• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Girlfriend Reviews: Understanding Last of Us 2

Umbral

Member
My issue with Joel rescuing Ellie from the Fireflies' hospital is that I'm not sure whether he truly did so for Ellie or did so for himself. Was his concern solely or at least mainly Ellie's well being or was his concern to retain Ellie because she filled the void and pain of his daughter's death? Did he really think that it was immoral to sacrifice Ellie for the sake of humanity (i.e. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few)? Or did he agree with the idea that to do so was moral but cared about his emotional needs more than the possibility of saving humanity?

You can’t justify killing a child without her consent (something which a child can’t even make a decision on) for some needs of the many type garbage in order to allow some rag-tag, rinky-dink, on the brink of collapse terrorists to take make a hail-mary attempt at creating a cure.

Part II retconned Part I. Joel did the right thing. The interesting aspect was how that would affect his relationship with Ellie.

If Ellie knew the whole time she would die and talked about it with Joel and then Joel went against her wishes, it’d be a stronger argument that he was in the wrong. That never happened though. Ellie thought she was gonna walk outta that hospital.
 

PanzerAzel

Member
Did you watch Yongyea’s review? It touched on precisely the same points. The game was playing puppet master in an extremely overt way. All subtlety went out the window - a total 180 compared to the original.
Haven’t seen it, he has a review up? Must be fairly recent.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
It's fine up to the 8 minute mark, where it then descends into basically being a litany of 'if you hated the ending then you're probably either dumb or a bigot' with a few cherry picked 0 ratings from Metacritic user reviews highlighted (out of over 100k ) that well known bastion of sound games criticism as proof positive that, that surely has to be the case.

That's clearly not what she said. She's talking about the backlash the game received. She never said people who hated the game feel this way. She even says a few seconds later she says she casts no judgement if people weren't able to enjoy this game.

It's like people just hard "bigotry and transphobia" and people start taking it personally.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Part II retconned Part I. Joel did the right thing.

TLOU2 isn't lecturing you that Joel did the wrong thing. He even says straight out he would do it all over again. Its just showing you there's consequences to killing as many people as Joel did. Consequences is not an inherently bad word, its simply an acknowledgement that Action A can produce Result B. He was always gonna be hunted down sooner or later.

If Ellie knew the whole time she would die and talked about it with Joel and then Joel went against her wishes, it’d be a stronger argument that he was in the wrong. That never happened though. Ellie thought she was gonna walk outta that hospital.

This is an assumption. She had no agency one way or the other. Marlene decided she should die, Joel decided she should live. And again, 2 isn't saying he was absolutely in the wrong. Thats for you the player to decide. Remember that Abby's dad can't even properly answer Marlene when asked if he'd kill Abby to produce a vaccine, showing the moral hypocrisy arising from peoples' subjective POVs.

tenor.gif
 

112 reviews 94%

104 positive

8 mixed

0 Negative

Neither Polygon or Kotaku even feature

They didn't give scores, they're still listed they just can't affect the average without a score. Metacritic still links you to unscored reviews at the bottom.
 
So you’re saying Druckmann is like George Lucas?

Different circumstance and cases for different people.

George Lucas needed feedback in order to tell him what worked and what didn't, but he at his core was still a talented writer and had good ideas to serve as foundations. Same with Kojima.

Neil on the order hand is most certainly not a talented writer, and above all else wishes to pass a socio-political message based on rotten and utterly mental principles before writing a good story. The presence of other writers are simply there to put a stop to his psychosis and stopping his deranged mind from ruining a story that has all the potential to be excellent and had an amazing premise.
 
Last edited:

ZZZZ

Member
Did you watch Yongyea’s review? It touched on precisely the same points. The game was playing puppet master in an extremely overt way. All subtlety went out the window - a total 180 compared to the original.


I'm surprised that YongYea didn't think the game was a masterpiece, he's one of the big Sony fanboy channels on youtube. That was surprising.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
You can’t justify killing a child without her consent (something which a child can’t even make a decision on) for some needs of the many type garbage in order to allow some rag-tag, rinky-dink, on the brink of collapse terrorists to take make a hail-mary attempt at creating a cure.

Part II retconned Part I. Joel did the right thing. The interesting aspect was how that would affect his relationship with Ellie.

If Ellie knew the whole time she would die and talked about it with Joel and then Joel went against her wishes, it’d be a stronger argument that he was in the wrong. That never happened though. Ellie thought she was gonna walk outta that hospital.

