I finished the story. I think the game is a masterpiece to be honest, but i can see why it was divisive. I would have liked a totally different story as well, but the one we got is still good. It doesn't deserve the hate, or at least not to this extent. I wish Joel would have had a more noble death, like sacrificing himself for Ellie somehow. His death was too humiliating.

During this fight (pic related) i felt terrible. They did a good job making you feel bad for Abby, and i am glad Ellie didn't kill her. I think it was both pity and the realization that she also has someone who depends on her, like she did with Joel. And i don't think Abby deserved to die. As for me, it was pretty gut wrenching seeing the state of Abby at the end, because she did grow on me and i liked her after seeing her arc. Ellie saw too what the rattlers were doing to their prisoners so it didn't seem out of nowhere that she decided to spare Abby.

As for the game itself, it's an insane game:
>35 hours just to finish the story, in a linear game with no open world and no side quests
>the cinematics are not that long so most of that is actual gameplay
>the gameplay itself is some of the most fun and satisfying i've ever seen
>going both full stealth or full action during missions is equally enjoyable
>the world is great and the set pieces are all interesting and unique
>Abby's side is fantastic, she has the best levels by far, which kinda annoys me

tl;dr op is a faggot

>>714584442
Oh yeah, i also really wish Ellie wasn't gay. That's all

>>714584335 (OP)
I enjoyed it a lot, but replayability is kinda ass, too many narrative sections where you can't do shit. I guess you just have to play the encounter mode but still

>>714584958
i kinda want to 100% but i will try No Return first to see how tedious those achievements are, then replay grounded

>During this fight (pic related) i felt terrible. They did a good job making you feel bad for Abby, and i am glad Ellie didn't kill her.
you're just a faggot with no spine

>>714585395
Ok? maybe, that's still how i felt. Abby killed Joel and Jesse. Ellie, Joel and Tommy killed like 6 of her family and friends. And then she went through hell. I couldn't feel bad for her since the aquarium.

>game
Are you sure?

>>714584335 (OP)
>Ellie saw too what the rattlers were doing to their prisoners so it didn't seem out of nowhere that she decided to spare Abby.
lmao

>>714586020
it was both that and the fact that she had a kid depending on her, yeah

>>714584335 (OP)
Abby's plot
>Her dad was actually the doctor that they player could optionally shoot in the first game
>Kills Joel
>Fights enemies of her faction
>Finds her boyfriend who brought friendly fire because he became sympathetic to the enemies of their faction
>She helps enemies of her faction
>They go home
>She has a nightmare about the enemies of her faction hanged
>Decides she's now a "good person"
>Helps the enemies of her faction
>Becomes the enemy of her faction
>Has Joel & Ellie adventure and steals Joels's "Music Theme" with the character Lev in a segment that feels more like Uncharted than TLOU
>She's a STRONG FEMALE PROTAGONIST NOW
>Her friends hate her because she's trying to win back her boyfriend from his pregnant real girlfriend
>Abby loses some more friends
>Hunts Lev down on an island and ends up killing her own faction
>Goes back to see Ellie killed the rest of her friends
>Goes to kill Ellie but leaves on a compromise
>Ellie hunts her down
>Ellie doesn't kill Abby
>Abby escapes with Lev
>The game thinks it made a great story.
DId we like it?

>>714586149
>kills a pregnant woman
>whoopsie, oh well
>tranny kid is abby's dependent and the person you have a burning revenge for is going to get tortured
>whoa, this is a bit too much

>>714586164
>Decides she's now a "good person"
Nice of you to leave out the part where she is about to be hung then gutted and the 2 kids rescue her. Then while escaping with them she gets stuck in an infested building and they rescue her again.
>Becomes the enemy of her faction
that was kino though
>She's a STRONG FEMALE PROTAGONIST NOW
she has been for a while
as for the rest...yeah, i liked it
>>714585834
yes

What a waste of a fucking thread.

>>714586376
nice try but a ton of shit happened between the two events, a lot of time passed and the characters changed.
>>714586440
ok, make your own thread lol

>>714586513
>a lot of time passed and the characters changed.
this is just poor writing, dude.

>>714586624
that's your opinion, but Aquarium Ellie is pretty different from farm Ellie

>>714584335 (OP)
>They did a good job making you feel bad for Abby
lol
lmao even

>>714585395
>>714586020
>>714586164
>>714586376
>>714586624
>>714586902
I am willing to bet you didn't play the game. I think anyone who sees Abby's story would understand and be ok with Ellie sparing her.

I played it on grounded during my first playthrough.
As far as linear 3rd person shooters go, I'd say it's excellent, possibly one of the best games ever made. I love of the AI flanks, reaction to shots, the quality of environments, it's amazing. Super tense gameplay.
However, the story is pure garbage, the first game shits all over it.

>le let's kill Joel for shock value
>while I don't mind lesbians in my games, their relationship is disgusting
>one of the first places you go to after the prologue is a fucking synagogue, and dina talks about how good it is to be jewish
>btw im pregnant, teehee :3
>OH shes LE PREGNANT TOO??? time to be retarded and leave a map to my headquarters
>the entire seraphite subplot comes out of nowhere and should have never existed
>ellie (with a fucked up broken upper body), dina (pregnant and stabbed), and tommy (with a gunshot to the eyesocket), somehow survive, and leave seattle
>at this point the plot is swimming around the toilet with cuckmann's turds, time to flush it down and enter the sewage
>ellie, despite finally achieving a cozy life with dina, says she's not done and goes after abby, after being spared, FUCKING RETARD KILL YOURSELF

>>714586981
If people from two completely different mediums end up with the exact same thoughts maybe your story fucking sucked, you ever though about that?

