The Last of Us The Last Of Us 2

[henzINNIT]

This actually touches on something I have wanted to discuss, so sorry for jumping in.

No, please do.

I think Abby's story is very messy, and it makes sense. It seems that one of the reasons for the delay is play testers didn't like Abby, so they went about trying to fix that. IMO, it shows. While I do think Abby's overall story beats were there from the beginning, there is a lot trying to build her up into a sympathetic character that plays with the narrative and the "story" that I think come off like hot fixes. You remember Ellie and Joel in the first game? It's just like that! I do not feel like Ellie has this issue outside of two sequences that pertain specifically to Abby. To try and build motivation for Abby, where she honestly doesn't have it. While on the flip side, no such thing is really necessarily with Ellie. The narrative flows naturally with her imo.

It's not something that bothered me but it's something I understand, I think. The Abby campaign is essentially the game trying to pull an elaborate trick, to introduce a character doing a reprehensible thing and yet win back our affections. Obviously it didn't go-off without a hitch, ha.

The way the game has you interact with various dogs for example, I can see how people felt that was manipulative, cause it was. The whole game is manipulative to an extent, and Last Of Us has dealt with that tension between you and the character's actions since the end of the first game. The second does it more frequently and more sharply, so I'm not surprised it lost people. It picks up from that ending and think it makes sense, but a huge part of the first game wasn't wading through the swamp of grey area.

I didn't get much of a sense of 'hot-fix' in Abby's campaign. I have no doubt she was tweaked and revised constantly, but the parallels between her and Joel seemed pretty baked in and natural. I think her motivations were fairly sound too. She achieves her only goal very early on, but I thought Yara and Lev saving her and then needing her was a good catalyst for change. There's some criticism of Lev from the trans community and I hear them, but I thought Lev was the perfect companion to Abby. He was so innocent and so doomed by his environment that I could understand why Abby would be drawn to protecting him.

On another note of what I saw about, I haven't been keeping up with this conversation, but from what I was reading above, I think you were arguing for removing Abby's story and perhaps adding it later or playing it right after...Correct me if I was wrong about your intentions. IMO Abby's storyline shouldn't be in the game. As DLC?

DLC? No. I think my hypothetical situation is that it would be a 'side B' of sorts, part of the base game but unlocked after completing Ellie's story.

Reason for this is I think there's tremendous value in the Abby section. I wouldn't want to lose it, I think it should absolutely be a part of the game and not additional content. My theory is that someone like yourself (who wasn't particularly fond of the Abby part) would either a) Still have the Ellie campaign to enjoy and would feel more satisfied by it on its own, or potentially even b) Enjoy the Abby campaign more in the context of a 'bonus feature', because it didn't intrude on Ellie's story and it's added content.

Sure. But the only sequence I feel like we should have played as her is her first scene. I personally feel that beyond her and her friends general bland characterization that puts me off, the game's "deliberate" but "sloppy" attempts to make her likable, make me dislike her more, which hurts the overall narrative momentum and message of the story. The obviousness of how the middle of the game plays like the original game to try and get me to like Abby, is so obvious, it hurts. Beyond what happens with Joel, that drags the game down for me, and in the process hurts Ellie's story (This is Ellie's story after all), which I feel like is pretty note perfect, outside of what I mentioned early.

Ellie hunting a boogieman, so built up, that we never actually see works far better in my head. Especially as while I would still dislike the character, finding her at the end not being the image of what she once was, would work so much better imo. I think Abby kills the momentum of Ellie and thus the game's story, because it spends so much time poorly trying to build sympathy for her, where it is not necessary. Ellie not killing Abby has nothing to do with the player feeling bad for Abby. It's about Ellie holding onto what Joel gave her. If perhaps the game gave you an option at the end, I could theoretically understand it, but it doesn't.

I get that but we do not agree. Aside from a few issues, I enjoyed Abby's campaign. Naughty Dog managed to pull off the 'trick' on me and I liked Abby.

Since we're writing details openly I guess I can be more specific about that I don't think the ending had any chance of working. Ellie has probably killed hundreds of people to get to Abby and lots of the cases are in "intimate" fashion with a knife. There is also torture involved.

All that is done over a longer period of time that contains a break where she returns to about as wonderful of a life as she could ever have in that world, but willingly throws it away for the chance to get to Abby again.

I don't see a person like that suddenly valuing the life of someone that tortured and killed a loved one, especially not when she had a much more logical point to let go in the story. In my particular case it's also just after killing about 20 people with a knife in the best serial killer fashion.

