So I just finished the game, going in without any foreknowledge beyond the initial leaks and I have to ask; what exactly is wrong with the game or the story? There were a few questionable choices made by some of the characters, but hardly enough to write off the entire narrative. The gameplay was solid and even improved upon the foundation laid down by the first game.
I am genuinely confused about the amount of hate this game is getting, even outside of Zig Forums.
It's ok to be confused about it, now you could go back.
Because this is the kind of people who shitpost about the game, not the ones who have played it.
Abbys arc isn't believable and she feels dissonant as a character
there's also a lot of 'show, don't tell' breaking with her
It's the way the game presents the story. The narrative is all over the place and tries to subvert your expectations at every opportunity. Naughty Dog should've hired more writers instead of number crunchers.
- Everyone's first impression of Abby is her bashing Joel's brains in which makes it hard to sympathize with her.
- Nobody gets enough screen time because they cram so many new characters into the story and are constantly switching perspectives.
- Most of the moments with the WLF and the Fireflies are filled with cheap tricks to get you to like them, examples being Jerry the Zebra fucker and being forced to play with dogs as Abby.
- Abby looks ridiculous, they could've stuck with her physique in the 2018 trailer and far less people would've complained.
over all its great and the shit people are whining about is nonsense or stuff they're blowing waaaayyyy out of proportion.
it took me a second playthrough to really see it but, my biggest problem with the game is abbys arc is way too long for its own good. abbys shit with the scars is pretty irrelevant to the main story of joels death and how it effected abby and ellie. it felt like abbys arc was there to get the player to empathize with her, and by the end of abbys day 1 i had totally done that, and was ready to get back to abby and ellies story. but then this fucking scar story pops up and your doing that shit for like six hours and two chapters. it really felt like a massive speed bump in an otherwise awesome story.
The game's story has the thematic depth of Fortnite's but the production values ensure make it obnoxiously pretentious
People really struggle to get over the way the story was presented. They'll point at a few small story details and claim it's bad writing. Things like being made to play as a character you initially see as a villain being shown as an otherwise normal character, to try and change your own perspective, is a difficult concept for many. It isn't the best writing, but people are obnoxiously stupid with how they seem to misunderstand so much of the game. Druckman is gonna be feeling like he created high art seeing these reactions, when all he's done is rip off previous movies/books to use a narrative structure new to the average gamer.
poorly structured
poorly paced
packed with forgettable one-off characters
pretentious
SJW and tranny shit
>there's also a lot of 'show, don't tell' breaking with her
go on
she doesn't need to be sympathetic, just understandable and she is
>spend half the game hunting down a character
>finally find her
>now play 10+ hours of this character you’ve been hunting before you get to see the finale
The writing is shit. Movie troupes work in movies because movies are too long. Directly using movie troupes in a video game without adapting it properly leads to bad pacing in a game that already has sub-par writing.
>now kill the pregnant woman, you have no choice.
>wow don’t you feel ashamed for having killed the pregnant woman? Watch her backstory so you can feel worse.
Such manipulation is meant to be subtle, else it just feels abusive.
because movies aren’t too long*
The story is piss-poor compared to the original.
>bad pacing
>constantly going for cheap shock moments
>hamfisted parallels between Abby & lev + Joel & Ellie in attempt to get you to relate to her
>unnecessary netflix teenage drama and sex scenes
>supporting cast literally doesn’t matter and exists only to die
People don't like cheap shocking deaths and Nutty Dog marketed the game (until the very last moment) as an Ellie & Joel game, so of course people felt betrayed. Turns out people don't like it when you "subvert their expectations". End of story. There, now you can sleep peacefully.
key plot points of the story hanging on the stupidity of the characters is amateurish writing
You don't understand the hate because the hate the game gets is retarded. Just embrace the future GOTY.
The game should have ended at the Farm. It would have been a perfect closure for the game even though it was also an anticlimatic a bit but for the game to continue after the Farm and heading to Santa Barbara made the story gone on too long!
>>now kill the pregnant woman, you have no choice.
>>wow don’t you feel ashamed for having killed the pregnant woman?
Neither of these things happened. The woman is killed in a cutscene. The game never scolds you.
Not to mention Ellie doesn't know she is pregnant.
It's retarded to judge the game for the actions of characters who don't know as much of the story as we do.
For a long moment I really thought it would end with Ellie and Potato on the tractor.
There's much more of a sense of finality and closure for Ellie's story after Santa Barbara though. If it ended at the Farm there would be discussions and valid arguments to be made for Ellie leaving the Farm the next day, post-credits doing exactly what happened in the actual game.
With the ending happening as it did you know that the chapter is really closed and even though she didn't kill Abby Ellie is very much ready to move on with her life. Ending at the farm would have been a blue-balls ending.
>Ending at the farm would have been a blue-balls ending.
This. I already knew the game was going beyond that, but even then I couldn't help but thinking "if the game really did end here, it would suck so much".
>The woman is killed in a cutscene
It's QTE, faggot.
>people don’t like
People not liking something doesn’t make it bad because most people are uncultured plebs.
So let Ellie die then. Enjoyed your alternative ending, faggot?
Reminder these are shill threads. They are always worded the same way
These shills, are they in the room with you right now?
>Simplistic, poorly written plot that takes itself too seriously.
>Not a single interesting or likeable character.
>Character behaving out of character to make the plot advance.
>Mediocre gameplay, way too long.
>Retarded ending that make the whole thing feel like a waste of time.
You are meant to dislike Abby and not want to play as her. Even people who love the game will say when they first switch to Abby Day 1 their enthusiasm for playing the game dropped significantly. As for the playing with dogs, you do that with Ellie too so it’s not a cheap trick, just basic mirroring. I’ll give you that they go a bit too hard retconning Abby’s dad into a saint and genius scientist. But ultimately the flashbacks with him and Abby work in a vacuum at the very least.
I think the first game actually told a story that was bold. It was anti utilitarian and stressed individualism over collectivism, an opinion that’s becoming genuinely unpopular. The sequel feels like writers trying to retcon this obviously intentional read of the first game for political good boy points.
Having you play like 11 hours of Ellie just hunting down and killing these literally who’s while almost no other plot happens other than shitty walk and talks during that semi open segment to find fuel is fucking boring and at the hight of the tension where Abby finds you after you’ve murdered everyone to then play as Abby it completely destroys the tension and the pacing because now you play as someone else 3 days back and interact with all these characters who you know the exact fates of so there is no tension or wonder to be created because you know when they die because you did it hours ago so you just go through the motions until you go yup you die here. Abbys part also feels much more like what you’d think in a sequel to last of us. It’s more directed, the environments are more varied and plot is actually happening, it’s just not having anything to do with Ellie’s story.
You realise that your defence of this boils down to...
>But it's meant to be shit
>they go a bit too hard retconning Abby’s dad into a saint and genius scientist
Not the guy you're replying to but that was definitely not how I felt about him. The zebra stuff was all fine but didn't impact me. Him deciding that it would be OK to kill Ellie with giving her the chance to consent - especially when he knows he'd fucking never if it was Abby instead - was distinctly un-saintly. He dug his own grave.
Everyone beyond that point: Joel, Ellie, Abbe, others, are all justified in feeling how they feel but I don't think Abby's dad was innocent.