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Now TLoU Part 2 has been out for a while, let me ask you. (Spoilers)

Did Naughty Dog do the right thing killing Joel?

  • Yes

    Votes: 159 34.0%
  • No

    Votes: 238 51.0%
  • Unsure

    Votes: 70 15.0%

  • Total voters
    467

Fake

Member
If they wanted us care about getting revenge then yes, killing a character we care about is very effective. My problem is half way through the game we switch to Abby and all tension about Ellie revenge is lost and the game tried so hard to get us like Abby but just felt flat for me.

Unfortunately Sony fans are not so different from Nintendo fans, while Nintendo fans keep kicking sales numbers at any argument I feel the same from Sony fans kicking awards from this game.

Everything feels so forced. I mean, people played the first game, have their expectation (I dare anyone look at the leak thread from reddit/resetera/neogaf, was a god damn good discussion over there), but after the killing scene IDK if was a good ideia moved from Ellie to Abby. Is like the game telling you to cool down your boiled blood after some climax scene, 'I know you got frustated by this scene, but I'll show you why this happen' in a really bad fashion.

Since the first trailer and the open discussion everyone was expecting Joel to die on this sequel. People are mistaking the death of Joel with the violence was made that scene because the hype team was pretty much confidence Joel could die there.

Like I said on the other topic, this is a heavy focused story telling game, so of course we can expect divisive discussion. If someone ask me about the gameplay I'll not deny that TLOUS2 have a really decent gameplay.
 
While the presented narrative has issues, the death of Joel is not one of them IMO.

Prioritizing Abby as a playable character for 40% of the game is my biggest gripe.
 

MayauMiao

Member
Its not about whether ND was right to kill Joel, it was the way they presented it, all too convenient death made worse with the goddamn flashbacks.
 
Joel's fate made sense, it's the 20 hour revenge plot that I felt to be a bit weak all in all. Ellie's motivation was understandable at first, then she started a sequence of needlessly violent murders on folks who barely have had anything to do with Joel's death, and I've found that to be kinda weak. The whole series of events happened because, for Joel, saving Ellie (and by extension himself) was the only thing that mattered. Slaughtering anybody who shares a camp with Joel's killer is such an overkill, and the game lets Ellie off the hook relatively easy in the end - she lost a lot, but not that much compared to the folks who actually died a brutal death. It's not the story I wanted from a TLOU game, and it's not the development I wanted to see in the sequel of one of the greatest cinematic third person action games. Joel's death was not the issue, it's the whole game after.
 
Trailers are suppose to be designed to not spoil the story, of course they would not let fans know he was going to die in the trailer.

They were not manipulative at all, you like tons of other fans just assumed Joel would be a main character in the series forever and ND never said that.
Dude, they created a fake scene to trick fans. That was manipulative as fuck.
 

Principal

Member
People do know that just because a character arc is finished that they can have another one right? A character isn't defined by their single arcs, you can have multiple ones, don't believe me? Look at Loki (MCU) and for those saying that death was his only option needs to understand one thing, authors (I am one) know that there are millions of ways to continue this. Here's one of my ideas if you like to hear. (Elevator pitch)

Start the game with you on patrol, establish Jacksonville for real and have you play a couple of hours there to present the people, the environment and the tediousness of being stationed around one area (This is to drive the idea that the first one had a more compelling plot) then at the sweet spot of becoming stale, have the Fireflies or the Hunters Joel use to run with attack Jacksonville.

Large scale battle (First big set piece) ensues, band of thugs find out Joel lives there during the battle, here you can have Joels death happen by accident (Fits the gritty world) or survive (My take), they destroy the crew attacking Jacksonville, Joel get's injured and can/can't move on depending if they want to use the same plot as the first (Duo on a journey) now we can se that Joels actions have grand repocucions as it doesn't just affect him, Ellie and Tommy but the entire Jacksonville, questioning if it's even good to have Joel there as he present a danger. This can lead to a dialog about everyone having a shitty past and condemning one person for it is not okay (That's so we can all agree). A small group goes out to find the remnants of the attackers and realise that they have a massive set up (Like WLF)

Here we as the players can start to realise (Especially if they go with Fireflies) that maybe Joel shouldn't have stopped the procedure because there are tons of people in need of that vaccine or whatever (Here we can start to question his motivations) have Ellie gradually become jaded by the fact that Joel removed her purpose and then around the end of the game have Ellie lose it because she figures that this will continue forever because there is a lack of vaccine.