>>714586404
>Nice of you to leave out the part where she is about to be hung then gutted and the 2 kids rescue her. Then while escaping with them she gets stuck in an infested building and they rescue her again.
>Oh no, those zealots almost got me hanged
>I saved those zealot kids though from the zealots
>Goes home
>Dreams the kids get hanged
>I must protect them
>This is now my entire plot
>Killing Joel is redeemed because I'm such a good person now
Yeah... it's still forced.
>>714586981
I played it twice.
I even tried not mashing square near the end because the game "got" me in thinking Abby doesn't need to die at the end, after everything.
But I still came away thinking I would've been better off never experiencing this story. I feel like it's just a lot of misery masquerading for "depth". It's a decent examination of violence, but I also think it's not that special, and a lot of people wouldn't do what Ellie did, and a large frustration with the game is how it forces Ellie to "go bad" just because the authors (especially Halley) had an agenda to get any characters previously written by men out of the picture.

>>714584335 (OP)
6/10 story, 9/10 gameplay. Abby was stacked better levels and the rat king.

>>714586981
At no point does Abby come across as likeable, I'm sorry. The developers made it hard on themselves on purpose by giving your her story after she's killed Joel. They bargained that they'd be able to turn the player around by the end, showing both sides, etc. they just fucked it up and it crashed and burned.
Joel's death is stupidly convenient with how he ends up on their lap the second they get to Jackson. They don't need to plan, they don't need to infiltrate the place, Abby quite literally just randomly stumbles on him after five years. It feels cheap, and thus it doesn't feel earned. You never get to know like 80% of Abby's supposed friends or her friendship with them so their deaths fall completely flat, as do the unbelievably forced flashbacks like THE DAD SAVING A ZEBRA FIVE MINUTES BEFORE SLICING OPEN ELLIE'S BRAIN BECAUSE HE'S SUCH A GOOD GUY LOOK HE SAVED A FUCKING ZEBRA. The plot constantly makes Abby look worse when they pretended to make her look better, like having her turn against the Wolves is meant to show she's chosen Lev over them but comes across as her being a cunt that readily betrays the people she's fought side by side with for years just because she met a little kid some 70 hours ago. Abby wanting to kill Dina is meant to be a parallel to Ellie killing Mel except the latter happened in a split second struggle without Ellie actually knowing she was pregnant until after the kill, and her reaction is immediately breaking down and hyperventilating; meanwhile Abby knows Dina's pregnant, acknowledges it and shows glee at the idea of slicing her throat. And "we let you live and you wasted it"? Really? You caved a dude's skull in and that's what you say to their family when they get revenge? How egocentric.
Neil and co. wanted to prove they could take players from hating to liking a character. They mostly failed, both in vidya and show form.

>>714586981
wrong, and wrong.

>>714587093
i kind agree with some of your points, as i said i do wish the story was different from the start, and you are right if you start analyzing it like that
- the killing of Joel was lame
- i do wish Ellie wasn't lesbian and i don't even mind Dina but the game could do without
- the synagogue part didn't seem forced to me, and Dina's comments were minimal, so whatever i think this is just your polbrain
- i am actually glad she was pregnant because i enjoyed adventuring alone more, but as i said, should have been like that from the start
- the other girl being pregnant part was pretty good and dramatic so it kinda ties well to Dina's subplot i guess
- i guess a 3rd faction was needed if we were gonna play as Abby, and i liked them as a faction. They were well developed. And with the rattlers it probably implies there's tons of factions all over, which i would like to see in other games. Plus the scar island was great
- Ellie, Dina and Tommy surviving, idk what to tell you i mean none of them were dying
- well Ellie is shown to still have nightmares and sees Joel's death through her journal and that barn scene, and Tommy pushes her. It's not some crazy stretch

>>714584335 (OP)
The final fight was the stupidest part
Why not just LEAVE her to be crucified by the retard brigade

>>714587545
>>714587732
Different perspectives i guess, i thought Abby was fine and she doesn't SUDDENLY become a good person because she was never a bad person to begin with. She only really wanted to avenge her dad which is understandable.

>>714584335 (OP)
how did Abby have the strength to even fight Ellie at the end let alone hold her own? she had been hung up and captured long enough that she's emaciated and yet she maintained at worst 80% of her full healthy strength.

>>714587802
>Ellie, Dina and Tommy surviving, idk what to tell you i mean none of them were dying
>gunshot to the head is not dying
>pregnant, weak, and hurt being able to do ANYTHING
>ellie got literally destroyed by abby
No, Anon, they should not have survived the theater, especially Tommy.
>well Ellie is shown to still have nightmares and sees Joel's death through her journal and that barn scene, and Tommy pushes her. It's not some crazy stretch
She barely has any clue as to where Abby is, just a very minimal hint, plus she's leaving her child behind, it's boneheaded as fuck

>>714587824
Well at that point i think Ellie's conflict began. She still wanted to kill her but she also probably felt bad for her. Either that or she wanted a fair fight considering she lost the last time.
>>714588078
Idk for how long she was up there but at that point she had more or less Ellie's physique. And Ellie also had a massive wound in the side. Also adrenaline i guess

>>714584335 (OP)
Why even consider getting revenge on a starved Abby? Where is the satisfaction of beating her up? Should've just let her rot on that pole...

>>714584335 (OP)
I've only ever played the second game on Youtube (parts of it at least), but I did beat the first game twice, once in hard and second in grounded.
The first game had decent pacing and good story telling as well as suburb voice acting, gameplay was functional but nothing revolutionary or did it set any kind of standard for 3rd person shooters, it did what it was supposed to do and it worked, I loved the multiplayer way more than I cared for the single player until Naughty Dog implemented microtransactions and P2W elements, ruined the meta completely.
The minute Naughty Dog turned Ellie gay is when I fucking knew it was over, the studio that I grew up with and loved is gone, it freaking sucks that they will constantly use the phrase "From The Studio that brought You Crash, Uncharted" which is bullshit.
Funny, going on 6 years and they still haven't actually came out with a product, we know there is one coming out but the past ND that I know would have came out with a banger and then some.

