The Last of Us Part II (PS4, June 19, 2020) Video Game • Page 14

and yes, better.

 

Yeah, if the story just isn’t what someone hoped for, fine I guess, I’m sorry your expectations were wrong. But it really clicked for me and even if individual outcomes aren’t what I would have hoped for, the message seems so clear and correct and 100% justifies its own existence.

But if your issue is too much representation or something like that, you can get the fuck off the planet (not that I’m seeing that in this thread, I’m just yelling into the void)

I also heard a take where someone sought out the spoilers and then were underwhelmed when they played the game. What the fuck did they expect to feel? That’s why I will never understand seeking out spoilers for something you’re already interested in consuming.

 

I'm also really curious what the leaks were that everyone was so sure the game was going to be awful. I can't imagine thinking that based on what I've played so far so I'm assuming it's the ending... I really want to finish it so I can really look at why people thought it was going to be awful, or why some people still think it's awful.

I think my only issues with the game so far are that some of the encounters can feel a little too repetitive and I still think some of the characters are a little unlikable/boring but I'm not finished yet so that could change.

 

I had Lev’s character spoiled for me by a friend who saw a Twitter thread of what appears to be a bad faith actor on the more left-leaning side of the spectrum. arguing that his plot line is just trans trauma porn and I could not agree with that take less (as a trans person). I think this game is altogether pretty groundbreaking in terms of representation for LGBT folks in gaming. there’s just so much misinterpretation and bad faith acting going on with this game and it’s sad bc I think it is truly a masterpiece (and the rare one I have confidence could be followed up well for a third and final act to create a trilogy, which I didn’t have for the first one), I feel like there are probably very reasonable reasons to dislike this game but I have yet to meet one I don’t feel misses the point or is just generally obtuse in some capacity.

 

ive spent way to much time reading the take downs of this game and ive now found myself having arguments with these people in my head constantly. Ima just go back to ignoring twitter/reddit kids. This game is a thousand times more nuanced than those people are giving it credit for and it doesn't help that half the people arguing that it sucks are doing so in bad faith to mask their bigotry.

 

Having looked at the leaks after the fact, the summary of the plot isn’t even entirely correct. There’s even a major point that is VERY wrong. It makes the outrage even more ridiculous.

I have similar issues with the encounters. Specifically the infected sections kinda felt like a chore? My biggest problem is that the delivery of the game’s message felt sorta hamfisted. I was very invested in the plot but I understood what the game had to say very early on but then I still had 15 hours left. Which would’ve been fine if I liked the characters enough but I also felt like a lot of them were kinda boring/underdeveloped.

Despite those things I still ended up loving the game. There’s many great moments and I found myself into the gameplay more than I expected. I wanna replay to see how that affects my opinion.

 

I loved Lev. He was my favorite part of Abby's sections.

 

my biggest gripe of the game is probably just overall pacing of gameplay sections. Sometimes it was exhausting to spend 50 minutes stealthy through a small arena section (yes i suck and it takes me a while to crawl through everything) to only go straight into another arena to do it again. Im sure my opinion on this will change with replays over time, cause i felt the same way about last of us 1 after playing it only once.

 

ive been seeing A LOT of takes on this story being based on watching an edited together movie on youtube of all the cutscenes, and i find that so....disingenuous? ND does almost all their character building via gameplay dialogue as you walk around/explore so ofc if you cut that all out certain characters will feel under developed?

 

Yeah plus a lot of this is based on things you DO as a character so it's going to be hard to get that experience if you're not playing the game. I don't have too much respect for those opinions.

 

Yeah and these are allegedly fans of the first game who would know that's how these games work

 

a lot of ppl a) don’t know how to deal with complex emotions b) have empathy problems. if your opinions/feelings towards Abby don’t slowly change/humanize her to you, then I guess the poignance of what this game does is prob lost on you and that sucks, I feel bad for anyone in that boat. by the end I just wanted the violence to end. I was crying fighting Abby bc she was just so broken at that point and didn’t want to keep the cycle going. this is one of the most beautiful dissections of the true impact of violence and it’s worth/necessity in our lives/society that I can thank of. it’s a story about generational violence and cycles. if Ellie had killed Abby in front of Lev, she would have been doing the same to him that Abby did to her with Joel. Abby arguably has one of the most satisfying character arcs and development of maybe any character in any medium I can think of. I also think it’s hilarious that people complain about Joel’s death being abrupt and unsatisfying as if any of that can’t apply to many of the people Abby loves who die. this game has such a thin divide in terms of how the violence is applied to important, developed characters and the random goons you kill from their respective foot soldiers. you can draw a direct, obvious parallel between how Manny or Yara die and how Jesse dies, for example; or even more obviously, how Joel and Abby’s father both die and are catalysts for these characters. I could physically feel my attitudes and thoughts about certain character change and it became more and more tragic growing to care about certain characters I so eagerly killed from Ellie and co’s perspectives. there were a lot of moments I felt really shook me to my core and I can’t think of a sequel that so bravely holds a critical mirror to its beloved predecessor and forces the audience to engage with the consequences of the actions of the characters you so eagerly justify bc you are attached to them.

idk I am high and rambling and still trying to tie together all my thoughts and feelings but I really think this is the rare sequel that across the board justifies its own existence in every respect, and it’s not attempting to tell an even remotely similar story to the first.