They figure that the group is too big and have to come up with how they can defend themselves or if they have to move, but seeing that this will never end, Ellie chooses to sacrifice herself (Go to the major camp) and present herself as immune (Much to Joels chagrin) and this is how we establish that Joel's choice was selfish and wrong, not in a "I TOLD YOU SO" but in a more subtle way, show the desperation of the people needing to stop this fight, not hammer it into our heads and then say "Killing is wrong" lol. (BTW this is just one idea and it took me 5 min to write, had I had a team behind me and 7 years then yeah... Way better than random encounter, random save, random golf club, proceed with 25 hours of unwarranted murder. And no stupid bring a highly pregnant doctor out on a dangerous scouting mission.)
 

Jokerevo

Banned
Simple question, simple poll. Do you think Naughty Dog did the right thing killing Joel?

Allow me to clarify. I personally felt having waited so long for this game that as soon as Joel was killed, the game lost all intrinsic value for me as a gamer. The original The Last of Us game captured my emotions and attentions not because of any diversity or political statement, but because I fell in love with the relationship between Joel and Ellie. Watching the relationship blossom and seeing how much Ellie filled a long gaping hole in Joel's life was beautiful. Ellie went from being a burden at the beginning of their journey to absolutely irreplaceable to Joel by the end of the game. This had nothing to do with her immunity, but in a way I would argue that Joel's love for Ellie was because her grew to see her as a surrogate daughter and whilst he was always aware of his mission to get Ellie to the fireflys, he never wanted Ellie to be happy or safe because he wanted to protect the possible cure for humanity, by the end of the first game he saw the importance of her life as an individual and he cared deeply for her that he wanted her to live a full and long life and he was prepared to do anything and I mean anything to protect her.

I sympathised with Joel and his plight because I understand loss and what it can do, leaving a hole in your life that can never be filled again the same way. I believe that as much as he was an anti-hero, I loved the fact that there was no boundary on anything that he was prepared to do to ensure her safety. Watching Joel become this guardian demon and the way he would torture, kill or fight tooth and nail to protect her was inspiring and maybe for the wrong reasons. Clearly the developers wanted us to grow to hate Joel for who he and is what he had done throughout the events of the game and what we know of his life. But I found myself stuck in his shoes thinking that if I was in his position I would have done the exact same thing.

I didn't sympathise with Abby. Or Lev. Or Dina. Or Jesse. Or many of the characters in the second game. I even begun to lose my love for Ellie the more the game went on. In fact I found myself feeling worse for Tommy. We virtually used pregnancy as a way to 'one-up' the level of depravity and those 'Oh shit!!!' moments that we experienced in the first game. Honestly I think if we knew Joel was going to die from the outset this game would have reviewed a lot differently. Never mind the media and their never ending championing of the game for diversity and exclusivity, I didn't play these games for political reasons. The second Joel was murdered I lost all motivation and excite that I had to play this game. It became a slog over time and by the end I was just glad it was finished because the pacing was fucked up and it didn't make any sense continuing after Abby nearly killed Ellie. Nor did I like the mixed message of revenge good for Abby, revenge bad for Ellie.

Killing Joel made me lose all interest in the future of the franchise. But I know that not everyone agrees with me. My argument at the end of the day is that The Last of Us was such a unique and creative story telling experience that the fact that they chose to do something as cliche and bourgeois as making Abby a daughter of one of the original doctors that Joel killed and the story panning out the way it did, tell's me that they sold out. This story could have gone anywhere. It could have told the story of Joel and Ellie trying to survive when the remnants of the fireflys want to take Ellie by force and kill Joel for what he did and they're constantly on the run etc. Had Joel died in those circumstances it might have made sense to me. But I honestly think the story of the game was just as poorly thought out as the moment a character in a beloved franchise is revealed to be a clone, or a long lost brother etc. Any of those cliche and quite honestly boring fucking plot twists that makes you sigh and say 'Oh no, not this shit again...'
So let me get this straight...Joel murders a hospital full of people to prevent them from saving humanity and you celebrated this in the win column?

And then you expected no repercussions in the sequel lol?
 

Woggleman

Member
The great thing about both games is that except for maybe David and The Rattlers there are no clear cut villians. Even if you might not agree with their choices you can understand why almost every character in the game made them. They are all products of their world. I understand fully why Joel did what he did but I also understand why Abby did what she did.
 

