The Last of Us 2 - SPOILERS!!!

al87987 · 02-07-2020 2:02am

Just finished a couple of hours ago. The first game was my favourite game ever and Joel my favourite gaming character. I had seen no spoilers on the game prior to playing so his death really knocked the stuffing out of me.

I was all ready for a simple revenge mission but what the game delivered was so much more than that. Seeing what Ellie was willing to do for vengeance made you sympathise with her less and less as the game wore on.

Obviously the switch to Abby had the opposite effect and it completely worked on me, when i finally got to fight Ellie in the theatre I was desperately trying to kill her and was quite pissed off Abby let her live. Judging by this thread looks like I'm the only one. I felt sure Abby would kill her and TLOU3 would see Dina trying to avenge the death of Ellie and her baby's father Jesse.

I don't understand the hate for ND or Abby really, everybody who has survived has done some awful things and will surely be the villain in someone else's story and how they portrayed that is a pretty remarkable achievement.

I also preferred the periphery characters in Abby's story like Manny and Owen to Ellies Tommy and Jesse etc...

Of course it was not as good as the original but it would be unrealistic to expect it to be, sequels by their nature are usually a case of diminishing returns but i thoroughly enjoyed the game.

A major aspect of how good a game/movie is for me is just how long it sticks in your mind after you're finished and I feel this will live long in mine.

mrkiscool2 · 02-07-2020 8:39am

al87987 wrote: »

Just finished a couple of hours ago. The first game was my favourite game ever and Joel my favourite gaming character. I had seen no spoilers on the game prior to playing so his death really knocked the stuffing out of me.

I was all ready for a simple revenge mission but what the game delivered was so much more than that. Seeing what Ellie was willing to do for vengeance made you sympathise with her less and less as the game wore on.

Obviously the switch to Abby had the opposite effect and it completely worked on me, when i finally got to fight Ellie in the theatre I was desperately trying to kill her and was quite pissed off Abby let her live. Judging by this thread looks like I'm the only one. I felt sure Abby would kill her and TLOU3 would see Dina trying to avenge the death of Ellie and her baby's father Jesse.

I don't understand the hate for ND or Abby really, everybody who has survived has done some awful things and will surely be the villain in someone else's story and how they portrayed that is a pretty remarkable achievement.

I also preferred the periphery characters in Abby's story like Manny and Owen to Ellies Tommy and Jesse etc...

Of course it was not as good as the original but it would be unrealistic to expect it to be, sequels by their nature are usually a case of diminishing returns but i thoroughly enjoyed the game.

A major aspect of how good a game/movie is for me is just how long it sticks in your mind after you're finished and I feel this will live long in mine.

The death makes no sense though. You can kill Joel off in far other ways than just massively betraying his character from the first. He didn't trust anyone, let alone trust them that quickly. I was annoyed at the scene rather than shocked.

Don't see how you can think you can like Ellie less and less throughout the game. Abby and Joel are essentially doing the same thing. Abby just achieves it earlier in the game in killing Joel and kills almost everyone she comes across that isn't on her side..she also legit wants to kill a pregnant lady. Abby kills most of the people Ellie cares about. Dont see how you like Ellie and not Abby.

Ah, I know why..because the game uses emotional manipulation to make you like Abby and not like Ellie. So, you got duped by really basic emotiona manipulation.go you.

BTW. I don't hate Abby. I think she is an interesting character. I like her gameplay. I just don't like the manipulation, the way Joel died, the ending and the fact Neil wants us to like her and thinks "subverting expectation" automatically means good writing. Its a 7/10

gimli2112 · 02-07-2020 8:49am

I too don't understand how anyone could not root for Ellie but people get different things from a story. I said before I played the game no matter what happens I couldn't see myself turning away from Joel/Ellie no matter what they did. Without a doubt I was (and will forever be) emotionally controlled by the events of TLOU. A puppet on Naughty Dog's string so to speak.

You can't then criticise people for being influenced by the story in the sequel. The ways ND went about it were crude but they were too in the first one. Ellie jumping into the river saying that Joel will save her, Joel torturing the two cannibals while looking for Ellie, him finally finding her, the god damn giraffes.........

Zero-Cool · 02-07-2020 8:59am

al87987 wrote: »

everybody who has survived has done some awful things and will surely be the villain in someone else's story and how they portrayed that is a pretty remarkable achievement.

I think this sums it up perfectly and the brilliance of the story. They took something everyone loved and smashed a golf club off its head to open up the whole apocalyptic world. Fully understand people who are not and don't want to be interested in anything outside Ellie and Joel but I thought it was such a BRAVE :pac: move. Like if the next Uncharted, one of the 10,000 people Nate killed had a loved one that said "I'm gonna get revenge!!" and the next game had that. It sounds crazy and would not work in most games (hasn't worked for a lot of people in this) but for those it did work for, it was genius. I loved every part of this and found myself pulling awful faces during the Ellie and Abby battles. I was obviously leaning towards wanting Ellie to win but the story managed to take me out of the game and just observe what was going on. This might sound like a bad thing as games usually want YOU as the main character but I think it really helped to just take in all sides.