>>714587802
>Ellie, Dina and Tommy surviving, idk what to tell you i mean none of them were dying
This is why you liked the plot. You cannot think critically. Anon's not saying they should've died, obviously they're protagonists and blah blah blah. Anon is saying that things should make sense in-universe. This is meant to be a post-apocalyptic world where it takes months to go from one side of the country to the other. If you have one of your main characters with a bullet hole in the fucking head, you gotta explain how he survives that enough to go back home. You cannot have a le serious realistic grim plot then believe things like these don't matter "because it's a videogame". TLOU2 is full of these things, like Abby surviving falling off a skyscraper because there's a fucking pool filled to the brim with clean water... 25 years after the world ended

>>714586981
Great bait kek

>>714584805
You can't have a straight woman in 2025, that's weak! Strong women can only eat pussy and depend on no man.

>>714588292
>She barely has any clue as to where Abby is, just a very minimal hint
2 months pass since Tommy gives her the hint and we start in Santa Barbara so i am guessing the trip there + narrowing down the location happened in that time
>she's leaving her child behind, it's boneheaded as fuck
i agree, that's why Dina left
>>714588347
Ellie wanted to do it herself, she keeps saying things like "i hope the zombies/rattlers didn't kill you Abby" but she didn't expect to find her in that state. Neither did i to be honest (i somehow wasn't spoiled on the ending, only on the Joel part)

>>714587802
>the synagogue part didn't seem forced to me, and Dina's comments were minimal
I felt the opposite just from
>my people have been survivors for generations even before the apocalypse

>>714588040
If the scenario was different and she found Joel in a situation and shot him in a fit of revenge it would've been different. But she hunted him down for years with an entire group, lured him into their hideout and made everybody watch her torture him to death.
He killed a lot of people but I do think there's a real gameplay/story disconnect in the fact that Joel technically is meant to be a bad person at the end of TLOU1 but you're always shooting various humans anway, so it becoming Fireflies because they keep Joel away from Ellie isn't demonstrably bad to the player, only upon reflection.

But it's definitely nice food for thought in terms of worldviews. You could say Joel shooting at the Fireflies at the end is like someone killing police because they're arresting your husband that you despite knowing it might be for legit reasons still love, and you end up becoming co-culpable. And Abby is also a lawful goodie purist who only fights injustices her whole life, no matter how much she ends up becoming the one brutalizing others.

But in the end I didn't really care. I love the production of these games but I just felt increasingly apathetic to their stories.

>>714587278
cuckmann doubling down on the story was the most obvious thing in the world but you'd think there would have been at least one exec or cast member who would mention how the second game was a decisive story at best and suggest some major changes to the story. instead they went down the exact same path as the second game and got the exact same reception and results of people hating Joel's death and dropping it soon after.

>>714587802
Goy cattle.

>They did a good job making you feel bad for Abby
I'm assuming this is copy pasted bait from leddit or something, but it's genuinely wild to me how hook line and sinker people fell for this, terrifying even. You can practically feel the hand of the writer SMACKING you as they try to garner up sympathy for Abby. Any decent writer would consider it outright cheating, if not completely dismissing it as outright fucking slop. Game is full of moments like this, like the fucking zebra scene. The Giraffe scene in the first one was on the nose as fuck, but it wasn't trying to force an idea on us, it was just hammering home the core themes of the game for the truly retarded. Ellie sparing Abby after everything will also always be one of the dumbest fucking decisions I've ever seen a writer force a charater to make for their bassackwards vision. It's a damn shame the gameplay itself is so fun, because what a retarded, piece of shit story.

>>714588510
No, i know what you mean, but i am also willing to look at this as i look at some movies. Not everything always makes sense or adds up and i am willing to suspend my disbelief. If we look at it like this, Joel would have 100% died in the first game after being stabbed by that piece of metal. I found the fact that he survived that and that Ellie moved, cared and healed him the hardest thing to buy in the entirety of the 2 games. Plus there's a ton of moments like this.
>>714588641
well she ain't wrong

Also this is like the LAST scene in the game. How the fuck did HBO fuck season 2 so bad? It's so important that this scene happens at this point holy shit

>>714588648
>Fireflies keeping Joel away from Ellie isn't demonstrably bad to the player, only upon reflection
Fireflies are 100% the baddies no matter the "reflection". Besides them wanting to cut open Ellie's skull, they were also going to rip off Joel and send him to his death. Remember, the deal was for him (and Tess) to bring Ellie to Salt Lake City in exchange for a bunch of smuggled guns. Joel fulfilled the deal. Before he went full Rambo in the hospital, the Fireflies were going to escort him outside the hospital at gunpoint, not giving him the promised weapons, *and* not letting him pick up his own backpack with all his resources. Fireflies in the first game are constantly portrayed as a bunch of asshole terrorists that do nothing but lose ground and bomb quarantine zones.

>>714589053
>well she ain't wrong
it's just such a hamfisted thing to stick in there.

>>714588892
Reminder the game's co-writer Halley Gross (you cannot make that surname up) confirmed during most of the game's development, it ended with Ellie killing Abby and they changed it only later on because it "felt right". The game genuinely leads up to her death, only for it to change its mind for no in-universe reason.

>>714584335 (OP)
>And i don't think Abby deserved to die.
so you think there still hope for Israel and Palestine becoming friends?

>>714589382
I don't think so, she just tells Ellie about it since she doesn't even know. Lev being trans was more hamfisted in my opinion, and they only hint at it. Just make her rebel because she doesn't want to be forced into marriage, not ALSO because she thinks she's a boy.
>>714589516
I don't think i would have felt good or satisfied if Ellie killed Abby. And the same applies to Ellie. If she killed her before Santa Barbara? Sure, maybe.

>>714588892
Without irony, if you didnt feel for Abby after playing through her story you're probably a borderline psychopath. I had to force myself to even press the button to finish her when you fight her at the end.

>>714589053
>Not everything always makes sense or adds up
But that's the thing, it does in good stories. Some people work their asses off to make sure the storylines they write are air tight. If we're to commend those efforts surely we'd need to frown upon those that forget about it?