That's not true all.


If it was retconned, then there would be no reason for Joel to lie to Ellie. The mere look on Ellie's face signifies that she didn't think Joel was telling the truth.



People talk about how many things "conveniently" happen in Part II which ruined parts of the story, but Ellie makes it to the hospital unconscious? This was specifically done so that they can create the "ambiguous" ending at the end, and that was for us to decide if Joel made the right decision or not.

What happened in Part II doesn't change anything because as we can see in Part II, Joel would do it all over again, showing us that he never made the "bad" as a father decision, but his decision ultimately did cost him his life.
 

Woggleman

Member
People seem to think Joel is some sort of superhero from the first game when he was nothing of the sort. He was a deeply flawed man who did good things and found some redemption through Ellie.
 

tsumake

Member
Different circumstance and cases for different people.

George Lucas needed feedback in order to tell him what worked and what didn't, but he at his core was still a talented writer and had good ideas to serve as foundations. Same with Kojima.

Neil on the order hand is most certainly not a talented writer, and above all else wishes to pass a socio-political message based on rotten and utterly mental principles before writing a good story. The presence of other writers are simply there to put a stop to his psychosis and stopping his deranged mind from ruining a story that has all the potential to be excellent and had an amazing premise.

I think you’re giving Lucas and Kojima a smidge too much credit, but point taken.
 

vpance

Member
Haven’t seen it, he has a review up? Must be fairly recent.

Yep was just posted.



I rarely watch review vids this long but did this time.

I'm surprised that YongYea didn't think the game was a masterpiece, he's one of the big Sony fanboy channels on youtube. That was surprising.

I know him mostly from his MGS analysis, but I think he calls it like it is mostly, like with the loot box stuff or 2K VC.
 
I think you’re giving Lucas and Kojima a smidge too much credit, but point taken.

In Kojima and Lucas case, yes, they can create good premises and base concepts, but unfortunately make many mistakes when drawing the specific details of a story and how they fit with one another, especially at the level of writing/dialogue.

However, their end product is still a story that any person can see that was written with passion, despite it's flaws.

With Neil I can't say the same thing. His arrogance and desire to corrupt is clearly felt through out the entire story. He should not be left alone to write something. He wants to be a political and ideological activist before being a writer and that's his problem.
 

Woggleman

Member
People can say what they want about the game but it is not political. I am tired of people misrepresenting what it actually is. At least be an informed hater.
 

BluRayHiDef

Banned
You can’t justify killing a child without her consent (something which a child can’t even make a decision on) for some needs of the many type garbage in order to allow some rag-tag, rinky-dink, on the brink of collapse terrorists to take make a hail-mary attempt at creating a cure.

Part II retconned Part I. Joel did the right thing. The interesting aspect was how that would affect his relationship with Ellie.

If Ellie knew the whole time she would die and talked about it with Joel and then Joel went against her wishes, it’d be a stronger argument that he was in the wrong. That never happened though. Ellie thought she was gonna walk outta that hospital.

You misunderstood my point, which wasn't to question the morality or lack thereof of Joel's rescue of Ellie or the Fireflies' attempt to sacrifice her. My point was to question the motivations behind Joel's rescue of Ellie.

Did he do so because he believed that sacrificing her without her consent was immoral? Or did he do so because he wanted to maintain the filling of the void and the erasure of the pain that resulted from his daughter's death via Ellie's function as his daughter's replacement?

In other words, did he rescue Ellie for noble reasons or for selfish reasons?
 

Keihart

Member
Even though there was a bait and switch in MGS2, I don’t recall there being as strong a response to it as TLOU2.

It sounds more and more like a videogame equivalent of The Last Jedi: a highly anticipated sequel that really pisses off fans, is praised by mainstream critics, and makes a lot of money (which the game will probably do). TLJ made over a billion at the box office due to initial fan momentum, but fans took vengeance on “Solo.” If the analogy is sound, then perhaps ND’s next game might be in trouble.
You seriously don't? i mean, the internet was a different place back then, but online and offline the game was at first regarded as a shitshow, a betrayal, etc...after some time it was talked as being mediocre, it took a long time to have the hindsight that we now recognize as the mainstream appreciation of that game. All this reaction was warranted, mind you, since the game almost seems to be made to spite the player and make fun of Raiden at first. One of the first things you do it's step on shit and fall on your ass :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

tsumake

Member
In Kojima and Lucas case, yes, they can create good premises and base concepts, but unfortunately make many mistakes when drawing the specific details of a story and how they fit with one another, especially at the level of writing/dialogue.

