TLOU2 Review Thread
- Thread starter Phoenixmgs
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Having quickly glanced at the user scores on Metacritic, a 4.3 is really low.
And looking at the individual user scores themselves, I can see why.
God, I miss Critical Miss
I have a hard time rating this game. The stuff that I like, I really like, but the stuff that I don't like, I really don't like. The game is uneven, but I cant in good faith give this game a middling 5/10. The good, the bad, and the ugly - its better than a 4.3.
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What does a creator critical Miss even do now? I hope he's doing okay. I like most of the strips, but I had some disagreements with a couple of them. Mainly spiteful take that towards suda51 when Killer Is Dead came out.
Trying to give a numerical score to things like movies is already hard enough, when everything on screen is trying to add up to one cohesive experience. Games, on the other hand, are made up of disparate elements that may vary wildly in quality, which makes it much more difficult to slap one number on your experience of it and call it a day. Story and gameplay can be woven together, but often aren't, which can leave you with games which play really well but have rubbish stories, or games with great stories that are extremely janky. On top of that, the creators of the game can opt to place more emphasis on one or the other, which can lead to the bad parts intruding more on the good parts.
Grey works for the NHS, I think. Not sure about Corey.
So I'm a ways into Abby's run and I met Yara and Lev. I'm now teamed up with the latter, and oddly enough I'm actually starting to warm up to Abby. And I think it's because I sorta like the dynamic between her and Lev. They're from opposite sides, there's a bit of an uneasy alliance, and they're slowly getting to know eachother. Sounds familiar, I know, but it still works wonders and it's making me like these characters a lot more. Also, Abby is actually helping some people, and Joel-killer or not, that is easier for me to get engaged in than petty vengeange.
I know it's blaphemous, but I kinda like Abby more than Ellie right now. Although that has less to do with their personality and more with me feeling like Ellie is written counter to how she behaves, and Ellie and Dina already knowing eachother, making you feel left out of their growth as a couple.
And I also saw the sex scene, which was totally fine. I was expecting the worst, like David Cage sex scene times ten, but it's just two people having a quicky; no less awkward than two real-life people doggy stylin'.
Hmmm, could I actually be coming around on this game?
I know it's blaphemous, but I kinda like Abby more than Ellie right now. Although that has less to do with their personality and more with me feeling like Ellie is written counter to how she behaves, and Ellie and Dina already knowing eachother, making you feel left out of their growth as a couple.
And I also saw the sex scene, which was totally fine. I was expecting the worst, like David Cage sex scene times ten, but it's just two people having a quicky; no less awkward than two real-life people doggy stylin'.
Hmmm, could I actually be coming around on this game?
Don't fall into the trap! This is how they get you. First you start to like Abby then you start going crazy in the gym, next thing you know you are a professional bodybuilder.
Happy you are liking the game better now, but I personally couldn't get over Abby's behavior. How she killed Joel after being saved by him several times in a short period of time, only to have that turn around herself towards Lev and Yara later in the game to try and make her sympathetic didn't work for me.
Her revenge and anger suddenly evaporates after braining Joel, and she is just a kind, caring, loyal person? She got it out of her system and it just goes away? I don't think a person just let's that go like that. I would think there would be at least some residual effect, nightmares, maybe a bit of regret.
I think that Abby would have had a much better dynamic if she was haunted by her revenge. Seeing images of Joel saving her ass, only for her to return the favor with a golf club. If Joel's death haunted her and led her to wanting to make ammends for it by saving the kids, I think could have gone a longer way towards making her a better character. Have her learn regret and forgiveness, while at the same time Ellie being more consumed by her rage would have worked as a better dynamic.
Instead Ellie is the one who regrets the things she does for revenge, while Abby just acts like it was a normal Tuesday.
This is pretty much my main criticism as well; story wise I’m only heading out to find Nora so haven’t even gotten to the Abby stuff yet.
I get why they did it with the scavenging/crafting but explained in another post (or thread?) why the gameplay and narrative need to gel to avoid compromising one or the other. I don’t mind the scavenging and crafting in itself, but the added layer of an upgrade system makes it seem contrived, detrimental and kinda pointless to the narrative drive.
