The Last of Us 2 - Ellie Can Swim (Spoiler thread)

Some of it IS hate for Abby being a nonfeminine and masculine. I watched a fair number of streams on youtube and twitch, and half the guys (and even gals) couldn’t stop making ‘SHES SO BUFF, OMG SHES SO DAMN BIG. OMG AN OGRE! ITS SHREKS SISTER!’ Maybe initially I can get it, but cmon, they make this the whole joke of the game. its like some of these people have never left there house and seen a women that really works out.

A part of the criticism is they don’t want a buff girl as hero, they’d prefer the waifish ‘pixie’ girl Elle as hero. I frankly dont give a shit, but its really annoying when people DO hate the game because of Abby. If abby was a hot babe in the vein of Resident EVil Ada Wong… thered be alot more… yeah the games pretty good! I love Abby!

Also, narrative in a game can be terrible and the game still be very good. Remember Mass Effect 3 (that was a total shit ending)? Still a very good game.

Okay, but who here is saying any of that? Can we not engage with the actual things being discussed here without assuming the motive behind people’s posts?

Wut? Abby is feminine and hot. I go to a climbing gym. Lots of women with big shoulders. Hot.

And it’s not like this is something new:

https://mtv.mtvnimages.com/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/edgeoftomorrow-1422888906.gif?quality=.8&height=200&width=500


Damn if Lupita Nyong’o isn’t one of the most gorgeous women to ever walk the planet. And look at those guns!

Perfect ending? Did we play the same TLOU1? While I really enjoyed the gameplay and the experience overall, I’m hard pressed to find any of the narrative of the first game especially compelling, even without comparing it to the media its aping.

If anything, you should play TLOU2 to see just how much the developers stepped back and took a hard look at their own game/narrative design in the first game, and improved it in the sequel.

As a story, with a father/daughter relationship…it is a most excellent ending if I may say so myself. The ending felt finished. Complete. Very bold and satisfying.

In no uncertain terms, I always dreaded a sequel to TLOU. Because it didn’t need one. Especially one that compromised that ending…but they did, in the worst way possible.

That is all.

I don’t see how they did this. At the end of the first game we know Joel has chosen the good of the one over the unknown many, moreover he lies to Ellie about it and robs her of making that choice because he can’t bare to lose her. None of THAT is compromised in the sequel, it’s all built on that.

As much as I loved the first game, the ending felt unfinished to me. He lied to her about why they left the hospital, and that always felt unresolved. It’s the kind of unresolved I could have been okay with, don’t get me wrong, but I was happy to have a sequel get announced, and it lived up to my expectations on every level. Also, what @forgeforsaken said.

Not to mention - if you enjoy Ellie and Joel’s relationship, or even if you felt like me and thought it was totally underdeveloped in the first game - they flesh it out so much more deeply in the sequel. I actually believed Ellie and Joel’s relationship thanks to TLOU2’s references and vignettes related to it, which were much more emotionally resonant than the events of the first game

Yeah, I think that was totally the intent.

Because they have been honed by a hostile world and circumstance into unstoppable killing machines. They’re broken, weapons that only know how to solve problems one way.

I never thought the Farmhouse was the end. It felt so wrong the whole time. I was on pins and needles waiting for a turn.

There’s actually a hint in the Farmhouse that things aren’t as perfect as they seem. Ellie has a book about coping with anxiety on her side of the bed.

There’s no such thing as a “nobody”. That’s one of the major themes of the game.

Just wrapped this up. Well, that was certainly a thing.

I thought the original Last of Us was fantastic. Not the biggest fan of the gameplay, but I felt the story and characters were solid. And I thought the game ended on just the right note. To me, the central theme of the first game was “making the wrong decision for all the right reasons.” And if they had ended the game with Joel and Ellie driving away in the car, I would have been happy. I don’t think the final scene just outside of town was needed.

I also don’t think TLOU2 was needed. While the gameplay was improved (still hated the boss battles) the narrative was a scattered mess. Switching perspective to Abby mid-game killed my motivation to play. Not because I hated Abby. I just didn’t care. In fact, by the time the mid-game theater scene unfolded I stopped really caring about Ellie, or Dina, or Tommy. Fuck 'em all. A pox on all houses.

Spending all that time with Abby to evoke a sense of empathy for that character felt grossly manipulative. I saw what they were doing and wanted no part of it. When Abby finally got back to the theater to have it out with Ellie, I fucked up the battle and Ellie killed Abby. I honestly thought that was how it was supposed to play out. Then I realized the story had other plans. I finish all that and get to what I thought was the denouement on the farm.

I was so disappointed when the game just kept going. Ugh. I just didn’t care anymore. I didn’t want to spend any more time with these horrible people. So I dutifully finished it, put the controller down, and shrugged. Yuck.

