TLOU2 Review Thread

[stroopwafel]

Yeah, but he never was an unethical asshole to me, and I don't feel the first game ever frames him that way. The fact that this guy only has a little scapel to threaten Joel with shows how much Joel sees this guy - and by extention a cure for mankind - as just a inconsequential stone in the road. Something that means nothing to him and deserves to be squashed so he can get what he wants.

I don't know about that. It's not about what Joel 'wants' it's about the Fireflies killing a young girl for a potential vaccine which neither Ellie nor Joel had given consent for. When the Firefly soldier forced Joel down they crossed the line and it just became an ordinary kidnapping. That this brought back the rage from when they killed his own daughter also made more than sense. TLoU2 goes to great lengths to portray the events from Abby's perspective and how she is also a victim of that same cycle of violence that cost her own father her life. People can have the best of intentions and have emotions that are legitimate given the circumstances but that doesn't necessarily make their course of action 'right'. I think TLoU2 makes a really good point about that.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I don't know about that. It's not about what Joel 'wants' it's about the Fireflies killing a young girl for a potential vaccine which neither Ellie nor Joel had given consent for. When the Firefly soldier forced Joel down they crossed the line and it just became an ordinary kidnapping. That this brought back the rage from when they killed his own daughter also made more than sense. TLoU2 goes to great lengths to portray the events from Abby's perspective and how she is also a victim of that same cycle of violence that cost her own father her life. People can have the best of intentions and have emotions that are legitimate given the circumstances but that doesn't necessarily make their course of action 'right'. I think TLoU2 makes a really good point about that.

No, it pretty much is about what Joel wants. Or more accurately, what Joel needs. And Joel needs Ellie. And anything that stands in the way of that needs to be gone. Joel could've easily just disarmed that surgeon and shoved him out of the way, but he choose to murder him because that's what he wanted to do. He could've easily told Ellie the truth if he thought the Fireflies legitimately kidnapped her, and if he thought what they were about to do was against her consent. But he doesn't, because he knows Ellie would've wanted to die for a cure, and he knows that if she knew what he had just done she'd leave him. And he's either blind to or chooses to ignore what this outcome has done to her psychologically.

The ending is all about Joel. About how his fear of losing the first person he's truly loved in 20 years causing him not only to do something that has terrible consequence for the rest of the world, but also causes him to fracture his relationship with this person. It's the tragedy of him opening up his heart again. He sacrifices his relationship with Ellie and sends her into a depression just so he can keep her with him so he can be happy.

And yeah, this really should've been touched upon more in the sequel other than a few lines. It also makes Joel's line of 'If somehow God gave me a second chance, I would've done it all over again' feel much less endearing than the game probably meant for. Really Joel, you would've done all of that all over again? Lying to Ellie for 4 fucking years and acting like she doesn't know what she's talking about whenever she actually touches on the truth? Wow, fuck you Joel. Or should I say, fuck Naughty Dog for trying to play that off as endearing.

 

[stroopwafel]

No, it pretty much is about what Joel wants. Or more accurately, what Joel needs. And Joel needs Ellie. And anything that stands in the way of that needs to be gone. Joel could've easily just disarmed that surgeon and shoved him out of the way, but he choose to murder him because that's what he wanted to do. He could've easily told Ellie the truth if he thought the Fireflies legitimately kidnapped her, and if he thought what they were about to do was against her consent. But he doesn't, because he knows Ellie would've wanted to die for a cure, and he knows that if she knew what he had just done she'd leave him. And he's either blind to or chooses to ignore what this outcome has done to her psychologically.

The ending is all about Joel. About how his fear of losing the first person he's truly loved in 20 years causing him not only to do something that has terrible consequence for the rest of the world, but also causes him to fracture his relationship with this person. It's the tragedy of him opening up his heart again. He sacrifices his relationship with Ellie and sends her into a depression just so he can keep her with him so he can be happy.

And yeah, this really should've been touched upon more in the sequel other than a few lines. It also makes Joel's line of 'If somehow God gave me a second chance, I would've done it all over again' feel much less endearing than the game probably meant for. Really Joel, you would've done all of that all over again? Lying to Ellie for 4 fucking years and acting like she doesn't know what she's talking about whenever she actually touches on the truth? Wow, fuck you Joel. Or should I say, fuck Naughty Dog for trying to play that off as endearing.

