The Last of Us Almost Had a Different Ending (Spoilers)
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No matter if it is good or bad story-wise, I am not trying to play it ever again because of how incredibly stupid the AI is in this game. I died about 10 times because little miss sunshine decided to play with infected.
Who the hell though that stealth-like game will be any good with moronic AI companion?
Plus, Ellie is unlikable (unlike Clem).
Who the hell though that stealth-like game will be any good with moronic AI companion?
Plus, Ellie is unlikable (unlike Clem).
I thought it got so big and well loved was because Naughty Dog did it.
There have been alot more games that tried to send a message about morality but Naughty Dog + PS3 + media hype exploded it to enormous size.
There should be more attention given to games like Spec Ops: The Line that tried to tackle the military FPS genre and morality.
There have been alot more games that tried to send a message about morality but Naughty Dog + PS3 + media hype exploded it to enormous size.
There should be more attention given to games like Spec Ops: The Line that tried to tackle the military FPS genre and morality.
It's the finesse and restraint with which it pulls it off that makes it so good. It's good storytelling not because of originality, but because of very well written and performed characters, terrific pacing, and not falling into exposition. At the beginning when you meet Joel and Tess there's no apocalypse exposition scene where Tess goes, "So Joel, how about this post-apocalyptic world, ey... Tell us all about it." It's just them talking about what they're up to, like normal people.alphamalet said:
And it was pretty ballsy of Naughty Dog to go for this very slow and methodical reveal of the world, instead of opting for chucks of expository dialoge at the start for fear of alienating the audience.
The fact that it keeps the story very simple is in a way what makes it so powerful.
The ending, good or bad, just felt right. I think it would have simply been unbelievable to have Joel do anything else then protect Ellie. The whole game is spent humanizing Ellie and showing how her innocence and spirit broke Joel's callous indifference. It is implied that Joel had lost hope a long time before and at least thought about committing suicide. He was a bandit at one point, just like the ones you gun down. He then took up smuggling. You know what makes a good smuggler? Indifference to what the cargo is, intelligence, and not caring if you get caught (killed). However, at the end he has a purpose, something to live, fight, and die for if need be. All this shows in the hospital and the ending.
So now that's out of the way. I enjoyed the ending.
So now that's out of the way. I enjoyed the ending.
Totally, I think Joel decided to totally bear all the emotional/ethical weight regarding his decision, seeing what humanity was capable of on their journey, and if that damns him...then someone like Ellie is worth the cost, someone with a spark of the old humanity he hadn't seen in so long.freakonaleash said:
People are capable of anything when driven by desperation and extremes, the bandits, the cannibals, the Fire Flys...and Joel.
i'm curious about this recent trend of 'sad makes the ending more memorable'. I've not played The Last of Us, and I really don't intend to, but I'm wondering why so many games are taking that ending. It doesn't make the ending more memorable in my opinion, but rather is just a low-brow, lazy way of making an ending 'dramatic'.
I'm loathe to bring this up again, but I recall when I was buying Mass Effect 3. I picked up and stated, out-loud: "Shepard is going to die in this." because I knew that was how they would make their 'dramatic ending'. Because it seems that's how writers make drama.
It seems they believe making a happy ending is too cliche or something :/
I'm loathe to bring this up again, but I recall when I was buying Mass Effect 3. I picked up and stated, out-loud: "Shepard is going to die in this." because I knew that was how they would make their 'dramatic ending'. Because it seems that's how writers make drama.
It seems they believe making a happy ending is too cliche or something :/
The ending was terrible, not because humanity wasn't saved, because it just wasn't a satisfying ending. Joel goes full psycho, kills everyone trying to help humanity and the only excuse is 'Muh daughter'. Granted Joel was never a nice guy but I like to think that after Tess and everyone else dying just to get Ellie to the fireflies he would at least think about it or give her back over at the end but nope. I also have to question everyone saying it was good because it wasn't 'cliche', where as the entire game was one big cliche. 'Rugged badass survivor' meets someone in an apocalypse and an unlikely friendship occurs? I mean I'm just going to throw out '28 days later' here, that whole movie is more or less The Last Of Us without the daughter part.
Some people may not like the content of this game's story but thematically I think it had quite possibly the best ending I've seen in any medium. For example:
All throughout the game I'm rooting for Joel and Ellie. I want them to succeed and I'm hoping it will end somehow with Joel and Ellie being able to stay together. That's just my typical desire for a happy outcome that I expect most of us look for when we're invested enough. Of course it's clear that Ellie's "cure" is never going to be straight forward.
When Joel is faced with the choice of leaving her to have her brain harvested or taking her away I'm literally shouting at the screen to have him take her away. I don't want to see her die, I've come to love her as a character and I haven't fought all that way to simply see her cut open.
