Current Events > Just finished TLoU2. Why did everyone hate on it? *major spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

I never finished the story of the first because I absolutely hated the game. It's honestly up there in terms of overrated-ness in ALL of media.

I did however enjoyed Part 2 and since I was never attached to the characters in the first, I felt like everything story-wise was pretty fantastic. I enjoyed Abbys arc alot and really dont see the problem here. It paints a pretty good picture of how awful revenge is and not everything is black and white. It's just two different groups of people trying to survive.

My only gripe is I really hated going against the infected and felt the gameplay was very generic when going against them. The stealth aspect against humans was far more dynamic and interesting. It also went on for way too long.

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I think it was an unnecessary sequel that cheaply offed the main character to fuel a melodramatic revenge plot. Of course people feel personally insulted.

And replacing a strong male lead with a woman is purposely controversial. As is making her look like a brute. I dont personally have a problem with it, and I actually like Abbys design, but ND knew what they were doing. You arent just shoving marketable diversity into a game, youre doing it while killing the strong masculine player surrogate that people felt connected to. That ticks a lot of boxes.

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-too long
-its a downer
-abby shouldnt have a seperate skill tree
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The game is widely hated by homophobes.

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It was actually pretty great. I feel like a lot of negative reactions were coloured by the leaks and people making dumb memes.

When the timeskip happened with the baby and the farmhouse I was afraid it was a dream by Ellie but surprised the game kept going.

Happy that Tommy survived.

That last flashback with Joel got me choked up, both of them were starting to make up then he gets killed.
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<_< Why are people comparing Abby to Ellie? She's much closer to Joel from the first game

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Total_Lost2 posted...

<_< Why are people comparing Abby to Ellie? She's much closer to Joel from the first game

Yeah I liked the parallels of Lev and Abby against Joel and Ellie, just genders reversed.
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Abby feels like she has no real place in the narrative. Her father was completely unimportant, so the connection she has to the overall plot feels shoehorned. If they had actually planned for her, she easily could have at least been in the first game. The futility of revenge is always lost on games where the protagonists are able to kill dozens of people at player discretion, even more so when the characters themselves willingly kill without any second thought. The final scene has zero impact due to that.

LightningAce11 posted...

I feel like a lot of negative reactions were coloured by the leaks and people making dumb memes.

A ton of regular reviewers seem to think the game is pretty average though. There are a ton of problems with the game. Hell even Jeremy Jahns a movie reviewer thought the game has a ton of issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbHfvtxTrk0

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I do feel that it isn't executed as well as the first game, overall it'd be a 7 to 7.5 for me.

There are bits and pieces that can be swapped around, added earlier or pushed later and just some fat trimming to really push it to be as good as the first game.

But it definitely is not godawful or terrible and some of the criticism just falls flat.

Sadly, the infected just felt obligatory in this game, just because they were there in the first one. I'd have made them rarer than they were and more contained just to give the feeling of the world finally getting back on track.
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GameGodOfAll posted...

It's about closure, forgiveness and letting go.

Literally every revenge plot has these elements though in some form or facet, and other pieces of media have done it better. Its not exactly breaking new ground. The comparison to TLoU 1 being about saving humanity but really telling the story of a man essentially getting a second chance at fatherhood again/a sliver of hope in a shit world is not really apt

only thing in your post I see worth responding because we simply arent going to agree on your other counterpoints

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DezDroppedFreak posted...

Its not exactly breaking new ground.

Why does every piece of media need to "break new ground" and what would that entail exactly?

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How much of the game is movies/cutscnes?
How much tedious shit that isn't fun is in the gameplay?

Also I admit I don't care for the sjw slant.

Doom_Art posted...

Why does every piece of media need to "break new ground" and what would that entail exactly?

Well, when the pre release and much of the post release discourse around this game was that it does break new ground, or is at least a more nuanced take, but it isnt, I kind of feel its important to point that out

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I think if the game ended in the farm with Dina it would have been better, and ambiguous.