That is exactly what Joel tried to do though. When it became obvious that the procedure meant the end of Ellie's life Joel wanted to leave with Ellie but the Firefly soldier(who was a total douchebag btw) slapped Joel and would kill him if he tried to rescue her. They didn't let him go with Ellie on his own accord. Only then did Joel go on a rampage because the Fireflies gave him no other choice. The entire hospital was filled with heavily armed soldiers that would kill on sight. That Joel would do it 'all over again' does not mean a massacre but serves to communicate how he cares for Ellie and that he would protect her at any cost again. That he lied to Ellie, well, obviously the guy isn't perfect but the game hints pretty well that this was mostly because Joel didn't want Ellie to feel guilty. Joel might be 'selfish' because he didn't want to lose her but the fact he genuinely cared for her is sincere. Given Ellie's reaction to Joel's death that bond is also pretty mutual.

The Fireflies would have most likely also weaponized any potential 'cure' given how they are a pretty corrupt, militaristic organization. By allowing selective access to a vaccine they could have decided who would live or die. Abby's father might have had the best of intentions in his own 'the end justifies the means' kinda way but it's pretty obvious a vaccine would have become a tool for a group of militants with a lot of enemies. Joel also knew the Fireflies' intentions pretty well which gave him even more reason to not let Ellie's life be ended by them.

 

[Casual Shinji]

That is exactly what Joel tried to do though. When it became obvious that the procedure meant the end of Ellie's life Joel wanted to leave with Ellie but the Firefly soldier(who was a total douchebag btw) slapped Joel and would kill him if he tried to rescue her. They didn't let him go with Ellie on his own accord. Only then did Joel go on a rampage because the Fireflies gave him no other choice. The entire hospital was filled with heavily armed soldiers that would kill on sight. That Joel would do it 'all over again' does not mean a massacre but serves to communicate how he cares for Ellie and that he would protect her at any cost again. That he lied to Ellie, well, obviously the guy isn't perfect but the game hints pretty well that this was mostly because Joel didn't want Ellie to feel guilty. Joel might be 'selfish' because he didn't want to lose her but the fact he genuinely cared for her is sincere. Given Ellie's reaction to Joel's death that bond is also pretty mutual.

Even if they were the nicest people and Ellie was wide awake and ready for the proceedure, Joel would've still forced his way through to take her away from there. That was the whole point, that due to how he lost Sarah losing Ellie would never be an option for him, even if it led to the salvation of mankind. And you can bet your ass he wasn't lying to her to absolve her of guilt. That was again him being scared of losing her.

The Fireflies would have most likely also weaponized any potential 'cure' given how they are a pretty corrupt, militaristic organization. By allowing selective access to a vaccine they could have decided who would live or die. Abby's father might have had the best of intentions in his own 'the end justifies the means' kinda way but it's pretty obvious a vaccine would have become a tool for a group of militants with a lot of enemies. Joel also knew the Fireflies' intentions pretty well which gave him even more reason to not let Ellie's life be ended by them.

That really doesn't matter. A vaccine would exist, the knowledge of a vaccine would exist. This is more important than whether or not it would be weaponized. And the Fireflies weren't the Nazis, they were at worst an incompetent group of revolutionaries. It's not like having the vaccine would turn them into super soldiers that would take over the Earth or something.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Was watching this clip and while I don’t put much stock into it (really, I didn’t even watch much of it), in the comments was one of the most interesting explanations I’ve read regarding Ellie’s behavior in the game (I think this thread’s touched on something like it here and there but it’s said well here) -


namelesslunitic
Just popping in to give my two cents on Ellie's behavior. I find it funny that so many people seem to be missing a consistent theme surrounding her character that has always seemed obvious to me.

Agency.

If you think about it, for as long as we've known Ellie, her agency is constantly being robbed from her. Let's break it down.

Her choice to be with Riley is cut short.

Her choice to spend her final hours with Riley is rendered null when it turns out she is immune.

She is robbed of any choice at the hospital since she is unconscious when the doctors decide to move forward AND when Joel saves her.

She makes a decision to finally try to forgive Joel over the lie he told, and then, loses him the next day.

She goes on a rampage in Seattle with the goal of taking out Joel's killers with the primary target being Abby, the very person who makes the first choice to put a stop to the fighting.

Throughout the ENTIRE series Ellie's life has been dictated by the choices and actions of forces outside of her control. Shoot, even her little ideal life on the farm was DINA'S fantasy.

Like...seriously think about it for a moment. Think about how infuriating, frustrating, that must be, and then, mix it all in with the trauma and the survivors guilt AND the PTSD.

And people are surprised by the way she acts in Part II? I, honestly don't get it. As far as I see it, the Ellie we play as in Part II is a lost, confused, enraged, and conflicted young woman who is lashing out in every way she can in a desperate attempt to restore control to a life she feels she's lost all control of. And I don't think it's subtle, either, especially if you read the journal. Joel's death was not only the last straw, but it gave her a clear goal for the first time since her journey in the first game.

Kill those fuckers.