And it wasn't that "If you got that, you were duped", the story was strong enough to support all sides of what was going on.

I watched Angry Joe review this morning but only made it about 5 minutes into it before having to turn it off. Much better arguments from the 'Against' side to TLOU 2 on here.

Saying that, would be great if we could get a poll for 'For' and 'Against' TLOU 2. Not like if you enjoyed it, loved it, hated it, respected it but more along does the very mention of TLOU 2 make you say I'm for it or against it.

BruteStock · 02-07-2020 8:59am

gimli2112 · 02-07-2020 9:13am

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Saying that, would be great if we could get a poll for 'For' and 'Against' TLOU 2. Not like if you enjoyed it, loved it, hated it, respected it but more along does the very mention of TLOU 2 make you say I'm for it or against it.

This is a complex question for me. I like the game overall. There are certain elements I love (museum scene). I've always liked this kind of game and it's done very well here. But
I don't like the story, how it ended and how it made me feel.
Would I have played it knowing what I know now? Probably. Do I wish it had been done differently. Certainly. I would have preferred TLOU2 without Joel and Ellie but then that becomes a totally different game, literally. I genuinely can't answer the question do I wish it had never been made.

Zero-Cool · 02-07-2020 9:14am

gimli2112 wrote: »

This is a complex question for me. I like the game overall. There are certain elements I love (museum scene). I've always liked this kind of game and it's done very well here. But
I don't like the story, how it ended and how it made me feel.
Would I have played it knowing what I know now? Probably. Do I wish it had been done differently. Certainly. I would have preferred TLOU2 without Joel and Ellie but then that becomes a totally different game, literally. I genuinely can't answer the question do I wish it had never been made.

Option 1 - For
Option 2 - Against
Option 3 - Gimli

The Raging Bile Duct · 02-07-2020 9:26am

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

Ah, I know why..because the game uses emotional manipulation to make you like Abby and not like Ellie. So, you got duped by really basic emotiona manipulation.go you.

:rolleyes:

Leroy42 · 02-07-2020 9:32am

Saw the Angry Joe review, you should have given it more than 5 minutes. He does a pretty fair job, if over the top at times but then he is Angry Joe and not cold tenchical Joe!

Critical Drinker did a review as well and both had the same critique, that the Joel death and Abby story could have been written in a much different, and in their opinion, better way. Now it is easy to come up with a broad idea, but they would find as they developed it that it ran it problems just as any path would.

I do think that it would have been better to start off much earlier playing as Abby. Introduce us back to Ellie and Joel in Jackson, but then go back to Abby at the hospital and her finding her dad. Then play out the dual roles, switching between mainly Abby and then Ellie as Abby moves towards Jackson and we see Ellie in her new life around Jackson trying to deal with the increasing infected threat (migrating horde was mentioned a few times) whilst dealing with the lie that Joel told.

So Joel and Ellie are on patrol, Ellie comes across Abby and brings her back to a lookout. She tells Abby about their previous adventures and Abby works out who Joel is. Replace the theatre scene of Jesse/Tommy with a similar one with Abby and Joel. Abby wounds, but doesn't kill Ellie but kills Joel, and Ellie witnesses it.

Now Ellie has the grief of Joel's death, and the knowledge that it was her that brought Abby into contact with him and by being so open so gave it away. She hates herself and seeks revenge of Abby to rid herself of the sense of guilt and loss. Her first stop is back to the hospital where she finds links between the doc and Abby, she learns that Joel didn't just take her away but brutally killed all he met.

That would start to give us more insight into Abby and her desire to kill Joel. In the meantime Abby has returned to WLF but found that without the drive to get revenge she no longer cares so this fight. Saves Lev and Yara whilst on some mission and then decides to walk away. Wherin Ellie tracks her down to Santa Barbara and boom. Lev kills Dina, Ellie kills Lev, and we are down to the two girls.

But as they are in the midst of fighting each other, they get captured by the Rattlers, tortured, forced to fight off against infected. A chance to escape arrives, but it requires both of them to save each other at different times. It looks like they will survive but as they appear free Ellie cannot let Abby go. Leaving Abby for dead on the beach she takes the boat and heads off. Abby is recaptured by the Rattlers and last scene is Ellie looking back at the beach as Abby screams at being captured.

Fade to black.

Penn · 02-07-2020 9:36am

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

The death makes no sense though. You can kill Joel off in far other ways than just massively betraying his character from the first. He didn't trust anyone, let alone trust them that quickly. I was annoyed at the scene rather than shocked.

He didn't trust anyone... 4 years ago. In the first game he was a smuggler, someone who would have to constantly be on their guard for fear of being betrayed. Someone who spent years betraying others too (he talked about how he also set traps for people etc).

