Lurker > XIII_rocks

A dangerous side-effect of this topic: I briefly forgot what this topic was about so when I saw you quote that post I was so disappointed in KP

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redrocket posted...

Ok bro, thats cool. The word excuse was probably the least important part of my post. Care to engage with the rest of it?

Well to me it was the most important because it changes the entire context of what you're saying. When combined with "looking for any", anyway. Because by saying that, you're saying the act of sympathising for Abby is something that was forced, something you had to actively try to do. It wasn't natural or the result of the storytelling, I had to go out of my way to force sympathy, to "look for" reasons/"excuses". Which is simply untrue. It also implies that those "excuses" are somehow hidden when to me they could not be more obvious.

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The hell? It's not "any excuse", it's fucking self-evident. There's no need for a desperate search. The game practically screams at you to feel for her. Putting her through hell to rescue what was once an enemy. Confronting her greatest phobia. Finding her Dad's body after having been brutally killed for the crime of trying to save humanity. Having the guilt of what she did to Joel very evidently weigh on her throughout.

This sentiment I've seen that people are "finding excuses" to sympathise with Abby has to be the most puzzling thing of all. It's one thing to say merely sympathising isn't enough to make her someone you want to play as, it's another to imply the reasons behind it are forced or even invented.

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Punnyz posted...

with that said, I feel like hes marrying a guy

I feel like Foolmo doesn't think women are good enough

And guys are??

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After the last few months, a fucking hero

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I just saw this topic again and, despite having literally posted in it, misread it as "when's the last time you saw a straight-up wasted monkey?"

I probably need to sleep?

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I guess when I missed a flight last year

Edit: no actually. In February an ATM swallowed my card and I had to pay to get a new one. I guess you can say I got the new card in return for the money, but nothing was actually gained overall, so it felt like a waste.

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

The whole After Seattle section had too much. Too many scenes. And then you were jarred out of what seemed to be the endgame sequence by being thrown in Santa Barbara.

Like I said I expected it to cut to credits at any moment. But I liked that Santa Barbara was like "for christ's sake, Ellie, what are you doing". It did feel a bit off at first but I very quickly bought back into it.

I think the house and that "domestic bliss" deliberately recalled Uncharted 4, to trick you into expecting an ending - like when her and the baby are on the harvester thing, for example. I thought it might end then, with them looking off into the sunset. And then it just kept going, and going, and then she got the PTSD flashback, etc, to tell you that she's not getting over this so easy.

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I was looking at the wikipedia list of episodes the other day for some reason

I didn't know there were 11 full months between S5A and S5B, I always thought it was just like 4 or 5 months either side of Christmas

Really weird that it's even regarded as one season tbh

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Link

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YEAH BITCH!
MAGNETS! OH!

I still laugh every time I see that. His joy to have actually contributed is so great.

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I said that in the other topic - I think the biggest issue was the Abby section just going a bit too long. I knew how it ended and there were times when getting there dragged a little bit.

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Hey! Mean

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I'd also like to request the full complement of my stats, please

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Oh yeah, of course, that too

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Abby and Ellie being really similar, just at different points in the cycle of revenge, was really good

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Also yeah it's a classic story of thinking revenge would bring you satisfaction but it just piled on more guilt. You think you want to cause this person pain, to torture them, you think they deserve it, your friends all think they deserve it, but then you finally do it and it traumatizes you in ways you didn't expect. You think it's the right thing to do, you justify it to yourself, but no amount of rationalizing makes you feel any better about it. Abby projects that anguish back onto Mel during the section you play alongside her.

Also worth noting that Abby, upon satisfying her revenge, doesn't feel any more bloodlust and stops them killing Ellie and Tommy.

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

Theoretically, if Ellie never showed up, it's possible she lets Joel live.

I find this very very unlikely for the record

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ctesjbuvf posted...

Yeah, I sympathize with Abby, but should I feel bad personally? I ran around that room trying to pick up Ellie without killing the doctor because I did not enjoy doing what I was forced to do then.

Surely the fact that you're asking this question is a sign it's working to at least some extent? You feel the need to question and defend your past actions. I think there's this take towards Druckmann/ND where people think they're saying "fuck you for your violent tendencies, feel bad about this all the time you bastards" and I don't think it's as hostile as that.

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The difference is that you actually do have a choice in Undertale. I had no desire to do a Genocide run, so I never did.

Me neither, but then it also gives you a sunshine and rainbows ending that was never possible in TLOU.