>>714589707
Or you're not an illiterate whose consumed more fiction than video games designed for teenagers. I'm sorry you're so simplistic and easy to manipulate with basic as fuck tricks.

>>714584335 (OP)
>I think the game is a masterpiece to be honest

>>714587802
>none of them were dying
Hey anon im gonna shoot you in the face, dont worry though surely you won't die.

>>714589858
you can find gaps and plot holes in many great movies
>>714589932
doesn't seem so bad

>>714589914
>manipulate with basic as fuck tricks
What does this even mean you schizo? Does the game manipulate and trick you to like Joel and Ellie as well then?

>>714590035
And they're all the worse for it, if they're truly plot holes

Fucking hate this hipster shit, fucking pretentious yuppie garbage

>>714589516
in my mind I'm just begging Ellie to quit and let go by that point, in fact even before that. It becomes very clear that nothing is going to get better by going deeper down this hole. So to me it makes complete sense for her to finally understand this.
>>714588892
They do for sure have some moments that feel on the nose but that doesn't undermine the whole character to me. There are also moments where Abby doesn't act holier than thou, where her friends call her out. This isn't really related to the story but I really like that Abby feels believable as a person in that world, I like that she's not really all that special or particularly intelligent or witty, it's like this average girl that had her world ruined when her father died and after that she just turned into a shehulk meathead. Ellie comparatively feels like too much of a writers pet "she's badass, she's creative, she's intelligent, she's cultured, she's lesbian!! she's a great mother"

>>714589208
>The fireflies were already in the wrong
That isn't the thought-experiment the author was trying to pose as that thought rids Joel of any culpability.
The thought experiment is about whether your inner world matters more to you than other people's worlds. I would save my mom from a car crash rather than stop a train crash from killing 150 people if I had the option. Classic trolley-problem.

But further it also asks if Joel is actually saving Ellie for her sake, or just for himself, and it's definitely for himself. But she can at least sympathize with it a little bit when he confesses that in Part II because she probably realizes that the only thing that matters is "you and me" in the world. Everyone's gonna die. There really isn't a larger altruistic point to anything in this world, so even if it's overrun by zombies, the thing that ultimately matters is the experience each individual person gets to have and the subjective meaning they gain from seeing their world through 2 eyes.
So she forgives him despite knowing he killed a lot of 2 eyes just to get his father-daughter relationship back, and in the end she also cared about him, so she accepts it.

That's the deepest analysis I found in TLOU2 and I didn't care one bit for it because it's in the context of Joel already being gone, and Ellie already being completely broken, to spare a character that she hates, because Abby has a similar forming bond with Lev.

I get the overall message. I just didn't feel moved by it. I felt tired and ready to uninstall the game.

>>714590176
>by going deeper down this hole
Funny thing about that: there's no "going deeper". Abby is quite literally the last enemy that shall be destroyed. The only reason to have ever done anything. Hey, remember what Ellie says in the first game?
>"After all we've been though. Everything that I've done. It can't be for nothing. Look, I know you mean well...but there's no halfway with this"
Yeah, that. To stop right before Abby? That's shitting on what Ellie has already suffered through. It's shitting on Dina, on Tommy, on Jessie, on all their sacrifices and on the hundreds of people Ellie killed in Seattle, because might as well never left Jackson in the first place. The end result, for Ellie, would've been the same (and better for the rest of the world, because Abby would've remained a Rattler slave)

>>714590123
>wah I lack basic reading comphrehension and have never read a novel or even watched any decent film in my life, you're a schizo because I can't tell when a writer is trying to make me feel a certain way
Fucking retards, I swear.

>>714590270
>That isn't the thought-experiment the author was trying to pose
And just like with Abby, the author failed. I know they wanted the Fireflies to be right and Joel to be seen as someone that dooms the world because he can't bear to lose his daughter again, it's just that along the way they made the Fireflies be retarded cunts too so the "thought experiment" falls flat. By forgetting about Joel's deal, it falls flat. By leading him out at gunpoint after he spent months doing what they themselves couldn't do and leading the "smuggled goods" all the way to them when he could've stopped at the Capitol, it falls flat. By taking his backpack with his gear from him, it falls flat.

>>714590635
Fool. I asked you what the difference is between the writers trying to make you feel a certain way about Abby and them trying to make you feel a certain way about Joel. You have no reply which is why youre exposed as a schizo.

>>714590765
The weirdest part of this to me is that I swear to god the first game makes it, at BEST, ambiguous. The fireflys are very much shown to be active fuck ups, on their last legs, etc, and them trying to do the surgery seemed more like random murder that had very little chance of success than an actual shot at a cure. I'd have to replay it, though, but they definitely retconned some of it in part 2

>>714590635
Yeah, but they are so funny to read.

>>714584805
She's just a confused young girl. The right man could fix her.

>>714591032
Nah I started typing up a reply then realized you're way too retarded to bother with. Have fun with your thread, maybe check out some YA novels when you're done, you'll probably find some stuff you like!

i really hate ellie all the time

>>714590536
Yeah and this is a very common argument and I just don't agree with it, like I said by Santa Barbara I am already screaming at Ellie to stop, her finally stopping makes sense to me. It doesn't make sense to you, but that's fine, we feel differently.

It's obviously a divisive story with which some agree and some don't. But i think that makes it great. It's definitely not perfect and has many flaws but it's over-hated as fuck.
>>714591215
She was fine in part 1 but in part 2 her bitterness is a bit too much for the player, like i get she's angry and suffering but it's hard to like her as the player.

>>714591440
>It's obviously a divisive story with which some agree and some don't.
except most don't. Gamers rejected Part II and viewers rejected Season. Neil stepping down in disgrace makes him one of the most kek'ed guys in the history of gaming.

>>714591440
right i meant part 2 ellie. she doesnt even have a fucking right to be mad about joel, she's just a mean awful piece of shit the whole time. she should have been the dead one all along.