But he spent the last 4 years in a new town, meeting new people, becoming part of the community, helping them, being helped by them, and learning to trust people. I think some notes show how new people would regularly come into their town and become part of the community. For all he knew Abby's group were just travelling in search of supplies or to find a new community

He trusted Abby in as much as he saved her life and then her group saved his when they were under attack. All him and Tommy said were their first names, no reason not to (because the odds that they'd know who he was or what he did, or be specifically looking for him were incredibly small).

It was a mistake that obviously cost him everything, but 4 years on from the first game, it's not so egregious a mistake as to be reckless, careless or out of character.

Vicxas · 02-07-2020 9:40am

I wasnt a massive fan of the overuse of Stalkers in this game, the first one they were used once and it was perfect.

In this one though its oh look im going into somewhere with my mask on alone, gonna be some Stalkers in here...

The Raging Bile Duct · 02-07-2020 9:42am

Penn wrote: »

He didn't trust anyone... 4 years ago. In the first game he was a smuggler, someone who would have to constantly be on their guard for fear of being betrayed. Someone who spent years betraying others too (he talked about how he also set traps for people etc).

But he spent the last 4 years in a new town, meeting new people, becoming part of the community, helping them, being helped by them, and learning to trust people. I think some notes show how new people would regularly come into their town and become part of the community. For all he knew Abby's group were just travelling in search of supplies or to find a new community

He trusted Abby in as much as he saved her life and then her group saved his when they were under attack. All him and Tommy said were their first names, no reason not to (because the odds that they'd know who he was or what he did, or be specifically looking for him were incredibly small).

It was a mistake that obviously cost him everything, but 4 years on from the first game, it's not so egregious a mistake as to be reckless, careless or out of character.

In the last scene he laughs at how much he gave passing traders to get some coffee so he was obviously in contact with people passing through and he had settled down. It would be pretty easy to take your eye off the ball after living in relative comfort for four years. I'm not really getting how people think this is an egregious plothole or why they seem to know exactly what way a character should preform in minute detail.

mrkiscool2 · 02-07-2020 9:43am

The Raging Bile Duct wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Such reply, much insight. OMG. Wow.

Literally just chopped a little bit out of my reply, where I even said at the end I liked Abby and she was an interesting character. Doesn't take away from ND using basic manipilative emotional scenes to try and get you to sympathise with Abby. Like Ellie killing her dog. Fair enough if you thought that was good or it worked for you. It didn't. I don't even blame Abby for killing Joel. He killed her father, makes sense.

mrkiscool2 · 02-07-2020 9:46am

Penn wrote: »

He didn't trust anyone... 4 years ago. In the first game he was a smuggler, someone who would have to constantly be on their guard for fear of being betrayed. Someone who spent years betraying others too (he talked about how he also set traps for people etc).

But he spent the last 4 years in a new town, meeting new people, becoming part of the community, helping them, being helped by them, and learning to trust people. I think some notes show how new people would regularly come into their town and become part of the community. For all he knew Abby's group were just travelling in search of supplies or to find a new community

He trusted Abby in as much as he saved her life and then her group saved his when they were under attack. All him and Tommy said were their first names, no reason not to (because the odds that they'd know who he was or what he did, or be specifically looking for him were incredibly small).

It was a mistake that obviously cost him everything, but 4 years on from the first game, it's not so egregious a mistake as to be reckless, careless or out of character.

Yeah, probably should have added that. But, its all very contrived to me and it does betray him a little. We don't really see much of the new Joel which makes it hard to say whether it was or wasn't a betrayal of his character. Even if they had given him an extra 30 minutes that problem could be solved. Which goes back to how rushed the scene was and why it made me more mad at the writing then the scene. It makes sense for Joel to be offed by Abby. He killed her father, I'm okay with that. Not saying Joel shouldn't have died.

Leroy42 · 02-07-2020 9:48am

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

Such reply, much insight. OMG. Wow.

Literally just chopped a little bit out of my reply, where I even said at the end I liked Abby and she was an interesting character. Doesn't take away from ND using basic manipilative emotional scenes to try and get you to sympathise with Abby. Like Ellie killing her dog. Fair enough if you thought that was good or it worked for you. It didn't. I don't even blame Abby for killing Joel. He killed her father, makes sense.

But so what that they used manipilative emotional scenes to try and get you to sympathise with Abby. They did exactly the same in TLOU. Imagine if they hadn't started with the death of his daughter. We only see Joel from the start of the mission with Tess. Now the guy is just a thug.

Of course there is manipulation.

The Raging Bile Duct · 02-07-2020 9:59am

Leroy42 wrote: »

Saw the Angry Joe review, you should have given it more than 5 minutes. He does a pretty fair job, if over the top at times but then he is Angry Joe and not cold tenchical Joe!

Critical Drinker did a review as well and both had the same critique, that the Joel death and Abby story could have been written in a much different, and in their opinion, better way. Now it is easy to come up with a broad idea, but they would find as they developed it that it ran it problems just as any path would.

