would have been better.
At which point did Joel show enjoyment from the fact that he was about to kill a pregnant woman? Because if there isn't such moment, then Abby, from psychological perspective, is several magnitudes worse than him.
Agreed! In a way, Abby and Ellie became each other. Abby found family in Lev and Yara (mimicking Joel finding Ellie), and while trying to not get attached to the two, she eventually does, with them even building on one another, with Abby helping Lev conquer his fear of dogs (R.I.P Alice) and Lev helping Abby to realize fear is not a weakness, but that it can also be bravery. On the other side Ellie slowly becomes consumed by revenge over time, by becoming more brutal, choosing to go after Abby instead of helping Tommy, isolated herself from her friends, killed Owen and Mel, *who was pregnant* , and after relapsing into her revenge a year later, and even threatened to kill Lev to make Abby fight her. In her own way she herself became Abby (albeit a bit more immoral in her deeds). But yeah, I feel like it's missed by a lot of people, as you've said.
@@davidkoudelka10 yeah, but what I'm saying is that Abby is similar to Joel but one major difference is that Joel doesn't go on a revenge tour to find the person who killed his daughter.
Exactly. I don't understand people who wanted a safe sequel with Joel and Ellie where nothing bad happens to either of them and it's just a "and they lived happily ever after" ending. I'm glad we got this instead.
It's not that they killed joel it's how they made him and tommy make multiple uncharacteristic decisions that lead to Joel's death and then they try to make his killer look like the good one while making ellie look terrible
So I just finish the last of us 2! I’ve been a huge fan of tlou 1 and I can’t tell you how excited I was for the part 2. Honestly speaking I did saw couple of leaks before the release but I didn’t let those comments and leaks bothered me from purchasing a game! And even though whole internet is really mad about the storyline and the ending of the game but From my personal experience I really enjoyed this game! Is it as good as its predecessor? No! But you have to understand that the last of us part 1 was a masterpiece and it would be really hard to top that. Does the game feels lagged and slow at some point? Yes! But only if you don’t care about the story.. Just my personal opinion it’s a really well made game! It does have a great story which explains the real message which is “vengeance always consumes the best of you”. Speaking of which if you look at from Ellie’s prospective, to get revenge of Joel’s death which is Ofcourse a big deal she got lost in vengeance so bad that she lost everything in the end! Joel, Jesse & her relationship with Dina! And same goes for Abby.. she was so upset and wanted to take the revenge for her fathers death by killing Joel. But in the end she also end up losing everything and everyone she ever loved! At first I was also pissed off about killing Joel and then play the character who killed our beloved Joel! But after realizing what’s a real message behind this game, I understand why everything happened the way it happened! Sadly Even though I agreed with Joel’s decision at the end of part one about saving Ellie’s life but deep down I know it was a wrong decision considering a bigger picture! And eventually it also turn Ellie against Joel and don’t ever wanna do anything with him because he lied to her! And I really think it’s was Joel’s karma because he did kill those people to save Ellie’s life. Even though it was a right decision according to him but still was wrong! And I know a lot of people won’t agree with my reasoning but that’s actually true! But overall in the end The Last of us 2 is a lot darker and have a lot more deeper meaning. It’s Definitely not better than the first one but still pretty good in its own unique way and I really enjoyed it!
It’s also worth noting that the kissing scene in question, while not in the game until late, was in one of the most prominent trailers for the game. So a large part of the audience will have already experienced most of the scene in question before even playing the game.
But the flashbacks and the actual Joel part of that scene is the important part. It still succeeded in surprising and making the player feel those emotions. The flashbacks and the dance scene and the last Joel scene are a whole side story. So while yes, we experienced most of the scene, but most don't mean it wasn't important to see the full story.
@@cheshirecats1492 yes absolutely, the Joel parts are very significant, probably more so than the kissing part of that scene alone. I'm just noting that for much of the audience, it's not completely a "tell not show" moment. I certainly had an "oh, I think I know exactly what they're talking about" moment. Especially the line about being "the talk of the town" felt very meta to me. And meta seems to be what they were going for - remember that when they showed that trailer at E3, they decorated the auditorium to look exactly like the ballroom from the game. It was quite clever.
That scene was probably shown so early by ND because they wanted us to believe it was Dina's death that would set Ellie on her journey for revenge so they could preserve the raw emotions the player would feel at Joel's death. Then it got leaked anyways lol
Yeah, when I first saw it towards the end of the game I was like “what is the purpose of having this here?” But then the scene continues, we get the extra context to Joel and Ellie’s immediate disagreements, and then is followed by one of the most emotional scenes in gaming. Real good shit.
AlexanderTheArt yes, because liking a game must mean they’re a simp. Instead of generalising, either comment on why you disagree or say nothing at all.
I feel the exact same way, I remember the moment just before Ellie leaves Dina and JJ to find Abby once again, Dina begs her and said something like “she doesn’t get to be more important than us” I felt that.
I think the intensity and “fun” of the violence is supposed to sour your opinion about violent revenge. The fact that it’s so bloody and so intense where it makes you go “holy shit” may be the point.
Yeah. Except for the last area. I put forth a ton of effort to use stealth whenever possible. Then I got to the slavers and was all "who wants exploding arrows?"
What gamer's reaction to intense violence in a video game is "oh my god this is so bad :(?" That type of mentality may work in TV shows and movies. But TLOU 2 game design is made to be enjoyable. It's supposed to be enjoyable killing people, because they point of gameplay, is to be engaging. Games that are supposed to tell you that violence is wrong, typically make it so that being violent is NOT fun. Usually by making the gameplay of violence, frustrating and unfulfilling. Look at Pathological for example. That game tells us that violence is wrong and should be avoided, by making the gameplay of violence really shitty and difficult so that players are encouraged to avoid doing it.
Nomasti The African Warlord Yeah, that’s totally fair. I think this may be an issue of this game needing to be a huge accessible hit. It had to tow the line between fun to play and “violence is bad” in a way that it really wasn’t able to
@@LBAW That's why this game shouldn't have tried to go for a "violence and revenge is bad" story line. That type of storytelling simply doesn't mesh well with a AAA violent video game that's supposed to sell millions of copies and made a huge profit. Gameplay contradicting the narrative is a telltale sign of bad artistic direction.
You always see the good in the story (even when I don't agree with you). To be clear, for this game and its story, I completely agree (just speaking generally in my previous comment). And I had the same reaction with the final fight in the ocean... that I just wanted both of them to STOP.
I didn't want Ellie to go in the first place. She messed up her life for revenge and a lesson on forgiveness. 🤦♀️ learn to forgive, or you'll lose two fingers 😝 Stories that did this better: Markus vs Connor in Detroit:become human The Hound vs Brianne of Tarth in Game of Thrones The kid getting revenge on my homie in the movie City of God All of these had me feeling several emotions. This game had me thinking, "really? That's it?" It was so poorly done here.
Psychedelic Yeti Detroit: Become Human is so poorly done though, it’s exploitative of history and oversimplified, it’s insulting to actual movements it’s copying and has zero nuance and humanity, it’s very manipulative. At least the characters in the last of us all feel real and flawed. I know they’re robots in Detroit but that doesn’t fix the story problems
I also wanted them to stop. The game was darker and more uncomfortable than I expected. It wasn't easy to get through. Especially having both of them hunt eachother and the killing dogs and murdering pregnant women really messed with my head.. And i cried for an entire day when Joel died 😅🤦♀️
@@uhuhuh1966 while I enjoyed Detroit, I do see it had a lot of flaws. I didn't enjoy the "twist" and changed how I viewed the relationships I had... And it felt meaningless. But, that wasn't my point here 😝 My point is you play as Connor and Markus, you see their stories and their reasoning, and all that was building up to the moment they faced each other (depending on how you played the game, that is).
Something I want to mention here is that you can actually complete this game while killing relatively few people. There are actually few encounters in the game were you *must* kill people. With the vast majority of the enemies, you can sneak by them without hurting anyone at all. That said, doing so is definitely more difficult and requires more patience than just putting arrows through throats. I'm wondering if the reviewer failed to notice this option, or just didn't bother. Either option says some interesting things about how video games have conditioned players to respond to situations within games.
You can do this in a number of games(Splinter Cell, Metal Gear, you can limit the kills to when you must kill a target in Assassin's Creed), even if they don't have anything in their themes about killing being negative. In this case, it seems not to be designed as an important feature of gameplay or story.
@@rashomon9996 I think the fact that minimizing killing doesn't come with any sort of incentive in LoUP2, and is actually harder to pull off than mass murder, is a deliberate choice on the devs part. By doing it this way, it backs up one of the central themes of the story: that compassion and forgiveness is often much harder than violence or killing. It's left up to the player to decide how much effort they're willing to put into avoiding needless death. Just my thoughts on the matter.
I actually have a slight issue with this. I loved the game but the series has such great environmental story telling in addition to the notes etc. That if I were to sneak around all the enemies to find the collectibles it would take significantly longer and be more difficult. I want to experience as much of the world as possible on my first play through, and it's difficult to do so without clearing out an area with stealth or otherwise beforehand. You could argue that kind of buys into Ellie's relentless need to kill, but we know these extras just give subtext the world, and Ellie isn't realistically clearing out an area in the hope of collecting a note or trading card that may or may not be in that area. Now if that doesn't matter to you then it's a non-issue, but there are downsides to choosing to not kill.
Yeah, I killed multiple dogs too and even though I hated it, it did make the stealth just a tiny bit easier. If I play this game again though, I'm going to try and not kill them. The only reason why so many died is because I lacked the bottles and bricks to throw them off my trail so if the tiniest bit of me was seen by that dog, that meant death for me and I really couldn't avoid it.
What I liked about TLoS2: Abby was the most forgiving character in the whole game. Think about it: she let Ellie and Tommy live twice (Tommy thrice, due to the sniper scene); and in their final combat, Abby said she didn't want to fight. And her mercy was rewarded because it was Tommy who found her location, and it was Ellie who saved her and Lev from dying at that beach. If she had killed either one of them when she had the chance, she wouldn't be alive to find her happy ending with the Fireflies. Abby was out to kill Ellie as vengeance for Owen's death, but let it go due to Lev. Ellie, on the other hand, stopped at the critical moment and showed Abby the same mercy Abby showed her, without prompting from anyone else. So by the end of the story, Ellie's capacity to let it go grew much bigger than Abby's. And if you frame it that way, then the ending was the start of Ellie's healing. She lost everything, so she had a fresh start, and potentially a better life ahead (just as Abby letting Ellie go saved her life down the line, Ellie's life might be improved in some way by her learning to let her hatred go).
Bro, everything is talking about that she is going to be with the fireflies People didn't notice that the fireflies message was a trap for her ? Like yeah a random guy tell her that they are in that street, that random guy probably works for the rattlesnakes, and sent her there to be kidnapped
They hyped the game as Ellie's revenge tour. Her not killing Abby failed the point of the game. They didn't even go across the country like the first game. Just Seattle, Jackson, and santa Barbara.
I like this! The idea of Ellie starting fresh is highlighted even more with that final scene of her leaving all of her old belongings, and even Joel's guitar, behind. Almost like a rebirth. I have a feeling that is the end of Ellie's story in this franchise; if the game sees more sequels, I believe it will follow new characters, which I'm okay with. it's such an interesting and fun world to play in, I'd be okay with them starting new with a total stranger's experience.
TheVirusSoftware No. a story being difficult to digest and work through does not make it shit. In fact, I think it’s a sign of a very good story. It’s hard to swallow, you have to think through it. It makes you uncomfortable. It’s not easy or simple. And I for one fucking love it
@@podtherod9304 it was boring and predictable. Having to learn who Abby's group was AFTER killing them was tedious and added nothing to the story because they were unlikeable. If they had been in Ellie's group, I would not have liked them, that's how little impact they had.
@greenapplepear I believe it is a reference to the Prius episode of South Park when Prius owners become so smug and self-satisfied that they start to smell their own farts. In this case, the story is supposed to present the appearance of depth so that the audience can feel clever (Jeopardy does this, the questions are designed to be around the level of a 7th-grade education and involve pop references so that the audience at home feels a little smart when they can answer a question) but fails to deliver because real depth would be too much of a challenge for a lot of people (limiting sales) because they would not recognize it, it is safer to go with meaning that has already been explored and repeated in other stories to the point of cliche and common sense. The irony is TheVirusSoft comes off as a pretentious prick when pointing out what pretentious pricks other people are.
Literally. Btw I hardly see anyone talking about how GOOD the human A.I. is in this game. Seattle Day 2 with Ellie is probably one of my favorite sections of the whole game. The neighborhood levels and the introduction of the enemy dogs really ramp up the stress on the highest difficulty. It was legit difficult to predict their movements while moving about and saving my resources
People say that Joel's death is unsatisfying, initially that might be true in an intentional way. His death stays unsatisfying, only if you don't play the entire game.I saw many say Joel saving Abby was out of character, but the game makes it clear by the end that Joel was trying to become a better person FOR ELLIE, In the first game Joel would have left Abby in the snow, but he has opened up during the four years in Jackson to become a better person. It's what makes it so sad, that his last act, the one that got him killed, was an act of kindness towards someone he didn't even know. Maybe he did it purely to show Ellie how he's changed, or maybe he has truly become a better person. I think that's a perfect, tragic way to set up the themes the game developes on.
It's not unsatisfying, it's dumb in many ways. It's like mario dies against a gomba just beacuse he forgot he had to jump. Joel wouldn't give everyone their names, where they live and enter a place surrounded with heavily armed strangers after making a lot of enemies beacuse of it's actions, he wasn't even in ¨peace¨ all the time, he had to deal with hunters and many other attacks to jackson and scavenge random places. He has 20 years of surviving outside and just beacuse he lived ¨¨in peace¨¨ on jackson for 4 years doesn't mean he is going to do these type of mistakes. ¨Hey guys it's me, Joel Miller and this is my brother Tommy, we live in jackson wich is a couple of hours far and the code to my bank account is 1234¨. A lot of people alredy said this and that they expected Joel's death beacuse of how many enemies he made, he didn't even need to die as a hero or saving Ellie, he just needs a *believable* death, tragic or not but *BELIEVABLE*.
Jordan Zegarra he walks into a room full of armed people who just helped take out a horde of infected, who are allies with Abby (the girl that they saved and the girl who offers them shelter from the blizzard and the infected). It’s not very outlandish to make Joel walk into to a room and trust people who just potentially saved them. Also you spelt “Which” wrong bud
@@whomp8038 Sorry for the mistake, th-cam.com/video/3L1iT4wAURU/w-d-xo.html this video explains pretty much everything. (Can't really talk a lot cause my online class is about to start and no, english is not my main lang :().
@@whomp8038 They didnt save Joel and Tommy though, Joel and Tommy SAVED THEM. But it is true that if They were the ones to save Joel and Tommy there, it wouldnt be outlandish and it would be more understandable for Joel to tell them his name, but that didnt happen, so its still outlandish.
@@bayatricewalker3452 While I agree that Tommy introducing himself and Joel to Abby's group was a dumb move it didn't really matter. This is because Abby had seen Joel prior, while this isn't show or even necessarily said it is somewhat implied during her hospital flashback. Evidence for this is back when Joel saves her, you'll realize that Abby recognized Joel immediately. She also seems shocked that Joel saved her life and/or even temporarily torn on her decision to kill him because of it. Although one could also argue that she was just surprised about finding Joel in the first place. And while the fact that one has to play the game through and independently make these connections can subjectively be called bad writing. I personally felt like it added to how one can interpret their encounter and helped make Abby a bit more nuanced as a character. Even more so when Abby actually seems a lil remorseful for what she did to Joel and how she wanted to atone in her own personal way by saving Lev.
The best part of the game in my opinion is when, playing as Abby, you finally find Ellie and end up in the basement fight. Hearing Ellie craft Molotov cocktails is a sound I never thought I'd have panic attacks over.
The problem with people saying that "if they played Abby first before killing Joel then everything would be fine" is that they missed the entire point. It's easier to emphatize with a stranger who you saw just experience grief and pain at the start. It's harder to do so on someone you hate. The game literally wanted to challenge your perspective and not be bias about one character. Which a lot of people clearly failed. XD
Absolutely! This game is all about giving the player the same challenge as the characters. Can you look past your bias and empathize with someone you hate? The people who enjoyed the story succeeded, those who bash the story as bad writing etc failed.
Maybe It was just the fact that this was the second game in a well established serie. This story would have worked wonders if I didnt care sooo much more about one group that the other. And considering most conflicts in stories are about asking the audience to choose a side, even if its to keep fighting or stop, wouldn't you choose the original characters if you had to pick?
It's almost like this game is a critique of tribalism and wants to make it clear that just because one group is more familiar to you doesn't make them in the right.
@@kevinkuenn5733 that's what I took away from the game. I don't think the game is asking us to choose anything. It's just showing two perspectives of this conflict.
@@DarkkestNite The literal intention of the story is to create a character that the player has every reason to hate and then show their perspective until the player sympathizes with them. Getting you to hate Abby from the start is L I T E R A L L Y the fucking point. You are asking for a different story entirely
yeah the game definitely expects you to be rooting for ellie going in, thats why they show you her side of the story first. the twist relies on the fact that the audience most likely wants abby dead as much as ellie does which makes the sudden change in perspective so jarring. but the interesting part is that after spending hours in the shoes of someone obsessed with revenge you now play as someone who just GOT her revenge and see that it doesnt actually make her happy
The only criticism I had for the game was that certain sections seemed to drag out for too long and even with the great level of detail to all the areas and sections, they felt very empty. From my perspective, it feels like most of the hate is coming from people who painted a picture in their heads of what the story was going to be and where it was going to go rather than seeing it as a blank canvas and letting the picture paint itself as they played the game. If you go into something with your expectations being only on what you want to see then you’re robbing yourself of the surprise of what may or may not happen.
@Jonny B basically agree with you about most your points- except I didn't feel Joel's death was mainly shock value. They didn't just want to kill joel to evoke the player's desire to get revenge- they wanted it done so brutally you were completely invested in it like Ellie was. I think it works better that way because then it made the switch to Abbys POV and then coming to see things from her perspective that much more powerful because it deliberately makes it so much harder to forgive Abby- and that is ultimately what the game wanted you AND Ellie to do
my take from watching so many streams after finishing the game: 1. people who played the game and enjoyed it for what it is. 2. a lot went with hate bandwagon and made up their mind before the game was released, and when it was released, streamers and chat joined to bash the game from start to finish spreading the hate. 3. small honest people who and really hated it. 4. people who joined the hate bandwagon but decided to play the game and loved it and found a lot of the hate were lies or exaggeration (that is me)
@@DarkSilV really cool to know there's the 4th type! Bravo on not being so hellbent on hating the game to admit to liking it in the end. I think a lot of ppl refuse to.
At the ending of this game, I really felt that Ellie shouldn’t have killed Abby because what would’ve happened with Lev? I guess it requires empathy towards ones situation as whole. Also I appreciate that Ellie doesn’t go through with because it shows that there is humanity inside her still, people really wanted Abby to die which seems kinda short sighted and plain hateful.
The whole journey where she killed Abby's friends she didn't spare a second thought. It's basically similar to going down the genocide route in Undertale and stopping right after you kill sans. Pointless adventure honestly... And you wasted your time only to get cold feet at the end. Being shortsighted and hateful is good. Why? It shows human nature in it's honest state. I would've liked her to kill Abby because it would force Ellie to reflect, kinda like when spiderman got uncle Ben's killer. He was hollow and learned that it wasn't worth it. Having those consequences would've been a welcome change. It would force her to deal with the situation head on and whatever she'd decide to do with the kid would ride on how her conscience treats her, be it taking accountability or abandoning the fella.
What a game for the first time nobody wins in this game,the ending almost broke me of how depressing it is but man so thankful that this is a game,story like this wouldn't work at all for a movie. Even so some people still blasted it just because "they killed my man"
Yeah a shit ton of people flat out hate the game cause what they did to Joel and nothing more. Whatever. Those people are mentally stunted and self entitled. The worst of the gamer community. And I actually think this story wpuld/will work great as a live action show. Just has to make it work for the medium but it can easily be done. And it will be for the upcoming HBO series which has said will incorporate both games into the series. If it were me, I'd introduce Abby right from the first season and have the series play out more linear. But we shall see how they do it.
@@juanjaramillo6854 Love this idea. I think it would be fascinating to actually empathize with Abby even way before she kills Joel and I think that would work better in a series form than a game form (I do appreciate the fact that the game story makes us hate Abby before begin to empathize with her)
I disagree with how extreme the ludonarrative dissonance is. The later part dealing with the rattlers is justified because they game shows you they are literally slave owners. And as you said the earlier violence with the wolves and scars is meant to show that disconnect. If I'm not mistaken one can also sneak past a lot of enemies, only missing out on valuable resources
I think ludonarrative dissonance is always a problem with these kinds of games, especially with a plot like this one which is basically looking at the cycle of vengeance and violence: you feel conflicted about persuing this one person, but it's perfectly fine with mowing down dozens of rank-and-file, because you need something to do to make the gameplay. I think studios have some more work to do to get around this, whether it's limiting the death count you build up through the whole game or having you fight more non-human foes where you're really doing them a favour by putting them out of their misery. Also, I honestly feel like the Rattlers were just kind of put in there so you'd have human foes to fight in the final chapter, regardless of how awful they were portrayed: though I honestly though we would be going up against the Fireflies again after they were mentioned so much, like Ellie was so focused on getting to Abby she mowed through them without a second though. Would suck for them though, lol.
Something the game doesn't talk about when it comes to the cure is that there is NO guarantee that the Fireflies would have distributed it fairly. They would have had a monopoly on mankind's survival and the power to capitalize on it.
@greenapplepear Except that a significant role in the whole cure premise in the first game intentionally puts doubt on the whole thing even working. So assuming that it would've worked or even had a chance of working at all is in itself going to break peoples suspension of disbelief when there's no evidence that it would and mountains of evidence that it wouldn't.
Nerd culture? This is mainstream audience entertainment. Same as those modern day Hollywood Marvel/DC super hero movies they keep pumping out. I think people really do confuse geek culture with mainstream audience entertainment these days. I blame that tv show 'The Big Bang Theory.' They made geekdom trendy. Hollywood caught onto that. Any self respecting true nerd wouldn't be caught dead with one of those modern Hollywood super hero movies or a Disney Star Wars movie in his movie collection. The real nerds are playing Defender, Space Invaders, or Pac-Man. Not this game.
Where is the respect in this game? The game panders to a modern political alignment and doesn't understand the ramifications of this. Such as a pregnant doctor Mel, which is a pretty valuable profession to have when a zombie apocalypse begins, deciding to put her child at risk for a throwaway line about female independence (even though Owen would've been the child's father, you won't even consult him before you leave to a warzone?). Or the fact there is a bigoted character in Seth (from San Francisco no less) that somehow still harbors homophobic thoughts after a zombie apocalypse begins and his whole family is killed just so he can be a punchline for a bigot joke. There are also just issues in poor writing. Abby is made way too hard to be a likeable character when the reality is that the story has a dissoassociation from the gameplay. If any of the thousands of nameless people that have been murdered by Joel, Ellie AND Abby over the story of the games were placed with the same importance as Abby, than there would be potentially 100s of people looking for revenge on all three of them throughout the story. Instead, Abby murders Joel and then she's the good person because her Dad may have found a cure by killing a fourteen-year-old before even asking if she's okay with it, with very limited equipment in an almost destroyed hospital with an almost destroyed Firefly force. Plus, what in the hell would a cure have done to stop raging psychopaths that the world is now full of from killing everyone? Were they just going to decide to be nice now that there may be a cure? And everyone's just gonna trust that the Fireflies actually have one? Also, who's to say that the Fireflies wouldn't have used the cure as way to gain power against what was left of the government (which suspiciously disappears from The Last of Us Part II)? They really make the scenes so forced where Jerry is painted as this saintly doctor who is basically the best human being ever to the point where it is just ridiculous. The man is so noble he saves a random zebra from some wiring just so we can see how much of a great guy this is that was about to kill Ellie on a whim. Also, he even tells Marlene to hide her being sacrificed from Joel even though he clearly has grown an attachment to her. Wow, what an amazing human being he is. The game just feels like it was lazily written and people call it a masterpiece because there are more minority characters and modern progressive ideals in favor of a logical story in a Post-Apocalyptic setting.
@@Roncon1997 I get the PC bullshit in this game, but Jerry could have potentially developed a cure for humanity. What does that do in a post apocalyptic world full of psychos hurr durr? Well the huge advantage of not getting infected. With comes the huge advantage of mowing down zombies much much easier and the huge advantage of losing much less people to the infection. Another is the centralization of a species. Well surely they could have used that for their own advantage, and yes considering the PC bs they push I'm sure they would have envisioned something along those lines in their own vision, even if they wouldn't admit it ever. But that view is extremely idiotic seeing how most people hate the fireflies and their agenda in this world, and the majority of people would have centralized to the in the FF vaccination posts and after some time, they would have surely overthrown the FF. People miss the whole point of this game and caught up in these superficial arguments. This game is about the humanity in each of us with all it's ugly and beautiful moments, strong and weak, hateful and empathetic, with our conflicts between what we percieve and what is real, between what we idealize and what is real, between parts of our own selves etc . The last part of us = the last parts us we want to acknowledge
the thing about this game is, we already know everyone is selfish and thinks they're right and others are wrong. that's practically the thesis of joel's actions at the end of the last of us. and so telling me that again just doesn't do it for me. i would have preferred a story about ellie overcoming that mentality in spite of the entire rest of the world being that way, interwoven with her finding out about what joel did and how to deal with that relationship. i wanted ellie to prove joel wrong
This game inadvertently proves Joel's mentality is 100% correct. If Abby had finished off Ellie and Tommy like Joel finished off Marlene, then her friends and dozens of people would still be alive. This game wants to tell us that violence is wrong, but really it's telling us that you if you're going to be violent don't leave any survivors.
clone shark this I could get behind. Ellie was always the spark of hope in the first game regardless of how dark it always got. I’d be content with a story about Ellie proving Joel wrong.
Sparing Abby's life at the end is the most selfless act I can think of. What do you mean when you say you would like her to overcome the selfishness of the world?
@greenapplepear What exactly is your argument as to why Abby sparing Ellie at the beginning was the right choice? It caused nothing but pain and misery for all parties involved. Ellie herself, deep in the back of her mind, probably wishes she died in that basement due all the trauma she endured. Utilitarianism is the default moral framework in most situations because this narrative because most moral frameworks in storytelling narratives are utilitarianism (this game is no exception).
I agree with everything up to the idea of Ellie being fine with ending lives until she finds one in particular. Ellie doesn't hate any of the basic Wolves, so her killing them is often dispassionate at best and frustrated at worst. It's only when she kills someone who she has an emotional connection to that she feels that destructive pain of revenge. You can actually feel this happen as you play in a weird way. The first time I killed a dog in this game, I felt like an absolute trash bag of a person, but by the 5th one, it was just as dispassionate as any of the people with names lives I snuffed out simply because they were in my way. So, I don't think it's actually dissonant, but entirely intended.
@Unfiltered Reality I would rather say that the game is for very emphatatic people who can feel and understand what these characters feel, but not necessarily agree with all the actions they take. All the gore, animations and voice lines add to the realism and theme of the game.
Bushi no Kami yeah that makes sense and this definitely wouldn’t be torture porn for very empathetic people yeah no sorry but there is no way someone with High empathy wouldn’t just see this game as an exercise in nihilism and sadism
@@K.Gthealmighty only if you can't accept and deal with the violence and sadness. It's all unfortunate, but realistic. If it bothers you, then you're probably sensitive. Emphatatic people aren't necessarily sensitive
Bushi no Kami I can deal with violence and sadness when it’s handled properly and ties in well with the theme of the game without clashing with it and this game doesn’t handle those concepts well at all. Ellie just ends up killing everyone except for the person she was originally planning on killing and ends up losing everything in the end how is that not nihilistic.
the "save the zebra moment" felt to obvious to me. too literal, it made me laugh and it shouldn't. I prefer saving the cat to be a metaphor for good side in general. if someone just saves an actual cat it doesn't work for me
Don't forget to pet the dog! Don't forget the random name of everyone you kill! So fucking ORIGINAL! Fuck off with your nuanced horse shit of 'OH just play as Abby you'll love her!' Bitch if I brutally killed the person you love the most in front of you, would I care even if I had the best reasons for it?! If you say yes then you are just lying to yourself and have not yet lost someone you really love.
@@psychodeviant8903 thank you for telling me😅 English is my third language and I tend to have this kind of errors, especially with the ph = f spelling. since I don't have this system in my language, I have to guess when the ph shows up, and it feels even a bit random. but now I corrected it, thank you!
I didn't like the zebra scene either. Who cares how the dude is willing to save a zebra when he still refuses to give Ellie a choice in whether she dies or not. Did he not swear a Hippocratic oath?