So, that's what she does, but she doesn't get to finish the job. Once again, the choice is made for her to end the rampage in Seattle, and it was made by the very person she had the most hate for. It's a loose thread that she can't get over. So, she sets back out once she gets another lead on Abby.

There's a lot going on in that final stretch of the game, but I'm trying to keep this as brief as possible. I say all of this to make the simple point that the thing that is so vastly different about her final encounter with Abby is that, once she has her enemy down in the water and completely subdued, that's the moment Ellie finally feels like she has regained some kind of control. It's finally completely her call to end things the way she wants, and it at last allows her a moment of clarity where she can finally focus on a memory of Joel outside of those brutal final moments. She remembers their final conversation, and that's enough to make her let Abby go. I could elaborate, but I really just wanted to bring up this idea of Ellie's agency that I just don't see many people talking about. It just seems like a pretty major thing to ignore, in my opinion.

 

[CriticalGaming]

snip

While that is an interesting comment. I think that's all just the commentor's theorycrafting fan fiction regarding Ellie. And the reason I think that is because the rest of the game's writing is so poor, that I don't think this deep meta narative was intended in anyway shape or form.

Basically this person is just finding patterns that don't technically mean anything, it's just a pattern that happens to Ellie as a character.


The rest of the game is ham-fisted and clearly trying hard to whack people's emotions very clearly. Even going so far as to making all the characters in the game do shit that don't make sense for them in order to make the "moments" Naughty Dog wants to happen.

To say she's robbed of choice is just wrong anyway. Sure in the first game, her choices are taken from her. But in the second game, no agency is taken from her. She choices to be with Dina, she chooses to hunt down Joel's killers (twice), even as the vengance wears her down she CHOOSES to continue. The agency isn't removed, she isn't robbed of anything after Joel's death. Everything is her choice. Dina doesn't pressure her, Tommy doesn't pressure her (the first time), nobody wants her to actually start this. Ellie CHOOSES to take that road.

This is further driven away from the commenter's theory because what they are saying isn't supported by the writing. Ellie never really appears all that driven during the Seattle sections of the game. She regrets every big action that occurs there and makes the recurring choice of pushing forward. Dina spends the majority of these events sick and fucked up, so Ellie isn't pressured by her to keep doing what she does. Ellie makes every choice. So I don't see how they can argue that her choices are lost to her.

And again there is no dialog or diary entry in the game to support any mental battle in Ellie's head.

So no, I don't think that at all, it's just people trying to justify the game to themselves and believing in something that would have made for a better story.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Was watching this clip and while I don’t put much stock into it (really, I didn’t even watch much of it), in the comments was one of the most interesting explanations I’ve read regarding Ellie’s behavior in the game (I think this thread’s touched on something like it here and there but it’s said well here) -


namelesslunitic
Just popping in to give my two cents on Ellie's behavior. I find it funny that so many people seem to be missing a consistent theme surrounding her character that has always seemed obvious to me.

Agency.

If you think about it, for as long as we've known Ellie, her agency is constantly being robbed from her. Let's break it down.

Her choice to be with Riley is cut short.

Her choice to spend her final hours with Riley is rendered null when it turns out she is immune.

She is robbed of any choice at the hospital since she is unconscious when the doctors decide to move forward AND when Joel saves her.

She makes a decision to finally try to forgive Joel over the lie he told, and then, loses him the next day.

She goes on a rampage in Seattle with the goal of taking out Joel's killers with the primary target being Abby, the very person who makes the first choice to put a stop to the fighting.

Throughout the ENTIRE series Ellie's life has been dictated by the choices and actions of forces outside of her control. Shoot, even her little ideal life on the farm was DINA'S fantasy.

Like...seriously think about it for a moment. Think about how infuriating, frustrating, that must be, and then, mix it all in with the trauma and the survivors guilt AND the PTSD.

And people are surprised by the way she acts in Part II? I, honestly don't get it. As far as I see it, the Ellie we play as in Part II is a lost, confused, enraged, and conflicted young woman who is lashing out in every way she can in a desperate attempt to restore control to a life she feels she's lost all control of. And I don't think it's subtle, either, especially if you read the journal. Joel's death was not only the last straw, but it gave her a clear goal for the first time since her journey in the first game.

Kill those fuckers.

So, that's what she does, but she doesn't get to finish the job. Once again, the choice is made for her to end the rampage in Seattle, and it was made by the very person she had the most hate for. It's a loose thread that she can't get over. So, she sets back out once she gets another lead on Abby.