I do think that it would have been better to start off much earlier playing as Abby. Introduce us back to Ellie and Joel in Jackson, but then go back to Abby at the hospital and her finding her dad. Then play out the dual roles, switching between mainly Abby and then Ellie as Abby moves towards Jackson and we see Ellie in her new life around Jackson trying to deal with the increasing infected threat (migrating horde was mentioned a few times) whilst dealing with the lie that Joel told.

So Joel and Ellie are on patrol, Ellie comes across Abby and brings her back to a lookout. She tells Abby about their previous adventures and Abby works out who Joel is. Replace the theatre scene of Jesse/Tommy with a similar one with Abby and Joel. Abby wounds, but doesn't kill Ellie but kills Joel, and Ellie witnesses it.

Now Ellie has the grief of Joel's death, and the knowledge that it was her that brought Abby into contact with him and by being so open so gave it away. She hates herself and seeks revenge of Abby to rid herself of the sense of guilt and loss. Her first stop is back to the hospital where she finds links between the doc and Abby, she learns that Joel didn't just take her away but brutally killed all he met.

That would start to give us more insight into Abby and her desire to kill Joel. In the meantime Abby has returned to WLF but found that without the drive to get revenge she no longer cares so this fight. Saves Lev and Yara whilst on some mission and then decides to walk away. Wherin Ellie tracks her down to Santa Barbara and boom. Lev kills Dina, Ellie kills Lev, and we are down to the two girls.

But as they are in the midst of fighting each other, they get captured by the Rattlers, tortured, forced to fight off against infected. A chance to escape arrives, but it requires both of them to save each other at different times. It looks like they will survive but as they appear free Ellie cannot let Abby go. Leaving Abby for dead on the beach she takes the boat and heads off. Abby is recaptured by the Rattlers and last scene is Ellie looking back at the beach as Abby screams at being captured.

Fade to black.

I think in that instance you've got Joel and Ellie pretty much doing zero to drive the game on until they meet with Abbey so as much as padding is a bit of a curse in the actual version of the game, it would be ten times worse in yours. You're also killing off the two main side characters imo and having Ellie leave Abbey to certain death from the Rattlers would leave Ellie would no redemption at all.

The power of the last scene with Joel in the game was that you discover that they were just starting to make their way back to reconciliation after years of estrangement.

johnny_ultimate · 02-07-2020 9:59am

A lot of things I’ve heard referred to as ‘emotional manipulation’ in this game are just, well, storytelling. I think for the most part the game is as subtle as the brick you hurl as a distraction, but basic storytelling is often built around trying to pull your audience’s emotional reaction in one way or another. A highly-charged score is ‘emotional manipulation’. A moment which shows you both sides of a character is ‘emotional manipulation’. A mere choice of colour palette can be ‘emotional manipulation’, designed to make you feel a particular way without necessarily noticing.

Obviously a lot of this game is brute force in its approach and worthy of critique, but I just don’t think the phrase emotional manipulation in this context implies some big, bad thing. I mean, I consciously know Pixar are actively, aggressively tugging my heartstrings in every way possible in the final act of Toy Story 3 - but you’d better believe it’s working.

mrkiscool2 · 02-07-2020 10:04am

Leroy42 wrote: »

But so what that they used manipilative emotional scenes to try and get you to sympathise with Abby. They did exactly the same in TLOU. Imagine if they hadn't started with the death of his daughter. We only see Joel from the start of the mission with Tess. Now the guy is just a thug.

Of course there is manipulation.

Is that scene highly upsetting? Yes. Is it emotional manipulation? Yes. Does it explain why Joel is so hard and untrustworthy later in the game? Yes.

Is petting and playing with Alice used to make you like Abby more? Yes. Is it emotional manipulation? Yes. Does it explain why Abby is the way she is? No. Is Ellie killing the dog an attempt at emotional manipulation? Yes. Does it make you like Ellie any less? No.

Emotional manipulation can work but only where there is a means to an end. Otherwise its just not trusting the character or the viewer to get an attachment otherwise.

gimli2112 · 02-07-2020 10:17am

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I consciously know Pixar are actively, aggressively tugging my heartstrings in every way possible in the final act of Toy Story 3 - but you’d better believe it’s working.

with the emotional tightrope I'm walking reading this thread I really don't need to be reminded of this

BruteStock · 02-07-2020 10:28am

There's no evidence to support he idea that Joel went soft or eventually lost all of his survival instincts. To me , thats clutching at straws and making excuses for bad writing.

Its stated that traders came through , but to think Joel and the camp just let then wade in willy-nilly is laughable. They obviously had a security procedure if they routinely had patrols out on watch to guard the settlement. They also had strategically placed look-out posts surrounding the area , again for security.

Joel was part of the patrol himself , tasked with protecting the settlement.... where Ellie lived. Its not in any way consistent to his character to believe him to slowly take Ellie's safety for granted over time. . He was untrustworthy of others even before the world went down the tube.
There's no reason to believe that after all he'd been through and after all the enemies he made , that he decided to let his guard down believing there was no chance people may came back for either him or Ellie??. Yeah , thats a tough sell!