@@Beatness121 Not to mention that you can NOT create a vaccine for a fungi related sickness you dumb fucks! The realistic idea of zombies of the first game was the main hook for me, not the graphics, not NaughtyDog, not any other horse shit, and this is what we got after 7 years...
A game about love, loss, vengeance and finding humanity. i loved this game it shows that the world of last of us is a small world, i feel like it makes sense for Joel to die because the truth is he isn't a good person no one is in the world of last of us is, there are only survivors and when u survive in the world of last of us you survive at the cost of other people. many people are mad at the ending but its an amazing ending, because Ellie stepped up to be the better person even though Abby has done that a couple of time by letting Ellie live multiple times. People hate Abby's character but she is a conflicted character who is afraid of the idea of opening up. i feel Abby being Buff is a very smart decision from Naughty Dog's side as i feel like Ellie and Abby are two types of people, Ellie withered in sorrow and became a shell of her former self and Abby became stronger with one goal in her mind after her father's death and it was vengeance. Many people are angry over how Joel died and i think his death made sense as if it were for Joel from the first game sure he would have been able to see an ambush from a mile away but this Joel within those 5 years found his humanity started to trust people more. Life for Joel wasn't all about surviving its about making sure Ellie (his second shot at life) gets to feel welcomed, loved and cared, you cant do this without opening up. When you open up you start to trust people more and you are vulnerable. The ending in my opinion is magnificent, Ellie forgives Abby and lets her go, like a good person, its an "Eye for an eye" situation, Joel kills Abby's father and Abby takes vengeance by killing him the fight is settled. Ellie forgives Abby thus ending the cycle. People were mad over the fact that "Ellie only realized vengeance is bad after all the killing she did", i see where most people come from, but its one of those things when you embark on this journey the final prize always seems glorious and worthy of the risk and to make things worse the idea of it only becomes better and better as time goes on but when you get their it aint worth it. overall one of the best games i have ever played. It also showcase how hate is very much a strong emotion how much it propels people to get what they think is rightfully theirs. If you are mad at Joel going straight into an ambush you need to think about this its been 5 years since the first game, Joel isn't that guy anymore he knows what it feels like to care and be cared, when saw Abby he didn't see her as a threat he only saw her as girl who is around Ellie's age. See Joel was in a place where he was loved and loves someone Ellie, believe it or not sometimes its easier to be hated by everyone, than be loved because love does this weird thing where you feel welcomed and comfortable and being that Jackson area he was a respected part of that neighborhood, so when Joel saw Abby he could only think of this girl no older than Ellie,not the inevitable danger.
Well written. It's so refreshing to see someone that sees something about TLOU2 and doesn't immediately go, "oh TLOU2 that's such a shit game and you're a waste of oxygen for liking it". I'm so tired of seeing those comments... granted the game has flaws like any other game, and I'm not talking about story flaws for the mostpart. I'm mostly talking about glitches and stuff like that. I seriously wish that people could just be able to enjoy something without other people trying to cyber bully them for liking it. Anyways I'm dragging on, was nice to read your comment and learn your views on this game. For the record I loved the game and im not going to let other people change my mind about it.
@@TKelly476 ik i find it ironic how much a game about hate propells ppl to ruin other ppls day like sending death threats to the cast and fans. I say give it 5 years hope more ppl are matured enough to understand the story.
Same here. Because of how fast that scene went by, I didn't realize it was Tommy when he attacks her and she throws him into the water. Then Lev is like "Who was that?" and Abby is hesitant before going "Nobody, it's not important" and I'm all "Wait, was I supposed to know who that guy was? I didn't recognize him... Oh well, I'm sure they'll explain it later."
First, loved your video. Second, I feel like the passing of the game killed my investment in the story. So it all became a bad magic trick where you can see the strings. In the end, I was not conflicted, just bored. Not looking forward to the “Ludonarrative dissonance” discussion again haha
Good video, I always like how you find these references and interpret them with your own opinion. I disagree with the turn you took, though, haha :P but not in a hateful way as I've seen in the internet. Here's why: In the first game, you get to see great character development from both Joel and a little bit of Ellie. You go from this father who loses his child to get to love another girl as her own. So much that he's willing to kill that many people to save her. The conflict here is amazing, on one side you have this faction who wants a cure, and on the other side, you see someone who loves the one who could die for the cure. We even know that Ellie would've wanted to die if it meant to save so many others. It is a simple conflict, but one that resonated so much that we were able to see the ratings of the game (technical aspects aside, although they were amazing). In the second game, I don't get to see the same character development. On Abby's end, I feel like her story already happened and I'm playing the last part of it. Sure, they wanted to introduce a sensitive topic about religion and gender preference, but the first game did a great job with the sexual topic so naturally that it generated no trash talk about it (or at least not like I've seen in this game). I do understand that they did some writing formulas to make her likable, but honestly, I did not like her that much. She had some interesting one-liners, and I liked her companions. I even felt bad that Ellie had to go through them to get to Abby, but I never felt a connection between her "friends" and her; maybe just with Owen since they had quite the story together. I don't get to feel the loyalty aside from the fact that no one wants to tell Ellie where she is. Then they even try to paint Joel as not being as careful as in the first game, but then we see him tell Ellie to put on her mask in case they run into someone. The flashbacks just make many points more inconsistent with the choices they made during the game. I thought you were going to dive deep into how to go with an idea, how the excecution matters in how you tell a story. Because while it worked for the first seasons on Game of Thrones, it did not work for me on this game. In the end I was ok with the decisions, but I think they should've thought better on how to portray their feelings up to the point of making said decisions. I also believe the new writer and the co-director leaving Naughty Dog had a big influence in how the story went... but not much to mention on that subject. I think there is so much material to analize from this game, and I really hope you get to do it because I like the way you dive into amazing references. In no way I'm trying to undermine your experience, because I like that you give your reasons about liking it, I hope I didn't make it feel that way.
I loved it. Had no clue on media around it. Thought everyone would love it. Was shocked at some reactions. But then again, I didn't watch CNN or Fox talk about it before I PLAYED! So I just had my own non slanted real opinion. Great game!!!!
Yeah for a sequel to one of my all-time favorite games I would at least give it the benefit of the doubt until I played it for myself and tried to understand what the devs intended. I didn’t wait 7 years just to see leaks out of context and hate the game before I’ve even played it. People are so ridiculously immature sometimes. The review bombing just compounds that. I didn’t think the game was a masterpiece but it at least deserved a fair shake like everything else.
I loved it too! And this is coming from someone who thought the original, was just decent but extremely overrated. This imo was definitely one of the best games/sequels ever made....just a true marvel.
It's because the controversy behind the game was based on the homophobic views where Ellie and Dinah are lesbian couples while Abby is transgender. Plus, Joel is killed by Abby with a golf club which I don't understand at first about why he was killed. I can't tell if Neil Druckmman is a massive jerk who attempted to flip off the game community or just a misunderstood person outside the media. Is Anita Saarkishan responsible for ruining the game and used him as a scapegoat to prove her point? Or maybe it's because I was misinformed. The Internet is complicated these days and I can't tell which one is black or which is white.
The way i understood the ending was that ellie wasnt that much hurt from joels death but because she didnt forgave him in life, and, as she says, she wanted to try, then she goes hunting for abby thinking that will make her feel better, later realizing that it wont make her feel better and thus killing abby wont help her sleep and it would be pointless to kill her and leave the kid to die. This is also seen with abby that even tho she killed joel and avenged his father she still cant sleep well, only when she helps the kids she starts to rest
Tommy being the sniper is not a surprise. The player knows he's in town and they had a flashback sequence where you go sniping with him and they mention how good he is.
Plus the reason Ellie and Jesse split up is because they overhear there’s a sniper in the marina so he goes there, and later Jesse arrives with Tommy... So when you’re playing as Abby in the marina and finds a sniper, it’s kinda obvious it’s Tommy.
I don't really have an issue with joel being killed. I believe it was expected. But I do have an issue with the circumstances of his death. I think it was too coincidental that Abby found right away the guy that she was looking for for years! Also how can you make her sympathetic when she tortures to death without any hesitation a man that saved her life like half an hour ago? Her motive for revenge is relatable but her actions seemed too cruel at least for me. So even when the game tried to humanise her it did not work for me. I was always thinking about how cruel she was towards someone whom she hated admitetally for good reason but ultimately saved her life. I mean she could at least give him a quick death...
yeah I don't know why they wanted to rushed that much is death and is true everything they do to make her likable feel weird after the way she kill joel
Ok so picture that you just go into your home one day and you found your father dead and you know exactly who did it, then picture your father was working on a vaccine that could cure the entire world. Years later you are saved by the guy who singlehandedly killed your father and doomed all his work for stoping the pandemic nightmare. You are telling me that you would forgive this man just because he saved your life without knowing who you are?
Gordon rass kwasi And yet I bet you were disappointed that Ellie didn’t kill Abby at the end despite the fact that Abby spared Ellie and her friends twice.
Pierre-Simon Cloutier Lavoie And not to mention Ellie fucked up Abby too. Ellie could have just let them go but instead she brought a knife to a fist fight. Pretty cruel imo.
In a way he is responsible for every new infected at least. Not every death because human killing each other won't just stop. That's what Ellie feels btw, guilt she can't save people like that one flashback
pulpficti Do you really believe that 1. They could have made the vaccine despite vaccines being useless against fungi and 2. The fireflies could have and WOULD have distributed it to everyone instead of keeping it for themeselves to gain power and respect over other factions? Joel didn't do anything wrong.
I think the best stories are those that make us want to talk about and discuss it, try to understand and exchange opinions about it. TLOU Part II seems to have achieved that. I was quite satisfied with the game and its story, but I like to read other people with different opinions with solid arguments.
I agree, it's ok that a game's story challenges us mentally. But one might wonder if the current story line didn't cross the boundary between challenging our minds and reconsider our values, or try so hard to be controversial at key moments, that the message of "let's take a moment to think about this" gets overwhelmed by the shock effect of some graphical moments in certain cutscenes and plot twists. Apart from people being shocked by seeing Joel killed early in the game, even though the trailers and pre-release info made it appear like the main story would revolve about Joel and Ellie, and Ellie being the only playable character, which raised false expectations, some events feel forced, like these were added for extra dramatic effect, but sometimes less is more might have worked out better.
RC-Fan NL what was controversial besides the nature of Joel’s death and the general concept of playing as a character initially believed to be the antagonist for nearly half the game, but i wouldn’t call two divisive narrative delivery devices “trying too hard to be controversial in key moments” not sure where you’re coming from at all with that tbh
@@lac22lac40 controversial in the sense of whether some of the shocking/awkward storyline twists really enhanced the experience of playing this game, or just added for extra shock effect. Sometimes less is more. Like in the final battle, Ellie losing some fingers. So the final scene was even more dramatic, as Ellie could no longer play the guitar well. Some think it's a great detail, but I get the impression that more people feel like this was over the top, and the scene would have been very emotional without this somewhat gruesome detail.
RC-Fan NL criticisms like this are so wild to me, like go become a writer at Naughty Dog then 😂 but until then just reflect on the story that WAS told not the story you WANTED told
RC-Fan NL no one’s ever like “Tolkien really shouldn’t have had Frodo throw the ring in Mount Doom, because Frodo should’ve been pure enough to overcome the ring” see how absurd that sounds? it’s Neil Druckmann, Halley Gross, Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, etc.’s story, not yours
"If you're able to reconsider your emotions while you play" I think this line kind of fundamentally addresses the core issue of the game. Why should I have to reconsider things that the game tried so hard to instill in me, and then does absolutely nothing to change. I don't think showing Abby petting dogs, or acknowledging that she's a real human with actual friends (who are all flat and boring and one-note) should get me to care about her. She takes joy from torturing people throughout her entire arc, she has no problem cheating on her pregnant friend with her other friend. You say the game makes players empathize with her and I think it fails in that entirely. I got to the Ellie v. Abby fight and still felt bewildered that I was being asked to attack and try to kill the only character left in the game who I cared about. It felt fundamentally wrong; there was no conflict for me. I pushed down my feelings and did what the game wanted me to do, but every time I failed as Abby I thought to myself "good, im glad she died here." I literally liked Abby less after being forced to endure being responsible for her survival and success as a player, she showed me she was somewhat complex in that she's not just "that cunt who tortured and murdered one of my favorite characters" she was also "that cunt who enjoyed torturing and murdering one of my favorite characters and is a bad friend but felt guilty enough to help a stranger." Almost 100% of the people (and dogs, thanks heavy-handed themes) you kill as Ellie in the game is purely in self defense, but I'm supposed to feel bad about that because Abby knew some of the people that died? I hate her why would I feel bad? All of these people put themselves in a situation where they attack strangers on sight with no hesitation. Ellie kills a pregnant woman in self defense and is immediately traumatized after learning she was pregnant after-the-fact. Abby sees an opportunity to murder an innocent pregnant woman just to hurt someone she dislikes and she says "fucking good". How the fuck is this unlikable cunt comparable to someone I've spent 30 hours trying to protect and see grow as a character. And to me that is why this video game failed as a story, because Abby sucks and the game offers nothing to change that and offers Ellie no real reason to think about her actions. She spends years of real time and kills hundreds of people just for the person who killed her dad to mutilate her, and realize "joel talked to me on a porch one time" and give it all up in the end only to still lose everything?
Exactly. Ellie showed remorse and was troubled by her actions, while Abby never showed any. We're supposed to like her because she's the "new Joel" and Lev is the "new Ellie". But she never questions her actions. And I'm not surprised how quick "ways to kill Abby" videos came out soon after the game released.
I think the point was to show that where she was coming from to justify Joel's death, to show us she was a human who is trying to survive in this world just like Ellie and has ppl in her life she cares about. Liking her or hating is entirely subjective.
@@psychedelicyeti6053 I think she was a trained killer before killing Joel. After that, she met Yara and Lev and that's where she wanted redemption for what she has done. Her side of the story was interesting.
I disagree that there’s a dissonance in the ending portion with Ellie, as well as Abby’s death being “one too many” and that’s why Ellie stopped. The problem wasn’t all the killing by itself. Especially in that last portion, where the game goes out of its way to show that group of hunters as particularly evil and disgusting, more than any other faction in the game. What stopped Ellie wasn’t that “oh no killing is wrong”, but the motivation behind it, as well as Abby’s current state. Ellie realized she was being driven by hate and hate alone, and stopped. Abby didn’t even want to fight. She was a broken woman who just wanted to protect a child. And still, Ellie almost killed her just because she couldn’t get over Joel’s death. But once she remembered she was willing to (try to) forgive Joel, she remembered her humanity and became willing to (try to) let go of the hate. She let Abby go not because killing is wrong, but because being driven by hate was consuming her.
Well said but I also think Abby sparing Ellie twice heavily factors into her final decision, it’s like at the end of god of war when Kratos says “the cycle ends here”
Jeff Santos I disagree. Ellie CHOSE to set out after Abby. It’s not like the WLF or the SCARS attacked Jackson. Ellie was intentionally trespassing on their land to kill one of their own. The WLF were defending themselves honestly.
Funny thing is I remember during the sniper segment I was getting so angry and was literally saying " I swear to god I'm gonna fuck this dude up when I get there" and then it blew my mind when it was Tommy.
Having not finish this video I feel like a large part of people's opinion on the quality of part 2 depends on how they saw Joel's act at the end of part 1 the people who agreed with Joel and thought that the game had an overall had a theme of Hope and second chances are more inclined to dislike part 2 and people disagreed with him and thought that the themes of part 1 were more about the selfishness of humanity are more inclined to like part 2
I definitely see your point but speaking from my own perspective I have to disagree. I agreed with Joel's choice at the end of part 1 and most of part 2 but seeing in reframed in a different perspective (ie Abby's) made me see that what he did was wrong and that's part of why I think this game is so well done. It changed my mind about something I've thought fondly of for 7 years.
@@xp4perplanesx You're basically proving my point you think what Joel did at the end of the first game was wrong and because of that it's easier for you to sympathize with Abby even if you only became convinced of that through playing the second game
I disagree tho. I understand Joel's decision, and he is one of my favorites fictional character ever, TLOU 1 was the story of Joel's redemption and it worked really great. But still, it doesn't make not selfish, even tho the cure most likely wasn't going to work Joel saved Ellie and didn't thought if she was willing to die for that, it was selfish. And yet i really liked part 2, both games are very different as i feel like TLOU 1 tells the story on a more traditional way and TLOU 2 tells it in a very different way.
@@xp4perplanesx Yea. I think this is because we played as Joel and thus kind of saw Ellie as our own daughter. Who wouldn't due what Joel did for their daughter? But his actions from a second perspective is entirely the point of Abby's part. If we heard today that a man gunned down dozens of people to save his daughter's life, we'd probably want that man put to justice as well The sad part is that Joel was trying to be better 4 years after the first game. He had changed. And that's the tragedy of blind revenge. It robs people of that. Abby didn't see Joel's change, but Ellie saw that Abby had changed with the way she spared Dina and was protective/listening to Lev. That's one of the reasons Ellie didn't enact her revenge and Abby did.
People's opinion depends on how much they care about Joel and the story. The story is terrible but if you're here for gameplay and graphics it's not bad.
What I love was that Abby was, in reality, very similar to Ellie. They were fighting for similar things. And in the end-Abby became a character similar to Joel.
It's trying to ape the story of TLOU1, but Abby slaughters her own people to take care of someone she just met, while it takes an entire game to tell the story of Joel and Ellie.
@@thickoatmeal5719 I mean the only man in the world (that we know of) who can find a cure is dead so did it really matter if abby killed ellie even if she was the cure?
Finally, a positive review of TLOU2. I liked the first game and spent over 100 hours on it. However, for TLOU2, I have just been on and off and haven't beaten the game yet. I just cannot get into it, However, It doesn't mean that I hate the game like everyone else does over the Internet. The story isn't good but not bad as trash or sh*t like people criticized it either. I really like the franchise and I really hope there will be TLOU3 someday.
What would the Last of us 3 even be about? It would have to be longer than 2 since Naughty Dog always goes bigger. But at this point almost all of the majors characters are dead/crippled in some way. The first game’s ending was a great jumping off point for a sequel. The second game’s ending felt much more final. I don’t want to see Abby and Lev joining the fireflies lmao i don’t care 🤷🏼♂️
In a podcast Druckmann said that he never wanted to make the player sympathize with Abby. He wanted to show the other side of the story from a different perspective. And the game does that perfectly. Its not a bad story or game only because its not what people wanted or expected. If people dont like it, thats fine. But then it is a problem of the player, not the game. Personal taste.
“It’s not the game, it’s the player”. I 100% agree cause lots of people actually like it, and some don’t, that proves it depends on what the player wants to happen, not what the writers want you to see happen.
Anunay Gupta I have read thousandths of comments on this game and never has anyone mentioned the shit about Abby being naked. What are you a fckin perve you seem to be the only one paying attention to details like that. Niell ain’t a perve, you make a game then
I agree with this. This is one of the reasons the game got mixed reviews. The direction they took for the story was not exactly what a lot of us expected. It was a unique plot decision. To some, it might have been bad writing and may have even ruined the game for them altogether. But to others, the plot decision may have been an understandable one. Unconventional for a revenge story, but understandable. They want to show us the broader context and relate the product of the events that unfold to the theme of the story. But, once more, we return to your point. It's a matter of the player, not the game. Personally, I liked it a lot. But I can understand why a lot of people didn't. It's fair for all gamers to have their own perspectives on it. But in the end, TLOU 1 and 2 get us to truly question the nature of morality in the light of emotion and how sometimes, the right thing to do can *feel* like the wrong thing to do and vice versa.
@@Exel3nce I think you won't regret if you finally do so. you see, the story is like an anthology, diferent stories and arcs in one show. you don't have to watch every single episode like in other shows. I recommend you to Google the recommended episode order to start. people made a list with the most relevant episodes and arcs, for example avoiding jar jar will be easier this way if you don't like him. the things I personally like about this show is their characters (Anakin is a likable character here) and their interactions. while other movies don't give the clones any importance or even faces, here the clones have diferent personalities and the episodes involving them, apart from incloudingbfihhting, touch themes like individualism, freedom, honour or what it means to be a soldier while being fun to watch and epic. the female characters are tridimentional and even the villains are interesting (except grievous but he's still fun to watch) another motive why you might like it is that this show had some balls when it came to storytelling, not hesitating to explore more complex and meaningful topics, and in general, it feels like a mature show that doesn't treat it's viewers like babies. very beautiful, meaningful, epic or dramatic arcs. it's storytelling aged spectacularly well and it's animation improves over time, getting a very cinematic look during battles. I really suggest you to search for the arcs on those episode lists made by fans, it's the ultimate clone wars experience and order since the show itself is not in chronological order. think of this like when you watch naruto and follow a list which excludes the filler episodes 😁 also it's pretty straight forward and easy watch. it's not pretentious at all like some shows. if one day you decide to watch it I hope you enjoy it a lot! I didn't watch the recent episodes and I didn't watch every episode from the previous seasons either, but I did watch the more important ones and I think it's the best prequel experience, and it's star wars at it's best! even people who are not that into the star wars movies get to like this. you just have fun friend 😁
To me the problem was that I could see the writers hands desperately trying to create cenarios to make me care for abby, using dogs and other animals to mirror the giraffe scene from the first one, giving a child side character to protect again, like in the first game and so on. That aside, all of the suporting characters are so bland and forgettable, how am I suppose to care for their deaths if they have no personalities? Not only that, Abby herself barely reacts to many of her friends deaths, I don't even think that she found out about Nora's death. If she does not care why should I?. Even though I understand her motivations Abby's story felt so artificial and bland that I could not engage with it.
I think in a way, the reason why I couldn't emphasize with Abby was that there was no backbone to their relationships like the cast of the first game did. I think with the first game the thing that really made me empathize with those characters was because of desperation. It was in those moments when characters were at their most desperate and weakest that I really felt the connection between characters, (Tess's sacrifice, Sam's final moments of pondering about life before his turning, Henry's frantic decision to blame Joel and Ellie but then ends himself, Marlene's indecision but ultimately making a difficult decision as leader of the Fireflies). A lot of these characters feel so human to me because of their desperation to survive and make sense of the bleak world they live in. For some reason I couldn't feel that way about Abby, im not sure why but I think its because her revenge never felt desperate in how she gets to Joel, which in comparison to Ellie felt much more effort was put into doing. Her revenge doesn't feel like a journey, heck her revenge came to her that I felt like she didn't deserve it due to how convenient it was for her, and for a game that prides in its gritty realism, it fails to make Abby's revenge feel realistic. As far as I know she had only obsessed with finding out where Joel is, but nothing about how she gets to Jackson was ever shown, we never see her thirst of revenge tested in the obstacle that is this zombie-esque world. In the first game even trekking just outside the walls was dangerously filled with clickers and runners, in the roads lay traps readied by the hunters, we see how dangerous and desperate people are to survive to the point of cannibalism. We see how they are a product of this apocalyptic setting. I think maybe that's, why a lot of people are saying that they felt like this, wasn't a Last Of Us game because it lost that element of survival and desperation, it forgot to flesh out the intimacy between characters.
Well when Yara and Manny die it is on the battlefield where she has to continue her mission or risk being killed as well, it's like saying Ellie diddnt care about Jesse's death. Also when Abby saw the death of Mel and Owen she literally pukes, i dont know where exactly she doesn't react to the death of her friends. It sounds like you merely made that up to be honest.
@@blaccpanther8715 the point is the deaths are barely aknowledged by her, just because manny and yara died on the battlefield does that make it ok to basically forget about them later in the plot? What emotional impact does it have for me? Owen and mel have one scene and that is it, they are also erased from the plot, no mourning no remembering no nothing, but the plot wants me to believe that they were very important, the story also needs to do better than just tell me that Abby cares, or throw one scene and be done with it. Deaths of complete strangers had more substance in the first game. Please if you don't agree that is fine, but don't say that people made things up just because you don't agree with it.
I’m a pretty simple guy. If I see a game, movie, or book that I’m interested in, I get excited and look forward to experiencing its story. This game was no exception. Now, I must have been another plain of existence or something, because I didn’t see or hear any of the “leaks” for this game until after I finished the it. So one could say I went in with as close of an ideal perspective as Naughty Dog could ask for. And for me, the story probably achieved the feelings it was meaning to invoke. This was probably due to the fact that I only had the speculations about Ellie and Abby’s relationship that were made when we first saw Abby in the gameplay trailer LITERALLY YEARS AGO! So I went in to this game thinking that Abby was Ellie’s mother, and that the story would tell her history, who Ellie’s father was, and possibly even explain more about Ellie’s immunity. So for the first two hours of the game, I thought Abby was in a flashback. And when I saw Joel save her from the infected horde, I was thinking; NO WAY, JOEL IS TOTALLY ELLIE’S REAL DAD! AND NEITHER OF THEM KNOW IT! And the idea of Joel and Tommy just walking into a hideout full of armed strangers didn’t really strike me as odd at first, because I was still thinking this whole thing is in then past. This could be the group that Joel and Tommy were part of when they did those “unspeakable things” Joel refers to in the first game. And they hadn’t learned to be as cautious as they should be yet. The moment I realized that Abby wasn’t a flashback didn’t even come when she shot his leg. It only came after I saw that Joel’s entire right knee was gone did I think; “oh, this is for real”. So that was a twist for me. And then then you all know the rest of it by now. Like I said before, because I went into this game basically blind in regards to spoilers, I’d say for me it did its job. At the two critical points where Abby and Ellie face off, I didn’t want either to die. When Abby killed Joel, I was right there with Ellie, hating her guts. But by the time we had returned as Abby to the theater, I was genuinely concerned with who was going to walk out afterward. And that was the story’s goal in my opinion. So am I glad that Joel’s dead, no. But am I happy there are new potential character arcs and new stories to experience, yes. So please play the game through yourself even if you say you’ve already known the full story for months. It really does deserve at least one play through.
100% agree. I also played it unbiased and "unspoiled", and it was a marvel to play through. I shit you not, when I played the game it was raining heavily outside, with lightning and the whole shebang. So immersion in the game was on point. Several weeks later I'm still talking about the game. Haven't really done that with any other game, to be honest.
I played the game spoiler free too. Based off of what I got from the trailers I thought Abby could be Ellie's mom too! I knew she was mad and hostile from the first scene of her but didn't know if it was a flashback or not until I saw Joel. He was old when he met Abby so I didn't think they could be friends especially since she said she was looking for someone and was willing to interrogate a squad from jackson to look for them.
@Andrew Gray She did pay for her crime through Karma. She lost her lover and all of her friends for killing Joel. TLOU2 is a good game, as a stranger from the Internet I highly recommend that you try it! :)
The story definitely messed with my head and emotions, but I don't think it hit me quite as hard as it did for others, because my entire thought process towards the actions of every character's actions was "what you're doing is really messed up, and I don't really like you for it, but at the same time, I empathize, and I get it." For one reason or another, I was already at that emotional place the story was trying to take me before I played it. The execution is a bit messy and absolutely long-winded, but all in all, I think it did a really good job, even if it did sort of stumble across the finish line. I respect any story that dares to be ambitious and tries to do something challenging, so I can forgive a some missteps in execution.
What you said in quotations is exactly the problem with morality in modern day. Intolerance is a bad thing, something that is painfully clear due to the excessive moralizing in society of its ills. We can agree on that, but just as a deficit of tolerance is bad, so is an excessive amount of tolerance. That's our plight in today's day, that and no one has a defined morality. No one knows what's good or bad or how we should deal with good acts and bad acts, we all just accept them as the same and "empathize" them excusing them. Abby literally TORTURED a man to death, in what world can you then say to yourself "ya, I get it". Especially when that man just saved your life moments before!
I understand this. Neither Abby nor Ellie were good people. Neither were Joel or Owen for that matter. The characters in this serious were humanity, but rendered in such a high resolution that it becomes ugly. When the photograph shows so many details that all you can see are pockmarks and irregularities. Most irregular - but also arguably the most human - of them all, is the capacity to hate. And this game runs down THAT particular road very nearly all the way. To let something like hate consume us utterly - we want to believe you'd be better than that. But like you say, you get it - we get it. Its really uncomfortable seeing people behave like this, and a big part of how uncomfortable it is comes from how sympathetic it is - how relatable it is. Heck, tons of the detractors for this game series are prime examples of this concept writ large - so many people hating on this game hate it because "Ellie didn't get her revenge, but Abby did". They are literally the point that is embodied by both Abby and Ellie when they're on rampage mode - that is the cycle that must be broken. The fact that people fall into it so readily just demonstrates to me how real and human the things the game talks about really is.
I disagree with only one point you've made. The scene with the Zebra wasn't put in for us to like Abby. It was put in to show, or emphasize, the Doctor had a good heart. Which gives his character more meaning in the overall story. Abby wasn't as invested at that moment. 5:41 Good vid.