There's a lot going on in that final stretch of the game, but I'm trying to keep this as brief as possible. I say all of this to make the simple point that the thing that is so vastly different about her final encounter with Abby is that, once she has her enemy down in the water and completely subdued, that's the moment Ellie finally feels like she has regained some kind of control. It's finally completely her call to end things the way she wants, and it at last allows her a moment of clarity where she can finally focus on a memory of Joel outside of those brutal final moments. She remembers their final conversation, and that's enough to make her let Abby go. I could elaborate, but I really just wanted to bring up this idea of Ellie's agency that I just don't see many people talking about. It just seems like a pretty major thing to ignore, in my opinion.

That's one way to spin it.

Unfortunately it doesn't take into account that when we meet Ellie in TLoU2 she's perfectly well adjusted; she has friends, is an active member of the community, and even has a girlfriend. Even with her knowing the truth about what Joel did and that it resulted in humanity being out a vaccine, she seems to be doing just fine. We're never even given the impression that any of this murderous rage is bubbling beneath the surface.

You could also say that Ellie losing Joel gave her the clear goal of protecting the people she cares for at all costs by NOT going on a nation-spanning revenge quest.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

While that is an interesting comment. I think that's all just the commentor's theorycrafting fan fiction regarding Ellie. And the reason I think that is because the rest of the game's writing is so poor, that I don't think this deep meta narative was intended in anyway shape or form.

Basically this person is just finding patterns that don't technically mean anything, it's just a pattern that happens to Ellie as a character.


The rest of the game is ham-fisted and clearly trying hard to whack people's emotions very clearly. Even going so far as to making all the characters in the game do shit that don't make sense for them in order to make the "moments" Naughty Dog wants to happen.

To say she's robbed of choice is just wrong anyway. Sure in the first game, her choices are taken from her. But in the second game, no agency is taken from her. She choices to be with Dina, she chooses to hunt down Joel's killers (twice), even as the vengance wears her down she CHOOSES to continue. The agency isn't removed, she isn't robbed of anything after Joel's death. Everything is her choice. Dina doesn't pressure her, Tommy doesn't pressure her (the first time), nobody wants her to actually start this. Ellie CHOOSES to take that road.

This is further driven away from the commenter's theory because what they are saying isn't supported by the writing. Ellie never really appears all that driven during the Seattle sections of the game. She regrets every big action that occurs there and makes the recurring choice of pushing forward. Dina spends the majority of these events sick and fucked up, so Ellie isn't pressured by her to keep doing what she does. Ellie makes every choice. So I don't see how they can argue that her choices are lost to her.

And again there is no dialog or diary entry in the game to support any mental battle in Ellie's head.

So no, I don't think that at all, it's just people trying to justify the game to themselves and believing in something that would have made for a better story.

Perhaps. Although I also think Ellie believes she has less of a choice than say, what people playing choose to believe or how they interpret her motives and reasoning.

Her journal entries do indeed show her mind is certainly conflicted at the very least, and definitely not at peace. Not Michael Myers bad, but still ain't in a good, happy place.

That's one way to spin it.

Unfortunately it doesn't take into account that when we meet Ellie in TLoU2 she's perfectly well adjusted; she has friends, is an active member of the community, and even has a girlfriend. Even with her knowing the truth about what Joel did and that it resulted in humanity being out a vaccine, she seems to be doing just fine. We're never even given the impression that any of this murderous rage is bubbling beneath the surface.

You could also say that Ellie losing Joel gave her the clear goal of protecting the people she cares for at all costs by NOT going on a nation-spanning revenge quest.

That would be assuming she's a normal person without any flaws, which the game shouldn't really have to spend a lot of time addressing head-on after the last game. Maybe it was too passive in communicating these aspects. I suppose they could've delved a bit further into her psyche but not sure when or where as the game was already bloated in the first place.

Anyways, it seems the developers are busy trying to spell things out more now.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/video-games/news/the-last-of-us-part-2-ellie-evolution/

 

[Casual Shinji]

That would be assuming she's a normal person without any flaws, which the game shouldn't really have to spend a lot of time addressing head-on after the last game. Maybe it was too passive in communicating these aspects. I suppose they could've delved a bit further into her psyche but not sure when or where as the game was already bloated in the first place.

Anyways, it seems the developers are busy trying to spell things out more now.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/video-games/news/the-last-of-us-part-2-ellie-evolution/

I'm not assuming she's a normal person without flaws, just a practical one. See, this whole concept of Ellie no longer feeling like she has purpose would feel a lot more palpable or at all palpable if neither Dina nor Jesse were in the picture and if Ellie was very withdrawn. But that's not really the case at all. Heck, we even see her having a friendly snowball fight, showing she's not opposed to having fun with the kids in Jackson.

And that would be the one thing that could send Ellie off the deep end; the fact that her purpose was taken away from her, so now she's just left as a wandering husk looking to feel something, anything. The end of the first game left her without any faith in the world, Joel, or herself, but the sequel doesn't show much if any of that before Joel dies. At best we get a somber look as she wakes up after the titlecard. And post-Joel's death it's all about anger toward the person who killed him.