Penn · 02-07-2020 10:37am

BruteStock wrote: »

There's no evidence to support he idea that Joel went soft or eventually lost all of his survival instincts. To me , thats clutching at straws and making excuses for bad writing.

Its stated that traders came through , but to think Joel and the camp just let then wade in willy-nilly is laughable. They obviously had a security procedure if they routinely had patrols out on watch to guard settlement. They also had strategically placed look-out posts surrounding the area , again for security.

Joel was part of the patrol himself , tasked with protecting the settlement.... where Ellie lived. Its not in any way consistent to his character to believe he'd him to slowly take Ellie's safety for granted over time. . He was untrustworthy of others even before the world went down the tube.
There's no reason to believe that after all he'd been through and after all the enemies he made , that he decided to let his guard down believing there was no chance people may came back for either him or Ellie??. Yeah , thats a tough sell!

But all he did in this regard is save someone in danger, escape with them, take emergency shelter with them (as their group helped save him), and say his real first name. The Fireflies were destroyed/disbanded and it had been 4 years. I think he'd still be naturally cautious, but this was an extreme set of circumstances that he ended up in and with hindsight it's easy to see he made a mistake. But there's no real reason why he shouldn't have felt it was reasonable to say his real first name, because the odds of anyone in the group knowing who he was or what he'd done were tiny. In this case though, that is what happened. Chances are on many previous occasions, the other person would have said "Nice to meet you Joel" and there'd be no incident.

The Raging Bile Duct · 02-07-2020 10:44am

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

Such reply, much insight. OMG. Wow.

Literally just chopped a little bit out of my reply, where I even said at the end I liked Abby and she was an interesting character. Doesn't take away from ND using basic manipilative emotional scenes to try and get you to sympathise with Abby. Like Ellie killing her dog. Fair enough if you thought that was good or it worked for you. It didn't. I don't even blame Abby for killing Joel. He killed her father, makes sense.

I think it's an extremely cheap shot to say someone's easily duped just because they liked an aspect of a story that you didn't like and the 'go you' at the end just comes off as snide and arseholey.

mrkiscool2 · 02-07-2020 10:53am

The Raging Bile Duct wrote: »

I think it's an extremely cheap shot to say someone's easily duped just because they liked an aspect of a story that you didn't like and the 'go you' at the end just comes off as snide and arseholey.

I claim that they got duped as the see Abby as better than Ellie which makes no sense. When Abby gets her revenge, she goes back, life goes on until Ellie comes from her, not a care. Ellie loses everything when she tries to get revenge but she is the bad character? It doesn't make sense to me. Its either both Ellie and Abby are assholes for what they did or they are both justified. If you think its one way or another some level of the manipulation in the game has made you come to that opinion so...yeah, they got duped.

Leroy42 · 02-07-2020 11:03am

I don't hink Abby is better, but they certainly had to make her more likeable given that at first all we know of her is that she killed Joel. She is still a bad person (from our POV, not in the context of the game).

So they humanised her, showed her back story, her move from revenge driven super soldier to her breaking down her prejudices and looking beyond her own self. Much like they did with Joel in the first game.

I understand Ellie's journey, I can empathise (I think) with her descent from the Ellie we know in TLOU to what she has become. She doesn't like what she has become, but she is powerless to change.

The bit where she let Abby go, after a flashback to a happy Joel rather than the bloodied body, was her finally seeing that this isn't what Joel would want, this isn't going to solve anything, this isn't going to bring Joel back. The fight she has is with herself, Abby was just a way to distract her from her own feelings. Sh is left sitting in the water, alone, beaten up, fingers bitten off, injured and with nothing.

I go back to a scene in TLOU, the big scene in the farm house after Ellie had run away. Ellie say to Joel that everyone has lost someone. I think in that moment (letting Abby go) was her finally seeing that everybody is suffering and that she has treated her loss as somehow unique to everyone elses.

Penn · 02-07-2020 11:07am

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

I claim that they got duped as the see Abby as better than Ellie which makes no sense. When Abby gets her revenge, she goes back, life goes on until Ellie comes from her, not a care. Ellie loses everything when she tries to get revenge but she is the bad character? It doesn't make sense to me. Its either both Ellie and Abby are assholes for what they did or they are both justified. If you think its one way or another some level of the manipulation in the game has made you come to that opinion so...yeah, they got duped.

I think overall, they're both assholes and they're both justified. They both have a fairly equal and justifiable desire for revenge. They're both assholes in how they go about it.

The key difference for me though is Abby's revenge is more direct. She only wants Joel. She lets Ellie and Tommy live even with Ellie swearing revenge. After Ellie & Tommy kill more of her friends including the guy she loved, she still lets Ellie and Dina live in order to end it (and Tommy since it's not sure if she knew she hadn't killed him). Abby's purpose changes, she's willing to move past the anger and revenge to start a new life. Ellie gets her new life, but she can't move on. She leaves it to hunt Abby down and even seeing what Abby has been put through by the Rattlers, still tries to kill her.