However, their end product is still a story that any person can see that was written with passion, despite it's flaws.

With Neil I can't say the same thing. His arrogance and desire to corrupt is clearly felt through out the entire story. He should not be left alone to write something. He wants to be a political and ideological activist before being a writer and that's his problem.

That I agree.

Honestly, it sounds like Mr. Druckmann was trying to exorcise some demons from his childhood with TLOU2. Maybe on that level, it’s somewhat laudable? Maybe?
 

Woggleman

Member
If the internet and social media back then was like it is today MGS2 would have been crucified especially since they replaced the gruff and masculine Snake with pretty boy Raiden.
 
That I agree.

Honestly, it sounds like Mr. Druckmann was trying to exorcise some demons from his childhood with TLOU2. Maybe on that level, it’s somewhat laudable? Maybe?

You mean like a projection of sorts? In other words, he wants to critique something with the story but in the end he's only telling us about himself?
 

PanzerAzel

Member
Yep was just posted.

I rarely watch review vids this long but did this time.
Just finished it, one of his longer ones.

He's right on the money, jeez I almost feel as if I plagiarized him in that respect. It's a major distinction the game has that makes it the lesser from its predecessor as a consequence.
 

Umbral

Member
You misunderstood my point, which wasn't to question the morality or lack thereof of Joel's rescue of Ellie or the Fireflies' attempt to sacrifice her. My point was to question the motivations behind Joel's rescue of Ellie.

Did he do so because he believed that sacrificing her without her consent was immoral? Or did he do so because he wanted to maintain the filling of the void and the erasure of the pain that resulted from his daughter's death via Ellie's function as his daughter's replacement?

In other words, did he rescue Ellie for noble reasons or for selfish reasons?
I think it can be both.
 

BluRayHiDef

Banned
I don't agree with you about Neil at all. It's not as if he made the political and ideological themes that are in the game the main focuses of the story; they're simply there as aspects of the characters' identities and certain, inconsequential interactions between them. Ellie being a lesbian, Dina and Jesse being non-white, Lev being trans, and Abbie being nonbinary are not heavily expounded upon; in fact, apart from Ellie's bout with a bigoted townsman and Lev's passive mention of shaving her head to be like the men, the game doesn't throw these themes in the audience's face.
 

Keihart

Member
The game showed people as very morally grey and showed good and bad parts of almost all sides except the rattlers.
Yeah, there are only 2 points or maybe 3 where you are supposed to unleash hell on the enemy and don't feel as conflicted by the violence.
The first one being the sky bridge trip to the hospital, you fight mostly infected and the scars at that point are painted as not worth your sympathy by lev and ending in full horror action secuence decending the building full of infected and the hospital basement, this whole section has you with very little question of Abby's morality, it's kinda heroic even.
The second one it's Ellie against the Rattlers, they give the player the release for Ellie's rage without moral consequences before finding Abby, so you can see the difference, you probably at that point are not even that much into killing Abby but you violence before needs very little justification given how awful the rattlers are depicted.

I find those 2 sections, the most "fun" sections of the game, they are the only parts where you can blow people to bits without questioning Ellie's or Abby's morals.
 

Rengoku

Member
Yep was just posted.



I rarely watch review vids this long but did this time.


This was an extremely well put together review.

I watched the end of the Girlfriend's Review twitch livestream recently where they talked at length about their impressions of the game and how they were going to 'research the shit' out of other people's impressions online and try to put something more balanced together for their review of this game. The boyfriend (scriptwriter) claimed at the time he had yet to read anything from the "did not like" camp that he felt was a proper analysis of the flaws of the game or the storytelling, but promised he would take more time to do more research. Its a shame that when the review finally came out, it was pretty much the same regurgitation of their initial impressions without much exploration into why some other people didn't like the game.
 

BluRayHiDef

Banned
I think it can be both.
Based on Joel's facial expressions and intonation when speaking to Marlene about the Fireflies' plans for Ellie, he seemed to be motivated by selfish reasons. That's always been my impression.
 