 

END OF GAME SPOILER Speaking of parallels when you cut Abby down and she picks up Lev saying "I got you I got you," it's really evocative of when Joel picks up Ellie in the surgery room. That really got me.

 

It's the culture war. I saw a youtube thumbnail (that I refused to click) for a video with title something along the lines of "TLOU2 and the Entertainment Industry's hatred of father figures"

Essentially, for whatever reason they see this as Hollywood hating on men and not allowing positive male role models anymore. Even though if you played the first game.... You would know that Joel's final choice is complex, difficult, and kind of awful and needed to be reckoned with. To ignore that ending is downright stupid and bad storytelling[./SPOILER]

These channels fighting for "alpha men" is the most beta thing ever

 

Internet discourse is garbage and these assholes have become so irritatingly loud every time a product doesn’t live up to their fan-fic white knight expectations over the last few years.

Movies, books, games, nothing is safe for authorial intent. The writer makes a decision the fan base can’t reckon with? Well then it’s clearly garbage. We apparently need wholesome, satisfying arcs in which nobody Is challenged and consequences are few and far in between.

 

Reactionaries cannot create art themselves, they can only criticize or appropriate existing works. I blame a lot of this on the rise of Ben Shapiro. He was a failed screenwriter that blamed his writing shortcomings on Hollywood's liberal bias, and then became a commentator. He really adds nothing of value to any conversation. It's all negativity and reactionary without giving real solutions - a lot of youtubers/gamers/nerds seem to look up to this model and have found an outlet for content creation by essentially doing the same thing

 

im getting a bit exhausted with some of these sort of gauntlet sections too.

 

Didn’t know that about him. Explains so fucking much

 

I've gone down the rabbit hole on subjects I hate to better understand them unfortunately haha

 

Also the rise of anti-intellectualism in all forms of medium + science (which ben shapiro has a huge hand in). Why if a critic gives something a good review + reasoned detail why, they are immediately shunned as "liberal puppets" or whatever. This trend started in movies a while back, but this thinking has seeped into gaming as well it feels

 

this is a good post.

Something im left thinking a lot right now is if Abby's arc only went the way it went because she was given the closure to her revenge vs Ellie who wasnt. While obv there are many parallels between Abby + Ellie in their actions/stories in Seattle, you could make an argument there are more parallels of Abby pre-Joels death with Ellie Post-Joels? Like I think a lot about the scene with Owen + Abby, and how the quest to find Joel "ruined" that relationship and how that directly mirrors Ellie + Dina.

Its clear that the introduction of Lev helped refocus Abbys perspective and allow her to think more about the future/be hopeful and push for change, but i question how her relationship with Lev would of been different if they met pre-Joels death. She was only able to have the perspective she had because she was given the closure she sought for and came out the other side.

I guess this really just reinforce the circular nature of the violence that the game is talking about. You get to see characters on either end of their quest for revenge and you realize they are basically the same before and after, because that cycle will just keep going and suck you in again and again. Theres no "quick resolve"/happy ending after achieving the goal here.

off topic from this, the final flashback with Joel + Ellie crushed my heart into a million pieces. The voice acting/mocap in this game is out of control good.

 

Yeah, even if you get the outcome you wanted (successful revenge), you will still lose everything in the process. Ellie loses Dina, Jesse, and Joel, Tommy loses Maria. Abby loses Owen and Mel and Manny and her connection to her entire community. Yeah, some introspection by any character before the fact would have been beneficial but that doesn’t negate the the lesson here imo.

 

I love how this game plays with expectations. something I think will always stick with me now that I have played this through is how through the whole game they portray Abby to be this strong, cold, extremely muscular woman (even when Ellie is on her final hunt for her and runs into the guy who trapped Abby and Lev the guy said “built like me, like an ox” or whatever) and so when you finally encounter her at the end and you see she is frail and basically just skin and bones now... it’s kind of haunting.

 

I first saw the other person with the exact same braid and tank top Abby had previously and spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out what I was supposed to do because I didn't noticed actual Abby.

One thing that confused me: were they actually talking to Fireflies in that basement or was that just the gang finding out where they were?

 

The Last Of Us Part 2’s Sales Reveal A Predictable Truth About Controversy

Once again proving - these cry-babies might be loud on the internet, but their voices don't matter in reality