[SPOILERS] The Last of Us 2 open discussion [/SPOILERS]

[Karamazov]

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I thought I imagined the safe one in my play through.

 

[Karamazov]

That stare...

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I felt Ellie was telling the truth, I mean at that point what good does a bluff do? They're going to kill her.

I too think it was a bluff. She was buying time. That's my take though.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Damn! That's quality.

 

[Clukos]

The more I think about it the more I realise that the main problem with this story was execution. They were set on telling the story in a very specific way that I didn't feel like the characters in it had any agency.

I'd much rather play a game with Yara and Lev than what we got. Although, I still liked the ending, but I don't feel like replaying this at all.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'd much rather play a game with Yara and Lev than what we got. Although, I still liked the ending, but I don't feel like replaying this at all.

I won't be replaying this any time soon, and will probably replay Part II less than the fist game which was game you could leisurely enjoy over a weekend, but I am looking forward to replaying it in New Game Plus node to max out those skills and weapons upgrades. I now have a better appreciation for some of the option settings as well so can make the most of the games that are pure quality-of-life improvements, like auto-pickups. I also have a better expectation of where ti finds resources because I spent an inordinate amount of time aimlessly scavenging.

Knowing the structure and plot points will also let me enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay, which is sublime, a lot more. I felt on my first play through that whole time we were playing we were only half focussing on the present task because we were discussing the story, what had happened, where it might go. I find this a lot with narrative heavy games that I focus on the meta rather than the immediate macro but once the story is known, I can really focus entirely on the gameplay itself.

You sound like you feel like how I feel about RDR2, which I a game I enjoyed whilst I played it but which has such an appallingly bad control system that I probably never will replay it unless they patch it more options to make me less likely to punch a horse or lawman.

 

[PSman1700]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...iHN-E_nGZm73gnG6V-B9V78oXxCzC9r8Lca__VnooF2No

'Naughty Dog condemns harassment as The Last of Us 2 developers face death threats'

Not sure if correct thread, move if needed.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Although, I still liked the ending, but I don't feel like replaying this at all.

I almost never play games immediately after I finish them but play them when the sequel comes out(will please HzD again before H2FW comes out and will do same for Spider-man before Miles Morales). Funnily enough I started on the TLOU2 again a week later but have been taking it slow, and work has me busy so I don't spend all my time on the game. I have been doing a few hours every week though.

I will devote my time to Ghost of Tsushima again when that comes out.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

More insane ND detail.

The last was a nice touch, missed it.

 

[iroboto]

So, I finished the game, after 37 hours, (I'm getting ooooooold)...
All I have to say, is that Naughty Dog's storytelling was effective at least on me.
I went the whole journey, and by the end, my feelings were almost reversed and the main drive, the purpose that drove the plot forward, completely exhausted.
Now, I will jump into spoiler territory, because I need to understand the nuance behind the critique of those that didn't like it.
I can certainly see why some might not, I just cannot see some of the flaws described.

This one is pretty good imo. Others people like to say X and Y falls short etc. But they may have trouble articulating why. This guy doesn’t have issues articulating why.

 

[Daozang]

This one is pretty good imo. Others people like to say X and Y falls short etc. But they may have trouble articulating why. This guy doesn’t have issues articulating why.

Yeah, I saw that and I agree with his take.
It was pretty clear to me at least, that those were the intentions of the team.
I mostly wanted to hear the other side.
And I really find most of the arguments, especially for character choices lacking.
I think that all choices are well defined and easily explained without much need for suspension of disbelief.
The flashbacks worked perfectly for me. They served their purpose and were delivered beat to beat in the benefit of the direction the story was meant to guide the player towards.

The only argument, that holds value to me, is the fact that the gameplay itself opposes the narrative of the game.
Honestly I cannot think of a particularly effective solution to this problem, other than making it a Quantum Dreams type of game, with uninteresting game mechanics and emphasis on storytelling, or making a game with a shallow story, to reflect the minute to minute gameplay decisions the player has to make.

There is of course, another way to address this issue.
And that is by not making the game at all, which is obviously something that a number of people would have preferred.
I can understand that, when dealing with completely unrealistic game mechanics, someone might not be able to suspend his disbelief and cannot take seriously the rest of the game as a result.
But I would argue, that if this is the case, then the game was never meant for them in the first place.

 

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

Well, I've only got one real criticism of this game, as it's the issue that's at the root of every other shortcoming: an obsession with nonlinear storytelling.

It lead to so much narrative and emotional clumsiness throughout the rest of the story, and a different focus that felt at odds with the more wistful tone of the first game.

Worst of all, the flashbacks kept on filling in bits of backstory long after they'd actually have been useful and made me emotionally invested in characters. There's not much point in trying to make me sympathise with a character I stabbed in the jugular three hours earlier, when they were just a nameless baddie.