Last edited:

Umbral

Member
TLOU2 isn't lecturing you that Joel did the wrong thing. He even says straight out he would do it all over again. Its just showing you there's consequences to killing as many people as Joel did. Consequences is not an inherently bad word, its simply an acknowledgement that Action A can produce Result B. He was always gonna be hunted down sooner or later.



This is an assumption. She had no agency one way or the other. Marlene decided she should die, Joel decided she should live. And again, 2 isn't saying he was absolutely in the wrong. Thats for you the player to decide. Remember that Abby's dad can't even properly answer Marlene when asked if he'd kill Abby to produce a vaccine, showing the moral hypocrisy arising from peoples' subjective POVs.

tenor.gif
I’m not going back through the game to get the evidence, but I’m told Ellie talks to Joel about learning to swimming after it‘s all over, implying she expected to walk out of the hospital afterward.

In Part II they have her outright say “I was supposed to die in that hospital.” and her collapse when Joel tells her what happened had no effect on me emotionally because it was retconned.

That's not true all.


If it was retconned, then there would be no reason for Joel to lie to Ellie. The mere look on Ellie's face signifies that she didn't think Joel was telling the truth.



People talk about how many things "conveniently" happen in Part II which ruined parts of the story, but Ellie makes it to the hospital unconscious? This was specifically done so that they can create the "ambiguous" ending at the end, and that was for us to decide if Joel made the right decision or not.

What happened in Part II doesn't change anything because as we can see in Part II, Joel would do it all over again, showing us that he never made the "bad" as a father decision, but his decision ultimately did cost him his life.

The whole game is convenience. There were conveniences in Part I as well, but that doesn’t excuse the ones in Part II. I’m willing to overlook conveniences in a lot of media. If something’s well written, they can often sneak it past you. Part II had so many that were so glaring that I couldn’t miss them.

The retcon is that in Part II she acts as if she wanted and expected to die in the hospital. She has survivor’s guilt, twice-over. Once with Riley and again with the hospital, except when you look at Part I she expected to walk out of that place. She did not go there to die like Part II tries to push.
 
Last edited:

Umbral

Member
If the internet and social media back then was like it is today MGS2 would have been crucified especially since they replaced the gruff and masculine Snake with pretty boy Raiden.
No, because MGS 2 wasn’t just a character swap. MGS 2 is still looked at today as something amazing for what it did. That isn’t Part II.
 

Umbral

Member
Based on Joel's facial expressions and intonation when speaking to Marlene about the Fireflies' plans for Ellie, he seemed to be motivated by selfish reasons. That's always been my impression.
I wouldn’t be too happy with them considering what they were about to do. They also walked him out at gunpoint after traveling across the U.S. with Ellie, they earned that ire.
 

PanzerAzel

Member
Also, in relation to your next post, as i see it, the first game it's more of a comedy and the sequel a tragedy.
Also both games follow western tropes and the revenge tale it's very much in line with that.
It's not comedy vs. tragedy, it's character vs. theme.

TLoU was a character study. The world, events, everything in it existed solely to serve characterization of the two protagonists. With TLoU II, it's the opposite....the characters are there to serve an overarching theme. The game can't seem to decide what it wants to say, and as such, yanks characters back and forth at its whim when needed. The characters to me feel held hostage to thematic impetus, and I think that's why so many are left confused as to their decisions. They see them doing things that the first game would frown upon from a character's perspective, yet make sense when viewed from a thematic one.

And I think this shift onto theme destroyed the heart of this game. There was certainly theme in the first, but its potency was held inside its characters......it didn't exist outside of them that those characters had to mold themselves in actions, characterization, etc, to fit.
 

Woggleman

Member
I honestly think some people see TLOU as being about just Ellie and Joel and since pt 2 is about more than that it doesn't work for them. It seems some people see Joel as some sort of surrogate father and after what happened to him it taints everything else. If the whole game were like the museum part like some people think it should it would have been terrible.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
The whole game is convenience. There were conveniences in Part I as well, but that doesn’t excuse the ones in Part II. I’m willing to overlook conveniences in a lot of media. If something’s well written, they can often sneak it past you. Part II had so many that were so glaring that I couldn’t miss them.
Most people criticizing the "convenient" circumstances in TLOU part II makes no sense. They're almost the same as the first game.

The retcon is that in Part II she acts as if she wanted and expected to die in the hospital. She has survivor’s guilt, twice-over. Once with Riley and again with the hospital, except when you look at Part I she expected to walk out of that place. She did not go there to die like Part II tries to push.


That makes no sense.