>>714584805
she's bi, she'll fuck any retard that even remotely looks like joel let's be honest

>>714586981
The issue is the when, not the fact of the sparing itself. By that point Ellie has lost everything in her life and up until about three seconds before she makes the choice to spare Abby she has been driven for revenge. Even arguing "Oh Ellie killed her friends :(" is dumb because they're the only people the plot wants to treat as a tragic death when you're basically piling bodies on top of bodies to get there. The issue with the narrative is the fact that nobody matters but Abby and yet you're being told about how Ellie is a terrible person not for littering the ground with bodies but for harming people close to Abby specifically. Narratively speaking, Ellie is never going to feel peace or relief for what she did, she's going to regret it until she fucking hangs herself in isolation. She throws away her chance at happiness when she rejects Dina to continue down the path of self-destruction and any narrative with the balls to follow through would end things how they should end, mutually assured destruction. Fact of the matter is that it's hard to feel bad for Abby because she's Druckmann's pet, he isn't going to let her die because in his mind she's the true protagonist of TLOU2, the hero that Joel nor Ellie could be, and her life is sacred because it means the potential for a third entry just starring her. In fact, if Intergalactic doesn't pan out I guarantee TLOU3 will be teased and they'll treat Abby starring in it as some big hype worthy deal. TLOU2 should've ended with Ellie finishing the job then finishing herself off because it's what makes the most sense for a broken, desperate person to do. Nothing to lose, no home to go back to, nobody to go back to. That doesn't breed last second impulse decisions to just let the person you set your life on fire over go with two of your fingers as a parting gift

>Part 1
A generic story executed very well
>Part 2
A more ambitious story with some warts

I prefer 2, 1 is typical Naughty Dog, it's safe and its trite but its strength lies in the execution and characters and dialogue. Part 2 feels like the first time they've tried aiming a little higher than being derivative with a sheen.

>>714584442
Nailed it

im amazed that Part II still has stans even after the Season 2 humiliation. and the defense arguments are some Star Wars tier nonsense.

>>714591702
No, Ellie's revenge became conflicted as soon as she saw Abby on that pole.
>>714592017
play it before you make comments like this

>>714592017
how old do you even have to be to watch tv shows anymore? like 60?

>>714591048
The Fireflies are shown to be desperate in the first game, like cornered dogs. The contacts Joel and Tess were meant to deliver Ellie to are dead, and even Tommy who Joel described as a super Firefly hippy is done with them and doesn't wanna know anything about Marlene. Having said that, I do believe they truly believed they could get the cure. Marlene is practically crying at the thought of it. What *is* retconned is the Zebra Lover's face, and the room the operation takes place in is made much cleaner. Also, the game's ending implies pretty clearly that Ellie knows Joel lied, but chooses not to push the subject. But then TLOU2 makes it so she 100% believed him until she found a random post-massacre tape recorder back at the hospital? So a Firefly recorded what happened, put in in a bag then left the bag behind when they cleaned the place up?

>>714591723
>revenge bad
>ambitious

>>714584335 (OP)
I know you're a shill fag because you lack proper basic spoiler etiquette

>>714592017
Not sure what the show has to do with liking the game or not. They obviously mangled the story

>>714592398
the way in which they tell that story? absolutely.

>>714592080
I mean if she was conflicted at that point she could've just left after saving her. Instead she immediately goes in for the kill after that. It didn't come off like "Oh no Abby is going to be tortured", rather it felt like "Only I get to kill her." which is a fairly common thing to feel when chasing revenge. If Abby died a prisoner it'd leave Ellie forever unresolved in her revenge, she had to be the one to do the job which again loops back into my point that it makes no sense that literal seconds away from ending it all she backs off. It comes off as contrived subversion if not just for the sake of it then specifically because Druckmann wanted Abby to survive no matter what

>>714584335 (OP)
From this post alone I can tell you are a submissive, passive pussy thats entertained by most things.

I also love this game and think it has probably the best executed story in all of games.

I am also so sick and tired of talking about it. Its the same arguments trying to explain to someone who is determined not to like or understand the story, to like and understand the story.
It hardly ever accomplishes anything.
But ive never had more engrossing chats about a game than with this one.

Absolute masterpiece and a huge midwit filter.

>>714592462
what do you mean? this game was fully spoiled before it came out and memed to hell and back for several months. Are you new?
>>714592652
I think Ellie wanted to defeat her more than actually kill her by that point. She was hoping to find theatre version of Abby
>>714592738
>thats entertained by most things.
actually true

>>714592623
You know what, fair enough. Leading the plot with one of your two protagonists, the new one, the one you want players to end up liking, torturing the last game's protagonist for hours after kneecapping him with a shotgun then beating to a pulp with a golf club is certainly one of the choices of all time

>>714584335 (OP)
>the gaym is a ma--ACK

>>714592017
>stans
Zoomer faggot detected.
And anyone who has seen she show and played the game, or even read about the show, knows the show butchered the story and characters.

>>714592872
TLDR, but anyone who actively tells you "do not play/watch thing, trust me bro" should be ignored. Make your own opinions

>>714592763
>Its the same arguments
Because they've never been able to be countered. "Muh themes" isn't an explanation for things in-universe not making narrative sense

>be me
>colossal retard
>but at least I pay attention to things on screen
>Ellie kills Owen and Mel
>map falls to the ground
>be constantly thinking about the map
>Ellie pick up the map, you dropped the map Ellie, pick up the map
>Tommy and Jessie show up, well thank fuck at least they'll notice it because Ellie is having a panic attack
>they leave
>camera pans down
>map.avif
>it's the only reason Abby finds the group because ELLIE DECIDED TO CIRCLE THEIR HIDEOUT WITH THE WORDS HIDEOUT IN CASE SHE FORGOT
Legit paused the game and went for a walk around the house. Imagine having the fucking map in my head during the entire cutscene only for the game to pan down as a "gotcha!". I haven't even lived as a survivor in a zombie world for 20 years, what's their excuse?