BbMajor7th

Member
What? That might be true for Ellie (which is by design), but not for Abby. Abby spends the entire game trying to rescue both Lev and Yara. I dont see how thats a hard on for revenge. I dont see how that shedding blood for selfish reasons. It's literally the opposite.

Ellie, yes. Shes consumed by revenge but thats just her arc. It takes her until the very end to let go of that anger, and I agree by then it's too late. Shes lost her family, her humanity, and her friends. And thats the point. There is no glorification here a la Kill Bill where the bride gets to kill everyone and then ride off in the sunset. there are serious consequences to her actions which is all you can expect from a story.

I also think her lust for revenge is true to her characterization. She's a shell of a person towards the end of the first game especially after the David encounter. Pretty much hoping to die before she even gets to the hospital. then gets a final betrayal when Joel takes it away from her and then lies to her about it. Her reaction to seeing Joel get beaten to death and her subsequent poor decision making is consistent with someone suffering from PTSD from the events of TLOU1 and the ensuing guilt from learning that the only reason person she's loved lied to her and took away the one thing that couldve made her life mean something. Thats a lot of fucking subtext to me.
I mean, Abby plots her revenge on Joel for like five years, and involves a whole group of her closest friends in the execution - close friends like Owen who repeatedly try counsel her against it. She might be out to protect Lev later, but that doesn't alter any of what I've said - hers is a hollow quest for revenge, plotted over years and executed even against the counsel of close friends. She drags them into it and they pay the ultimate price. Same goes for Ellie in most respects.
 

Justin9mm

Member
I've said this before.. Whether you loved or hated the game, agreed or disagreed with the story etc. The hate it received was fucking ridiculous!

The amount of misguided belief and exaggeration was unbelievable.

It won GOTY because as a game it's production quality is top tier and as a game it was still actually very enjoyable imo.

Yes I feel Joel's death was executed poorly imo but games are a form of art and all art is subjective. Everyone's entitled to their opinion but that does not give them the right to dictate what that artist should do.

How can we have freedom of expression if we had to appease every man and his dog!
 
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There’s no right or wrong. Is their game.

but would be fun if we see news like; was God right to kill that little girl?

now, if Abby was right or wrong 😑...
 

bitbydeath

Member
I think a lot of people were just upset at the brutality of it all, much like those who tuned out of the Walking Dead right after Glenn had died.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I'm not sure how it's false expectations from fans. The trailers literally were manipulated to make it look like Joel was alive and a huge part of the game. If you're going to sucker punch the audience you can't expect everyone to like your decision.
Totally.

The preview videos showed Joel in certain scenes. Then the final game had a different character in the same spot. So ND purposely switched the characters.

It wasn't a flashback scene where they could say it was legit Joel would be in it. Character swapping is totally misleading.

It would be like a new Terminator movie comes out and as usual Arnold Schwarzenegger is promoted in previews being T-800 . He's back! Turns out the real movie, he dies at the beginning and those same Terminator fight scenes in the previews is now someone else playing a T-1000.
 
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EDMIX

Member
Simple question, simple poll. Do you think Naughty Dog did the right thing killing Joel?

Allow me to clarify. I personally felt having waited so long for this game that as soon as Joel was killed, the game lost all intrinsic value for me as a gamer. The original The Last of Us game captured my emotions and attentions not because of any diversity or political statement, but because I fell in love with the relationship between Joel and Ellie. Watching the relationship blossom and seeing how much Ellie filled a long gaping hole in Joel's life was beautiful. Ellie went from being a burden at the beginning of their journey to absolutely irreplaceable to Joel by the end of the game. This had nothing to do with her immunity, but in a way I would argue that Joel's love for Ellie was because her grew to see her as a surrogate daughter and whilst he was always aware of his mission to get Ellie to the fireflys, he never wanted Ellie to be happy or safe because he wanted to protect the possible cure for humanity, by the end of the first game he saw the importance of her life as an individual and he cared deeply for her that he wanted her to live a full and long life and he was prepared to do anything and I mean anything to protect her.

I sympathised with Joel and his plight because I understand loss and what it can do, leaving a hole in your life that can never be filled again the same way. I believe that as much as he was an anti-hero, I loved the fact that there was no boundary on anything that he was prepared to do to ensure her safety. Watching Joel become this guardian demon and the way he would torture, kill or fight tooth and nail to protect her was inspiring and maybe for the wrong reasons. Clearly the developers wanted us to grow to hate Joel for who he and is what he had done throughout the events of the game and what we know of his life. But I found myself stuck in his shoes thinking that if I was in his position I would have done the exact same thing.