It's clear ludonarrative dissonance to me. If they wanted to make that story it shouldn't have been in a game where you kill tons of people.

My big dissonance moment was the first time fighting one girl as another. I really didn't want to do it and it became not fun. I had a couple of smaller moments playing Ellie early on. There's a few random NPCs that are clearly conflicted and I would have chosen to speak and not fight.

It can be an issue. The body count is staggering, the gameplay sections don't quite exist in the same reality. I think this is something games do, can do and get away with. It is more apparent here because TLOU strives to be so realistic, and it is dealing with death and grief. I think the game has some unspoken standards when it comes to taking a life, like all is fair in combat, stand your ground or something. But it is hard to tell whether this is a moral thing or simply a concession for gameplay.

The ending worked for me because Ellie's change is not about taking a human life. She's killed plenty. She stopped because needing that revenge has poisoned her, and killing Abby won't fix anything, and she's tired and finally ready to let go.

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

My big dissonance moment was the first time fighting one girl as another. I really didn't want to do it and it became not fun. I had a couple of smaller moments playing Ellie early on. There's a few random NPCs that are clearly conflicted and I would have chosen to speak and not fight.

It can be an issue. The body count is staggering, the gameplay sections don't quite exist in the same reality. I think this is something games do, can do and get away with. It is more apparent here because TLOU strives to be so realistic, and it is dealing with death and grief. I think the game has some unspoken standards when it comes to taking a life, like all is fair in combat, stand your ground or something. But it is hard to tell whether this is a moral thing or simply a concession for gameplay.

The ending worked for me because Ellie's change is not about taking a human life. She's killed plenty. She stopped because needing that revenge has poisoned her, and killing Abby won't fix anything, and she's tired and finally ready to let go.

I'd say that's just a case of personal taste rather than that it didn't make any sense within the story.

As for the unspoken standards, the fight against Abby was probably one of the most honest and fair confrontations in the game. Far more so than sneaking up behind some unexpecting person and stabbing him to death. To me it just feels like the story was written without really thinking about gameplay.

It's still a good game but I think the first one worked better all things considered.

 

[henzINNIT]

I'd say that's just a case of personal taste rather than that it didn't make any sense within the story.

As for the unspoken standards, the fight against Abby was probably one of the most honest and fair confrontations in the game. Far more so than sneaking up behind some unexpecting person and stabbing him to death. To me it just feels like the story was written without really thinking about gameplay.

It's still a good game but I think the first one worked better all things considered.

We were talking ludonarrative dissonance, so I was talking specifically about times in the game where I as the player became disconnected from the character. It's not that I thought these things didn't make sense. It all works pretty well story-wise for me.

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

We were talking ludonarrative dissonance, so I was talking specifically about times in the game where I as the player became disconnected from the character. It's not that I thought these things didn't make sense. It all works pretty well story-wise for me.

Ludonarrative dissonance is when there is dissonance between the gameplay and the story narrative. For example when killing is a big deal in the story but casual fare in gameplay.

I don't see anything in the Abby vs Ellie fight that contradicted the story or vice versa.

 

[henzINNIT]

Ludonarrative dissonance is when there is dissonance between the gameplay and the story narrative. For example when killing is a big deal in the story but casual fare in gameplay.

I don't see anything in the Abby vs Ellie fight that contradicted the story or vice versa.

You are correct, my understanding of the term was off and my issues were not examples of it.

 

[Bobber]

It's funny. I think these supposed "forced sympathy" moments for Abby, only seem like that if you hate her. To me it didn't seem like they were sloppily trying to make us sympathize with Abby, but merely show us her life, and that she is more than this jacked up killing machine. In fact, in the beginning of Abby's part, I believe they still show her as a deeply flawed person. She's overly defensive, still filled with lots of anger, and unwilling to see things from other peoples perspective.

Is there manipulation involved? Oh boy, is there. But Last of Us was always guilty of that, and so are most stories.

 

[Iceman]

When could we expect another TLOU game? I guess Uncharted would be next, and wasn’t there some rumour about Naughty Dog making a fantasy game?

 

[Drizzle]

When could we expect another TLOU game? I guess Uncharted would be next, and wasn’t there some rumour about Naughty Dog making a fantasy game?

I would say at least 3-4 years if they push forward with TLOU 3. If we ever get another Uncharted game, I expect it'll be starring Chloe and Nadine, much like Lost Legacy. Of the two I'd rather see one more TLOU game, as I feel there's still some unfinished business with Ellie.

 

[Iceman]

I would say at least 3-4 years if they push forward with TLOU 3. If we ever get another Uncharted game, I expect it'll be starring Chloe and Nadine, much like Lost Legacy. Of the two I'd rather see one more TLOU game, as I feel there's still some unfinished business with Ellie.