Does Ellie go after Abby? Will she ever heal? Do Abby and Lev survive and meet the fireflies?
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LightningAce11 posted...

I do feel that it isn't executed as well as the first game, overall it'd be a 7 to 7.5 for me.

There are bits and pieces that can be swapped around, added earlier or pushed later and just some fat trimming to really push it to be as good as the first game.

But it definitely is not godawful or terrible and some of the criticism just falls flat.

Sadly, the infected just felt obligatory in this game, just because they were there in the first one. I'd have made them rarer than they were and more contained just to give the feeling of the world finally getting back on track.

Parts of the story is pretty eh to terrible, but true, that doesn't mean the game is horrible. But conversely the critic reviews don't make much sense either, too highly rated when the creators even said half the players wouldn't like the story.

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Probably the best moments were the flashback scenes.

The museum sequence was my favourite. Ellie making faces in front of the mirror with Joel chuckling behind her was just the first game encapsulated in one moment.
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i havent finished the game yet (currently doing the hospital part with abby/lev). my partial review:

so far the game is pretty good, id say like maybe a 7/10. id describe it like the super bowl, it's not always the best or most interesting game but it's worth watching because it's a big deal, there's a ton invested in the production/presentation, etc.

gameplay-wise i think the game is kind of weak. tlou2 pretends it is a stealth game but the stealth aspect is very weak. you have very few options to mess with enemies; you can't whistle or move bodies or whatever, all you can do is sneak up behind a guy, throw a brick at a guy, or go in shooting. not that it matters anyway because the enemy AI is so braindead that it probably wouldnt be satisfying to manipulate them anyway. that being said the combat is visually exciting and the game does good job of making you feel like the enemies are smarter than they are.

my favorite parts of the game so far have been the little exploration parts where you are looting random stores or w/e, there have been a few jump scares with that which i think are fun.

in terms of story i think the story is actually pretty good. the idea of two parallel narratives is interesting and i like how little details from ellie's storyline are getting fleshed out in abby's. i appreciate the meta narrative on violence as well. my only complaint so far is that the abby part seems to be dragging a bit and the writing is kind of heavy handed with how the parallels between abby/ellie are drawn (Jesse/Owen, Dina/Mel, etc).

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LightHawKnight posted...

Parts of the story is pretty eh to terrible, but true, that doesn't mean the game is horrible. But conversely the critic reviews don't make much sense either, too highly rated when the creators even said half the players wouldn't like the story.

I disagree with this.

I understand people not being into the game or the direction that the story took, but it's unfair to criticize others for giving it high marks, even if the work is divisive.

personally I'd give it a 10.


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boxington posted...

I disagree with this.

I understand people not being into the game or the direction that the story took, but it's unfair to criticize others for giving it high marks, even if the work is divisive.

personally I'd give it a 10.

Why? The game isn't a 10/10 game, no matter how much you spin it. Since the game is a narrative driven game, where the story does matter, it should and does go into the score.

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nemu posted...

The futility of revenge is always lost on games where the protagonists are able to kill dozens of people at player discretion, even more so when the characters themselves willingly kill without any second thought. The final scene has zero impact due to that.

I don't mind. Not all killings are equal, whether this is because of personal connection (Joel for Abby/Abby for Ellie), the sheer brutality (Nora) or intention (Mel/Owen).

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LightHawKnight posted...

Why? The game isn't a 10/10 game, no matter how much you spin it. Since the game is a narrative driven game, where the story does matter, it should and does go into the score.

I mean, if you don't think that the game's story is good, that's fine, but that's still just your opinion, though.

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I think its: gameplay, story, presentation, art direction, and soundtrack are all great.

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I loved it and reading the complaints shows how effective its storytelling was. As the player, youre motivated through the first half by anger over Joels death and wanting payback, exactly the way Ellie is. But then the game literally makes you step outside of yourself and, through its gameplay and story, asks you to empathize with the last person in the world you want to empathize with, fully knowing that its hard as fuck.