I didn't sympathise with Abby. Or Lev. Or Dina. Or Jesse. Or many of the characters in the second game. I even begun to lose my love for Ellie the more the game went on. In fact I found myself feeling worse for Tommy. We virtually used pregnancy as a way to 'one-up' the level of depravity and those 'Oh shit!!!' moments that we experienced in the first game. Honestly I think if we knew Joel was going to die from the outset this game would have reviewed a lot differently. Never mind the media and their never ending championing of the game for diversity and exclusivity, I didn't play these games for political reasons. The second Joel was murdered I lost all motivation and excite that I had to play this game. It became a slog over time and by the end I was just glad it was finished because the pacing was fucked up and it didn't make any sense continuing after Abby nearly killed Ellie. Nor did I like the mixed message of revenge good for Abby, revenge bad for Ellie.

Killing Joel made me lose all interest in the future of the franchise. But I know that not everyone agrees with me. My argument at the end of the day is that The Last of Us was such a unique and creative story telling experience that the fact that they chose to do something as cliche and bourgeois as making Abby a daughter of one of the original doctors that Joel killed and the story panning out the way it did, tell's me that they sold out. This story could have gone anywhere. It could have told the story of Joel and Ellie trying to survive when the remnants of the fireflys want to take Ellie by force and kill Joel for what he did and they're constantly on the run etc. Had Joel died in those circumstances it might have made sense to me. But I honestly think the story of the game was just as poorly thought out as the moment a character in a beloved franchise is revealed to be a clone, or a long lost brother etc. Any of those cliche and quite honestly boring fucking plot twists that makes you sigh and say 'Oh no, not this shit again...'

Yup.


The first game sets it up for a reason. He's own words and actions set up what was likely already written for him years prior. Neil wrote this game so long ago, its extremely likely that he already had for years the whole series planned out.

The doctor, killing Marlene, him being a former Firefly etc.


As for the bolded. I play games to hear the story as a whole, not based on 1 character or something. I'd say stick to some Saturday morning cartoon stuff for that type of fiction my friend, the universe in The Last Of Us has never entered this idea that anyone was invincible to death or something. You are looking for something that was never going to exist in this series...... it wasn't made for that.


I feel in love with the relationship between Tess and Joel should I never play the rest of the game? I like the characters of the brothers found in the first game, should I stop playing it when they die? So....maybe gamers need to actually understand that the ENTRE story matteres and not simply some fan fiction of what we imagine or want the game to be based on some love of a pixle. It starts to sound really shallow, like girls who watch Twilight telling you how much they like this couple over the other or something...... I'm sure many really watch things like this, but I don't think most put much stock in that type of Teen Bop stuff in terms of liking certain media. I'd like to believe gamers actually care about the entire package vs 1 character.


You don't need to sympathize with Abby. This is a fucking video game, not a popularity contest. I didn't give a fuck that Joel died.....he got what he got and I would have fucking killed him WORSE. Didn't stop me from enjoying the game cause I hated a character, the game was not made for you to "love" all the characters.

Thats how REAL LIFE IS, we fucking talk about people we dislike all the time on this thread, but in a game referenced from life you expected to like 100% of people or something? you needed to "love" all of them? huh?

Soooooo Ellie is a set of pixels. In this game she grew up, what you like about this person in the first game is also based on your ASSUMPTION of what you think she'll be like as an adult, people grow up, thats life, they make bad choices and do bad things. If you "love" this character, except the bad shit they do no different then you would a person that actually exist.

You love the fucking fanfiction IDEA about this person that NEVER grows up and behaves as an adult.


The future of the franchise was never going to be about Joel. So....you seem to be under this assumption that the series was made for that 1 character or something. Thats like me not playing the rest of the games cause its not about Tess......

So....that 1 character is the only reason you like the series?

Sounds a lot like this shit if you ask me bud.

7j7urdwcf3211.jpg




I think this is fucking weird for so many reasons.

Many shows and films have people die all the time, when someone is getting so hot for some fan fiction they are telling us 1 character dying makes them lose interest in the series, you must question what the fuck they are even watching for based on 1 character. This sounds like Twilight, Teen Bop fan fiction crap bud.

So I put my interest in a show, film, book and game in the actual universe of the world.