Makes sense. Will be nice to see what either TLOU or Uncharted are like 5 years deep into this gen when the devs really get to grips with the hardware and start making the most out of it.

 

[ScarletWitch]

i played it other day. its an amazing game

 

[Iceman]

Just watched a 9 hour playthrough of this game. I usually play PlayStation exclusives with one of 2 friends but got fed up waiting to see how this story ends with the virus restrictions going on so long.

I found it really gripping and couldn’t stop once I started. It certainly doesn’t pull any punches narratively and is happy to take big risks. I feel very close to Joel and Ellie (as I imagine most players do) from the first game which made parts of the game extremely tough to cope with.

It asks the hard questions that I didn’t really want to be asked, but then that reveals a lot when they successfully manage to show me the other side and even see characters I should theoretically still be hating much more sympathetically.

It feels like a truly horrible scenario to live in with so much never ending hate and at least as much threat from other humans as infected. The characters go through so much. It certainly makes me feel grateful for the comparatively easy life I have! This game does a bunch of things that I’ve not seen any other games try and it should definitely be commended massively for that along with great performances from the leads.

 

[Bobber]

Just watched a 9 hour playthrough of this game. I usually play PlayStation exclusives with one of 2 friends but got fed up waiting to see how this story ends with the virus restrictions going on so long.

I found it really gripping and couldn’t stop once I started. It certainly doesn’t pull any punches narratively and is happy to take big risks. I feel very close to Joel and Ellie (as I imagine most players do) from the first game which made parts of the game extremely tough to cope with.

It asks the hard questions that I didn’t really want to be asked, but then that reveals a lot when they successfully manage to show me the other side and even see characters I should theoretically still be hating much more sympathetically.

It feels like a truly horrible scenario to live in with so much never ending hate and at least as much threat from other humans as infected. The characters go through so much. It certainly makes me feel grateful for the comparatively easy life I have! This game does a bunch of things that I’ve not seen any other games try and it should definitely be commended massively for that along with great performances from the leads.

I'm thoroughly glad you enjoyed it. With all the vitriol and hate it's been getting, I'm always genuinely glad when people actually respond positively to it.

 

[henzINNIT]

I can picture people being so put off by story choices that it ruins the experience, but I just can't relate to it. This game is just so well made; it's full of beautifully designed encounters and explores emotions to a level that is so rare in gaming. Thoroughly loved playing it, multiple times, and struggled like hell finding something to replace it.

 

[Iceman]

Yeah, at that key early point I was thinking it was going to be too much for me and I would be another of those for who the experience was ruined. It’s testament to how powerful and deep the character work is in this to be able to make me come back from that.

 

[psylockolussus]

Since this been out almost a year now, can I post my spoiler review without spoiler tags?

 

[OutOfBoose]

Since we're writing details openly I guess I can be more specific about that I don't think the ending had any chance of working. Ellie has probably killed hundreds of people to get to Abby and lots of the cases are in "intimate" fashion with a knife. There is also torture involved.

All that is done over a longer period of time that contains a break where she returns to about as wonderful of a life as she could ever have in that world, but willingly throws it away for the chance to get to Abby again.

I don't see a person like that suddenly valuing the life of someone that tortured and killed a loved one, especially not when she had a much more logical point to let go in the story. In my particular case it's also just after killing about 20 people with a knife in the best serial killer fashion.

It's clear ludonarrative dissonance to me. If they wanted to make that story it shouldn't have been in a game where you kill tons of people.

Yep, I can't wrap my head around the idea of ending "the cycle", when Ellie in the process created a hundred other possible cycles. And Abby too.

 

[psylockolussus]

I just finished this and it was awesome! I like Jesse, Joel, Tommy and the rest grew on me. I thought this was a really well made game. Its crazy that characters from both sides were killed like flies. One time you were running and surviving with them. Then they were gone instantly because they were hit by a single bullet. Its brutal. I felt like I needed some time to process the deaths of the supporting cast but the game didn't let me as the story moved right away to the next thing.

The graphics at first wasn't mind blowing to me. However, I think this might be the most photorealistic game I've ever played. The game has the best vegatation ever. The grasses look really good. The stadium looks amazing. The game also doesn't have a grainy look unlike the first game. The section where Ellie gets a boat looks so real. It makes me wonder if Naughty Dog decides to make a game in a non post apocalyptic world in the future, how beautiful it would be. My nitpicks with the graphics are I wish Dina's gamemodel looked as photorealistic/polished as Joel. Ellie in some some cutscenes don't look that well polished. In some cutscenes, Ellie and Dina looked like they were standing in a green screen which kinda threw me off.