That last point is the point of the game that gets lost in revenge is bad analysis. Yes, revenge is bad, but its a lack of empathy thats the root cause of every single problem in the games universe (apart from the virus, obviously). Thats part of why the games inclusiveness in regards to LGBT and minority characters is important as well: racism/homophobia/transphobia arise from that same lack of empathy. The game illustrates that empathy is hard as fuck a lot of the time, especially when youre wronged, but its the only way to keep shit together.

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ssk9716757 posted...

but its a lack of empathy thats the root cause of every single problem in the games universe

Which is not unique in revenge plots.

Revenge is bad encompasses literally everything thats been brought up in defense of it being more than revenge is bad

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nemu posted...

The futility of revenge is always lost on games where the protagonists are able to kill dozens of people at player discretion, even more so when the characters themselves willingly kill without any second thought. The final scene has zero impact due to that.

I'm having fun playing the game, but I cannot take the narrative seriously for exactly this reason. Some of the scenes are laughable when I think about the body count that I've already piled up. If a game was every the poster child for "ludonarrative dissonance," this is it.

DezDroppedFreak posted...

Which is not unique in revenge plots.

Revenge is bad encompasses literally everything thats been brought up in defense of it being more than revenge is bad

the unique part is the way the gameplay and story are tuned into the audiences feelings and structure themselves to work through those feelings, in every aspect including the LGBT representation. everything about it is incredibly effective.

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Theres nothing unique about that and it clearly is not that effective

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DezDroppedFreak posted...

Theres nothing unique about that and it clearly is not that effective

I mean, it is effective though. Look at how angry people are about Joel dying, and how viscerally people reject playing as Abby. Thats what the game is tapping into and most people who play through it actually come around to Abby by the end.

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1 had a good reason for the duo to travel across the country

Nobody is doing that dangerous journey just for revenge.

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ssk9716757 posted...

I mean, it is effective though. Look at how angry people are about Joel dying, and how viscerally people reject playing as Abby. Thats what the game is tapping into and most people who play through it actually come around to Abby by the end.

agreed, i think in 10 or 15 years ppl will look back at TLOU positively, the same way the public came around on MGS2

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nemu posted...

Abby feels like she has no real place in the narrative. Her father was completely unimportant,

?

The entire narrative works around her.

And her dad's one of the impetuses (impeti?) of the story. It's why they even put focus on him during Joel's flashback at the very start, as well as Abby's whole flashback section.

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Tbh I loved Abby by the end

I particularly liked the contrast between her and Ellie in the last scene.

Abby got over her shit and made some form of peace with everything to the point she wants to actually help Ellie and has to be threatened into a confrontation.

Meanwhile Ellie is continuing to wallow in her own vengeance and as a result she's stunted and by the end has to (possibly) live out her worst fear.

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A co worker of mine, who loved the 1st one, and took a vacation during the release of part 2, said it was the worst part of his vacation.

Thats more than enough for me not to play it.

If you like it thats cool, you do you.

gamestunner posted...

A co worker of mine, who loved the 1st one, and took a vacation during the release of part 2, said it was the worst part of his vacation.

Thats more than enough for me not to play it.

If you like it thats cool, you do you.

I think arguably one of the more annoying things in younger people or people in our age group nowadays is this recurring thing of getting way too personally invested into certain forms of media and the tendency to default to extremes

Like the people who hated TLJ so much they trashed all their Star Wars merchandise. Shit like that isn't healthy.

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After thinking about the ending, I'm liking it more and it really feels bittersweet. At least with the first you knew Naughty Dog would want to make a sequel, here is feels like a goodbye to the characters, especially after their lives really got fucked up and a small hope for the future.

I hope Ellie reaches Jackson and gets back together with Dina, and they live to a ripe old age.
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