I don't think there's much between them, but there's enough for me to shake off that connection to Ellie and Joel from the first game and see things from the alternate perspective. Joel and Ellie took everything from Abby. Abby took almost everything from Ellie. It was Abby who was able to move past that first though, while it took longer for Ellie to get there.

I don't think it's because Ellie is worse than Abby, like I said in a previous post I think part of what drove Ellie to the lengths she did was the fact she never got to make things right with Joel, so it's partially her own regret and self-anger at not forgiving Joel before he died.

No duping or emotional manipulation involved. Stuff like Alice the dog helps feed into Abby's character but it's also not based on it. Likewise Ellie killing Mel without knowing she was pregnant whereas Abby was ready to kill Dina despite knowing she was pregnant, it's all just to show perspective, because Abby wouldn't have known Ellie didn't know Mel was pregnant when she killed her.

Like I said, they're both assholes, but they're both also justified.

gimli2112 · 02-07-2020 11:11am

I genuinely didn't look at Ellie negatively for anything she did in the sequel. I disagreed with her leaving Deena in the farmhouse but probably because she was jepardizing everything (a brave act in itself) rather than not wanting to tie up the Abby loose end.
I thought all her murders were fully justified, some of them were borderline self defence.

mrkiscool2 · 02-07-2020 11:38am

Penn wrote: »

I think overall, they're both assholes and they're both justified. They both have a fairly equal and justifiable desire for revenge. They're both assholes in how they go about it.

The key difference for me though is Abby's revenge is more direct. She only wants Joel. She lets Ellie and Tommy live even with Ellie swearing revenge. After Ellie & Tommy kill more of her friends including the guy she loved, she still lets Ellie and Dina live in order to end it (and Tommy since it's not sure if she knew she hadn't killed him). Abby's purpose changes, she's willing to move past the anger and revenge to start a new life. Ellie gets her new life, but she can't move on. She leaves it to hunt Abby down and even seeing what Abby has been put through by the Rattlers, still tries to kill her.

I don't think there's much between them, but there's enough for me to shake off that connection to Ellie and Joel from the first game and see things from the alternate perspective. Joel and Ellie took everything from Abby. Abby took almost everything from Ellie. It was Abby who was able to move past that first though, while it took longer for Ellie to get there.

I don't think it's because Ellie is worse than Abby, like I said in a previous post I think part of what drove Ellie to the lengths she did was the fact she never got to make things right with Joel, so it's partially her own regret and self-anger at not forgiving Joel before he died.

No duping or emotional manipulation involved. Stuff like Alice the dog helps feed into Abby's character but it's also not based on it. Likewise Ellie killing Mel without knowing she was pregnant whereas Abby was ready to kill Dina despite knowing she was pregnant, it's all just to show perspective, because Abby wouldn't have known Ellie didn't know Mel was pregnant when she killed her.

Like I said, they're both assholes, but they're both also justified.

Broadly agree with this and do think it is a good take on the situation. However, Ellie went after everyone as most of that group was there for Joel's murder and facilitated in it honestly so can see why Ellie went on a murder spree.

02-07-2020 11:45am

'Giving people what they want' can be interpreted as simply as making a good game, where the developers chief motivation in every regard is to entertain the player.

Penn · 02-07-2020 11:48am

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

Broadly agree with this and do think it is a good take on the situation. However, Ellie went after everyone as most of that group was there for Joel's murder and facilitated in it honestly so can see why Ellie went on a murder spree.

Yeah I'd agree. I'd even go so far as to add Abby didn't know it was Ellie & Tommy until Day 3, and she also wouldn't have known Ellie wasn't completely killing them indiscriminantly either, but other circumstances (the woman in the hospital becoming infected, Owen & Mel attacking her, not knowing Mel was pregnant) forced Ellie to kill some of them. Abby not knowing that added to her anger but also shows Ellie wasn't just on a complete murder spree either.

Retr0gamer · 02-07-2020 11:51am

Leroy42 wrote: »

But so what that they used manipilative emotional scenes to try and get you to sympathise with Abby. They did exactly the same in TLOU. Imagine if they hadn't started with the death of his daughter. We only see Joel from the start of the mission with Tess. Now the guy is just a thug.

Of course there is manipulation.

There's subtle emotional manipulation. Where it happens naturally and you don't notice it.

Then there's emotional manipulation where your eyes are rolling in the back of your head because you can tell the writers are trying to make you like\hate or whatever a character.