I disagree with you both, in that I think MAINLY the zebra was to connect our empathy with Ellie to our empathy with Abby, and somewhat short-circuit our brains with conflicting emotions (Abby as an "other" suddenly becomes very much Ellie, and thus very difficult to see as an "other"). The zebra immediately goes to the same place Ellie and Joel encountered the giraffes in part 1...at the same moment we see the hospital, and put all the pieces together. It has the added benefit of engendering empathy for Abby and her father, but it's a bonding moment between father and daughter that very much mirrors Ellie and Joel's bonding moment in part 1. How can we hate Abby for killing Ellie's father, when the reason she did it is because Joel killed HER father...who just happened to be on the cusp of saving the entire human race?
@Andrew Gray It didn't seem humanity was recovering very well. They all devolved into murderous, amoral factions hell-bent on killing each other. Moreover, the vaccine they were making wouldn't have been made by taking antibodies from her blood (this wasn't Covid-19, or a virus). The FUNGUS was in her BRAIN, and dormant, unlike in everyone else who ever contracted it. To make the vaccine, they had to destroy her brain...and thus kill her.
As an avid lover of God of War 2018, thank you for quoting that specific line. As I was playing TLOU2 and I was watching Ellie's soul get torn apart by her ruthless quest for revenge, all I could think about were those words of aged wisdom from Kratos to Baldur.
I'm very happy to see a positive video on the game. I love the part where you mention that people only base their judgement on spoilers instead of playing it themselves. I really loved the game personally and it brought out every emotion possible, thanks for the great video.
so basically discredit the negative voices based on one portion of the group, and not acknowledging the valid criticisms the rest of the group seems to have, got it
@@xyc350 Well considering there has been thousands of videos downgrading or bashing this game since the leaks happened I can see why they felt the need to not follow that trend.
the review bombing on day 1 is proof enough that people start by hating the game and their whole experience following that has confirmation bias strewn throughout. And many will just watch a let’s play and think that is somehow equivalent to playing the game.
@@mercuryrockum1562 I was talking about the method of picking & choosing weak arguments to discredit the entire opposing side, OFC people can have a difference of opinion, but this is more of a lazy and ineffective way to corroborate one's point
@@The_Story_Of_Us Doesn't change the fact that this failed to address some of the most compelling arguments out there but instead focuses on the weak ones in an effort to discredit the other side. Having people on one side spewing out bullshit doesn't just cancel out the valid criticisms, because then someone could totally just ignore your valid arguments, just say "people who like this game are just simping for naught dog."
TLOU2 took the world and story of the first game and did something entirely different. But the underlying theme was the same. In the first game, it at first seems to be about the struggle for survival, but it is really about the characters struggling to hold onto their humanity in spite of the terrible decisions and actions they commit. In TLOU we understood the purpose of Joel and Ellie's journey. They were on a mission where the stakes were a cure to the infection that caused the collapse of the world. Anything they did was therefore justified, because it was another step towards saving the human race. And this was what made the ending so shocking, because Joel did the unthinkable due to his feelings for Ellie. But it kept with the the story's theme. In Joel's mind, his saving Ellie was justified, because the bond between them represented the last bit of humanity he had in the world, and he would fight for it at all costs. Whether he was driven more by weakness or love was beyond the point. In the second game, on the surface, the characters' motives appear clear. They are driven by hate. But the main theme is not revenge. Like in TLOU, it is about retaining some shred of humanity in a cruel and unforgiving world. At the end of the game Ellie sees this in the bond between Abby and Lev at the beach. She also realizes that Lev will likely die without Abby, or go on to become another monster in their cycle of revenge--this being the person who had spoken up to save Ellie and Dina from Abby's rage in the theater. It was clear in the cut scene how Ellie was internally conflicted and about to let the two go without a fight. But Ellie's vision of a dead Joel triggered the hate still inside. In the end, she does spare Abby though. And by doing so, Ellie beaks the cycle of hatred and stops herself from becoming a complete monster. The deeper meaning of this action is further shown in the closing scene between her and Joel. The world had become a hard place that brought out the worst in people, but not without reason. Joel did what he did, because as much as Ellie's life would've meant to the world in finding a cure, she'd already become everything to him. The brief flashback of Joel on the guitar before she let Abby go reminded her of this, and that if she was ever going to hold on to her humanity she'd have to learn to forgive not only Joel for the ugliness the world brought out of him, but others too. Ellie's failure to do this at first ultimately cost her so much, as she had gotten others killed, lost Dina, and become unable to play the guitar. It likely would have consumed her in the end. But she was fortunately able to regain her capacity to be a human again. We can also infer that she got much needed closure by finally making amends for the actions of Joel, and in the process, could honor his memory. That is exceptional writing. Of course the story did have some plot holes in other areas, but the heart of the story is still a solid one, and stands on its own while building on what the first game laid out. But because it dared to do it differently and in a complex way, people were disappointed.
I can only agree with you, everybody who hates the story or especially Abby doesnt get the point of the game. You are supposed to be on Ellies side because she is the main character. Your favorite character from game 1 gets killed by the bad guy. You then seek revenge and hunt down the bad guy at all costs. This is a story told a million times in books, movies and games. But TLOU2 turns everything upside down by making you play the bad guy. And suddenly I completely understood Abby, why she wanted to kill Joel, why she didnt kill Ellie and Thommy when she had the chance. Why every friend she looses gives her no choice but to stop Ellie. By that point I rooted for Abby and the game even made you fight Ellie as Abby, which further prooves the point that Ellie is a complete psychopath from Abbys point of view. The endfight was torture because I didnt want to fight Abby, but you had no choice (maybe thats the biggest complaint people have: the lack of player choices) but like you already said the end shows that Ellie only seeked revenge and paid the ultimate price. a little of topic but a lot of the story reminded me of Naruto and Pain. Because to stop the vicious cycle of revenge killing one has to take all the pain on himself and forgive.
The way you put it makes way more sense than the way the actual game puts it. I like the game a little more now. It’s still pretty crappy though. I never would’ve come to that conclusion without your comment. The game just told the story really badly I feel, but your comment made that mess much easier to understand
that is exactly what I like about this game so much. You have many individual opinions on the story good and bad but through all the emotional turbulences throughout this game you start to think more and more about what story they truly want to tell you. You can put all the pieces together in the end and make up your ultimate opinion about the game. It is no use to be biased by certain events happening before the release even and hate the game to bits. It is much better to try and understand what the writers truly meant when creating such a controversial story. Nice to see everyones opinion on the game and I liked yours especially!
There actually is a theory that Ellie is still with Dina, at the end of the game it’s months later and Ellie has something on her wrist. What is it? It’s dinas bracelet she made for Ellie. We don’t see the bracelet on her when she leaves or in her boat, or in her backpack when she is tracking down Abby for the last time. Speaking of the backpack, notice how she doesn’t have any weapons or holsters on it? It’s like she took them to some other place or stored them somewhere. Ellie goes through the house and isn’t surprised to see it empty and abandoned. She doesn’t breakdown or talk about how she regrets everything, she just plays Joel’s guitar peacefully. And in the end, she leaves the guitar to show how maybe leaving a memory and leaving something important behind can help her heal. Not only that, but help her move on as a person. Also a little tidbit, before Ellie does leave, theres a note from Jesses parents saying that they will always have a home in jackson. I personally believe in this whole theory and I find it even more cool that naughty dog hides these small details for the players to come to a conclusion
What I liked the most about this game is that after everything was said and done, I couldn't simply say that neither one side or the other was completely correct or completely wrong. I knew and loved Ellie from the start, and was gradually thinking that she was losing her moral upper hand, even though still justified. While on Abby's side I started with the opposite feeling, but when I thought objectively that she was avenging her father and even spared people who had no part in his death (Ellie and Tommy), I could give her some credit while still not LIKING her. Both fathers had taken ambiguous decisions, and unlike the point made in the video, I think that every death in this game is the result of Jerry's (Abby's father) decision to simply kill a girl in surgery without her consent, or Joel's. If anything, that scene between him and Marlene served as a redemption for her, and puts a heavier weight on her murder by Joel's hands. Joel, Jerry, Ellie and Abby...all of them justified and wrong at the same time. This conflict is brilliant.
I view this from Joel's actions, not Jerry's... Yes, it was a kid he didn't know, who they didn't inform on how the cure would kill her. Jerry and the rest of the surgeons lacked sensibility during that part, let the kid know. However, this kid was the only link to a cure because of the mutated spores in her brain, had they said anything, there was a possibility still that she'd say no, and her sacrifice would mean saving humanity. One life for the many that follow. However, Joel took that information and immediately acted on selfish desire to have Sarah's surrogate remain alive. Despite having the ability to return to a humane world had he let go of Ellie/Sarah. Despite what he thought was heroic and just, he did an evil thing in which he killed the last known doctor who could do this surgery and took the only known cure from humanity. His actions led to his own demise and the demise of countless others. Ellie even mentioned in the first game close to St Mary's that she wants her immunity to mean something, and 4 years after that she comes forward and says outright she would've wanted them to do it.
@@J0J0155 I agree with what you said about Joel's actions being selfish, but if anything, Jerry's decision to not wake Ellie was motivated by cowardness. They could have simply ignored her eventual denial and kill her for the greater good anyway, but he couldn't live with that...Yeah, I really dislike Jerry jahaha...Ah, one other thing that I saw people saying and I never thought about: Finding a cure in a fucked up world like that would never mean hope, it would mean leverage. Fireflies, as every other group that we encountered on both games, would go corrupt over this thing. I still think that a cure at the cost of Ellie's life was not the right way, but this doesn't fix the duality in Joel's actions.
@@paulgotik You're right, that is way worse than simply killing him. What im saying is that even though she did this, she showed some humanity by letting Ellie and Tommy live. Latter Ellie tortures a person who wasn't even the one who killed Joel, and at the same time feels horrible for killing a pregnant woman in self defense. Our rules and morals are different from theirs because of the context they live in, but my point is this ying yang shit around the cycle of revenge.
@@marvelousmeh2077 still, ludonarrative dissonance is definitely a thing. Gameplay's probably still fun but doesn't support the story. Which is fine, but I just come to appreciate a game more when the gameplay matches or enhances the story.
@@djroscurro9859 Gameplay absolutely supports the story. It's rageful, it's hateful, it's brutal - just like the plot of the TLoU2. The story isn't some wishy-washy "killing (or the internet's favorite, revenge) bad". It's about a world of monsters creating monsters, then, in the end, fighting back against that. "Evil is a contagious act in this world, but maybe a kind act can be just as contagious." Abby saves Lev, and Lev saves Dina and Ellie, and Ellie saves Abby and Lev.
Did everyone pay attention to Joel's expressions in the moments before the first swing? Did it look like he was clearly contemplating that, "this is it, my demons finally caught up to me." Then proceeds to face those demons head on, accepting the fate (he does that thing with his mouth, then says get it over with)?
If you want to know the answer, Troy Baker has an awesome explanation about what Joel thought in that moment, in this interview, starting at about 16:20, m.th-cam.com/video/g6rRfK-V2jY/w-d-xo.html&feature=share
@ Kristoffer Senneset You can directly link to youtube time-stamps. Here's the link directly to the beginning of Troy Baker's 2.5 minute commentary on Joel's thoughts he tried to convey: th-cam.com/video/g6rRfK-V2jY/w-d-xo.html
Due to the cliffhanger preceding Abby’s story, I was more or less going through it as quickly as possible and was just wanting to get back to the main story. I was less interested in her and her friends. However the biggest problem is that once Abby’s story was over and we go back to the theater where she’s already killed Jesse and she shoots Tommy and almost kills Dina any goodwill I head towards her vanished. I went from thinking she was OK back to thinking she was an a-hole again.
@Poop69 Let's not forget, they don't have the same perspective as we, the player do. Abby didn't know Ellie was disgusted after accidentally killing pregnant Mel. She probably thought it was done in cold blood.
Poop69 I agree. As for Mel and Owen, I mean why not tell Ellie that Abby went to the island. Not like she would have found her in all that chaos. Mel had little loyalty to Abby by that point as we saw in Abby’s story. I believe they were arguing about Abby coming along too and Mel was pissed. Ellie’ would have let them go, until they attacked her. Actually the thing that I really had difficulty believing was after Abby had beaten Joel to death in front of Ellie and Tommy, she seemed surprised they came after her. She spent 4 years looking for Joel and plotting his death. How the hell did she, of all people, not expect it. I mean after what she did, to expect no retribution either makes her so cold she does not empathize with how others may react or just really stupid.
Yeah, I don't think this succeeds at all in trying to make you feel anything for Abby. The emotions of this game work better in a vacuum, than it does in the context of the first game. You're talking about immersion. If you want the player to feel contradictory feelings, they have to feel undecided about how they want to proceed. Games like Baldur's Gate and Divinity: Original Sin, and to a lesser extent, Fable or Mass Effect, do this as well. To do this with a character that you do not see yourself in, but have empathy and attachment for, is still different from feelings of relatability and kinship. The idea of every death after the end of the first game being Joel's fault, is a naive plot point that has no awareness of horror tropes or medicine. To find a cure, the immune person is worth much more alive than dead. The dissonance the player will feel after the ending of the first game, drives the player to understand Joel's justification for his actions, as Joel will take the action that makes sense to them, because what the Fireflies are doing, doesn't make sense at all. Whether Ellie knows or not, isn't the gut punch the story hinges upon. Trying to get the audience to side with Abby, is the goal in which Naughty Dog should be measured by, in terms of if they can prove themselves successful, in this daring story idea. From this perspective, the game fails like a box office bomb, despite critical success. When you dig into the weeds, critics, and mavericks, find the structural holes and weaknesses to the game's strengths. These people find that there are no good guys, or bad guys, and see the characters for the different shades of gray that they are. The blinding rage in which both main characters in this game, is understandable, and yet, surreal, to the player. Anyone who knows the blackout rage they are portraying, is familiar that they are being irrational. The player is aware of this. What truly causes conflicted empathy, is the dissonance between the murderous rampage Ellie is said to be going through, and the examination of a sober mind the player has, to see, know, and understand, that many of her actions against Abby's friends, were in self-defense, even if one manages to go through an as pacifist as possible play-through of the game. This, of course, is in the knowledge that most players will rampage through the game, but avoiding violence or not, the outcome is the same. There is an aggressor, and a defender, in Abby and Ellie. Ellie doesn't want to kill anyone but Abby, yet has to, usually through through the aggression of others. Abby on the other hand, is often the aggressor, and much more difficult to relate to. Nobody (sane) goes into a relationship planning on beating their partner. To not want to hurt Abby when playing as Ellie, discounts the context of The Last of Us entirely. Those who claim as such, make me wonder if they played the first game at all. The empathy that one is supposed to feel for Abby, isn't there for most players, as a fault of the designers, not as a fault of the player. This is in contrast to what I feel the game, Naughty Dog, and by extension, the reviewers giving glowing praise, are arguing. The players are not dense. "...and if you're able to reconsider your emotions while you play, then I think the game has accomplished the game pretty impressive." If one were to use the unique tools of video game story telling, the game could be not only never be mistaken for a film, but also far more successful in giving the player a reason to reconsider their emotions, rather than to guilt, and shame the player into trying to feel something they do not. The game feels as though it were written with the idea that players were all a certain way, but never has the foresight to imagine that the players are generally good people, and exists as a criticism for this stand-in for whatever the designer's vision for a "player" is. The narrative uses the basics for cultivating empathy for Abby, but it's like an entire construction crew bringing a single hammer to try and build a new hospital for the Fireflies. Naughty Dog is not Fix-It Felix, although by their choices of design, they sure seem to aspire to be. There's more I want to say, but I at least want to get this reply out early enough so that it might be read. In all, I think that your ideas of the game, are not quite well founded, and gives praise for things that don't work as well as you seem to think they do, which further confounds me.
Neil Druckmann himself has personally gone on record saying that when he was a kid and young adult that he had fantasies about being extremely violent (in the ways that are portrayed in his games) towards people he disagrees with or dislikes. The reason the story comes off as though the author doesn't understand the behaviour and minds of the average player is precisely because the author believes that his thoughts and behaviour as a young adult are what accounts for normal behaviour for most people. The story therefore has major disconnect with the average player because it was written from the perspective of someone who has never been right in the head.
I find the whole premise that we need the game to make us feel empathy for Abby hilarious. To me, Abby's actions were so self evidently justified that I did not need anyone to explain it to me. When Joel was being clubbed to death, It just made total sense to me because he is the man who doomed humanity and hence would be hated by anyone who knows his secret. I literally thought the point of Abby's playthrough was merely to know her origin story...it did not occur to me at all that Abby would need to justify clubbing Joel to death. I'll bet that if you just took a random sample of 10 adults from that world, and explained to them Joel's secret...at least 4 out of 10 would be in favour of the death penalty for what they would perceive to be a crime against humanity. So the idea that Abby even needs to explain herself is just ridiculous to me. Again, i thought they were just showing a character origin story.
"To do this with a character that you do not see yourself in, but have empathy and attachment for, is still different from feelings of relatability and kinship." That is because every time something important on story will happen, Druckmann removes the controls from the players. It is not a story game, it is a game with levels and cut scenes telling a story between the levels. There is not a big connection between the game and the narrative, actually, lacks.
This is excellently said! I really agree with you too. The game lost me a lot in the second half and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't connect with Abby as a player and, as a result, didn't care about anything while I was controlling her. I don't judge people who enjoyed the game or managed to connect with Abby, but if half of the players are struggling to do so, then surely this implies that there is at least SOME fault on the end of the writers and designers?
They set up the Rattlers as trash who enslave people so her killing them is not really on par with killing seraphites or WLF. In fact, killing each type of enemy was a different experience as I discovered more about them--which I'd say is a strength in the storytelling. Also, how about Ellie accidentally being a savior to those people in bondage but then feeling nothing for it? She is so entrenched in revenge that she doesn't care about who she saves or kills (unless they're prego which reminds her of Dina), which shows some consistency. Her losing her two fingers at the end is also symbolic in three ways: A) that hand now only has the fingers used to make the peace sign, B) her revenge rampage took from her in large part the ability to play guitar, which is how she feels connected to the good things about Joel (as shown by the image of Joel playing guitar being the image that stops her from killing Abby), and C) three fingers equals Last of Us Part III coming to PS5. BOOM.
This might be a bit of a weird observation, but I also think a reason a lot of people can't get into the game, is because we aren't used to having to understand both sides of the story. I saw this when civil war came out, and a lot of people were entirely team cap, or entirely team iron man, and both sides suddenly seemed incapable of empathy. You see that now in politics. Your either extreem left or extreem right in the eyes of the other side, and there's nothing in between, and therefore you are either good or evil. People can't seem to grasp anymore that that there are humans with a life and a story on the other side of that line. This game forces you to see all the sides of a story, and I think a lot of people are to blinded by how much the like joel and Ellie, to see Abby is a person too. (Don't get me wrong, I love joel and Ellie, but you can still like a flawed person, we do that every day irl) The fact that someone is wrong, and doing bad stuff doesn't mean that they're suddenly not human anymore. I think that we kind of tend to forget that sometimes, and a lot of people don't like that in this game you're suddenly forced to remember.
Annemarie Donselaar - completely agree. Most video and film villains are one dimensional characters who want power, money or land. Abby wanted to avenge the death of a loved one - something most if not all of us would do in that situation. Can’t remember a game that has made you play as the villain and watch as the hero (Ellie) hunts and slaughters your crew.
Well people hate Civil war because they purposely wrote them as dicks. The writer thought people would be to on the side of iron man because his idea sound more resonble. So he purposely wrote the iron man side as authoridan dicks. Not understand people used to seeing Superheros act as vilgalanties so you don't need to weight in that heavily on their side. Namely with Sentiels in the backstory. Not to mention they put some of the most popular heroes and one side. And the ones that known for being dicks on the other. And had iron man doing insane unesscary stuff like people with any superhero power getting drafter for the government not just registered.
Nah. In game of thrones you didn’t want Jamie to kill Danny but you also didn’t want him to get killed by her dragon. TLOU2 just failed to give us that feel. (Caring for both sides)
Koricthegreat washed up fighter - I don’t think they wanted you to care for Abby (she’s not a good person and the only time she begins to redeem is with lev), just understand why she killed Joel and the consequences of her actions on her and her friends.
One of my favourite examples of this game making me feel completely unjustified in my/Ellie's revenge quest, and a total scumbag by extension, is when I killed this dog and someone shouted their name. It was Bear. Then, the first day as Abby, I'm playing fetch with that same dog. And he's so fucking cute... I was like, "Holy shit. I killed this pupper." and I had to stop throwing the ball, got way too emotional.
Me and others felt like that scene and other scenes alike were "manipulative" thus having the opposite effect than what was intended. i already know the dog dies when i play fetch but the game forced me to kill it and trying to make me feel bad about it is just lame
@@lucimilan777 No, Bear is an optional kill during a part where Ellie travels with Jesse, right before the boat part. You can play fetch with Bear at the stadion but it's optional. The dog who dies at the aquarium in a cutscene is Alice.
Fuck me I missed that. Now I feel terrible I spent a solid 10 mins playing fetch with the boy. Shows the depth and power of this story tho. I legit loved this game and thought the story was a legitimate work of art.
@@SAMSARALIVEEEEEE I didn't say I didn't feel bad about killing the people, there were plenty of instances where I did, it's just this part made me feel the worst. I mean... That dog was just soo cute...
Am I the only person who knew the sniper was Tommy? Jessie and Ellie were going to a sniper that the assumed was Tommy and were going to help him. But Ellie breaks off to find abbie and Jessie goes to look for him by himself. Which in a way is interesting, if Ellie wasn't so bossed with finding abbie and just went and helped Tommy. . She woukd have found abbie ha
Yeah but it isn’t a random killing. It’s to save humanity. She even said she’d want it done to her if she was immune. Also, Ellie wishes they could’ve done it too
Lmao so the guy deserves no empathy because he said "sacrificing one life to create a vaccine to the virus plaguing humanity is sad but it seems worth it" ?
I think they structured it the way that they did because, if you played for 10 hours as Abby *before* she picked up the golf club, the players would feel BETRAYED
@@noempathy1897 It wouldn't necessarily have had to be the same sequence. it could be disconnected enough to get you to empathize with this new character and then they switch things on you
honestly in a way the gameplay parts of killing lots of enemies worked for me. Even the random human enemies you fight have character, they're very very human. I feel *bad* killing so many of them, listening to them gurgle on their blood and die, or swearing and praying when theyre hurt, or the other enemies calling out your last victim by name and grieving them. It hammers home Ellie's path in a way I don't think anything else could've. When you do a particularly heinous kill, especially when the situation doesnt call for that much violence, Dina will say different lines to make you feel guilty. Like "Jesus Ellie" in a horrified tone. Also a lot of sections can be played where you dont kill the enemies at all and can almost completely stealth or make the infected kill the humans for you. So I would disagree in saying the game encourages you to use excessive violence, but I do see your point as well
Hadn't considered the idea that naughty dog was trying to test their own storytelling ability by putting off Abby's storyline for hours. While interesting, I do feel like they bit off more than they could chew. Had they told the story with a linear timeline, alternating back and forth as needed, Abby and Ellie could have had empathy built up simultaneously, making the death of Joel more conflicting, as well as the whole rest of the game. Would have been like Capt America 3 with the team cap vs team iron man dynamic. By waiting on Abby's story, they dig themselves into an early hole, and like you said, they had to empty the toolbox with sympathy tricks to give her a chance. And based on fan reactions, there was so much manipulation that they saw through it, and so they didn't engage with it and ended up not enjoying it. Now I actually disagreed with Joel's choice in the first game, so I naturally did sympathize with Abby. That said, I recognize not every player did, and even those who took my stance have gotten nostalgically linked to the first game and it's characters. I respect naughty dog for trying, but they overestimated their writing prowess here, and used film storytelling tools that aren't as effective when you're in a game playing as the character.
100% agreed. Juxtaposing Ellie’s desert into extreme violence with Abby’s relationship with Lev would have done a significantly better job at getting us to empathize her. If we had to do it in manageable chunks, rather than at the end of Ellie’s story when misery fatigue is starting to set in. Using Abby’s story in tandem with Ellie’s lets us know from the get go how we’re supposed to be digesting the story. Forcing her on us at the end feels like it’s trying to trick us into liking her, rather than allowing us to. Imagine if, in the second season of Avatar: the Last Airbender, we had 10 episodes devoted to team Avatar, then 8 devoted to Zuko, then 2 where they combine. Would the story have worked nearly as well as the way it currently is where we see their journeys in tandem? I think not, it would get tiresome, we would be waiting to hear what our other characters are doing. A:TLA is one of the best examples of a villain turned hero I can think of. If Last of Us 2 had followed that format of the two divergent plot lines converging simultaneously, it might have been a winner for me.
I don't think that your way would have worked with respect the way it was intended, as you're telling a different narrative at this point. In your way (which is a completely valid way of presenting the story btw), you're building up a level of empathy for two characters and then make harm the other. In a way, it's a story of betrayal. Valid narrative, but not the narrative this game wanted to tell. In Druckmann's way, the narrative is the one of justifying the action of the person who betrayed you, which is different. You're first given the heinous act, you build your first impression of your character, and now you're given all the tools to justify it. But people are bad at overriding their first impressions, and the game targets that to create conflict. It's easier to justify a bad action when a character you like does something bad, or a person you like in real life. It's much harder to justify the actions of someone you despise. We constantly do that (or don't, respectively). This narrative highlights this, or plays with it, depending on how you interpret it. I'm not saying your way of telling the story is wrong. It's a valid narrative, but it's a different one, using the same underlying plot. It's like Hitchcock's bomb: the story is the same, but in one narrative nobody knows about the bomb, so it's a story of surprise and shock. In the other narrative, the viewer is in on the secret, they know the bomb is under the table, it is now a story of suspense. When you change what the player knows, or in what order they experience, you sometimes change the narrative.
I disagree, I think it worked well that way. You didn't get distracted by jumping back and forward between the two characters and got to see how their actions were changing them over the 3 days in one go. That said, once you complete the game, you could play through it using alternate chapters and see if it felt different.
That’s a huge stretch/leap to claim that literally every death after the first game is Joel’s fault, as if finding a “cure,” for this virus would stop these murdering groups from killing each other.
You would have to assume that a doctor in his mid 40’s (25 years or so after the apocalypse... so he was barely old enough to have gone through all of the necessary schooling, internships, residencies, training, etc., to be a competent enough doctor to perform the surgery and develop a vaccine) could create a cure, assume that they had the infrastructure required to mass produce this vaccine/cure, assume they had the lab equipment available to perform such a complex task, assume they could have tested it successfully to ensure it worked, assume they could even have mass distribution of this vaccine without a massive power struggle that would have led to even more death and destruction, let alone just an infrastructure and transport for mass distribution at all... all of that and many more issues one would have to assume... for there not to be new infected after the first game even IF a cure was found by Dr. Jerry Anderson. It’s more than a stretch; it’s a massive leap of faith that has no believable foundation within the world building of TLOU. There isn’t enough suspension of disbelief that would convince anyone that there would be no new infected had Joel not done what he did. What about all of the infected around the entire country, not just the area near Jackson and Seattle? How about the infected around the entire planet? Of course there would be new infected and had Joel acted differently it wouldn’t have stopped that at all.
@@misrelief well a vaccine no but other type of cure yes, and besides, it's a game were fungi turn people into mindless bloodthirsty beast so i think we can get over that
I always say that the last of us 2 is like the domino effect. It had the big pieces to be executed, but it didn’t have the effect they wanted because they were missing the little pieces, you know the small details that although are not big at the momento but later helps have lasting effect on the plot and the climax. If the developers included the small dominoes, it would still have execution they wanted and it will also have the effect that they need.
This game shows that audiences would rather one-note surface level writing like Marvel/DC and for that I’ll always appreciate this game. It’s definitely opened my mind.
Your one of many people who honestly gives an honest heartfelt review about this game and I thank you for that. I’m happy you enjoyed the game just like I did and honestly ,it may have emotionally drained me but I loved the story and it’s just an experience I won’t forget.
I played the entire game and found it terrible from start to finish. I even found ellie unlikable to play, and the story to me was as cliched as anything. Also, why would Joel care about saving the world for the sake of ellie, just as his daughter Sarah was killed for the sake of the many during the outbreak, and nowhere did ellie have a choice in any of it.
I just can't seem to empathize with Abby in the same way as I can with Ellie. The pacing really did not help her storyline imo, and if they'd just introduced Lev and Yara earlier I think it would've made more of an impact. Abby's characterization does not help either; if anything, I had more empathy for Mel since her boyfriend cheated on her with Abby while Mel was so much frustrated by Owen's absence that she kept opting to go on dangerous missions even though she was heavily pregnant. Instead of growing to love these characters, I feel like I just like everyone even less now.
Abby is just a dickish character and her sudden turn to 'save' Lev & Yara is completely out of character. Yeah they saved her life, but so did she. Her character up until that point would just ditch the both of them and went off her own way. What Naughty Dogs shoulda done is actually allowing us 1-frickin-choice in the entire Role fucking Playing Game at the end to either kill Abby or spare her, then show us the global percentage of how many did what. Would be interesting to see how many decide to spare her then.