This. The game overstayed its welcome, which I think was true of the original as well. From a gameplay perspective, there were simply too many battles to remain interesting. The boss battles were terrible. Too hard to figure out what to do, and at a certain point when you have to repeat boss battles they go from tense to annoying.

The main hook for me of the first one was how the characters developed throughout the course of their adventures together. THe way Joel heals from the tragedy of his daughter’s death to making a morally questionable decision. Like GrebB said above, the wrong decision for the right reason. THere was none of that in the sequel. Just two people trying to kill each other out of revenge. I get what the developers were trying to say - I just didn’t find it interesting.

Just finished this yesterday. Avoiding the main conflict, one thing the developers got right was the incidental storytelling. Every area had collectibles that were well thought out and told a deeper background of what had happened there. They were well written and appropriately horrifying for the world they built. I also really enjoyed when there were two characters on screen and the interactions they had. You had to go out and explore some to get it, but it made them more fleshed out. For example Dina and Ellie in a music store in Seattle and talk about forming a band. Dina plays the drums. None of it mattered to the main story, but it helped flesh out the characters.

I think in hindsight they told the story in the wrong order. It might have been better if the stories of Ellie and Abby were played in parallel and the Joel reveal came later. Its certainly interesting to play a character the developers have established you should hate. And it might work from a story telling perspective, I’m not sure it makes for an enjoyable gaming experience though.

After starting this back in August, putting it down for 5+ months and then playing a lot over the last 3 days I finally finished it. My feelings about it changed many times over that period. I was excited to be reunited with Joel and Ellie, but as we all know that didn’t last long. I was pretty bummed because it was their story that made the first game one of my favorites of all time.

After I got over that, I enjoyed exploring the beautiful scenery, meeting the new characters, and remembering how well they do the atmosphere of a post apocalyptical zombie world. I got sucked into Ellie’s revenge mission and wanted to bring the hurt to Abbey.

I was not happy when they made the character switch. The game dragged on. After a while I started becoming more appreciative of Abbey’s view of the events. By the time she met Lev and the sister I was actually starting to like Abbey. The trio had some of my favorite moments of the game, along with Ellie’s guitar playing and singing.

Like others I just waited during the final conflict. I didn’t want to finish Abbey and quite frankly I would have been OK with letting Abbey kill Ellie. I tried to let that happen and the game reloaded so I saw that wasn’t an option. I was hoping, however unrealistic, that they would all go off somewhere together.

It was a nice but sad touch when Ellie couldn’t play the guitar chords at the end, when she retunred to the empty farmhouse.

Overall I appreciated and am glad I played. The high moments were great, but much of the game dragged on for too long. Not one of my top games but I appreciated the experince.

For those who have finished it: do you feel like you might have appreciated it more if Abbey’s story had been excised, and instead been given the option to play it (Abbey’s story) as a separate chapter that unlocked in the main menu on completion of Ellie’s story?

Personally I thought the entire experience T to B was perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing.

I just replayed this, immediately after playing the new PS5 Part 1 and DLC. Its actually a much better game than I thought it was in 2020. In a lot of ways I think the core gameplay loop is a lot tighter in part 2 than part 1. The levels are more expansive and better designed. The stealth gameplay is nicely balanced by the more frantic combat when things go sideways. I had a lot more sympathy for Abby and her people the second time around.

Importantly, I didn’t really think the original needed a sequel. I thought the first story was complete on its own. On further reflection I do think a sequel was necessary. Ellie is unique in the game world. She is the only person immune to the cordyceps and the only key to its cure and the future of humanity. So ending the story at the end of part 1 (which was really Joel’s story) leaves that thread hanging. For the same reason I think a part 3 is necessary, which concludes Ellie’s story. I’m looking forward to that.

@IkeVandergraaf bumping this (thanks for your updated thoughts, I agree with where you landed) reminded me to mention I also recently played Part 1 and then dove directly into Part 2 and honestly the two experiences almost feel like one contiguous experience. Almost, of course, but still - such an incredible ride, and my opinion didn’t change from when I enjoyed this at launch - if anything, I enjoyed it more the second time. It helps that a lot of the game’s story and set pieces I’d just completely forgotten about, so in many ways it was like my first play through. One benefit to having a shit memory is I get to replay/reread/rewatch stuff and enjoy it all over again, haha.

Going to replay the 2nd one on the PS5 once it arrives & I’m done with GoW:R. Looking forward to seeing how I feel about it during the 2nd playthrough.

I recently played and finished this. I was disappointed with the way the game ended. I was with it most of the way, but at the bitter end, when Ellie rescues Abby and then proceeds to get in the fight… can we, as players, not have at least a little bit of a moral victory for our main protagonist? The best scene in the game is when Ellie plays Take on Me on the guitar… only to have her lose her freaking fingers and be unable to play at the end? I honestly thought there would be some sort of redemption through music. By the time she rescued Abby, she had already lost absolutely everything, so the writers go and take away the one thing that she has left? I found that so disappointing.