A secondary problem of all those bloody flashbacks were the number of times the flow of the main story was impeded by an "oh, oops, I forgot to tell you about this" bit of retroactive character development.

I'd have much preferred a more focused structure, resulting in an undercurrent of dread and inevitability, which I think would have complemented everything else that this story tackles.

Act 1:

You play as Ellie, beginning immediately after the events of the first game. In a linear fashion, with some truncation of years, you spend some time with Joel, as he goes hunting the infected with you. This reinforces the bond that you feel with Joel from the first game.

In the course of spending time with him, Ellie learns of the way he saved her. Ellie is conflicted because he's the first person in years to see her as a person rather than just a resource, but she was convinced that her fate was to die.

Due to this internal conflict, Ellie grows a little more distant from him and befriends Dina, with whom you go on a couple of adventures, eliciting memories of Left Behind. Ellie begins to harbour romantic feelings for Dina, but Ellie's conflicted about her sexuality. Why? Because she feels some obligation to procreate, as her progeny may carry her same immunity. But maybe they wouldn't, much like her death may not have brought about a vaccine.

With this, she understands Joel's position and moves to some degree of resolution with him, but in their resolution, there is foreshadowing as Joel and Ellie agree that there's likely to be some retribution for Joel's actions.

Act 2:

Cut to Abby at the earliest point in her storyline, where she's with her father. You're with her, controlling her, the entire time: from being with her father, right up until killing Joel.

That entire journey is a matter of understanding and actually FEELING her perspective. And you, the player, would be conflicted the entire time, as the entire act is about tracking down and killing Joel.

Let us meet Abby's motley crew, and spend some time in their company, before any of them meet their grisly fates.

Act 3 onwards, everything could just be as it currently is, but without the pace killing flashbacks. Maybe then it wouldn't feel overly long.

Edit: structure, because I practice what I preach.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Well, I've only got one real criticism of this game, as it's the issue that's at the root of every other shortcoming: an obsession with nonlinear storytelling.

I'm not a huge fan of non-linear storytelling. It got old fast in Lost (all the flashbacks) and I felt was done particularly poorly in The Witcher TV show. But I was expecting it in The Last of Us Part II because they started dabbling with this in Uncharted 3, and doubled-down on this in Uncharted 4.

I don't think it was particularly egregious here and it would have been difficult tell both Ellie and Abby's stories, for those specific three days, simultaneously. Plus they clearly wanted the player to hate Abby only to have you put into her shoes and that had to build over Ellie's fifteen hour campaign,

I felt the flashback sequences for both protagonists/antagonists were generally dropped in at the right time to a) introduce a change in pace, and b) offer some insight into a particular relationship.

 

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

I'm not a huge fan of non-linear storytelling. It got old fast in Lost (all the flashbacks) and I felt was done particularly poorly in The Witcher TV show. But I was expecting it in The Last of Us Part II because they started dabbling with this in Uncharted 3, and doubled-down on this in Uncharted 4.

Yeah, it wore quite thin in Lost. I think because it swiftly became apparent to the audience that the flashbacks weren't pieces of a puzzle, they were just filler. I don't know about the Witcher, as my interest waned after a handful of episodes - even though I keep threatening to go back.

I wasn't fond of the flashbacks in Uncharted 3 or 4. The first two games didn't have them, so it's stylistically at odds and kind of bifurcates the series. There's also a running theme: each game with flashbacks is self indulgent and flabby.

Uncharted 1: short adventure, linear, mostly on 1 island. No flashbacks. Character histories are developed by dialogue indicating their past adventures.

Uncharted 2: longer adventure, linear, mostly in 1 country. No flashbacks. Character histories are developed through dialogue.

Uncharted 3: long adventure, non-linear, spread across a few locations. Flashbacks used to insert the antagonist into the life of the protagonist and his father figure.

Uncharted 4: excessively long adventure, non-linear, the most globe trotting adventure of them all. Flashbacks used to give Drake a brother that had never been mentioned in the 40 hours we've already spent with him, some of which were flashbacks to his childhood.

The Last of Us: longer adventure, linear, takes place in 1 country, going from A to B. No flashbacks. Character histories are developed through dialogue.

The Last of Us Part 2: excessively long adventure, non-linear, takes place in 1 country, but going from A to B to D to A to C to G. Flashbacks aplenty, which are used, seemingly, to try and make us retroactively care about characters we've just horribly maimed.

I barely ever like flashbacks, but ironically, my favourite film is Memento. But the flashbacks there serve a purpose: they put you in the shoes of a man with anterograde amnesia, leaving you as disorientated as him.

In each Naughty Dog game that uses flashbacks, they seem to use them almost exclusively to retroactively fill in bits of backstory. Uncharted 1 & 2, as well as TLoU1, both indicated histories between characters by way of dialogue, peppered throughout the game. These were seconds-long exchanges.