You can literally look at the end of TLOU part I and see it in Ellie's face that she knew Joel was lying to her. She asked that question for a specific reason an that was to see if Joel would tell her the truth. If she knew Joel was hiding something, then she knew Joel saved her from dying. The only problem is that she couldn't prove it until she went to the hospital in part II.

If Ellie didn't ask Joel the question at the end of Part I, then you would have a point.
 

Keihart

Member
It's not comedy vs. tragedy, it's character vs. theme.

TLoU was a character study. The world, events, everything in it existed solely to serve characterization of the two protagonists. With TLoU II, it's the opposite....the characters are there to serve an overarching theme. The game can't seem to decide what it wants to say, and as such, yanks characters back and forth at its whim when needed. The characters to me feel held hostage to thematic impetus, and I think that's why so many are left confused as to their decisions. They see them doing things that the first game would frown upon from a character's perspective, yet make sense when viewed from a thematic one.

And I think this shift onto theme destroyed the heart of this game. There was certainly theme in the first, but its potency was held inside its characters......it didn't exist outside of them that those characters had to mold themselves in actions, characterization, etc, to fit.
To me it's still centered on characters, the game does a lot to explain and make you understand the pain of Ellie and Joel, everyone else just serves as help to contextualize their relationship. Abby in some sense it's even a mirror of Joel and Ellie at the end, when Ellie gets the flashback she probably understands the need to let go because of this.

The game it's a tragedy in my eyes because on the surface nothing goes right, Ellie loses everything, but if you read Ellie's emotions at the end, you should have an understanding that there it's something that was saved and she can only now maybe move on ( in the diary there is something about Ellie's regret on leaving but wondering if she can now finally offer something to others and if it's worth it)

The first game also centered on characterization but paints the complete opposite picture regarding the characters fate, everything on the surface workouts at the end but there its a underlying understanding that their relationship, the justification of everything, might be doomed because of that lie.

Both games end with uncertainty, but they paint very different pictures on the fate of the characters on the surface. The second game it's very much about Joel and Ellie even if there seems to be very little screen time of them together, almost everything comments on their relationship.
 
Last edited:
so I ended up watching a few more of the review videos from Angry Joe, Yong Yea, The Critical Drinker, LegacyKillaHD and a Taiwanese Youtuber. basically all of them had point out the same thing; that the main issue they take are towards the inconsistency of the character behavior and logic. that the presentation is great still but the story itself is just... lacking. lacking in the quality of the relationships. lacking in the sensible development of the story and the characters. now, since I have yet to play the game myself, all I can say is that maybe all these reviewers do have a point towards the game. the game still seems like a great game; but in terms of story, it does seem like it had been handled poorly and not worth the 10/10 praise we seen everywhere. (maybe a 7/10 or 6/10 depending on how much the story means to you).














 

Chromata

Member
Yep was just posted.



I rarely watch review vids this long but did this time.



I know him mostly from his MGS analysis, but I think he calls it like it is mostly, like with the loot box stuff or 2K VC.


One of my favorites, Yong makes great reviews.
 
The problem is always weak storytelling with Naughty Dog. Not to say the universe and the characters are weak but the majority of the work produced has flaws in the writing. I am a huge fan of Uncharted but not to the point of ignoring the faults through the series individually especially when it comes to the writing. I am curious what would have been if Amy was still at the studio. The dynamic between her and Neil seemed to balance each other out a bit in story writing.

I really enjoyed TLOU2. The overall goal was achieved at making a game that is attempting to be a film. It is a solid 7.5 which is nothing to snub as it hits all the graphical points that ND is known for. Nothing really new is brought into play and if anything it still shows the glaring flaws of tight storytelling that ND needs to work on in the future.
 
I don't have a PS so have never played Last of Us or the sequel, so this is a question coming from actual ignorance other than the synopsis of the stories I've picked up from online sources.

Regarding the last moments of the game where Ellie fights Abby, and then Ellie realizes that revenge is a counterproductive circle:
1. Is that supposed to be the overall message that the game is telling us? That revenge is hollow and will leave no closure?
2. If yes, was there a significant price that was paid (from Abby's standpoint) for her vengeance against Joel? Is there closure for Abby?

I'm curious as to these questions. I do know that Abby gets captured and possibly tortured--however, I've seen nothing to say that this was a consequence of Abby's vengeance against Joel.