You mentioned that as a player, there is tension and frustration because we don't WANT Abby and Ellie to fight each other and kill each other. However, I feel like even beyond that, as a player, I wanted Ellie and Abby to understand each other. And although the two never killed each other in the end, I wasn't convinced that either of them, particularly Abby, really truly understood each other. I found that much more frustrating.
@@maschae4500 Yes. Abby did spare Ellie and Dina's lives. However, the tension that slowly develops for the player comes as Naughty Dog makes the parallels between Abby and Joel and Lev and Ellie more and more obvious. It is that parallel that I, as a player, wanted Abby to understand, because if she understood that parallel, she would understand what she took away from Ellie and why Ellie is so pissed at her. While Abby does spare Ellie and Dina's lives partway through the story, as a player I kind of felt that Abby did it simply because Lev didn't want her to kill Dina because she was pregnant and Abby wanted to take a moral stance especially after Ellie killed Mel who was also pregnant. Abby didn't spare Ellie and Dina because she understood Ellie's perspective. You could make an argument, that Naughty Dog not giving its players catharsis is the point. After all, in real life, we don't get satisfying reconciliations between people who have taken so much from each other. However, if this indeed was Naughty Dog's point - I don't like the choice.
There was no guarantee that the surgery would have produced a cure. Plain and simple killing Ellie for the sake of a cure without her consent would still have been murder.
It absolutely would be. Joel found a man standing over his unconscious "daughter" ready to murder her in her sleep. The man took a scalpel and turned it on him.
To be fair though, Joel made his decision believing a cure was possible, meaning that even if there was a guarantee of a cure, he would’ve still made the same choice. I also think that if Ellie had said yes to the procedure, it wouldn’t make a difference in Joel’s ultimate choice. The root of his decision was a base need to not lose another kid. As long as Ellie would die, I genuinely believe he would make that same choice in the hospital. I do agree though that the fireflies not getting consent from Ellie was deeply fucked. It’s really painful to me that Ellie has her autonomy and choice repeatedly taken from her throughout both the games by both friend and foe.
@@Green_scholar27 This is the best rebuttal to the flaws (for lack of a better term) in the logic of the final scene in the first game. The point that was trying to be communicated was Joel made that decision knowing the stakes, this part of the plot is also the weakest point about the story in my opinion.
Great review: The point on the gameplay being opposed to the story was very well said. Also i think its fair to add that alot of the negative nerative on the game was innitialized by people who played the game in one sitting (wich can make you wanna just get over with it when you get to abbys part) and some of those people who are not ready to see a girl with different looks: abbys arms althought it completely makes sense if you think of the apocalyptic narrative.
"abbys arms althought it completely makes sense if you think of the apocalyptic narrative". Personally, I was not bothered by Abby being buff. I though her fighting was dope AF and it made her stand out. However, saying it completely makes sense seems so weird to me. Sure she had acces to a high quality gym in the stadium. But getting buff like that requires a very, very strict diet and training schedule. It just seems odd to me that she would have acces to so much potein, have so much time to recover and train, whilst in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Anyway, i think it's petty to bash the game because Abby has big arms, but I also think it shouldn't be defended as being super realistic.
the looks of a someone are scientifically proven to influence one’s preconceived beliefs about the person. Had abby been stereotypically feminine, it would be easier for players to empathize with her (it’s a fact), but I’m glad ND didn’t take the cowardly route.
There is a lot going against this game and it's story. Haters have so many excuses. But I like that they did not showed both sides of the story. Not many games do that.
@@darioca1566 they live in a stadium that seemed pretty secure. they go out on daily shifts to patrol like we work 9-5s. why would she not have time to work out? it's not like they have concerts or movie premieres to go to. she has all the time in the world to work out.
I may sound like a complete lunatic, but by the end of The Last of Us 2, I ended up hating Ellie more than Abby. I understand Ellie's motive, but the fact that she threw away things like a family, settling down, and a new life, things that an ordinary person rarely gets (much more in a zombie apocalypse), made me illustrate her from that point on as a vindictive and selfish person, a big detour from the Ellie we all knew and loved in the first game. What she should have done, as painful as it may sound, is to cope with the fact that Joel is dead and that killing Abby will not bring him back no matter how hard she tried. At the end of the game, Ellie's concluding predicament is a just one, with her decisions amounting to her experiencing her greatest fear: being left alone. Abby on the other hand is a much more interesting case. I'll admit that I also hated Abby in the beginning. But as time went on, and more and more of her friends end up dead at the hands of Tommy and Ellie, I realized she is already paying the price for killing Joel. And that is punishment enough. Additionally, we kind of see a major character development for Abby as she transitions from a mindless drone of the WLF, to a forgiving and self-thinking individual, sacrificing her already existing brotherhood to save and protect Yara and Lev. By the time of their encounter at the theater, I believe that Abby saw through the illusion and tried to break the circle of revenge by sparing Dina and Ellie. At that point, I eventually saw Abby as a mature and developed character looking to end the circle of killing that she unknowingly instigated with her murder of Joel.
Ellie and Abby are both pieces of shit. Abby tortured and brutally murdered a guy without getting full context, asking for his side of the story, asking if the people she was with were ok with her methods, or listening to the desperate pleas of Ellie who she made watch. I don't care how many dogs you play with, how many friends you have, or how many family members you lost, nothing justifies such a monstrous action. Ellie, on the other hand, refuses to forgive joel despite all his kindness, refuses to forgive Bigot Sandwiches despite him giving her a likely expensive apology, yells at Joel for protecting her, and constantly plays with the emotions of the people around her. "I wanna settle down with you, but now i don't." "I want to catch Abby and get revenge for myself and the people who liked joel, but now I don't." "I want to let you go now and have a fair fistfight, but you also need to die and I'm going to use a knife." "I want to love you forever, but you're a burden to me now." They're both awful people and awful-written characters.
I agree with you I kinda like them both but Abby more and her story was so interesting to see the "Villians" point of view. And learning that in fact Abby and Ellie are in many ways like eachother.
Showing the villain's path to the crossroad is something I want to do now thanks to this video, but I know I'm not good enough yet to pull that character switch and rebuilding of tension off.
I think the key reason the Abby arc is loathed by so many players is the fact that she killed the protagonist of the first game. If nearly this exact story was done in the context of a self contained story, the overall reaction would be very different.
TheJadedJames maybe if it also was fully developed. The problem is, abbys arc is very much a copy of Ellie’s and it’s not as fleshed out. Abby only ends up being a ok protagonist with the heavy baggage of being introduced, killing a really loved character. If she never killed joel then she would be about as interesting as most videogame protagonists but she wouldn’t really stand out like Joel/Ellie do
Game of thrones/A song of ice and Fire is another great example of this technique if you want more inspiration, particularly with the character of Jaime Lannister who undergoes one of the best redemption arcs I've ever seen after being utterly unlikeable in the first two books/seasons.
ShivJ16 There is an interesting distinction you can make between the narrative goals of TLOU with Abby and characters like Zuko or Jamie Lannister etc who undergo redemption arcs. TLOU isn’t interested in humbling Abby to get the audience on her side. There could have easily been a whole middle section where the player as Ellie is forced to fight alongside Abby against a common enemy or something to get you to eventually sympathize with her. But getting you the like Abby isn’t necessarily the storyline’s main objective. It is about making the statement about how we all appear to be the hero in our own story. It is about how different Joel taking Ellie from the Fireflies looks considering the POV. We feel Joel’s pain more, mostly because we saw it first. But what about all the people he killed to get his way? To dismiss Abby’s plight out of your own emotional connection to Joel, to be unable to forgive or at least let go of anger, is to make the same mistake characters make across this story which props up an endless cycle of violence.
@@TheJadedJames Completely agree, though I do think Abby has a slight humbling moment at the very end of the game, when you see her completely emaciated and battered from her torture at the hands of the slavers; Ellie almost forgives her just because of her pathetic state, as she realizes this is not really the same Abby that killed Joel.
I think people are trying to find a hero and a villain for this story. The thing is, Abby is neither hero nor villain. Same with Ellie. We're all the heroes of our own story. Yet we're also the villains in someone else's. A lot of the hate stems from people saying the game makes Joel a bad guy. No they do not. Iook back at all those flashbacks, he's portrayed as like the best surrogate dad ever. The thing is, he made a decision to kill tons of people. That action had consequences. All Abby cares about is avenging her father, no matter her perception on what the fireflies may or may not have done. The game isn't telling me to agree with one side. Its telling me to understand all sides.
I think the execution was flawed (and lol say hello to our old pal, the ludonarrative dissonance discourse) and inconsistent, but at least that felt definitely like the series' core intention, yup.
I honestly thought the ending to the game was played out very well. A big issue lots of gamers have with it is that they think the overall message of the story is the cliche lesson of "revenge is bad", which I think is a sign that they clearly didn't pay that much attention to the story and only viewed it on a falsely superficial level.
Yeah this was definitely one of my favorite games of the year. And i am still thinking about it. Amazing work. I so want to to see Abby and Levys trek to the Fireflies home base
You should be allowed to like or dislike a game, but the majority of dislikers are vocal and set out to make others dislike it and make the game fail. Respect needed.
The majority of haters haven't even played the game, they just echo what the tubers told them. Most of whom also did not play the game. They engage in cancel culture while they claim to be fighting against it. The hypocrisy is strong with them. Not that playing the game gives you the right to try and cancel it. You can dislike the game all you want, but this is an active campaign to try and convince everyone else not to play it, and to kill sales of it. They even go as far to try and slander those who actually played and liked it, to discredit them. I mean there was a stream yesterday with some mildly prominent haters of the tube still harping on this positive review among others trying to discredit it, and convince people that this is a bad game.
Have you seen the TH-camr Mannix? His comment section is the most toxic community ever. They literally say if you like last of us 2, ur either a feminist or a shill or just dumb
@@mummifiedgamer it takes less intelligence and effort to belong a clique of trolls than almost any other social group. If trolls were capable of creating they would be doing that instead. It's a pathetic existence.
Agreed. I like the game. I would give it a 6/10. But there were things I did not like. Your allowed to dislike it but please dislike it for actual reasons not sjws or lgbt agenda or whatever cringgy 2016 anti sjw nonsense there saying.
The sniper bit is one of my favorites in the game. There is a moment during it when you enter the garage and Tommy starts shooting at the cars in order to draw out the infected, which is exactly what he tells Ellie to do during one of the flashbacks. When that happened, I knew it was Tommy for sure, and there was this mix of like "you motherfucker, using what you taught me to do against me!" and also "I really don't want to get to him and kill him." Good shit.
Damn Razbuten we’re watching all the same videos today! And I completely agree with everything you said in your comment on Writing on Games’ video btw
@@Americiki Came here from noah's video huh ?
masterfully crafter bit of gameplay/storytelling that section is
The thing is the sniper bit and that flashback was so far between one another and that’s why people really don’t get that “you motherfucker, using what you taught me to do against me!” when they’re playing that specific section
I mean, no matter what we all think of the game as a whole, it definitely had its great moments. I think we can agree on that. And fighting Tommy was one of them. Tho my favorite part was the dinosaur museum.
My favourite part of the game is when you chase Nora into that red lighted basement and she realizes Ellie's immune. It's so badass.
Wow, you HAD to ruin that scene for me 🤦🏻
@@aaronm4841 why tf are you watching a review if u didnt finish the game
@@GoodTimesWithHO why tf are you responding
@@jsantacruz7125 lol, cause I can
@@GoodTimesWithHO ok
I didn’t come to argue, I came to state the fact that this is such a rare title on TH-cam and I salute you for your bravery
Its kinda sad that stating your opinion is considered brave these days.
_Crooked_shadows _ so true
@@_crooked_shadows_4409 ikr...
It’s not his first time. Watch his last Jedi videos.
I loved the game
Crazy thing is....I truly believe Ellie did have a happy ending, we just missed the clues... another TH-camr commented on the letter you find at the farm when you are with Dina and the baby. It's from the baby's father's mom saying they will always have a place in Jackson if they choose to come back home. And, if you notice.....when Ellie leaves to fight Abby at the end....she's not wearing the bracelet Dina gave her....but when she returns...the camera zooms in on her hand ...we were focused on the fingers missing but looked completey passed the fact that now she is wearing the bracelet, possibly meaning she has already been to Jackson...and is living with Dina......she just went back to the farm for the guitar....but decided to leave it. That represents her finally being able to accept Joel's death and end the cycle of revenge.
Here's some more things to back this claim......
1. When she comes back to the farm...she's not hurt or not wearing any of her weapons.
2. She doesn't seem surprised that everyone is gone when she enters the house. She doesn't call out Dina's name or anything.
I think people were so caught up in "Revenge" that they missed all of these details.
I wish I could remember the TH-camrs name who pointed the letter and the bracelet out but sadly I don't remember... he/she is the real hero.....I just added more context and details to back their theory.
Btw this isn’t my original idea, it’s from someone else
The Art of Gaming
oh wow that bracelet is a pretty massive detail. nice catch!
my tits thanks but this is based of someone else’s idea, just wanted to spread the word. I did sorta notice it though but didn’t pay much attention
pretty much everything i was thinking too. the ending was somber but hidden behind the clues was hope as ellie left towards the sun. "when you're lost in the darkness, look for the light"
@@semirasani2240 I bet all of my money there's gonna be a part 3. I promise you, lol. I'm already counting down another 5 years for tlou3
@@majaquinn it all depends on if ND is taking a break to do something else first or go straight to it. Plus I don't know the game dev cycles for a gen that hasn't started yet, games may take longer or around the same time
This is a super insightful analysis. I have a different take on the "decides Abby is worthy of sparing, for some reason" perspective.
Ellie's central conflict is survivor's guilt. She resents Joel for (in her view) robbing her life of meaning. We see examples throughout the story: her backlash against Joel after Dina kissed her and her reprimanding of Joel for micromanaging her routes. He keeps getting in her life's way, she thinks.
Right as Abby is dying, Ellie flashes back to her final conversation with Joel and abruptly achieves a moment of clarity. She was unconscious when Joel made the decision to rescue her from the Fireflies. And she was put unconscious without being told the surgery would kill her. She had absolutely no agency in that event. Joel's comment that he would totally make the same decision again if he could go back means something new to her in that moment. No matter what, her life was never going to have that particular meaning.
Meanwhile, she's two years beyond her fruitless quest in Seattle after leaving her partner, child and new home. She's in California, drowning this woman for what she thinks is closure. That's not the closure she needed, though. She didn't need closure over Joel's death. That's not her real problem. Her real problem is survivor's guilt. Her quest (and Abby's imminent murder) are not only failing to add meaning to her life; they're also subtracting from it (she's wasting time on nothing). She breaks down weeping at that thought and tells Abby to leave. She's been pursuing the wrong closure, this whole time.
She doesn't spare Abby because Abby's worth sparing. She spares Abby because she realizes that Abby has been a distraction. The game ends as she sets out to take her life's meaning into her own hands.
And otherwise, she killed WLF and Scars for the same reason we killed them: She needed to get to Abby, and they were very in the way.
Wow, I really like this interpretation! Thank you for posting it.
I don't know if I completely agree with the decision that ND made on this story point, but I personally love this explanation. Thank you.
Beautifully said, i only desagree with your final accessment, i think Ellie did not find new meaning in life, the complete opposite, i think she lost it cause of her survivor's guilt in the end. It mirrors exactly her worst fear as She puts it in the first game, "i fear ending up alone". I think Neil wrote the ending to be as tragic and ironic as possible. I personally dont like it, nor the direction of the narrative, as piewdiepie said: it is but a shallow reflection of what "the last of us" is supposed to be, a ghost of the emotional ride the first one was. But i do respect the try to make something different with the tone of the game, even though it failed for me and many others.
And Abby, in the end i did not want her to die, not because i cared about her, but because i cared about Lev, i would have connected with Abby had She shown some remorse or even some compassion for what She has done to Ellie, its ironic how She did to Ellie what Joel did to her, but never actually aknowledge or reflect on it, thats what was missing for me to care even a little about her.
Not only survivor's guilt is her motivation in the epilogue, but also ptsd. I think that it was absolutely brilliant to make Ellie being haunted by Joel's death to the point she slowly goes insane.
She literally states in her diary that she can't live like that anymore, otherwise ptsd will consume her and she can hurt not only herself, but Dina and little kid.
Imo, that is what forces her to seek closure with Abby and Tommy simply triggers that.
I think that this example is the best ptsd case in gaming history.
Very good interpretation. Thank you. This makes me enjoy the game more.
The dlc of the first Dishonored is, in my opinion, the best example of playing as a villain you previously hated.
Absolutley! At the End of the Brigmore witches, I liked Daud better than Corvo, who in hindsight is a pretty weak Protagonist for the Main Game. All we know about him is that he loves his daughter and his Empress/Lover. Daud on the other End was an paid Assassin for Set Empress, who suffered from the consequences of his Action, and tried to make it up by saving Emily without anyone ever knowing about it. Definitly the better Character.
Running Commentary 21 I’ll have to check that out. Thanks for the recommendation
I didn't hate him tho.
With Daud he was just the blade that killed the empress but Hiram Burrows was the hand holding the blade. That makes Daud easier to empathise with. What's more we were given the choice of whether he deserved to live or not.
Also his voice is awesome :)
Borderlands the pre sequel did it better
I agree with everything but the "one more death was too many" Ellie didn't let Abby go because she wasn't strong enough to kill her, but because by that point she already forgave her, just when you are about to drown her you flash back to Joel playing his guitar, now, this isn't a "oh it's not what he would've wanted" moment, the memory is about Ellie telling Joel that she's gonna try to forgive him, even if she doesn't believe she can, that is what happened at that moment, Ellie realizes the only way to let go of her guilt and pain is to forgive Abby rather than taking revenge, she already killed everyone else involved and what did she get? PTSD, she knows finishing her won't give her what she wants and will just repeat the cycle, this time with Lev hating Ellie
I love this take so much, I never thought of that!
Thank you! Finally people who understand
It's nonsensical. Every single person she killed died in vain. Absolute drivel. Truly awful writing that is up there with GoT Season 8
@@Lord_Alimdor It isn't tho, the fact that it was in vain is exactly the point, because it truly doesn't matter, she did what she did because she wanted, and she didn't kill Abby because she wanted to, Ellie was a selfish person from the start of the game all the way to the end, the fact that she murdered probably hundreds of people just because she wanted to get to 5 is completely in character, and in the end she lost what she already had too, so it wasn't in vain, cause stuff did change, and it didn't go unpunished, cause she lost the only opportunity she could've had at a normal life, GoT is another story entirely and this game is masterful in it's writing
And besides, even if she did kill Abby the deaths still would've been in vain, cause she wouldn't have gotten closure in any capacity, which was what she wanted, she would've walked away as empty handed as she did in this ending, except now, Lev maybe has a future and Abby lived instead of dying crucified
I literally HATED the switch in the game, I refused to do any exploration because I just wanted to become Ellie again...
This changed as I began to experience the storytelling.
When Abby met Manny and got shot at I actually got mad, and wanted to see the sniper dead...
Then it was Tommy and I was so confused... Didn't know how to feel or what to do...
This game did a number on me.
And I absolutely love it.
I think it would have been nice if we were constantly changing (when you end day one with ellie you go to day 1 with abby and then day 2 ellie then day 2 abby) but maybe that could have been to confusing
Nathalie Geertsma lmao u got mad Manny got bodied???
You liking it doesn't make it good.
@@VladDascaliuc you disliking it doesnt make it bad
@@degg7129 I am aware. The game is poorly executed regardless.
In the sniper scene it’s actually pretty obvious that it was Tommy the whole time, because it was said during Ellie’s gameplay lol
Lol good point. I was so pissed off during that whole scene I couldn’t think straight.
Yeah I was more impressed by how effective tommy was. I forgot he was a bad ass.
I Really just want a dlc of Tommy's 3 days in Seattle
Theres no shortage of snipers in the "last of us" world, They were banking on your either forgetting and being surprised, or feeling proud that you remembered.
he didn't play the game, Sony paid him to make this
The game really tests the limits of the player's empathy. By the end I just wanted them to just move on. They both lost so much. I'm glad Ellie kept her humanity by the end.
Exactly! Man, I really hoped that if I didn't press "Strike" something else would unfold, but no....forced to do things against my will. Super effective storytelling, in my opinion. :)
Robert Bjärmyr I think the developers have the right to tell the story how they want it to be told.
@@WhoCaresInc21 Of course, what I meant was that I was conflicted in doing what the character was doing, which is exactly how the writers intended the scene(s) to play out. Simply great :)
This was 100% a test on the player's level of empathy. I feel it is natural to hate Abbie at the start, but if by the end you still want Ellie to kill Abbie then that's a little worrying
Right
I get the writers intentions in the sniper scene but as someone who wasn’t spoiled, I almost immediate knew that the sniper was Tommy. I mean the game foreshadows his sniping ability when he trains Ellie and moreover if you follow the days and relate it with what Ellie would be doing at that time, it makes it even more obvious. So this “trick” really didn’t work for me.
me too, but I was still eager to see how the scene would unfold and tense through the whole sequence, I loved it.
I knew it was Tommy but it was still good.
Also Ellie is informed that there is a sniper and literally says it's probably Tommy.
Me too. But that goes for almost ANYTHING these days. I’ve read, seen and played so much, I’m hardly ever truly wondering what is going on in a scene. It’s why I care more about the overall story.
Yeah, I think it kinda misses the point to say the narrative whiplash was because the player doesn't suspect the sniper is Tommy. If anything, the game has specifically led the player to suspect that. The narrative whiplash is because you're playing as Abby, and you know Abby doesn't care if that's Tommy or not, she's gonna go track him down and kill him for all the WLFs he's killed. You probably like Tommy, but you *have* to go hunt down Tommy and try and kill him.
The two showdowns completely broke me. While playing as Abby in the theatre I wanted to cry because I thought Ellie, whom I've learned to love through 2 games, was gonna die by my hands. And playing as Ellie in the ending, trying to kill another character I have come to love, I just kept thinking that I wanted them to stop and become friends instead, all this violence is completely unnecessary.
I salute Naughty Dog for this amazing gaming experience!
Edit: I have never ever gotten this many likes before. Thank you guys so much!
I really love Abby too, at first just for her looks, but then later as a character as well. She is constantly trying to do better, she fails and things fall apart around her, but not because she is a bad person. Probably the most three dimensional character ever in a videogame.
@D- licious The game shows that literally no person is entirely good nor entirely evil. Like come on, we've seen different dimensions of all characters we've been playing as.
Joel is a selfish a**hole (he even says himself in the first game he's been on both sides), but he's got good sides too. Ellie starts her journey as the innocent girl who gets blinded by hatred because she didn't have time to forgive her father figure. Abby begins her story blinded by hatred and the thought of vengeance, but back in Seattle realizes that avenging her father hasn't given her any peace. So she's starting to see the war between the WLF and seraphites from a completely different perspective, rending it pointless. She can't undo her murdering act, so she tries to get redemption by protecting a kid everybody wants to kill. To many extents her redemption arc is the same as Joel's in the first game.
The game shows that we're all human beings and that there's different sides to the same coin. Nobody is entirely good, nobody is entirely evil. We're all in a grey zone, watching what could happen to us in post apocalyptic world. So yes, I do love Abby, because the grim world has forced her to do the best she can to survive but still maintain her sanity. Despite her flaws she shows over and over again that she wants to do better
@D- licious I wasn't replying to you, bruh. Your thinking is completely 2 dimensional, no wonder you see everything as an agenda.
Guard dogs that are trained to attack intruders, attack Ellie, OMG, how they set her up as bad what an agenda!
Also when Abby was going to kill Dina, it was exactly the result of her finding the dead bodies of Mel (who was also pregnant) and Owen, who she was in love with. She has no idea whether Ellie killed them in cold blood or accidentally, or in self defence. But either way Ellie, Dina and Tommy are all responsible for their deaths. You can't just ignore that because it doesn't fit in your contrived narrative.
I lost all respect for Joel at the end of TLOU, not becuase of what he did, I'd probably have done the same thing. But for how he lied about it later. That was not bravery, that was selfish, he was only protecting himself and his desire to hold on to Ellie at that point. So when he meets his end, I really couldn't feel sorry for him. How he could look in the mirror each morning is beyond me. I'd have went off to live alone as a hermit. But he just lived it up like a good father until Ellie found him out. And Ellie still forgives him. Which shows Ellie is a good person deep down as well, they never tried to make her out as bad.
As for Tommy, I've always found something to be off about him. If anyone is a real bad person in this story, is Tommy. I think he is just a ruthless killer, a sociopath. My immediate thought about him when Joel confides in him at the beginning, was that this guy is creepy, and he doesn't seem like a very nice person. That was before anything else happened! In some ways Tommy is the igniter of everything bad that happens to Ellie. He goes after Abby first, then he urges Ellie to go after her again at the end! So if anyone is to blame apart from Ellie for loosing her guitar fingers it is Tommy. Remember, Abby didn't want to fight her, it was Ellie who threatened Lev to coerce one final confrontation.
They didn't need to force Abby on me, I'd have liked her anyway. And not because of the dog scene, that had nothing to do with it. By the end of the game, when I was playing as Ellie, all I could think about was saving Abby somehow.
@D- licious It's also called being an asshole.
You're seeking attention from someone who has no interest in giving it to you.
Trying to force a conversation that they don't like to have.
Stop BEING an asshole and accept that people have differing opinions.
Or just go back to Twitter where all the non-humans live.
@D- licious If you're unwilling to read arguments that doesn't comply to your own world view, but then write novellas yourself about why the game is bad, then you shouldn't even discuss this topic at all. There are a lot of valid points written in these texts but you're too afraid to be wrong or what? If you can't face the arguments then I'm done with this discussion.
(Besides, dimensions is exactly the word for it. The word has multiple meanings (or should I say dimensions?). Look it up.)
I feel the only failing of the game was the monumental whiplash of going from the climax of Ellie's story to the start of act 1 for Abby's. Abby had finished protagging after she killed Joel, and the first handful of her scenes following the perspective switch felt aimless because she no longer had any desire driving her actions, and needed to start a whole new arc from scratch. It was the stalling of momentum that made the switch so frustrating. It took me a couple of hours to really twig that this was more than just a truncated handful of flashbacks; it's an entire game-within-a-game. This was compounded by the plot of Abby's half having almost nothing to do with Ellie's half, except the handful of points where characters from the two groups intersected. Having both sets of characters caught up in a unifying set of surrounding problems and goals would have given Abby's half more drive.
I think it's worth living with the few flaws in order to have such an ambitious story. Naughty Dog set themselves a monumental task in trying to overcome the reflexive tribal instinct that we all slip into so terrifyingly easily. The story of both games shows us time and again that it takes place in a world so brutal that no one is allowed the luxury of remaining a good person with clean hands. And yet we can't help but make judgements of right and wrong based on who we knew first or who we like more.
I agree to an extent, I felt that same jarring grinding halt of the momentum and at first I couldn't help but think what a monumental failure that choice was, and even considered taking a break from the game. If a lot of players stopped at that moment out of frustration, I think they would miss the big picture. Within an hour or two, I was ALMOST as invested in the character of Abby as I was in Ellie, and I didn't want the ride to end.
I agree. But man, when I got to Abby day 3, that climax made my heart race like never before. It's just unfortunate that it makes the player kind of want to rush through Abby's segment.
Watch Nathan Ed’s Review, Abby did not have peace after killing Joel, she was still having nightmares. Those nightmares stopped after saving the children
True, I wanted a lot more Ellie honestly, I loved the game but I wanted more ellie
I think the devs could have mixed the perspective more, which would have alleviated the problem. Make the game go more like: Beginning (until Abby kills Joel), then Seattle Day 1 Ellie, then SD1 Abby, SD2 Ellie and so on. I think this could have helped and made it easier for people who disliked the story and its structure. Still, in the end the game worked for me quite well (in both Abby/Ellie fights I just wanted both of them to stop fucking fighting and try to talk it out), but I can see how a mixture of expectations, assumptions and different taste prevents others from enjoying it as much (or at all).
I completely disagree about the sniper scene. I knew straight away that Tommy was the sniper, I felt impressed rather than oppressed by the gameplay segment as he shot the cars to lure infected towards me, and I knew Abby wouldn't kill him when we caught up to him because he was fine and dandy in the theater with Ellie the next day.
When will your TLOU2 video come, my favourite little boy?
Are you doing a review of this game? If so ill look forward to it
I suspected it too from the start because many of the scenes previously mentioned that there was a lone sniper taking out the WLF and they were looking for him. Ellie even mentioned to Dina that it had to be Tommy and that was where they had to go to find him.