The later is also called bad storytelling.

brianregan09 · 02-07-2020 1:34pm

I think the only difference between Abby and Ellie is Abby didn't have a whole 1st game to flesh her out even more ,She changed and grew throughout the game Ellie didn't she just sunk lower and lower and went off the deep end leaving Dina and the kid and ended up with nothing in the end no dina , no revenge unable to play the guitar properly she took a foolish gamble and paid for it heavily , Abby on the other hand tried to change throughout the game

I was actually seething when it looked like you were going to drown her at the end I died several times over it because i didn't want to do it

Bigmac1euro · 02-07-2020 3:03pm

Just finished my first run on the hardest difficulty.
Did anyone find the game a little easy in a sense?
I had plenty of health ammo items etc throughout the game even though it was on survival.
They even give you listen ability on survival mode. Which they didn’t in the first game.

I thought the story was brilliant. I’m not let down at all.
I feel it reflects how sometimes in reality not everything is perfect.

02-07-2020 4:11pm

Bigmac1euro wrote: »

Just finished my first run on the hardest difficulty.
Did anyone find the game a little easy in a sense?
I had plenty of health ammo items etc throughout the game even though it was on survival.
They even give you listen ability on survival mode. Which they didn’t in the first game.

I thought the story was brilliant. I’m not let down at all.
I feel it reflects how sometimes in reality not everything is perfect.

I played on a mix of hard and survival

Survival+ is actually harder than survival to note

al87987 · 02-07-2020 4:36pm

https://youtu.be/nnRCbqmWobw

Just wanted to finally put to bed the ignorant narrative that Joel wouldn't reveal his name so easy and that they betrayed his character from the first game.

Tommy reveals their names to Abby about the 4 minute mark after calling Abby 'girl' for a while. Joel also screams Tommy's name several times when they're trying to move the ski lift when under attack so Abby knows the names are genuine.

Then when they get to the lodge, Joel states he won't unsaddle his horse as he's not sticking around, as soon as the blizzard is over, he's outta there, again showing his lack of trust of newbies. Abby already knows its Joel however so the jig is up well before he introduces himself in front of the group.

I've got no problem with criticism of the game but this is not one of them and just demonstrates peoples lack of attention to detail.

Also had to laugh at whoever said i am being duped and emotionally manipulated, it's just great storytelling and it's a bit sad that some people's tribalism won't ever let them see it.

mrkiscool2 · 02-07-2020 7:40pm

al87987 wrote: »

https://youtu.be/nnRCbqmWobw

Just wanted to finally put to bed the ignorant narrative that Joel wouldn't reveal his name so easy and that they betrayed his character from the first game.

Tommy reveals their names to Abby about the 4 minute mark after calling Abby 'girl' for a while. Joel also screams Tommy's name several times when they're trying to move the ski lift when under attack so Abby knows the names are genuine.

Then when they get to the lodge, Joel states he won't unsaddle his horse as he's not sticking around, as soon as the blizzard is over, he's outta there, again showing his lack of trust of newbies. Abby already knows its Joel however so the jig is up well before he introduces himself in front of the group.

I've got no problem with criticism of the game but this is not one of them and just demonstrates peoples lack of attention to detail.

Also had to laugh at whoever said i am being duped and emotionally manipulated, it's just great storytelling and it's a bit sad that some people's tribalism won't ever let them see it.

Wait, so is or isn't Joel trusting of strangers? Why wouldn't he have a word on Tommy not to reveal a lot of he wasn't? So, the real answer is we don't know how much Joel has changed but your post here just kind of shows your own tribalism here.

Also, dont know how when one is under attack and truing to get someone's attention they wouldn't shout their name to give instructions. Its a p1ss poor argument honestly. Again, the game is really good. Just not a 10/10 or anything close. The story feels like its all over the place. My main issue is the story. That's my main problem with the game.

Also, you literally said you liked Ellie less and less as the game went on and thought Abby was great so yeah...ya duped.

mrkiscool2 · 02-07-2020 7:40pm

al87987 wrote: »

https://youtu.be/nnRCbqmWobw

Just wanted to finally put to bed the ignorant narrative that Joel wouldn't reveal his name so easy and that they betrayed his character from the first game.

Tommy reveals their names to Abby about the 4 minute mark after calling Abby 'girl' for a while. Joel also screams Tommy's name several times when they're trying to move the ski lift when under attack so Abby knows the names are genuine.

Then when they get to the lodge, Joel states he won't unsaddle his horse as he's not sticking around, as soon as the blizzard is over, he's outta there, again showing his lack of trust of newbies. Abby already knows its Joel however so the jig is up well before he introduces himself in front of the group.

I've got no problem with criticism of the game but this is not one of them and just demonstrates peoples lack of attention to detail.

Also had to laugh at whoever said i am being duped and emotionally manipulated, it's just great storytelling and it's a bit sad that some people's tribalism won't ever let them see it.

Wait, so is or isn't Joel trusting of strangers? Why wouldn't he have a word on Tommy not to reveal a lot of he wasn't? So, the real answer is we don't know how much Joel has changed but your post here just kind of shows your own tribalism here.

Also, dont know how when one is under attack and truing to get someone's attention they wouldn't shout their name to give instructions. Its a p1ss poor argument honestly. Again, the game is really good. Just not a 10/10 or anything close. The story feels like its all over the place. My main issue is the story. That's my main problem with the game.