He takes her away and effectively, as a member of the audience, I got what I wanted from the game. But in that moment where she asks Joel what happened at the hospital, when she doubts him and infers that she would have done anything to stop the virus... that's when I realise my choice was selfish and that my own feelings about Ellie had mirrored Joel's perfectly. Then I feel awful about a choice that seemed so obvious in the beginning. That's the sort of ending that stays with me a long time after.
It effective solves the "happy ending" problem, in that I got what I had wanted the whole game but at a price which makes me doubt my reasons. Mass Effect 3 should learn from this.
All throughout the game I'm rooting for Joel and Ellie. I want them to succeed and I'm hoping it will end somehow with Joel and Ellie being able to stay together. That's just my typical desire for a happy outcome that I expect most of us look for when we're invested enough. Of course it's clear that Ellie's "cure" is never going to be straight forward.
When Joel is faced with the choice of leaving her to have her brain harvested or taking her away I'm literally shouting at the screen to have him take her away. I don't want to see her die, I've come to love her as a character and I haven't fought all that way to simply see her cut open.
He takes her away and effectively, as a member of the audience, I got what I wanted from the game. But in that moment where she asks Joel what happened at the hospital, when she doubts him and infers that she would have done anything to stop the virus... that's when I realise my choice was selfish and that my own feelings about Ellie had mirrored Joel's perfectly. Then I feel awful about a choice that seemed so obvious in the beginning. That's the sort of ending that stays with me a long time after.
It effective solves the "happy ending" problem, in that I got what I had wanted the whole game but at a price which makes me doubt my reasons. Mass Effect 3 should learn from this.
I'm just hoping there won't be a The Last of Us 2 because there's no need to turn this into a franchise. Still, that's Sony's call and not Naughty Dog so I expect it'll still happen.antigodoflife said:
The Last of Us is already a sad game pretty much from start to finish though. Giving it a happy ending would've been kinda weird considering the world it presents us. And the ending isn't so much sad as it is disheartening. And the reason people like the ending so much has more to do with the ambiguity. Some people don't even think the ending is all that sad, and see it in a more positive light. The fact that the ending sorta leaves you to fill in the blanks is what makes it stick in your mind.chinangel said:
I couldn't see the ending being any other way. At no point is Joel seen as a hero, heros don't exists, the nearest to a hero in the game is Henry. Do the right thing, think of the belonging to something bigger, noble, teaching his little brother a moral code and has a positive view of the future and look how that went. Listen, heros don't exists nore does villains, that just how the world is.
I really liked the ending.
Joel isn't a hero, and he's never portrayed as such.
He's a man who had both his youth and his daughter taken from him by circumstances outside his control. The former taken away by the very people he thought would protect her.
Roll on 20 years, and we have a very bitter man, then along comes Ellie, a girl he eventually comes to love as a second daughter, and then the very same thing nearly happens again.
The very people he thought would protect Ellie, have to kill her to formulate a vaccine that may very well not work.
Joel can't accept that, he couldn't survive that a second time, and if we've learned anything throughout the game, is that Joel is a survivor.
By any means.
Joel isn't a hero, and he's never portrayed as such.
He's a man who had both his youth and his daughter taken from him by circumstances outside his control. The former taken away by the very people he thought would protect her.
Roll on 20 years, and we have a very bitter man, then along comes Ellie, a girl he eventually comes to love as a second daughter, and then the very same thing nearly happens again.
The very people he thought would protect Ellie, have to kill her to formulate a vaccine that may very well not work.
Joel can't accept that, he couldn't survive that a second time, and if we've learned anything throughout the game, is that Joel is a survivor.
By any means.
I liked the ending, it made me evaluate my own views and opinions, I've always talked a good game when dealing with hypothetical situations ("needs of the many...", "the species is more important...", etc) but when the concept of Ellie's death got brought up I immediately started thinking along the lines of there has to be another immune or that eventually the mutation will occur again, I knew that those were less beneficial, even unlikely, solutions (this point really hit home when Joel used the same excuses to trick Ellie). A part of me didn't want to sacrifice Ellie for the greater good against my better judgement. That is something that I know about myself now, that such a decision would not be so simple for me to make.
Claiming this this game "may stand the test of time as one of the first games that had the guts to go truly and utterly dark." doesn't sit right with me. First thing that came to mind when I seen this ending was the bad end of Persona4 (not saying it was the first).
You spend the whole game being a good guy (ideally), saving the town with no desire for compensation and forging bonds with the people of the town. From the moment I met (spoilers, I guess) Adachi, He seemed suspicious, he didn't do anything obvious at the beginning, hell you didn't even know there was an issue at that point, but something seemed off and as the game went on his auspiciousness became almost ludicrously apparent.