Even in her journal there's no signs of her feeling depressed or like her life is pointless. She's talking about hanging out with Cat and the budding romance between them and how she's friends with Dina and how great she is. It only gets dark after Joel dies, meaning her turn to the dark all has to do with Joel, not her feeling like she lacks purpose.

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[Casual Shinji]

This is really the big problem with the non-chronological narrative of the events just prior to the game. The reason Ellie is in such a good mood, having snowball fights and getting it on with Dina while smoking pot, is because just hours before she and Joel took the first steps towards mending their relation. The reason she is increasingly angry and suicidal in the rest of the game is because Abby destroyed that. As Hanselthecaretaker posted earlier that was just another time that Ellie lost her agency, another time when she tried to do something and life kicked her in the groin and took that away from her. She wanted Joel back in her life, had invited him back in and she was robbed of that because Abby wouldn't let go of something that happened four years before.

I can totally see how that sort of bereavement would send someone into an incredibly dark place.

As dark a place as that would put Ellie in, she wouldn't become Kratos or Guts. It feels like a pull, like they took her character and just slapped a big sticker over her forehead that reads 'REVENGE', so that the game could be uber dark and therefore more intense and hardcore than the first game. It also just feels like such hackneyed way to explore a dark theme. Especially for a setting that wants to feel grounded and realistic.

And she doesn't even seem to be in THAT good of a mood at the start of the game, she just appears to have a nice stable day-to-day life with friends and some maybe-romance. Nothing about it feels like she's frustrated at lacking agency, and like we're just waiting for something to ignite the fury within her. And nothing about it feels like she's so happy that anyone stripping it away would send her into a blind rage. She still has Dina, a safe home, and the knowledge that she's part of a community to works to help and protect people.

This is why the events of the end of the first game being played off as almost tertiary (and out of order) is such a waste. The flashback where she finds out the truth ends with her just saying 'I'll go back (to Jackson), but we're through'. This really needed a rant from her to make it clear how lost she's been and still is due to what Joel did. (And then actually follow through on that; no Dina, no Jesse, just Ellie lost and alone.) Remember Elena's rant in Uncharted 4 to Drake? That's what we needed for Ellie, but on a scale of having been lied to for 4 years. This could've, and honestly should've, been the catalyst for Ellie's decent into darkness. You wouldn't even need to kill Joel. It would've been so much more interesting to see Joel realize what his choice did to Ellie, and how saving her for his own self interest turned her into a monster.

Not that I'm saying the game should've gone that dark at all, since I think the first game was already plenty dark, and by amplifying that aspect I feel the game truly just overindulges in nastiness. But IF they wanted Ellie to go crazy with rage, it should've been due to finding out what Joel did (and also how he coldly executed Marlene, seriously, why was that never mentioned again?), not due to Joel getting killed. As is it just feels like the most typical revenge motivation that the game can hardly even tell well enough since the narrative is out of order.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

As dark a place as that would put Ellie in, she wouldn't become Kratos or Guts. It feels like a pull, like they took her character and just slapped a big sticker over her forehead that reads 'REVENGE', so that the game could be uber dark and therefore more intense and hardcore than the first game. It also just feels like such hackneyed way to explore a dark theme. Especially for a setting that wants to feel grounded and realistic.

And she doesn't even seem to be in THAT good of a mood at the start of the game, she just appears to have a nice stable day-to-day life with friends and some maybe-romance. Nothing about it feels like she's frustrated at lacking agency, and like we're just waiting for something to ignite the fury within her. And nothing about it feels like she's so happy that anyone stripping it away would send her into a blind rage. She still has Dina, a safe home, and the knowledge that she's part of a community to works to help and protect people.

This is why the events of the end of the first game being played off as almost tertiary (and out of order) is such a waste. The flashback where she finds out the truth ends with her just saying 'I'll go back (to Jackson), but we're through'. This really needed a rant from her to make it clear how lost she's been and still is due to what Joel did. (And then actually follow through on that; no Dina, no Jesse, just Ellie lost and alone.) Remember Elena's rant in Uncharted 4 to Drake? That's what we needed for Ellie, but on a scale of having been lied to for 4 years. This could've, and honestly should've, been the catalyst for Ellie's decent into darkness. You wouldn't even need to kill Joel. It would've been so much more interesting to see Joel realize what his choice did to Ellie, and how saving her for his own self interest turned her into a monster.