Also, you literally said you liked Ellie less and less as the game went on and thought Abby was great so yeah...ya duped.

Zero-Cool · 03-07-2020 1:38pm

VR Mode being added in the next update and a new playable section where you play as Abby at the lodge. ND said the Move Golf peripheral will work for this section. "Now you get to do the swinging and watch Joel's head explode in glorious VR"

gimli2112 · 03-07-2020 1:43pm

momentarily triggered until I remembered that was a cut scene

brianregan09 · 03-07-2020 3:15pm

Did any one else think for a second when they doing the lodge from Abbey's point of view that they were gonna make you take control of Joel's killing

jones · 04-07-2020 12:05am

brianregan09 wrote: »

Did any one else think for a second when they doing the lodge from Abbey's point of view that they were gonna make you take control of Joel's killing

No and I'm thankful as **** for that ha would have been mental torture

gimli2112 · 04-07-2020 7:08am

While I don't believe I'll ever be at peace with the way the story went. This thread has helped me understand somewhat the direction the story went. I'm happy people enjoyed it. At the end of the day TLOU2 is a cautionary tale which teaches you if you're going to murder someone make sure you take out their kids as well!

RIP Joel Miller

This reminds me the only picture I took during the game was Ellie standing over his grave

Zero-Cool · 04-07-2020 7:23am

I think one of the great things about this game is the amount of different ways people take it. Really shows the different thinking in people.

No matter what you thought about it, you're just fine..... unless you're one of these sad, hateful people, then you should seek professional help.

https://twitter.com/LauraBaileyVO/status/1279173199918292992?s=19

gimli2112 · 04-07-2020 7:34am

that's really sad on several levels

ERG89 · 04-07-2020 11:18am

Zero-Cool wrote: »

No matter what you thought about it, you're just fine..... unless you're one of these sad, hateful people, then you should seek professional help.

Hardly surprising. After I finished the game I went back to watch some of the takes on the leaks and I was surprised to discover the controversy did end up being Joel's death. I kept waiting for a scene that was really controversial but it never came. Then I look at people throwing their dummies out cause they essentially didn't make the same game twice. Most of the videos still had a pretty horrible comment section, I guess cause they don't care about their fanbase being "outraged". So I'm not stunned once a toxic atmosphere is created that people do start to get death threats.

Like how dumb would it be for Joel not to face repercussions for saving Ellie at the end of the first game and destroying any chance of a cure. If it wasn't Abby it would have to be someone else who knew what he did. Even if we played as Joel in this game what would we be doing? Trying to bring Ellie somewhere safe, it would have been a retread of the first game so making a sequel would have been pointless cash-in.

04-07-2020 11:21am

A side note: Do yourselves a favour and delete your Twitter

It's not good for your mental health

gimli2112 · 04-07-2020 11:31am

ERG89 wrote: »

Even if we played as Joel in this game what would we be doing?

After the museum they could have gone home and painted the house, tended the garden and taken the dogs for a walk. I'd have happily played.I see the sense in what you're saying and what ND did, I just would have preferred more of the same

Bad people don't always face the consequences of their actions. I'd have been happy with a happy ever after or even the end of TLOU 1 for Joel and Ellie, probably my favourite game characters of all time tbh.

Zero-Cool · 04-07-2020 11:34am

[Deleted User] wrote: »

A side note: Do yourselves a favour and delete your Twitter

It's not good for your mental health

Could be said for all social media. It's great trading the positive messages she's getting in support though.

Grumpypants · 04-07-2020 12:16pm

The thing that gets me is when you watch stuff like Angry Joe they constantly moan about developers doing safe sequels and not taking risks.

Then ND take a risk and he goes on a 48 min rant about how they should only do safe sequels where he can go on another safe adventure with Joel.

You would swear he was a pre teen talking about Edward from Twilight not a grown man.

Nody · 04-07-2020 1:42pm

Grumpypants wrote: »

The thing that gets me is when you watch stuff like Angry Joe they constantly moan about developers doing safe sequels and not taking risks.

Then ND take a risk and he goes on a 48 min rant about how they should only do safe sequels where he can go on another safe adventure with Joel.

You would swear he was a pre teen talking about Edward from Twilight not a grown man.

It's like you did not bother to watch the video by the sound of it; his complaint is that the story is very poorly written, very poorly executed and that they focus on characters don't actually act as the characters they were set up in TLOU1; a very common complaint. But hey; why bother to actually listen to what he's saying when you can make **** up, right?

dzsfah2xoynme9 · 04-07-2020 2:45pm

Well I finished it yesterday and absolutely loved it. One the best sequels I've ever played. The pacing, acting, graphics. Loved it all. I'd become so emotionally attached to abby by the end that I felt horrible when Ellie was drowning her. In the end, Joel did kill her father. I suppose I'd react the same.

Wonderful game and experience.

The Last of Us 2 - SPOILERS!!!

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