The Last of Us 2 - SPOILERS!!!

BruteStock

BruteStock wrote: »

LoL@ Jerry Anderson being a kind and decent person. Just because the game goes out if its way to portray him as a nice guy (to make the player sympathise with Abby) , it does not distract from the fact he was about to dissect a child for a cure that may or may not have made any difference.
Marlene casts doubt on whether he would have done the same if it was Abby , and he probably wouldn't have , as no father would offer up their child as a slab of meat to be used in medical trials.

The fact Jerry discussed his medical findings with a bandit in Marlene , rather than a panel of experts , kinda tells you his decision can't be trusted.
The right thing to do would be to study Ellie over time , run tests etc. Jerry was planning on opening her up within hours of seeing her. Any rational father or father-figure would have done what Joel did.
Besides , Jerry isn't the only doctor left in the world. There was potential for Eille to see many more scientists and doctors down the line. It wasn't the decision of one man to determine Ellie's fate.

Furthermore, tackling the spore problem with with some form of chemical spray would probably be a better solution , as testing , manufacturing and deploying a vaccine in that would is not plausible in the slightest. Its not like its human vs the infected. Humanity is divided up into multiple sections and they are all in conflict with each other.

Independent critical thought is required for a situation like this as neither decision was truly the right one. Its an ambiguous outcome designed to provoke debate.
The sequel on the other hand isn't at all subtle in how it wants the player to chose allegiances.

Perhaps....just maybe....you are overthinking this?

Kirby

SomeSayKos wrote: »

In relation to your first point : I think they were doing a metal gear solid 2 vibe here of trying to give me people an expectation so that the rug would be pulled from under them when Joel's death happens. I really don't think it was to swindle people who are only willing to play the game if they play as the murderous sociopath from the first game.

Your point about scenes being changed: This happens all the time in every form of story writing. The more time an artist spends with a piece of work it changes over time.

Having Ellie.....do what she does at the end completely changes the entire thing. Drastically. To still be humming and hawing over something SO important after half the game is complete is not an encouraging sign. Ditto with Joels death. Why wasn't that nailed down in the first or second draft?

It would be like hearing that originally Joel leaves Ellie in the hospital at the end of the first game and they changed it halfway through production.

SomeSayKos

Kirby wrote: »

Having Ellie.....do what she does at the end completely changes the entire thing. Drastically. To still be humming and hawing over something SO important after half the game is complete is not an encouraging sign. Ditto with Joels death. Why wasn't that nailed down in the first or second draft?

It would be like hearing that originally Joel leaves Ellie in the hospital at the end of the first game and they changed it halfway through production.

My point is that this happens all the time. The original endings to loads of movies were drastically different to what was actually released. For example Get Out had a radically different ending to the final version as the filmmaker through the course of working on it felt it should be different. Sometimes you think a story should be one way, but living with the characters for months, or years in the case of game development the internal logic of piece of writing can change. Automatically assuming this is a negative sign is a bit unfair in my opinion.

Retr0gamer

Art is a living breathing changing thing until the final release is put out to the world... and even then things can change (People forget how bad Diablo 2 was at release).

Sometimes a script doesn't work on film and needs to be changed or other unforeseen consequences occur. There's plenty of tales of films being saved in editing as well, Star Wars and Donnie Darko being two off the top of my head.

There is no singular vision in a video game either. Everything gets refined and smoothed out, even the narrative.

Kirby

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Art is a living breathing changing thing until the final release is put out to the world... and even then things can change (People forget how bad Diablo 2 was at release).

Sometimes a script doesn't work on film and needs to be changed or other unforeseen consequences occur. There's plenty of tales of films being saved in editing as well, Star Wars and Donnie Darko being two off the top of my head.

There is no singular vision in a video game either. Everything gets refined and smoothed out, even the narrative.

