Please refer to my thread "Gaming Journalists Make No Sense"
TLOU2 Review Thread
- Thread starter Phoenixmgs
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Please refer to my thread "Gaming Journalists Make No Sense"
Very few games have LD though, Uncharted doesn't for example. Just because your character isn't a killing machine in cutscenes doesn't mean the game has it. If you did a 1:1 conversion of an Indiana Jones movie and the gameplay was only the action bits and the rest being cutscenes, it wouldn't have LD for example. LD has nothing to do with violence or killing things, that's not part of the reason why Bioshock was critiqued for having it.
Seraphim17 posted up walkthrough guides on the hardest difficulty for those interested. It's all gameplay only and no cut-scenes or walk n' talk sections. He normally does audio commentary, but for these videos, he did annotations only. From his Twitch Stream with the game, he had major problems. That is all I can say, really. I don't think he's hates it, but there is some huge disappointment.
I actually prefer vanilla P5. I felt like Royal made the game significantly easier to the point where you hardly had to manage your time or think about battles at all. It also drags on too much. Most of the extra stuff I felt was not necessary. I was thinking about doing a thread about that but never got around to it.
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I tend to stress over missing out on Slinks or social skills but also don't want to play with a guide so making those easier is pretty godsent. You really shouldn't need to know the future to be able to see all the core content of the game on your first playthrough.
As for combat, you can just raise the difficulty. I didn't start the game on normal so I dunno how it plays but if you find it too easy just play on expert or higher.
But yeah I just love all the new stuff you can do and the new confidants. Kasumi is a darling too. And then you have the epic co-op supers and new persona forms and so on. I haven't found anything to actually dislike lol. Stuff like the new hangout spots with the darts and pool or the phonecalls during events and so on are also great too.
Im glad you enjoyed it. However, a key component in persona Is the time management thing for me and it makes games more special when can’t see everything. Like there are secrets.
Once you have all the confidant upgrades in this game, everything becomes way too easy.
You shouldn’t have to raise the difficulty. I played on hard and found it too easy. Hard should be hard. Expert should be for experts.
I can take or leave the new content, especially that stuff at the end.
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I just like knowing I can get to the content without feeling I'm missing out because it makes everything less fun when you think you're missing out on something else to see what you are seeing. Though on that point even original p5 was like that if you maxed temperament and fortune asap, which I did actually do in my first playthrough. It's not as easy and it's less handholdy but it's still there.
And see, I would deem myself an expert at this point, I played persona for about 15 years already. Put close to 1000 hours on the series. I don't think the label is miss-matched. It prolly fits you too if you are a long time fan.
Oh and leaving Mishima's confidant for later helps on the difficulty thing cause it makes it harder to overlevel yourself, that and skipping the exp bonus on mementos for more cash.
On topic, regardless of what people think of the base game and story, even cynics gotta admit the gee-tar meta game is pretty awesome
More tunes.
I like the Hozier one and hot damn Hotel California! Kinda fitting thematically even.
More tunes.
I like the Hozier one and hot damn Hotel California! Kinda fitting thematically even.
My second playthrough of the game to finish the platinum has made me much more aware of a lot of the actual gameplay problems within this game.
New Game + allows you to keep everything you've upgraded and collected through a new playthrough. Which highlights one very important problem.
Character upgrades and weapon upgrades are meaningless. They change nothing, they effect nothing, they make zero difference, with only a couple of slight exceptions. More health (25%), and the faster stealth kills. Outside of those two upgrades, everything else is a waste of time and has no baring on gameplay whatsoever. Upgrading your weapons means nothing, because headshots are headshots no matter what. They have somewhat of a better effect on Infected, however there are so few instances where infected are even remotely a factor (because you stealth kill most of them too) that the only place where upgrades might matter is the ONE boss fight.
the other issue is the collectibles. There are 287 collectibles or around that number. However the maps are so large and densely packed with nothing that the vast majority of the time you'll explore a extremely detailed corner only to have nothing be there. Why? Why make all these little nooks and crannies of places only for there to be nothing. How can you have nearly 300 collectibles to pick up throughout the game and still have each space feel wasted? The map design is really rather shit and only serves to waste your time if you are a completionist.
New Game + allows you to keep everything you've upgraded and collected through a new playthrough. Which highlights one very important problem.
Character upgrades and weapon upgrades are meaningless. They change nothing, they effect nothing, they make zero difference, with only a couple of slight exceptions. More health (25%), and the faster stealth kills. Outside of those two upgrades, everything else is a waste of time and has no baring on gameplay whatsoever. Upgrading your weapons means nothing, because headshots are headshots no matter what. They have somewhat of a better effect on Infected, however there are so few instances where infected are even remotely a factor (because you stealth kill most of them too) that the only place where upgrades might matter is the ONE boss fight.
the other issue is the collectibles. There are 287 collectibles or around that number. However the maps are so large and densely packed with nothing that the vast majority of the time you'll explore a extremely detailed corner only to have nothing be there. Why? Why make all these little nooks and crannies of places only for there to be nothing. How can you have nearly 300 collectibles to pick up throughout the game and still have each space feel wasted? The map design is really rather shit and only serves to waste your time if you are a completionist.