Not 1 character.


So I can't see myself no longer watching this show cause this dude died and I like Hank, I think he was a cool character and really got the drop on Walter......

maxresdefault.jpg




What I don't do is go around doing this fucking Stan shit like #TeamHank, #FuckBreakingBad and or #OMGZitsOVER etc You've basically put 1 character above the whole fucking series. So you spent 7 years hoping for FanFiction. I spent 7 years watching and reading shit like this where PEOPLE FUCKING DIE, that is LIFE, that is what happens all the time, hell for years I thought Marlene's family was going to kill him or something or the Doctors family and I was right on one of those assumptions. The game foreshadows him dying, the fact that you had NO CHOICE with the doctor in killing him was clear as day it was a massive part of the game if you had no choice, same with the Marlene ending. So I simply assumed he would die by one of them one day. Why? Shit look at the fucking game, look at how many people die, why would Joel be any different? So I simply can't play or watch shit based on 1 character as if nothing else is important. This wasn't even a game NAMED after this dude.
 

anothertech

Member
Joel needed to die. But they needed to earn it.

We were basically robbed by bullshit writing and fuckall delivery. Such a fucking waste of built up emotion.

They could have given us the exact same story but told correctly and earned every moment. Wouldn't hurt to remove ten pounds of politics as well.
 

Orpheum

Member
Killing Joel is fine. But not in the way presented to us. It made me instantly not give a shit about Abby and Lev which in turn made half of the game a chore to play.

On top of that i hated the fact that they cut one of the trailers in a way which made me believe that he would be around a lot longer. I always imagined the story to be Ellie finding out what Joel did -> she fucks off -> gets captured (Cue Abby) -> Abby finds out who she is -> Joel tries to save her. The plot was never complex to begin with, it was the writing, acting and directing which made the first game so good so i'm sure naughty dog could have made another plotline work just fine
 
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The gameplay rules. Ellie turned into an insufferable character. The writers pigeonholed a bunch of culturally emergent topics to seem profound and copied violent realism from the Tarantino era into something hip and poignant. The writing is derivative. The cover art is laughable.
 

Trimesh

Banned
this is the only way to do a sequel to TLOU without coming across as a cliched story.

What, as opposed to the stinking pile of cliched shit we got? I lost all interest in the "story" very early on, because it seemed like a typical TV series "plot".
 
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In the grand scheme of things his death is not the central conceit most people have with the game.

This is a very common misconception, it catalyzes the journey for both Ellie and Abby but it's clear the rest of the game's narrative arcs for characters have a very weak support for the central thematic through line of 'revenge eats at you'.

Most of the problems are the game's inconsistent and shitty writing, false equivalencies as well as the numerous outlets/reviewers who paint Joel's actions as unequivocally bad which makes approaching the conversation really fucking boring
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
While the presented narrative has issues, the death of Joel is not one of them IMO.

Prioritizing Abby as a playable character for 40% of the game is my biggest gripe.
And this is the whole point.
Her character has better campaign and as much as I was angry when I had to start playing as her, by the end, I was in pieces and switched sides and now Ellie was the bad guy in my eyes. And that alone is incredible that they were able to do that. No game did this.
I am thinking that those who criticize it are either terrible human beings or have not finished the game :p
 
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GametimeUK

Member
I can't ever find the interview, but I remember ND saying they explored options of setting TLOU2 with a new cast away from Joel and Ellie. They decided against it because Joel, Ellie and their relationship was what made TLOU and is the games identity... which I find weird looking back since they just killed Joel.

I may be remembering the interview wrong, but if anyone can find it, please let me know so I can re assess.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
I can't ever find the interview, but I remember ND saying they explored options of setting TLOU2 with a new cast away from Joel and Ellie. They decided against it because Joel, Ellie and their relationship was what made TLOU and is the games identity... which I find weird looking back since they just killed Joel.

I may be remembering the interview wrong, but if anyone can find it, please let me know so I can re assess.

Was it this?


For those who thought the last story said all it had to say Druckmann has this: "The Last of Us is about these characters specifically. Part 2 is a complementary story to the last game and together it's going to tell a larger story. All I ask is that fans of the first one put some faith in us, trust we're going to do right by them." Just in case you weren't sure about Ellie and Joel being in the sequel, Druckmann added that "They are the heart of it. I don's see it without them."
 

EDMIX

Member
Was it this?


