ok, I finished it last night. I’ll throw some stuff in the spoiler tag
Overall Impressions: I would give the game 8/10. The early part was good, the middle part from about Pittsburgh to Wyoming was kinda meh, with the exception of the Henry and Sam bits. I got the feeling that they had a lot of filler, and took a bunch of stuff out at the same time. The time transition from Pittsburgh to Wyoming felt too jarring. It felt like they cut out extra stuff, but it also felt like some of the scenes were a little too long.
Man, though, the Joel/Ellie character arc was one of the best I’ve ever seen in a game.
The spoiler stuff:
[spoiler]So, I don’t know if this was intentional, but the Henry and Sam bit did a great job of setting up that there are good people in the world still. This did a great job of setting up David, who comes across as sympathetic character.
I also liked that it showed the massacre that Joel and Ellie took had meaning other than “here are a buncha mooks”
I did not like the David boss fight. I don’t get why game designers feel the need to throw some weird-ass mechanic into a boss fight. I don’t know if it’s just them going “oh, yeah, we need a boss fight.” I had the same reaction to one of the last fights in Tomb Raider. If i hadn’t watched a walkthrough of how to complete it, I would probably still be there.
From the Henry and Sam bits to the hospital, I was in the kinda “eh” stage of the game. The bits with his brother were ok, but didn’t do much for me.
That all changed when Joel fell off the building in University. Holy shit did the game pick up. I loved playing as Ellie and the little sneaky bits where fun. I was intending on finding a good stopping point for the night, but decided instead to just power through.
Man, the hospital scene was some powerful shit.
I’m curious if the sequel is about Ellie’s reaction to Joel lying to her. They have said the first game was about the love between the two, and the sequel about the hate.
[/spoiler]