What I like about Naughty Dog games is the controls/game mechanics aren't over complicated and the menu screen isn't crowded with texts and clickable items. The menu interface almost looked minimalistic, especially the start menu. I didn't have to pick up thousands of items and dropped them off or sell them. I liked that they didn't change the gameplay so much from the 1st game. I liked how they implemented the touch pad when using the guitar. I liked collecting the coins. Gameplay, my only complaint is in an open area, I couldn't go back to the spot I just crossed. I missed some areas just because I decided to step in another direction first. I missed 1 safe boX so I didn't get the trophy for that. I also didn't get the trophy for checking every gun upgrade table.

My favorite parts of the game are the intimate moments. I liked when Ellie played Take on Me with the guitar. I liked the museum trip with Joel and Ellie. Moments like those really make me attached to the characters. I wish more games would have those kind of moments. I have played so many games in which my mind wanders during the cutscenes and talking scenes, its the opposite here. I didn't mind if there are many "walking" sections. I liked how the theater and the ocean park were the main hubs.

I don't know what I want for the next game. I feel like there could be a new lead. But I can't see Part 3 not having Ellie as the playable character and let the lead role be given to someone else or someone new. Its really going to be interesting who's going to be the lead for the third game. I don't eXpect Abby to be playable, so maybe Levi or Dina's child?

I think I prefer the second game more as I felt like the story was more complete. The first one felt like a set up to a bigger story and it ended abruptly. While the bigger story of the second game delivered imo regardless of what happened to the characters. This is definitely one of the more memorable stories in a videogame that I have ever played/seen. I will give it a 9.5.

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

I think I prefer the second game more as I felt like the story was more complete. The first one felt like a set up to a bigger story and it ended abruptly. While the bigger story of the second game delivered imo regardless of what happened to the characters. This is definitely one of the more memorable stories in a videogame that I have ever played/seen. I will give it a 9.5.

Awesome that you liked it so much. I had a different view of the part I quoted though.

I didn't see the first story as a setup to something greater, I think the centerpiece of the story was Joel's character journey and in the end his experiences and choices lead to him not being able to value a potential salvation for mankind over Ellie. That's a powerful climax to that story in my view. I think his story also worked much better together with what was done during gameplay all the way through. The second worked for the most part in that regard but I don't think the ending they chose resonates well with that.

 

[psylockolussus]

When could we expect another TLOU game? I guess Uncharted would be next, and wasn’t there some rumour about Naughty Dog making a fantasy game?

Maybe months before ps6's launch? Similar to Part 2 being released just a few months away from ps5's launch.

 

[Drizzle]

Speaking of TLOU2's launch, I can't believe it's been almost a year since the game came out.

 

[Iceman]

Maybe months before ps6's launch? Similar to Part 2 being released just a few months away from ps5's launch.

A long wait that would be.


This is the prob when one dev is creating too many outstanding franchises!

 

[psylockolussus]

A multiplayer game with a story? Not interested in playing mmo but intrigued about a multiplayer campaign with an actual story.

Naughty Dog Multiplayer Game Will Be Ambitious and High Quality

 

[Iceman]

I’d rather they stick to single player where they excel and are among the best. Multiplayer needs many different skills and doesn’t take advantage of what they do so well.

 

[psylockolussus]

I’d rather they stick to single player where they excel and are among the best. Multiplayer needs many different skills and doesn’t take advantage of what they do so well.

Im thinking rather than using their timefor the multiplayer. They could have already moved ahead by making Part III.

Big games are taking more time than ever so if they are going to work on another IP that isn't TLOU before Part III, Part III might not even be released when Ps6 is already out.

 

[henzINNIT]

What I like about Naughty Dog games is the controls/game mechanics aren't over complicated and the menu screen isn't crowded with texts and clickable items. The menu interface almost looked minimalistic, especially the start menu. I didn't have to pick up thousands of items and dropped them off or sell them. I liked that they didn't change the gameplay so much from the 1st game. I liked how they implemented the touch pad when using the guitar.

Naughty Dog are really good at nailing satisfying details. Upgrading guns for instance in this game is so enjoyable. The mechanic is pretty standard and simple, but watching Ellie work at the bench is always nice.

The craziest detail I've seen in TLOU2 is how Ellie's bag can get wet. When you look at artifacts, she physically grabs them out of her bag to inspect them. If you get Ellie wet, the items she gets out are also wet.