Not that I'm saying the game should've gone that dark at all, since I think the first game was already plenty dark, and by amplifying that aspect I feel the game truly just overindulges in nastiness. But IF they wanted Ellie to go crazy with rage, it should've been due to finding out what Joel did (and also how he coldly executed Marlene, seriously, why was that never mentioned again?), not due to Joel getting killed. As is it just feels like the most typical revenge motivation that the game can hardly even tell well enough since the narrative is out of order.

She isn't Kratos though. When she comes back after killing Nora, she's about as miserable, lost and broken as ever. It seems like you're still wanting to think of Ellie like she's a pretty normal person; one that hasn't been orphaned, traumatized, raised by a borderline psychopath of a father figure, in a broken world where she discovers she was basically humanity's last hope. Then carrying that burden of survivor's guilt she has to hide that fact while dealing with suspecting Joel is hiding something until she digs further and forces the truth out of him. By that point she's already "over" it, because it's been building for years and she's been internalizing that struggle constantly. Just because it doesn't show on the surface doesn't mean there isn't anything going on beneath it.

I suppose to an extent the game's lack of exposition and overtly showing these things requires more inference on the audience's part. It could be considered flawed writing to an extent, but also a "less is more" approach that ends up generating 43 page threads about it.

 

[CriticalGaming]

She isn't Kratos though. When she comes back after killing Nora, she's about as miserable, lost and broken as ever. It seems like you're still wanting to think of Ellie like she's a pretty normal person; one that hasn't been orphaned, traumatized, raised by a borderline psychopath of a father figure, in a broken world where she discovers she was basically humanity's last hope. Then carrying that burden of survivor's guilt she has to hide that fact while dealing with suspecting Joel is hiding something until she digs further and forces the truth out of him. By that point she's already "over" it, because it's been building for years and she's been internalizing that struggle constantly. Just because it doesn't show on the surface doesn't mean there isn't anything going on beneath it.

I suppose to an extent the game's lack of exposition and overtly showing these things requires more inference on the audience's part. It could be considered flawed writing to an extent, but also a "less is more" approach that ends up generating 43 page threads about it.

Just as a sign of the level of detail they put into The Last Of Us 2 and 1 for that matter.

The zombies are the result of a fungus. Not a virus. Therefore a vaccine is impossible. So her immunity is a non issue because she couldnt spread it to others.

And even if we wave that away. The best you could do is create a treatment for recently infected people and that still might just make them dead instead of zombies. You could do nothing for already infected zombies.

If the Fireflies were smart in the original game, they would have been working on inventing an effective anti fungal spray. Weaponizing an aerosol could allow them to simply kill the pockets of spored areas and maybe even the zombies themselves.

But of course without a fictional cure, there is no story. So whatever.

 

[Casual Shinji]

She isn't Kratos though. When she comes back after killing Nora, she's about as miserable, lost and broken as ever.

Which considering she hit her with a pipe, eventhough she's already done so to multiple people by that point and worse without batting an eye, makes no sense at all. I can honestly say that that scene is where the game is truly at its worst. Like seriously Ellie, why are you upset NOW? Maybe if this one act made her reflect on what she's done so far, and made her realize how fucked up this is getting, but no, just this one woman she "tortured" got her this upset.

It seems like you're still wanting to think of Ellie like she's a pretty normal person; one that hasn't been orphaned, traumatized, raised by a borderline psychopath of a father figure, in a broken world where she discovers she was basically humanity's last hope. Then carrying that burden of survivor's guilt she has to hide that fact while dealing with suspecting Joel is hiding something until she digs further and forces the truth out of him. By that point she's already "over" it, because it's been building for years and she's been internalizing that struggle constantly. Just because it doesn't show on the surface doesn't mean there isn't anything going on beneath it.

And does any of that come across in the game before Joel gets offed? I mean, not really. Can you point me to any moment before his death that hints at Ellie being traumatized and suffering from survivor's guilt?

I think of Ellie as she was in the first game, which the sequel doesn't really try to dissuade in those opening hours before the kill. Like I said, she's doing fine and living her life in peace. And this isn't her pretending everything's fine when it really isn't.

I suppose to an extent the game's lack of exposition and overtly showing these things requires more inference on the audience's part. It could be considered flawed writing to an extent, but also a "less is more" approach that ends up generating 43 page threads about it.

If there's one thing TLoU2 is not it's 'less is more'.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Just as a sign of the level of detail they put into The Last Of Us 2 and 1 for that matter.

The zombies are the result of a fungus. Not a virus. Therefore a vaccine is impossible. So her immunity is a non issue because she couldnt spread it to others.

And even if we wave that away. The best you could do is create a treatment for recently infected people and that still might just make them dead instead of zombies. You could do nothing for already infected zombies.

If the Fireflies were smart in the original game, they would have been working on inventing an effective anti fungal spray. Weaponizing an aerosol could allow them to simply kill the pockets of spored areas and maybe even the zombies themselves.

