Revisiting the Controversy of The Last of Us Part 2
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- Опубліковано 13 тра 2024
- In this video, we are taking a look at Naughty Dog's controversial The Last of Us Part II. With Naughty Dog dropping The Last of Us Part 2 Remaster this month, I decided to go back and play through one of the most controversial Video Games of all time. The Last of Us was a masterpiece that introduced us to the story of Joel and Ellie, and The Last of Us Part 2 took their story in a wild new direction with the addition of Abby. Was it as bad, or as good as we remember? We take a deep dive retrospective look into the story, characters, controversy, gameplay, and world of this controversial Playstation exclusive.
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The Last of Us (2013)
The Last of Us Remaster (2014)
The Last of Us Part 1 (2022)
The Last of Us Part 2 (2020)
The Last of Us Part 2 Remaster (2023)
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:54 Part 1: Story Ellie
28:33 Part 2: Story Abby
43:03 Part 3: Ending
52:31 Part 4: Gameplay and World
57:14 Conclusion - Ігри
I’m only about 15 mins in to the video but I do have to respectfully disagree about Tommy’s decision to leave Ellie behind not making sense. It makes perfect sense. He knows what Joel sacrificed so Ellie could live, and he knows his brother would kick his ass if he knew he was knowingly bringing Ellie into such a dangerous situation. Not to mention, Tommy has grown to love Ellie, too. It’s his niece. Did he know Ellie would probably find a way to follow him? Yes. But that doesn’t make it nonsensical that he would refuse to be the one to invite her to join him in something so dangerous. He knows if Ellie dies, Joel died for nothing. Not to mention, he knows Joel wouldn’t want either of them going after Abby. Tommy might want to go against that, but it’s realistic he would at least want to do what he could to limit Ellie’s role in it.
I dont think Tommy wouldve gone in the first place, he left joel in the first game because he believed Joel had gone off the tracks and that theyd lost all morality. So he joined a community. Once joel became a father again and worked for the community Tommy and he reunited.
Why would Tommy abandon his family and community to kill some randos when hes already come to the conclusion that thats not the life he wants to live.
That’s why at the end of the game when Tommy was so upset that Ellie wouldn’t go after Abby, I was so confused. I honestly thought it was like a dream sequence or something. I immediately said Tommy wouldn’t want her to go! He would 100% want her to stay and focus on her family just like Joel would have wanted for her. Him going from begging Maria to lock her up so she didn’t get killed to being mad that she didn’t want to go on a suicide mission to find Abby is absolutely ridiculous. I cannot understand how the writers misunderstood their own characters so much!
@@uploadinstuffwhat you detailed in why he originally left Joel and how he found a community and reunited with Joel is exactly why he would go. To him this group of people showed up just outside of his community and murdered his brother. So not only is it revenge for killing his brother, which in itself is not immoral, but the safety and security for his community could be at risk.
@@Kmiller5515 Except they werent and he knew it. It was a couple people who lived in Seattle 800 miles away.
Its not about the morality, its that he wouldnt leave Maria and Ellie and everyone and risk death or capture (in which case he wouldnt be able to support his community or loved ones) in order to kill someone that killed someone close to him.
Also at the end he knew it was personally motivated by abby and he wanted to go after abby to kill her. When he couldnt go he pressured ellie into going, knowing it would ruin her life.
Both characters behaved that way so that Abby wouldnt seem so bad by comparison even though she did a thing the creators knew would be hard to swallow from the fans.
I kinda concur. Your logic is sound but living in this world is dangerous. I think Tommy's lust for revenge fuckin got the better of him. And he wasn't thinking clearly at the time. I don't think he was tryna keep her safe, cause if that was the case he wouldn't have allowed Ellie to go on patrols and shit (had be been that over protective). I think he was pissed at Ellie for not leaving sooner.
Ellie doesn’t ask why she’s never found anyone else who’s immune because she’s dumb or because the writing is bad, she asks it because the first thing Joel tells her when she wakes up is that there’s dozens of immune people. It’s his literal explanation from the first game as to why they left the firefly base.
Fax
Exactly, she’s calling him out on the inconsistency and improbability of his argument, giving him the chance to come clean and admit it makes no sense.
Which is funny because the other immune people who reached the Fireflies are dead, something she didn't know but Joel might've, since it's in lore pick-ups
Exactly, first thought that popped in my head. 20:00
Correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t those lore drops about other immune people removed in the later versions of the first game?
hmm, i don’t know. i think dina leaving ellie makes perfect sense. she gave ellie an ultimatum, “if you leave again, i’m gone”. and ellie leaving again shows that she valued revenge over her family.
Oh for sure, Dina leaving makes sense. Ellie breaking the cycle and losing everything as a result was where most take issue.
@@GameOverloadMO If you think about it, Ellie chose to pursue Abby again over her life with Dina and that's what made her leave the farm. All that chasing after Abby in Seattle brought to them was pain, so Ellie setting off again and Dina leaving her makes perfect sense, she has a son to look after and she wants nothing to do with Ellie's quest for vengeance anymore. Ellie loses everything because she kept choosing violence over peace. Dina has no way of knowing that once Ellie found Abby she would let her go, no way of knowing if after killing Abby someone was going to find their farm and get revenge on Ellie. Ellie gets punished despite letting go because she only let go at the very last second.
@@GameOverloadMO I would argue that the ending challenges you, as does much of the game. The ending does not have to be "satisfying", necessarily, it needs to be complete, and it needs to make sense. After all, it's not the ending so much that matters as it is the journey the characters went on. Ellie's primary character flaw was resolved - she realized that revenge was not going to heal her - and that is what the story was centered around. The fact that she "lost everything" is the point. She sacrificed everything that tethered her to humanity in pursuit of the satisfaction that revenge ultimately could never give her. The storytellers make this point exceptionally clear.
You admit that Dina's choice to leave makes sense - then what else is there? You seem to say that Ellie is "punished" for "breaking the cycle", but I think that's missing the point. She ends up alone *because* of her choices, and she leaves the guitar to symbolize her growth, or the completion of this part of her journey. What's next is up to us to decide as viewers. She could go back to Jackson and find Dina, or she could embark on a journey to find a doctor and develop a cure, or any number of things. We don't know, but that is the point.
Great storytellers do *not* make choices which cater to the feelings and desires of their audience. Rather, they make compelling choices that set their characters on exciting journeys. You admit many times to have been captivated by emotional scenes in the game, but then go on to criticize the game for "lazy" writing. I think that many of your points about plot convenience are unfair and misguided - you could say the same about any number of moments in the first game (or any storytelling really), but because you don't have a bias against that game, you forgive those conveniences or "contrivances" as you put them.
@@danielgonzalezjimenez5677that’s why it would have made more sense for Ellie to kill Abby. Ellie is left alone and unable to play the guitar as a consequence of archiving her revenge.
@@GameOverloadMO It's not Ellie breaking the cycle that causes her to lose everything. It's that she broke the cycle too late. That's why she lost everything.
When you realise if Ellie just stayed with Dina and JJ, Abby would have died on that beach
Better option than that train wreck of an ending we did get
@@terrahawk1977 Great ending 10/10 😂
@@josephpmorganDA that's Yr opinion and I'm pleased for you. Me i hated it in the leaks and it was worse in gameplay that's my opinion. And my opinion has nothing to with Joel as I agreed with that
@terrahawk1977 that was my sarcasm bro, I understand your grief.
@@josephpmorganDA grief which is as I said I agreed with Joel’s death so what’s the grief
I never understood why Joel explained himself to Ellie while leaving out so many details at Salt Lake hospital. Like the fireflies took an unconscious Ellie and were ready to kill her to make this vaccine. Kinda silly because 20 years had gone by. What’s another day to wait before scrambling her brains? They also attacked Joel, a man who was performing cpr on a child. I get that they had to make conflict for the first games ending. But Ellie is a child and despite her potentially wanting to sacrifice herself, she is too young to make that choice, and the fireflies screwed up any possibility of making a vaccine due to their haste.
I just think Joel should’ve explained himself further. Yes he lied, and it’s bad. But it’s not like Ellie was consenting and the fireflies handled this responsibly. “Oh my! The child is here! Quickly before she wakes up, prep for surgery! Right away! Let’s not do any tests or ANYTHING! We’ve waited 20 years for this chance, let’s rush into it blindly for no reason!”
Joel didn’t fully explain or go into detail because 1, it wouldn’t flow well narratively and I’m sure Neil would say it would have ruined the pacing (even though the games pacing is already pretty bad), 2, it makes it so the writers have plausible deniability to make Joel out to be the person in the wrong and so Ellie is more justified in her choice to cut off her relationship with him. Then 3, it creates more drama in the story so when it’s finally revealed that the two did make up and were going to try to repair their relationship, it’s more of a surprise.
Realistically though, anyone would go into detail and explain the entire situation to Ellie for sure.
You make some
Good points. I also think about how in that moment, Joel had FINALLY been caught in his lie. And I’m sure we’ve all
Had moments in life when a little fib or lie or anything really got exposed about us or caught about something. And me personally I’ve been so razzled that I couldn’t speak. Like my brains going 1000 miles a second. So maybe Joel was experiencing that. Like having this huge confrontation with Ellie, getting the truth exposed must’ve been hard for him to speak in that moment. Idk I need to rewatch that scene. But yeah.
Great point. Abbys dad killed amungst a massacre of her friends . Possibly the only man able to make a Vax to save the world. It's a game of sides .
@@derekcampbell4209 Ultimately, why the characters make the choices they do in the story all comes down to what story the writers and Neil Druckmann wanted to tell.
The narrative choices made all were made for the express purpose of where they wanted the story to conclude even if the choices that characters make, the plot armour, the lack of detail Joel went into about what happened with the Fireflies and so on and so forth is all done to surprise Ellie and the audience by the end of the game, even though Ellie should logically already know her and Joel made up.
I suppose you could say her anger and rage drove her to push that to the back of her mind and thats completely fair but whats not fair is for her to forget about the scene of her and Joel making up until like (I can't recall the amount of time exactly) 6 months after the fact.
Most of my issues with the game stem from the fact that it was overly ambitious and tried to juggle too much rather than just focus on the core of what The Last of Us is, and even Neil knows what that is because he created it and talked about it in interviews and thats Joel and Ellies connection and relationship. So by making a game that isn't really about that (the stuff with that is the best part of the game) it doesn't feel like TLOU and suffers from bad writing that feels like a first draft.
100%!!!
The Ellie finding out the truth scene is so terribly written and is another example of the game conveniently having the characters make dumb decisions or leave out crucial information. There is absolutely no reason why Joel shouldn't have told Ellie exactly what happened.
"Ellie they attacked us. They kidnapped us. When they woke me up they held me a gun point and told me I couldn't see you and that I just had to leave you behind to die. They had you for HOURS, and decided they were going to kill you. You couldn't ask them questions or do more tests because they wouldn't let you, so I stopped them".
