I think it does but we don't get nearly enough of it. The best part of the game is arguably the first arrival to Seattle with Ellie and Dina, both because it is pretty colorful and uses lightning in a wonderful way to send you across that small slice of open world and because Ellie and Dina have that ND signature relationship and banter. In that short (like 2 hours?) sequence we get to know a lot about both characters and their relation to one another. But then Dina remains in the theater and you get a long solo trek as Ellie, followed by a brief sequence with Jesse. Abbie's story is also mostly alone and it improves a lot once Lev and Yara start sticking around with her.
You'd have thought that ND would have understood that the emotional core of their games has always been their NPCs, as they allow deeper characterization of the PC and are effective tools for setting the tone and expanding the lore. TLOU2 seems to have forgotten that considering how often it left the PC alone.
Well, you're gonna hate me, but that was my most disliked part of the game, after Nora's torture and follow-up scene. It felt so ill-fitting to put a (romantic) character bonding section with such a casual tone right after the brutal and traumatizing death of a main character. It's been maybe ten minutes since was saw Joel's mangled skull and heard Ellie's choked pleas, and the game decides to follow that up with some relaxed horse riding and typical Naughty Dog banter. As if we've just moved on from that for now. It also doesn't help in putting us in Ellie's single minded drive for vengeance. I mean, that's a very nice rendition of 'Take on Me' and Ashley Johnson sings it with a charming uncertainty, but if she's able to sing a romantic song for her girlfriend for 3 uninterrupted minutes, why can't she then also realize that she's risking Dina's life and just go home? It's like Naughty Dog wants to kick the shock factor into an unprecedented high gear, but still employ the usual Naughty Dog brand fluffy banter. And for me this was agressively ineffective.
The other issue I have with that section is that there's a lot of telling us how the characters feel for eachother, rather than showing it. A lot of 'hey babe' and 'you're my favourite', which obviously is what two people in love would say to eachother, but here it just feels like the game trying to remind us that these two are a couple. I just don't feel the chemistry between these two, and I don't know if it's strictly due to the writing, or because the two actors just didn't connect well enough on stage. I felt much greater chemistry between Ellie and Riley in the DLC. And a reason for that might be because there we get to see their friendship blossom into a romance. In
TLoU2 we're dropped right on the edge of Ellie and Dina going from best friends to lovers without seeing the inciting moment, or getting a proper idea of how they were as besties, and to me as an audience member it made me feel left out of "the feels", so to speak. The first time we see them being intimate with eachother also feels lacking, because I can't gage what this means for both these characters to actually take this step with one another, because I just don't know their history together. I think the one time I really felt any sort of connection between Ellie and Dina (early on anyway) is right after they've done the deed and are sharing battle scar stories. Maybe because Ellie isn't so mopey there, and because it's one of the way too few moments where Ellie and Dina are getting to know eachother. Like, it's fun to see Ellie react to how Dina got her skateboard scar, and see Dina feel like she's getting prankted by Ellie when she reveals her zombie bite.
Sorrry for poo-pooing so much on a section of the game you liked.