I mostly agree. As soon as Manny said "trespassers", I knew it was Tommy. I already did my best to keep hidden, so for me this whole segment was never about killing the sniper, Tommy; it was about not getting killed because I already respected his prowess in survival.
agreed. i actually thought it was pretty obvious that tommy was the sniper and obviously he wasn't going to die there.
now at the end when we were Abby fighting Ellie, i was terrified. haha
literally the only thing i dont like about the story is how it was arranged with all its flashbacks and stuff.
i think if they put it a bit more into chronological order the humanization of abby wouldve been more effective and also i personally prefer the more straight forward aproach to story telling.
other than that i think this is actually a pretty damn good game
Same here
Agree. Also, that chronological order would give a little more meaning to Joel's death, as we get to know Abby's quest prior that.
ND prioritized on the shock value there, wich is sad.
Leonel Garcia They tried to make Abby look very good, like force you to like her it’s like the opposite of the “kick the dog” cuz evil for villains.
@@ozymandias8523 ...which would have been effective if the first thing they showed her do wasn't basically just killing joel. lol
@Andrew Gray And yet that was exactly what Ellie was preparing to do to Abby TWICE when seeking revenge; Abby kills Joel to avenge her dad's death, spares Ellie, Ellie leaves base for revenge, Abby spares Ellie (and Dina) once again after they killed all her friends, and Ellie still goes out for revenge once again.
That's what people aren't getting about this game, especially if they still hate Abby in the end. Both Abby and Ellie wanted vengeance from the unjust acts that were done to them and their loved ones. Abby wanted vengeance on Joel because he killed her dad and Ellie wanted vengeance on Abby because she killed Joel. But it was like a constant cycle of loss. Because with each revenge story whether it was Abby's or Ellie's both parties lost even more loved ones, that could have still been alive if they have just moved on.
Neither of them are not just for wanting to kill the other but it still would have been unjustly to do so because someone else would be hurt from the loss and then maybe they would want to gain revenge too and so on and so forth - its a cycle. Until they realize that killing each other won't stop the pain, the hurting, the suffering there will be more. That's the point of the game, to forgive and forget or at least move on if you can't forgive the past because that's all it is since nothing is so black and white either. Abby is neither villain or hero and Ellie is no hero nor villain. They're just people trying to live. That's life.
What bothers me the most is that Abby never got to tell Ellie why she actually killed Joel. Ellie knows Joel killed the doctors but she didn't know the main surgeon was Jerry; Abby's dad. Ellie thought Abby was mad because Joel prevented the development of a cure... of course she is mad about that, but she killed Joel specifically because of what he did to her dad. During the confrontation between Ellie and Abby, when Ellie puts her hands up she says "I know why you killed Joel, he did what he did to save me, there's no cure because of me I'm the one that you want." Abby assumes she knows why Abby killed Joel, since Ellie literally says she knows why, but she actually doesn't. They never had a chance to talk, not even in the last horrific scene... it's all just very sad, but it is a very very good game, flawed in some ways, but very very good nonetheless.
I would’ve been more sympathetic with Abby and her friends if they questioned themselves whether they got the right guy or not. Any kind of regret or fear from Jackson followed them to Seattle.
i think that will resolve in tlou 3, when abbys actually find fireflies, and fireflies looking ellie, and maybe in the end abby will save ellie
the doctor in tlou1 is a different person, they look different from what Jerry looks like even the skin color is different, and whats more interesting is that people discovered the 3D model used for the doctor in TLOU1 is named "Bruce" so Jerry is a total retcon, Abby's story wasnt even preplanned, they could have made an actual continuation of the first game than go with random abby and her guilt tripping contest.
@@johngoldfield6602 Stories aren't always pre-planned. And it's not really a retcon since that information isn't given to the player by the game. That's just a nameless doctor for 99,9% of the audience until they find out who he was on TLOU2
@@don9718 they aren't always preplanned but the cliff hanger made us think it would be an actual continuation of the story. Abby is just random her story is random and she pretty much hijacks the game when its supposed to be about Ellie and her unique trait of being immune which takes a complete backseat throughout the game, something as important as being immune to a ZOMBIE virus should be treated more valuable than just being sidelined, oh but zombies are taking a backseat too because the story is more about humans killing each other than trying to deal with the virus. also yes Jerry is a retcon and not even a clever one either considering they messed up any consistency to make it believable
Great video, however:
I disagree with the notion that Ellie let Abby go because "One more death was too much", like us Ellie learned more about Abby through her journey.
It was easy to kill all those goons because they weren't people to us or Ellie, but every person you kill from the Squad that took out Joel you learn something about, and it visibly harder for Ellie to kill every single one of them.
By the time she reaches Abby at the end, she knows a lot about Abby, (not as much as us, but still) enough so that Abby isn't just an evil villain to her anymore, she's a person.
A person that's just trying to keep someone else safe.
Yep, I think a lot of people miss that she says "Go. Just take him." Lev is clearly on her mind when she decides to let go.
Ellie also spared Abbey because she broke the cycle of revenge and she was finally at peace of mind with the burden of Joel's ghost and knew sparing her would restore her humanity.
What's genius about it too is that I think Ellie didn't just see Abby as a person, but rather saw herself and Dina in Abby and Lev. In that first Abby and Ellie fight, Abby realized Ellie was the only person protecting Dina, a pregnant woman she has nothing to do with. Ellie, in that second fight, seemed to realize why Abby spared her because of the realization that Abby was the only one to protect Lev, a child she has nothing to do with.
Yeah. The editing didn’t help just write either because he used background footage of Ellie killing slavers who attacked her first....and were going to enslave her.
....Slavers. Yeah. I’m cool. Also, Abby had Lev which Ellie no doubt empathized with.
Yeah, when it flashed to Joel playing guitar I immediately remembered the lyrics “I’d surely lose myself” and I think at that moment she’s realizing how much of herself she has lost in her seeking revenge. I think she finds the best way to honor Joel moving forward would be to find herself again, and that means letting go of old hatred and not killing the person who is like Joel to someone else.
Why do people get mad when someone says that they liked the game.
1 - they cant believe they spended $60+ usd on something that they didn’t enjoy
2 - mom only buys 1 game a year and was one that they didn’t enjoy
3 - they bought a ps4 just to play this game and didnt like it.
There is a real answer to this question.
But I'm instead going to ask for you to say the same thing about Game of Thrones Season 8 and Rise of Skywalker.
@@FrankMcFuzz1 I'm just saying when you say I liked it then people say you like that bullshit. And then people say you're an idiot and you don't know what you're talking about.
@@guidorussoheck2100 Effort? Can we see some effort?
@@DrMFoster7 effort of what? I don't understand. Between i loved the game, made me cry twice
My biggest problem was the timing of Abby's section. Leaving me on a cliffhanger was not the best idea. I was automatically in a rushed state to get back to what i thought, at the time to be the main story and to Ellie. I didn't mind playing as Abby at first, even thought it kind of cool to be getting a view from the other side of the fence. Then it dragged on and on and on, it completely killed the game for me. If they had shortened Abby's section and had it start right after Ellie, Jessie, and Tommy decide to return to Jackson, the whole cliffhanger thing wouldn't of been an issue. Plus i think it would of made for a far more dramatic scene when Abby finally reaches the theater. As it stands, when Abby reaches the theater we already know what happens. I think it would of played much better if we had no clue what the game was about to make us do as Abby. Aside from the quite obvious, upcoming boss fight with Ellie. I think with that small change in timing I'd of had a far better time of it.
Or make abbys sections into a whole game(references to a mysterious event that in hindsight is the torture of Joel and how Abby feels guilt ridden for it)...where we end at the theater wondering why the fuck is Ellie there. We find out in last of us part III what Abby did to Joel to put Ellie in that movie theater.
I think they should have taken the Yakuza 0 approach and slowly build the tension and dread as the two sides slowly converges and collide in the climax while also building doubt in the goodness of Ellie and the evilness of Abby.
Steven Irizarry Imagine if they only advertised it as Abby’s story to begin with, and kept Ellie’s half a secret. Could’ve worked better.
I feel the same a the beginning. But once i get what they were trying to do with the structure i dive in in Abby story. I think the problem is not the structure is the expectation of each player.
Abby's group was so unlikeable and predictable. And it was right after we had killed them as Ellie, so it seemed like pointless filler. I think they could have cut that section and skipped to the Yara and Lev storyline, it would have been better.
The fact that Abby is actually Joel (even down to the carrying the child away at the end) seems to be missed by way too many people
At which point did Joel show enjoyment from the fact that he was about to kill a pregnant woman? Because if there isn't such moment, then Abby, from psychological perspective, is several magnitudes worse than him.
Agreed! In a way, Abby and Ellie became each other. Abby found family in Lev and Yara (mimicking Joel finding Ellie), and while trying to not get attached to the two, she eventually does, with them even building on one another, with Abby helping Lev conquer his fear of dogs (R.I.P Alice) and Lev helping Abby to realize fear is not a weakness, but that it can also be bravery.
On the other side Ellie slowly becomes consumed by revenge over time, by becoming more brutal, choosing to go after Abby instead of helping Tommy, isolated herself from her friends, killed Owen and Mel, *who was pregnant* , and after relapsing into her revenge a year later, and even threatened to kill Lev to make Abby fight her. In her own way she herself became Abby (albeit a bit more immoral in her deeds).
But yeah, I feel like it's missed by a lot of people, as you've said.
You don't see Joel track down the soldier who killed his daughter and beat him to death with a golf club.
@@SonicHedgehog1991 Well yeah, because Tommy killed him.
@@davidkoudelka10 yeah, but what I'm saying is that Abby is similar to Joel but one major difference is that Joel doesn't go on a revenge tour to find the person who killed his daughter.
One thing that can’t be denied, we’re talking about it WAY more than if we just got another Joel & Ellie adventure.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.
Exactly.
Exactly. I don't understand people who wanted a safe sequel with Joel and Ellie where nothing bad happens to either of them and it's just a "and they lived happily ever after" ending. I'm glad we got this instead.
It's not that they killed joel it's how they made him and tommy make multiple uncharacteristic decisions that lead to Joel's death and then they try to make his killer look like the good one while making ellie look terrible
So I just finish the last of us 2!
I’ve been a huge fan of tlou 1 and I can’t tell you how excited I was for the part 2.
Honestly speaking I did saw couple of leaks before the release but I didn’t let those comments and leaks bothered me from purchasing a game!
And even though whole internet is really mad about the storyline and the ending of the game but From my personal experience I really enjoyed this game!
Is it as good as its predecessor? No! But you have to understand that the last of us part 1 was a masterpiece and it would be really hard to top that.
Does the game feels lagged and slow at some point? Yes! But only if you don’t care about the story..
Just my personal opinion it’s a really well made game! It does have a great story which explains the real message which is “vengeance always consumes the best of you”.
Speaking of which if you look at from Ellie’s prospective, to get revenge of Joel’s death which is Ofcourse a big deal she got lost in vengeance so bad that she lost everything in the end! Joel, Jesse & her relationship with Dina!
And same goes for Abby..
she was so upset and wanted to take the revenge for her fathers death by killing Joel. But in the end she also end up losing everything and everyone she ever loved!
At first I was also pissed off about killing Joel and then play the character who killed our beloved Joel! But after realizing what’s a real message behind this game, I understand why everything happened the way it happened!
Sadly Even though I agreed with Joel’s decision at the end of part one about saving Ellie’s life but deep down I know it was a wrong decision considering a bigger picture! And eventually it also turn Ellie against Joel and don’t ever wanna do anything with him because he lied to her! And I really think it’s was Joel’s karma because he did kill those people to save Ellie’s life. Even though it was a right decision according to him but still was wrong! And I know a lot of people won’t agree with my reasoning but that’s actually true! But overall in the end The Last of us 2 is a lot darker and have a lot more deeper meaning. It’s Definitely not better than the first one but still pretty good in its own unique way and I really enjoyed it!
It’s also worth noting that the kissing scene in question, while not in the game until late, was in one of the most prominent trailers for the game. So a large part of the audience will have already experienced most of the scene in question before even playing the game.
But the flashbacks and the actual Joel part of that scene is the important part. It still succeeded in surprising and making the player feel those emotions. The flashbacks and the dance scene and the last Joel scene are a whole side story. So while yes, we experienced most of the scene, but most don't mean it wasn't important to see the full story.
@@cheshirecats1492 yes absolutely, the Joel parts are very significant, probably more so than the kissing part of that scene alone. I'm just noting that for much of the audience, it's not completely a "tell not show" moment. I certainly had an "oh, I think I know exactly what they're talking about" moment. Especially the line about being "the talk of the town" felt very meta to me. And meta seems to be what they were going for - remember that when they showed that trailer at E3, they decorated the auditorium to look exactly like the ballroom from the game. It was quite clever.
@@Tompie913 ah I see, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that the scene was rendered useless due to most of it being shown prior.
That scene was probably shown so early by ND because they wanted us to believe it was Dina's death that would set Ellie on her journey for revenge so they could preserve the raw emotions the player would feel at Joel's death. Then it got leaked anyways lol
Yeah, when I first saw it towards the end of the game I was like “what is the purpose of having this here?” But then the scene continues, we get the extra context to Joel and Ellie’s immediate disagreements, and then is followed by one of the most emotional scenes in gaming. Real good shit.
"Those were your people."
"YOU'RE my people!"
That exchange will always give me chills
Here's another good one from Uncharted Lost Legacy:
Nadine: "You'll die."
Chloe: "I can live with that"
Uncharted the lost legacy was actually pretty funny and more than the first 4 games and was kind of like a buddy cop movie
Simp
AlexanderTheArt yes, because liking a game must mean they’re a simp. Instead of generalising, either comment on why you disagree or say nothing at all.
@@AlexanderTheArt LOL. Talk about pathetic.
I feel the exact same way, I remember the moment just before Ellie leaves Dina and JJ to find Abby once again, Dina begs her and said something like “she doesn’t get to be more important than us” I felt that.
I think the intensity and “fun” of the violence is supposed to sour your opinion about violent revenge. The fact that it’s so bloody and so intense where it makes you go “holy shit” may be the point.
and yet...its just fun
Yeah. Except for the last area. I put forth a ton of effort to use stealth whenever possible. Then I got to the slavers and was all "who wants exploding arrows?"
What gamer's reaction to intense violence in a video game is "oh my god this is so bad :(?" That type of mentality may work in TV shows and movies. But TLOU 2 game design is made to be enjoyable. It's supposed to be enjoyable killing people, because they point of gameplay, is to be engaging.
Games that are supposed to tell you that violence is wrong, typically make it so that being violent is NOT fun. Usually by making the gameplay of violence, frustrating and unfulfilling. Look at Pathological for example. That game tells us that violence is wrong and should be avoided, by making the gameplay of violence really shitty and difficult so that players are encouraged to avoid doing it.
Nomasti The African Warlord Yeah, that’s totally fair. I think this may be an issue of this game needing to be a huge accessible hit. It had to tow the line between fun to play and “violence is bad” in a way that it really wasn’t able to
@@LBAW That's why this game shouldn't have tried to go for a "violence and revenge is bad" story line. That type of storytelling simply doesn't mesh well with a AAA violent video game that's supposed to sell millions of copies and made a huge profit. Gameplay contradicting the narrative is a telltale sign of bad artistic direction.
You always see the good in the story (even when I don't agree with you). To be clear, for this game and its story, I completely agree (just speaking generally in my previous comment). And I had the same reaction with the final fight in the ocean... that I just wanted both of them to STOP.
I didn't want Ellie to go in the first place. She messed up her life for revenge and a lesson on forgiveness. 🤦♀️ learn to forgive, or you'll lose two fingers 😝
Stories that did this better:
Markus vs Connor in Detroit:become human
The Hound vs Brianne of Tarth in Game of Thrones
The kid getting revenge on my homie in the movie City of God
All of these had me feeling several emotions. This game had me thinking, "really? That's it?" It was so poorly done here.
Psychedelic Yeti Detroit: Become Human is so poorly done though, it’s exploitative of history and oversimplified, it’s insulting to actual movements it’s copying and has zero nuance and humanity, it’s very manipulative. At least the characters in the last of us all feel real and flawed. I know they’re robots in Detroit but that doesn’t fix the story problems
Yhea the last part was tense as fuck And i love it , but i only would love the history if Abby have a Good characther depolment
I also wanted them to stop. The game was darker and more uncomfortable than I expected. It wasn't easy to get through. Especially having both of them hunt eachother and the killing dogs and murdering pregnant women really messed with my head..
And i cried for an entire day when Joel died 😅🤦♀️
@@uhuhuh1966 while I enjoyed Detroit, I do see it had a lot of flaws. I didn't enjoy the "twist" and changed how I viewed the relationships I had... And it felt meaningless. But, that wasn't my point here 😝
My point is you play as Connor and Markus, you see their stories and their reasoning, and all that was building up to the moment they faced each other (depending on how you played the game, that is).
Something I want to mention here is that you can actually complete this game while killing relatively few people. There are actually few encounters in the game were you *must* kill people. With the vast majority of the enemies, you can sneak by them without hurting anyone at all. That said, doing so is definitely more difficult and requires more patience than just putting arrows through throats. I'm wondering if the reviewer failed to notice this option, or just didn't bother. Either option says some interesting things about how video games have conditioned players to respond to situations within games.
I have no idea why but I read this in Dunkey's voice.
Some people have complained there is only stealth kill while in the first you had the option to take down a person without killing them.
You can do this in a number of games(Splinter Cell, Metal Gear, you can limit the kills to when you must kill a target in Assassin's Creed), even if they don't have anything in their themes about killing being negative. In this case, it seems not to be designed as an important feature of gameplay or story.
@@rashomon9996 I think the fact that minimizing killing doesn't come with any sort of incentive in LoUP2, and is actually harder to pull off than mass murder, is a deliberate choice on the devs part. By doing it this way, it backs up one of the central themes of the story: that compassion and forgiveness is often much harder than violence or killing. It's left up to the player to decide how much effort they're willing to put into avoiding needless death. Just my thoughts on the matter.
I actually have a slight issue with this. I loved the game but the series has such great environmental story telling in addition to the notes etc. That if I were to sneak around all the enemies to find the collectibles it would take significantly longer and be more difficult. I want to experience as much of the world as possible on my first play through, and it's difficult to do so without clearing out an area with stealth or otherwise beforehand. You could argue that kind of buys into Ellie's relentless need to kill, but we know these extras just give subtext the world, and Ellie isn't realistically clearing out an area in the hope of collecting a note or trading card that may or may not be in that area. Now if that doesn't matter to you then it's a non-issue, but there are downsides to choosing to not kill.
The ONLY thing I hated about this game was the amount of dogs I had to kill, especially sweet bear and Alice ☹️
If you stealth through everything and run if someone catches you, then you only kill Alice
Yeah, I killed multiple dogs too and even though I hated it, it did make the stealth just a tiny bit easier. If I play this game again though, I'm going to try and not kill them. The only reason why so many died is because I lacked the bottles and bricks to throw them off my trail so if the tiniest bit of me was seen by that dog, that meant death for me and I really couldn't avoid it.
More meat to eat :)
My dad killed them as on purpose.
People: mad about killing dogs in a video game.
Activision expecting you to kill dogs on every COD game for over a decade: haha lol
What I liked about TLoS2: Abby was the most forgiving character in the whole game.
Think about it: she let Ellie and Tommy live twice (Tommy thrice, due to the sniper scene); and in their final combat, Abby said she didn't want to fight. And her mercy was rewarded because it was Tommy who found her location, and it was Ellie who saved her and Lev from dying at that beach. If she had killed either one of them when she had the chance, she wouldn't be alive to find her happy ending with the Fireflies.
Abby was out to kill Ellie as vengeance for Owen's death, but let it go due to Lev. Ellie, on the other hand, stopped at the critical moment and showed Abby the same mercy Abby showed her, without prompting from anyone else.
So by the end of the story, Ellie's capacity to let it go grew much bigger than Abby's. And if you frame it that way, then the ending was the start of Ellie's healing. She lost everything, so she had a fresh start, and potentially a better life ahead (just as Abby letting Ellie go saved her life down the line, Ellie's life might be improved in some way by her learning to let her hatred go).
Bro, everything is talking about that she is going to be with the fireflies
People didn't notice that the fireflies message was a trap for her ? Like yeah a random guy tell her that they are in that street, that random guy probably works for the rattlesnakes, and sent her there to be kidnapped
They hyped the game as Ellie's revenge tour. Her not killing Abby failed the point of the game. They didn't even go across the country like the first game. Just Seattle, Jackson, and santa Barbara.
@@Blitzo2876 the point of the game is forgiveness and learning to deal with your problems, not revange
Huang Chung Chuan you have to be very simple-minded to actually play this game and believe killing Abby was the right thing to do at the end
I like this! The idea of Ellie starting fresh is highlighted even more with that final scene of her leaving all of her old belongings, and even Joel's guitar, behind. Almost like a rebirth. I have a feeling that is the end of Ellie's story in this franchise; if the game sees more sequels, I believe it will follow new characters, which I'm okay with. it's such an interesting and fun world to play in, I'd be okay with them starting new with a total stranger's experience.
The story is more challenging and draining than the highest difficulty setting in this game.
TheVirusSoftware No. a story being difficult to digest and work through does not make it shit. In fact, I think it’s a sign of a very good story. It’s hard to swallow, you have to think through it. It makes you uncomfortable. It’s not easy or simple. And I for one fucking love it
@@podtherod9304 it was boring and predictable. Having to learn who Abby's group was AFTER killing them was tedious and added nothing to the story because they were unlikeable. If they had been in Ellie's group, I would not have liked them, that's how little impact they had.
@greenapplepear I believe it is a reference to the Prius episode of South Park when Prius owners become so smug and self-satisfied that they start to smell their own farts. In this case, the story is supposed to present the appearance of depth so that the audience can feel clever (Jeopardy does this, the questions are designed to be around the level of a 7th-grade education and involve pop references so that the audience at home feels a little smart when they can answer a question) but fails to deliver because real depth would be too much of a challenge for a lot of people (limiting sales) because they would not recognize it, it is safer to go with meaning that has already been explored and repeated in other stories to the point of cliche and common sense. The irony is TheVirusSoft comes off as a pretentious prick when pointing out what pretentious pricks other people are.
Literally.
Btw I hardly see anyone talking about how GOOD the human A.I. is in this game.
Seattle Day 2 with Ellie is probably one of my favorite sections of the whole game. The neighborhood levels and the introduction of the enemy dogs really ramp up the stress on the highest difficulty.
It was legit difficult to predict their movements while moving about and saving my resources
@TheVirusSoftware You're not saying anything of substance. You have to actually substantiate your claims.
People say that Joel's death is unsatisfying, initially that might be true in an intentional way. His death stays unsatisfying, only if you don't play the entire game.I saw many say Joel saving Abby was out of character, but the game makes it clear by the end that Joel was trying to become a better person FOR ELLIE, In the first game Joel would have left Abby in the snow, but he has opened up during the four years in Jackson to become a better person.
It's what makes it so sad, that his last act, the one that got him killed, was an act of kindness towards someone he didn't even know. Maybe he did it purely to show Ellie how he's changed, or maybe he has truly become a better person. I think that's a perfect, tragic way to set up the themes the game developes on.
It's not unsatisfying, it's dumb in many ways.
It's like mario dies against a gomba just beacuse he forgot he had to jump. Joel wouldn't give everyone their names, where they live and enter a place surrounded with heavily armed strangers after making a lot of enemies beacuse of it's actions, he wasn't even in ¨peace¨ all the time, he had to deal with hunters and many other attacks to jackson and scavenge random places.
He has 20 years of surviving outside and just beacuse he lived ¨¨in peace¨¨ on jackson for 4 years doesn't mean he is going to do these type of mistakes.
¨Hey guys it's me, Joel Miller and this is my brother Tommy, we live in jackson wich is a couple of hours far and the code to my bank account is 1234¨.
A lot of people alredy said this and that they expected Joel's death beacuse of how many enemies he made, he didn't even need to die as a hero or saving Ellie, he just needs a *believable* death, tragic or not but *BELIEVABLE*.
Jordan Zegarra he walks into a room full of armed people who just helped take out a horde of infected, who are allies with Abby (the girl that they saved and the girl who offers them shelter from the blizzard and the infected). It’s not very outlandish to make Joel walk into to a room and trust people who just potentially saved them. Also you spelt “Which” wrong bud
@@whomp8038 Sorry for the mistake, th-cam.com/video/3L1iT4wAURU/w-d-xo.html this video explains pretty much everything. (Can't really talk a lot cause my online class is about to start and no, english is not my main lang :().
@@whomp8038 They didnt save Joel and Tommy though, Joel and Tommy SAVED THEM. But it is true that if They were the ones to save Joel and Tommy there, it wouldnt be outlandish and it would be more understandable for Joel to tell them his name, but that didnt happen, so its still outlandish.
@@bayatricewalker3452 While I agree that Tommy introducing himself and Joel to Abby's group was a dumb move it didn't really matter. This is because Abby had seen Joel prior, while this isn't show or even necessarily said it is somewhat implied during her hospital flashback. Evidence for this is back when Joel saves her, you'll realize that Abby recognized Joel immediately. She also seems shocked that Joel saved her life and/or even temporarily torn on her decision to kill him because of it. Although one could also argue that she was just surprised about finding Joel in the first place. And while the fact that one has to play the game through and independently make these connections can subjectively be called bad writing. I personally felt like it added to how one can interpret their encounter and helped make Abby a bit more nuanced as a character. Even more so when Abby actually seems a lil remorseful for what she did to Joel and how she wanted to atone in her own personal way by saving Lev.
The best part of the game in my opinion is when, playing as Abby, you finally find Ellie and end up in the basement fight. Hearing Ellie craft Molotov cocktails is a sound I never thought I'd have panic attacks over.
The problem with people saying that "if they played Abby first before killing Joel then everything would be fine" is that they missed the entire point. It's easier to emphatize with a stranger who you saw just experience grief and pain at the start. It's harder to do so on someone you hate. The game literally wanted to challenge your perspective and not be bias about one character.
Which a lot of people clearly failed. XD
Absolutely! This game is all about giving the player the same challenge as the characters. Can you look past your bias and empathize with someone you hate? The people who enjoyed the story succeeded, those who bash the story as bad writing etc failed.
It felt so hammy though, so strongly trying to get us to care but we don't.
@@usul573 we do care, we were open minded about it
@@MCoconut97 We do? Seems like almost everyone just wants Abby and her friends to die horribly. Me included.
@@usul573 Some do, some don't. There is no "everyone" here.
Maybe It was just the fact that this was the second game in a well established serie. This story would have worked wonders if I didnt care sooo much more about one group that the other. And considering most conflicts in stories are about asking the audience to choose a side, even if its to keep fighting or stop, wouldn't you choose the original characters if you had to pick?
Yeah it's defenders advantage, you have to work damn hard to get people to like new characters over the originals.
It's almost like this game is a critique of tribalism and wants to make it clear that just because one group is more familiar to you doesn't make them in the right.
@@kevinkuenn5733 that's what I took away from the game. I don't think the game is asking us to choose anything. It's just showing two perspectives of this conflict.
@@DarkkestNite The literal intention of the story is to create a character that the player has every reason to hate and then show their perspective until the player sympathizes with them. Getting you to hate Abby from the start is L I T E R A L L Y the fucking point. You are asking for a different story entirely
yeah the game definitely expects you to be rooting for ellie going in, thats why they show you her side of the story first. the twist relies on the fact that the audience most likely wants abby dead as much as ellie does which makes the sudden change in perspective so jarring. but the interesting part is that after spending hours in the shoes of someone obsessed with revenge you now play as someone who just GOT her revenge and see that it doesnt actually make her happy
The only criticism I had for the game was that certain sections seemed to drag out for too long and even with the great level of detail to all the areas and sections, they felt very empty.
From my perspective, it feels like most of the hate is coming from people who painted a picture in their heads of what the story was going to be and where it was going to go rather than seeing it as a blank canvas and letting the picture paint itself as they played the game.
If you go into something with your expectations being only on what you want to see then you’re robbing yourself of the surprise of what may or may not happen.
Damn. Well said.
@Jonny B basically agree with you about most your points- except I didn't feel Joel's death was mainly shock value. They didn't just want to kill joel to evoke the player's desire to get revenge- they wanted it done so brutally you were completely invested in it like Ellie was. I think it works better that way because then it made the switch to Abbys POV and then coming to see things from her perspective that much more powerful because it deliberately makes it so much harder to forgive Abby- and that is ultimately what the game wanted you AND Ellie to do
claps
my take from watching so many streams after finishing the game:
1. people who played the game and enjoyed it for what it is.
2. a lot went with hate bandwagon and made up their mind before the game was released, and when it was released, streamers and chat joined to bash the game from start to finish spreading the hate.
3. small honest people who and really hated it.
4. people who joined the hate bandwagon but decided to play the game and loved it and found a lot of the hate were lies or exaggeration (that is me)
@@DarkSilV really cool to know there's the 4th type! Bravo on not being so hellbent on hating the game to admit to liking it in the end. I think a lot of ppl refuse to.