>>714592974
Stories are extremely frequently full of contrivances that are there to drive the story forward. Its almost always given a pass because its in service of telling a specific story. Video game nerds are the most autistic nit picky lunatics in any fandom. So they find one contrivance and use it as a major gotcha and act as like the kings of art. Its ridiculous.

>>714593203
so you're angry because they decided to leave a lead for the entire plot of Part 2 to happen? It could have been anything, that literally doesn't matter.

>>714593361
>Stories are extremely frequently full of contrivances
And stories "full" of contrivances are always made worse because of them. A contrivance here or there is fine, if the contrivance starts the plot it's often not seen as such because the idea is that if events did just so happen to not play like this then we'd simply not be seeing the story happen because the MC would just be a background NPC instead. Stories "full of contrivances" are badly written, simple as
>Its almost always given a pass
It's almost always not, see >>714589858

>>714584335 (OP)
nice larp faggot
you're not fooling anyone

>>714593425
I'm amuzed they wrote a horrible plot beat unironically. I've seen first time book authors write better narratives
>that literally doesn't matter
It quite literally does, it's the only element that manages to drive Abby's plot forward and has both our protagonists meeting as well as Jessie dying. It is extremely important

>>714593550
>>714593737
Nah sorry you're just autistic..if the fact that Ellie left the map behind and Abby finds it is what brings the entire fucking game down for you than sorry, that's just autism at work.

>>714593810
I'm not the same anon, but yes it's an example of one of the horrible plot points the game is full off

>>714593810
The game has a massive over reliance on coincidence. Abby runs into Joel, Ellie finds Tommy’s pictures, Abby finds the map etc.

>>714593203
I forgot about that fucking map. Neil is a genius.

>>714593979
>>714594247
I'm not saying it's not bad but i can't imagine this being one of the things that ruin the game for me. Because it's still a video game.

>>714594247
So? Its gotta happen some way

the game could have the actual greatest gameplay in the world and you would still be gay for playing it because it's pro-troon demoralization propaganda

>>714594450
It's the writer's job to find ways to make it happen without it being retarded.

>>714594410
>it's still a video game.
Does that somehow invalidate things? You think it's a lesser medium?

genuinely great ganr on grounded, bullshit but in a way that works. story has retarded moments but actually shooting people is great, and it looks and sounds amazing.

>>714594450
The problem with the contrivances in TLOU2 is that these are mistakes a hardened killer like Joel wouldn't have made (and Ellie for that matter), so it just comes off as shitty McGuffins and bad writing.

>>714584335 (OP)
I can forgive a lot of this game but I just can't forgive the second revenge trip, after all the shit that Ellie experience in searching for Abby it only took one conversation from Tommy to throw her life into that bullshit AGAIN, leaving everything that she had, ONLY to not go on with her revenge in the last second because she remembered a conversation THAT SHE ALREADY KNEW.

>>714594715
Obviously. You kill hundreds of people and zombies across the two games. You get shot, stabbed, mauled, maimed, burnt, stabbed and heal yourself with a bandage. How am i supposed to think any of this is realistic? But oh no, the protagonists forgets a map on the ground after killing 2 people, one of which was pregnant and this kinda fucks her up. I'M GOING INSAAAANE !!!! Give me a fucking break

>>714594797
Gameplay is top notch, what is was hoping MGSV would be like. That story is awful though.

>>714594669
I thought it was acceptable. These characters are very imperfect and make mistakes. Those mistakes and lapses in judgment cause bad things to happen to them.
The most ill give you is abby bumping into joel alone in a cabin was a pretty wild coincidence. But the story is about so much more than that that ill easily give it a pass.

>>714594920
Nigga you dont just kill someone who's been tortured and is helpless

>>714594986
*a map with her hideout circled and labeled "secret hideout"

>>714594986
>You kill hundreds of people and zombies across the two games
And that was a choice the developers made. It's up to them to make sure their narrative and gameplay loop mesh well. Plenty of games do it. That there exists a dissonance is an issue with Naught Dog and The Last of Us, not videogames as a storytelling device. Again, others have done it well. How could Neil in his infinite wisdom and Sony billions not?

>>714594812
>hardened killer like Joel
Part 2 is years after joel has gotten comfortable in the town, and has seemingly takes steps to become a proper father to ellie. Hes not killing bandits all the time anymore. Hes not living in a rebel group in a police state. Hes a different person and has calmed down a bit.

I know he didn't have a speach where he explicitly said all this. But i think you can piece this together using what you see of him in the game, and even the scene where he droppes his guard with abby.

>>714594920
It was probably more cruel to leave Abby alive desu. My headcanon is that she left Abby to turn and kill Lev.

>>714595384
>having more things and people to protect than ever makes you
>*checks notes*
>lose your edge
Okay Druckmann

>>714595242
Ellie does pretty much the same thing in Santa Barbara, it's just a device to move the story forward but whatever

>>714595484
its a bad device, a good device would be good

>>714595484
So you're saying she starts the game a retard and ends the game a retard

>>714586164
>>Her dad was actually the doctor that they player could optionally shoot in the first game
You always killed him, if you didn't shoot him you either got killed or countered his melee and stabbed him.

>>714595384
You think he would have just forgotten twenty years of survival, especially as the safety of his surrogate daughter is counting on it? It's this kind of shit tier writing that keeps people like Druckman and Kojima out of the big screen where they really want to be.

>>714595550
in that world maps seem to be the only device that could work
>>714595615
whatever makes you happy

>>714595697
maybe it shouldn't work then

>>714584335 (OP)
I just leave them hanging there and that's my canon ending

no need for Ellie to leave defeated and scarred and wounded

>>714594920
Shes a broken person. Every major kill in the game fucked her up big time. She wasnt unaffected by it like some remorseless killing machine. She had a chance to stop at the farm but she was still traumatized by everything. Tommy egging her on was horrible for her. She went along because she hadnt moved on in her mind, not because it was what she wanted. The final confrontation happened the way it did because she was pushed to her breaking point and broke. She didn't want to go to santa barba. But she didn't know how else to deal with it. She didn't want to kill abby, shown by her untying her and nearly letting her go before hesitating and thinking about it before the final fight. And she just couldn't kill abby at the end because thats not what she wants. She just wants to stop feeling pain and anger and greif. The miserable brutal exhausting fight at the end just overloaded her physically and emotionally until she couldn't take it any more and broke.