Uncharted 3 & 4, as well as TLoU2, replace these seconds-long bits of dialogue with hour long segments of gameplay. And many of those segments have their gameplay hampered by subservience to the story.

So they've taken seconds worth of character content, then stretched it out to an hour or so, and then made you play through that hour, but that hour is just holding forward and occasionally pressing jump, because it's an expository scene. An expository scene in place of:

"Hey Sully, remember the Vegas heist?"
"Haha sure do Nate, I remember it every time I stub my toe!"

I don't think it was particularly egregious here and it would have been difficult tell both Ellie and Abby's stories, for those specific three days, simultaneously. Plus they clearly wanted the player to hate Abby only to have you put into her shoes and that had to build over Ellie's fifteen hour campaign,

True. I don't think the stories could run perfectly parallel. After the boring love triangle plot had taken up too much of my time and made me zone out (really ND, did a post apocalyptic zombie survival horror game need a highschool romance subplot?) the sudden switch to Abby made me start paying attention again.

But I do think it was a mistake to go for shock value with Joel's death, and to rely on that shock value to motivate you as a player. It makes everything more angsty, and has none of the subdued, wistful melancholy of the first game. Arguably it gets there towards the end, but the path there has been so muddied that it's completely unclear.

I felt the flashback sequences for both protagonists/antagonists were generally dropped in at the right time to a) introduce a change in pace, and b) offer some insight into a particular relationship.

Well then sir, you and I differ quite greatly in this regard. I respect your opinion, but I feel quite strongly the opposite way. I disliked the unnatural change of pace, and I thought the insights into relationships came at the wrong time. Sure, I can go back through the game and piece together characters and events so that I can logically determine how I aught to feel, but that's a world apart from actually feeling something.

Case in point: the lass playing Hotline Miami on her Vita. When I was playing as Abby I met the woman I'd stabbed in the windpipe as Ellie. I could piece together the notion that I should feel bad, but I didn't know her at all when I killed her - as far as I knew, she was a torturer/rapist/TikTok user.

Reverse the order so that I meet this woman when I'm playing as Abby. Let me interact with Vita-girl. Humanise her and make me feel empathy towards her. Then, when I'm playing as Ellie, lusting for revenge, I could be shocked and feel conflicted when one of the casualties is someone with whom I've bonded.

There was an instance where I involuntarily and audibly shouted "oh fuck off" due to yet another flashback popping up at a point where Ellie's journey had really picked up some solid momentum. I'm pretty sure there was a flashback within a flashback at one point as well. It was around that time that the story became a chore.


I think the writers of this game let the praise of the first one get the their heads, and it's caused them to be overly concerned with depth and cleverness. Neither of which were really aspects of the first game's story. It was a simple story, well told, and it treated its audience like adults. But gamers are so used to Saturday morning cartoon dross, that legions began treating it like Tolstoy.

Then, rather than the writers taking a step back and realising that gamers were hungry for simple, well told stories, they seem to have decided that gamers wanted complex, confusingly delivered stories. And they've done that by taking a simple story (revenge from two perspectives) and splicing bits of it here and there to create the illusion of complexity and depth.

I think it's also a victim of the current media landscape: everything's a bloody TV show. Personally, I find TV shows to generally be too bloated and meandering. Just like TLoU2.

 

[orangpelupa]

The order of scenes are also the issue with the Sony movie where a guy and woman are trapped in a space ship.

Seems directors want the player/viewer to follow the story instead of making their imagination and expectations wander, thustpotentially contradicts / want to fight the story

 

[Deleted member 11852]

In each Naughty Dog game that uses flashbacks, they seem to use them almost exclusively to retroactively fill in bits of backstory. Uncharted 1 & 2, as well as TLoU1, both indicated histories between characters by way of dialogue, peppered throughout the game. These were seconds-long exchanges.

For what it's worth, I also prefer the pacing and structure of Uncharted 1, Uncharted 2 and The Last of Us - all linearly told.

Well then sir, you and I differ quite greatly in this regard. I respect your opinion, but I feel quite strongly the opposite way.

We're allowed to disagree and like/dislike different things. Nobody has to die here. What I was trying to say, probably inelegantly, that although I generally dislike non-linear story-telling, I felt it wasn't too bad here. Ironically, I feel some of the most moving bits added little and could have been cut, e.g. Joel taking Ellie to the museum. This is a minimal story progression sequence that takes a good hour andI felt could have been accomplished in a shorter way. They literally did drop a walking simulator sequence into The Last of Us Part II. They did this in Days Gone as well where I felt it worked a little worse because they kept switching up the level of interaction and controls.

 

[Xbat]

Just started another play through because of the new grounded update.

Reliving it now again there's no doubt in my mind for me that Abby is the bad guy.

Just felt I needed to post that.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Just started another play through because of the new grounded update.

Reliving it now again there's no doubt in my mind for me that Abby is the bad guy.

The grounded mode mades Abby a guy?

 

[Unknown Soldier]