If I'm mistaken about the above, let me know!
 

bargeparty

Member
I don't have a PS so have never played Last of Us or the sequel, so this is a question coming from actual ignorance other than the synopsis of the stories I've picked up from online sources.

Regarding the last moments of the game where Ellie fights Abby, and then Ellie realizes that revenge is a counterproductive circle:
1. Is that supposed to be the overall message that the game is telling us? That revenge is hollow and will leave no closure?
2. If yes, was there a significant price that was paid (from Abby's standpoint) for her vengeance against Joel? Is there closure for Abby?

I'm curious as to these questions. I do know that Abby gets captured and possibly tortured--however, I've seen nothing to say that this was a consequence of Abby's vengeance against Joel.

If I'm mistaken about the above, let me know!

Abby loses all friends and loved ones, they die.
 

BluRayHiDef

Banned
The problem is always weak storytelling with Naughty Dog. Not to say the universe and the characters are weak but the majority of the work produced has flaws in the writing. I am a huge fan of Uncharted but not to the point of ignoring the faults through the series individually especially when it comes to the writing. I am curious what would have been if Amy was still at the studio. The dynamic between her and Neil seemed to balance each other out a bit in story writing.

I really enjoyed TLOU2. The overall goal was achieved at making a game that is attempting to be a film. It is a solid 7.5 which is nothing to snub as it hits all the graphical points that ND is known for. Nothing really new is brought into play and if anything it still shows the glaring flaws of tight storytelling that ND needs to work on in the future.
What's wrong with Uncharted's writing?
 

Umbral

Member
Most people criticizing the "convenient" circumstances in TLOU part II makes no sense. They're almost the same as the first game.

I could be wrong, since I haven’t played the first in a long time, but I highly doubt that. The conveniences and inconsistencies can easily fill a page in Part II.



That makes no sense.

You can literally look at the end of TLOU part I and see it in Ellie's face that she knew Joel was lying to her. She asked that question for a specific reason an that was to see if Joel would tell her the truth. If she knew Joel was hiding something, then she knew Joel saved her from dying. The only problem is that she couldn't prove it until she went to the hospital in part II.

If Ellie didn't ask Joel the question at the end of Part I, then you would have a point.

Yes. It was clear she knew Joel was lying to her about what happened in there. That’s it. It makes sense for her to be mad that Joel lied about what happened there and kept information from her. It doesn’t make sense that she would be like “But Joel, I wanted to die even though I never thought I was going to the whole journey.”

My point is that in Part II they try to make it seem like she wanted and expected to die in that hospital, which is not the case, so those segments fall flat for me.

If you’e got evidence to the contrary, then I’m happy to be wrong.
 
Last edited:

bargeparty

Member
I could be wrong, since I haven’t played the first in a long time, but I highly doubt that. The conveniences and inconsistencies can easily fill a page in Part II.





Yes. It was clear she knew Joel was lying to her about what happened in there. That’s it. It makes sense for her to be mad that Joel lied about what happened there and kept information from her. It doesn’t make sense that she would be like “But Joel, I wanted to die even though I never thought I was going to the whole journey.”

My point is that in Part II they try to make it seem like she wanted and expected to die in that hospital, which is not the case, so those segments fall flat for me.

If you’e got evidence to the contrary, then I’m happy to be wrong.

Isn't that only after she went to the hospital herself? Which she obviously did because she wanted to know what happened.

She was angry because everything she went through, that they both went through didn't lead to anything. She wanted her life to matter. She felt like that was her purpose for being immune and surviving. It had to be for some greater reason.

Joel took that from her.
 

pLow7

Member
The problem is always weak storytelling with Naughty Dog. Not to say the universe and the characters are weak but the majority of the work produced has flaws in the writing. I am a huge fan of Uncharted but not to the point of ignoring the faults through the series individually especially when it comes to the writing. I am curious what would have been if Amy was still at the studio. The dynamic between her and Neil seemed to balance each other out a bit in story writing.

I really enjoyed TLOU2. The overall goal was achieved at making a game that is attempting to be a film. It is a solid 7.5 which is nothing to snub as it hits all the graphical points that ND is known for. Nothing really new is brought into play and if anything it still shows the glaring flaws of tight storytelling that ND needs to work on in the future.

This is plain wrong. It might not have worked for you, but tell me a game where you Played the murder of the main protagonist of the previous game. Tis is the first time in a medium where the player got put in the situation to play someone that he hated because of his action. It might not have worked for you ( It did for many people ), but it was something completely new.
 