You mean Diablo 3 right? Coz Diablo 2 was brilliant

Retr0gamer

Kirby wrote: »

You mean Diablo 3 right? Coz Diablo 2 was brilliant

Nope, people forget Diablo 2 was kind of bad until it was updated a lot and then the brilliant expansion was released. No Necromancer in base Diablo 2!

Penn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Art is a living breathing changing thing until the final release is put out to the world... and even then things can change (People forget how bad Diablo 2 was at release).

Sometimes a script doesn't work on film and needs to be changed or other unforeseen consequences occur. There's plenty of tales of films being saved in editing as well, Star Wars and Donnie Darko being two off the top of my head.

There is no singular vision in a video game either. Everything gets refined and smoothed out, even the narrative.

There were also huge changes to TLOU1's story throughout. If I remember right Tess was supposed to the main antagonist and leading a group hunting down Joel and Ellie after they had to abandon her or something her brother dies while Joel and Ellie are escaping the quarantine zone. Marlene's death was also supposed to happen in the operating theatre instead of the underground car park.

Edit: https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Tess

As stated by Naughty Dog in her short bio inside The Art of The Last of Us; "Very early on in development, Tess was actually the main antagonist of the game before the final narrative had been established." Interestingly enough, her character's personality and style would in fact suit that of a dangerous villain quite well. One of the pieces of concept art in her section from The Art of The Last of Us even depicts her having tied up Joel, holding a knife to his throat.
Her original role as antagonist was explained in further detail at Neil Druckmann's keynote at 2013 IGDA in Toronto. This version of Tess was to have a brother who was killed in crossfire with the military while she and Joel were smuggling Ellie out of the Quarantine Zone, and consequently, she would've blamed Joel for his death. For the remainder of the game, Tess was to pursue Joel and Ellie across America with a crew of henchmen. After the events of the Salt Lake City chapter, Joel was to have been captured by Tess and tortured. However, he would be saved by Ellie, who would've killed Tess and her henchmen. This version of the plot was abandoned after Naughty Dog decided that her pursuit of Joel for a year across the entire country felt too unrealistic.

Kirby

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Nope, people forget Diablo 2 was kind of bad until it was updated a lot and then the brilliant expansion was released. No Necromancer in base Diablo 2!

I played Diablo 2 on launch man. Base d2 had 5 classes and the Necro was one of them. They added the Druid and Assassin in Lord of destruction not the Necro.

Again, it was D3 that didn't have Necro at launch and added him later as DLC. Diablo 2 was from 2000. DLC didn't exist.

SMC92Ian

I agree ND are well within their rights to make the game they want, they also should be well prepared to face the millions of fans they're about to piss off with such drastic changes. It goes both ways.

Gyan84

Kirby wrote: »

Ellie accidentally kills Mel. She discovers Mel is pregnant. She has a visceral reaction to it and examines what she has become and decides, with some coaxing, to put Dina first and go home without killing Abby.

Abby puts a knife to Dina's throat. Is informed that Dina is pregnant. Smiles and says "Good!" as she starts to draw the knife.

Let that sink in for a minute.

In Abby's defense, she doesn't know Ellie accidentally killed Mel. She just finds Mel and Owen's bodies in a pool of blood and when she reaches the theater she also finds Tommy who just killed Manny.

Keeping that in mind, the "Good!" comment is just another example of what revenge will turn someone into.

To be clear, I don't think Abby is a good person but I doubt anyone would be 25 years into an apocalypse. Her "I let you live and you wasted it" line is nonsense though considering her and her friends held Ellie and Tommy down and killed Joel in front of them, then act indignant when they come for revenge.

I agree with you about Abby's father. Only character I thought was worse than him was

Mel due to her outburst against Abby where she calls her a terrible person despite the fact she went along to Jackson of her own will and she argued against Owen with Manny that they should kill Ellie and Tommy to avoid them coming back.

J Mysterio

Mel didn't like Abby as she felt her relationship with Owen threatened by her.