At the ending of this game, I really felt that Ellie shouldn’t have killed Abby because what would’ve happened with Lev? I guess it requires empathy towards ones situation as whole. Also I appreciate that Ellie doesn’t go through with because it shows that there is humanity inside her still, people really wanted Abby to die which seems kinda short sighted and plain hateful.
The whole journey where she killed Abby's friends she didn't spare a second thought. It's basically similar to going down the genocide route in Undertale and stopping right after you kill sans. Pointless adventure honestly...
And you wasted your time only to get cold feet at the end. Being shortsighted and hateful is good. Why? It shows human nature in it's honest state.
I would've liked her to kill Abby because it would force Ellie to reflect, kinda like when spiderman got uncle Ben's killer. He was hollow and learned that it wasn't worth it. Having those consequences would've been a welcome change.
It would force her to deal with the situation head on and whatever she'd decide to do with the kid would ride on how her conscience treats her, be it taking accountability or abandoning the fella.
What a game for the first time nobody wins in this game,the ending almost broke me of how depressing it is but man so thankful that this is a game,story like this wouldn't work at all for a movie.
Even so some people still blasted it just because "they killed my man"
yeah dude, keep telling yourself that
Yeah a shit ton of people flat out hate the game cause what they did to Joel and nothing more. Whatever. Those people are mentally stunted and self entitled. The worst of the gamer community.
And I actually think this story wpuld/will work great as a live action show. Just has to make it work for the medium but it can easily be done. And it will be for the upcoming HBO series which has said will incorporate both games into the series. If it were me, I'd introduce Abby right from the first season and have the series play out more linear. But we shall see how they do it.
@@juanjaramillo6854 Love this idea. I think it would be fascinating to actually empathize with Abby even way before she kills Joel and I think that would work better in a series form than a game form (I do appreciate the fact that the game story makes us hate Abby before begin to empathize with her)
yeah keep telling that bs to yourselves
Yeah keep telling yourself the game is trash. It will make you feel better for being too shallow and growth stunted to understand it.
I disagree with how extreme the ludonarrative dissonance is. The later part dealing with the rattlers is justified because they game shows you they are literally slave owners. And as you said the earlier violence with the wolves and scars is meant to show that disconnect. If I'm not mistaken one can also sneak past a lot of enemies, only missing out on valuable resources
Agreed, made this same comment, didn't even see you had already posted it. I'm glad someone else noticed this.
Yeah I agree.
I think ludonarrative dissonance is always a problem with these kinds of games, especially with a plot like this one which is basically looking at the cycle of vengeance and violence: you feel conflicted about persuing this one person, but it's perfectly fine with mowing down dozens of rank-and-file, because you need something to do to make the gameplay. I think studios have some more work to do to get around this, whether it's limiting the death count you build up through the whole game or having you fight more non-human foes where you're really doing them a favour by putting them out of their misery.
Also, I honestly feel like the Rattlers were just kind of put in there so you'd have human foes to fight in the final chapter, regardless of how awful they were portrayed: though I honestly though we would be going up against the Fireflies again after they were mentioned so much, like Ellie was so focused on getting to Abby she mowed through them without a second though. Would suck for them though, lol.
I agree entirely, and yes you’re not obliged to kill everyone
I think you can probably sneak past everything in the game.
Something the game doesn't talk about when it comes to the cure is that there is NO guarantee that the Fireflies would have distributed it fairly.
They would have had a monopoly on mankind's survival and the power to capitalize on it.
It does seem weird that so many people just assume the Fireflies had only good intentions.
I'm also thinking about clinical trials for dosage, effectiveness, and how the hell do you get a vaccine for a fungus-caused disease?
Dude...I'm writing a fanfiction that's basically the last of us part 3 currently...you REALLY just inspired a good plot device for me. Thanks
@greenapplepear I understand that, but my overthinking brain likes asking these questions. Thought it was relevant to the original comment
@greenapplepear Except that a significant role in the whole cure premise in the first game intentionally puts doubt on the whole thing even working. So assuming that it would've worked or even had a chance of working at all is in itself going to break peoples suspension of disbelief when there's no evidence that it would and mountains of evidence that it wouldn't.
The Last of Us Part II. Showing how so much of nerd culture confuses pandering for respect, and instant gratification for quality.
Nerd culture? This is mainstream audience entertainment. Same as those modern day Hollywood Marvel/DC super hero movies they keep pumping out. I think people really do confuse geek culture with mainstream audience entertainment these days. I blame that tv show 'The Big Bang Theory.' They made geekdom trendy. Hollywood caught onto that. Any self respecting true nerd wouldn't be caught dead with one of those modern Hollywood super hero movies or a Disney Star Wars movie in his movie collection. The real nerds are playing Defender, Space Invaders, or Pac-Man. Not this game.
@@245-TRIOXIN Hey guys! I found one! And he saved us the trouble by announcing it on the spot!
@@pacman5698
Legend ? Thanks.
Where is the respect in this game? The game panders to a modern political alignment and doesn't understand the ramifications of this. Such as a pregnant doctor Mel, which is a pretty valuable profession to have when a zombie apocalypse begins, deciding to put her child at risk for a throwaway line about female independence (even though Owen would've been the child's father, you won't even consult him before you leave to a warzone?). Or the fact there is a bigoted character in Seth (from San Francisco no less) that somehow still harbors homophobic thoughts after a zombie apocalypse begins and his whole family is killed just so he can be a punchline for a bigot joke. There are also just issues in poor writing. Abby is made way too hard to be a likeable character when the reality is that the story has a dissoassociation from the gameplay. If any of the thousands of nameless people that have been murdered by Joel, Ellie AND Abby over the story of the games were placed with the same importance as Abby, than there would be potentially 100s of people looking for revenge on all three of them throughout the story. Instead, Abby murders Joel and then she's the good person because her Dad may have found a cure by killing a fourteen-year-old before even asking if she's okay with it, with very limited equipment in an almost destroyed hospital with an almost destroyed Firefly force. Plus, what in the hell would a cure have done to stop raging psychopaths that the world is now full of from killing everyone? Were they just going to decide to be nice now that there may be a cure? And everyone's just gonna trust that the Fireflies actually have one? Also, who's to say that the Fireflies wouldn't have used the cure as way to gain power against what was left of the government (which suspiciously disappears from The Last of Us Part II)? They really make the scenes so forced where Jerry is painted as this saintly doctor who is basically the best human being ever to the point where it is just ridiculous. The man is so noble he saves a random zebra from some wiring just so we can see how much of a great guy this is that was about to kill Ellie on a whim. Also, he even tells Marlene to hide her being sacrificed from Joel even though he clearly has grown an attachment to her. Wow, what an amazing human being he is. The game just feels like it was lazily written and people call it a masterpiece because there are more minority characters and modern progressive ideals in favor of a logical story in a Post-Apocalyptic setting.
@@Roncon1997 I get the PC bullshit in this game, but Jerry could have potentially developed a cure for humanity. What does that do in a post apocalyptic world full of psychos hurr durr? Well the huge advantage of not getting infected. With comes the huge advantage of mowing down zombies much much easier and the huge advantage of losing much less people to the infection. Another is the centralization of a species. Well surely they could have used that for their own advantage, and yes considering the PC bs they push I'm sure they would have envisioned something along those lines in their own vision, even if they wouldn't admit it ever. But that view is extremely idiotic seeing how most people hate the fireflies and their agenda in this world, and the majority of people would have centralized to the in the FF vaccination posts and after some time, they would have surely overthrown the FF. People miss the whole point of this game and caught up in these superficial arguments. This game is about the humanity in each of us with all it's ugly and beautiful moments, strong and weak, hateful and empathetic, with our conflicts between what we percieve and what is real, between what we idealize and what is real, between parts of our own selves etc . The last part of us = the last parts us we want to acknowledge
the thing about this game is, we already know everyone is selfish and thinks they're right and others are wrong. that's practically the thesis of joel's actions at the end of the last of us. and so telling me that again just doesn't do it for me. i would have preferred a story about ellie overcoming that mentality in spite of the entire rest of the world being that way, interwoven with her finding out about what joel did and how to deal with that relationship. i wanted ellie to prove joel wrong
This game inadvertently proves Joel's mentality is 100% correct. If Abby had finished off Ellie and Tommy like Joel finished off Marlene, then her friends and dozens of people would still be alive.
This game wants to tell us that violence is wrong, but really it's telling us that you if you're going to be violent don't leave any survivors.
clone shark this I could get behind. Ellie was always the spark of hope in the first game regardless of how dark it always got. I’d be content with a story about Ellie proving Joel wrong.
Sparing Abby's life at the end is the most selfless act I can think of. What do you mean when you say you would like her to overcome the selfishness of the world?
@@geckomaniac3801 it was also pretty dumb
@greenapplepear What exactly is your argument as to why Abby sparing Ellie at the beginning was the right choice? It caused nothing but pain and misery for all parties involved. Ellie herself, deep in the back of her mind, probably wishes she died in that basement due all the trauma she endured.
Utilitarianism is the default moral framework in most situations because this narrative because most moral frameworks in storytelling narratives are utilitarianism (this game is no exception).
I agree with everything up to the idea of Ellie being fine with ending lives until she finds one in particular. Ellie doesn't hate any of the basic Wolves, so her killing them is often dispassionate at best and frustrated at worst. It's only when she kills someone who she has an emotional connection to that she feels that destructive pain of revenge. You can actually feel this happen as you play in a weird way. The first time I killed a dog in this game, I felt like an absolute trash bag of a person, but by the 5th one, it was just as dispassionate as any of the people with names lives I snuffed out simply because they were in my way. So, I don't think it's actually dissonant, but entirely intended.
That was well said.
@Unfiltered Reality I would rather say that the game is for very emphatatic people who can feel and understand what these characters feel, but not necessarily agree with all the actions they take. All the gore, animations and voice lines add to the realism and theme of the game.
Bushi no Kami yeah that makes sense and this definitely wouldn’t be torture porn for very empathetic people yeah no sorry but there is no way someone with High empathy wouldn’t just see this game as an exercise in nihilism and sadism
@@K.Gthealmighty only if you can't accept and deal with the violence and sadness. It's all unfortunate, but realistic. If it bothers you, then you're probably sensitive. Emphatatic people aren't necessarily sensitive
Bushi no Kami I can deal with violence and sadness when it’s handled properly and ties in well with the theme of the game without clashing with it and this game doesn’t handle those concepts well at all. Ellie just ends up killing everyone except for the person she was originally planning on killing and ends up losing everything in the end how is that not nihilistic.
the "save the zebra moment" felt to obvious to me. too literal, it made me laugh and it shouldn't. I prefer saving the cat to be a metaphor for good side in general. if someone just saves an actual cat it doesn't work for me
Dude, you literally misspelled "metaphor", you'll have to forgive if your opinion doesn't hold too much weight.
Don't forget to pet the dog!
Don't forget the random name of everyone you kill!
So fucking ORIGINAL! Fuck off with your nuanced horse shit of 'OH just play as Abby you'll love her!'
Bitch if I brutally killed the person you love the most in front of you, would I care even if I had the best reasons for it?! If you say yes then you are just lying to yourself and have not yet lost someone you really love.
@@psychodeviant8903 thank you for telling me😅 English is my third language and I tend to have this kind of errors, especially with the ph = f spelling. since I don't have this system in my language, I have to guess when the ph shows up, and it feels even a bit random.
but now I corrected it, thank you!
I didn't like the zebra scene either. Who cares how the dude is willing to save a zebra when he still refuses to give Ellie a choice in whether she dies or not. Did he not swear a Hippocratic oath?
@@Beatness121 Not to mention that you can NOT create a vaccine for a fungi related sickness you dumb fucks!
The realistic idea of zombies of the first game was the main hook for me, not the graphics, not NaughtyDog, not any other horse shit, and this is what we got after 7 years...
A game about love, loss, vengeance and finding humanity. i loved this game it shows that the world of last of us is a small world, i feel like it makes sense for Joel to die because the truth is he isn't a good person no one is in the world of last of us is, there are only survivors and when u survive in the world of last of us you survive at the cost of other people. many people are mad at the ending but its an amazing ending, because Ellie stepped up to be the better person even though Abby has done that a couple of time by letting Ellie live multiple times. People hate Abby's character but she is a conflicted character who is afraid of the idea of opening up. i feel Abby being Buff is a very smart decision from Naughty Dog's side as i feel like Ellie and Abby are two types of people, Ellie withered in sorrow and became a shell of her former self and Abby became stronger with one goal in her mind after her father's death and it was vengeance. Many people are angry over how Joel died and i think his death made sense as if it were for Joel from the first game sure he would have been able to see an ambush from a mile away but this Joel within those 5 years found his humanity started to trust people more. Life for Joel wasn't all about surviving its about making sure Ellie (his second shot at life) gets to feel welcomed, loved and cared, you cant do this without opening up. When you open up you start to trust people more and you are vulnerable. The ending in my opinion is magnificent, Ellie forgives Abby and lets her go, like a good person, its an "Eye for an eye" situation, Joel kills Abby's father and Abby takes vengeance by killing him the fight is settled. Ellie forgives Abby thus ending the cycle. People were mad over the fact that "Ellie only realized vengeance is bad after all the killing she did", i see where most people come from, but its one of those things when you embark on this journey the final prize always seems glorious and worthy of the risk and to make things worse the idea of it only becomes better and better as time goes on but when you get their it aint worth it. overall one of the best games i have ever played. It also showcase how hate is very much a strong emotion how much it propels people to get what they think is rightfully theirs. If you are mad at Joel going straight into an ambush you need to think about this its been 5 years since the first game, Joel isn't that guy anymore he knows what it feels like to care and be cared, when saw Abby he didn't see her as a threat he only saw her as girl who is around Ellie's age. See Joel was in a place where he was loved and loves someone Ellie, believe it or not sometimes its easier to be hated by everyone, than be loved because love does this weird thing where you feel welcomed and comfortable and being that Jackson area he was a respected part of that neighborhood, so when Joel saw Abby he could only think of this girl no older than Ellie,not the inevitable danger.
Very well written my friend. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
@@ninaa4192 thank you
Well written. It's so refreshing to see someone that sees something about TLOU2 and doesn't immediately go, "oh TLOU2 that's such a shit game and you're a waste of oxygen for liking it". I'm so tired of seeing those comments... granted the game has flaws like any other game, and I'm not talking about story flaws for the mostpart. I'm mostly talking about glitches and stuff like that. I seriously wish that people could just be able to enjoy something without other people trying to cyber bully them for liking it. Anyways I'm dragging on, was nice to read your comment and learn your views on this game.
For the record I loved the game and im not going to let other people change my mind about it.
@@TKelly476 ik i find it ironic how much a game about hate propells ppl to ruin other ppls day like sending death threats to the cast and fans. I say give it 5 years hope more ppl are matured enough to understand the story.
All we can do is hope I suppose, it's just nice to know that there are some people that feel the same way about the game and this subject as I do.
I feel dumb: because of how fast everything was going with the sniper scene, I didn’t realize the sniper was Tommy 😳
Lmao, me either
Me too haha. I only learned about it after i finished the game
I get ya'. And everyone is saying it was super obvious! D: Like, "Noooo, I swear I'm not dumb!"
Same here. Because of how fast that scene went by, I didn't realize it was Tommy when he attacks her and she throws him into the water. Then Lev is like "Who was that?" and Abby is hesitant before going "Nobody, it's not important" and I'm all "Wait, was I supposed to know who that guy was? I didn't recognize him... Oh well, I'm sure they'll explain it later."
They SAID IT during Ellie's segment what is fucking wrong with you
First, loved your video.
Second, I feel like the passing of the game killed my investment in the story. So it all became a bad magic trick where you can see the strings.
In the end, I was not conflicted, just bored.
Not looking forward to the “Ludonarrative dissonance” discussion again haha
Couldnt agree more with this 👏👏👏
Good video, I always like how you find these references and interpret them with your own opinion. I disagree with the turn you took, though, haha :P but not in a hateful way as I've seen in the internet. Here's why:
In the first game, you get to see great character development from both Joel and a little bit of Ellie. You go from this father who loses his child to get to love another girl as her own. So much that he's willing to kill that many people to save her. The conflict here is amazing, on one side you have this faction who wants a cure, and on the other side, you see someone who loves the one who could die for the cure. We even know that Ellie would've wanted to die if it meant to save so many others. It is a simple conflict, but one that resonated so much that we were able to see the ratings of the game (technical aspects aside, although they were amazing).
In the second game, I don't get to see the same character development. On Abby's end, I feel like her story already happened and I'm playing the last part of it. Sure, they wanted to introduce a sensitive topic about religion and gender preference, but the first game did a great job with the sexual topic so naturally that it generated no trash talk about it (or at least not like I've seen in this game).
I do understand that they did some writing formulas to make her likable, but honestly, I did not like her that much. She had some interesting one-liners, and I liked her companions. I even felt bad that Ellie had to go through them to get to Abby, but I never felt a connection between her "friends" and her; maybe just with Owen since they had quite the story together. I don't get to feel the loyalty aside from the fact that no one wants to tell Ellie where she is.
Then they even try to paint Joel as not being as careful as in the first game, but then we see him tell Ellie to put on her mask in case they run into someone. The flashbacks just make many points more inconsistent with the choices they made during the game.
I thought you were going to dive deep into how to go with an idea, how the excecution matters in how you tell a story. Because while it worked for the first seasons on Game of Thrones, it did not work for me on this game. In the end I was ok with the decisions, but I think they should've thought better on how to portray their feelings up to the point of making said decisions.
I also believe the new writer and the co-director leaving Naughty Dog had a big influence in how the story went... but not much to mention on that subject.
I think there is so much material to analize from this game, and I really hope you get to do it because I like the way you dive into amazing references. In no way I'm trying to undermine your experience, because I like that you give your reasons about liking it, I hope I didn't make it feel that way.
I loved it. Had no clue on media around it. Thought everyone would love it. Was shocked at some reactions. But then again, I didn't watch CNN or Fox talk about it before I PLAYED! So I just had my own non slanted real opinion. Great game!!!!
Yeah for a sequel to one of my all-time favorite games I would at least give it the benefit of the doubt until I played it for myself and tried to understand what the devs intended. I didn’t wait 7 years just to see leaks out of context and hate the game before I’ve even played it. People are so ridiculously immature sometimes. The review bombing just compounds that. I didn’t think the game was a masterpiece but it at least deserved a fair shake like everything else.
Same. I purposefully avoided everything about the game until I played it so I wouldn't spoil it.
I loved it too! And this is coming from someone who thought the original, was just decent but extremely overrated. This imo was definitely one of the best games/sequels ever made....just a true marvel.
It's because the controversy behind the game was based on the homophobic views where Ellie and Dinah are lesbian couples while Abby is transgender. Plus, Joel is killed by Abby with a golf club which I don't understand at first about why he was killed.
I can't tell if Neil Druckmman is a massive jerk who attempted to flip off the game community or just a misunderstood person outside the media. Is Anita Saarkishan responsible for ruining the game and used him as a scapegoat to prove her point?
Or maybe it's because I was misinformed. The Internet is complicated these days and I can't tell which one is black or which is white.
@@poweroffriendship2.0 I don't get this comment.
You seem to know that the complaints are stupid, yet you... agree with them?
The way i understood the ending was that ellie wasnt that much hurt from joels death but because she didnt forgave him in life, and, as she says, she wanted to try, then she goes hunting for abby thinking that will make her feel better, later realizing that it wont make her feel better and thus killing abby wont help her sleep and it would be pointless to kill her and leave the kid to die.
This is also seen with abby that even tho she killed joel and avenged his father she still cant sleep well, only when she helps the kids she starts to rest
Tommy being the sniper is not a surprise. The player knows he's in town and they had a flashback sequence where you go sniping with him and they mention how good he is.
Plus the reason Ellie and Jesse split up is because they overhear there’s a sniper in the marina so he goes there, and later Jesse arrives with Tommy... So when you’re playing as Abby in the marina and finds a sniper, it’s kinda obvious it’s Tommy.
eh, not so obvious when you are playing,especially because it happens so later after they first mention tommy or he appears in a flashback.
@greenapplepear Right. It's no surprise that Tommy is the sniper. That didn't stop me from calling him a dick for being so good at it though.
I didn't even realise it was him until I watched this video haha. But now you mention the flashback it makes sense!
I was surprised.
I don't really have an issue with joel being killed. I believe it was expected. But I do have an issue with the circumstances of his death. I think it was too coincidental that Abby found right away the guy that she was looking for for years! Also how can you make her sympathetic when she tortures to death without any hesitation a man that saved her life like half an hour ago? Her motive for revenge is relatable but her actions seemed too cruel at least for me. So even when the game tried to humanise her it did not work for me. I was always thinking about how cruel she was towards someone whom she hated admitetally for good reason but ultimately saved her life. I mean she could at least give him a quick death...
yeah I don't know why they wanted to rushed that much is death and is true everything they do to make her likable feel weird after the way she kill joel
Ok so picture that you just go into your home one day and you found your father dead and you know exactly who did it, then picture your father was working on a vaccine that could cure the entire world. Years later you are saved by the guy who singlehandedly killed your father and doomed all his work for stoping the pandemic nightmare. You are telling me that you would forgive this man just because he saved your life without knowing who you are?
@@ennieminymoo6675 not necessarily forgive him but at least feel conflicted. So I don't think I would enjoyed torturing him
Gordon rass kwasi And yet I bet you were disappointed that Ellie didn’t kill Abby at the end despite the fact that Abby spared Ellie and her friends twice.
Pierre-Simon Cloutier Lavoie And not to mention Ellie fucked up Abby too. Ellie could have just let them go but instead she brought a knife to a fist fight. Pretty cruel imo.
Joel is responsible for every death, eh?
And thus began ... the memes.
🦏🥛
Rhino milk for everyone longman
Ah, Here are the ones who see. I salute all of thee.
Ah yes the efap place, getting my drink to enjoy the comments
In a way he is responsible for every new infected at least. Not every death because human killing each other won't just stop. That's what Ellie feels btw, guilt she can't save people like that one flashback
pulpficti Do you really believe that
1. They could have made the vaccine despite vaccines being useless against fungi and
2. The fireflies could have and WOULD have distributed it to everyone instead of keeping it for themeselves to gain power and respect over other factions?
Joel didn't do anything wrong.
I think the best stories are those that make us want to talk about and discuss it, try to understand and exchange opinions about it. TLOU Part II seems to have achieved that. I was quite satisfied with the game and its story, but I like to read other people with different opinions with solid arguments.
I agree, it's ok that a game's story challenges us mentally. But one might wonder if the current story line didn't cross the boundary between challenging our minds and reconsider our values, or try so hard to be controversial at key moments, that the message of "let's take a moment to think about this" gets overwhelmed by the shock effect of some graphical moments in certain cutscenes and plot twists. Apart from people being shocked by seeing Joel killed early in the game, even though the trailers and pre-release info made it appear like the main story would revolve about Joel and Ellie, and Ellie being the only playable character, which raised false expectations, some events feel forced, like these were added for extra dramatic effect, but sometimes less is more might have worked out better.
RC-Fan NL what was controversial besides the nature of Joel’s death and the general concept of playing as a character initially believed to be the antagonist for nearly half the game, but i wouldn’t call two divisive narrative delivery devices “trying too hard to be controversial in key moments” not sure where you’re coming from at all with that tbh
@@lac22lac40 controversial in the sense of whether some of the shocking/awkward storyline twists really enhanced the experience of playing this game, or just added for extra shock effect. Sometimes less is more. Like in the final battle, Ellie losing some fingers. So the final scene was even more dramatic, as Ellie could no longer play the guitar well. Some think it's a great detail, but I get the impression that more people feel like this was over the top, and the scene would have been very emotional without this somewhat gruesome detail.
RC-Fan NL criticisms like this are so wild to me, like go become a writer at Naughty Dog then 😂 but until then just reflect on the story that WAS told not the story you WANTED told
RC-Fan NL no one’s ever like “Tolkien really shouldn’t have had Frodo throw the ring in Mount Doom, because Frodo should’ve been pure enough to overcome the ring” see how absurd that sounds? it’s Neil Druckmann, Halley Gross, Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, etc.’s story, not yours
"If you're able to reconsider your emotions while you play" I think this line kind of fundamentally addresses the core issue of the game. Why should I have to reconsider things that the game tried so hard to instill in me, and then does absolutely nothing to change. I don't think showing Abby petting dogs, or acknowledging that she's a real human with actual friends (who are all flat and boring and one-note) should get me to care about her. She takes joy from torturing people throughout her entire arc, she has no problem cheating on her pregnant friend with her other friend. You say the game makes players empathize with her and I think it fails in that entirely. I got to the Ellie v. Abby fight and still felt bewildered that I was being asked to attack and try to kill the only character left in the game who I cared about. It felt fundamentally wrong; there was no conflict for me. I pushed down my feelings and did what the game wanted me to do, but every time I failed as Abby I thought to myself "good, im glad she died here."
I literally liked Abby less after being forced to endure being responsible for her survival and success as a player, she showed me she was somewhat complex in that she's not just "that cunt who tortured and murdered one of my favorite characters" she was also "that cunt who enjoyed torturing and murdering one of my favorite characters and is a bad friend but felt guilty enough to help a stranger." Almost 100% of the people (and dogs, thanks heavy-handed themes) you kill as Ellie in the game is purely in self defense, but I'm supposed to feel bad about that because Abby knew some of the people that died? I hate her why would I feel bad? All of these people put themselves in a situation where they attack strangers on sight with no hesitation.
Ellie kills a pregnant woman in self defense and is immediately traumatized after learning she was pregnant after-the-fact. Abby sees an opportunity to murder an innocent pregnant woman just to hurt someone she dislikes and she says "fucking good". How the fuck is this unlikable cunt comparable to someone I've spent 30 hours trying to protect and see grow as a character. And to me that is why this video game failed as a story, because Abby sucks and the game offers nothing to change that and offers Ellie no real reason to think about her actions. She spends years of real time and kills hundreds of people just for the person who killed her dad to mutilate her, and realize "joel talked to me on a porch one time" and give it all up in the end only to still lose everything?
Noones gonna read this bro
@@c87kim Well, I did. And at least 11 others did, too. *At least.*
Exactly. Ellie showed remorse and was troubled by her actions, while Abby never showed any. We're supposed to like her because she's the "new Joel" and Lev is the "new Ellie". But she never questions her actions. And I'm not surprised how quick "ways to kill Abby" videos came out soon after the game released.
I think the point was to show that where she was coming from to justify Joel's death, to show us she was a human who is trying to survive in this world just like Ellie and has ppl in her life she cares about. Liking her or hating is entirely subjective.
@@psychedelicyeti6053 I think she was a trained killer before killing Joel. After that, she met Yara and Lev and that's where she wanted redemption for what she has done. Her side of the story was interesting.
I disagree that there’s a dissonance in the ending portion with Ellie, as well as Abby’s death being “one too many” and that’s why Ellie stopped. The problem wasn’t all the killing by itself. Especially in that last portion, where the game goes out of its way to show that group of hunters as particularly evil and disgusting, more than any other faction in the game.
What stopped Ellie wasn’t that “oh no killing is wrong”, but the motivation behind it, as well as Abby’s current state. Ellie realized she was being driven by hate and hate alone, and stopped. Abby didn’t even want to fight. She was a broken woman who just wanted to protect a child. And still, Ellie almost killed her just because she couldn’t get over Joel’s death. But once she remembered she was willing to (try to) forgive Joel, she remembered her humanity and became willing to (try to) let go of the hate. She let Abby go not because killing is wrong, but because being driven by hate was consuming her.
Very well said.
I totally agree with that statement Bruno Bessa
Well said but I also think Abby sparing Ellie twice heavily factors into her final decision, it’s like at the end of god of war when Kratos says “the cycle ends here”
Jeff Santos I disagree. Ellie CHOSE to set out after Abby. It’s not like the WLF or the SCARS attacked Jackson. Ellie was intentionally trespassing on their land to kill one of their own. The WLF were defending themselves honestly.
Funny thing is I remember during the sniper segment I was getting so angry and was literally saying " I swear to god I'm gonna fuck this dude up when I get there" and then it blew my mind when it was Tommy.
fucking brainless
Having not finish this video I feel like a large part of people's opinion on the quality of part 2 depends on how they saw Joel's act at the end of part 1 the people who agreed with Joel and thought that the game had an overall had a theme of Hope and second chances are more inclined to dislike part 2 and people disagreed with him and thought that the themes of part 1 were more about the selfishness of humanity are more inclined to like part 2
I definitely see your point but speaking from my own perspective I have to disagree. I agreed with Joel's choice at the end of part 1 and most of part 2 but seeing in reframed in a different perspective (ie Abby's) made me see that what he did was wrong and that's part of why I think this game is so well done. It changed my mind about something I've thought fondly of for 7 years.