But muh revenge....

>>714595227
OH YEAH!!! THEN WHY DID ELLIE FORCE ABBY TO FIGHT HER YOU RETARD. If Ellie wants her final boss battle so bad that she is willing to stop Abby from leaving by threatening Lev it just doesn't make sense to stop when she is wining when she could have, oh I don't know? not started the fight

Can't believe I'm seeing people defend bad writing because "the plot has to move forward!"
Well duh, just because there has to be a story doesn't mean that it should be a bad one. It's the job of the writer to find reasons for things to happen that make sense. If you're constantly stretching my suspension of disbelief it will break.

If you encountered Ellie here would you rape her or nurse her back to health?

>>714596080
I'd ask her why she's so goddamn fucking idiotic that she decided to leave her family behind to get revenge but then not only didn't get revenge she lost two fingers in the process like a 'tard

>>714596051
right, she's the villain and if she escapes unmurdered then its an injustice.

>>714595459
Its not his town. And the place isnt some hut in the middle of the woods. Its a huge town with huge walls and tons of guards. Its not joels personal responsibility to protect the town thats very obviously doing really well. Hes safe and can let his guard down. Or was there something i missed IN THE GAME not in your head cannon, that showd the town is in constant danger and everyone is super on edge all the time.

>>714596291
Better bomb that school. Theres a bad guy in there. If we let him go its injustice and theres nothing worse than that.

>>714592971
Read it, retard.
That review was made on the first days after that gaym was shitted out, the dude played through it several times over. Notice he mentioned 62 hours spent on it.

>>714596058
I'm not defending bad writing. I'm saying i am ok with some writing decisions to move the plot forward even if those decisions are bad.
>>714596460
no thanks, i'm good...i spent 35 hours on it and i have my own opinions. I am gonna replay it soon

>>714596458
then you become the new villain, thats called kino

Neil is a gay homo

>>714596358
>Its not his town
Yeah it's his brother's
>and the place isnt some hut in the middle of the woods
Which means it doesn't need protection and doesn't have scout parties constantly taking care of nearby infected and other threats
>Its not joels personal responsibility to protect the town
That's why he doesn't leave Jackson and definitely doesn't go scouting
>Or was there something i missed IN THE GAME
Probably what I just said above

>>714584335 (OP)
>I think the game is a masterpiece to be honest
Stop reading there and I'm leaving the thread. Kill yourself OP

>>714596629
Hes part of many people who go out scouting. Hes not the only guy. And thouse scouting reports either say nothing happened or they killed some infected. Nothing is suggesting that theyre worried about bandits or have had to worry about them in the past.

Why is it so hard to believe that he can let his guard down for a second, especially with some people that just saved his life?

>>714596051
So your logic as to why she did things that she didn't want to do was because she didn't wanted to do them? and she only stopped doing the things that she didn't want to do was that she realice that she didn't want to do them?

Can you explain why, in your perfect logic, did she need to fight Abby? why not try to kill her when Abby was captured? why the final destination with not items when it was obvios at that point that what she was doing was pointless?

>>714584335 (OP)
It's a pride parade in the post-apocalypse made by a creepy jew who gets off to shemales and basically you're a fucking retard

>>714597437
Games need to have gameplay. That's why the fight happens.

>>714597308
>Hes part of many people who go out scouting
And you believe others that go scouting to have also "lost their edge"? Jackson sends people that don't care that much about fighting or protecting others to go out fighting and protecting others if zombies/bandits are ever found near the premises? Sounds flawed
>Why is it so hard to believe that he can let his guard down for a second
Because it's not realistic and it thus takes you out of the plot. Same way that after five years Abby's group just so happened to get to Jackson the one day Joel wasn't inside but rather out patrolling not because he had to but because he was covering for another group, *and* there was a blizzard *and* a high number of infected when it's mentioned several times it was highly unusual for the area *and* Abby separating from her group and walking around *aimlessly* through the forest led her where Joel and Tommy where hiding *and* they were fine with being surrounded by a group of armed strangers, going so far as to tell them where they live and how many supplies they have there. A couple coincidences can happen, that after so many years Abby's group arrives with absolutely no plan and their target quite literally walks to them in the first couple hours in a silver platter with no plan is hilarious and makes it feel like the universe outright bends its own rules just to get the events to play in that one room. See also: >>714588510

>>714597642
buzzword overload

>>714597308
They dont want their vidya protags to be real people with flaws and vulnerabilities. They want them to be action heroes like in the slop they usually watch.

>its a masterpiece, I wouldve liked it to be different...b-but its good! words words words words words words words words words

Always funny when people need to write a book to justify why they liked the game. The directing is good, the writing is trying embarassingly hard

>>714584335 (OP)
>masterpiece
>unique
Oh, brilliant deduction there, Sherlock. I mean, it’s not like Naughty Dawgs, GSC, and 4A Games were practically passing around each other’s homework like it’s a high school group project gone wrong. Polished masterpiece? Pfft. Unique? My ASS. But please, do enlighten us on how you mistook their recycled scrap moulded into linear campaign for a magnum opus.

>>714598393
>>714598541
Sorry. Just how i feel.

>>714595484
I LOVE how Naughty Dog has the fucking audacity to claim they also love environmental storytelling after Elden Ring mogged them of GOTY awards, despite THIS being their version of environmental storytelling, people literally writing down their intentions and locations.

