I would like to break this even further.
I think this game has good storytelling from a micro level, but bad at the macro.
I believe the plot itself, despite a little clichè and shallow, could have been turned into an interesting narrative overall had the macro-scale story-telling been handled better. As I said, I feel like it lacked flow, but also, the pacing is all over the place, not just gameplay-wise, but narativelly. The part of story telling they got right is the ability to develop character as you play the game, ans sprinkling exposition through the environment and banter. Basically, the craftsmanship ND has been developing for the past decades. But the manner in which they've established the main plot was bloated, a bit forcefull and contrived. It lacked ellegance throughout.
The good: The development of Joe and Ellie's relationship flashbacks was great. They adressed the confrontation of Ellie well too. The o shit moment with the guitar at the end was really cool. The development of Abby's relationship with the Scar kids was really cool too. Those too kids were very likeable characters as well.
But the best part, in my opinion, was the way we re-meet Ellie as Abby in the cinema was a very powerfull moment too, because you live it the first time through Ellie's eyes, thinking she is just a WoLF being a WoLF, comming to get the intruder who's been killing the participants of Joel's execution. Yet, when you do it the first time you know Abby has been doing a whole other different thing, she was not even aware that Ellie had been wrecking havock in town, Abby had just gone through hell and back: she was almost hanged to death, she infiltrated the Scar Island, developed a friendship with the kids, became an enemy of WLF itself, considered leaving Washington altogether with the kids and her friend, and all that only to find said friend murdered, all because of Ellie's much shallower pursuit oblivious to how that city was going through WAY MORE troubled times than her petty grievances (never forget death is a constant lurker in this world, and people loose loved ones all the fucking time, Ellie is not fucking special) in my opinion, that was the strongest part of the game. After you hang out with Abby, and you live through her considerably more noble objectives: returning the favor to the kids that saved her, despite them being from an enemy faction, learning of their hardships, and learning to develop empathy, going back to Ellie and her gang just reminds you of how bitter pieces of shit they really are. I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I felt great about kicking the shit out of Ellie's ass as Abby at that moment. She had it fucking coming.
Now, having said that, I felt the whole "turns out the people you saw as enemies were other human beings just like you all along, and the story looks very different from their point of view" twist mind-bogglinly played out and predictable. I feel insulted by the way this game tries to make this be a big epiphany when I saw it from the very beginning. For people like me, the whole thing feels like an arrogant and self-righteous exercise in restating the obvious in the most demeaning and paternalistic way.
Anyways, I feel they rushed stuff that could have had more time to breathe and given the proper emotional weight for the later payoff, while they've prolongued many other parts that did little to progress the story. They've allowed themselves to take hours in fetch-quests likes plots (ellie finds a lead, kills one of the WoLFs, goes back to the cinema, Next day another lead, kills it, backs to the cinema...) or (Abby goes get medicine, comes back to aquarium. Now goes to the island, now back to aquarium...) a lot of these could have been merged into single large marathons. Those were mostly sections that advanced the plot very little. They are mainly just excuses for more opportunities for gameplay. I just don't see why they felt like they had to resort to that when there were enough oportunity to get content out of the game without having to stretch those moments.
I felt like a lot of the characterisation of the main protagonists AND the universe set up in the first game went out the window too.
Ellie became a cold blooded bad bitch, when in the first game she was an idealistic humanitarian who felt like was living on borrowed time. Joe's brother too became this blood seeking assassin, when in the first game they made it a point that one of the larger divergences between him and Joel is that he was not willing to be limitlessly cruel and selfish for the sake of his own survival like Joel was. I don't see how those can be the same people. Another thing that was so hard to swallow is how unthrettening the country itself seems to have become all of a sudden. In the first title, when Joel and Tess first hear of the mission to take Ellie across america they call it a suicide mission. In this game, Ellie and her girlfriend go all the way to seattle on their own, infiltrate this occupied city undetected, all behind Joel's brother who did that alone just before, and are also then followed by the asian dude who also does all that, and all of them survive all those perils like it's nothing. (ok, the asian dude die, but not because of zombies or the WoLFs themselves, but by Abby, who at that point was also a crazy lone independent ranger impossibly surviving this town right in the middle of all the crossfire from the faction war for territory) In one of the flashbacks we see Ellie go back to the firefly hospital by herself too. In the first game, she went there with Joel and both almost drawned to death (ironically, they only survived because they were saved by the fireflies. Just remembered that now. One more reason why Abby did nothing wrong)
Later Abby manages to survive the trip all the way to California with Lev, then Joe's brother sets out to do the same like its a trip to Disneyland, all while he has a limp and one less eye. (I get that this is kind of the point, but when characters keep setting out to these dangerous trips on their own all the time it completely looses its meaning) Ellie does the same, on her own, and manages to get back, on her own again. Hell, I had already found the Fireflies trip to find Joel on their settlement for the sole purpose of murdering him hard to believe. Is the world of TLoU dangerous or not after all? Is humanity struggling to survive or not?
They also failed at making Abby and her pals into likeable characters. Again, I say this as a person who was A-OK with seeing Joe live though the fate he created for himself. I don't hate her because she killed Joe, nor because she later tried to kill Ellie. I hate her because she is a boring person. That simple. Her AND her friends are boooooriiing. Hell, they are even ugly. Their faces are forgetable and un-expressive. All of them. Her doctor father couldn't have a more forgettable and generic personality. And then her boyfriend is a clone of the dad. She is a shy, uninteresting, unfunny bland girl, and her boyfriend is a uninteresting unfunny wuss that is crawling in the mud for the boring girl. God damn it, ND, to get characters THIS unlikable you have to do it on purpose. Then ND pulls the cheap trick of having them like the dogs that earlier you were killing to try and make me like her more. Yes, I saw through your "ingenious" device there Neil, and it was not as clever as you seem to think it was. I think the preggie Shelley Duvall nurse said it best in her line akin to "don't you think your sudden act of kindness is gonna make me like you now" in another moment of Neil thinking he is oh-clever nodding to the player there. I guess that was meant to resonate with those that would hate Abby for killing Joe, which was not my case, but still resonated with me because I didn't like her simply because she was a bland and uninteresting company, and it always made the gameplay moments with her more painful because I just never felt glad to have her around.
And finally, I just think the hole thing gives humanity too little credit. I can't see actual people, put in situations like those of the characters of TLoU2, taking any of the decisions those characters took in this game. I don't think actual people are this two-dimensional, blood-lustful, let alone that competent as professional assassins. I also think in a world that deprived of modern conforts, people would focus much more in taking care of their community, avoiding unnecessary risks, and seeking peace to take on so many ambitious revenge seeking campaings. It just feels juvenile and disconnected from reality. the first game had its share of Hollywoodish fantastical romantization of the apocalipse and convenient plot contrievances, but this game is on a whole other level of fantasy. It throws realism in the trash, and for the sake of cruelty and cynicism. It gets so exploitative I was almost feeling dirty at points. The final confrontation at the beach even reminded me of MGS4 last boss fight. And one does not want to be compared to THAT sopa-opera of a moment, but that is what TLoU2 chose to end on, just more grotesque and gory. Ugh, feels like it was written by an edgy teen, not a grown adult.