@@xp4perplanesx You're basically proving my point you think what Joel did at the end of the first game was wrong and because of that it's easier for you to sympathize with Abby even if you only became convinced of that through playing the second game
I disagree tho. I understand Joel's decision, and he is one of my favorites fictional character ever, TLOU 1 was the story of Joel's redemption and it worked really great. But still, it doesn't make not selfish, even tho the cure most likely wasn't going to work Joel saved Ellie and didn't thought if she was willing to die for that, it was selfish. And yet i really liked part 2, both games are very different as i feel like TLOU 1 tells the story on a more traditional way and TLOU 2 tells it in a very different way.
@@xp4perplanesx Yea. I think this is because we played as Joel and thus kind of saw Ellie as our own daughter. Who wouldn't due what Joel did for their daughter?
But his actions from a second perspective is entirely the point of Abby's part. If we heard today that a man gunned down dozens of people to save his daughter's life, we'd probably want that man put to justice as well
The sad part is that Joel was trying to be better 4 years after the first game. He had changed. And that's the tragedy of blind revenge. It robs people of that. Abby didn't see Joel's change, but Ellie saw that Abby had changed with the way she spared Dina and was protective/listening to Lev. That's one of the reasons Ellie didn't enact her revenge and Abby did.
People's opinion depends on how much they care about Joel and the story. The story is terrible but if you're here for gameplay and graphics it's not bad.
What I love was that Abby was, in reality, very similar to Ellie. They were fighting for similar things. And in the end-Abby became a character similar to Joel.
Exactly. Abby and Ellie are the two sides of the same coin. And Abby ends up taking care of Lev the same way Joel took care of Ellie.
It's trying to ape the story of TLOU1, but Abby slaughters her own people to take care of someone she just met, while it takes an entire game to tell the story of Joel and Ellie.
Bc they replace Ellie with trans
Abby tried to shoot Ellie after Ellie was unarmed and told Abby she was the cure. Abby and Joel are in no way similar.
@@thickoatmeal5719 I mean the only man in the world (that we know of) who can find a cure is dead so did it really matter if abby killed ellie even if she was the cure?
Finally, a positive review of TLOU2. I liked the first game and spent over 100 hours on it. However, for TLOU2, I have just been on and off and haven't beaten the game yet. I just cannot get into it, However, It doesn't mean that I hate the game like everyone else does over the Internet. The story isn't good but not bad as trash or sh*t like people criticized it either. I really like the franchise and I really hope there will be TLOU3 someday.
I respect that
You're kinda misguided about just how bad the story actually is on a mechanical level.
@@VladDascaliuc no u
What would the Last of us 3 even be about? It would have to be longer than 2 since Naughty Dog always goes bigger. But at this point almost all of the majors characters are dead/crippled in some way. The first game’s ending was a great jumping off point for a sequel. The second game’s ending felt much more final. I don’t want to see Abby and Lev joining the fireflies lmao i don’t care 🤷🏼♂️
I understand you 🤗
In a podcast Druckmann said that he never wanted to make the player sympathize with Abby. He wanted to show the other side of the story from a different perspective. And the game does that perfectly. Its not a bad story or game only because its not what people wanted or expected. If people dont like it, thats fine. But then it is a problem of the player, not the game. Personal taste.
“It’s not the game, it’s the player”. I 100% agree cause lots of people actually like it, and some don’t, that proves it depends on what the player wants to happen, not what the writers want you to see happen.
Anunay Gupta I have read thousandths of comments on this game and never has anyone mentioned the shit about Abby being naked. What are you a fckin perve you seem to be the only one paying attention to details like that. Niell ain’t a perve, you make a game then
@Anunay Gupta Lmao the reaching
I agree with this. This is one of the reasons the game got mixed reviews. The direction they took for the story was not exactly what a lot of us expected. It was a unique plot decision. To some, it might have been bad writing and may have even ruined the game for them altogether. But to others, the plot decision may have been an understandable one. Unconventional for a revenge story, but understandable. They want to show us the broader context and relate the product of the events that unfold to the theme of the story. But, once more, we return to your point. It's a matter of the player, not the game. Personally, I liked it a lot. But I can understand why a lot of people didn't. It's fair for all gamers to have their own perspectives on it. But in the end, TLOU 1 and 2 get us to truly question the nature of morality in the light of emotion and how sometimes, the right thing to do can *feel* like the wrong thing to do and vice versa.
it's not that the intention wasn't clear, it's the writing that lead to this that truly suck ass...
*video suggestion:* What Writers Should Learn From "Star Wars The Clone Wars (tv show)"
now we are talking!!!
I'm in! Maybe a couple of videos 😁
Be on the brink of cancellation so that you don't care anymore and just do cool shit.
god, i hear so much latelely about it.
do i really need to start it? its so freakin long
@@Exel3nce I think you won't regret if you finally do so. you see, the story is like an anthology, diferent stories and arcs in one show. you don't have to watch every single episode like in other shows. I recommend you to Google the recommended episode order to start. people made a list with the most relevant episodes and arcs, for example avoiding jar jar will be easier this way if you don't like him.
the things I personally like about this show is their characters (Anakin is a likable character here) and their interactions. while other movies don't give the clones any importance or even faces, here the clones have diferent personalities and the episodes involving them, apart from incloudingbfihhting, touch themes like individualism, freedom, honour or what it means to be a soldier while being fun to watch and epic.
the female characters are tridimentional and even the villains are interesting (except grievous but he's still fun to watch)
another motive why you might like it is that this show had some balls when it came to storytelling, not hesitating to explore more complex and meaningful topics, and in general, it feels like a mature show that doesn't treat it's viewers like babies. very beautiful, meaningful, epic or dramatic arcs. it's storytelling aged spectacularly well and it's animation improves over time, getting a very cinematic look during battles.
I really suggest you to search for the arcs on those episode lists made by fans, it's the ultimate clone wars experience and order since the show itself is not in chronological order.
think of this like when you watch naruto and follow a list which excludes the filler episodes 😁
also it's pretty straight forward and easy watch. it's not pretentious at all like some shows.
if one day you decide to watch it I hope you enjoy it a lot! I didn't watch the recent episodes and I didn't watch every episode from the previous seasons either, but I did watch the more important ones and I think it's the best prequel experience, and it's star wars at it's best! even people who are not that into the star wars movies get to like this.
you just have fun friend 😁
MsDaydream3r
That’s hard, because it is an anthology, lol. So maybe the three best arcs or so.
To me the problem was that I could see the writers hands desperately trying to create cenarios to make me care for abby, using dogs and other animals to mirror the giraffe scene from the first one, giving a child side character to protect again, like in the first game and so on. That aside, all of the suporting characters are so bland and forgettable, how am I suppose to care for their deaths if they have no personalities? Not only that, Abby herself barely reacts to many of her friends deaths, I don't even think that she found out about Nora's death. If she does not care why should I?.
Even though I understand her motivations Abby's story felt so artificial and bland that I could not engage with it.
I think in a way, the reason why I couldn't emphasize with Abby was that there was no backbone to their relationships like the cast of the first game did. I think with the first game the thing that really made me empathize with those characters was because of desperation. It was in those moments when characters were at their most desperate and weakest that I really felt the connection between characters, (Tess's sacrifice, Sam's final moments of pondering about life before his turning, Henry's frantic decision to blame Joel and Ellie but then ends himself, Marlene's indecision but ultimately making a difficult decision as leader of the Fireflies). A lot of these characters feel so human to me because of their desperation to survive and make sense of the bleak world they live in. For some reason I couldn't feel that way about Abby, im not sure why but I think its because her revenge never felt desperate in how she gets to Joel, which in comparison to Ellie felt much more effort was put into doing. Her revenge doesn't feel like a journey, heck her revenge came to her that I felt like she didn't deserve it due to how convenient it was for her, and for a game that prides in its gritty realism, it fails to make Abby's revenge feel realistic. As far as I know she had only obsessed with finding out where Joel is, but nothing about how she gets to Jackson was ever shown, we never see her thirst of revenge tested in the obstacle that is this zombie-esque world. In the first game even trekking just outside the walls was dangerously filled with clickers and runners, in the roads lay traps readied by the hunters, we see how dangerous and desperate people are to survive to the point of cannibalism. We see how they are a product of this apocalyptic setting. I think maybe that's, why a lot of people are saying that they felt like this, wasn't a Last Of Us game because it lost that element of survival and desperation, it forgot to flesh out the intimacy between characters.
Well when Yara and Manny die it is on the battlefield where she has to continue her mission or risk being killed as well, it's like saying Ellie diddnt care about Jesse's death. Also when Abby saw the death of Mel and Owen she literally pukes, i dont know where exactly she doesn't react to the death of her friends. It sounds like you merely made that up to be honest.
@@blaccpanther8715 the point is the deaths are barely aknowledged by her, just because manny and yara died on the battlefield does that make it ok to basically forget about them later in the plot? What emotional impact does it have for me? Owen and mel have one scene and that is it, they are also erased from the plot, no mourning no remembering no nothing, but the plot wants me to believe that they were very important, the story also needs to do better than just tell me that Abby cares, or throw one scene and be done with it. Deaths of complete strangers had more substance in the first game.
Please if you don't agree that is fine, but don't say that people made things up just because you don't agree with it.
I’m a pretty simple guy. If I see a game, movie, or book that I’m interested in, I get excited and look forward to experiencing its story. This game was no exception.
Now, I must have been another plain of existence or something, because I didn’t see or hear any of the “leaks” for this game until after I finished the it. So one could say I went in with as close of an ideal perspective as Naughty Dog could ask for. And for me, the story probably achieved the feelings it was meaning to invoke. This was probably due to the fact that I only had the speculations about Ellie and Abby’s relationship that were made when we first saw Abby in the gameplay trailer LITERALLY YEARS AGO!
So I went in to this game thinking that Abby was Ellie’s mother, and that the story would tell her history, who Ellie’s father was, and possibly even explain more about Ellie’s immunity. So for the first two hours of the game, I thought Abby was in a flashback. And when I saw Joel save her from the infected horde, I was thinking; NO WAY, JOEL IS TOTALLY ELLIE’S REAL DAD! AND NEITHER OF THEM KNOW IT! And the idea of Joel and Tommy just walking into a hideout full of armed strangers didn’t really strike me as odd at first, because I was still thinking this whole thing is in then past. This could be the group that Joel and Tommy were part of when they did those “unspeakable things” Joel refers to in the first game. And they hadn’t learned to be as cautious as they should be yet.
The moment I realized that Abby wasn’t a flashback didn’t even come when she shot his leg. It only came after I saw that Joel’s entire right knee was gone did I think; “oh, this is for real”. So that was a twist for me. And then then you all know the rest of it by now.
Like I said before, because I went into this game basically blind in regards to spoilers, I’d say for me it did its job. At the two critical points where Abby and Ellie face off, I didn’t want either to die. When Abby killed Joel, I was right there with Ellie, hating her guts. But by the time we had returned as Abby to the theater, I was genuinely concerned with who was going to walk out afterward. And that was the story’s goal in my opinion.
So am I glad that Joel’s dead, no. But am I happy there are new potential character arcs and new stories to experience, yes.
So please play the game through yourself even if you say you’ve already known the full story for months. It really does deserve at least one play through.
100% agree. I also played it unbiased and "unspoiled", and it was a marvel to play through. I shit you not, when I played the game it was raining heavily outside, with lightning and the whole shebang. So immersion in the game was on point. Several weeks later I'm still talking about the game. Haven't really done that with any other game, to be honest.
I played the game spoiler free too. Based off of what I got from the trailers I thought Abby could be Ellie's mom too! I knew she was mad and hostile from the first scene of her but didn't know if it was a flashback or not until I saw Joel. He was old when he met Abby so I didn't think they could be friends especially since she said she was looking for someone and was willing to interrogate a squad from jackson to look for them.
@Andrew Gray You're missing out on a great game, so get it when discounted at least :)
@Andrew Gray She did pay for her crime through Karma. She lost her lover and all of her friends for killing Joel. TLOU2 is a good game, as a stranger from the Internet I highly recommend that you try it! :)
I don't want to see Joel being killed off with a golf club. I'll pass, thanks.
The story definitely messed with my head and emotions, but I don't think it hit me quite as hard as it did for others, because my entire thought process towards the actions of every character's actions was "what you're doing is really messed up, and I don't really like you for it, but at the same time, I empathize, and I get it." For one reason or another, I was already at that emotional place the story was trying to take me before I played it. The execution is a bit messy and absolutely long-winded, but all in all, I think it did a really good job, even if it did sort of stumble across the finish line. I respect any story that dares to be ambitious and tries to do something challenging, so I can forgive a some missteps in execution.
What exactly was challenging?
What you said in quotations is exactly the problem with morality in modern day. Intolerance is a bad thing, something that is painfully clear due to the excessive moralizing in society of its ills. We can agree on that, but just as a deficit of tolerance is bad, so is an excessive amount of tolerance. That's our plight in today's day, that and no one has a defined morality. No one knows what's good or bad or how we should deal with good acts and bad acts, we all just accept them as the same and "empathize" them excusing them. Abby literally TORTURED a man to death, in what world can you then say to yourself "ya, I get it". Especially when that man just saved your life moments before!
I understand this.
Neither Abby nor Ellie were good people. Neither were Joel or Owen for that matter. The characters in this serious were humanity, but rendered in such a high resolution that it becomes ugly. When the photograph shows so many details that all you can see are pockmarks and irregularities. Most irregular - but also arguably the most human - of them all, is the capacity to hate. And this game runs down THAT particular road very nearly all the way. To let something like hate consume us utterly - we want to believe you'd be better than that. But like you say, you get it - we get it. Its really uncomfortable seeing people behave like this, and a big part of how uncomfortable it is comes from how sympathetic it is - how relatable it is. Heck, tons of the detractors for this game series are prime examples of this concept writ large - so many people hating on this game hate it because "Ellie didn't get her revenge, but Abby did". They are literally the point that is embodied by both Abby and Ellie when they're on rampage mode - that is the cycle that must be broken. The fact that people fall into it so readily just demonstrates to me how real and human the things the game talks about really is.
@@SistoActivitatemAtm …you realize Joel tortured and killed people too right? Abby is probably the most morally good character
@@Weird_but_neat torturing someone = morally good appearently.
I disagree with only one point you've made. The scene with the Zebra wasn't put in for us to like Abby. It was put in to show, or emphasize, the Doctor had a good heart. Which gives his character more meaning in the overall story. Abby wasn't as invested at that moment.
5:41
Good vid.
I disagree with you both, in that I think MAINLY the zebra was to connect our empathy with Ellie to our empathy with Abby, and somewhat short-circuit our brains with conflicting emotions (Abby as an "other" suddenly becomes very much Ellie, and thus very difficult to see as an "other"). The zebra immediately goes to the same place Ellie and Joel encountered the giraffes in part 1...at the same moment we see the hospital, and put all the pieces together. It has the added benefit of engendering empathy for Abby and her father, but it's a bonding moment between father and daughter that very much mirrors Ellie and Joel's bonding moment in part 1. How can we hate Abby for killing Ellie's father, when the reason she did it is because Joel killed HER father...who just happened to be on the cusp of saving the entire human race?
@Andrew Gray It didn't seem humanity was recovering very well. They all devolved into murderous, amoral factions hell-bent on killing each other. Moreover, the vaccine they were making wouldn't have been made by taking antibodies from her blood (this wasn't Covid-19, or a virus). The FUNGUS was in her BRAIN, and dormant, unlike in everyone else who ever contracted it. To make the vaccine, they had to destroy her brain...and thus kill her.
Andrew Gray Wow! Am I right in thinking that you’re calling Ellie a piece of shit?
I totally agree! Loved seeing someone analyzing it from a writing perpective rather than gaming.
In the words of a certain god of war: "This path you walk: vengeance. You will find no peace. I know."
As an avid lover of God of War 2018, thank you for quoting that specific line. As I was playing TLOU2 and I was watching Ellie's soul get torn apart by her ruthless quest for revenge, all I could think about were those words of aged wisdom from Kratos to Baldur.
When Ellie didn't kill Abby
"The cycle ends here, we must be better"
@@Christopher_TG true
Hi lightning ⚡️, loved the sonic adventure 3 video
I'm very happy to see a positive video on the game. I love the part where you mention that people only base their judgement on spoilers instead of playing it themselves. I really loved the game personally and it brought out every emotion possible, thanks for the great video.
so basically discredit the negative voices based on one portion of the group, and not acknowledging the valid criticisms the rest of the group seems to have, got it
@@xyc350 Well considering there has been thousands of videos downgrading or bashing this game since the leaks happened I can see why they felt the need to not follow that trend.
the review bombing on day 1 is proof enough that people start by hating the game and their whole experience following that has confirmation bias strewn throughout. And many will just watch a let’s play and think that is somehow equivalent to playing the game.
@@mercuryrockum1562 I was talking about the method of picking & choosing weak arguments to discredit the entire opposing side, OFC people can have a difference of opinion, but this is more of a lazy and ineffective way to corroborate one's point
@@The_Story_Of_Us Doesn't change the fact that this failed to address some of the most compelling arguments out there but instead focuses on the weak ones in an effort to discredit the other side. Having people on one side spewing out bullshit doesn't just cancel out the valid criticisms, because then someone could totally just ignore your valid arguments, just say "people who like this game are just simping for naught dog."
TLOU2 took the world and story of the first game and did something entirely different. But the underlying theme was the same. In the first game, it at first seems to be about the struggle for survival, but it is really about the characters struggling to hold onto their humanity in spite of the terrible decisions and actions they commit. In TLOU we understood the purpose of Joel and Ellie's journey. They were on a mission where the stakes were a cure to the infection that caused the collapse of the world. Anything they did was therefore justified, because it was another step towards saving the human race. And this was what made the ending so shocking, because Joel did the unthinkable due to his feelings for Ellie. But it kept with the the story's theme. In Joel's mind, his saving Ellie was justified, because the bond between them represented the last bit of humanity he had in the world, and he would fight for it at all costs. Whether he was driven more by weakness or love was beyond the point.
In the second game, on the surface, the characters' motives appear clear. They are driven by hate. But the main theme is not revenge. Like in TLOU, it is about retaining some shred of humanity in a cruel and unforgiving world. At the end of the game Ellie sees this in the bond between Abby and Lev at the beach. She also realizes that Lev will likely die without Abby, or go on to become another monster in their cycle of revenge--this being the person who had spoken up to save Ellie and Dina from Abby's rage in the theater. It was clear in the cut scene how Ellie was internally conflicted and about to let the two go without a fight. But Ellie's vision of a dead Joel triggered the hate still inside.
In the end, she does spare Abby though. And by doing so, Ellie beaks the cycle of hatred and stops herself from becoming a complete monster. The deeper meaning of this action is further shown in the closing scene between her and Joel. The world had become a hard place that brought out the worst in people, but not without reason. Joel did what he did, because as much as Ellie's life would've meant to the world in finding a cure, she'd already become everything to him. The brief flashback of Joel on the guitar before she let Abby go reminded her of this, and that if she was ever going to hold on to her humanity she'd have to learn to forgive not only Joel for the ugliness the world brought out of him, but others too. Ellie's failure to do this at first ultimately cost her so much, as she had gotten others killed, lost Dina, and become unable to play the guitar. It likely would have consumed her in the end. But she was fortunately able to regain her capacity to be a human again. We can also infer that she got much needed closure by finally making amends for the actions of Joel, and in the process, could honor his memory.
That is exceptional writing. Of course the story did have some plot holes in other areas, but the heart of the story is still a solid one, and stands on its own while building on what the first game laid out. But because it dared to do it differently and in a complex way, people were disappointed.
Good writing.
I can only agree with you, everybody who hates the story or especially Abby doesnt get the point of the game. You are supposed to be on Ellies side because she is the main character. Your favorite character from game 1 gets killed by the bad guy. You then seek revenge and hunt down the bad guy at all costs. This is a story told a million times in books, movies and games.
But TLOU2 turns everything upside down by making you play the bad guy. And suddenly I completely understood Abby, why she wanted to kill Joel, why she didnt kill Ellie and Thommy when she had the chance. Why every friend she looses gives her no choice but to stop Ellie. By that point I rooted for Abby and the game even made you fight Ellie as Abby, which further prooves the point that Ellie is a complete psychopath from Abbys point of view. The endfight was torture because I didnt want to fight Abby, but you had no choice (maybe thats the biggest complaint people have: the lack of player choices) but like you already said the end shows that Ellie only seeked revenge and paid the ultimate price.
a little of topic but a lot of the story reminded me of Naruto and Pain. Because to stop the vicious cycle of revenge killing one has to take all the pain on himself and forgive.
The way you put it makes way more sense than the way the actual game puts it. I like the game a little more now. It’s still pretty crappy though. I never would’ve come to that conclusion without your comment. The game just told the story really badly I feel, but your comment made that mess much easier to understand
that is exactly what I like about this game so much. You have many individual opinions on the story good and bad but through all the emotional turbulences throughout this game you start to think more and more about what story they truly want to tell you. You can put all the pieces together in the end and make up your ultimate opinion about the game. It is no use to be biased by certain events happening before the release even and hate the game to bits. It is much better to try and understand what the writers truly meant when creating such a controversial story. Nice to see everyones opinion on the game and I liked yours especially!
There actually is a theory that Ellie is still with Dina, at the end of the game it’s months later and Ellie has something on her wrist. What is it? It’s dinas bracelet she made for Ellie. We don’t see the bracelet on her when she leaves or in her boat, or in her backpack when she is tracking down Abby for the last time. Speaking of the backpack, notice how she doesn’t have any weapons or holsters on it? It’s like she took them to some other place or stored them somewhere. Ellie goes through the house and isn’t surprised to see it empty and abandoned. She doesn’t breakdown or talk about how she regrets everything, she just plays Joel’s guitar peacefully. And in the end, she leaves the guitar to show how maybe leaving a memory and leaving something important behind can help her heal. Not only that, but help her move on as a person.
Also a little tidbit, before Ellie does leave, theres a note from Jesses parents saying that they will always have a home in jackson. I personally believe in this whole theory and I find it even more cool that naughty dog hides these small details for the players to come to a conclusion
“Show don’t tell” is exactly what I was thinking during my play through as Abby.
What I liked the most about this game is that after everything was said and done, I couldn't simply say that neither one side or the other was completely correct or completely wrong. I knew and loved Ellie from the start, and was gradually thinking that she was losing her moral upper hand, even though still justified. While on Abby's side I started with the opposite feeling, but when I thought objectively that she was avenging her father and even spared people who had no part in his death (Ellie and Tommy), I could give her some credit while still not LIKING her. Both fathers had taken ambiguous decisions, and unlike the point made in the video, I think that every death in this game is the result of Jerry's (Abby's father) decision to simply kill a girl in surgery without her consent, or Joel's. If anything, that scene between him and Marlene served as a redemption for her, and puts a heavier weight on her murder by Joel's hands. Joel, Jerry, Ellie and Abby...all of them justified and wrong at the same time. This conflict is brilliant.
I view this from Joel's actions, not Jerry's... Yes, it was a kid he didn't know, who they didn't inform on how the cure would kill her. Jerry and the rest of the surgeons lacked sensibility during that part, let the kid know. However, this kid was the only link to a cure because of the mutated spores in her brain, had they said anything, there was a possibility still that she'd say no, and her sacrifice would mean saving humanity. One life for the many that follow. However, Joel took that information and immediately acted on selfish desire to have Sarah's surrogate remain alive. Despite having the ability to return to a humane world had he let go of Ellie/Sarah. Despite what he thought was heroic and just, he did an evil thing in which he killed the last known doctor who could do this surgery and took the only known cure from humanity. His actions led to his own demise and the demise of countless others. Ellie even mentioned in the first game close to St Mary's that she wants her immunity to mean something, and 4 years after that she comes forward and says outright she would've wanted them to do it.
@@J0J0155 I agree with what you said about Joel's actions being selfish, but if anything, Jerry's decision to not wake Ellie was motivated by cowardness. They could have simply ignored her eventual denial and kill her for the greater good anyway, but he couldn't live with that...Yeah, I really dislike Jerry jahaha...Ah, one other thing that I saw people saying and I never thought about: Finding a cure in a fucked up world like that would never mean hope, it would mean leverage. Fireflies, as every other group that we encountered on both games, would go corrupt over this thing. I still think that a cure at the cost of Ellie's life was not the right way, but this doesn't fix the duality in Joel's actions.
She avenged her father death by torturing a person and enjoying it. wtf is wrong with people who think that's understandable?
@@paulgotik You're right, that is way worse than simply killing him. What im saying is that even though she did this, she showed some humanity by letting Ellie and Tommy live.
Latter Ellie tortures a person who wasn't even the one who killed Joel, and at the same time feels horrible for killing a pregnant woman in self defense.
Our rules and morals are different from theirs because of the context they live in, but my point is this ying yang shit around the cycle of revenge.
@@paulgotik if someone killed your dad wouldn’t you make them suffer
“The story is concerned with how violence tears us apart but then tells us to have fun with arrows that show dynamite”....BRUH😂😂😂
I mean it's still a game, it supposed to be fun and playable.
@@marvelousmeh2077 still, ludonarrative dissonance is definitely a thing. Gameplay's probably still fun but doesn't support the story. Which is fine, but I just come to appreciate a game more when the gameplay matches or enhances the story.
@@djroscurro9859 Gameplay absolutely supports the story. It's rageful, it's hateful, it's brutal - just like the plot of the TLoU2. The story isn't some wishy-washy "killing (or the internet's favorite, revenge) bad". It's about a world of monsters creating monsters, then, in the end, fighting back against that.
"Evil is a contagious act in this world, but maybe a kind act can be just as contagious." Abby saves Lev, and Lev saves Dina and Ellie, and Ellie saves Abby and Lev.
@@CDexie from what I remember, I was more talking about the game the original comment brought up. TLOU 2 is fine in this regard
Did everyone pay attention to Joel's expressions in the moments before the first swing? Did it look like he was clearly contemplating that, "this is it, my demons finally caught up to me." Then proceeds to face those demons head on, accepting the fate (he does that thing with his mouth, then says get it over with)?
NJayXnockout - I loved that he said “skip the speech and get on with it”. Epic.
If you want to know the answer, Troy Baker has an awesome explanation about what Joel thought in that moment, in this interview, starting at about 16:20, m.th-cam.com/video/g6rRfK-V2jY/w-d-xo.html&feature=share
@ Kristoffer Senneset
You can directly link to youtube time-stamps. Here's the link directly to the beginning of Troy Baker's 2.5 minute commentary on Joel's thoughts he tried to convey:
th-cam.com/video/g6rRfK-V2jY/w-d-xo.html
Due to the cliffhanger preceding Abby’s story, I was more or less going through it as quickly as possible and was just wanting to get back to the main story. I was less interested in her and her friends. However the biggest problem is that once Abby’s story was over and we go back to the theater where she’s already killed Jesse and she shoots Tommy and almost kills Dina any goodwill I head towards her vanished. I went from thinking she was OK back to thinking she was an a-hole again.
@Poop69 Let's not forget, they don't have the same perspective as we, the player do. Abby didn't know Ellie was disgusted after accidentally killing pregnant Mel. She probably thought it was done in cold blood.
Poop69 I agree. As for Mel and Owen, I mean why not tell Ellie that Abby went to the island. Not like she would have found her in all that chaos. Mel had little loyalty to Abby by that point as we saw in Abby’s story. I believe they were arguing about Abby coming along too and Mel was pissed. Ellie’ would have let them go, until they attacked her. Actually the thing that I really had difficulty believing was after Abby had beaten Joel to death in front of Ellie and Tommy, she seemed surprised they came after her. She spent 4 years looking for Joel and plotting his death. How the hell did she, of all people, not expect it. I mean after what she did, to expect no retribution either makes her so cold she does not empathize with how others may react or just really stupid.
Yeah, I don't think this succeeds at all in trying to make you feel anything for Abby. The emotions of this game work better in a vacuum, than it does in the context of the first game.
You're talking about immersion. If you want the player to feel contradictory feelings, they have to feel undecided about how they want to proceed. Games like Baldur's Gate and Divinity: Original Sin, and to a lesser extent, Fable or Mass Effect, do this as well. To do this with a character that you do not see yourself in, but have empathy and attachment for, is still different from feelings of relatability and kinship.
The idea of every death after the end of the first game being Joel's fault, is a naive plot point that has no awareness of horror tropes or medicine. To find a cure, the immune person is worth much more alive than dead. The dissonance the player will feel after the ending of the first game, drives the player to understand Joel's justification for his actions, as Joel will take the action that makes sense to them, because what the Fireflies are doing, doesn't make sense at all. Whether Ellie knows or not, isn't the gut punch the story hinges upon.