Joshua J

Found this really good, 2 journos liked it, 2 hated it and one was in the middle. Also agree with them in that

you should have have the choice weither to kill Abby at the end or let her go

That would have been a much better ending and more in keeping with the theme of the game.

Kirby

Somebody needed to call the blonde out on claiming to have "chosen not to kill the doctor" in the first game. They all knew it was bs but let her go on and on.

shrewdness

Just finished this earlier this evening

Overall, I really enjoyed it. Not a perfect game by any means, it has its flaws and is dragged out a bit, but I did like it alot.

By the time you switch to play as Abby, and you get out and find that she has collectibles and can be upgraded(so showing that you'll be controlling her for a while), I was probably like alot of people and thought, "Ah fúck this!". Maybe it's because I was just finished a fairly intensive stretch of game with Ellie(and of course being much more invested with her and her story), but the first section with Abby I just rushed through it with her wanting to get it over with. But gradually I got into it more, and began to enjoy playing with her. By the end of it, alot of the best sequences are while playing as Abby.

It's a bit on the nose at times, but it's interesting seeing the story of the few days from the perspective of the WLF, compared to what Ellie was doing. While playing as Ellie, I was a little disappointed you didn't see more of the Scars, as they seemed like a cool enemy without having come across them much. But of course that completely switches in the second half. Which makes perfect sense, after all Ellie's fight is with the WLF, and Abby's was with the Scars.

As others have said, I did grow to like Abby over the course of her playthrough. While not necessarily being a really "good" person, she still shows she can change with the way she grew to care for Lev. It's a pity for anyone who gives up at the start of Abby's section or writes off the game at that point. I was a bit pissed(maybe just shocked) at that stage too, but it's important to play through it.

I was full sure by the time you got to the theatre as Abby, that she'd kill Ellie and that the game would force you to do that. Which I wouldn't have liked at all - despite her not coming across too well, it would have been a bit of a depressing end for Ellie. Then when we got back to the farm, I figured that was the end of the game. The whole Santa Barbara section completely caught me off guard. I'd played so long already that I thought the game was over, and then Tommy rolls in with another revenge mission.

By the end of it, Abby comes across much better than Ellie. Abby let her go a couple of times, yet Ellie STILL went after her again. She had the farm with Dina and the baby like they'd talked about, yet she couldn't let it go. Revenge completely consumed her so much that she lost all of that, even to the point that she can't even play the guitar properly anymore because of the fingers. Maybe by the end of the game she's able to move on from all that, but it seems like it's comes too late. Meanwhile Abby didn't even want to fight, and was just out there looking for a group where she could feel at home again.

Curious where the story goes to from here. It's certainly left open for a third part, whether that be with Ellie or Abby, or whoever else! Can't wait to see what Naughty Dog can do on the PS5. Technically speaking, this game looks and sounds just incredible.

On the Joel thing, I figured from the first trailer that he'd be killed tbh. For a revenge mission like this was being talked of, you need a significant casualty, and someone like Dina being killed wouldn't have had the same impact as you don't have the same connection to that character. Maybe it's because I was expecting it, but I didn't see a huge issue with it happening so early, if it happened 10 hours in then it would really have dragged out the game! :pac: As far as Joel not having his guard up around strangers, I'd echo the comments about him maybe getting a bit softer and less paranoid having lived in a tight knit community for years. It's a far cry from him being a smuggler in Boston, stands to reason that he would change a bit over time. Plus he's a bit older now so maybe has relaxed a bit on top of that. So none of that really struck me as being out of place tbh.

I mostly avoided all the leaks but I did accidentally see an image on twitter a few weeks ago of Joel's head photoshopped onto a golf tee, which kind of gave away that big moment! I was kinda expecting that as I say, but it was still annoying. Other than that, I did see some "trans" talk being mentioned in some criticisms, which having finished the game now is confusing me a bit. I was waiting for some big reveal which never came. Is that the jist of what was making people so up in arms? That and

playing as Abby

I guess, but even then the whole outrage looks so strange now. I'd heard that some of the leaks previously put out were fake, I'd be curious to hear what they were.

