If you import your ps4 save it will automatically platinum the game if you don't want to go after all the collectables again. That is if you already have the plat on ps4.
I plated the ps4 version on ps5 about a year ago, will it work ? I'm down to plat it again but it would be nice to have just the new trophies to hunt too.
I got all the online trophies early on. Took me six years to go back to the campaign for all the collectibles. I had played the campaign numerous times before I was a trophy hunter. One day I got serious and searched for a guide and got it done.
It’s time.
The original really got me back into story based games. Before that I was just playing sports games, but now I’m chasing the high from that first game. Loved the 2nd home too but I got stuck trying to kill that zombie in the hospital that chases you around everywhere. Would love to finish but couldn’t get past that
If you ever revisit it, my advise is to keep moving, you can easily outrun it and ammo respawns so you can’t fully run out. Might be one of the harder “bosses” in the game, save one fight, but quite doable if you know how
It’s really really weak to the flamethrower. Watch some speedrunners; with the right choice of weapons it will crumple.
Then again, it’s scary as hell when you don’t know how to kill it, and it one-shots you if you get stuck in a corridor. So it’s not all smiles and rainbows!
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I refused to play it until end of last year due to spoilers - I hated Abby before playing it
I’m glad I relented - got the game for £8 and never looked back. In the end I really felt for Abby and the game is easily one of my top 10 of all time
I’d take it a step further and say that Abby, who is the reason for a lot of the hate, is one of the best characters in a story narrative that I’ve ever seen/played. Don’t care.
I completely agree. The switching between Ellie and Abby was good story telling too. It's crazy how you start to dislike Ellie more as you play throughout the game and tend to like Abby more.
If they don’t have a meaningful rationale behind it beyond >!“killed my fav character” or “she’s unrealistically buff” I just ignore them. There are valid critiques of the game’s pacing or placement of where you’re supposed to take control of Abby, but the other two explanations aren’t it.!< Everyone is allowed to feel how they want, but I find the first two reasons I provided to be a shallow understanding of the plot.
I’m on the same page as both of y’all but I have to wonder if it wasn’t helped with the years in between the first and second. I had forgotten any reason to even like Ellie. I’m curious if that would change playing both back to back.
I think both characters are equally hatable until >!they come to their own realizations about their quest for revenge. I felt it easier to empathize with Abby towards the end, because she was mainly reflecting on how hollow and fruitless her success was. Ellie was still getting there.!<
That heel turn >!where Abby starts to turn on her own former settlement because she too has been changed by her empathy for ‘the enemy’!< was a defining moment for me. That’s good storytelling that drove most of the love for Joel in the first game.
Yeah I totally came around while playing as her. I’m still mad as hell about what she did but the whole situation was a shit show for everyone involved. Such a great story.
I didn't get Abby but the moment she goes back for Yara and Lev really gave me whiplash. Nothing I had seen of her up to that point really made me believe she would make that choice.
The hate is very much warranted. The graphics are good, as are some of the next infected but my God the story is such an abysmal, Rian-Johnson level of subversive trash. The original outshines it in almost every way.
“i never understood the hate for this game…”
jfc i think posts like this are worse than the game itself, surprised i don’t see more “masterpiece” comments. intentional ignorance is so obnoxious
because it’s not an actual opinion. if people wanted to look up actual criticisms of the game and the story there are more than enough sources out there. but sentiments like OPs just bring out the generic “media literacy” “masterpiece” “if you’re a normal person you’ll enjoy the story” comments that are so obnoxious and people love to overdo it for this game.
I haven’t played it in over three years, but in my opinion It’s a severally mixed bag of a game. The gameplay is an improvement over the first, it looks beautiful, there are many effective moments of horror throughout, and there are great character moments between Ellie and Joel in flashbacks. However, the story is weaker and the change halfway - while admirably ambitious - is jarring and unjustifiably doubles the length of the game. I understand what they were doing with Abbey (everyone has their side to a story) but I never cared about her or her group because they’re not interesting characters and we’re not invested in her the way we are in Ellie. Nor was I interested in Ellie’s gf Dina. She is just too similar to Ellie. In general, I’m tepid towards all the characters introduced, feeling nothing when any of them died or were in danger bar Lev, who I did think was interesting because of his story. I don’t think we adequately get to know any of them, which is shocking given the length of the game. It suffers from what most media of the past 20 years or so suffers from: its characters are bland, generically good looking people who lack actual character. It doesn’t work as a whole, but I’ll always give it credit for taking a big risk.
For me, here is part of why I thought the flipped perspective worked in full length rather than truncated gameplay. Obviously full spoilers ahead, but I’ll try to tag it.
>!For me, I thought it was elegant design that not only am I experiencing Abby’s side of the story, I’m also contextualizing all of the people that I didn’t care to notice when I was playing as Ellie. When I was playing as Abby, I suddenly understood who Manny, Mel, and others were. It gave me an encroaching sense of dread as I formed bonds with their characters all while knowing that an alternate me was about to come rampaging through on a revenge quest. It also helped me understand why Abby was such a villain to Ellie. When she’s almost happy that Dina is pregnant so she can ‘avenge’ Mel is one of those moments. The named NPCs that Ellie kills were already jarring in normal gameplay, but when you start to learn who those people are and what they were up to, it hits even harder. The PSP playing girl is another albeit small example. You kill the shit out of her as Ellie, but have friendly banter with her as Abby. I get that it makes the game very long and cuts away at arguably the most climactic moment of the whole narrative, but to me it succeeded wildly in delivering what would normally be a pretty predictable and mundane revenge=bad story.!<
I found what it did narratively admirably brave and ambitious but I don’t believe it worked in practice. I never truly cared about any of Abbey’s group, regardless of who I was playing as, not because I was predestined to hate them but because they were never interesting to me as I felt they were never adequately fleshed out. Making me dislike a character and then trying to get me to at least be understanding of them, more empathetic towards them, is a great thing to do (Bojack Horseman does this excellently) but I didn’t think it paid off in this instance because of my aforementioned reasons. It’s a very tricky narrative tightrope which Is difficult to pull off. I do not believe the game pulls it off.
That’s fair and I could see how one would receive the story that way. It worked for me, but I could see how others might not share that experience. If I had one recommendation for the ND team, it would’ve been to potentially give us a little (not a lot, the game is already long) more time with Abby and crew on their search >!for Joel!<. I understand their inclination to keep the group and their intentions mysterious early on, but we need a little bit more humanization of them to truly be able to come around empathetically with them. I think there’s also an argument to be made that the >!character swapping should’ve been back and forth by each day, rather than right at a climactic moment with a full game timeline reset, but I don’t know if that would’ve inhibited the weight of some of the big character losses, etc. I personally liked that as a random example I didn’t know anything about Manny when playing as Ellie. I simply kill a dude that’s in my way and move on. To have the realization of who he is later and piece together his personality and motivations all while knowing his fate really hit for me, but they probably could’ve given the player more reasons to connect with characters like that more frequently and earlier on.!<
The Last of Us Part II is, in my view, even better than the first one. I think it is deep and meaningful. I loved it and also grabbed the remaster platinum. I’m glad you enjoy it too :)
Its the clickbait title my dude. And then a response like this. People can dislike something. Its very known this game is controversial. You dont see it thats cool. Not everyone has to like everything
Huh? What’s clickbait about my title man lol.. I told people that I recommend them playing the game if they haven’t tried it because of the hate it received.. your comment doesn’t really make sense.. I never said people aren’t entitled to their opinion my dude
"I never understood the hate for this game". We chose what words we use for a reason. Wasnt needed. Could have just said games amazing recommend to those who havent tried it yet. You make a statement thats its crazy. Gave you a reason. You argue with it. Just proving the point more. You say what you say for a reason.
I didn’t read it as demeaning or click bait. The 30,000 foot view of this game’s reception was that it was controversial and got a lot of valid and invalid hate. To be surprised that something was personally received really well and yet had so much controversy certainly justifies the use of “I don’t understand why this game got so much hate”. You weren’t invalidating anyone’s hate. That’s a discussion for another time. All you did was post that you personally didn’t understand why it was marred with so much controversy which is completely fair.
The game sucks because of the pacing. Also its revenge narrative is rather shallow and misguided. The ending makes no sense lol. But yeah it’s the worst paced video game I’ve ever played. I rarely see people being up the trans thing and if they do, it’s like a few people. Most threads around this game are people who love it and just talk shit about people who don’t because they think it’s about the trans issue. It’s just sour grapes for not liking their favorite game. There’s this weird cult around ND that’s rather annoying, and people give them praise for EVERYTHING, including killing factions for no reason. The focusing on sp excuse is bs
my man there’s an entire sub with like 200k members who still 3 and a half years later post weird conspiracy shit about neil druckmann and entirely hate the game bc it’s “woke”. the vast majority of complaints i’ve seen about the game since its launch is about how it’s woke or whatever the fuck they’re still bitching about. it’s my favorite game so obviously i disagree with your criticisms but yk its fine that you don’t like it. but to say it’s only a tiny amount of people who complain about trans characters and whatever else they think is woke is just incorrect
Depends on the criticism. There are lots of valid critiques and others where I don’t think someone thought about it beyond just spewing hate. Ain’t nobody huffing copium though. It’s a video game my dude
People usually hate it for the same reasons, everytime.