But of course without a fictional cure, there is no story. So whatever.

I always felt that Joel was at least partially justified in his choice at the end of The Last of Us 1 because I never saw it as him dooming the human race the way the game seems to want you to.

See, the fireflies are IDIOTS and I have absolutely no faith that they'd actually be able to do anything with Ellie's brain after they killed her in their little science experiment. I mean, they've found 1 person who has immunity to the spores and the first thing they want to do is cut her open to see how it works? REALLY? If you have 1 test subject the last thing you would ever want to do is kill them because then you have 0 test subjects. You would want years of study, you would want to see if the immunity can be passed on to offspring, etc.

The fact that the fireflies get their hands on someone who is immune and immediately want to kill them to see how their immunity works makes me unwilling to believe that they are actually capable of developing a cure.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Which considering she hit her with a pipe, eventhough she's already done so to multiple people by that point and worse without batting an eye, makes no sense at all. I can honestly say that that scene is where the game is truly at its worst. Like seriously Ellie, why are you upset NOW? Maybe if this one act made her reflect on what she's done so far, and made her realize how fucked up this is getting, but no, just this one woman she "tortured" got her this upset.

And does any of that come across in the game before Joel gets offed? I mean, not really. Can you point me to any moment before his death that hints at Ellie being traumatized and suffering from survivor's guilt?

I think of Ellie as she was in the first game, which the sequel doesn't really try to dissuade in those opening hours before the kill. Like I said, she's doing fine and living her life in peace. And this isn't her pretending everything's fine when it really isn't.

If there's one thing TLoU2 is not it's 'less is more'.

You know how when there’s a mass shooting and acquaintances typically say, “Oh jeez I’m shocked! He kept to himself mostly but he seemed pretty normal!”

Ellie’s not that far gone, though she’s still not wearing her troubles on her sleeve because she’s spent most of her life hiding her issues; she’s accustomed to it and probably never had healthy ways of processing emotional turmoil. Nora was a breaking point, as explained in this article a few posts back. It goes into a bit of everything including the event with Nora.

This is one of those cases where I basically decide to take the developer’s word for their intentions - however effectively conveyed or not they might have been - and try to understand it as best I can to spare myself the suffering of woulda/coulda/shoulda. It, like the original is left wide open to interpretation, but while the journey there was contorted and bloated unnecessarily in some ways, I think ultimately its conclusion was done better.

Just as a sign of the level of detail they put into The Last Of Us 2 and 1 for that matter.

The zombies are the result of a fungus. Not a virus. Therefore a vaccine is impossible. So her immunity is a non issue because she couldnt spread it to others.

And even if we wave that away. The best you could do is create a treatment for recently infected people and that still might just make them dead instead of zombies. You could do nothing for already infected zombies.

If the Fireflies were smart in the original game, they would have been working on inventing an effective anti fungal spray. Weaponizing an aerosol could allow them to simply kill the pockets of spored areas and maybe even the zombies themselves.

But of course without a fictional cure, there is no story. So whatever.

I don’t get why the original is so universally highly regarded when it has glaring design flaws as well.

The Real Reason 'The Last of Us' Deserves An 8 Out Of 10 (Spoilers)

Warning: This articles describes parts of the end of The Last Of Us, including one of the climactic scenes. If you plan to play the game, you have been warned.



www.forbes.com

 

[CriticalGaming]

I don’t get why the original is so universally highly regarded when it has glaring design flaws as well.

Well here's the thing. The Last of Us 1 wasn't all that remarkable of a game. However it told a decent story, with enjoyable characters. The game succeeds in making us enjoy the character relationship between Joel and Ellie. Everything else is basically window dressing to allowing the player to enjoy a relationship building journey. Which is why people love Ellie and Joel despite the fact they are obviously terrible people. It doesn't matter to the player by the end, because the building of the relationship between them wins the player over.

Thelma and Louise are shitty people, but beloved characters in cinema history because they are written so well. They have a genuine relationship and youend up rooting for them even though they are the bad guys.

The same thing in the first The Last of Us.

It's this relationship that people love the characters, and also why people are so upset that Naught Dog has decided that they don't give a shit about what they've built. They destroy the characters within the first 90 minutes of the game and the rest of the game spends so much time trying to break the characters people loved down, that it almost seems spiteful.

The conspiracy in me thinks that Amy Henning who refused to conform to Druckman's feminist ideals of storytelling got push out of Naught Dog. However she wrote a lot of the original Last of Us. After she was pushed out of the company, Neil tried to rewrite as much of her plot as he could, but too much of the game was already done. So a lot of Amy's writing remains in the original game.