But then the mess with Namatame, happened. That took me by surprise (I never talked to him at the river bank much so perhaps it was telegraphed but I missed it at least). Then the Nanako event happens, I was legitimately livid, I was consumed by my anger and fear by what had just transpired and the game gave me someone to blame, someone who up until this point I never would has suspected. If you give in to that negativity you basically kill a man based solely on your emotion at the time, the rest of the game skips past all the fun wacky misadventures of the "post resolution" phase and you sit in silence while feeling so awkward that you question your actions. I felt this was far more impact-full than the the last of us ending because I made the decision, I gave into my weakness, I failed, I got that bad end and I had no one else to blame. I suspected the actual villain, but when I was forced into a state of mental duress I through an innocent man who didn't make sense under the buss (nicer than saying I killed him) to make my self feel better due to some false sense of justice, justice I knew was fake but accepted because it was better than feeling as powerless as I did when despite my efforts Nanako died.
Curse these fleshy emotions, or perhaps I just get too easily immersed.
(super irrelevant: Captcha didn't accept my description of Subaru as a "wheel box")
Claiming this this game "may stand the test of time as one of the first games that had the guts to go truly and utterly dark." doesn't sit right with me. First thing that came to mind when I seen this ending was the bad end of Persona4 (not saying it was the first).
You spend the whole game being a good guy (ideally), saving the town with no desire for compensation and forging bonds with the people of the town. From the moment I met (spoilers, I guess) Adachi, He seemed suspicious, he didn't do anything obvious at the beginning, hell you didn't even know there was an issue at that point, but something seemed off and as the game went on his auspiciousness became almost ludicrously apparent.
But then the mess with Namatame, happened. That took me by surprise (I never talked to him at the river bank much so perhaps it was telegraphed but I missed it at least). Then the Nanako event happens, I was legitimately livid, I was consumed by my anger and fear by what had just transpired and the game gave me someone to blame, someone who up until this point I never would has suspected. If you give in to that negativity you basically kill a man based solely on your emotion at the time, the rest of the game skips past all the fun wacky misadventures of the "post resolution" phase and you sit in silence while feeling so awkward that you question your actions. I felt this was far more impact-full than the the last of us ending because I made the decision, I gave into my weakness, I failed, I got that bad end and I had no one else to blame. I suspected the actual villain, but when I was forced into a state of mental duress I through an innocent man who didn't make sense under the buss (nicer than saying I killed him) to make my self feel better due to some false sense of justice, justice I knew was fake but accepted because it was better than feeling as powerless as I did when despite my efforts Nanako died.
Curse these fleshy emotions, or perhaps I just get too easily immersed.
(super irrelevant: Captcha didn't accept my description of Subaru as a "wheel box")
You can debate the 'bigger picture' and weather the cure can/would be synthesised and weather that would work but to judge the story solely on the setting is truly missing the point.
It's a character driven story, Joel couldn't lose another girl, if it happens again he will break. This is a running theme; His daughter at the start, Tess, Henry and his lil brother, Bill's friend, His brother getting married, the way the 'Winter' chapter ends, even the 'pedo' wanted a companion.
Ellie on the other hand complains how everyone she ever cared about dies or more importantly left. She has nothing to live for. She snaps in the 'fall' chapter when Joel rejects her again.
At the end Joel decides he can't survive without her for selfish reasons. Ellie on some level may know Joel is lying but is now finally wanted. They both have something to live for.
It's a character driven story, Joel couldn't lose another girl, if it happens again he will break. This is a running theme; His daughter at the start, Tess, Henry and his lil brother, Bill's friend, His brother getting married, the way the 'Winter' chapter ends, even the 'pedo' wanted a companion.
Ellie on the other hand complains how everyone she ever cared about dies or more importantly left. She has nothing to live for. She snaps in the 'fall' chapter when Joel rejects her again.
At the end Joel decides he can't survive without her for selfish reasons. Ellie on some level may know Joel is lying but is now finally wanted. They both have something to live for.
Hmm... I dunno, everytime she runs in front of a threat, said threat goes berserk. Maybe I have "super-rare-happy-no fun-no fun" edition...Spot1990 said:...Ellie's invisible to the AI. It's been one of the popular jokes flying around about the game. She can stand right in front of an enemy in a stealth section and not be noticed.VMK said:
I think the father/daughter thing oversimplifies the relationship that formed between Joel and Ellie. I don't think it was a father/ daughter type of relationship that forced Joel to save Ellie. If she belived him 100% right at the ending it would have turned a more complex dynamic between the two characters to just, the dimwitted daughter beliving dad. The original ending would have removed any tensdion between the two, and it would have sacrificed any deeper meaning that lies outside of the father/ daughter trope. They made the right choice.