The game is beautiful and I enjoyed most of the game play. Top notch art direction and environments.
I cannot imagine being someone who worked on the worlds and atmosphere, to then have it wasted on the story and narrative.
It feels like these stories were written by people who do not have children, and never had decent parents.
It just lacks the character that the first game had. Joel saved Ellie in the first game. She was a child, being exploited and killed for a
possible cure, by some guerrilla military group, in a crack hotel looking hospital. We are supposed to believe Ellie wanted to give her life, as a child, for some
maybe cure... it's always a
maybe cure.... And now she is just morally upset that Joel saved her life. Nope. Not real. Not believable. Not consistent with people who have children or parents, which Joel and Ellie became.
Now we are supposed to care about the murder Doctor's daughter. Fuck him for deciding to kill Ellie for some cure. Sounds legit. Abby should have been upset with her father for going down that road.
There was nothing redeeming about the character Abby. I did not buy teenage Abby, with larger arms than her father. My daughter was like like: "Why did they make her look like that?" I did not buy her desire for revenge. I did not care about her at all. Maybe it was part of their plan, but my daughter hated everything about the Abby character.
I kept saying to myself, and those watching while I played: "well I guess they are forcing us to do this. Oh, now they are forcing us to do that also. " At the same time, the people watching were saying: "where is Ellie?"
I did not care about any of the Wolf people. Their stories, and names, were forgettable. Yeah, the pregnant lady went on patrol and rope climbed etc. Totes reasonable story line. Who's baby, who is this dude, why am I in a soap opera, is he now banging Abby? Is Abby a dude? why am I doing any of this?
When Abby and Ellie crossed paths to fight, I stopped input to let Ellie kill "me" as Abby. I was like, oh well, I guess they want me to fight Ellie now. How quaint. It could of been interesting if what you ranked Abby as, you then switched to Ellie to fight your ranking attributes. Swapping back and forth could of been a cool dynamic, if I cared about Abby. Instead, I wanted to go face plant into a trap mine with Abby.
Hey Asian girl (whatever he name was), lets go "shopping" for Asian boygirl Zev. Aww, cute, we will get her a plushy.... what the fuck. Lets roll with your freshly cut off arm. No prob. Wait, why are we going here, why are they attacking, why are they burning, why am i here. Where the fuck is Ellie. Why am I forced to play as a character that I do not care about, and that does not matter.
The whole Abby thing could of been a "Left Behind" bit, or a "Lost Legacy" thing. 80% of Abby stuff was not needed, and was terribly integrated.
They should of stuck with the Ellie and Joel parts... plus Tommy. They should not have changed their personalities for Part 2.
They had all they needed. They had incredible relationships from the Part 1. They wasted much of technology and art assets on an extremely hamfisted story, and does not really fit with the history that already existed.
It was a good game, but I was sad to see such a gem wasted.
At the end, I genuinely felt sad for the story canon and fans.
Druckman et al. failed to reign this one in. Maybe he needed Straley or whoever was part of the team from Part 1.
They sold out Joel.
They sold out much of Ellie.
No one cares about the LGBQT or feminist stuff, even if it was cringy at times. That is not why the story was so weak. It was incoherent, with our without those parts.
Art design = 10
Technology = 10
Gameplay = 9.5 (I wanted more advanced zombie movement and abilities)
Story = 5
Depressed to have to say all these things.
Doing a second play through now.