THAT is what happened. But nope, joel conveniently has to describe it in a way that leaves out crucial information and makes HIM look like the bad guy. It's so dumb
Well, Tommy does tell Maria to lock up Ellie so she doesn’t follow Tommy. He went in her stead in order to keep her safe. Makes sense to me. 🤷♂️
It wasn’t how much Joel meant to Ellie as he said, it’s how much Ellie meant to Joel which directed Tommy’s actions
@@Jay-ph7niEXACTLY.
@@Jay-ph7ni So whyd he make ellie go hunt her down at the end when he wasnt able to? Oopsie.
I just need someone to explain to me why he felt the need to convince ellie to kill abby. I personally can’t make sense of it and I’ve given up trying.
@@The1andonlysharpshooterTommy first lost his big brother right in front of him, then went on a revenge quest where he failed to eliminate the prime target and lost Jesse in that same process, barely survived, became crippled where he cant walk properly, he cant see with his right eye so he cant use his sniper skills anymore, then when they got back to Jackson Ellie swore to him that SHE would make Abby pay because Tommy can not. And on top of all that he and Maria broke up. That man has nothing left, he is a shell of himself
Something I noticed on my second play through was the correlation between Ellie and a character that Dina talks about called "Eugene"
Eugene joined the firefly's when he is a younger man and that's where he met Tommy and ended up in Jackson .A note from his ex wife that you can find in his bunker shows her begging him to come home to her and her daughter, telling Eugene to leave the firefly's, to let someone else save the world, let someone else get revenge on FEDRA, to pick family over revenge and war.
But Eugene didn't, he left with the firefly's, left his family behind, and it seems like he never saw them again, and Dina comments on how lonely Eugene was for the remainder for his life before he had a stroke and died.
In the end, Ellie also choice revenge over family, left her partner and child behind, and in the end lost everyone she loved and became very lonely.
I don't know if this was an intended idea put into the game or if I'm reading to much into it, but I thought it was interesting.
I've never thought about that and it makes sense, doesn't ellie say that she wants to go out like Eugene?
@@mrnickcuellar oh my God she does
@@mrnickcuellarshe does! She meant from old age but now it feels like foreshadowing 😭
i still maintain that it would have been better pacing to START with Abby’s story up until she gets to the theater AND THEN swapping to Ellie’s story from the beginning. it would’ve made people a lot more sympathetic towards abby, and the shock of seeing the girl you just spent the first half of the story playing as murdering Joel would have been mind blowing
Starting day 1 beginning with Abby without the intro of even knowing Joel is dead…if we pick up from Abby day 1, then watch her into day 3. Then we cut to Ellie day 1..Jackson prologue comes at the end of day 3 after she kills Owen..that would be a tough sell but would also maybe play better. We would never know what and how Joel dies, maybe we know he does and eventually we know Abby does by the end of her day 3, but we cut right into Ellie and now we never had to sympathize with Abby, we are fresh on confusion and maybe rage with Ellie. We still don’t see Joel’s death full until the death scene which becomes a flashback, much like the other 2 Joel flashbacks. The farm and Santa Barbara can play out the same but it makes you really wonder if they changed out the order of play, not trying to make you sympathetic but instead made you go in full blind for a long time, not even knowing what either motive was for Abby or Ellie until later….I think it may have worked better. Or not because wtf am I to restructure a huge story but it’s interesting to think the story we have presented in a different order
It wouldn't fix everything but it is a significant improvement for pacing.
I would’ve been pissed if I spent the first half of the game not playing as Ellie
I've been saying something similar, that we needed to spend more time sympathizing with Abby BEFORE Joel's murder, even moving her Day 1 prologue nightmare of finding Jerry in the hospital would have helped the audience understand her character. But listening to the podcast and director commentary, it seemed like ND wanted to make the audience hate her character, and see if they could manage to understand her later.
They completely succeeded in the first part, and with the second for many players, but obviously that didn't work for everyone.
@@samniel They focused too much on trying to get a reaction. It backfired for a lot of people, took them out of the game, and made them completely disconnected from it, and not interested or invested in the story. Because even though people understood the character and her motivations, they didn't care and were more interested in laughing at the game than caring about the story. It's a major failure in terms of not just execution but setup. When people would rather pause the game and start ripping it apart and critiquing every flaw in the story or just no longer care and just play for the sake of it, you have failed in creating investment and interest. Trying to make people hate a character first will often result in a lack of investment in that character and the story as a whole as we have seen with this game. That was one major mistake, the game makes others just as bad.
JJ is Jessie Joel not Jessie Jr. per Neil
That's nice to know actually
I would point out during Abbys first section before she meets jole during the snow storm she finds their tracs and follows them so I kinda do nto get how it is contrived to think some one hunting some one would find them when they leave tracks.
Yeah, she's specifically looking for them and following tracks. I think maybe they could have fixed this by having one of Abbys crew find one of the notes that the Jackson patrols leave in their towers, documenting their patrols. They then learn that Joel is likely to be patrolling near the ski resort area? It's a bit contrived as-is, but it's not particularly bad.
@@bort118 Actually Owen pointed her in the direction of the outpost they went to, it's why when she found those tracks she was gonna follow them. I really feel like the horde made things contrived quite a bit when they didn't need to be.
1. Well, for one, how could she have known they were specifically Joel's tracks? Joel and Tommy weren't the only one that went out on patrol. Many number of people did.
2. It's kinda difficult to continue following tracks when you're getting chased by a massive horde of infected! She was being chased by many infected and was running in a random direction to get away. She just so happens to be going the direction of Joel's path. How is that not contrived?
@@Kira_Official_ She didn’t she was just following them to see where they led and if Joel and Tommy might be in the patrol that’s heading to a outpost in the general direction she was heading in. Yes, that’s the issue I have with it, it is still quite a bit contrived and would be one of the bigger problems if the existence of the horde and their migration wasn’t explained in Ellie Day 2.
True, contrivances really never bother me, but there are other things about this story that I hate.
Tommy leaving Ellie in Jackson makes a lot of sense to me. He didn’t want something to happen to her while seeking revenge. And on top of that if he did bring her along and something bad happened to her, he didn’t want that on his conscience. Losing his brother and his brothers “daughter” (again), both bc he couldn’t protect them well enough might have been too much for him. Also he knew he could take care of himself. Was it stupid to go alone? Yes. But he was for sure putting in work with his sniper.
Edit: I also want to add that with his state of mind and emotions at that moment, he likely wasn’t thinking rationally (which would have been go with Ellie so you can both take care of Abby. And you can have each others backs) he was likely thinking more emotionally, being that he couldn’t handle losing Ellie too
Right, it's in character for him. If you look at his behavior in the first game
I have yet to play either games. I've watched others playthroughs/cutscenes. But...my inital reasoning for Ellie putting the knife to Levs' throat was to in a sense antagonize Abby to engage in fighting her, giving Ellie a reason to to go though with it.
Similar to Abby when she and the others found Joel, she didn’t really have a plan in place. And even then at that moment, she’s doubting her decisions but to her, she needed that quick fix.
Note how Ellie also says “I CAN’T let you leave” rather than “I WON’T”
@@DariusFrench6273 yes this! She is so blinded by her revenge. She has convinced herself that she CANT go on unless she avenges Joel
@@DariusFrench6273she knows revenge is silly but she thinks its the only thing to help her get over joel. In my opinion thats the only reason she does the latter part of the game.
@@MadDawgDawg it only took killing a hundred people, but Ellie finally learned to how forgive - and that's the important part.
@@jeronimo196 🤣we don't talk about those. It's about the friends we made (and lost), and lessons learned...not about the hundreds of innocents we slaughtered along the way. 😉 All jokes aside, the game teaches that those people aren't just nobodies, though. A huge part of the plot of part 2 is about consequences for those "side characters" we killed in the 1st game. Just like those characters, the people we are playing as are part of this rich, deep world with thousands of other stories going on at the same time. That's what makes me love TLOU 2 even more, that it ATTEMPTS to address exactly what we're joking about above. That said , it is a game that MUST be entertaining at the same time. There are inconcistencies in the themes the game seeks to discuss and the actions we take that aren't addressed (every time) along the way. IT's just a nature of this being an action game; it doesn't make the larger themes and broader discussions the game evokes all moot. On that note, we're probably gonna get attacked by some Rattler groupie in part 3 in a way that will rock us to our core lol.
they never pointed out how the good doctor and his people wanted to dissect the child’s brain without her consent for a _chance_ at a cure cuz it’d throw a wrench into their whole moral compass thing.
everyone knows that lol, the implication here is that even if it’s just a chance it could save the entire freaking world
@@sarahm3674 even for a chance they should still get consent
and that there is absolutely no guarantee that they know how to make a cure
The issue is that even if a cure were discovered, it's too late. The world has plunged into darkness, and many people have turned greedy, likely to exploit it for power over others. Joel probably foresaw this before his hospital rampage.
@@brafshsyt this, but also I saw another video that talked about how okay, let's say they make the vaccine, it works, it's perfect... Now what?
Like how are they going to organize the distribution, cause I don't think it would be easy or fair tbh
Honestly, the first game's ending was perfect. No need to make a sequel at all.
Fun fact the diary entry that is seen at 44:45 on the right side is the lyrics of a song called "The Guardian" by Shawn James :)
I think my issue with the game comes down to rhe whole "ending the cycle of revenge" point just not working for me. The amount of people Ellie and Abby kill along the journey and I'm supposed to think that the cycle is over because Ellie spared the person she actually wants to kill? Who can tell me that the next game the child of another random npc (that's what the doctor was in the first game, pretty much) won't show up to kill either Ellie or Abby as revenge?
Idk, it was just a bit too much for me to believe. It's a story that I don't think fits an action game. It will work better in the series for sure.
ETA: I do like the game guys, I just didn't enjoy the story all that much but that's fine, the game was still pretty solid for me
exactly so!
I completely agree.
The theme of the cycle of revenge and empathy is so overdone in all mediums, and I never got why they thought that's such a strong selling point with this particular story/sequel. As if it hasn't been done before? It left it empty, by the ending because of it 😢
@@isabella_annamarie but the fans of the game don't want to hear this because they exert that the story was more nuance than that. Like what nuance? It's the same story with different characters, but what differs here is that the characters don't have this profound effect on many of us. These characters were written in a way to force an empathic bond with the audience, but in the end the message overstayed its welcome, and you are left with a complete waste of money and time for an experience done much better elsewhere.
Imagine if that WLF girl playing a PSP had a boyfriend, and came to find ellie for revenge
It’s also not believable for a setting like this
I don’t think they were manipulating players to like Abby and dislike Ellie. I think they were trying to show how they are such similar people, ridiculed with their addiction to revenge. They aren’t forcing you to switch teams or even justify Joel’s death by fleshing out Abby’s character and making her more human.
In my opinion, Part 2 isn’t about hate, it’s about addiction. It’s as much a story about love as the first game, just to the other extreme.
I do think the placement of Ellie and Joel’s talk was absolutely perfect. Showing us that scene towards the end of the entire game really changes your perception of any further play-throughs. It shows us that Ellie went through all of this knowing the whole truth and why Joel did what he did. It shows us how she finally had the chance to choose her own trajectory in life by deciding to forgive Joel, just for it to be so brutally torn away from her once again.
“I don’t think I could ever forgive you for that. But I would like to try.”
An early cinematic trailer for this game was backed by Ellie signing a version of the song "True Faith" by New Order. The song's writer Bernard Sumner said of its meaning: "It's about drug dependency. I don't touch smack but when I wrote that song I tried to imagine what it's like to be a smackhead and nothing else matters to you except that day's hit."
I think the theme of addiction is spot on.
I find to to be about Hate, Addiction AND Factionalism.
It worked because Ellie does much worse than Abby but there's a scary amount of people who saying "Oh I enjoyed watching Abby get torn apart by clickers" and stuff.
It's because Ellie is "our side" so her actions are totally justifiable and Abby being on "the other side" so everything she can does is vilified by the audience.
@@Melina_Evarblume_Seelie 100% agree! A lot of Ellie’s actions in Part 2 seemed to be justified and excusable because we spent the entire first game getting to know and love her, but you never hear the end of it when Abby does the exact same thing.
This was my take too. I never felt sympathy for Abby. It’s about understanding her motivations, not feeling bad for her. And it’s showing you first hand the consequences of our beloved Ellie’s action. A lot of this game’s criticism are, “Why would they do that? That’s so out of character!” Then when the writers show you why, it’s called manipulative and forced.
“It’s as much a story about love as the first game, just to the other extreme” lowkey gave me goosebumps...I don’t think I’ve seen someone word this game so well, damn good job 🙌
They need to do a DLC that shows Tommy's 3 days in Seattle (kinda like Left Behind in Part 1)
I was so disappointed when they made Part 2 for PS5 and it didn't have it
Oh man, I’d love to play Tommy sniping at Abby on the bridge. While they successfully made me empathize with Abby to an extent, I hated Manny the whole time. He spit on a dead man just to add more disrespect, like was taking his life not enough? Him dying was my favorite scene when playing as Abby, so I’d love to pull the trigger on that bastard myself.
We needed to see that. We see how devastated and torn Ellie was throughout her time in Seattle. But no one ever thinks about Tommy. How was Tommy feeling? Was he thinking about his brother and the good old days before the outbreak, and Sara. How far they had come as survivors and their journey to Jackson. Tommy needed more love man. We could have literally seen some pre outbreak flashbacks with Tommy and Joel or something along those lines, give Troy Baker a reason to bring that character back.
@@GerryLo5198 it would be cool to experience that but its unecessary by the end of the game. We know what it meant to Tommy. He left everything to. We also see what its done to him and what Ellie has to look forward to if she cant move past it.
So much about any kind of art/media/entertainment is subjective... But I've never heard anyone who's coined this game as "straight garbage" that hasn't also absolutely lost their mind over Joel dying. Those two opinions seem to be intrinsically linked...
People are entitled to enjoy or not enjoy any medium of art - but to dismiss this game as "straight garbage" seems to be a very narrow and thinly veiled view.
Totally agree, but I think it is equally insane for people to say that the writing was a masterpiece with how many flaws and pacing issues it has. Like the creator of this video, I have a kind of love/hate relationship with the game, but it is neither straight garbage, nor a masterpiece.
@@austriangroyper9308 Agree. Any piece of art created in any medium has flaws - that's what makes it human. To also bury your head in the sand and herald it as a masterpiece with absolutely nothing wrong with it is also a narrow and thinly veiled view.
@@austriangroyper9308 exactly, the game isn't a masterpiece, but it isn't a total fire dumpster, it has it's ups and downs(more downs that i would want to admit) and it isn't perfect, but you can enjoy it very well if you ignore it's flaws. sometimes it annoys me a little how many people thinks the game it's masterpiece for the message it tried to sent or by the philosophy of "there ain't good or bad people in this world, just survivors", when there are clearly many mistakes in the story and forced situations that if you look a little into depth, you can see they don't make any sense or they were executed in the wrong way. i also hated how some characters were wasted potential, Isaac for example, he gave the vibes of being an imponent antagonist that would be used at the final part of the game, but only gotted like 5 minutes on screen and got killed by a shot in the back. in the end, the game it's a 50/50, great mechanics, graphics and details, but bad story, pacing, narrative choices, and some wasted characters.
Masterpiece
To say anything is “straight garbage” 90% of the time is ridiculous of course. But there is something in a part of something being unforgivable or so far removed from what you personally want that you don’t ever give it a shot. I think that’s what some of those people mean when they emotionally say “straight garbage”. I personally played and beat the game and took it for what it is. But we should also remember that it’s not just the story affected by the decision, it’s the whole game. Even if someone was willing to ignore the story, Joel isn’t in the game in terms of gameplay at all obviously. So I can understand why someone reads “this happens in the game” and they say “oh I’m good then, don’t even need to bother”. It’s a nonstarter.
In the commentary for the game Neil mentions the trailer lie was a mistake and that he regrets doing it. Also, your video was unlucky to come out a few days before the Grounded II documentary about the making of the game.
After watching Grounded II, I don’t think a great deal has changed for me to be honest. Maybe more understanding of the decision behind why they went for this kind of story, but that’s probably it.
I'll keep it real and say that while I disagree with a lot of the criticisms against the writing of the game, I genuinely love the story through and through and it's one of the most impressive I've ever seen across any medium but TBH it's my favourite game of all time, so there may be some bias. With that said though, this was a really well made video and I really appreciate that you're bringing a lot more to the stage than the typical criticisms this game gets.
Awesome video, was very surprised to see you have under 5K subs.
Thanks for the upload, been waiting for you to talk about part 2. The gameplay and world are fantastic
what is the title of the background music? it’s really nice
Ellie didn't lose Dina.
The ending of the game shows Ellie wearing Dina's bracelet which Dina held onto when she left, not to mention she has a jacket on. It's not supposed to be Ellie being alone, its her moving on from Joel after not being able to play guitar, and living the rest of her life with Dina.
The reason why you didn't see this is because the game does an awful job showcasing this, the last scene we get of Dina is her saying that if Ellie leaves, they're done, only for her to, offscreen, turn around and accept Ellie. This is what I hope the writers were doing at least, because Ellie losing everything after breaking the cycle of violence destroys the first games amazing ending.
Why was the house empty and all furniture and pictures gone then?
Maybe they went back to Jackson, seeing as JJ would be around 2 or 3 years old at the time of ellie’s return, and it would have been mighty hard for Dina to take care of him alone
My girlfriend really likes the last of us season 1 and i am not ready for her to find out what happens in the second game
pedro pascal is always getting his head bashed in some ways LOL
Which background music did you use for the video?
Love your Movie Overload channel and absolutely loving the game stuff too dude keep it up 😀
I would like to point out a little flaw about this whole revenge story- the vast trail of dead bodies Abby and Ellie leave behind... well, im sure they have family and friends too, who also might be upset by losing their loved ones
honestly, i think that applies to the idea of revenge. those people, while unnamed, probably had people they cared about and people that cared for them. it shows how revenge is never black and white nor does it only ever involve the people wanting/escaping revenge. it’s a cycle and we only saw ellie break it
Also the fact that revenge cycle is broken when you just kill the avenger. Its philosophy is about as deep as a puddle. Just like the batman not killing people quote "KIll a murderer, and the number of murderers stay the same" Then kill two murderers dumbass lol.
I often think that maybe the story of part 2 would've worked a lot better if there was only one boat at end. So abby and ellie would be forced to interact, maybe if their life is threatend on their way, the circumstances would've forced them to talk things through, to understand each other truly and fully. All in all, 4 years later, i've come to like abby's pov in the game way more and really like her as a character. I always look forward to see her days in seattle whenever a gameplay pops on my ytb.
I think that’s what this game is missing, it’s strange that Ellie and Abby have only ever met 3 times and Abby probably doesn’t know her name
Having a proper dialogue between them before the final confrontation would have done wonders to flesh out the conflict and their dynamic, there’s so much room to explore in a discussion like that
@fellowpassenger_54-67 i never even realised this. Damn. It only adds to it, it's very sad. I sure hope the TV show will expand on this, tie any loose ends regarding abby and ellie's "relationship".
what is the name of the song in the beginning?????
As much as I disliked the gaps in the story-telling - I thought it lent a palpable sense of realism to the characters' journeys. People do dumb things when they shouldn't. They trust people they shouldn't, when they shouldn't, and often do foolish things trying to protect loved ones - which backfire. This should be expected, not the exception.
Tommy leaving early and trying to spare Ellie the pain of revenge (whether you get revenge or not, there's always pain) makes sense from a human perspective. Joel trusting strangers he shouldn't - while in extremis - makes sense from a human perspective. Dina being more worried about her friend/lover's mental state and feelings more than she should have been about her baby makes sense from a human perspective. All of these things, coupled with the randomness of the depopulated world allowing people to cross paths unexpectedly, are things that could happen in real life - history is littered with such examples of being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time. All of theses 'wrong' decisions by our characters feel very believable from a human perspective.
My biggest issue with the theme and message of the story is the environment of the world. You’re in a post apocalyptic world, filled with not only infected zombies, but gangs of savage people doing anything to survive and literally militias. Your in a world were you’ve witnessed your closest friends and families die, and you’ve been forced to do some of the most messed up stuffs. What’s to stop some randoms ass Npc that Abby or any other character killed from coming back and continuing this “cycle of revenge” that the game so desperately wants to villanize. I don’t think this was the game for this message
a random ass npc can't come up to take "revenge" cuz they wouldn't be from a big group& instead have to worry but protecting them in this stupid world everyday. Abby or Ellie were able to do that cuz there were in a position of some power like fireflies, military, wfg etc.
Exactly. A universe such as the last of us can only have so much room for morality in its cycle of writing
Been replaying it recently, and it's definitely grown on me a lot
Same, playing it for a second time rn and I’ve enjoyed it more then my first play through
nope
🤢🤮 "Been eating this dogshit recently, and it's definitely grown on me a lot."
@@Clown_the_Clownlet people have fun
I always loved the gameplay but the story itself i dont think i can ever enjoy
Recently got a PS5 (was on pc after ps3) I absolutely loved TLOU and recently played TLOU2 and I was quite sad at how Joel went out but couldn’t blame Abby for feeling like that.
song name for 1:02 ?
Noone upset at all that joel didn’t describe what happened at all to ellie, just told her “yea i killed them because they wanted to kill you.”
not…
“They knocked me out trying to save you from drowning, put a gun to my head and told me you needed to die, lied to me saying there wasn’t any other way and didn’t want to at-least humor the person who brought ellie DAYS of travel to the base safely by testing on you… not just outright kill you in a haphazard non-guaranteed way of MAYBE getting a cure. Not to mention they didn’t ask you , they purposely kept you unconscious so they didn’t possibly have to contest a child maybe valuing their life more then a low chance cure? A cure that a terrorist group (with a history with shitty choices and decision) may monopolize on the surviving humans of the world??. I just called them on their flawed decision and they threatened to kill me for caring about your wellbeing.”
If he even said ANY of those points ellie wouldn’t just idk… ice him out? Let alone the narrative aspect of killing him so early and ruining the rest of the game for people who wanted tlou2 to be a sequel and a focus on idk… the relationship of ellie and joel? the WHOLE point of the first game? They set up abby so poorly and the back and forth narrative could’ve been done so much better. Im so upset and i hope the movie series change up joels passing or ill never forgive Naughty Dog for crippling this franchise like this
Thanks for making an intelligent critique. It's very rare to find good faith, nuanced discussion about games, let alone controversial games like TLOU 2. You helped fill that void.
It’s not nuanced he literally went with the “Joel deserved it” take. That take is so disrespectful to what the game is actually trying to tell you
I did't feel like it was very nuanced. Much of Abby's story was hand waved by saying "The game is manipulating the audience into liking Abby" as well as being so confused about Abby's relationship with Owen. I don't understand how them fucking was so confusing. I felt a lot of the video's arguments was very lazily justified. just my opinion tho
@@danielperal1192he just kept on calling everything lazy writing and convenient. and the triangle of mel owen and abby is completely ignored. i dont understand how mel is just called a stupid character and there is no effort made to understand why shes mad at abby at that point
@@Bora-ym5xn Yeah, for sure. It's "lazy" writing because it's not exactly what you wanted or how you would have written it? GTFOH. It's "too convenient" because the story progresses based on random events that seem forced? WTF you want, to watch Abby walk around Wyoming for 2 weeks, not finding anyone, then going home? And then trying again the next year also not finding them? It's called a PLOT, things happen quickly and for reasons, even if they seem too circumstantial. Real life is too boring.
@@Bora-ym5xnIsn't Mel the lady who's pregnant and insists on fighting on the front lines? That is stupid.
I hope you see this, doubt you will but here we go. i recently played through the whole game, and watching this video made me realize i had been falling for the game hookline and sinker. i grew sympethetic for abby conflicted, very emotional, i didnt want to fight the other main character when it came for it, but i can 100% understand what you are saying this whole video and think you are right. i really enjoyed this game and loved it, but this video made me realize im just bad at understanding media. i didnt recognize bad writing, i was just absorbed with what was presented to me.
Definitely the best video about this game that I have seen. I completely agree with your analysis here. Excellent work!
Appreciate it!
Another terrific video! All of your points were valid, including pointing out Lev's shoes. I think it is okay to not have a clear conclusion on how to feel about The Last of Us Part 2. It had indeed created multiple debates and discussions. I am not just looking forward to seeing how HBO will adapt this divisive chapter but also the upcoming behind-the-scenes documentary on this game.
Season 2 is gonna be a wild ride one way or another. The behind the scenes for Part II is gonna be must watch for sure.
I have some big plot issues with this game, the convenience of the horde pushing everyone in the right direction and right time, Jesse leaving Dina alone in an unsecured base to go with Ellie to find Tommy, Mel and Owen's confrontation with Ellie regarding the pregnancy, the tension and suspense of Ellie's POV being completely reset, 1-2 moments involving the Dina-Ellie-Jesse love triangle which I didn't like, Yara teleporting to Abby to save her from Tommy, and stuff like that. However, from a more story-based perspective from the 2 main characters in this one I fairly liked it. Tommy leaving Ellie and wanting her locked up makes sense because he's trying to protect her while that darker side of him from his Firefly days and when he and Joel were hunters has been brought to the forefront basically.
There are pieces of context in several areas of this game and even the last game that support the softening of Joel. For example, in the last game after fighting alongside Henry and putting his trust in Henry (also due to him having a younger brother) he slept alongside them once they were safe. The game also makes it clear that Joel has been put into the patrol position which due to the reliability and caring Haven project as shown in a paper from Ellie Day 2 alongside those patrol notebooks and other context clues/dialogue would support his softening. It's also important to acknowledge that Tommy was trying to establish trust with Abby in that lodge and that even if Joel said nothing she would've known anyways. Ellie's journey in Ellie's POV up to Day 3 may make the game come off as just a revenge story (reminiscing memories hint at that) but Abby's perspective recontextualizes the story into something else and in the epilogue section with Ellie this is clearly not just a revenge story anymore, there's more driving her to this point than that. The game is not trying to turn Ellie into a villain from my perspective, it is just showing Ellie going down a path of false justice with her obsession being reinforced by the memories, while Abby has already gone down that path and she's trying to come back from that by realizing her wrongs and mindset and trying to change it but fails until Lev reminds her of what's important and what she's been trying to accomplish. (Pure Survivors in this world)
Yes, I will admit that the majority of the side-characters don't have as much character to them as the characters from Part I and Left Behind and I admit that the flow of the plot with certain contrivances and a few pieces of plot armor are indeed messy, but I just don't think the story is absolutely terrible like a lot of people say. I don't think it's as good as Part I and the plot construction is definitely weaker, but I just can't say that it's bad in my opinion. 7/10
I absolutely LOVE this video. I agree with pretty much all of your points. I’m the biggest fan of the last of us and I love to see other people’s perspectives and opinions. watching youtube analyses of tlou has been my new thing and I have watched MANY. Yours was perfect, definitely my favorite so far!
4:12
Wait, was future days hinted at in the first game?
lol that’s funny I was thinking that to. I don’t remember that in the 1st game
Loved your part one video. This one not so much. I appreciate it’s all personal opinion but I disagree and have a strong argument for almost every negative point you make. But there are too many and I would have to write a book! 😝
One thing I will say though… if you paid attention (and it’s easy to miss) when Ellie returns to the farm, she is wearing the bracelet that Dina gave her. She did not have this when she left Dina and set off for the final revenge scenes. This implies she has already returned to Dina at Jackson and hasn’t lost ‘everything’ 😁
Ps. I wasn’t a fan of this game compared to part one. It was much harder to follow. However after third playthrough that all changed.
I don't think it implies that. If Dina didn't ditch Ellie for what she did, why wouldn't she still be at the farm. The farm was her dream after all. The only reason she wouldn't be at the farm is if she tried to distance herself from Ellie.
@@austriangroyper9308 there is a letter on the table you can read inviting Dina to come to Jackson. Why would she stay at the farm on her own?!
I hope jeffrey wright reprises his role as isaac in the tv show. He’s up for a best actor oscar this year, if he’s in the show they’ll have to flesh out the character more. You hear so much about Isaac before you meet him, its disappointing how little consequence he has in the story in the end.
Agreed. It really bugged me how little attention he got considering the build up, as well as the actors talent.
It reminded me of the movie 1917. How all the high ranking people in positions of authority are played by "big name" actors, even though they get very little screen time and are basically cameos in the main characters story.
It conveys to the viewer, that these people are a big deal within the world of the narrative, even if they're not part of "our story" for very long.
i will always try to respect the criticisms given to the direction delivery and decisions made for the story even if they all worked for me i understand that this game asks alot of the common player to get onboard , tho i will never get behind the gameplay downplays as i see this game as a true peak in that regard it just feels incredible to handle and went above and beyond in that aspect even when most people will just play it to get from one cutscene to the next
Absolutely, I completely understand loving or hating the story, but dunking on the gameplay? Nah, no way.
The handling and gunplay is literally worse than its predecessor. Just because it looks cool doesn’t make it good
@@bailoch I played them both back to back, it's literally the exact same, or it was improved. There was technically speaking no back step at all, so I don't know how you came to that conclusion.
@@bailoch gun play feels more satisfying just off of the polish in Animation sound design and impact but by far the biggest upgrades were environment (stealth and whatnot) and Enemy Ai the second game didnt add much it added simple things and made sure to expand the creativity and feel off it to the max idk how you come to that conclusion the first game handles fine and is a blast overall the second game is a benchmark of quality to expect for every major release
on my first play through i stopped playing after having to play abby , currently on my 2nd run through hopefully i can bear to make it to the end
It seems like all the great parts he loves are so lovable because they love the first game
Agree that this is not a perfect game by any means lol However, a lot of the character and character decision making critiques are what I think makes the characters real. People have hypocritical behavior in real life. Ragging on them for being hypocritical makes that a biased take against those characters. After Ellie murders a pregnant woman and reconnects with Tommy (who could have been presumed dead at that time) In a whirlwind of emotional events-I’m sure the last thing she would have been thinking about is the map she didn’t realize she dropped during a fight. I agreed with many of the takes in the beginning of this video but as it went on, a lot of the them did not feel grounded in the environment of the story and just felt very birds eye view of “why did the writers do that.” I think it’s meant to be a bit messy.
Great video, i don't agree with the story being poorly written. Everything you feel in the game is valid but i just like talking about this game:
Joel and Tommy do have their guard up initially when they meet Abbys crew, he asks questions about what they're doing there, constantly is looking around, and they identify their patches. But at that time it's not like they have a choice but to stay there and believe that if they were going to attack them, they would've done so already.
I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of people's favorite moments are the Joel and Ellie stuff but almost everything involving Abby is found flawed from a writing standpoint in some way. (Abby and Lev's developing of their relationship is forced, their parallels are not subtle enough, her flashbacks are boring, they want us to like her while tearing down Ellie). I don't agree with any of these and don't think the way they handle this is bad from a writing standpoint at all.
The game wants to highlight our biases. For a lot of players, just like Ellie, they understand Joel has harmed a lot of people and why Abby went after him, but they don't care, and thats ok. A writer on Avatar said once that a character doesn't need to be likeable, but understandable and dimensional, and whether or not you grew to like her, I think they succeeded in making a good character in Abby.
Plus the game is full of subtlety for example leaving so much up to interpretation on what a characters are thinking based on their faces alone. That's what i like about this game and how people have their own interpretations of so many moments, like why Ellie let Abby go in the end. There are parts of the story i find flaws in, like every story ever, but the good for me outweighs my issues by a mile.
Yeah, it does kinda seem like any sections with Joel and Ellie are deemed good writing and anything without them is contrived and unbelievable lol I'll give it to him with the photos and the crew with their names - but a lot of UA-cam critics just seem to generally have a lack of imagination or an ability/willingness to remember that any story is a farce and the point isn't to be the most realistic, but consistent to the rules of the world and thematically relevant
@meximan282 Yup agreed. I don't want to dismiss anyone's grievances with the story, but there are a good amount of people who don't want to admit their problems with the story mostly comes from an emotional place. It's easier to justify their hatred on bad writing.
@@JH-xc9we people are angry though, they are annoyed at the disservice the second game was and how it could have been brillaint and had the same key elements that made the first one so brilliant, I think it is easy to say it’s bad writing cause so many parts are just hipocritcal or just don’t fit with the style that made the first so good. People have more then enough right to be angry and use there emotion to talk about the shitty writing. You are right in saying the entire game wasn’t garbage. But when the large majority was when it didn’t need to be it makes it easy to say it mostly is
So many people’s negative opinions of this game stem from their unwillingness to understand a character’s perspective while simultaneously thrusting themselves into their shoes. This isn’t an RPG. You are not Joel or Ellie or Abby. You’re a passive observer watching deeply flawed and broken people navigate a world we can’t fully understand. They don’t have the hindsight that we, as the player have. To say “___ character made a stupid decision”, or “the writing is bad” is lazy criticism. The pandemic we just lived through was a birthday party in comparison to what these characters have gone through. Can you honestly say that no one in your life made questionable decisions in the last 3 years?
Also life is full of convenient coincidence and happenstance. It’s completely plausible for Abby to run into Joel and Tommy. These are small isolated communities in a world where most of the population is gone. I guess a better story would be if Abby just found his address and knocked on his door one day? Why does every encounter need to be deliberate and planned out?
@@Supertomscustoms Character writing is all about creating understandable circumstances that pushes characters in understandable ways.
People seeing a character decision as stupid is a criticism because it highlights that they don't consider the story to have justified the action enough.
Sure coincidences happen all the time, but this is a story not real life, coincidences happen to further the plot the audience is aware of this.
So over using it can make the story feel forced because you can feel the hand of the author setting up the situation which pulls you out of it.
Is it plausible for a stray bullet/arrow to kill the villain in a war story? Absolutely but unless the story earns the moment it will feel cheap if it happens out of nowhere to save the protagonist.
Came here to say that I enjoyed your breakdown of TLOU2, and I think you brought up some very good points and articulated yourself well. Also kudos to you for putting up with the inevitable fallout in the comment section, cause god forbid people have opposing views on a piece of media.. Although I must admit that I myself have fallen victim to the same pitfalls of division.
Anyway, I have always found this game a challenging one because there are so many elements that I love about it and many others that I hate. For me it's a solid 6.5 to 7/10, and the muddled story and pacing issues hold it back from being a truly exceptional gaming experience.
TLOU is in my top 3 games of all time (at least as far as story goes), and the sequel just didn't reach those same heights. I remember watching the credits after my first playthrough of Part 1 and thinking about the ending and journey I just went on. It was such a self-contained and simple story that hit me on a different level. It wasn't something I hadn’t seen before and there were plenty of beats you see in other games/stories, but Naughty Dog really did perfect it. And any way you slice it, I dont think Part 2 was ever going to come close to that same magic that Part 1 had.
Loving the content. Keep it up.
Joel did get comfortable in the years in Jackson, but what's an even more sobering truth is that he just had that conversation with ellie the night before. He was on a high and felt like he's getting his daughter back. He's guard was absolutely down. That's all.
I never thought of it like that, that is actually a decent point.
I still think it could have been done better but it does help
By that logic he should be even more paranoid lol
@mrrobluxo2369 when you are happy? You aren't paranoid. Your guard is down... this was what joel has been wanting for what maybe a year to 6months? Ellie hadn't been talking to him. I'm a parent, so for me, I completely understand his mistake.
@@mrrobluxo2369bro when was the last time you were paranoid in moments of pure happiness
It’s not a point that overrides a quarter of a century of experience and habit, particularly when confronted with a horde and a large gang of armed strangers.
I have to disagree on one thing. The idea that Joel should have had his guard up is one thing but let’s look at the scenario. He saved Abby and then they fight side by side with Tommy. They are about to be over run and need a safe place Abby suggests the spot which according to Joel and Tommy’s reaction might work which means they didn’t have a better solution. When they get to the safe (not safe) house Abby’s comrades shut the gates and throw fire bombs on the infected. Joel and Tommy both have fought along Abby and trial by combat trust exists. Even if they didn’t trust her they were out numbered anyway and no where to go. So playing the friend card is the only option as soon as they realize the danger it was too late.
It was too late when Tommy Joel and Abby had to leave the lodge. The cabin was the only chance of surviving the horde. Then when you reach it was already too late. You want to think Joel and Tommy can just take care of the 6 members but why would they be prepared for that after fighting alongside Abby. I understand your thought but I don’t think you’re making sense really
That isn’t an issue. The issue lies with this is a Joel that fucked up any chance for a cure and murdered a bunch of people in the process. He should arguably be more paranoid of his surroundings
Even if he'd spent years in Jackson, you think he'd really be so trusting towards a stranger who invites them into a house? Healing from trauma doesn't/should not equate to being blindly trustful or dumping your instincts. The fact that Joel is a part of a good community isn't going to make him forget that he's been in similar situations that have turned out to be traps. A real-world example, you can live in a good, safe neighborhood, but your parents should still warn you about the potential dangers of trusting people you've just met, especially if they take you to their house.
Bad take, this trial by combat trust isn't a thing either. Just because you fought together to survive against a common enemy doesn't mean they're your friend after you survived. And in Joel's case who's been a bandit himself definitely knows this. Over 20 years of being in a shitty world with so much experience just goes down the drain just because he lived in a relatively peaceful town? Not to mention he goes on patrols so he needs those skills regardless and you still think he wouldn't have his guard up? He was even overly cautious before the world has gone to shit if you paid any attention to Joel's actions while in the prologue.
@@DusterSixtySix Seconded, from what you hear from the people of Jackson about Joel, he was a completely different person. People loved him, they left flowers in front of his house, they mourned him. They wouldn't have done that if he was the same person he was in Part 1.
@@darthrevan454 your take is even worse. So they are under attack and have no where to go with him an Tommy agreeing that house might work and that was their best option. They were either dead by zombies or trying to make it to the one place. Joel is also 57 years old at this point and they are outnumbered by a lot of people in their prime. Sorry a near 60 year old had lost his step and they were out numbered.
Honestly I did not notice the converse til you pointed it out
I honestly looooved getting to play as Abby and the pararles between her and Ellie. I do agree sometimes the shifts or flashbacks kill the pace a bit but to me, those are the parts that made the game so amazing.
At the end, it's a game about self loathing and eventually forgiveness. Both Ellie and Abby reach a point where they can forgive themselves. The Pearl Jam song is symbolism n both Ellie and Abby's characters are various points in their arc - "If I ever were you lose you, I'd surely lose myself". Ellie can't forgive herself for never getting to forgive Joel. Anny can't forgive herself for the things she's done and the relationships she's destroyed in doing so - she still has PTSD and killing Joel has given her no closure. Ellie relenting and letting Abby go is her letting that side of her, and Joel go. Ending the cycle and moving on, and hopefully going back to Dina and Jackson to live the best life she can.
Also, the recording Ellie finds in the hospital is clearly Mel, Jerry's protege. Also, Mel telling Abby's she's a POS has more to do with the fact that Mel is referring to Abby basically torturing Joel with a golf club. They signed up to go get justice, but clearly nobody besides Manny was game to torture him as violently as she did. It's mention literally 3 minutes into Abby's day 1 when Manny tells Abby that Mel is shaken by how they killed Joel - so Mel sees Abby suddenly having a change of heart after doing all of the things she's done of hypocritical, and confronts her for it. She probably also knows that she's been fucking with Owen but can't really prove it.
The writing around Joel's death isn't that lazy. They mention that they're aware that there's a patrol at the ski lodge. That patrol being Joel & Tommy is certainly convenient, but not lazy. Abby only runs into them after she triggers the hoard, which draws them out. As for Tommy leaving without Ellie, he understands that she has no experience against stronger militarized groups - groups that Tommy was apart of. There's also a chance Tommy knew who the WLF were and knew what they would be getting into - the founders of the WLF were Fireflies. Ellie throughout the game shows that she's in over his head. They survive in the end, but just barely. Ellie isn't a soldier.
Stories don't have to be fulfilling. Shakespeare made a career out of unfulfilling and tragic stories.
Exactly
I agree with everything you said but I wanted to add
Mel probably heard Owen explain his sympathy for the old Scar and that's probably why she thinks Abby is pretending to care about Scars as just a way to get into Owens pants
Yessss. This is the take I was looking for! A story about forgiveness! Nailed it 😊
Your last sentence shows the problem with this video and gamers in general. They think everything should be wrapped up tightly and tell you what the point is, and that's not how art has to work.
You're looking at this from a completely different perspective. Abby is seen murdering and killing many people out of the game, and she's shown having zero remorse for her actions. She tortured and beat Joel with a golf club, and she was gonna attack them whether she knew it was him or not. Plus she killed her friends, the people she knew for years, over kids that she knew for 3 days, and those kids were involved in the killing and lynching of her people. So how are we gonna forgive Abby for ruthlessly murdering a beloved character and replacing him with her? Joel and Abby are nothing alike, and Ellie is nothing like her part one counterpart. Now there are times where the game had some good moments, but the majority is definitely terrible.
47:42 Respectfully, I feel that you missed the point of the story; twice. It’s not overt. The story respects and challenges its audience by not spelling out every theme but it’s about Ellie keeping her humanity.
While she’s trying to drown Abby, we see a flash of Joel. Then once you get to the ending flashback of the game, you realize those are the same moments and it answers why she let Abby go. What does the last flashback say to you? Of course there are many perspectives of it but one of main themes that connects the flashback and the glimpse of Joel during the final fight with Abby and Ellie is forgiveness. Yes, breaking the cycle of violence is an important theme they’re trying to convey but Ellie is so driven by anger and revenge. So much that she’s willing to give up her happy life with Dina. Then when she finally gets the opportunity to put an “end” to her source of trauma, she’s reminded of her humanity and how she was able to forgive Joel. Or at the very least begin to forgive.
It would have been easy and unfulfilling for Ellie to kill Abby. Abby’s experience of killing Joel proves that. Ellie learns that by forgiveness, she can finally start to let go of her trauma and move on. The same lesson she was beginning to learn by forgiving Joel. It took her a long time not to let rage and revenge get the better of her but by letting Abby go, it showed her growth over the game and was a far more profound conclusion than a bloodbath ending in another murder.
Ellie woulda never let her go in her state of mind. It is pathetically preachy and stupid, I personally think you are missing the point of what people were mad about. A preachy story that forces us to sympathise with a character with little to no agency
Oh, the ever so subtle lesson of "REVENGE BAD". A lot of people failed to grasp it, thank you for explaining the deep themes of the narrative, now I can finally enjoy this masterpiece.
@@jeronimo196 yes? you know why we have the court system? because before the modern rule of law, revenge killings between families were a serious problem. one side has to forgive eventually
@@brad_1388_ thank you. Even though I did grasp the subtle lesson of "REVENGE BAD" - of course, it does bear repeating. So thank you for repeating it.
Great video but… you said it was bad writing that Ellie asks why she’s never met another immune. In the first game, Joel told her that there were dozens of others like her.
I think her asking Joel that, was supposed to be rhetorical
I didn't say it was bad writing. I said many people say it is, but I disagree with them.
Nice video, I liked your opinions and what you had to say, my opinion definitely is good on paper bad in execution, but hey maybe the TV show can fix that
Good luck with any future videos you make, especially tackling such a big topic on your fourth video.
One hours of some of the worst opinions about this game i've ever heard...
Swear i only watch these to get some perspective on why people dislike by far my absolute favourite game
I didn’t care for lev but thats only due to the modern community souring any lgbtq stuff so i was biased but i have yet to hear a compelling argument on why this game is hated
i say that a game that is able to give you such a visceral reaction is a successful one. imagine creating a story that causes mobs of people to hate on a fictional character for killing another fictional character
Creating outrage is easy. Making a timeless piece is harder.
TLOUS 2 unfortunately, fell into the former.
@@leowei771 nah I will never forget this game. Was thinking about it for weeks after I finished it. It’s very far from a forgettable experience regardless of whether you think it’s good or not.
@@SaberRexZealot I rather it be forgotten but a pleasant experience from time to time you recall, than the terrible story currently given.
@@leowei771thats just wrong, i doubt that the 2 is going to be just as timeless but its not the former.
@@leowei771 I don't think it's at all bad. At worst it's just polarizing, but think what you want I guess.
One of my biggest problem is that the ending of TloU it heavily implies Ellie knew Joel was lying so I can't buy it at all when she brings it up in 2.
Quick correction for the Epilogue when Ellie returns to the abandoned farmhouse.
It’s subtle & easily missable, but the scene starts where u can see Ellie wearing Dina’s bracelet. Signifying that she already has returned to Jackson and to JJ& Dina. She’s basically leaving the guitar behind to move on. So it’s not as bleak as most would think.
But great analysis, I enjoyed this video & gave me even more perspective on the game as a whole. So thank you
I personally loved the ending. Ever since Joel’s death, Ellie hadn’t been able to see his face without it being beaten to a pulp - look through her journal and you can tell she’s traumatised by the image. Of course you’d want revenge on the person who killed your dad, because Abby did, because Ellie did, because anyone who has experienced murder would against the killer. But as she’s on the verge of getting this revenge, as Abby is fighting for her life, we see Joel playing his guitar on his porch - which we know was one of his favourite ways to relax from the first game. This is no different to Abby being able to see her dad alive in her dream as opposed to seeing him dead, and she is able to move on after that. She found her purpose - looking after Lev and finding the Fireflies - and something worth fighting for. Ellie realises that even if Abby dies at that point, Joel is still gone, but at that moment she can see him as she knew him in his life, not during his brutal death. And that is why she lets Abby go. Her purpose *was* revenge but it’s fruitless and always has a cost. Lev may well have came after her for killing Abby and the cycle would have continued, and what purpose does that have? None.
This is a really good take. I HATED the ending when I first saw it, but as I've done some growing in my own life I've come to appreciate the central message far more and I can see it's value much more than I did. Still hurts like hell, especially that last scene with Joel, but it felt like that very relatable slow ache of loss, something that I don't think I've ever felt in a game before
@@clappagemcpheeI think that’s kind of the whole point of it, right?
Letting go is never an easy thing to do, especially when it comes down to something that’s deeply hurt you in some way (whether it’s physical or mental or otherwise) but is still possible to do.
I mean… Ellie literally slaughtered every single WLF and Seraphite that she came across and the whole time brought her no closure at all. Joel was gone the whole time and that brutal image was still fresh in her mind because of her anger, her pain, her trauma. Plus not to mention, the feeling of being defeated too. Abby defeats Ellie a couple of times in the game technically. When Ellie was pinned down and forced to watch it unfold, in the theatre when her and Abby fight too, Abby wins constantly. So maybe at the end on the beach, Ellie finally winning, then experiencing a nice memory of Joel playing his guitar on the porch, I’d even go as far as to say feeling guilty about robbing Lev of Abby could have been things that finally lead her to let go?
All of those things aren’t easy to deal with and do take a significant amount of time to get through (and sometimes takes a severe amount of destruction along the way) but are still possible to do. So to see Ellie finally let go of it all was at first angering for me but over time, I’ve also learned the importance of it and therefore understand the need for that scene?
I might be talking out of my ass here but that’s just how I see it 😅
@@nunyabusiness9695 damn well said
Great take.
Okay but why does she suddenly see Joel calm just as she's about to get what she came for when literally 2 minutes before that she saw Joel's bloody face before her?
In my humble opinion, the hate this game got just proves the main theme of this story.
It has so many complex stories to tell and if you ever felt loss like Ellie and the hate and anger it can bring you and consume you, you would appreciate this.
Its a story of the best and worst that human emotions can do. And its very very real.
The death threats Laura got about her child shows how far Anger can drive a human, just like Ellie.
Try to feel more emphaty and less hate, cause thats the message this game wants to get through and the hate it got, just shows that there us not enough of it in the world right now, which makes me sad
The writer deliberatley wrote a story that bastardized what people loved about the first game, distorted it, twisted it, gutted it and presented it to us with a moral asking people to feel empathy when none was given to us, and we're supposed to lap it all up with a thank you? lolno. They don't get to claim the moral high ground here. This is dogshite writing in every sense of the word and it should not be celebrated. Not everything that is shocking for the sake of edge, is actually good.
@@iReturnV1deotapes Respectfully disagree. For me, the writing was really well done and I felt the tragedy of Part II was necessary. I think we all would've felt great about another Joel and Ellie adventure, but showcasing the brutality of that world packed more of an emotional punch.
@@iReturnV1deotapes i understand what you mean, but i respectfully disagree.
Naughty Dog had the guts to tell a story that they knew was controversial but stood by what they wanted to create despite the hate and they deserve respect for that. Because what other game made you feel like that.
Its not a good feeling and it drains you and i get why people resent this game.
I felt what Ellie felt, so i might be biased, but because i felt it, i can honestly say that they nailed Ellie's part.
But at the end of the day guys, no matter how much it matters to you, cause it matters a lot to me, but its a video game.
Take something away from it and for goodness sake, dont threaten people and their children.
@@maven86 100% agree. Given how brutal the world of the Last of Us is, i think Part 2 went the direction it should have. Because in this world even in a community like Jackson, there are no happy endings
What an absurd comment
Commenting before listening to a single second. As a person who has been engaged in conversations about this game since I played it, I love these kinds of videos. I doubt this will be my only comment. I look forward to the discussions.
Great video dude! Overall I generally agree that I really loved the Ellie and Joel parts and found the Abby parts fun, but a detraction from the Ellie and Joel story. I would disagree with you on a couple of things on that interpretation. The common message behind this game is "the first one is about love, the second is about hate" as you mention, or "this game is about how revenge is bad." While yes, revenge and hate are present, I'd argue that this game is much more about closure, grief, and forgiveness, which at the end of the day all stem from love. That's why I disagree with you on Joel being killed off early being a bad thing and the ending of the game. Ellie's story is not about revenge, but about being robbed of the opportunity to forgive Joel. He was a man who never left her, loved her above all else so much that he sacrificed the world for her, but also took away her life's purpose and lied to her about it for years. Ellie knows that Joel wanted her to be happy above all else, but she also knows that Joel would've gone and killed all the WLF too. Violence is the only medium through which Ellie can process this incredibly complex relationship, hence the structure of the flashbacks and gameplay sequences. At the end of the day, the weight of this lack of closure are too much for Ellie to live with manifesting in the PTSD, and it's only after conquering Abby with her own hands that she can finally try to forgive herself and forgive Joel, accepting Joel's memory, and letting go of his ghost.
That's why I'd disagree with you on the fact that Joel was killed off too early, and that the ending is anticlimactic. Killing Joel off this early allows you to explore the negative space and giant hole he leaves, and uniquely allows the player to experience the lack of closure, despair, and grief that Ellie feels. In my opinion, it actually heightens the Ellie-Joel relationship rather than detracts from it. For the ending, Ellie's journey was never about killing Abby. When Ellie points a knife at Lev's neck, it's not about threatening Lev, either. It's just about finding a way to forgive, and by Ellie defeating Abby and letting her go, you (and Ellie) finally unlock that incredible last flashback at the end. In my opinion, it's a very climactic ending that is actually well earned.
Abby didn’t just “happen” to stumble across Joel…Owen saw Joel’s patrol and then Abby tracked their horses.
And then she got chased by a hoard of infected … where she happened to stumble across joel lol
@@dezbryantcaughtit5138 …Joel was escaping the same hoard, of course they eventually came together
@@dezbryantcaughtit5138even if we were to grant you that. This coincidence is incredibly minor, given that it sets up the inciting incident. I never heard anyone complaining about the coincidences in Star Wars where Luke crash lands on a planet and just happens to find Yoda there
@@howiehiew then there’s the coincidence that Joel just happened to forget that he can’t trust anyone in the world like the Last Us.
@@dezbryantcaughtit5138 He didn't just "happen" to forget. He was leading a whole new life where "kill or be killed" was the every day, so he gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Love how you approached this retrospective. You dunked on it when it was deserved, but gave it praise when it was deserved. I don't know why people insist on loving or hating the game with no grey area. This game is more complex than a blanket statement opinion implies. Amazing video man!
This has been talked to death but one of the major recurring "proof" of supposed bad writting put forward by critics is how the Joel we know from the first game wouldn't let himself be that vulnerable.
This has been adressed by the actor, who feels he must have failed to convey that split second of frustration with himself for getting trapped. So the intent was there, and the reasons why are overwhemingly obvious in every scene Joel's in and in every details of his four-years stay at Jackson. We see him soften all along TLOU1 and tons more in TLOU2, and when Ellie visits his house after he died, evidence of him allowing himself to open up and drop his guard are laid bare.
He indulges in his lobbies, sculpts and plays guitar again, and his biggest worries are getting coffee and making things right with Ellie. He changed so much that his first instinct is to save Abby, something even younger Joel did not do at the beginning of the outbreak, before he even lost Sarah. Joel didn't stop changing from the first scene we met him in the original game.
And some fans cannot wrap their head around the possibility that a monolith of masculine badassery like Joel can/should change. It's like his killer instincts are something to be revered when they're mostly the same coping mechanisms Abby embraced when faced with the same overwhelming trauma, and gets hated for.
Ellie herself throughout TLOU2 represents our love/hate relationship to Joel ; She spends the whole game trying to act like Joel, be as violent and unforgiving as he was in an attempt to honor him, but it's also what makes her lose herself because, of course it does. She never was that person and it's not someone to aspire to be, which she was always aware of and an influence she struggled with for years. I'm glad Joel got to shed this shell, even though that's why he gets killed. He got to be human again and not just a ball of rage, which is everything we could honestly have hoped for him. That so many people view him as the hero that doesn't deserve this death, though, is only further proof of how well-made his story arc was. He NEVER was a hero, at best a antihero.
I'm not 100 percent sold on TLOU2 by far, but most of the recurring criticism i saw in the last four years are nitpicky unsubstantiated rants. I've seen so much weird opinions blaming the story for being manipulative and contrived.... When that's how stories work, it's just not on a narrative that serves our protagonists this time so it may stick out more, maybe ? The whole post-covid era feels like watching people struggle relearning certain building blocks of our reality, including storytelling, which were completely obvious and integrated before. Yes, a story is manipulative. No, not everything is a plot hole, and no, a story riddled with plot holes isn't necessarily bad.
Back to TLOU2's controversy, many advocate for a different pacing, shuffling around the timeline or the order in which we play it, or just for it to have been another story altogether. I think as a whole TLOU2 came out during a particularly negative period of human History and dropped a nuclear warhead of bad feelings down on us so the context of its release is not to be overlooked, and above all the writer's ruthlessness is no argument that this is a bad story. "The Road" (which inspired TLOU1) is one of the psychologically grimest gut-wrenching movie i ever saw and you can't deny it's a good story.
For my part i just think that if they had just let the players control Joel for a couple of hours, a lot of hate would've been softened. But otherwise, Joel facing the consequence of the last game were one of the very few ways to propel the story forward with a significant emotional payload to entice our involvment.
You make a lot a great points but its very subjective, as it should. Not to defend ND because I domy love everything about the game, but the switch of perspective is annoying at first yes, but I wouldn’t say it’s stupid even for a video game. The reason is 2 folds:
First we know the whole story with Abby saving Lev, and the ending etc so we do end up liking Abby and we do SEE from living(playing) it that no one is innocent and the hurt you make will come back to you -immune or not.
Secondly, if ND didn’t go for an unconventional two part story with two opposing characters then it means the other option would have been a normal, standard straight story line that you don’t really play, you just follow along like any Uncharted game, with no twist no surprise.
I’m not saying the idea is the best but it’s not bad, it’s actually really great. It is what it is, like a movie or a song. It’s a deep story there extremely realistic in terms of human reactions. People who hate aren’t hating on 99% of other games where nothing makes sense whether the story dev or characters reactions. And where of course the hero always wins at the end.
This game is so frustrating because some aspects work well but so much of it is just bad. The gameplay is solid and some scenes work really well but for every scene that works there's 1 that is just bad.
i dont see how its lazy writing how joel dies lmao, and i like how early he dies, u dont see it coming and its effect is 10x more, ellie never gets to fix their relationship, hence why she goes insane on her revenge mission
Just because you don't see it coming doesn't mean it's well written. It's a contrived scenario regardless of how surprising it was.
@@GameOverloadMO Sarah's death is also contrived, but I bet it didn't bother you.
The opening of the first game is so rushed and contrived that Sarah dies in her pajamas (after surviving a car accident).
But most of all I've always wondered why Joel and Tommy try to escape so quickly
@or3675 It's almost like there are different audience expectations and different responsibilities on the author between newly introduced characters and returning characters.
You can do what they did to Sarah because she's a newly introduced character, the audience has less attachment to her and will accept contrived circumstances more easily.
But when you do that to a more established character you need to work for it, because the audience has an idea in mind of that character and how they would act.
This is the same criticism that was levied at TLJ's version of Luke you can justify it as them changing during the time they weren't on screen, but that won't fly well with the audience when its not justified or if its justified by going against prior characterisation.
It requires serious work from the author to retroactively change a core trait of the character.
@@beginoor3675 The first game has contrivance sure, but it was written perfectly. It's there to parallel how the game ends (or vice versa), with you playing as Joel's biological daughter in the beginning, then Joel's surrogate daughter in the end. Sarah dying in her pajamas is just world building; how quick the world fell to chaos without anyone being ready for it. It's not a writing issue.
Let's reopen the old scar again, I wonder how long will it take to fully heal again
I see what you mean about how the writers implemented Joel's death but i don't think its lazy writing. I think they were trying to make his death have the biggest and most sudden impact possible. I think they succeeded and i think it worked perfectly. Joel's death was devastating to me as a long time player and fan and it hit me fast and hard, very hard. I don't think they could have brought that across much better. I really enjoyed the video thanks
With all due respect Joel’s death was not lazy writing, and for Tommy to storm out to get revenge makes perfect sense. When Abby was about to get shredded by infected Tommy and Joel saved her, during a rush to survive Tommy Is the first to introduce himself, and then Joel. Tommy’s mistake which lead to them introducing themselves to Abby’s friends. They couldn’t switch up their names or Abby would’ve noticed. Tommy probably felt guilty as he was the one who introduced himself first which lead to Joel’s death reason why he left and didn’t want Ellie to be part of it.
I revere Naughty Dog and Neil for their balls of steel in TLOU 2:
They could’ve easily delivered all fans wanted for the sake of pleasing them and instead they chose to be faithful to a vision, telling a story that amplified all discussions surrounding TLOU even at the cost of upsetting fans.
Joel is by far my favorite character of all time and yeah, I fuc%# miss him, but his ending did not taint his legacy, rather the contrary! He regained his humanity, became a beloved member of a community, pursued hobbies, never regretted what he did in the first game, saved Abby because it was the right thing to do and went down with no apologies, no bullshit, not interested in Abby’s reasons, not pleading and with 2 people needed to hold him down 💪🏻❤️
Sadly, so many people pass away full of regrets and I strongly aspire to one day leave this world with none, being at peace with all my decisions 🥹
Lastly, there is another thing TLOU 2 showed me, if you switch any of the character’s place in the story, it would’ve still played out as it did. If Abby was in the surgery room her father would’ve never allowed that, if Abby was in Ellie’s shoes she would’ve pursued vengeance just as she did for her father, if Ellie was in Abby’s shoes she would’ve done the same with Joel… it’s a unforgiving life dynamic in a world of survival and violence.
Thank you for another great video ❤️
He himself noted that with Uncharted 4, he felt Nathan Drake earned a happy ever after ending, but TLoU is a darker and more unforgiving world, and Joel is objectively a worse person overall. Drake gets the happy ending, but Joel doesn't.
Agreed! Joel became a much better character in TLOU 2! He fulfilled everything he wanted and became a better person for Ellie! Especially when you hear Troy Baker's (Joel's actor) thoughts on what Joel was thinking during his final moments when he sees Ellie before dying: "I allowed myself to trust! I allowed myself to be vulnerable! And look where this has gotten me...but I'd do it all over again, if it means spending more time with that girl." It really amplifies how much he cared about Ellie, that everything happening to him in that moment was worth it to give Ellie a chance to live and be happy. It made the ending of Part 1 so much better too.
Well, I know that a lot of people are gonna disagree with me on this one but it is okay and I believe that this is the beauty of this hobby. First of all, very nicely structured video!
Now on the matter at hand, I really don't believe that Joel's death has bad writing. First of all, it is established that Joel and Tommy have nowhere to go to escape the hoard's attack and Abby gives them the only solution that seems like a viable option. From there it is really Tommy the one that introduces him and Joel while Joel doesn't even talk that much. Additionally, I believe that Joel really wished to change for the better after the end of the fisrt game and that meant getting "softer" and more easy-going and trustful towards other people, with these changes on his character tragically leading to his death, showing us once again that this world is really brutal towards the kind hearted. I also believe that his death happening so early in the game is a great choice, able to let us feel how Ellie also thinks that it is too early for her to loose Joeal, especially after she decided that she wants to forgive him.
I love both games amazingly. Is the second one controversial? Yes. Did it impact my experience? Not really. Is it still an amazing story? Yes.
But, the abby 9 iron hitting a joel in one still hurts.
One interesting thing I noticed from talking to people is that the game seems to have been much better received by people who played the second game immediately after their first playthrough of the first game. It actually makes a lot of sense why people who play both games for the first time back to back would love the story, because you're going into the first game expecting it to be a part 1 rather than a standalone story, and thus the second game having the previous game's emotional climax as the driving point for the entire story doesn't feel as...awkward? I guess awkward would be the word?
Like for me, as someone who played the first game when it first came out and really came to appreciate its value as a perfect standalone story, it was already really jarring to imagine what a sequel would be like, and it was really awkward when the sequel's entire plot and emotional driving force turned out to be HIGHLY motivated by the events of the first game. This isn't a universally bad approach for sequels, but it is a bad approach when the first installment's impact and success explicitly comes from the fact that the story was left open ended and with lack of closure. When I try to think of a parallel, I imagine if Christopher Nolan suddenly made an Inception sequel where you see if the top stops spinning or not. Like no, nobody wants that. At all. Likewise, I genuinely did not want to see what happened next in Joel and Ellie's relationship. That's not the point of the ending.
Before I rant too much, I'll just say that it definitely was possible for the Last of Us to have a universally loved sequel, but I think in order to do that it would have needed to essentially sideline the events of the main story to a big extent. I always look at Better Call Saul (prequel to Breaking Bad) and Puss in Boots The Last Wish (spin off to Shrek) as golden examples of how to make compelling spin off/sequel/prequel to a beloved story. Each of these respective stories expanded on both a beloved character and the world that the first story took place in, but they are EXTREMELY careful to leave the events of the first story completely untouched. Any reference to the initial story is done very sparingly and in more of an easter-eggy way, as the writers want to be very careful to not interfere with something that the audience already views as complete.
I personally think that abbys character would have been more of a enjoyable character if they reworked the story to befriending joels group and her struggling with the decision to kill joel. The way they packaged it in this game made most people angry at abby, angry they had to play as abby, and furious that ellie didn’t kill her at the end of the game.
You’re spot on and I like your idea. We really could’ve gotten some amazing heartfelt moments throughout the story and a massive emotional moment once Abby confronts Joel about what happened to her father. And I don’t mind the idea of Joel dying but they could’ve done it in a way where he sacrifices himself to save both Ellie and Abby. Delivering the same sad moment that we see with Lee & Clementine.
Would you have liked it if Ellie befriended Abby after a couple years then she question killing Abby because of Joel?
everyone i know didnt want ellie to kill abby in the end
Pretty sure this is what they’re gonna do in the show
your idea sucks lets be honest. It doesn't have any punch.
I won't claim to be a better writer than the writers on this game but my main criticism would be that Abby's section felt like a long side mission, I think it fell short of being a great adventure in its own right which is probably what they were trying to do.
part 2 had me more engaged than part 1
Loved the second game but have some of the same complaints about some of the writing decisions and a second playthrough made some dialogue and particularly the parallels (pregnancy, animals, etc) felt quite clunky.
Personally, I thought the plot choice to show Joel's death first, then elaborate on Abby's character was phenomenal, and I don't think they were trying to make you "like" Abby afterwards. Just think of Part 1 - you get Joel's arc first, see his humanity unfold, and his rampage through the firefly hospital becomes understandable. I don't know a single person hating Joel for what he did in the end. People discuss the morality and circumstances and the what-ifs, yes, but there's no hate.
For Abby, they flipped the script - first see the horrendous actions, then show the humanity of the murderer.
Just imagine they had showed Abby's humanity and motivations first, then let the tragedy unfold - for one, the trauma and suddenness of Joel's death wouldn't have nearly as much impact, because at some point you'd see the confrontation Abby vs. Joel coming. For two, knowing where Abby is coming from, you might see her pursuit of revenge as somewhat justified and somewhat forgivable/relatable, just like Joel's actions at the end of Part 1 become understandable knowing his background and journey.
The way the writers set up Part 2, they demonstrate how hard it is to see that humanity in someone, once you're already hating them. People's strong reaction to Abby kinda proves it. Many people don't just not like Abby, they actively hate her and talk/write about her with a passion, as if she was a real person who actually murdered someone. Some extend that hate even to the writers. I don't think any other plot choice would have evoked such strong emotions, or would've laid bare biases this well.
Moreover, the plot choice of Part 2 puts us in Ellie's emotional space. At the moment of Joel's death we know as little about Abby as does Ellie, we don't see the human Abby, but the murderer Abby.
tl;dr If the main theme of the game is hate, they made the perfect plot choice to get you there.
Exactly this! This is what I’m trying to tell everyone all the time with this game. You are meant to not “like” the story, that’s not what they were going for. All stories doesn’t have to be sunshine and roses and this game was, for me, really uplifting in that sense that a video game finally had the gut to do it. I’m not trying to sound like I’m in a high horse here but unfortunately it just seems like everyone who hates this game is like 10 years old. This saddens me. Try to think instead “why do the people who do this for a living make me feel what I’m feeling now? Is there a reason I’m feeling what I’m feeling?” Regardless of what that feeling may be. Instead of just “I’m feeling angry therefore this is bad”.
One of the things that bugs me most about the contrived nature of Joel and Abby meeting, is how she doesn't even consider letting him live.
He saves her life and an hour later she doesn't even wrestle with herself over killing him, not even questioning her initial motivation to go on this quest? Why wouldn't she begin to doubt the path that she's on?
She could have been asking herself if she really saw the death of her father in the right way and whether or not Joel was perhaps acting justified. That perhaps he was not at all the murderous, morally apathetic monster she thought he was. This would add further to the moral ambiguity of killing Ellie for a potential cure and give us a new perspective.
There is so much more depth that could have been explored here, but instead we don't even get to experience what Abby told Joel in the minutes she was torturing him... Such a missed opportunity that just rubs more salt into the wound of how contrived and shallow the setup of their meeting is.
@@lrsb1678it literally is idk why this commenter wanted her entire arc to be within the first 5 minutes of meeting her 😭😭 it’s to show she was completely blinded by rage and didn’t care that he saved her and also to show how Ellie became the exact same way
Yeah, your version would be much more interesting, I'm not sure why they went with the one in the game. Oh well.
@@NoNo-oe8vp Truuuu. Also, Joel condemns the ENTIRE PLANET to the apocalypse without blinking in the first game. Surely by now we understand people make rash decisions in this series.
I been thinking about this game’s story I use to think it should have been dina who dies first *maybe abby’s people attack the town to find joel* then joel dies where Jesse dies just to hammer home the ‘ cycle of violence theme they got going on’
but obviously the player wouldn’t want to go on a murderous rampage for a character. They just met.
I feel it would have been more interesting for abby instead of killing joel there to bring him back to Seattle to torture him more *btw the torture scene will be way more graphic in this version and hard to swallow just to make the player really pissed at abby* so the player goes on this murderous rampage to hopefully save joel you give the player a glimmer of hope that he’s okay but after ellie kills most of her friends abby kills joel cause violence lead some more violence theme they got going on. Also would be interesting to see Abby and Joel interact in someway during her gameplay section
the things you have to overlook to actually hate the writing
@@LowOnAmmoLoa personally i feel the second part will do much better as a show because film as a medium is more welcoming to stories that provoke negative emotions. Joel and ellie don't need to survive till the end all jolly for the story to be good thats just your personal bias speaking. The first games menu was that of a window with light peeking through it. and that's exactly what we god, joel finding light in this lost world. The second games menu was a boat in the fog on still water. There's a clear contrast between what the first game was trying to convey vs the second.
@@LowOnAmmoLoahow can you possibly say “everything from the first game is ruined” when Ellie is still alive. The entire point of Joel’s sacrifice was to keep Ellie alive, and not only is she still alive, but Joel’s killer is forever in Ellie’s debt for letting her live. Yall need to chill
The things you have to overlook to love the writing at the same time
@@LowOnAmmoLoa character assassinated?? They literally live in a post apocalyptic world--the world itself will assassinate your character lol. Also everyone in the first game is in a completely different set of circumstances (ie: Joel now having a "daughter" who he succeeded saving but is no longer talking to him; Ellie having a family, community, and home), and has become a different person. I mean look at how Tommy changed--Jackson made him a softie but as soon as his brother died he's doing the same torture and killing that Joel did. Hell he even becomes jaded and obsessed (like Joel was in TLOU1) and ruined his marriage.
I get it, not everyone likes sad stories but to call it a "bad" story makes no sense. It's a horrifically sad story, but it's told damn well. All the discomfort I felt as a player was mirrored in the characters--narrative mission accomplished 🎯
Gamers love to talk about video games being art. But the moment art pushed them out of their comfort zone, they freak out and want to go back to what makes them feel good.
Personally, I don't think that the concept of switching perspectives was too ambitious for a video game. The story of the game could be amazing if they were willing to make the game longer and get rid of some coincidences. And if they were to redo the timeline and make it more linear, like for example if we were to play all those flashbacks before Joel's death we as the players would have been even more eager to do the things we do with Ellie. Also, we could've played for Abby from the beginning, getting to know her and maybe finding a liking to her, we could have longer "flashbacks" so we could play with her and get to know her rather than be crushed when her father would die (nice parallel to Sara, before she would kill Joel). After playing as young Abby we would start the game with young Ellie. We would do all of her flashback parts before playing the actual start of the game. The concept, adventure, and story aspect of the game would be a proper sequel to the first game. Only if they would put it together differently and didn't rely on coincidence.
I still hold to the idea this game would have greatly benefited from having parallel perspectives that lead up to the confrontation.
red right hand mentioned
A lot of the controversy came from people who didn't play it nor understood it
The same old, tired cope
Another sheep of the flock repeating the same "smart" argument as soon as anyone criticizes this work of laziness 😂😂😂
Couldn't be more wrong 😂
Joel and Tommy’s guard being down isn’t lazy writing when take into accountant everything that’s happened thus far. Abby saves Joel from being attacked by the infected. So there’s some trust with this stranger, which Joel also did with Henry and Sam in the first game. They need to seek shelter because of an incoming snowstorm, so going anywhere else wasn’t an option. He could die in the cold, or take his chances with a stranger who already saved him.
You'll definitely die first in an apocalyptic world if you're this trusting. Just because you fought together to survive against a common enemy doesn't mean you're buddy buddy. Joel definitely knows this since he's been on both sides of the barrel. Over 20 years of experience down the drain over what? Being in peaceful town a few years where you still have to do patrols and that type of experience is required? No. Not to mention Joel has always been cautious even before the world has gone to shit.
Thank you for this day thank you for being so kind help me and these people to better understand you
The fact you’re saying Tommy leaving her behind “makes no sense at all” is crazy…. He knew what SHE MEANT TO JOEL.. why would he want to endanger her so just she could get revenge?? Literally that simple
i think at the end ellie’s actions don’t make much sense because she doesn’t even know what she’s doing at that point, she completely lost herself
My main problem with this story is that :
- They went on assuming that we would "sympathize" with Abby's side after she killed Joel when we knew NOTHING about her. They should have put that scene of Marlene and Jerry in the first game so we understood quicker the consequences of killing Jerry. I had to wait like 12 hours to understand why Abby wanted to kill Joel and by that time my mind was already made on her.
- The random PTSD moment at the end of the game. I can understand Ellie's indecisiveness but by the time we see how affected she is by killing, I was already done with Abby.
- The writing and the way they "tried-harded" the parallels between Abby/Lev and Joel/Ellie. That shit was so in your face like : "Look !! Abby has found her people into Lev and the Santa Barbara's Fireflies, just like Joel did with Ellie and Jackson 🥰🥰🥰", "Look !! Abby likes anime and collects stuff, just like Ellie and her comic books and cards!!! :)))))) They are SOOOOOOO similar guys they probably would be best friends if it wasn't for circumstances ❤"
It almost feels like the writers sat in front of me and told me "Here's a new Ellie and Joel :))))" for 30+ hours but I do not know those new characters. I do not know her opinions, her dreams, her hobbies, what she likes, what she dislikes. We don't know anything about her before she kills a Joel we've known for like, 7 years. How do you expect me to forgive, or at least sympathize with her ?
This story had major pacing issues and I think it's what spoiled it for me.
To compare with a game that I've played that came out the same year, Ghost of Tsushima. Imagine if the second act was just us playing as Khotun Khan and talking about his own insecurities and traumas (in parallel with Jin's) while he invades Tsushima. Like bro, I do not care, just die please 😂😂😂.
- More of a personal issue but I do not like characters who quit halfway through things, it pisses me off. Especially when we kill THOUSANDS just to get to her only to give up right in front of an almost dead Abby.
We have made thousands of Abbys, who could come back AT ANY MOMENT FOR US, in our way, only to fail in front of the only Abby that needed to die and that pissed me off.
I wish they would have given us an option to spare people just like in Sifu, so there could be a consequence for OUR actions. I'm playing as Ellie (and Abby) but I'm not them. Not everybody can relate to their choices and their feelings so of course it's going to be polarizing.
Now, I know that killing Abby won't bring back Joel (I already know he wouldn't be in the game) but Ellie can't come back to reality with a half empty cup. To me, the cup needs to be FULLY EMPTY to start all over again.
I understand the point of the story but it's written so weirdly that I cannot like it. It just leave a sour taste in my mouth. And no matter how much I'd like to change some parts it won't change anything so it's just frustrating. It's like they choose the worst option in a Telltale game 😂😂
There are so many things you can pick out in the story that just don't make sense, but are never addressed by the characters. Abby's is somehow surprised when Ellie comes after her for killing Joel, her father, when that was Abby's whole motivation for seeking out Joel in the first place. How Ellie was somehow convinced the vaccine would have saved the world, when Joel should know better and would have talked about it with her. Plus, honestly, Abby is just unlikeable. The first thing Joel does after Abby finds him is save her life, but she doesn't hesitate for a second to torture and kill him. How am I supposed to sympathise with someone like that? The fact that you can go around killing everyone with no consequences, when the theme of the story is about revenge is also hilarious. They tried to be clever by taking some random nobody like the doctor and attempt to guilt you by giving him a backstory, but it's all so contrived when you spare no thought for all the faceless NPCs you kill without a second thought. And then when you kill one of Abby's friends Ellie has a mental breakdown. She doesn't feel bad about leaving countless dead in her wake, but when she kills one of the people responsible for Joel's death she goes to her girlfriend and cries about it.
So dont make parallels and dont make likeable characters cause itll feel forced when theyre just tryna tell the story u cant seem to comprehend?
Feel bad for u
I appreciate nuanced takes like this. I think I enjoyed the game a bit more because I actually disagreed with Joel's decision in the first game. I think it was incredibly selfish, mainly because while I really like Ellie, I don't think her life becomes more valuable than anyone elses just because I care about her. Since I already disagreed with Joel, I guess it was easier for me to understand Abby's perspective and I felt that Joel kind of had it coming.
@@friendlyfeministyt8218
You couldn't comprehend the characters? Sure they were really badly written, but at least some of their motivations had a bit of sense to them. I'm sure there are plot summaries on youtube you can watch if you need to understand them.
@@alexanderinoa7850 u misunderstood
The characters are well written
Them saying the parallels and characters are forced is such a stupid argument
Its like saying the first game forced u to like joel and ellie
imagine playing this covid times
fk me i was out for revenge and was not happy
i was so pissed but could see where this story was going and had the best journey
she reminded me of negan to glen
One of the things i loved about The Last Of Us Part 2 was the overall story showcasing the Infected. The Infected were done super well in this game from start to finish
Honestly i couldn’t wait for it to be over. It was absolutely dreadful, depressing and morbid. It jumps back and forth in time so often, it’s hard to keep up with the story. I don’t understand how they went from The Uncharted masterpiece to this.