But that's not really a "difference" re what Moogle said, anyway. Moogle has chosen not to play TLOU2; did he also choose not to play the Genocide run in Undertale?

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

Im not sure if Ellies revenge is anymore justified than Abbys, I just know Ellie is a character I already know and like and Abby is a rando who has hurt Ellie. Whether or not theyre logically morally different, on an emotional level it makes me not want to play as Abby.

It may be silly, but since games are a thing I theoretically control, I dont want to make the things that are going to happen in the game happen. When you give me control of Abby I want to just turn around and run her into the woods so she never bites off any fingers.

I guess the difference here is that when you get to the Ellie boss fight - which is really good, even an improvement on the David fight in TLOU1 - and these QTEs happen and it looks like Abby might kill Ellie, and I was kind of reluctant to progress, I fucking loved that. I loved that I was genuinely scared that I might kill Ellie but I also couldn't look away or stop because I wanted to see what happened. The tension was unbelievable. I loved that the game made me reluctant as a player to act, but also was well-designed and had me invested enough that I couldn't not act. I didn't really want either of them to die, though yes, I prefer Ellie of the two. And while I do think the Abby section maybe went too long - mostly because you knew where it ended up so it could have done with being quicker, but then you might lose some of the good character stuff between Abby and Lev - it doing that made the buildup to that fight, and the fight itself, really intense.

But I have to say when Abby and Lev got back from the hell of that island having seen Yara killed and been in the middle of a full-fledged warzone, I did audibly sigh and say like "oh, Abby", knowing she would find Owen and Mel dead. She went through all seven circles, for a noble cause - even if the reasons behind it were mainly to do with assuaging her guilt over what she did to Joel, but that she felt such guilt is in itself sympathetic - and her reward was that her lover got killed. I think that dramatic irony, of knowing what she would find after what she just went through, was a really successful bit of storytelling and absolutely helped me sympathise with her.

It's also worth applying your post to the Genocide run in Undertale. Did you play it and, if so, did you fight and kill Undyne?

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I think you can interpret some of what Abby says/does after being saved by Joel as a small amount of internal conflict,

To clarify this, in that section between Joel saving her and her killing Joel, there's multiple shots of her face that I took to show at least some small amount of conflict, but whatever.

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Robazoid posted...

Yeah, Joel really should've tortured the surgeon first. Maybe after the surgeon saved his life. Then he'd be cool.

I think you can interpret some of what Abby says/does after being saved by Joel as a small amount of internal conflict, but ultimately her desire for revenge outweighs that. I think the big thing here is the outside influences. Abby's group were all there for one purpose - to find and kill Joel. They were with her on that revenge mission, it was a team effort, and she'd spend years convincing herself that not only was Joel a monster for killing her father, but also a monster for dooming humanity. It felt righteous and the people she was with felt the same way. But later, when she comes to the theatre for her second revenge - against Ellie, for killing Owen and Mel - she stops at least in part because of Lev's more forgiving influence. The idea that Abby is supposed to forgive Joel doesn't wash with me at all - but it's also noticeable that she actually DOES feel guilty about that later. It's part of why she's so hell-bent on protecting Lev and Yara. She literally states as much when protecting Lev from Isaac at the end of the game.

The surgeon parallel you draw simply doesn't work at all.

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I completely sympathised with Abby

Joel killed her father, who was armed with literally a scalpel vs an assault rifle, and who was working on a cure. What Joel did was uh...pretty damn bad even when you take out the guy he tortured to find out where Ellie was, the couple of dozen Fireflies he killed to get there, and then killing Marlene on the way out and lying to Ellie about it. And it was, you know, her dad.

I guess I just don't get how Ellie's thirst for revenge is justified and sympathetic, but Abby's somehow isn't.

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i'm now hearing the main "villains" in the game that had captured both ellie and Abby are religious zealots that specifically seek out homosexual / transexual people to torture and kill.

this is literally a tumblr fanfic with blockbuster budget.

Christ alive some of the stuff in this topic is fucking preposterous

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Honestly, even just seeing the cutscenes - even all of the cutscenes - doesn't really do it justice because the dialogue during the gameplay, all the little character stuff ND does, feeling the struggle and the brutality of it all, etc, really brings it together.

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

I dont think theres any context that could turn me around on this, im just not interested in something that seems so incredibly depressing.