Umbral

Member
Isn't that only after she went to the hospital herself? Which she obviously did because she wanted to know what happened.

She was angry because everything she went through, that they both went through didn't lead to anything. She wanted her life to matter. She felt like that was her purpose for being immune and surviving. It had to be for some greater reason.

Joel took that from her.

I get the survivor’s guilt and her thinking that’s her life’s purpose. There were the other immune people though that the Fireflies had no luck with. I think with all the info she probably would have simply felt lost and not felt like she was to be The One.

They have her say in Part II “I was supposed to die in that hospital. My life would have fucking mattered. But you took that from me.”

It doesn’t ring true that she would be like “I wanted to die.” after finding out about the lie at least a year after the first game. She has a good life, good relationships, friends, she has Joel. Her life does matter. She has purpose. She doesn’t get to be the cure, but the likelihood and the necessity of that happening seem to be long gone anyway. We get even more evidence the Fireflies are a bunch of frauds and terrorists in Part II.

Everything feels so contrived and it brings the game down.
 

bargeparty

Member
I get the survivor’s guilt and her thinking that’s her life’s purpose. There were the other immune people though that the Fireflies had no luck with. I think with all the info she probably would have simply felt lost and not felt like she was to be The One.

They have her say in Part II “I was supposed to die in that hospital. My life would have fucking mattered. But you took that from me.”

It doesn’t ring true that she would be like “I wanted to die.” after finding out about the lie at least a year after the first game. She has a good life, good relationships, friends, she has Joel. Her life does matter. She has purpose. She doesn’t get to be the cure, but the likelihood and the necessity of that happening seem to be long gone anyway. We get even more evidence the Fireflies are a bunch of frauds and terrorists in Part II.

Everything feels so contrived and it brings the game down.

It's fine not to get it. Just move on.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
My point is that in Part II they try to make it seem like she wanted and expected to die in that hospital, which is not the case, so those segments fall flat for me.

If you’e got evidence to the contrary, then I’m happy to be wrong.

Never said she expected to die at the hospital before traveling. She was upset (in Part II) because Joel made that decision for her.

The evidence is there. There's nothing in part II that said she traveled to the hospital and thought she was going to die.

There's nothing. If you can find that in Part II, then you would be right, but it's not there.
 

Umbral

Member
It's fine not to get it. Just move on.
Oh, we doing the superior/inferior intellect thing?

I’ll go back to drooling on my coloring books then. One day I‘ll be a grown up.

Never said she expected to die at the hospital before traveling. She was upset (in Part II) because Joel made that decision for her.

The evidence is there. There's nothing in part II that said she traveled to the hospital and thought she was going to die.

There's nothing. If you can find that in Part II, then you would be right, but it's not there.

You’re right about everything above.

If I were in Ellie’s shoes I’d be mad at Joel for lying but not mad I couldn’t be killed. I can’t think of any reason why someone would want to die for a cure in retrospect though. I guess that’s just my own hangup I’ll not get over. I’ve been thinking about it since I finished the game about a week ago. I’ve got no explanation for it.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Also, in relation to your next post, as i see it, the first game it's more of a comedy and the sequel a tragedy.
Also both games follow western tropes and the revenge tale it's very much in line with that.

The inherent problem with lifting wholesale someone else ideas and then attempting to pass them off as your own is that invariably someone else out there saw the same YouTube review where the presenter attempted to frame that very conceit. The problem is, in the classical Greek sense of the world the Youtuber eludes to, there is nothing comedic about the first game whatsoever despite their bold declarations to the contrary.


Comedy: The first comedies were mainly satirical and mocked men in power for their vanity and foolishness.

Tragedy: Tragedy dealt with the big themes of love, loss, pride, the abuse of power and the fraught relationships between men and gods. Typically the main protagonist of a tragedy commits some terrible crime without realizing how foolish and arrogant he has been. Then, as he slowly realizes his error, the world crumbles around him.

Truth is, the Greeks didn't really do Drama in the same way we do (a common mistake of modern thinking) in large part because their cultural worldview (of Gods being behind almost everything) was quite alien to ours.

At best one could say both games possess tragic themes (more the sequel) but it's foolhardy to hold the Greeks up as some bastion of grander meaning, least of all to justify what is quite clearly a story-line that just does not succeed in its intent.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom