The Last of US II Spoiler and story discussion thread.

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If you'd actually read this thread the issues many have with her build are covered by @Amatsubu and he makes some very good points.



The story devolved into a petty revenge fantasy and it couldn't even commit to it, it had no payoff and felt impotent.

Beautiful game but it's one that fell face first into the manure in every other respect for me. I've lost all interest in the franchise, I've seen people make comparisons to the recent Star Wars movies and Game of Thrones season 8, and I'm inclined to agree. They made a lot of money and had a lot of hype around them, but ultimately they left a bad taste for a lot of people.
I thought that the game mabye should have ended at the farmhouse with the baby and everything it felt a bit like return of the king were it just went on too long you might as well be done with the franchise its not like they make a new one every year its a bit like Grand theft auto once every blue moon.
 
Soldato
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Missed that post.

Now you are obviously willing to suspend disbelief at Ellie's unrealistic build, but not Abby's. That's fine.

For me, there is no issue. The idea that a tiny girl like Ellie is a superhuman killer ninja is far more ridiculous to me than.....Abby being able to get enough protein in her diet to beef up.

Maybe because I do a lot of climbing and see women that are bigger than me regularly :p Have you ever seen Alex Puccio? She's a beast, probably kick Abby's ass :)

The reason people are willing to suspend their disbelief for protagonist that have incredible combat prowess that far exceed what they should be able to do (within reason) is for the purpose of entertainment. Without giving allowance to it we would end up with either very boring games and films or all protaganist being buff dudes.

Abby's character design is not for entertainment purposes, it is predominately a stylistic choice. Stylistic choices need to be consistent or it breaks immersion.
 
Soldato
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... we would end up with either very boring games and films or all protaganist being buff dudes.

I find all game protagonists being buff dudes or skinny girls very boring, and it was a nice change seeing a female character that actually looked like she could crack heads. But hey ho, opinions are like bumholes :)

Nice touch that they modelled her with vastly reduced muscle mass for the end scene, after being captured and presumably malnourished for a long period.
 
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Right copying my post from the other thread, finally finished last night:

So finished the game last night, 27 hours roughly and whilst overall I enjoyed my time (and you can see my previous posts in this thread) I think it definitely lost momentum in the second half.

I rate the first game as a 9/10, gameplay was an 7.5-8 but the story was a 10. This time round I'd say the gameplay was a 9 (definite improvement in all areas and utterly brutal) and the story was a 6.5 so I'd probably say an 8/10 overall. It isn't warranting of the game of the generation tag (I'd argue GOW has that tag for me) but similarly it isn't warranting of the review bombing etc, if it had kept up the momentum from the first half of the game where the story was an 8.5 then I would have given it a higher score but the second half whilst alright didn't have the payoff to really warrant the length of time invested in that story arc.

To expand on this:

Positives:

- Gameplay was brutal and visceral really took it up a notch
- Fantastic presentation/graphics and audio seriously impressive.
- The first half of the story with Ellie was fantastic really bought into it as a revenge story and really felt anger and
- Some of the flashback sequences were truly memorable and touching

In-betweens:

- Abbies story arc and development was under baked, to really understand the initial killing I think it would have made sense to develop her as a character at the beginning and then lead up to that sequence, almost by having it in reverse I already hated her which made it much harder to buy into the second half of the game emotionally. Ellie killed all her friends and then she lets her go? I just think it needed more, the supporting cast felt incidental to the story rather than a key fabric of it.
- Abbies playstyle was distinctly more brutal and whilst I enjoyed the variety I felt like this section dragged on too long and I didn't get the payoff of having a connection with her character (possibly as a result of my above point) to really warrant its length, in fact the only time I felt truly bad for her was the last sequence with Ellie where she was beating her to hell and I just felt like it was too much at that point.