FAILSAFE 00

Finished.

That was some journey. Absolutely fantastic.

When the game went back a few days to start as Abby the game almost lost me. I didn't play it for a few days but then I got back into it and really enjoyed her journey.

Grumpypants

I thought it would have done something like. Ellie went off all hot headed against Joel's advise and got into trouble. Joel had to rescue her and got killed. So then Ellie would have been consumed by guilt and revenge. Kicking off her track to kill Abby.

Once I started playing as Abby, I though they were going to have me play as her, give her back story, have you side with her more and then end up at the lodge scene.

I though it was going to be done really cleverly. You would have had time connecting with Joel, Ellie and Abby. And Joel's death would have been this big conflicted moment with an impact.

But instead I had no time to connect. Joel came across as a bumbling old man. Ellie as annoying and Abby as a nobody I was forced to played as. I couldn't care less about any of them at that point. So the whole moment was just a big "was that it? That was crap".

This gets more annoying as you play and Abby is developed, Joel and Ellie's relationship is explored. By the end they got to where they should have been. But it was all hindsight.

You can look back at the events and see them in a different light. But they missed a huge opportunity to have those events mean much more.

Joshua J

Why did they introduce the map mechanic on Seattle Day 1 and then never use it again?. It was new and I found it interesting where it had POI on the map and useful for going exploring. I tried to open the map in the next section but couldnt and thought I had to find a new map. Weird to just introduce something like this and never see it again.

Gyan84

J Mysterio wrote: »

Mel didn't like Abby as she felt her relationship with Owen threatened by her.

I know but her rant was focused on Abby being an awful person which was weird.

Plus she should have been more angry at Owen. Even if she never finds out about the cheating he still goes missing for weeks when she's heavily pregnant.

shrewdness

Joshua J wrote: »

Why did they introduce the map mechanic on Seattle Day 1 and then never use it again?. It was new and I found it interesting where it had POI on the map and useful for going exploring. I tried to open the map in the next section but couldnt and thought I had to find a new map. Weird to just introduce something like this and never see it again.

I guess they only wanted it to be in use for the really close detail for downtown Seattle. After you leave that area, you can still go into your backpack and look at the map (which Ellie occasionally draws on with Tommys/Abby's movements), but you can't bring it up as quickly and you can't pin point exactly where you are in the same way you can in downtown. I guess they thought it wasn't worth the extra work to do all that because those areas aren't as wide open as downtown, so not as much room to explore?

johnny_ultimate

Mod note: Seems to have happened naturally anyway, but no need for spoiler tags at all from this point onwards. So read on at your own peril if you haven’t finished the game

johnny_ultimate

As for the map.. it’s often a good thing to introduce a mechanic, explore it, and then move on to something else. It’s how many Nintendo games work - a cool mechanic for a level that’s then promptly forgotten about. If anything, it’s something more developers should be willing to do

SMC92Ian

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

As for the map.. it’s often a good thing to introduce a mechanic, explore it, and then move on to something else. It’s how many Nintendo games work - a cool mechanic for a level that’s then promptly forgotten about. If anything, it’s something more developers should be willing to do

The map was in the last two Uncharted games. I forgot to use it in TLOU2 though.

Also I've seen people say. if this was a stand alone game it would be amazing but because it's linked to part 1 that's where it falls apart.

Kirby

Yeh I can understand that line of thinking.

I've heard people say they would view Joel as not being that trusting/idiotic and Ellie as not being that bloodthirsty/ruthless. That the characters feel like they are completely different from the first game.

They have a point. The story isn't a bad one. It just felt odd with Joel and Ellie.

DeWitt

Bloc Party! wrote: »

Just completed it there. Really enjoyed it. Avoided all spoilers as I heard there was leaks before it came out but just out of interest, how much did it spoil? Was it just the start of it or did it go further into the game?