It sounds like UC4 and LL even made open spaces feel more worthwhile. Here they just seem like window dressing, and an excuse to make subpar horse riding a traversal feature. Idk if that shows up anymore after Seattle but damn, the first big areas were sorely dull and hurting for actual gameplay purpose aside from not being fun to travel. Reminded me of the vehicles from Mafia 1.
There is very very very little horse travel in the game. Outside of that one section you never touch a horse again for the most part. There are a couple very small sections later but nothing like that downtown seattle area.
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Did Naughty Dog just make a better Guitar Hero than Guitar Hero did? That mini-game is super impressive, I didn't even know you could do all that haha.
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My take on the story is up.
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2...ssage-in-the-last-of-us-part-ii-is-the-point/
Jack and I also discussed at length here.
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2...ssage-in-the-last-of-us-part-ii-is-the-point/
Jack and I also discussed at length here.
Interesting take. I think there is a highlighted problem of the only reason Ellie ever got mad at Joel in the first place is because Joel is an idiot.
The only reason she gets mad at him is because he doesn't tell her the full story, and him hiding information makes no sense.
In reality, the fireflies had no idea they could make a cure or give everyone else in the world immunity to the fungus. All they knew was that Ellie's brain had a strange chemestry that made her immune. In order to even begin to experiment on developing a cure or vaccine or something, Ellie would have to die. And potentially there would be nothing that could be done. Ellie would have died, and that doctor could not have been able to do anything with it. Or since the world is dangerous as fuck, that doctor could have easily died three days later from some random infected, or a scars attack.
A vaccine, a cure, all of that could have taken years, and there was no reasonable plausibility to it saving anyone except the settlement that the doctor lived in. Remember everything is fucked, how do you continue to synthesize a vaccine? You can't.
If I were Joel, in the moment where Ellie demands the truth, I would have said this:
"Ellie, the....immunity you have....it's in your brain somewhere. They said....they needed to do tests on you. On your brain. These tests were no guarantee a cure or even treatment would work. But in order to do these tests......they'd have to kill you. I couldn't let them just kill you for nothing. I wouldn't let them. They tried to stop me.....but I got you out of there...to live. The world can't be just fixed, not anymore, maybe not ever. So I lied, and I'm sorry."
While not perfect off the top of my head, it gives Ellie more of his motivation, more of his reasoning. Rather than what he actually tells her.
I guess the biggest thing is that you are right. The game has no point because it has too many plot holes and logical blank spots that prevent it from having a point. Anywhere you look at it and think about it, none of it makes sense.
People have been saying that Joel's death was fine because Joel was evil in the first place and that's partly true. But he became a beloved character dispite that. and that way he was killed was extremely poorly written. Kill Joel, that's fine. Even make the story about Ellie's revenge, that's also fine. But it has to be believable revenge.
Instead it feels half-assed and I never got the feeling that the characters ever truly wanted vengence.
It might have something to do with the lengths Naughty Dog had to go to use Pearl Jam’s song, Future Days. They probably figured they might as well also go the extra mile with the in-game stuff and adding some legitimacy to the musicianship to show they weren’t just playing around, no pun.
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Well, he hid it from her because he knew exactly how she'd react to it and he didn't want to lose another daughter, as evidenced by exactly that happening in Part II.
No i understand him hiding it for a while. But when she forces him to reveal it, she probably would have hated him less if he explained more. Teenage girls always hate their dad for a little while. But she forgives him in the end and would have forgave him sooner if he was more up front when she forced his hand.
Just my two cents. I agree with you that the story is pointless.
Thank you. That's one of the points I bring up whenever someone tries to argue Joel screwed Humanity, is that the game points out the Fireflies have already killed quite a few people looking for a cure/vaccine and it hasn't resulted in anything so far. There's little reason to believe killing Ellie was going to be the silver bullet they were looking for. And your point about the logistics of the situation further compounds the point.
There's also the unfortunate fact Ellie was unconscious and the fireflies apparently didn't bother to wake her up to ask her if she was okay with dying for potentially no reason.Does she even know that particular detail(I haven't play TLoU2 yet and not sure I will at this point)? Because the fireflies didn't give her a choice in the matter and while Joel did what he did for selfish reasons, he at least gave her the option to be able to make that choice in the future.
That’s further proof the Fireflies were pos’s. They didn’t have the courtesy because it would’ve been a needless hurdle in front of their objective.