I personally think the ending has a kind of triumph to it, though it is tremendously bittersweet

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Yeah I just went and properly read through the first page of this topic for the first time and yikes

This stuff is just taken so severely out of context and it's a shame that it led to stuff like Moogle's post saying he "definitely isn't going to buy this game"

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like literally did a double take after I saw that post
(also, yes, sure)

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jesus
I thought this WAS my topic
whoops

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probably wise

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Probably yeah

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I think my mind sort of said "Gor-Tidus"

So I think that means Gordon Freeman is my answer

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redrocket posted...

I thought (ongoing spoilers) in the title meant there would be spoilers. If not, what does that mean?

It means none in the first post but there'll be some later, and since people may use it to play through you may want to add spoiler tags as a courtesy but it's not necessary

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GROUP 8
-5- Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
-0- Bloodborne

-5- Sonic Mania
-0- Sid Meier's Civilization V

GROUP 9
-0- DOOM
-5- South Park: The Stick of Truth

-5- Rayman Legends
-0- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

GROUP 10
-5- The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
-0- Bastion

-5- Marvel's Spider-Man
-0- Super Mario Galaxy 2

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Forceful_Dragon posted...

Is it possible to watch that episode and not immediately watch the season finale?

Honestly when I did my rewatch last month I was almost surprised how much of it wasn't in the finale. The last 3 episodes almost blend into one. I can't imagine what waiting a week between each one would have been like.

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good luck dude.

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Rillaboom - 9

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TheRock1525 posted...

But I was told TLoU2 had the worst story ever.

I think reading leaks prejudiced a lot of people against it. I'm not saying that explains everything, it's not perfect or unimpeachable or anything, but there's a huge difference between reading a summary of this stuff without the feel of playing it (there's great tension to a lot of it, especially later on) and actually going through it, especially with all the small characterization stuff that ND does - the smaller bits of dialogue during gameplay, little tics and expressions in the performances, that sort of thing.

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davidponte posted...

Stopping for the night here, which post can I read up to in terms of XIII's spoiler discussion?

Anything up to post 90 is fine

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It was so sad to see the house bare and empty like that. In my mind Dina was in Jackson, Ellie found her and they made up, but, honestly, probably not.

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Just read a spoiler discussion which said something I liked about the ending:

I think some people will say that the game has a clear ending and then goes on for a few more hours, but I think thats entirely the point. Ellie and Dina get to a place that is for anyone else the perfect life, for the reality they live in. The farm house is beautiful, they have peace, and theyre looking after a baby. Its the end for a normal person but not for her. That final stretch in Santa Barbara is supposed to, in my interpretation, feel like one step too far. The game is making you feel this weird dissonance between leaving that idyllic place and going back to something horrible.

It felt like a happy ending to me, then the minute the shovel drops and she gets that PTSD flashback it's like "shit", and then Tommy comes...game screws with you in all sorts of ways. It does feel like a step too far. Like "jesus Ellie stop".

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why did I read that entire post

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Just finished the game and feeling the need to talk about it so actually went there against my better judgement

Nope'd right out within 3 minutes

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Well that was outstanding. The brutality of the final fight between them...it felt like a more grounded version of like the tail end of the MGS4 final boss where the fighting just becomes sad. I wanted Ellie to kill Abby... then, as I was drowning her, I didn't. Very very good shit.

I thought the game wasn't going to address why Ellie, having been livid with Joel for what he did in TLOU1, was so bent on getting revenge on his killers. That they did it right at the very end, while also explaining why she spared Abby, was very good. They did a good job with Abby overall. They had so much work to do when she killed Joel to make her sympathetic and likeable but they largely pulled it off without totally absolving her.

But yeah it got me big time. I laughed, I almost cried, I audibly yelled/screamed, I felt reluctant as a player to act at times, I felt visceral satisfaction at others, and obviously the performances were great. And the change in the visuals at the end when you get to California was excellent too. It felt so fresh.

Fantastic game, probably just a hair below the original because its brutality and excellent production/performances were more expected as opposed to hitting like a truck the first time. Idk, I need time to think on it.

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jesus christ wtf this is still going
getting into RotK territory here

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Every time the screen goes black I'm kind of expecting the credits to roll, but hell, the more the better

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XIII_rocks posted...

Oh then don't read any of them dude I'm nearly finished

Well jesus. Maybe not.

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either of those would have been better, yes

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so wait wff, is Tommy just like immortal lmao? This is the second time I thought he died and he just shows up fine. Or, you know, almost fine

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