Negatives:
- The ending has no payoff, I get neither the emotional payoff of Ellies revenge nor the contentment of abbie surviving as I had never truly bought into her.
- I hate to say it but it felt unnecessarily dark? Like oppressively so, there was no feel good like the first. Don't get me wrong I get the point around Joel and Ellie having their demons and having to live with them but in an already depressing world the respite of having some 'feel good' is part of what makes 'The Last of Us' great. I think that magic was lost in this story.
- As a revenge story it was pretty by the book didn't have the nuance of the first.

So overall as I said not the 1-3/10's that people like to bang on about, just rather average 6-6.5/10 story wise with some really enjoyable gameplay, though as I said the first half of the story was brilliant I just wish it had kept it up.

It's an 8/10 game which could have been a genuine 10/10. I rate GOW higher than it this generation, prob my favourite game over this but I still had an enjoyable 27 hours overall so can't knock it.
 
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Ok, so I just finished it. Roughly 28 hours in total. Now I will say that I only played the first one a few weeks ago and I also managed to avoid any leaked info or spoilers until after completion.

I thought it was genuinely great. The fact that people have a problem with a girl with built arms, a lesbian or trans story arc completes baffles me. At no point during the game did I feel they were trying to force any particular agenda on me. These points just exist in the story, just like as some of you will probably hate hearing, they do in real life. I can't help but feel that anyone who has a problem with these storylines has a fundamental, possibly subconcious, disdain for LGBT issues.

Joel dying was shocking, but well done. It's great that so many people bought in to the character from the first game, but I didn't feel like his actions were out of character. He'd been living in relative peace for years in Jackson, so could have quite easily mellowed. I liked the way I didn't know why at first and had to guess.

The switching between Abby and Ellie was great as well. Fleshed out a character we hadn't previously seen and provided a counter balance to the initial revenge story. Realising that I'd killed Alice was very sad. :( I'll agree with SS-89 that the final decision to not kill Abby, although it was what I was hoping, didn't fit too well seeing as Ellie had continuously gone down the revenge path over and over again.

Gameplay wise, I feel they improved on every aspect of the first game, which I found a little repetitive. I hated being forced into dark sections and genuinely felt tense throughout these parts. The hospital was a great example of building tension. I must have crawled around so slowly for ages, even though it turns out there are no infected for a while.

So yeah, I'd say 9/10 for me easily. Honestly seeing all the memes makes the haters seem like a bunch of spoiled children.
 
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9/10 for me. Finished it last night

I was so against playing as Abby as first. The game did a great job on making me despise her, but as I played her story, my opinion shifted. I certainly didn’t like her but the game did a great job of giving another side to the argument

I do wish I had more time as Ellie though as I did really enjoy the play style as her.

The ending was a bit lacking in payoff for me. I totally get why it happened and what the game was going for, but it still left me feeling ever so slightly deflated but I guess Ellie is a better person than I am :D
 
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I don't think it would have been a truly satisfying ending to have Ellie kill her either. I suppose they could have thrown a curveball and given you a choice, but after the big moment at the end of part 1 where you are forced to murder Abby's dad, it wouldn't fit right to suddenly give you agency over the characters.

I'd forgotten about the doggo, that hit in the feels when you realise it was Alice, all part of the building narrative that Ellie is leaving a trail of dead, real 'innocent' people in her wake, rather than just faceless goons.
 
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I'd forgotten about the doggo, that hit in the feels when you realise it was Alice, all part of the building narrative that Ellie is leaving a trail of dead, real 'innocent' people in her wake, rather than just faceless goons.

Exactly this. If we’d stayed with Ellie the whole way through most people would easily side with her and her quest for revenge. By playing as Abby you get flipped to the other side and suddenly Ellie’s choices become a lot harder to swallow.
 
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I liked Abby and her half of the game. The sniper battle, the hospital, the island, the sky bridge (seriously I don’t like heights haha, I must have fell like 5 or 6 times) All of those set pieces were fantastic.
 