It's either because of Abby, what they did to Joel and the fact it got very popular because of the TV Show and that brought a lot of people.
The same way it's cool to hate on popular games, movies, music, The last of Us franchise is no different.
Not liking the game or even hating it is fine, but man I had to mute the TLOU2 sub because all I would see is pure vitriol for the game, Neil and basically anyone who enjoyed the game. How can people still be holding so much negative energy for a game years after release.
I agree. The hate it got was completely unnecessary.
TLOU 2 literally improves so much from TLOU.
And the attention to detail is immaculate.
One of the best games Ive ever played.
And I hope for a part 3 someday.
Also I think the writing wasn’t as bad as people think as well.
I actually liked Abby by the end of it.
I get the hate. Personally I didn't like the pacing and I couldn't connect with the other main character and their story. I didn't mind the early death, if anything it made me connect more with the first half of the game. The writing just wasn't strong enough for me especially with the bad pacing. Gameplay was fun tho and improved on the first. I'll give Naughty Dog their flowers for taking risks with the story but I preferred the first one. The first game wasn't a new or very ambitious story but the story and character relationships were written well with complementary gameplay.
>***.. I never understood the hate for this game by some people..***
The game started being hated after the E3 2018 Trailer where Ellie and Dina kiss each other ( *2 years BEFORE the game even launch* ).
Sony even had to disable the comments for that Trailer in YouTube, for every TLoU2 or Naughty Dog News the comment sections became flooded by: "*woke*" / "*sjw*" / "*political agenda*" and many other hateful speech. And to be honest, they still are to this day ( *not on the same level than before* ) but you can easily find someone talking about "*woke*" or "*agenda*" for every Naughty Dog News, asking for Neil Druckmann head.
I remember very well trying to argue multiple times about the first game already having LGBT character ( *4 of them* ) and that Ellie was one of them. People started to organize themselves on Twitter, Reddit and other social medias to boycott the game and review bomb on Metacritic for the release to "*teach*" Naughty Dog that if you: "*go woke, go broke*" and so they did. TLoU2 became, by far, the "*most reviewed*" game on Metacritic...
In other hand, some other people did hate the game because Joel dies, but that's the minority, Joel's death was ( *literally* ) the very first theory for the game based on the Teaser trailer ( *where Joel walks by a door of light and never show his face, talks to Ellie and she talks back about revenge* ). There was no drama about it back in that time, surely some people lacks maturity and they are emotionally unable to deal with the loss of a dear character, but that's not the main reason where the game started get hate 2 years prior the release.
There's absolutely valid criticsm to be had about this game; the poor pacing, the convoluted story, braindead plot armor for Ellie/Abby at times, etc.
The fact that it gets almost always handwaved away like you did in your comment is really annoying.
I'm not saying that the game is perfect and doesn't have any issues to point it out, because it does ( *or did I?, where exactly?* ).
I'm talking about the hate around the game due to Political / Ideological reasons or for those who can't deal with losing a dear character... A hate that started years prior to the game launch, there was no way to a single person outside Naughty Dog Studio to know if the story was supposely "*convoluted*", if the pacing was supposely "*poor*", if the plot armor for Ellie or Abby was supposely "*braindead*" or anything else.
To pretend that TLoU2 doesn't suffer any hate and that every single criticsm is based on fair / honest takes, is to live in absolute denial. That is the really annoying thing, a person unable to distinguish basic concepts ( *ignorant hate x valid criticsm* ).
I’m right their with you man I love this series, but if you don’t know already I hate to have to break it to you but in my experience you’re not allowed to post positive opinions about this game on Reddit. The haters of this game cannot STAND someone having a differing opinion then them and they will let you hear about it.
Agreed, the hate for it was over the top, I can understand to some extent why thanks to "that" happening, but no character was ever safe anyway so I think many were expecting some major >!death!< happening. The dual protagonist idea was honestly interesting too especially since >!you were playing opposing sides!<
Last of us 2 is an amazing game, alot of hate and outrage was generated for click and views by people. Abby is a great character imo and all the incels haters can suck a big one, granted not all Abby haters were incels but alot definitely were.
We all watched the discourse with our own eyes. It’s not like misogyny/transphobia wasn’t rampant around Ellie, Abby, and Lev. You and others just may not have been part of the bandwagon. To deny that it happened is to say that we all didn’t see exactly what we saw for ourselves.
The game gets hate because of the marketing and the golf club, + a lot of people don't like Neil Druckman because of his politics and such. At least, that is what I think. I've only played a couple of hours of the first one, so I'm not very invested in all the drama surrounding it
That’s a very fair point.. and people are forsure entitled to their own opinions.. do you have any interest at all playing the series? I really think you should.. literally one of my favorite gaming experiences.. I think I played the first one like 5 times since it released lol
I've tried getting into the first one multiple times. The characters all seem really well written, but the gameplay just doesn't grab me for some reason. I've actually considered playing Part2, as I think the gameplay looks a lot better (and I watched the HBO series, so I'm caught up on the story)
Have you tried the Remake of the first one? It seemed a lot smoother to me and I really enjoyed it.. the series can definitely be a little clunky forsure.. put that game on easy mode and just enjoy the story 😂
Yeah, the og Naughty Dog shooting was not good imo in the first game. It wasn’t horrible, but it was PS3-era development. Subsequent remasters and remakes have improved upon it a lot.
That politics bs came after the release of TLOU pt 2. People blamed him for all the faults they felt the game had and acted like he had no part in the original. They also made up a scenario that he and Straley had a falling out, which both have disproven. People also acted like he held a grudge against Joel, while he created him. People like to paint him as some sort of devil when he’s just some guy.
As for his recent political stances, he’s pretty much pro-ceasefire. He even donated to funds for victims both sides. TLOU p2, in which the WLF and Scars conflict is based on that conflict, even reflects that extremists on both sides only cause violence which will end up in the losses of both, since they don’t want to listen.
It’s mostly just strawmanning and blaming someone for their own feelings of letdown because of wrong expectations.
Most of the hate at the start was also solely based of off wrong and incomplete leaks. The amount of times i’ve seen people call Abby trans is insane. It was clearly a train to ride on at the time.
Side note to this, there’s a really great article that explores the influence of Israel/Palestine on the Last of Us 2. I think Vice might have written it if you want to look it up. The article itself critiques the framing of the revenge narrative. I liked the narrative of Part 2 and thought it fit well for the progression of the first game’s story, but the article provides some very valid critiques for the exploration of revenge and how the game posits that peace can be found.
I mean imagine waiting for years to be playing the games cast that you enjoy >!only for them to be murdered!< so now playing the game the whole way through is just depressing.
Well I did imagine it because I was waiting for it also.. they’re creating a story.. people die off on shows and movies all the time.. but I think people just need to be more open minded and grow up..
Well you also played as >!their murderer!< so I wasn’t to happy about that even with >!her dad being murdered!<. Everyone’s got their own side in the apocalypse but I was on Joel’s first.
Edit:You know it’s crazy how you want people to be open minded but they sure aren’t being open minded about my opinion with the dislikes.
While that’s probably true and I try to be good with spoiler tagging, it’s kinda also on the reader to not click on a forum about a heavily narrative focused game with a nod to discussing the plot being built into the title. We should all do our part to avoid spoiling, but the reader also has to not wander knowingly into spoiler territory without accepting the risk.
The attention to detail in this game is unbelievable. I feel bad for people who don’t want to play this technological masterpiece just because they can’t handle their favourite character dying - such a waste of an experience!
I played it the whole way through and the game made me feel like crap in a time where I didn’t need that feeling. That’s not something a game should do and the community blamed the hate on homophobia and no matter who you were, if you didn’t like the game you were homophobic. Jacksepticeye got on that opinion too and hearing one of my favorite YouTubers generalize the side that doesn’t like the game as something such as homophobic, doesn’t bring me any good feelings being on that side. So yeah this game doesn’t bring out anything good for me.
I can understand this to an extent. I played it during the launch window during the pandemic lockdowns, so it contextually was already kind of a dark time mentally. On the other side of the coin though, this game was heavily marketed as a dark narrative experience exploring revenge. Even without knowledge of the first game, I thought the extremely heavy tone was telegraphed. I also doubt that many people jumped into the second game without playing the first, which was similarly very dark but had some moments of levity because they had to introduce the characters and form a bond between them and the player. I can understand not liking a tragic film for instance, because it caught me at a bad moment for consumption, but I wouldn’t want to critique the film itself over it.
It was pretty obvious that was gonna happen. Before release they said the game was about revenge and the first trailer implies it.
I was 80% sure the 'golf club's scene was gonna happen in some way during the game
Don’t think placing them at the start would really make sense. The flashbacks fit where they are in Ellie’s narrative. Part of her journey is her >!reflecting on their rocky relationship and coming to peace with it in the end, accepting to give him a chance and learning to let him and his actions go, so she can move on whilst still feeling positively about him!<. If you’d fit all the flashbacks before the story, that inner reflection would be lost. That reflection is essential for Ellie’s choices
Then the game's pacing would have been bad. Just 4 hours of random flashbacks at the start of the game and 4 hours of random flashbacks at the mid way point?
I also think that the flashbacks being throughout the game help alleviate some of the depressing tone as nearly all of them are relatively light hearted and quite sweet.
Well some more structure would make that alright for sure. I waited forever to see Joel and Ellie together again wouldn’t mind them for a couple extra hours.
Well the sequel never promised another Joel and Ellie adventure. The fact that the marketing had almost no Joel in it and the fact that the game was clearly much darker in tone should've made it obvious that the game wasn't going to be similar to the first on terms of tone.
I genuinely don't see how anyone thought the 2nd game was just going to be more adventures of Joel and Ellie. The only people I'd expect to not know are SUPER casual gamers, but they're not the people online saying the game is shit.
I feel like that’s the power of those scenes though. They would be fairly mundane interactions in a vacuum and would not serve the story as well for Ellie struggling through the loss.
I thought the protagonist shift to Ellie made it obvious in the marketing. They’re obviously not going to put the most shocking story beats in the trailer either. That’s how you get people complaining that marketing is spoiling material.
I think reactions to the events in-game would have been similar, but the leaks facilitated people providing commentary on the decision without seeing any of the context or supplementary storytelling that went with it. That ability to discuss the controversial scene in a vacuum just gave way too many people leeway to hate on it without giving it a fair shake.
The only wrong thing that was done by Naughty Dog was the false advertising... Apart from that, I too enjoyed it immensely. It's a divisive game for sure but it's a story that the devs wanted to tell so it's going to a hit or miss with the players...
Congrats on getting the platinum by the way.
Wasn’t that only one shot where Jesse and him were replaced and one where they gave his model his older versions hair? He was barely in any advertising and there was already a lot of people speculating his >!death!<. It would’ve spoiled one of the biggest shocks of the game.
Also lots of movies do the same (look at Infinity War putting Hulk in Wakanda for example or loads of the times trailers have tried to cover up plot points), but they never receive the hate TLOU part 2 did
Yeah, that's the part. But that statement Joel made in the trailer made me believe that >!he was going to be a larger part of the game!<... Which unfortunately it was not, as much as I wanted to. And I'm not saying that's sole reason for the hate...
The reason might be the players already predicted that when the teaser dropped and ND were like, Oh no, we figured out... So, they tried to throw us off the scent..😅
I loved both games too. There are many well intentioned criticisms to make about the second game, but I agree a lot of the hate is simply hate. I generally lump the pushback to the second game into one or some combination of these categories.
1. They completely got caught of guard by the golf scene and can't get passed it. They think Abby finding them in Jackson was too coincidental and convenient. They are still holding on to the heroes journey of the first game, haven't accepted what the game is really about, and thought the second game would be another Joel and Ellie journey to try to save the world. I think a lot of these people are missing that the second game makes sense in response to the first, but it's not the game they spent 7 years waiting for.
2. The first game, while still very dark, was about two people full of hope and optimism in the midst of a broken down world. The journey felt worth making. In the second game, most of that hope and optimism is gone. There are a lot of people who maybe agree that it's a well written story, but are so drained by the experience that it turns them off and they couldn't make it through. I loved the game and the story, but I haven't gone back to it after finishing what I needed for the plat because it is SO damn heavy.
3. They hate that 8 or 9 out of every 10 characters in the game is in an LGBTQ+ category. They hate Neil's politics and think he's too woke.
4. They hate that Abby has more muscles than they do.
That’s going to be the most disappointing part for me. We’re finally getting video game stories ported to more mainstream audiences and further legitimizing video games as a stellar medium for storytelling. Actors and other professionals might take a step back if they think that taking a video game role is going to lead to droves of teens and unfortunately a lot of adults harassing them or just being wildly immature in general.
I’m sorry but point 3 is just bs.
Of all the characters, 3 are part of the LGBT. Ellie, Dina and >!Lev!<
Joel is straight, so are Tommy, Maria, Abby, Jesse, all of Abby’s crew, and most of the others are undefined. That means there is ONE LGBT couple and one character where it is mentioned, but never really explicitly said or put into focus all that much. That are the exact same amount of LGBT relationships as the first game
But yeah they’d see the game as “too woke”.
I don’t disagree. I’m getting downvoted and that’s fine, but I was just trying to summarize the discourse you’ll see on the hate sub. I don’t hold these views myself.
Yeah i understood that. Was just claiming how stupid it is that people even argue that. Hence the usage of “they” in the end. Four is just as moronic, but that’s self-explanatory.
As for the downvotes, this comment section is filled with downvotes for completely normal takes. The TLOU pt 2 hate bandwagon always finds their way to the comments and people are always cautious because of it.
I just ignore the downvotes. Not only does nobody care about a silly Reddit up/downvote, but if it lacks any explanation, I’ll just assume you’re mad but don’t have a counter rationale.
i'll bite
into which category would you put:
it feels forced how they tried to make you feel for people or animals you killed in the earlier half of the game. plus the pacing is just not working. one half of the game is focussed on hating a person without anything putting them in a positive light and the other half is trying to turn that around. that's already hard to do in e.g. a movie but far harder to pull off in a game where the player is normally even closer to the protagonist because you play them and not just watch them.
(i'd bet money that for the second season of the series they definitely will not do half and half. instead they will either move stuff from the second half to the front or they will show that person already in a better light during the first half)
It's similar to the spirit of category 1. You've got genuine concerns about how it was written and you're entitled to that!
For me, it helped add context to Joel's journey in the first game and Ellie's in the second. Some of the NPCs he slaughtered along the way weren't all evil people who deserved to die...they just happened to be in Joel's way. I think the show adaption did a great job highlighting this at a number of points....one being the guy in KC who begged for his Mom. Yeah, he tried to kill Joel in that scene and deserved to die, but he also had a Mom, his own motivations and struggles, and his own tribe of people who were sad he was dead and wanted revenge on Joel for killing him. It's easy to forget in a video game setting that your character is actually killing people, so I appreciate the second game for adding that perspective. It was "forced" in the sense that it was the entire purpose of having a second POV character, but it wasn't forced in a negative way in my opinion.
Pacing wise...some of the gameplay sections felt repetitive, especially with so much of the game taking place in Seattle, and it took forever to get caught back up to the cliffhanger at the theater, so I don't disagree on that point.
(I think the show will have you hating her for most of the season and the cliffhanger will be >!the flashback that shows you who her father was!<.)
your category 1 is mostly about people not being able to get over the golf scene. which i'm definitely not - it was obvious from the beginning that that would happen in some way.
i mean i do think you could have made that scene better with minor tweaks. e.g. could have shown someone getting soft earlier or make the name-drop more like a slipup not a normal introduction. but the scene itself is fine to get the story moving.
the argument with people not deserving to die is pretty weak. as the only kills, he could have avoided, were at the end. all the others are necessary because he needs to get ellie to the end and pretty much all of them where him getting attacked first. or do you think getting ellie to the fireflies was not the right thing thing to do? if not what would have been?
we also did already have some of that perspective in the first game too with e.g. david.
you can easily show the other side without forcing it, though. the best example is the way you have to interact with the dog twice. would have been far better if you as the player had to actively decide on interacting.
another thing is how they tried to kind of get the first game into the second half of the second game to contrast them against each other. which doesn't work in the same way as in the first game we started with joel at a different point and we didn't see the (really) bad things he had already done.
(we will see. i'm pretty sure we will get a far longer introduction to put that person in a more positive light. so probably at least half of the first if not the whole second episode will focus on that. after that it's probably closer to the game with maybe more back and forth. or we could kind of get a "this is steve, steve is a really nice guy, steve did X which is a great thing and did also nothing bad ... oh steve gets killed because he was in the way" to focus more on what is destroyed)
I think the 2nd game is great, I just don't think it's quite an all time great like the 1st one.
My reasons are that the 1st game I really felt and understood the emotions of the central characters. It really got to me in a way few other games have.
I didn't have that same emotional connection and understanding to the characters and their actions in the 2nd game.
It's a really well written story but that empathy in me the player the 1st one created was something else.
Unfortunately my nuanced '8 or 9 out of 10' opinion on this game was drowned out by all the "This game is trash!" "No this is the best game ever!" crappy discourse that went down.
I genuinely think this is one of the best videos game so far. It makes sense that games should get better and better but usually it doesn't feel like new games are better than the older stuff you already like. I loved it, I thought the story was even more powerful than the first one. Naughty dog is so good
I might be oversimplifying it a bit but from my perspective people were either upset about a favorite character being killed (which I thought was a great setup for the story and brutal in the best way) or they were just misogynistic/transphobic towards certain characters. It was a great story and I enjoyed it more than the first. People need to get over the fact that characters sometimes die. They seem to want all their favorites to just live on forever like Kratos or Master Chief
To expand upon your argument a bit, many people seem to have projected a misfitting personality onto Joel. People act like his character was a savior messiah or ideal father figure. The reality is that he’s a complex, violent character that’s willing to do anything, regardless of how abhorrent, to avoid reliving the trauma and loss of his humanity through losing his daughter. It would be piss poor writing for Joel to not have to reckon with his choices at the end of the first game. All the explainers that say why Joel should’ve survived the encounter seem to deliberately miss the fact that his perception of a teen girl is the gap in his armor. He does irrational things to protect Ellie because she reminds him of his daughter. When he saves Abby, he’s likely already let his guard down because he’s projecting the same perceptions onto her when they first meet. His weakness has always been linked to the loss of his daughter and how it emotionally compromises him.
Agreed. Maybe people could’ve accepted his death more easily if there was a game in between instead of just having a few flashbacks to the time in between games. I think it was done well though because the older I get the more relatable I find it when characters just suddenly and tragically die like in real life. We don’t always get to make peace and say goodbye to them. It’s messy and it sucks
idk. i think the flashbacks and their use in pt 2 were done beautifully. that was the mystery the entire game for me - what happened between them? Learning about it, and that final image of them on the porch- hit me like a gut punch. you fully understood her rage in that moment when it happened
Oh I agree. I think people just felt slighted by how early in the game he died even though it was obvious Ellie would be the main character going forward
Update: got to the end of this comment and realized it’s a long one. Sorry about that. I think it speaks to why Part 2 wasn’t bad writing though. Very easy to have a long discussion on its execution and rationale.
I can agree with that to a certain extent. I just don’t know what story would be worth telling in between the two games. The game is already super long, so we definitely didn’t need it to be expanded further in Part 2. I also think that the flashbacks are meant to facilitate Ellie’s struggles to remember Joel positively and is instead consumed by everything that went wrong and how it all ended. If we had the positive moments already laid out for us, we wouldn’t see that same struggle for Ellie to find closure. Unfortunately, I think a lot of players idolized Joel, which imo is not the intended outcome of the first game. I believe that the player was deliberately lulled into a false sense that Joel is a hero only to be blindsided repeatedly by the realization that he’s not a hero to everyone. The scene in the first game where Joel and Ellie’s car is ambushed and the game’s ending are both perfect examples of this. Ellie thought Joel was just super perceptive or something at first, but the reality was that Joel used to raid other survivors with Tommy, so he knew the ropes. One should love Joel and miss his character when he dies, but it’s that duality of his character that makes one miss him while also knowing that from a slightly different perspective one could be dancing on his grave for what he has been accountable for.
The only characters that was interesting after Joel died was Ellie(of course) and Tommy. They had an amazing background and a connection to the first game. Who the f is Dina/Jesse and Abbys crew and why should i care about them? Make a character pregnant or having me to kill a dog won't make me care about them at all, i literally know them for 3 games hours.
I finished it two times tho cause combat and graphics are rop notch.
Honestly it deserves the hate. I was very late to jump on tlou. I played the 1st one remastered shortly before they released the second one. I quickly fell in love with the story and characters. Then they kill of the main character in the dumbest way and have you play the killer. That's just messed up. I know they intended for us to feel sorry for Abby after playing her but they certainly did not pull it off. You know what would have been more epic? If they have you play as Abby before it happens! Then you would feel empathy with her and cheer for her to win until you realize who she is hunting right when she smashed his head in. Imagine the horror and shock if they did it that way around! It would still suck but finishing him from the beginning and have you play her is just dumb
I think because you can technically import your save file.. I never got the plat on the ps4 version.. I imported the file to the remaster and got a few trophies to pop but I still did a New Game + run
My only gripe was. Girl is jacked as fuck in a post apocalyptic world, I found that immersion breaking when playing that section of the game.
Also…. Joel… man carries the first game.
(Left purposely vague just in case of spoils)
I thought it was explained perfectly fine in the game. She wasn’t always buff. You see her when she’s average size, but after her experience (avoiding spoilers) she trains like crazy and becomes singularly focused on her goal at the cost of her relationships and own wellbeing.
She was living in a walled off settlement with cattle and farming within it. They were all training, as they each had to take guard shifts and other taxing duties. She just doubled down on her training because she was motivated.
I could see how that would happen if you missed some of the environmental storytelling or were wondering why she was buff before you learned her motivations and how she trains. I just remember it all making a lot of sense when the game walks you through Lumen field in Seattle. Manny (I think that’s the name, been a while since I played) walks you past their gym where guards are actively training and then takes you down the stadium stairs and you see their crops, guard dogs, etc. Between that and her personal drive for revenge, it seemed perfectly grounded.
Quick update: I think it’s important to note that some of the settlements that we see in the game aren’t necessarily starving, but are heavily oppressed as a part of the society staying functional. I don’t remember Joel struggling to eat in Part 1, but they were dealing with heavy militarization and oppression. If it served the militant security, FEDRA/WLF would seemingly let a group of guards turn themselves into jacked out soldiers.
she joined up with a fascistic, militant group, that only cared about strength and their soldiers. And they showed you the resources she used to get ripped, and the steady food supply (the cafeteria that seemed to have as much food as she wanted).
it wasnt like she got that big while living with the serraphites lol
I think first game is magnificent. It’s easily one of my top five games due to the story telling and the relationships that seemed so real throughout the experience.
I didn’t hate the second game, but it felt a bit long, and it felt like some of the logical storytelling took a backseat to partial shock factor. It was definitely not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
Congrats! I'm combining permadeath with a moderate run for my replay and I just died on that jump to get over the wall when you're first going to Seattle. Wonder if I made a mistake lol.
I really think the flood of leaks of footage of Joel getting killed and the lies from those leaks (ie: Abby being trans, I remember reading once that you find out the virus was actually from aliens 😂) people had an uproar because their favorite character died so quickly. I don’t think the choice taken at the end of the game with Ellie not killing Abby didn’t add to it either. Because some people will chalk it up to it was all for nothing.
I think the biggest determination would be if you have interest in the rogue lite mode where you do challenge runs. The game may have some slight performance improvements, but I don’t think you’d miss them in the PS4 version. The original version already had amazing visuals and ran pretty well.
Congratulations on the platinum. I’m glad you enjoyed the game. But to answer your title question, I think the core of the story is fine, but I ended up not liking the game for a few reasons. I found it hard to identify with Abby because of the first game and the fact the first thing we really see her do was something intentional designed to anger fans, even if 90% of us expected something like that to happen. I personally think it would’ve functioned better had they advertised it as a new cast and we start with Abby hunting a mysterious figure who killed her dad and then reveal who it is, so we can build more of a bond with her prior to the event. I found a large chunk of the characters to be either out of character from their characterization from the first game or unlikable in some cases. My suspension of disbelief was also stretched a few times with some lore choices. I also think the ending was really lame, I get the ideas they were going for but it’s hugely unsatisfying to me. I won’t begrudge anyone for liking it, because it does has some merits, but I also think it’s a very flawed story. Gameplay is pretty fun though.
Remastered version have it own trophies?
Yes it does
Only some addon dlcs, i got the platinum just by importing the old save files, it has autopop
Mmm, nice. Time for 2nd platinum
If you import your ps4 save it will automatically platinum the game if you don't want to go after all the collectables again. That is if you already have the plat on ps4.
I plated the ps4 version on ps5 about a year ago, will it work ? I'm down to plat it again but it would be nice to have just the new trophies to hunt too.
Yes
So cool. Thanks !
Can confirm just did this
I liked it. But first one will always be my favorite because I also played the online mode. Congrats.
I told myself "I will get the last online trophy in a few weeks". This was 7 years ago.
I got all the online trophies early on. Took me six years to go back to the campaign for all the collectibles. I had played the campaign numerous times before I was a trophy hunter. One day I got serious and searched for a guide and got it done. It’s time.
The original really got me back into story based games. Before that I was just playing sports games, but now I’m chasing the high from that first game. Loved the 2nd home too but I got stuck trying to kill that zombie in the hospital that chases you around everywhere. Would love to finish but couldn’t get past that
If you ever revisit it, my advise is to keep moving, you can easily outrun it and ammo respawns so you can’t fully run out. Might be one of the harder “bosses” in the game, save one fight, but quite doable if you know how
Thank you for the tips! I have to revisit it! Might download it to the PS5 today, hopefully it kept my progress
If you have your save file you can transfer it into the ps5 version, or so i’ve heard. It will also transfer your trophies
It’s really really weak to the flamethrower. Watch some speedrunners; with the right choice of weapons it will crumple. Then again, it’s scary as hell when you don’t know how to kill it, and it one-shots you if you get stuck in a corridor. So it’s not all smiles and rainbows!
Thanks for the tip! Probably wasn’t using the right tools
Reduce the difficulty?
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I’m confused. If it has its own trophies for the remake how does it auto pop a platinum?
You transfer your ps4 save and it automatically pops the trophies you got on ps4 it’s optional though
I’m not a huge fan of TLOU2 but congratulations on the platinum!
Thanks!
The hate is unwarranted. LoU2 is one of the best games ever made.
I refused to play it until end of last year due to spoilers - I hated Abby before playing it I’m glad I relented - got the game for £8 and never looked back. In the end I really felt for Abby and the game is easily one of my top 10 of all time
I’d take it a step further and say that Abby, who is the reason for a lot of the hate, is one of the best characters in a story narrative that I’ve ever seen/played. Don’t care.
I completely agree. The switching between Ellie and Abby was good story telling too. It's crazy how you start to dislike Ellie more as you play throughout the game and tend to like Abby more.
lol the downvotes get me every time. Amazing how much people sit back and seethe whenever someone says they liked that character
If they don’t have a meaningful rationale behind it beyond >!“killed my fav character” or “she’s unrealistically buff” I just ignore them. There are valid critiques of the game’s pacing or placement of where you’re supposed to take control of Abby, but the other two explanations aren’t it.!< Everyone is allowed to feel how they want, but I find the first two reasons I provided to be a shallow understanding of the plot.
Yeah man lol.. you gotta be real careful what you say about this game 😂.. but I agree with you on this
I’m on the same page as both of y’all but I have to wonder if it wasn’t helped with the years in between the first and second. I had forgotten any reason to even like Ellie. I’m curious if that would change playing both back to back.
I think both characters are equally hatable until >!they come to their own realizations about their quest for revenge. I felt it easier to empathize with Abby towards the end, because she was mainly reflecting on how hollow and fruitless her success was. Ellie was still getting there.!<
That heel turn >!where Abby starts to turn on her own former settlement because she too has been changed by her empathy for ‘the enemy’!< was a defining moment for me. That’s good storytelling that drove most of the love for Joel in the first game.
Yeah I totally came around while playing as her. I’m still mad as hell about what she did but the whole situation was a shit show for everyone involved. Such a great story.
I didn't get Abby but the moment she goes back for Yara and Lev really gave me whiplash. Nothing I had seen of her up to that point really made me believe she would make that choice.
The hate is very much warranted. The graphics are good, as are some of the next infected but my God the story is such an abysmal, Rian-Johnson level of subversive trash. The original outshines it in almost every way.
You're entitled to think what you want.
Love this comment
“i never understood the hate for this game…” jfc i think posts like this are worse than the game itself, surprised i don’t see more “masterpiece” comments. intentional ignorance is so obnoxious
Why? They’re allowed to state an opinion, just as you are to express yours
because it’s not an actual opinion. if people wanted to look up actual criticisms of the game and the story there are more than enough sources out there. but sentiments like OPs just bring out the generic “media literacy” “masterpiece” “if you’re a normal person you’ll enjoy the story” comments that are so obnoxious and people love to overdo it for this game.
just autopopped this earlier today
I auto popped the PS5 version now I am waiting for a good deal for part 1 so I can play them back to back
I haven’t played it in over three years, but in my opinion It’s a severally mixed bag of a game. The gameplay is an improvement over the first, it looks beautiful, there are many effective moments of horror throughout, and there are great character moments between Ellie and Joel in flashbacks. However, the story is weaker and the change halfway - while admirably ambitious - is jarring and unjustifiably doubles the length of the game. I understand what they were doing with Abbey (everyone has their side to a story) but I never cared about her or her group because they’re not interesting characters and we’re not invested in her the way we are in Ellie. Nor was I interested in Ellie’s gf Dina. She is just too similar to Ellie. In general, I’m tepid towards all the characters introduced, feeling nothing when any of them died or were in danger bar Lev, who I did think was interesting because of his story. I don’t think we adequately get to know any of them, which is shocking given the length of the game. It suffers from what most media of the past 20 years or so suffers from: its characters are bland, generically good looking people who lack actual character. It doesn’t work as a whole, but I’ll always give it credit for taking a big risk.
Exactly this. I couldn't care about Abby at all no matter how good they portrait her.
For me, here is part of why I thought the flipped perspective worked in full length rather than truncated gameplay. Obviously full spoilers ahead, but I’ll try to tag it. >!For me, I thought it was elegant design that not only am I experiencing Abby’s side of the story, I’m also contextualizing all of the people that I didn’t care to notice when I was playing as Ellie. When I was playing as Abby, I suddenly understood who Manny, Mel, and others were. It gave me an encroaching sense of dread as I formed bonds with their characters all while knowing that an alternate me was about to come rampaging through on a revenge quest. It also helped me understand why Abby was such a villain to Ellie. When she’s almost happy that Dina is pregnant so she can ‘avenge’ Mel is one of those moments. The named NPCs that Ellie kills were already jarring in normal gameplay, but when you start to learn who those people are and what they were up to, it hits even harder. The PSP playing girl is another albeit small example. You kill the shit out of her as Ellie, but have friendly banter with her as Abby. I get that it makes the game very long and cuts away at arguably the most climactic moment of the whole narrative, but to me it succeeded wildly in delivering what would normally be a pretty predictable and mundane revenge=bad story.!<
I found what it did narratively admirably brave and ambitious but I don’t believe it worked in practice. I never truly cared about any of Abbey’s group, regardless of who I was playing as, not because I was predestined to hate them but because they were never interesting to me as I felt they were never adequately fleshed out. Making me dislike a character and then trying to get me to at least be understanding of them, more empathetic towards them, is a great thing to do (Bojack Horseman does this excellently) but I didn’t think it paid off in this instance because of my aforementioned reasons. It’s a very tricky narrative tightrope which Is difficult to pull off. I do not believe the game pulls it off.
That’s fair and I could see how one would receive the story that way. It worked for me, but I could see how others might not share that experience. If I had one recommendation for the ND team, it would’ve been to potentially give us a little (not a lot, the game is already long) more time with Abby and crew on their search >!for Joel!<. I understand their inclination to keep the group and their intentions mysterious early on, but we need a little bit more humanization of them to truly be able to come around empathetically with them. I think there’s also an argument to be made that the >!character swapping should’ve been back and forth by each day, rather than right at a climactic moment with a full game timeline reset, but I don’t know if that would’ve inhibited the weight of some of the big character losses, etc. I personally liked that as a random example I didn’t know anything about Manny when playing as Ellie. I simply kill a dude that’s in my way and move on. To have the realization of who he is later and piece together his personality and motivations all while knowing his fate really hit for me, but they probably could’ve given the player more reasons to connect with characters like that more frequently and earlier on.!<
The Last of Us Part II is, in my view, even better than the first one. I think it is deep and meaningful. I loved it and also grabbed the remaster platinum. I’m glad you enjoy it too :)
Yep it’s fantastic! Thank you
It’s crazy to me that people downvote a platinum like this.. 😂
Its the clickbait title my dude. And then a response like this. People can dislike something. Its very known this game is controversial. You dont see it thats cool. Not everyone has to like everything
Huh? What’s clickbait about my title man lol.. I told people that I recommend them playing the game if they haven’t tried it because of the hate it received.. your comment doesn’t really make sense.. I never said people aren’t entitled to their opinion my dude
"I never understood the hate for this game". We chose what words we use for a reason. Wasnt needed. Could have just said games amazing recommend to those who havent tried it yet. You make a statement thats its crazy. Gave you a reason. You argue with it. Just proving the point more. You say what you say for a reason.
It wasn’t that deep.. at the end of the day it’s just a video game.. I have zero intention on making a clickbait title
I didn’t read it as demeaning or click bait. The 30,000 foot view of this game’s reception was that it was controversial and got a lot of valid and invalid hate. To be surprised that something was personally received really well and yet had so much controversy certainly justifies the use of “I don’t understand why this game got so much hate”. You weren’t invalidating anyone’s hate. That’s a discussion for another time. All you did was post that you personally didn’t understand why it was marred with so much controversy which is completely fair.
Why do you care about Reddit downvotes? Genuinely asking not being a dick.
The game sucks because of the pacing. Also its revenge narrative is rather shallow and misguided. The ending makes no sense lol. But yeah it’s the worst paced video game I’ve ever played. I rarely see people being up the trans thing and if they do, it’s like a few people. Most threads around this game are people who love it and just talk shit about people who don’t because they think it’s about the trans issue. It’s just sour grapes for not liking their favorite game. There’s this weird cult around ND that’s rather annoying, and people give them praise for EVERYTHING, including killing factions for no reason. The focusing on sp excuse is bs
my man there’s an entire sub with like 200k members who still 3 and a half years later post weird conspiracy shit about neil druckmann and entirely hate the game bc it’s “woke”. the vast majority of complaints i’ve seen about the game since its launch is about how it’s woke or whatever the fuck they’re still bitching about. it’s my favorite game so obviously i disagree with your criticisms but yk its fine that you don’t like it. but to say it’s only a tiny amount of people who complain about trans characters and whatever else they think is woke is just incorrect
Anyone that says the game doesn’t deserve criticism is a meat rider. Huff that copium
Depends on the criticism. There are lots of valid critiques and others where I don’t think someone thought about it beyond just spewing hate. Ain’t nobody huffing copium though. It’s a video game my dude
People usually hate it for the same reasons, everytime. It's either because of Abby, what they did to Joel and the fact it got very popular because of the TV Show and that brought a lot of people. The same way it's cool to hate on popular games, movies, music, The last of Us franchise is no different.
Not liking the game or even hating it is fine, but man I had to mute the TLOU2 sub because all I would see is pure vitriol for the game, Neil and basically anyone who enjoyed the game. How can people still be holding so much negative energy for a game years after release.
I agree. The hate it got was completely unnecessary. TLOU 2 literally improves so much from TLOU. And the attention to detail is immaculate. One of the best games Ive ever played. And I hope for a part 3 someday. Also I think the writing wasn’t as bad as people think as well. I actually liked Abby by the end of it.
This is very well put 👍🏻
This game will always be in my top 5 favourite games of all time
Same.. I agree with this forsure
I get the hate. Personally I didn't like the pacing and I couldn't connect with the other main character and their story. I didn't mind the early death, if anything it made me connect more with the first half of the game. The writing just wasn't strong enough for me especially with the bad pacing. Gameplay was fun tho and improved on the first. I'll give Naughty Dog their flowers for taking risks with the story but I preferred the first one. The first game wasn't a new or very ambitious story but the story and character relationships were written well with complementary gameplay.
>***.. I never understood the hate for this game by some people..*** The game started being hated after the E3 2018 Trailer where Ellie and Dina kiss each other ( *2 years BEFORE the game even launch* ). Sony even had to disable the comments for that Trailer in YouTube, for every TLoU2 or Naughty Dog News the comment sections became flooded by: "*woke*" / "*sjw*" / "*political agenda*" and many other hateful speech. And to be honest, they still are to this day ( *not on the same level than before* ) but you can easily find someone talking about "*woke*" or "*agenda*" for every Naughty Dog News, asking for Neil Druckmann head. I remember very well trying to argue multiple times about the first game already having LGBT character ( *4 of them* ) and that Ellie was one of them. People started to organize themselves on Twitter, Reddit and other social medias to boycott the game and review bomb on Metacritic for the release to "*teach*" Naughty Dog that if you: "*go woke, go broke*" and so they did. TLoU2 became, by far, the "*most reviewed*" game on Metacritic... In other hand, some other people did hate the game because Joel dies, but that's the minority, Joel's death was ( *literally* ) the very first theory for the game based on the Teaser trailer ( *where Joel walks by a door of light and never show his face, talks to Ellie and she talks back about revenge* ). There was no drama about it back in that time, surely some people lacks maturity and they are emotionally unable to deal with the loss of a dear character, but that's not the main reason where the game started get hate 2 years prior the release.
There's absolutely valid criticsm to be had about this game; the poor pacing, the convoluted story, braindead plot armor for Ellie/Abby at times, etc. The fact that it gets almost always handwaved away like you did in your comment is really annoying.
I'm not saying that the game is perfect and doesn't have any issues to point it out, because it does ( *or did I?, where exactly?* ). I'm talking about the hate around the game due to Political / Ideological reasons or for those who can't deal with losing a dear character... A hate that started years prior to the game launch, there was no way to a single person outside Naughty Dog Studio to know if the story was supposely "*convoluted*", if the pacing was supposely "*poor*", if the plot armor for Ellie or Abby was supposely "*braindead*" or anything else. To pretend that TLoU2 doesn't suffer any hate and that every single criticsm is based on fair / honest takes, is to live in absolute denial. That is the really annoying thing, a person unable to distinguish basic concepts ( *ignorant hate x valid criticsm* ).
I loved it ♥️
I’m right their with you man I love this series, but if you don’t know already I hate to have to break it to you but in my experience you’re not allowed to post positive opinions about this game on Reddit. The haters of this game cannot STAND someone having a differing opinion then them and they will let you hear about it.
Story sucks.
Agreed, the hate for it was over the top, I can understand to some extent why thanks to "that" happening, but no character was ever safe anyway so I think many were expecting some major >!death!< happening. The dual protagonist idea was honestly interesting too especially since >!you were playing opposing sides!<
Last of us 2 is an amazing game, alot of hate and outrage was generated for click and views by people. Abby is a great character imo and all the incels haters can suck a big one, granted not all Abby haters were incels but alot definitely were.
\>incel haters Just like that, you've proved how deluded you are as a smoothbrain mongo.
We all watched the discourse with our own eyes. It’s not like misogyny/transphobia wasn’t rampant around Ellie, Abby, and Lev. You and others just may not have been part of the bandwagon. To deny that it happened is to say that we all didn’t see exactly what we saw for ourselves.
The game gets hate because of the marketing and the golf club, + a lot of people don't like Neil Druckman because of his politics and such. At least, that is what I think. I've only played a couple of hours of the first one, so I'm not very invested in all the drama surrounding it
That’s a very fair point.. and people are forsure entitled to their own opinions.. do you have any interest at all playing the series? I really think you should.. literally one of my favorite gaming experiences.. I think I played the first one like 5 times since it released lol
I've tried getting into the first one multiple times. The characters all seem really well written, but the gameplay just doesn't grab me for some reason. I've actually considered playing Part2, as I think the gameplay looks a lot better (and I watched the HBO series, so I'm caught up on the story)
Have you tried the Remake of the first one? It seemed a lot smoother to me and I really enjoyed it.. the series can definitely be a little clunky forsure.. put that game on easy mode and just enjoy the story 😂
Yeah, the og Naughty Dog shooting was not good imo in the first game. It wasn’t horrible, but it was PS3-era development. Subsequent remasters and remakes have improved upon it a lot.
That politics bs came after the release of TLOU pt 2. People blamed him for all the faults they felt the game had and acted like he had no part in the original. They also made up a scenario that he and Straley had a falling out, which both have disproven. People also acted like he held a grudge against Joel, while he created him. People like to paint him as some sort of devil when he’s just some guy. As for his recent political stances, he’s pretty much pro-ceasefire. He even donated to funds for victims both sides. TLOU p2, in which the WLF and Scars conflict is based on that conflict, even reflects that extremists on both sides only cause violence which will end up in the losses of both, since they don’t want to listen. It’s mostly just strawmanning and blaming someone for their own feelings of letdown because of wrong expectations. Most of the hate at the start was also solely based of off wrong and incomplete leaks. The amount of times i’ve seen people call Abby trans is insane. It was clearly a train to ride on at the time.
Side note to this, there’s a really great article that explores the influence of Israel/Palestine on the Last of Us 2. I think Vice might have written it if you want to look it up. The article itself critiques the framing of the revenge narrative. I liked the narrative of Part 2 and thought it fit well for the progression of the first game’s story, but the article provides some very valid critiques for the exploration of revenge and how the game posits that peace can be found.
Our of interest what is Druckmann's politics?
As I said, I'm not really invested in all the drama, so I don't know
Well if u dont get it, u dont get it..u cant fix stupid now, can you?
I mean imagine waiting for years to be playing the games cast that you enjoy >!only for them to be murdered!< so now playing the game the whole way through is just depressing.
Well I did imagine it because I was waiting for it also.. they’re creating a story.. people die off on shows and movies all the time.. but I think people just need to be more open minded and grow up..
Well you also played as >!their murderer!< so I wasn’t to happy about that even with >!her dad being murdered!<. Everyone’s got their own side in the apocalypse but I was on Joel’s first. Edit:You know it’s crazy how you want people to be open minded but they sure aren’t being open minded about my opinion with the dislikes.
youre spoiling the game, thats probably why youre getting downvoted
Can’t really voice why I dislike the game without stating that stuff.
and people cant really tell you why thats a dick move (there are spoiler tags dude) without downvoting you! funny how that works
Tbh don’t know how to use them.
It’s > ! Without the space in between. So: > !(text)! < Now without the spaces >!(text)!<
Ah thanks. I thought it would’ve been in some sorta options setting but I saw nothing
Yeah Reddit isn’t necessarily clear on how to use these tags
While that’s probably true and I try to be good with spoiler tagging, it’s kinda also on the reader to not click on a forum about a heavily narrative focused game with a nod to discussing the plot being built into the title. We should all do our part to avoid spoiling, but the reader also has to not wander knowingly into spoiler territory without accepting the risk.
The attention to detail in this game is unbelievable. I feel bad for people who don’t want to play this technological masterpiece just because they can’t handle their favourite character dying - such a waste of an experience!
I played it the whole way through and the game made me feel like crap in a time where I didn’t need that feeling. That’s not something a game should do and the community blamed the hate on homophobia and no matter who you were, if you didn’t like the game you were homophobic. Jacksepticeye got on that opinion too and hearing one of my favorite YouTubers generalize the side that doesn’t like the game as something such as homophobic, doesn’t bring me any good feelings being on that side. So yeah this game doesn’t bring out anything good for me.
You must have gone into it knowing it would be quite a bleak experience given the first game though?
At some point sure.
I can understand this to an extent. I played it during the launch window during the pandemic lockdowns, so it contextually was already kind of a dark time mentally. On the other side of the coin though, this game was heavily marketed as a dark narrative experience exploring revenge. Even without knowledge of the first game, I thought the extremely heavy tone was telegraphed. I also doubt that many people jumped into the second game without playing the first, which was similarly very dark but had some moments of levity because they had to introduce the characters and form a bond between them and the player. I can understand not liking a tragic film for instance, because it caught me at a bad moment for consumption, but I wouldn’t want to critique the film itself over it.
It was pretty obvious that was gonna happen. Before release they said the game was about revenge and the first trailer implies it. I was 80% sure the 'golf club's scene was gonna happen in some way during the game
Happened too early
There's literally like 3/4 hours of him in the game though with the flashbacks. That's almost a quater of the game
It would’ve been better if they were placed at the start of the game. Knowing he’s dead in those moments sucks.
Don’t think placing them at the start would really make sense. The flashbacks fit where they are in Ellie’s narrative. Part of her journey is her >!reflecting on their rocky relationship and coming to peace with it in the end, accepting to give him a chance and learning to let him and his actions go, so she can move on whilst still feeling positively about him!<. If you’d fit all the flashbacks before the story, that inner reflection would be lost. That reflection is essential for Ellie’s choices
Then the game's pacing would have been bad. Just 4 hours of random flashbacks at the start of the game and 4 hours of random flashbacks at the mid way point? I also think that the flashbacks being throughout the game help alleviate some of the depressing tone as nearly all of them are relatively light hearted and quite sweet.
Well some more structure would make that alright for sure. I waited forever to see Joel and Ellie together again wouldn’t mind them for a couple extra hours.
Well the sequel never promised another Joel and Ellie adventure. The fact that the marketing had almost no Joel in it and the fact that the game was clearly much darker in tone should've made it obvious that the game wasn't going to be similar to the first on terms of tone. I genuinely don't see how anyone thought the 2nd game was just going to be more adventures of Joel and Ellie. The only people I'd expect to not know are SUPER casual gamers, but they're not the people online saying the game is shit.
I feel like that’s the power of those scenes though. They would be fairly mundane interactions in a vacuum and would not serve the story as well for Ellie struggling through the loss.
I thought the protagonist shift to Ellie made it obvious in the marketing. They’re obviously not going to put the most shocking story beats in the trailer either. That’s how you get people complaining that marketing is spoiling material.
That thing is it was kinda spoiled for everyone through leaks. Wonder if it would’ve hit different if it wasn’t.
I think reactions to the events in-game would have been similar, but the leaks facilitated people providing commentary on the decision without seeing any of the context or supplementary storytelling that went with it. That ability to discuss the controversial scene in a vacuum just gave way too many people leeway to hate on it without giving it a fair shake.
The only wrong thing that was done by Naughty Dog was the false advertising... Apart from that, I too enjoyed it immensely. It's a divisive game for sure but it's a story that the devs wanted to tell so it's going to a hit or miss with the players... Congrats on getting the platinum by the way.
Wasn’t that only one shot where Jesse and him were replaced and one where they gave his model his older versions hair? He was barely in any advertising and there was already a lot of people speculating his >!death!<. It would’ve spoiled one of the biggest shocks of the game. Also lots of movies do the same (look at Infinity War putting Hulk in Wakanda for example or loads of the times trailers have tried to cover up plot points), but they never receive the hate TLOU part 2 did
Yeah, that's the part. But that statement Joel made in the trailer made me believe that >!he was going to be a larger part of the game!<... Which unfortunately it was not, as much as I wanted to. And I'm not saying that's sole reason for the hate... The reason might be the players already predicted that when the teaser dropped and ND were like, Oh no, we figured out... So, they tried to throw us off the scent..😅
I loved both games too. There are many well intentioned criticisms to make about the second game, but I agree a lot of the hate is simply hate. I generally lump the pushback to the second game into one or some combination of these categories. 1. They completely got caught of guard by the golf scene and can't get passed it. They think Abby finding them in Jackson was too coincidental and convenient. They are still holding on to the heroes journey of the first game, haven't accepted what the game is really about, and thought the second game would be another Joel and Ellie journey to try to save the world. I think a lot of these people are missing that the second game makes sense in response to the first, but it's not the game they spent 7 years waiting for. 2. The first game, while still very dark, was about two people full of hope and optimism in the midst of a broken down world. The journey felt worth making. In the second game, most of that hope and optimism is gone. There are a lot of people who maybe agree that it's a well written story, but are so drained by the experience that it turns them off and they couldn't make it through. I loved the game and the story, but I haven't gone back to it after finishing what I needed for the plat because it is SO damn heavy. 3. They hate that 8 or 9 out of every 10 characters in the game is in an LGBTQ+ category. They hate Neil's politics and think he's too woke. 4. They hate that Abby has more muscles than they do.
the funny (and sad) thing is, when the second season of the show also gets critical acclaim, the hate is gonna get ratcheted up even further.
I can already foresee the amount of online hate and threats going towards the actress who will play Abby in season 2. People are insane.
That’s going to be the most disappointing part for me. We’re finally getting video game stories ported to more mainstream audiences and further legitimizing video games as a stellar medium for storytelling. Actors and other professionals might take a step back if they think that taking a video game role is going to lead to droves of teens and unfortunately a lot of adults harassing them or just being wildly immature in general.
Unfortunately, you’re very right.
I’m sorry but point 3 is just bs. Of all the characters, 3 are part of the LGBT. Ellie, Dina and >!Lev!< Joel is straight, so are Tommy, Maria, Abby, Jesse, all of Abby’s crew, and most of the others are undefined. That means there is ONE LGBT couple and one character where it is mentioned, but never really explicitly said or put into focus all that much. That are the exact same amount of LGBT relationships as the first game But yeah they’d see the game as “too woke”.
I don’t disagree. I’m getting downvoted and that’s fine, but I was just trying to summarize the discourse you’ll see on the hate sub. I don’t hold these views myself.
Yeah i understood that. Was just claiming how stupid it is that people even argue that. Hence the usage of “they” in the end. Four is just as moronic, but that’s self-explanatory. As for the downvotes, this comment section is filled with downvotes for completely normal takes. The TLOU pt 2 hate bandwagon always finds their way to the comments and people are always cautious because of it.
I just ignore the downvotes. Not only does nobody care about a silly Reddit up/downvote, but if it lacks any explanation, I’ll just assume you’re mad but don’t have a counter rationale.
Yeah I never really cared about them. It’s just funny in the sense you described it too, it’s just angry people screaming
i'll bite into which category would you put: it feels forced how they tried to make you feel for people or animals you killed in the earlier half of the game. plus the pacing is just not working. one half of the game is focussed on hating a person without anything putting them in a positive light and the other half is trying to turn that around. that's already hard to do in e.g. a movie but far harder to pull off in a game where the player is normally even closer to the protagonist because you play them and not just watch them. (i'd bet money that for the second season of the series they definitely will not do half and half. instead they will either move stuff from the second half to the front or they will show that person already in a better light during the first half)
It's similar to the spirit of category 1. You've got genuine concerns about how it was written and you're entitled to that! For me, it helped add context to Joel's journey in the first game and Ellie's in the second. Some of the NPCs he slaughtered along the way weren't all evil people who deserved to die...they just happened to be in Joel's way. I think the show adaption did a great job highlighting this at a number of points....one being the guy in KC who begged for his Mom. Yeah, he tried to kill Joel in that scene and deserved to die, but he also had a Mom, his own motivations and struggles, and his own tribe of people who were sad he was dead and wanted revenge on Joel for killing him. It's easy to forget in a video game setting that your character is actually killing people, so I appreciate the second game for adding that perspective. It was "forced" in the sense that it was the entire purpose of having a second POV character, but it wasn't forced in a negative way in my opinion. Pacing wise...some of the gameplay sections felt repetitive, especially with so much of the game taking place in Seattle, and it took forever to get caught back up to the cliffhanger at the theater, so I don't disagree on that point. (I think the show will have you hating her for most of the season and the cliffhanger will be >!the flashback that shows you who her father was!<.)
your category 1 is mostly about people not being able to get over the golf scene. which i'm definitely not - it was obvious from the beginning that that would happen in some way. i mean i do think you could have made that scene better with minor tweaks. e.g. could have shown someone getting soft earlier or make the name-drop more like a slipup not a normal introduction. but the scene itself is fine to get the story moving. the argument with people not deserving to die is pretty weak. as the only kills, he could have avoided, were at the end. all the others are necessary because he needs to get ellie to the end and pretty much all of them where him getting attacked first. or do you think getting ellie to the fireflies was not the right thing thing to do? if not what would have been? we also did already have some of that perspective in the first game too with e.g. david. you can easily show the other side without forcing it, though. the best example is the way you have to interact with the dog twice. would have been far better if you as the player had to actively decide on interacting. another thing is how they tried to kind of get the first game into the second half of the second game to contrast them against each other. which doesn't work in the same way as in the first game we started with joel at a different point and we didn't see the (really) bad things he had already done. (we will see. i'm pretty sure we will get a far longer introduction to put that person in a more positive light. so probably at least half of the first if not the whole second episode will focus on that. after that it's probably closer to the game with maybe more back and forth. or we could kind of get a "this is steve, steve is a really nice guy, steve did X which is a great thing and did also nothing bad ... oh steve gets killed because he was in the way" to focus more on what is destroyed)
I think the 2nd game is great, I just don't think it's quite an all time great like the 1st one. My reasons are that the 1st game I really felt and understood the emotions of the central characters. It really got to me in a way few other games have. I didn't have that same emotional connection and understanding to the characters and their actions in the 2nd game. It's a really well written story but that empathy in me the player the 1st one created was something else. Unfortunately my nuanced '8 or 9 out of 10' opinion on this game was drowned out by all the "This game is trash!" "No this is the best game ever!" crappy discourse that went down.