For those who thought the last story said all it had to say Druckmann has this: "The Last of Us is about these characters specifically. Part 2 is a complementary story to the last game and together it's going to tell a larger story. All I ask is that fans of the first one put some faith in us, trust we're going to do right by them." Just in case you weren't sure about Ellie and Joel being in the sequel, Druckmann added that "They are the heart of it. I don's see it without them."

I mean...he is also not trying to spoil that Joel dies....... So he doesn't see it without them, thus you still actually SEE JOEL in the game thru those flashbacks. So the heart of the second game very much is about Joel as to why he is even in the beginning, middle, ending etc. Simply not the way you thought as they have no ode to spoil their story before release. The characters are all brought to where they are because of Joel's actions in the first place.

So they are very much at the heart of the story still...
 
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GametimeUK

Member
Was it this?


For those who thought the last story said all it had to say Druckmann has this: "The Last of Us is about these characters specifically. Part 2 is a complementary story to the last game and together it's going to tell a larger story. All I ask is that fans of the first one put some faith in us, trust we're going to do right by them." Just in case you weren't sure about Ellie and Joel being in the sequel, Druckmann added that "They are the heart of it. I don's see it without them."
It might be that. Sounds how I remember it. Good find, my man.
 

tassletine

Member
Depends what you mean as right. If it had come at the end of the game then I think it probably would have worked a lot better and felt like the culmination of something special.
I think what that game needed was a "saying goodbye to an old friend" feel not what we got, which is cheap and provocative for it's own sake.

As a business decision, jumping on any political trend is going to cause you problems as those trends shift. Personally, I didn't think the game was very political but some people did and that will come back to bite ND.
In that context it's definitely a bad decision.

When I look back on the two games, they don't gel well together. The first one has loads of flaws but has such great characters you forgive those flaws.
The second is far more consistent and better presented, but it has less to say, and is so hyperbolic about it's presentation that you don't forgive much.

The series should be laid to rest as the story as it is, isn't compelling, for me at least -- But I guess if you make a story about severing emotional bonds, rather than nurturing them like the original, what can you expect?
 

Jon Neu

Banned
At this point we all know the story was shit, the execution was atrociously bad and the characters were uncharismatic as fuck.

But at this point what really frustrates me as a player is the fact that you start the game playing with Joel for a few scripted seconds riding a horse, but then you never play as him.

It would have been much, much better if you started the game playing as Joel and at some point you fight Abby and his "friends" and you lose and die (maybe towards half the game, not at the start).

You just can't trade a character as charismatic as Joel for that bunch of roids & estrogens and expect it to be the same.
 

GC_DALBEN

Member
I have no problem killing of Joel.
What I do have issue with is the need to brutally torture him after he risked his own life to save yours (Abby).
That was a horrible decision and even worse making us accept her actions and forgiving her.
Thats how i feel, Joel death could be handled so much better, i really liked TLUS but TLUS2 is a let down, i really liked joel and ellie on the first one, the gameplay was clunky and the game had some weird mechanics, but i really liked both characters and cared for them, in tlus2 the gameplay still clunky but i couldn care less for the characters, and they killed the best one at the beginning, and them introduced a lame character (abby), i have nothing against her, but shes meh.

TLUS - 8,5 (great)
TLUS2 - 6,0 (ok)

Sorry about my english :)
 

sol_bad

Member
"They killed Joel because he's a white male"

I can't believe how many people actually believe this bs. So many people are brainwashed by politics.

Ummmmmm
No idea what was wrong with my last reply to you but it got deleted.
OH WELL.
 

Yoboman

Member
I loved the whole game. It’s my second favourite game last gen after God of War. But it could have been first

Everything with Ellie was great, killing Joel was well executed and really gave the game the motivating force needed for it to feel like a necessary sequel. I could care less that he didn’t get a hero’s death. That would have felt arbitrary

But the switch to Abby was less good. I still enjoyed it and it probably had the stronger gameplay scenarios. Some of the supports like Manny were genuinely funny. But her arc isn’t strong enough to support 50% of the game. Her story is necessary because it reflects and makes the Ellie story stronger but I think it could have been done better with something like an 80:20 split

The main issue for Abby is she ended up in a morally grey quagmire. Even if you enjoyed her section and understood and empathised with her story like I did, you never root for her and never feel she is on an equal footing as main character.