Well Druckman holds a grudge because the original game didn't end up being what he wanted. Therefore with full creative control over Part 2, he did everything he could to make sure he SHIT on Amy's original characters and story. Thus all the disrespect to the characters we see through out the game. Hell characters talk shit about Joel 15 hours after he is killed. And the other character Ellie is just shit on the entire game. Why does Abby seemingly get all she wants, while Ellie's whole world is obliterated? Because Neil hated Amy's story. So fuck everything she wrote that the fans loved.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Well here's the thing. The Last of Us 1 wasn't all that remarkable of a game. However it told a decent story, with enjoyable characters. The game succeeds in making us enjoy the character relationship between Joel and Ellie. Everything else is basically window dressing to allowing the player to enjoy a relationship building journey. Which is why people love Ellie and Joel despite the fact they are obviously terrible people. It doesn't matter to the player by the end, because the building of the relationship between them wins the player over.

Thelma and Louise are shitty people, but beloved characters in cinema history because they are written so well. They have a genuine relationship and youend up rooting for them even though they are the bad guys.

The same thing in the first The Last of Us.

It's this relationship that people love the characters, and also why people are so upset that Naught Dog has decided that they don't give a shit about what they've built. They destroy the characters within the first 90 minutes of the game and the rest of the game spends so much time trying to break the characters people loved down, that it almost seems spiteful.

The conspiracy in me thinks that Amy Henning who refused to conform to Druckman's feminist ideals of storytelling got push out of Naught Dog. However she wrote a lot of the original Last of Us. After she was pushed out of the company, Neil tried to rewrite as much of her plot as he could, but too much of the game was already done. So a lot of Amy's writing remains in the original game.

Well Druckman holds a grudge because the original game didn't end up being what he wanted. Therefore with full creative control over Part 2, he did everything he could to make sure he SHIT on Amy's original characters and story. Thus all the disrespect to the characters we see through out the game. Hell characters talk shit about Joel 15 hours after he is killed. And the other character Ellie is just shit on the entire game. Why does Abby seemingly get all she wants, while Ellie's whole world is obliterated? Because Neil hated Amy's story. So fuck everything she wrote that the fans loved.

I wonder if the lie was part of Hennig’s writing too. She’s good when writing fun, feel-good type characters, in a pulpy way at least with Uncharted’s. But 3’s story, if that was mostly her’s, was worse than TLoU2’s imo. It said nothing noteworthy either - which could be the case for all Uncharted games - but it tried to add emotional, dramatic weight and intrigue that just fell flat.

In any case it would’ve been interesting to play her unaltered, complete work for TLoU but now we’ll probably never know.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The conspiracy in me thinks that Amy Henning who refused to conform to Druckman's feminist ideals of storytelling got push out of Naught Dog. However she wrote a lot of the original Last of Us. After she was pushed out of the company, Neil tried to rewrite as much of her plot as he could, but too much of the game was already done. So a lot of Amy's writing remains in the original game.

Can someone give me an explanation as to how this rumor came to be, that Henning wrote TLoU? Henning left Naughty Dog during the developement of Uncharted 4, which was after TLoU got released - in 2014 she was still on the project - so how could Druckmann try and rewrite TLoU after she got kicked out when TLoU was already released by that point? Henning was also working on Uncharted 3 at the same time TLoU was being developed.

Well Druckman holds a grudge because the original game didn't end up being what he wanted. Therefore with full creative control over Part 2, he did everything he could to make sure he SHIT on Amy's original characters and story. Thus all the disrespect to the characters we see through out the game. Hell characters talk shit about Joel 15 hours after he is killed. And the other character Ellie is just shit on the entire game. Why does Abby seemingly get all she wants, while Ellie's whole world is obliterated? Because Neil hated Amy's story. So fuck everything she wrote that the fans loved.

Yeah, this is just really dumb talk. I'm sorry, but Jesus Christ.

Just because TLoU2 is badly written and Druckmann is a bit of a douche it means he has no writing talent at all and just stole everything? Even people with talent can fuck up, you know. Amy Henning wrote Uncharted 3, which was garbage, does that mean she wasn't responseable for Uncharted 2?

Yeah, and Abby gets everything she wants. I'm sure she wanted the man she loved to get killed and to get imprisoned and tortured for, like, two months.Yeah, Abby is totally treated like a queen compared to Joel and Ellie.

 

[BrawlMan]

Amy Henning wrote Uncharted 3, which was garbage, does that mean she wasn't responseable for Uncharted 2?

Surprsingly I don't hate 3's story that much. If anything, I hate 4's story because fuck Sam Drake and Nadine. UC4 is great gameplay wise, but story wise a bad fanf fic. I know we had this conversation before on the V1 thread, just thought I reiterate for those that forgot or are new here.