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- Mar 13, 2020
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I'll save it for my op-ed, but I think Abbey does have regret for it considering she lets both Dina and Ellie go, and tells Lev and Yara that she feels like she has to help them, which to me says she knew she did a bad thing. Especially with all of her friends treating her differently after.
This is kind of debatable. Because Manny surely doesn't treat her differently, and a couple of the other named people die either off screen or die by Ellie without interaction with Abby that you get to see how they view what they've done with her.
Owen and Mel do, but I dunno if that's because of the Joel thing, or because those characters wanting to get away from the conflict with the SCARS and raise a family somewhere safely. It's a little blurry. Especially since Owen is more that willing to give it to Abby from behind. Sure there is enough evidence to support your opinion on it too. But if that is the case, I feel it's down played too much.
Since it seems like we're getting into spoilers:
Can someone explain to me why having a cure was so important in the first place? The cure wouldn't have turned the infected back to normal right? From what I know of TLOU (I haven't played either game), other survivor and the infected seem more of a danger than getting infected yourself.
Can someone explain to me why having a cure was so important in the first place? The cure wouldn't have turned the infected back to normal right? From what I know of TLOU (I haven't played either game), other survivor and the infected seem more of a danger than getting infected yourself.
It's not really clear. Perhaps it would have been a vaccine that works like an Epipen, where if someone gets bit or whatever they can stab themselves with the pen and prevent getting infected.
Or maybe they meant to cure people outright but that doesn't make much sense considering the bloater and clicker enemy types.
Personally i felt the immunity and the cure thing from the last game was a plot hole, because it just simply didn't make sense.
So far though she's not completely let off the hook. You have other characters talk to her about what she did, like Mel talking about how it was really fucked up for her to witness eventhough she feels Joel deserved it. Obviously seeing Abby in a different not too favourable light now. And later you have Owen throwing it in her face and Abby getting really pissed off about it, showing there's a part of her that doesn't want to be confronted by it.
Honestly I feel it might've been better if Abby had no grudge against Joel whatsoever, and it was just a job to her. She would still be pissed off at the guy for denying the world a cure, but it wouldn't be as vindictive. This not only would've made it easier for the ordinary player to not depise her, but also show how Abby is the main character in her story and Joel is just a random enemy NPC.
And it's not like Abby being helpful means that I think she is now a good person, hence I like her more. I just have way more of an issue with Ellie being out for bloody revenge and dragging her loved ones into it, when that is not who this character is at all. Even with her conflicted emotions about Joel and what he did, and how she never got to fully reconcile with him, she would never abandon her community for vengeance. And the character bonding that Abby and Lev are going through is just a lot more appealing to me by comparison.
Which i think is the crux of the issue for a lot of fans.
This character, whomever it is, ISNT Ellie. This isn't the character fans thought she was or should be and it feels bad to have her take such a unreasonable left turn in regards to her character growth. Meanwhile, the game focuses on this she-hulk of a character who's behaving more like what people thought a grown up Ellie would act like.
And i don't understand the motivation for her overall design at all. You wanna make her a strong badass, sure. But this girl is fucking on steroids hardcore. Women do not bulk like that. It is partly her design that adds to me not liking her, because she's so unreal and unnatural looking in a mostly realistic game world.
I wonder if the leaks were true in that she was supposed to be trans, and at one point they just decided to scratch that part of her character out of it. Frankly I would have less of an issue in her design if she was trans, because then the character model would make fucking sense.
A lot of people in that world are still getting infected though, and taking that risk away would allow for a lot more breathing room to rebuild and help people. The reason a lot of people became so desperate and violent is because the risk of infection and consequently the risk of getting killed by infected took away any security they had. There's a scene in TLoU2 where Ellie and Joel come across the infected bodies of a couple that left Jackson, because they wanted to go out and help others less fortunate, to which Ellie solemnly highlights 'If only the were immune, right?'
It's not too unrealistic. When you see Abby as a young girl she already has quite a solid build, and when wandering through the WLF headquarters you see they have plenty of cattle, so it's not like they don't have the proteine to put on muscle. It could very well be that's she was naturally very bulky from a young age, making her get that big by dedicating herself to training not too ridiculous. It's also not like she's the only one. You meet a couple of hammer wielding NPC ladies from the Seraphites that are just as if not bigger than Abby.