Joel dying. Abby killing him. You playing as Abby, and Ellie taking a beating. There was leaks about about a trans character too and everyone just assumed it was Abby.

SMC92Ian

DeWitt wrote: »

Joel dying. Abby killing him. You playing as Abby, and Ellie taking a beating. There was leaks about about a trans character too and everyone just assumed it was Abby.

Wow so everything was spoiled.

johnny_ultimate

Bit into the Abby part of the game, and got to the scene where you run into a bunch of SCARS at a petrol station. Was getting super-stressed out as I was getting overwhelmed quickly, running out of ammo and stuck behind a small table with an ever growing group of enemies.

Only when the allies rode in on trucks did I realise it was actually a scripted “you’re meant to just about survive” scene. Remarkably fluid and convincing and natural. A reasonably short moment in a big game, but actually one of the few times in any game I can recall any action sequence so seamlessly incorporating scripted action into a typical gameplay sequence.

gimli2112

Everyone can get something different from the story and ND can tell it how they see fit. I was very disappointed in it however and how the game developed. The best parts for me were the flashbacks with Joel and Ellie, the games strength has always been the relationship between the two, the museum scene was worth the price alone.
I hated Abby I wanted to kill her, I could care less for her reasons, she's the enemy. I rejoyced everytime I murdered one of her friends. In the end I couldn't kill her (i presume that's an option) personally I wanted to but it felt wrong for Ellie, game more than pushes you that way anyhow.
I remember how happy I was after completing the first one and watching the credits roll, the ending here just left me feeling empty. It felt sad and unfinished.

They had a couple of opportunities to end it better
- the scene at the farm with Ellie in the tractor holding the baby,
- after telling Tommy it was over with Abby
the revenge/rescue mission made no sense

I did love the line near the end when Joel told her if the Lord gave him another chance he'd do the same thing again
actually even thinking that now is making me feel a little better

good game but pales into insignificance for me when compared to the first

Penn

Finished it earlier. I liked it a lot, I think they told a great story, the performances were fantastic throughout, new enemy types were challenging and a lot of the level design was incredible.

I don't think it reaches the heights of the first game either in story or even those "moments". It seems determined to make you feel bad for killing Abby's friends as Ellie, despite the 100+ people you kill as both along the way anyway, and the fact you can't choose not to kill them.

It does have its issues. The combat and targeting system doesn't lend itself well to the more on-the-rails type of sections, or even when you're surrounded by enemies like stalkers. It's also overly long in all the wrong areas. Would have liked to have seen more in the settlements in Jackson and the stadium. Instead each day in Seattle for both just felt so long unnecessarily, especially Abby's Day 2. It really dragged on.

I also missed a hell of a lot of collectibles, far more than I would have thought. I might do NG+ for the platinum, but not now, maybe a replay on PS5.

Gamer Bhoy 89

I'd take this article with a hint of salt but I found it interesting from this point of view

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/06/23/the-last-of-us-part-2-in-defense-of-abby/#b8d856764b5c

shrewdness

For me the end really dragged on - probably because the second half was always building up to this big showdown between Ellie and Abby, then once that's done and the time moves on to the farm, you feel like it's naturally slowing down to a conclusion. So it felt really jarring to then be transported to Santa Barbara in combat again. It was a cool new diverse location, but it just felt strange by then.

In hindsight, I can see the purpose of it for story reasons, and how Ellie ends up - but I really didn't feel like playing through it at the time. I'll see how it feels on a second playthrough when you know all that is coming, but it feels like that section could have been tightened up a bit. Pacing was definitely an issue in certain areas.

Missed a good bit myself too, especially in Downtown Seattle. Actually really looking forward to a second playthrough on NG+(though I'll probably leave it for a bit), to discover what I'd missed. Some of the enemy conversations while playing as Ellie make alot more sense too, such as the WLF discussing their attack on the island, and some Scars talking about how Lily ran away.