>>714597437
She felt like she needed to. They killed joel. They need to be killed. Despite every logical thing telling her from day one that it was a bad idea. And as it went on it made her life worse and worse. She could have stopped at any point and called it a loss, but she couldn't. She felt like she needed to do this. So she pushed herself as hard as she could until it was too much

>>714598769
don't think that's what they mean by environmental storytelling, i think they refer to general stuff you see in the world in terms of buildings, vehicles, dead bodies, occasional notes etc, like this for example

>>714584335 (OP)
>Famished Abby still looks toned as fuck

>>714599501
muscle doesn't just vanish after even 2 months, and she wasn't up there for that long, she was caged for most of the time.

>>714598687
Its fine if you like the game dude, its a good game. But its fans really go out of their way to pretend like its 3x deeper than it actually is.
Its a redundant story and its purpose was told better through Factions. If the intention is to make people mad, and then make people mad, that's not impressive. Going "OMG....actually I GET it now! I've LEARNED my lesson!" is the kind of shit that feeds into people like you.

They weren't making an interesting message, they were purposefully dividing their fanbase for e-drama faggotry and to make you feel like you've become 'enlightened' for liking something meant to make you mad.

>>714599837
i never claimed it's a deep story, just that it's not black and white and that i don't hate it. I wish it was a different story though

>>714599004
"To me, right now, that's some of the best joy I get out of games that trust their audience to figure things out. [Games] that don't hold your hand, that's the stuff I'm really intrigued by going forward."
>"Some of the best storytelling in The Last of Us is in the cinematics, but a lot of it is in gameplay, and moving around the space, and understanding the history of a space by just looking at it and examining it

>delivers a characters exact thoughts on paper
>character out-loud says "MAY SHE GUIDE YOU" I WONDER WHAT THAT MEANS
>OH ACTUALLY I AM A SERAPHITE, I WILL TELL YOU IN DETAIL WHAT THAT MEANS
Yeah no. The most 'environmental storytelling' is the fucking grass growing from buildings. nothing else is done with any subtlety or care

>>714599837
It's not intended to make you mad it's intended to challenge you, and that makes some people mad

>>714599941
That's the problem, its entirely black and white while pretending like its not. Both factions have literal 1:1 equivalent foils of each other, its not subtle at all. You're coming off a fresh playthrough so you don't notice this shit now, people have been noticing it for 5 years.

>>714597702
Ill agree that abby bumping into the person she walked across the county for in a snowstorm almost by himself is pretty wild. That could have been smoother. But ill deal with that weirdness because everything else is so good. Im not gonna discount the whole story because of a sloppy part or two.


I still think joel letting his guard down is explainable. But ill agree to disagree. It just doesn't bother me.

>>714600182
>its not intended to make you mad
>Ellie is the player's equivalent thrown into a perpetual rage

>>714584335 (OP)
Yeah Abby has the best levels. She has actual boss fights, the Rat King, Ellie, the seraphite dude. Ellie doesn't have anything like that, only the Abby fight. Ellie does get a bloater but Abby does too.
Abbys fun to play though, I think moreso than Ellie for me. Abbys animations for punching people out, especially that one where she just plants her foot in a dudes face are satisfying as hell.
I'd recommend trying out No return, that shits fun too

>>714586164
>>714587545
I liked it, the whole point with Lev and Yara with the dreams was to show that killing Joel didn't actually solve anything for Abby. She sees helping Yara and Lev as a way to try and atone for being a fuckup. Which is why after she has that dream where she finally sees her dad

>>714600302
>Ill agree that abby bumping into the person she walked across the county for in a snowstorm almost by himself is pretty wild.
Or Jackson's entire group converging inside a warzone
Or Abby finding Manny while under sniper fire
Or Ellie finding every single individual that was in the torture room (quite literally the exact same amount of contrivance as Joel&Abby meeting, except now its done 5-6 times)
Or the pregancy times not lining up
Or Abby and Ellie literally being in different rooms on Day 2
Or Tommy purposefully not shooting Abby so that he can get thrown off a balcony by her for drama
Or the HECKIN DOGERINO just being the same one that Ellie kills
Or the dozens of other moments exactly like this that are just so heckin contrived but its epic so its fine. This shit happens like 3 times in the first game, it happens every hour in the second.

>>714600467
Yeah Abby 'boulder punching' Shapiro was cool af.

>>714600787
I see what you're saying, but why didnt any of that bother me? Why despite me playing it 4 times, none of that stuff felt unbelievable?
Not saying thats enough of an argument to make it fine. But if it is that bad, it should have been annoying.

>>714600787
You could nitpick the first game too. Like how right at the start Tess and Joel say
>Welp time to find Marlene
Then Marlene walks right around the corner lol. Just nitpicking

>>714601101
coincidence is great, that shit is fantastic writing

>>714584335 (OP)
Why are chuds so angry??? Neil drukman basically made the first game so he can do whatever he wants with the sequel

>>714601101
precisely my point, a story beginning with a coincidence or contrivance is fine. Having every part of a story literred with it is the issue. Most of the bulk of the middle of the 1st story is travelling to specific, known destinations. Most of the bulk of the 2nd story is finding specific people, in an unspecific destination, in large-scale conflct. Its trying too hard.

>>714601516
>>714601332
coincidence good, contrivance bad. just randomly bumping into something you're looking for is a great opportunity and is the exact opposite of trying too hard. not having to elaborate is the writer's prerogative. the NARRATIVE bullshit depserate justifications are not.

>>714601452
Idk about the chuds, i mean when the leaks and the memes happened i was here laughing with everyone. But i also didn't have a console so i couldn't play it. Now that the game is on PC i did it changed my mind. And the memes are still funny, so was seeing Lev get punched into the garage door. But as for everything else? Nah i think the game is great. Even if you played it i can't see how you can absolutely hate the story no matter what, unless you've decided to do that before and you refuse to change your mind due to stubbornness.

>>714601851
That's what most people did, they just went into the game deciding they weren't gonna like the game or Abby and just not even give it a chance. A lot of people just used it to content farm for easy clicks.
Which is funny because they had the same mindset Abby did when it came to Joel

>>714596619
>TLOU2 Ellie
Gross. The only good version of Ellie is the one from the first game.

abby good ellie bad