Perhaps the biggest mistake IMO was simply trying to make it a continuation of Ellie and Joel’s storyline

I think you could have the nearly the exact same storyline but all the characters are new and it would feel beat for beat perfect because you are not competing with the preconceived ideas and emotions from the first game

Naughty Dog should have recognised the narrative wasn’t quite sticking and worked it a bit further. I’m sure they would have seen in play testing everybody go into the Ellie boss fight and try to kill themselves and realise that something isn’t quite right with that

But as I said it’s still my second favourite game of the gen. I think with tweaks it could have been the run away favourite and I appreciate the boldness in narrative experimentation. I think something safe would have been much less interesting so they just need to nail the balance which is the hardest thing to do
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Unexpected, just like reality. We're used to mediocre storytelling with expected scenarios, after that incident no one was safe to me.

It was a unique experience, only the pacing fucked it up to me going back and forth in time and another character.
 
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TLoU2 achieved what it wanted from it's story, and the fact we're still talking about it is a testimonial to that.
The main question of the poll is about the death of one specific secondary character. The story is about hate and vengeance as an interesting concept, it's not about any of those specific deaths (and there are many of them).
 
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Who even decides what is right anyway? Me personally I would say no, because I think joel is a great character that many people loved and they could have made many games with him and milked it.

For naughty dog it was the right choice because last of us is their ip. They created it and it is their world. They can do whatever they want with it. Nobody can tell them they made the wrong choice. I can have my own opinion but I cant tell naughty dog they made the wrong choice with a game they created. Last of us only exists because of them.
 
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Gtafans93

Member
Felt like joel should of died at the end not the start of the game. because i would of liked abby if we had a game to understand her not kills joel then bam we understand her hours later. Humans have a seething rage of things they love and if you take that away and tell us we should love what we hate while in that rage nothings truly gonna happen.
Also would of been nice to not make me hate ellie as well, And kill off the interesting characters, a few sure but some didnt need to die and the effect could of been done by having them leave, perhaps being captured and Luke skywalkered by having an arm or appendage cut off. Still keeping into the dark decrepit world but giving the character something more.
 

Markio128

Member
I loved the game, but I sort of wish the story had been a little less dark. I would have liked the revenge to be based on the death of Ellie’s love interest, or friend, rather than the death of Joel. The story could have then been about Joel and Ellie rebuilding their relationship and maybe Joel accepting that he should have allowed Ellie to be used as a potential cure. Letting her go at the end of part 2 could have been a more poignant end to the series.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
The story could have then been about Joel and Ellie rebuilding their relationship and maybe Joel accepting that he should have allowed Ellie to be used as a potential cure.
It wasn't 100% clear that's what she would've wanted at that time and let's not forget that the Fireflies took all choice away and were probably going to get him killed as well.
 

rkofan87

Gold Member
Trailers are suppose to be designed to not spoil the story, of course they would not let fans know he was going to die in the trailer.

They were not manipulative at all, you like tons of other fans just assumed Joel would be a main character in the series forever and ND never said that.
the deep fake of joels head on jessies body is bs.
 

Markio128

Member
It wasn't 100% clear that's what she would've wanted at that time and let's not forget that the Fireflies took all choice away and were probably going to get him killed as well.
I’m not really complaining because it was their story to tell - I’m just thinking of an alternative slant on the story. I actually believe that ND could release an alternative part 2 and it would probably sell like crazy, rather than do a straight remake for PS5.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I loved the game, but I sort of wish the story had been a little less dark. I would have liked the revenge to be based on the death of Ellie’s love interest, or friend, rather than the death of Joel. The story could have then been about Joel and Ellie rebuilding their relationship and maybe Joel accepting that he should have allowed Ellie to be used as a potential cure. Letting her go at the end of part 2 could have been a more poignant end to the series.
If they wanted us care about the revenge, then killing Joel was the right choice. because just Ellie we care about Joel. My problem with TLOU part 2 they try to make sympathetic for both side but in the end up starting hate both they didn't care what happens to them even Ellie who really like the first game.
 
I mean I think everybody assumed that Joel wouldn’t be the main character for the second game - or he would be killed. It’s the narrative they came up with following that that was disappointing for me personally. I do believe Joel had to die - I did not like Ellie’s portion of the campaign. Abby’s was better but she was kinda Joel lite - I woulda preferred honestly that they just focused on a separate story not so related to the first.

EDIT: and I mostly echo what Bo_Hazem said there - it really was the pacing that kinda fucked up the experience for me.
 
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