TLOU2 Review Thread

[Casual Shinji]

Ellie is gay btw. That's her character development really.

But in seriousness, Ellie doesn't really NEED character development because she had that in the first game so the player pretty much knows who she is. The problem is that even at the start of the game Ellie isn't the person we know and love. Even if they started the game with Ellie pissed at Joel for the first game, it still wouldn't change who she is or how she acts with everyone else. Yet she's a very different person pretty much from the first moment of the game.

The shame there is that there could have been a very interesting character study on Ellie if they had made her consistent with who she was in the first game. In fact using all her flashback scenes very early and close together could have shown the play in the strain Joel put on their relationship because of his lies about the Firefly incident. But the scene where Ellie goes to forgive him NEEDED to happen before Joel dies full stop.

Then Joel could still die and Ellie could go into this decent. Even bring Dina along to back her up, but slowly get horrified by Ellie as her thirst for revenge gets worse and worse.

The fundamental problem with TLOU2 is that they tried to play both sides and you end up with a story nobody likes. They needed to focus on one story and tell it better, than trying to double dip, because you end up with characters that make no sense and a lot of development (if it even exists) has to be rushed for time.

The whole 'Ellie mad cuz Joel dead, now she kill' story never should've happened at all. It's out of character, it clashes with the grounded and pragmatic set-up of this universe, and it's immediately clear that things are going to end badly for her anyway. It's a story set-up that destroys a character with an extremely minor chance at even revealing anything interesting about that character.

No matter how much you try to fix the story as is, the core of the story is so hackneyed and out-of-character that it really makes very little difference in the end.

Honestly, I would've been fine with Ellie going down a dark path and coming apart at the seems, but it should've been due to her finding out the truth, NOT because Joel got killed. Because I'm going say something probably controversial (to fans anyway), but Joel is really not that important to Ellie. I mean, he's important to her, but to act like he's the most important figure to have ever existed in her life, whom she would sacrifice the life she has and her friends and loved ones safety to avenge his death, is really overestimating him. It makes Ellie come across as this naive and sheltered daddy's girl whose never known anyone but Joel, and we know that's not the kind of character she is.

And it's not just Ellie, because the game itself treats Joel with way more reverence than he actually has as a person in this world. I mean, after his death his house is covered in flowers (which they somehow got in the middle of bloody winter) like he was somekind of royalty. Joel is a terrific character, but within this universe he's just another guy, and the game just forgets that and instead infuses his importance with the importance that he has to the TLoU fanbase.

Ellie ends up being a shallow cypher for the audience's rage at Joel's murder, rather than her own character. It's this that really pisses me off about TLoU2.

 

[CriticalGaming]

It’s mostly subtle vs overtly communicated but it’s still there. I guess the devs thought her arc with Lev spoke for itself enough.


Although, idk if Abby was ever *written* as the type of character to wear guilt on her sleeve or wallow in it either.

Hard disagree, Abby is told she is a piece of shit and told to get out of these kid's lives, then proceeds to not do that. If anything it comes off as an attack from Mel because Mel and Owen are a thing and Mel sees Abby trying to fuck it up (which she did by fucking Owen). If anything she's just mad but there is no reflection about it.

You could argue she isn't the type of person that wears that shit on her sleeve, but the problem with that is you still need to convey it to the audience. Someone who doesn't show emotions like that is a bad character because people then have no idea what motivates, what drives, what the character is even after.

Also the radical shift from brutal Scar killer, to completely turning on the WLF makes no sense without reflection. Lev and Yara are two random brats she stumbled upon nothing more, yet she's going from number #1 threat to completely changing her whole life in an instant for them? No chance. People don't flip switches like that, and characters that do suck.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Hard disagree, Abby is told she is a piece of shit and told to get out of these kid's lives, then proceeds to not do that. If anything it comes off as an attack from Mel because Mel and Owen are a thing and Mel sees Abby trying to fuck it up (which she did by fucking Owen). If anything she's just mad but there is no reflection about it.

You could argue she isn't the type of person that wears that shit on her sleeve, but the problem with that is you still need to convey it to the audience. Someone who doesn't show emotions like that is a bad character because people then have no idea what motivates, what drives, what the character is even after.

Also the radical shift from brutal Scar killer, to completely turning on the WLF makes no sense without reflection. Lev and Yara are two random brats she stumbled upon nothing more, yet she's going from number #1 threat to completely changing her whole life in an instant for them? No chance. People don't flip switches like that, and characters that do suck.

Well, that’s just like…your opinion, man.

Really though even if Mel is right, which Abby acknowledges, it’s not for the reasons she thinks. Abby does feel guilty for abandoning Isaac to go bang Owen, and protecting Yara and Lev is an outlet for her to feel less shitty about it. She’s essentially using them and gets frustrated when Mel calls her out on it, but it has nothing to do with her getting back in Owen’s good graces like Mel thinks.

It did convey it, which the Fallen Angels video pointed out. There are plenty of videogame characters that show little to no emotion *cough*Cloud*cough* but that doesn’t make them bad characters. What matters are their circumstances and how they react to them, which ultimately leads to some form of redemption when it’s for the better.

Before their paths intersected, Abby certainly wasn’t any more of a stone cold killer than Joel was. When she didn’t find the peace and relief she thought she’d have after killing Joel, it ends up being a wake up call. She spent years preparing for this moment and it fell flat. It was her need to relieve her inner turmoil culminated by that act and the guilt complex that followed as she fucked things up with her people, that had her going back for Yara and Lev after they saved her life. She’s doing it for selfish reasons, but in a weird parallel her finding relief and purpose through protecting Lev isn’t really a whole lot different than Joel finding the same in protecting Ellie.

I’m not going to defend the way the game was written or directed because it’s certainly flawed, but there’s still more depth to the characters than many people may think. A quick Google search will yield enough write-ups showing this. It’s just the type that takes more time to look for more, and people will only do that if they care to in the first place.

 

[CriticalGaming]

It did convey it, which the Fallen Angels video pointed out. There are plenty of videogame characters that show little to no emotion *cough*Cloud*cough* but that doesn’t make them bad characters. What matters are their circumstances and how they react to them, which ultimately leads to some form of redemption when it’s for the better.

Cloud shows a lot of emotion. He even has an orgasm in the Remake so you shut your face hole

When she didn’t find the peace and relief she thought she’d have after killing Joel, it ends up being a wake up call.

There is no evidence that she isn't at peace from that though. That's the problem. She's fairly unfazed and unremorsed about it throughout her whole campaign. If the intent is her still not being at peace then the story did a terrible job of showing it.

I’m not going to defend the way the game was written or directed because it’s certainly flawed, but there’s still more depth to the characters than many people may think. A quick Google search will yield enough write-ups showing this. It’s just the type that takes more time to look for more, and people will only do that if they care to in the first place.

I think a lot of people want to justify their defense and reviews of the game in anyway they can. If you dig deep enough into something you can manipulate the story and the characters to fit whatever pseudo meaning they want.

I could give you a write up as to why Ellie's revenge is the most bold and meaningful character development ever to exist in video games. But it would just be a manipulation of what's presented on the surface and then inventing stuff underneath to make it deeper.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Cloud shows a lot of emotion. He even has an orgasm in the Remake so you shut your face hole



There is no evidence that she isn't at peace from that though. That's the problem. She's fairly unfazed and unremorsed about it throughout her whole campaign. If the intent is her still not being at peace then the story did a terrible job of showing it.



I think a lot of people want to justify their defense and reviews of the game in anyway they can. If you dig deep enough into something you can manipulate the story and the characters to fit whatever pseudo meaning they want.

I could give you a write up as to why Ellie's revenge is the most bold and meaningful character development ever to exist in video games. But it would just be a manipulation of what's presented on the surface and then inventing stuff underneath to make it deeper.

The big question is what kind of story did they really want to tell. Lots of works succeed on mining the grey area with vagueness or veiled themes that have people discussing them to death. I think they were trying to straddle a line between this and a more traditional on-the-nose narrative and it didn’t always hold together very well. IE being a disservice to both.