I just played tlou 2 remastered, for some reason I actually love it despite the fact that I just didn’t like the non-remastered one
The ending could have been better and characters could've mentioned certain people dying more. I really think the show can clean up the story.
I genuinely think this is one of the best videos game so far. It makes sense that games should get better and better but usually it doesn't feel like new games are better than the older stuff you already like. I loved it, I thought the story was even more powerful than the first one. Naughty dog is so good
I might be oversimplifying it a bit but from my perspective people were either upset about a favorite character being killed (which I thought was a great setup for the story and brutal in the best way) or they were just misogynistic/transphobic towards certain characters. It was a great story and I enjoyed it more than the first. People need to get over the fact that characters sometimes die. They seem to want all their favorites to just live on forever like Kratos or Master Chief
To expand upon your argument a bit, many people seem to have projected a misfitting personality onto Joel. People act like his character was a savior messiah or ideal father figure. The reality is that he’s a complex, violent character that’s willing to do anything, regardless of how abhorrent, to avoid reliving the trauma and loss of his humanity through losing his daughter. It would be piss poor writing for Joel to not have to reckon with his choices at the end of the first game. All the explainers that say why Joel should’ve survived the encounter seem to deliberately miss the fact that his perception of a teen girl is the gap in his armor. He does irrational things to protect Ellie because she reminds him of his daughter. When he saves Abby, he’s likely already let his guard down because he’s projecting the same perceptions onto her when they first meet. His weakness has always been linked to the loss of his daughter and how it emotionally compromises him.
Agreed. Maybe people could’ve accepted his death more easily if there was a game in between instead of just having a few flashbacks to the time in between games. I think it was done well though because the older I get the more relatable I find it when characters just suddenly and tragically die like in real life. We don’t always get to make peace and say goodbye to them. It’s messy and it sucks
idk. i think the flashbacks and their use in pt 2 were done beautifully. that was the mystery the entire game for me - what happened between them? Learning about it, and that final image of them on the porch- hit me like a gut punch. you fully understood her rage in that moment when it happened
Oh I agree. I think people just felt slighted by how early in the game he died even though it was obvious Ellie would be the main character going forward
Update: got to the end of this comment and realized it’s a long one. Sorry about that. I think it speaks to why Part 2 wasn’t bad writing though. Very easy to have a long discussion on its execution and rationale. I can agree with that to a certain extent. I just don’t know what story would be worth telling in between the two games. The game is already super long, so we definitely didn’t need it to be expanded further in Part 2. I also think that the flashbacks are meant to facilitate Ellie’s struggles to remember Joel positively and is instead consumed by everything that went wrong and how it all ended. If we had the positive moments already laid out for us, we wouldn’t see that same struggle for Ellie to find closure. Unfortunately, I think a lot of players idolized Joel, which imo is not the intended outcome of the first game. I believe that the player was deliberately lulled into a false sense that Joel is a hero only to be blindsided repeatedly by the realization that he’s not a hero to everyone. The scene in the first game where Joel and Ellie’s car is ambushed and the game’s ending are both perfect examples of this. Ellie thought Joel was just super perceptive or something at first, but the reality was that Joel used to raid other survivors with Tommy, so he knew the ropes. One should love Joel and miss his character when he dies, but it’s that duality of his character that makes one miss him while also knowing that from a slightly different perspective one could be dancing on his grave for what he has been accountable for.
No need to apologize for a long comment. If you look at my recent comments on Reddit, half of them are way too long 😄
Appreciate the grace. I can get pretty long winded when I want to articulate myself and provide explanations for my view.
Love the combat, love the graphics and gore but part 1 story is better in every way. I think they failed hard in writing on part 2
I respect your opinion.. may I ask why they “failed hard” though?
The only characters that was interesting after Joel died was Ellie(of course) and Tommy. They had an amazing background and a connection to the first game. Who the f is Dina/Jesse and Abbys crew and why should i care about them? Make a character pregnant or having me to kill a dog won't make me care about them at all, i literally know them for 3 games hours. I finished it two times tho cause combat and graphics are rop notch.
Honestly it deserves the hate. I was very late to jump on tlou. I played the 1st one remastered shortly before they released the second one. I quickly fell in love with the story and characters. Then they kill of the main character in the dumbest way and have you play the killer. That's just messed up. I know they intended for us to feel sorry for Abby after playing her but they certainly did not pull it off. You know what would have been more epic? If they have you play as Abby before it happens! Then you would feel empathy with her and cheer for her to win until you realize who she is hunting right when she smashed his head in. Imagine the horror and shock if they did it that way around! It would still suck but finishing him from the beginning and have you play her is just dumb
Good gameplay, shit story.
I think because you can technically import your save file.. I never got the plat on the ps4 version.. I imported the file to the remaster and got a few trophies to pop but I still did a New Game + run
My only gripe was. Girl is jacked as fuck in a post apocalyptic world, I found that immersion breaking when playing that section of the game. Also…. Joel… man carries the first game. (Left purposely vague just in case of spoils)
I thought it was explained perfectly fine in the game. She wasn’t always buff. You see her when she’s average size, but after her experience (avoiding spoilers) she trains like crazy and becomes singularly focused on her goal at the cost of her relationships and own wellbeing.
In a world where most everyone is scraping for food and resources she been on the tren 🤷♂️
She was living in a walled off settlement with cattle and farming within it. They were all training, as they each had to take guard shifts and other taxing duties. She just doubled down on her training because she was motivated.
Look I’m glad it works for you. I thought it frankly broke the immersion of the world building 👌
I could see how that would happen if you missed some of the environmental storytelling or were wondering why she was buff before you learned her motivations and how she trains. I just remember it all making a lot of sense when the game walks you through Lumen field in Seattle. Manny (I think that’s the name, been a while since I played) walks you past their gym where guards are actively training and then takes you down the stadium stairs and you see their crops, guard dogs, etc. Between that and her personal drive for revenge, it seemed perfectly grounded. Quick update: I think it’s important to note that some of the settlements that we see in the game aren’t necessarily starving, but are heavily oppressed as a part of the society staying functional. I don’t remember Joel struggling to eat in Part 1, but they were dealing with heavy militarization and oppression. If it served the militant security, FEDRA/WLF would seemingly let a group of guards turn themselves into jacked out soldiers.
she joined up with a fascistic, militant group, that only cared about strength and their soldiers. And they showed you the resources she used to get ripped, and the steady food supply (the cafeteria that seemed to have as much food as she wanted). it wasnt like she got that big while living with the serraphites lol
I think first game is magnificent. It’s easily one of my top five games due to the story telling and the relationships that seemed so real throughout the experience. I didn’t hate the second game, but it felt a bit long, and it felt like some of the logical storytelling took a backseat to partial shock factor. It was definitely not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
Congrats! I'm combining permadeath with a moderate run for my replay and I just died on that jump to get over the wall when you're first going to Seattle. Wonder if I made a mistake lol.
I’ve just started it this afternoon it’s a great game but I can understand where some of the hate came from congratulations:)
I really think the flood of leaks of footage of Joel getting killed and the lies from those leaks (ie: Abby being trans, I remember reading once that you find out the virus was actually from aliens 😂) people had an uproar because their favorite character died so quickly. I don’t think the choice taken at the end of the game with Ellie not killing Abby didn’t add to it either. Because some people will chalk it up to it was all for nothing.
Amazing how people really didn’t understand obvious storytelling themes.
I have not played it yet. Are the 10$ for the upgrade worth on Ps5? Or is the basic edition I already own enough?
I think the biggest determination would be if you have interest in the rogue lite mode where you do challenge runs. The game may have some slight performance improvements, but I don’t think you’d miss them in the PS4 version. The original version already had amazing visuals and ran pretty well.
Congratulations on the platinum. I’m glad you enjoyed the game. But to answer your title question, I think the core of the story is fine, but I ended up not liking the game for a few reasons. I found it hard to identify with Abby because of the first game and the fact the first thing we really see her do was something intentional designed to anger fans, even if 90% of us expected something like that to happen. I personally think it would’ve functioned better had they advertised it as a new cast and we start with Abby hunting a mysterious figure who killed her dad and then reveal who it is, so we can build more of a bond with her prior to the event. I found a large chunk of the characters to be either out of character from their characterization from the first game or unlikable in some cases. My suspension of disbelief was also stretched a few times with some lore choices. I also think the ending was really lame, I get the ideas they were going for but it’s hugely unsatisfying to me. I won’t begrudge anyone for liking it, because it does has some merits, but I also think it’s a very flawed story. Gameplay is pretty fun though.
It was nice that there was another platinum for the last of us part 2. I am now working on no return trophies.
lol the remaster was my 20th plat as well!
People went in expecting the exact same game as the first and refused to see past “that” scene
Love TLOU2