Trying to get the audience to side with Abby, is the goal in which Naughty Dog should be measured by, in terms of if they can prove themselves successful, in this daring story idea. From this perspective, the game fails like a box office bomb, despite critical success. When you dig into the weeds, critics, and mavericks, find the structural holes and weaknesses to the game's strengths. These people find that there are no good guys, or bad guys, and see the characters for the different shades of gray that they are. The blinding rage in which both main characters in this game, is understandable, and yet, surreal, to the player. Anyone who knows the blackout rage they are portraying, is familiar that they are being irrational. The player is aware of this. What truly causes conflicted empathy, is the dissonance between the murderous rampage Ellie is said to be going through, and the examination of a sober mind the player has, to see, know, and understand, that many of her actions against Abby's friends, were in self-defense, even if one manages to go through an as pacifist as possible play-through of the game. This, of course, is in the knowledge that most players will rampage through the game, but avoiding violence or not, the outcome is the same. There is an aggressor, and a defender, in Abby and Ellie. Ellie doesn't want to kill anyone but Abby, yet has to, usually through through the aggression of others. Abby on the other hand, is often the aggressor, and much more difficult to relate to. Nobody (sane) goes into a relationship planning on beating their partner.
To not want to hurt Abby when playing as Ellie, discounts the context of The Last of Us entirely. Those who claim as such, make me wonder if they played the first game at all.
The empathy that one is supposed to feel for Abby, isn't there for most players, as a fault of the designers, not as a fault of the player. This is in contrast to what I feel the game, Naughty Dog, and by extension, the reviewers giving glowing praise, are arguing. The players are not dense.
"...and if you're able to reconsider your emotions while you play, then I think the game has accomplished the game pretty impressive."
If one were to use the unique tools of video game story telling, the game could be not only never be mistaken for a film, but also far more successful in giving the player a reason to reconsider their emotions, rather than to guilt, and shame the player into trying to feel something they do not. The game feels as though it were written with the idea that players were all a certain way, but never has the foresight to imagine that the players are generally good people, and exists as a criticism for this stand-in for whatever the designer's vision for a "player" is.
The narrative uses the basics for cultivating empathy for Abby, but it's like an entire construction crew bringing a single hammer to try and build a new hospital for the Fireflies. Naughty Dog is not Fix-It Felix, although by their choices of design, they sure seem to aspire to be.
There's more I want to say, but I at least want to get this reply out early enough so that it might be read.
In all, I think that your ideas of the game, are not quite well founded, and gives praise for things that don't work as well as you seem to think they do, which further confounds me.
Neil Druckmann himself has personally gone on record saying that when he was a kid and young adult that he had fantasies about being extremely violent (in the ways that are portrayed in his games) towards people he disagrees with or dislikes.
The reason the story comes off as though the author doesn't understand the behaviour and minds of the average player is precisely because the author believes that his thoughts and behaviour as a young adult are what accounts for normal behaviour for most people.
The story therefore has major disconnect with the average player because it was written from the perspective of someone who has never been right in the head.
You might want to check out this review: th-cam.com/video/A6iaARLOaiM/w-d-xo.html
I find the whole premise that we need the game to make us feel empathy for Abby hilarious. To me, Abby's actions were so self evidently justified that I did not need anyone to explain it to me. When Joel was being clubbed to death, It just made total sense to me because he is the man who doomed humanity and hence would be hated by anyone who knows his secret. I literally thought the point of Abby's playthrough was merely to know her origin story...it did not occur to me at all that Abby would need to justify clubbing Joel to death. I'll bet that if you just took a random sample of 10 adults from that world, and explained to them Joel's secret...at least 4 out of 10 would be in favour of the death penalty for what they would perceive to be a crime against humanity. So the idea that Abby even needs to explain herself is just ridiculous to me. Again, i thought they were just showing a character origin story.
"To do this with a character that you do not see yourself in, but have empathy and attachment for, is still different from feelings of relatability and kinship." That is because every time something important on story will happen, Druckmann removes the controls from the players. It is not a story game, it is a game with levels and cut scenes telling a story between the levels. There is not a big connection between the game and the narrative, actually, lacks.
This is excellently said! I really agree with you too. The game lost me a lot in the second half and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't connect with Abby as a player and, as a result, didn't care about anything while I was controlling her. I don't judge people who enjoyed the game or managed to connect with Abby, but if half of the players are struggling to do so, then surely this implies that there is at least SOME fault on the end of the writers and designers?
8:33 bruh. I knew it was Tommy, before that we hear about sniper in the radio plus Jessie goes to find him.
Rly?
They set up the Rattlers as trash who enslave people so her killing them is not really on par with killing seraphites or WLF. In fact, killing each type of enemy was a different experience as I discovered more about them--which I'd say is a strength in the storytelling. Also, how about Ellie accidentally being a savior to those people in bondage but then feeling nothing for it? She is so entrenched in revenge that she doesn't care about who she saves or kills (unless they're prego which reminds her of Dina), which shows some consistency. Her losing her two fingers at the end is also symbolic in three ways: A) that hand now only has the fingers used to make the peace sign, B) her revenge rampage took from her in large part the ability to play guitar, which is how she feels connected to the good things about Joel (as shown by the image of Joel playing guitar being the image that stops her from killing Abby), and C) three fingers equals Last of Us Part III coming to PS5. BOOM.
This might be a bit of a weird observation, but I also think a reason a lot of people can't get into the game, is because we aren't used to having to understand both sides of the story. I saw this when civil war came out, and a lot of people were entirely team cap, or entirely team iron man, and both sides suddenly seemed incapable of empathy. You see that now in politics. Your either extreem left or extreem right in the eyes of the other side, and there's nothing in between, and therefore you are either good or evil. People can't seem to grasp anymore that that there are humans with a life and a story on the other side of that line. This game forces you to see all the sides of a story, and I think a lot of people are to blinded by how much the like joel and Ellie, to see Abby is a person too. (Don't get me wrong, I love joel and Ellie, but you can still like a flawed person, we do that every day irl) The fact that someone is wrong, and doing bad stuff doesn't mean that they're suddenly not human anymore. I think that we kind of tend to forget that sometimes, and a lot of people don't like that in this game you're suddenly forced to remember.
Annemarie Donselaar - completely agree. Most video and film villains are one dimensional characters who want power, money or land. Abby wanted to avenge the death of a loved one - something most if not all of us would do in that situation. Can’t remember a game that has made you play as the villain and watch as the hero (Ellie) hunts and slaughters your crew.
Well people hate Civil war because they purposely wrote them as dicks. The writer thought people would be to on the side of iron man because his idea sound more resonble. So he purposely wrote the iron man side as authoridan dicks. Not understand people used to seeing Superheros act as vilgalanties so you don't need to weight in that heavily on their side. Namely with Sentiels in the backstory. Not to mention they put some of the most popular heroes and one side. And the ones that known for being dicks on the other. And had iron man doing insane unesscary stuff like people with any superhero power getting drafter for the government not just registered.
Nah. In game of thrones you didn’t want Jamie to kill Danny but you also didn’t want him to get killed by her dragon. TLOU2 just failed to give us that feel. (Caring for both sides)
Koricthegreat washed up fighter - I don’t think they wanted you to care for Abby (she’s not a good person and the only time she begins to redeem is with lev), just understand why she killed Joel and the consequences of her actions on her and her friends.
One of my favourite examples of this game making me feel completely unjustified in my/Ellie's revenge quest, and a total scumbag by extension, is when I killed this dog and someone shouted their name. It was Bear.
Then, the first day as Abby, I'm playing fetch with that same dog. And he's so fucking cute... I was like, "Holy shit. I killed this pupper." and I had to stop throwing the ball, got way too emotional.
Me and others felt like that scene and other scenes alike were "manipulative" thus having the opposite effect than what was intended.
i already know the dog dies when i play fetch but the game forced me to kill it and trying to make me feel bad about it is just lame
@@lucimilan777 No, Bear is an optional kill during a part where Ellie travels with Jesse, right before the boat part. You can play fetch with Bear at the stadion but it's optional. The dog who dies at the aquarium in a cutscene is Alice.
Fuck me I missed that. Now I feel terrible I spent a solid 10 mins playing fetch with the boy. Shows the depth and power of this story tho. I legit loved this game and thought the story was a legitimate work of art.
Lmao you killed hundreds of people and feel no remorse and now you kill one dog and you feel sad? sheesh.
@@SAMSARALIVEEEEEE I didn't say I didn't feel bad about killing the people, there were plenty of instances where I did, it's just this part made me feel the worst. I mean... That dog was just soo cute...
Am I the only person who knew the sniper was Tommy? Jessie and Ellie were going to a sniper that the assumed was Tommy and were going to help him. But Ellie breaks off to find abbie and Jessie goes to look for him by himself. Which in a way is interesting, if Ellie wasn't so bossed with finding abbie and just went and helped Tommy. . She woukd have found abbie ha
Abby knowing that her dad was going to kill Ellie opens a hatch underneath all the empathy they were trying to build.
Your comment is spot on my friend!
But he said he would do it to her own daughter, didn't he? It was about doing the right thing, in his eyes.
how so? Like seriously, because I don't think that undermines Abby at all.
Yeah but it isn’t a random killing. It’s to save humanity. She even said she’d want it done to her if she was immune. Also, Ellie wishes they could’ve done it too
Lmao so the guy deserves no empathy because he said "sacrificing one life to create a vaccine to the virus plaguing humanity is sad but it seems worth it" ?
FINALLY, someone who explains why I enjoyed this game. It has been a little depressing watching so many people hate it.
It’s been depressing seeing so many people love it
Kevin Foster ... Actually it’s depressing seeing Joel get his face pounded in with a golf club by a girl he just saved from certain death...
funkyflights that’s fair
Starrigby Why? people are allowed to have their own take on stuff.
funkyflights and it’s depressing to watch that same girl get pounded dry after
I think they structured it the way that they did because, if you played for 10 hours as Abby *before* she picked up the golf club, the players would feel BETRAYED
No. You could have left it ambiguous as to who exactly she was after.
I mean, it wouldn’t make sense to play 10 hours as Abby only to go back a few days earlier to kill Joel. Doesn’t chronologically make sense.
the same feeling as GOW 3 when Kratos decides to takes his own life?
Also, I think yuou are right.
@@noempathy1897 It wouldn't necessarily have had to be the same sequence. it could be disconnected enough to get you to empathize with this new character and then they switch things on you
It needed to be before. That's why there is all this hate. But that's just the tip of what's wrong with this story
honestly in a way the gameplay parts of killing lots of enemies worked for me. Even the random human enemies you fight have character, they're very very human. I feel *bad* killing so many of them, listening to them gurgle on their blood and die, or swearing and praying when theyre hurt, or the other enemies calling out your last victim by name and grieving them. It hammers home Ellie's path in a way I don't think anything else could've. When you do a particularly heinous kill, especially when the situation doesnt call for that much violence, Dina will say different lines to make you feel guilty. Like "Jesus Ellie" in a horrified tone. Also a lot of sections can be played where you dont kill the enemies at all and can almost completely stealth or make the infected kill the humans for you. So I would disagree in saying the game encourages you to use excessive violence, but I do see your point as well
Hadn't considered the idea that naughty dog was trying to test their own storytelling ability by putting off Abby's storyline for hours. While interesting, I do feel like they bit off more than they could chew. Had they told the story with a linear timeline, alternating back and forth as needed, Abby and Ellie could have had empathy built up simultaneously, making the death of Joel more conflicting, as well as the whole rest of the game. Would have been like Capt America 3 with the team cap vs team iron man dynamic. By waiting on Abby's story, they dig themselves into an early hole, and like you said, they had to empty the toolbox with sympathy tricks to give her a chance. And based on fan reactions, there was so much manipulation that they saw through it, and so they didn't engage with it and ended up not enjoying it. Now I actually disagreed with Joel's choice in the first game, so I naturally did sympathize with Abby. That said, I recognize not every player did, and even those who took my stance have gotten nostalgically linked to the first game and it's characters. I respect naughty dog for trying, but they overestimated their writing prowess here, and used film storytelling tools that aren't as effective when you're in a game playing as the character.
well said wow!!
Real Talk right there.✨💯
100% agreed. Juxtaposing Ellie’s desert into extreme violence with Abby’s relationship with Lev would have done a significantly better job at getting us to empathize her. If we had to do it in manageable chunks, rather than at the end of Ellie’s story when misery fatigue is starting to set in. Using Abby’s story in tandem with Ellie’s lets us know from the get go how we’re supposed to be digesting the story. Forcing her on us at the end feels like it’s trying to trick us into liking her, rather than allowing us to.
Imagine if, in the second season of Avatar: the Last Airbender, we had 10 episodes devoted to team Avatar, then 8 devoted to Zuko, then 2 where they combine. Would the story have worked nearly as well as the way it currently is where we see their journeys in tandem? I think not, it would get tiresome, we would be waiting to hear what our other characters are doing. A:TLA is one of the best examples of a villain turned hero I can think of. If Last of Us 2 had followed that format of the two divergent plot lines converging simultaneously, it might have been a winner for me.
I don't think that your way would have worked with respect the way it was intended, as you're telling a different narrative at this point. In your way (which is a completely valid way of presenting the story btw), you're building up a level of empathy for two characters and then make harm the other. In a way, it's a story of betrayal. Valid narrative, but not the narrative this game wanted to tell.
In Druckmann's way, the narrative is the one of justifying the action of the person who betrayed you, which is different. You're first given the heinous act, you build your first impression of your character, and now you're given all the tools to justify it. But people are bad at overriding their first impressions, and the game targets that to create conflict. It's easier to justify a bad action when a character you like does something bad, or a person you like in real life. It's much harder to justify the actions of someone you despise. We constantly do that (or don't, respectively). This narrative highlights this, or plays with it, depending on how you interpret it.
I'm not saying your way of telling the story is wrong. It's a valid narrative, but it's a different one, using the same underlying plot. It's like Hitchcock's bomb: the story is the same, but in one narrative nobody knows about the bomb, so it's a story of surprise and shock. In the other narrative, the viewer is in on the secret, they know the bomb is under the table, it is now a story of suspense. When you change what the player knows, or in what order they experience, you sometimes change the narrative.
I disagree, I think it worked well that way. You didn't get distracted by jumping back and forward between the two characters and got to see how their actions were changing them over the 3 days in one go. That said, once you complete the game, you could play through it using alternate chapters and see if it felt different.
That’s a huge stretch/leap to claim that literally every death after the first game is Joel’s fault, as if finding a “cure,” for this virus would stop these murdering groups from killing each other.
Of course it's a stretch. People won't stop killing each other, ever. However you could argue he's responsible for all the new infected people.
You would have to assume that a doctor in his mid 40’s (25 years or so after the apocalypse... so he was barely old enough to have gone through all of the necessary schooling, internships, residencies, training, etc., to be a competent enough doctor to perform the surgery and develop a vaccine) could create a cure, assume that they had the infrastructure required to mass produce this vaccine/cure, assume they had the lab equipment available to perform such a complex task, assume they could have tested it successfully to ensure it worked, assume they could even have mass distribution of this vaccine without a massive power struggle that would have led to even more death and destruction, let alone just an infrastructure and transport for mass distribution at all... all of that and many more issues one would have to assume... for there not to be new infected after the first game even IF a cure was found by Dr. Jerry Anderson.
It’s more than a stretch; it’s a massive leap of faith that has no believable foundation within the world building of TLOU. There isn’t enough suspension of disbelief that would convince anyone that there would be no new infected had Joel not done what he did. What about all of the infected around the entire country, not just the area near Jackson and Seattle? How about the infected around the entire planet?
Of course there would be new infected and had Joel acted differently it wouldn’t have stopped that at all.
Or if a cure, vaccine, whatever could be created from Ellie in the fireflies crusty meth lab.
@@misrelief well a vaccine no but other type of cure yes, and besides, it's a game were fungi turn people into mindless bloodthirsty beast so i think we can get over that
CmRoddy don’t you love it when people rewrite the writers’ intentions to justify their allegiance to Joel
My opinion of this video is basically my opinion of the game: Well, i respect your take, understand it but i disagree with its effectiveness.
well said
I always say that the last of us 2 is like the domino effect. It had the big pieces to be executed, but it didn’t have the effect they wanted because they were missing the little pieces, you know the small details that although are not big at the momento but later helps have lasting effect on the plot and the climax. If the developers included the small dominoes, it would still have execution they wanted and it will also have the effect that they need.
This game shows that audiences would rather one-note surface level writing like Marvel/DC and for that I’ll always appreciate this game. It’s definitely opened my mind.
Your one of many people who honestly gives an honest heartfelt review about this game and I thank you for that. I’m happy you enjoyed the game just like I did and honestly ,it may have emotionally drained me but I loved the story and it’s just an experience I won’t forget.
I played the entire game and found it terrible from start to finish. I even found ellie unlikable to play, and the story to me was as cliched as anything. Also, why would Joel care about saving the world for the sake of ellie, just as his daughter Sarah was killed for the sake of the many during the outbreak, and nowhere did ellie have a choice in any of it.
And just because you liked it doesn't mean those who didn't and pointed it out aren't being as honest as the guy you agree with.
I just can't seem to empathize with Abby in the same way as I can with Ellie. The pacing really did not help her storyline imo, and if they'd just introduced Lev and Yara earlier I think it would've made more of an impact. Abby's characterization does not help either; if anything, I had more empathy for Mel since her boyfriend cheated on her with Abby while Mel was so much frustrated by Owen's absence that she kept opting to go on dangerous missions even though she was heavily pregnant.
Instead of growing to love these characters, I feel like I just like everyone even less now.
Abby is just a dickish character and her sudden turn to 'save' Lev & Yara is completely out of character. Yeah they saved her life, but so did she. Her character up until that point would just ditch the both of them and went off her own way.
What Naughty Dogs shoulda done is actually allowing us 1-frickin-choice in the entire Role fucking Playing Game at the end to either kill Abby or spare her, then show us the global percentage of how many did what. Would be interesting to see how many decide to spare her then.
You mentioned that as a player, there is tension and frustration because we don't WANT Abby and Ellie to fight each other and kill each other. However, I feel like even beyond that, as a player, I wanted Ellie and Abby to understand each other. And although the two never killed each other in the end, I wasn't convinced that either of them, particularly Abby, really truly understood each other. I found that much more frustrating.
Exactly man , I felt the same way .. I was hoping that they could explain their side of the story to each other and understand each other.
In some way, I hope that the third part of the series involves Ellie, Abby and Lev as a power trio. They'd make a great team, that's for sure.
@@rasmadrak yeah man I would LOVE that
i dont get thtat, ebby did spare ellies and dinas life?
@@maschae4500 Yes. Abby did spare Ellie and Dina's lives. However, the tension that slowly develops for the player comes as Naughty Dog makes the parallels between Abby and Joel and Lev and Ellie more and more obvious. It is that parallel that I, as a player, wanted Abby to understand, because if she understood that parallel, she would understand what she took away from Ellie and why Ellie is so pissed at her. While Abby does spare Ellie and Dina's lives partway through the story, as a player I kind of felt that Abby did it simply because Lev didn't want her to kill Dina because she was pregnant and Abby wanted to take a moral stance especially after Ellie killed Mel who was also pregnant. Abby didn't spare Ellie and Dina because she understood Ellie's perspective.
You could make an argument, that Naughty Dog not giving its players catharsis is the point. After all, in real life, we don't get satisfying reconciliations between people who have taken so much from each other. However, if this indeed was Naughty Dog's point - I don't like the choice.
There was no guarantee that the surgery would have produced a cure. Plain and simple killing Ellie for the sake of a cure without her consent would still have been murder.
It absolutely would be. Joel found a man standing over his unconscious "daughter" ready to murder her in her sleep. The man took a scalpel and turned it on him.
To be fair though, Joel made his decision believing a cure was possible, meaning that even if there was a guarantee of a cure, he would’ve still made the same choice. I also think that if Ellie had said yes to the procedure, it wouldn’t make a difference in Joel’s ultimate choice. The root of his decision was a base need to not lose another kid. As long as Ellie would die, I genuinely believe he would make that same choice in the hospital. I do agree though that the fireflies not getting consent from Ellie was deeply fucked. It’s really painful to me that Ellie has her autonomy and choice repeatedly taken from her throughout both the games by both friend and foe.
@@Green_scholar27 This is the best rebuttal to the flaws (for lack of a better term) in the logic of the final scene in the first game. The point that was trying to be communicated was Joel made that decision knowing the stakes, this part of the plot is also the weakest point about the story in my opinion.
Great review:
The point on the gameplay being opposed to the story was very well said. Also i think its fair to add that alot of the negative nerative on the game was innitialized by people who played the game in one sitting (wich can make you wanna just get over with it when you get to abbys part) and some of those people who are not ready to see a girl with different looks: abbys arms althought it completely makes sense if you think of the apocalyptic narrative.
"abbys arms althought it completely makes sense if you think of the apocalyptic narrative". Personally, I was not bothered by Abby being buff. I though her fighting was dope AF and it made her stand out. However, saying it completely makes sense seems so weird to me. Sure she had acces to a high quality gym in the stadium. But getting buff like that requires a very, very strict diet and training schedule. It just seems odd to me that she would have acces to so much potein, have so much time to recover and train, whilst in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
Anyway, i think it's petty to bash the game because Abby has big arms, but I also think it shouldn't be defended as being super realistic.
the looks of a someone are scientifically proven to influence one’s preconceived beliefs about the person. Had abby been stereotypically feminine, it would be easier for players to empathize with her (it’s a fact), but I’m glad ND didn’t take the cowardly route.
@@darioca1566 fair, should be defended more with the desire of revenge but who cares in the end.
There is a lot going against this game and it's story. Haters have so many excuses. But I like that they did not showed both sides of the story. Not many games do that.
@@darioca1566 they live in a stadium that seemed pretty secure. they go out on daily shifts to patrol like we work 9-5s. why would she not have time to work out? it's not like they have concerts or movie premieres to go to. she has all the time in the world to work out.
I may sound like a complete lunatic, but by the end of The Last of Us 2, I ended up hating Ellie more than Abby. I understand Ellie's motive, but the fact that she threw away things like a family, settling down, and a new life, things that an ordinary person rarely gets (much more in a zombie apocalypse), made me illustrate her from that point on as a vindictive and selfish person, a big detour from the Ellie we all knew and loved in the first game. What she should have done, as painful as it may sound, is to cope with the fact that Joel is dead and that killing Abby will not bring him back no matter how hard she tried. At the end of the game, Ellie's concluding predicament is a just one, with her decisions amounting to her experiencing her greatest fear: being left alone.
Abby on the other hand is a much more interesting case. I'll admit that I also hated Abby in the beginning. But as time went on, and more and more of her friends end up dead at the hands of Tommy and Ellie, I realized she is already paying the price for killing Joel. And that is punishment enough. Additionally, we kind of see a major character development for Abby as she transitions from a mindless drone of the WLF, to a forgiving and self-thinking individual, sacrificing her already existing brotherhood to save and protect Yara and Lev. By the time of their encounter at the theater, I believe that Abby saw through the illusion and tried to break the circle of revenge by sparing Dina and Ellie. At that point, I eventually saw Abby as a mature and developed character looking to end the circle of killing that she unknowingly instigated with her murder of Joel.
Ellie and Abby are both pieces of shit. Abby tortured and brutally murdered a guy without getting full context, asking for his side of the story, asking if the people she was with were ok with her methods, or listening to the desperate pleas of Ellie who she made watch. I don't care how many dogs you play with, how many friends you have, or how many family members you lost, nothing justifies such a monstrous action. Ellie, on the other hand, refuses to forgive joel despite all his kindness, refuses to forgive Bigot Sandwiches despite him giving her a likely expensive apology, yells at Joel for protecting her, and constantly plays with the emotions of the people around her. "I wanna settle down with you, but now i don't." "I want to catch Abby and get revenge for myself and the people who liked joel, but now I don't." "I want to let you go now and have a fair fistfight, but you also need to die and I'm going to use a knife." "I want to love you forever, but you're a burden to me now." They're both awful people and awful-written characters.
Lawrence fuck you for liking a fucking girl using steroids
I agree with you I kinda like them both but Abby more and her story was so interesting to see the "Villians" point of view. And learning that in fact Abby and Ellie are in many ways like eachother.
@@DT-sr7qw fat boy body shaming. Beautiful
ChunkyBoi 2675 she ain’t using steroids, she’s just stronger than you
Showing the villain's path to the crossroad is something I want to do now thanks to this video, but I know I'm not good enough yet to pull that character switch and rebuilding of tension off.
I think the key reason the Abby arc is loathed by so many players is the fact that she killed the protagonist of the first game. If nearly this exact story was done in the context of a self contained story, the overall reaction would be very different.
TheJadedJames maybe if it also was fully developed. The problem is, abbys arc is very much a copy of Ellie’s and it’s not as fleshed out. Abby only ends up being a ok protagonist with the heavy baggage of being introduced, killing a really loved character. If she never killed joel then she would be about as interesting as most videogame protagonists but she wouldn’t really stand out like Joel/Ellie do
Game of thrones/A song of ice and Fire is another great example of this technique if you want more inspiration, particularly with the character of Jaime Lannister who undergoes one of the best redemption arcs I've ever seen after being utterly unlikeable in the first two books/seasons.
ShivJ16 There is an interesting distinction you can make between the narrative goals of TLOU with Abby and characters like Zuko or Jamie Lannister etc who undergo redemption arcs. TLOU isn’t interested in humbling Abby to get the audience on her side. There could have easily been a whole middle section where the player as Ellie is forced to fight alongside Abby against a common enemy or something to get you to eventually sympathize with her. But getting you the like Abby isn’t necessarily the storyline’s main objective. It is about making the statement about how we all appear to be the hero in our own story. It is about how different Joel taking Ellie from the Fireflies looks considering the POV. We feel Joel’s pain more, mostly because we saw it first. But what about all the people he killed to get his way? To dismiss Abby’s plight out of your own emotional connection to Joel, to be unable to forgive or at least let go of anger, is to make the same mistake characters make across this story which props up an endless cycle of violence.
@@TheJadedJames Completely agree, though I do think Abby has a slight humbling moment at the very end of the game, when you see her completely emaciated and battered from her torture at the hands of the slavers; Ellie almost forgives her just because of her pathetic state, as she realizes this is not really the same Abby that killed Joel.
I also quite like at part II is it's own thing, not just tying to be the same game as the first one and aiming to hit the same beats.
I think people are trying to find a hero and a villain for this story. The thing is, Abby is neither hero nor villain. Same with Ellie. We're all the heroes of our own story. Yet we're also the villains in someone else's.
A lot of the hate stems from people saying the game makes Joel a bad guy. No they do not. Iook back at all those flashbacks, he's portrayed as like the best surrogate dad ever.
The thing is, he made a decision to kill tons of people. That action had consequences.
All Abby cares about is avenging her father, no matter her perception on what the fireflies may or may not have done.
The game isn't telling me to agree with one side. Its telling me to understand all sides.
I think the execution was flawed (and lol say hello to our old pal, the ludonarrative dissonance discourse) and inconsistent, but at least that felt definitely like the series' core intention, yup.
I think most important questions is WHO IS ABBY? Why she in this goddamn story? And why would i care for a random doctors daughter?
Josh043 P I’m not a gamer, but that does not sound like an enjoyable premise for a zombie apocalypse game.
I honestly thought the ending to the game was played out very well. A big issue lots of gamers have with it is that they think the overall message of the story is the cliche lesson of "revenge is bad", which I think is a sign that they clearly didn't pay that much attention to the story and only viewed it on a falsely superficial level.
Also some gamers tend to view games as a service they are owed as opposed to a piece of art to examine for meaning.
Yes Terry, the lesson is more about moving on rather than lingering on the negative.
Yeah this was definitely one of my favorite games of the year. And i am still thinking about it. Amazing work. I so want to to see Abby and Levys trek to the Fireflies home base
Ikr😁
You should be allowed to like or dislike a game, but the majority of dislikers are vocal and set out to make others dislike it and make the game fail. Respect needed.
Yeah agree.
The majority of haters haven't even played the game, they just echo what the tubers told them. Most of whom also did not play the game.
They engage in cancel culture while they claim to be fighting against it. The hypocrisy is strong with them.
Not that playing the game gives you the right to try and cancel it. You can dislike the game all you want, but this is an active campaign to try and convince everyone else not to play it, and to kill sales of it. They even go as far to try and slander those who actually played and liked it, to discredit them.
I mean there was a stream yesterday with some mildly prominent haters of the tube still harping on this positive review among others trying to discredit it, and convince people that this is a bad game.
Have you seen the TH-camr Mannix? His comment section is the most toxic community ever. They literally say if you like last of us 2, ur either a feminist or a shill or just dumb
@@mummifiedgamer it takes less intelligence and effort to belong a clique of trolls than almost any other social group. If trolls were capable of creating they would be doing that instead. It's a pathetic existence.
Agreed. I like the game. I would give it a 6/10. But there were things I did not like. Your allowed to dislike it but please dislike it for actual reasons not sjws or lgbt agenda or whatever cringgy 2016 anti sjw nonsense there saying.