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I don't think it would have been a truly satisfying ending to have Ellie kill her either. I suppose they could have thrown a curveball and given you a choice, but after the big moment at the end of part 1 where you are forced to murder Abby's dad, it wouldn't fit right to suddenly give you agency over the characters.

I'd forgotten about the doggo, that hit in the feels when you realise it was Alice, all part of the building narrative that Ellie is leaving a trail of dead, real 'innocent' people in her wake, rather than just faceless goons.
Still doesnt stack up in any narrative. You kill a pregnant women and slowly beat a woman to death in you "Quest" for revenge, then only at the very last moment you think of the good times with Joel, not with his head bashed in at teh crucial moment. Dont build an entire story based on revenge only to chicken out to try and tell some meaning in the end that doesnt even come close to stacking up. Many things could have happened to Ellie during her time looking for Abbey to make it seem she was changing her mind.
 
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Still doesnt stack up in any narrative. You kill a pregnant women and slowly beat a woman to death in you "Quest" for revenge, then only at the very last moment you think of the good times with Joel, not with his head bashed in at teh crucial moment. Dont build an entire story based on revenge only to chicken out to try and tell some meaning in the end that doesnt even come close to stacking up. Many things could have happened to Ellie during her time looking for Abbey to make it seem she was changing her mind.

You didn't think the scene where Ellie breaks down after realizing she's killed a pregnant woman was a hint that she may not stay on this path of bloody revenge?

I thought it was a pretty strong hint as to what was coming personally.
 
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You didn't think the scene where Ellie breaks down after realizing she's killed a pregnant woman was a hint that she may not stay on this path of bloody revenge?

I thought it was a pretty strong hint as to what was coming personally.

None of which was reflected again later, as most of the characters where throw aways. If you are going to build doubt in a long story it has to build and build, not choosing to throw in a flashback at the very last possible moment.
 
Soldato
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None of which was reflected again later, as most of the characters where throw aways. If you are going to build doubt in a long story it has to build and build, not choosing to throw in a flashback at the very last possible moment.

Saying Mel was a 'throwaway' character makes me think you were playing a different game? You have played it right?

Even after the puking incident the game spends literally hours developing the story of the rest of Abby's circle of friends, precisely to drive home that Ellie's thirst for revenge is carving a swathe of tragedy through a group of people that are just trying to get by and survive.
 
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Anyone else **** their pants when they went to use that workbench ? And those WLF creep up on you just as your working on your weapons ? :D
Me too

I loved this game. I think when I was half way through I did initially think, oh god I'm going to play the entire game again from another person's perspective. However, after an hour or so of that I was really intrigued where it would end and actually preferred Abbie to Ellie.

10/10 from me, can't really fault it, it's a work of art.
 
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Just finished it about ten minutes ago and it was incredible.

The downward trajectory of Ellie was matched by the upward of Abby, with Ellie being consumed by guilt and hatred, losing her friends by her actions and the destruction of those around her. She became quite an unlikable character, although pretty 'fun' to play. I guess that was the whole point though, revenge, PTSD and so on having a psychological effect on people.

I loved playing Abby and watching her develop, making attachments and developing the humanity that Ellie was losing. She was more mature than Ellie in many ways, especially when she had Lev to live for. However, as somebody else pointed out, she had a tough fight in the basement of the hospital.

I guess the end, where she 'forgives' Abby, is fulfilling her forgiveness of Joel. Abby and Joel were alike and mirrored visually, amongst other ways, by the carrying of the child to safety. Ellie forgave Abby to save herself and allowed her to get on with her life. I guess that's why she leaves the guitar behind as well, on top of finding it a little awkward to play.

I really find the 'outrage' against it bemusing, especially the review bombing and so on. I guess it shows that the little boys will continue to be insignificant as the game has sold quite well, I hear. So weird when they pick on silly things like sexuality, Jews (honestly, read some Twitter stuff) and well-built female characters. Seriously, my wife manages a gym and there are some seriously hench ladies out there.

10/10 for me, an emotionally exhausting but incredibly involving game.
 
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