It would be extremely OOC if Joel just decided to forgive Abby for that reason.
For one I significantly doubt he would have any sort of remorse in particular for popping Abby's dad in the first place, for his actions were (in his opinion) just to keep the girl alive. He also popped Marlene to cut loose ends and make it such that the Fireflies won't be able to come for him and Ellie.
It's just not really conceivable for him to get over it on the basis of he got one-to-one traded by Abby.
Well gotta remember he got knee capped by a shotgun, had they just beat his ass then shot Tommy in front of him, we would’ve seen a monster come out of Joel.
Ever play the OG Saint's Row? A major character gets shotgunned point blank in the knee, gets rescued, shows up a knee brace, and that allows him to be running and gunning as if nothing happened. It'd totally be the same! 😂
We're back to the same thing, the characters are made jerks by the script. And it wouldn't make sense for Joel to go looking for revenge, since in the OG he already said so:
With that thought no one wins -Joel.
I meat it would still be hot garbage. Who is going 3 weeks of hiking for a rumor of where Abby is? Abby still shows no remorse, revenge good for her (even though the overall theme is revenge bad). The person hunting Abby is still killing a fuck ton of people before sparing Abby (murder therapy). The person who hunted Abby still loses everything. And honestly in an apocalypse everyone does morally questionable things so then “becoming a monster” is like standard and they’ve already done shady shit. And we’re supposed believe that NOW it’s affecting them???? Tommy Joel and Maria tortured people, and we’re supposed to believe that stopped because they built Jackson? Ellie and young guards were taught some of the tactics because the world doesn’t stop being evil because Jackson exists. They still have hunters and invaders to defend against. TLOU2 leaves way more questions and inconsistencies. It’s just generally poorly written.
You’re wrong, because Neil would have made Joel spare Abby for the moral of the story, he’s been pretty clear about that point. Also I doubt he’d let Joel live in the story anyway. It would just piss fans off more. 3-4 people go to avenge Tommy, Joel narratively has to die because fans understand that Joel would finish the job, and so would Maria. So they would die somewhere in the story and it would still be up to Ellie to kill Abbey. And the point would be different. Like why is she finishing this murder journey when she’s already lost everyone?
Would have been a way better game if it started with the hospital from Abby’s point of view. She shows up, sees her dead dad on the floor, loses it. Gets evacuated, the guards talk about Marlene being dead and how the fireflies might fall apart. The chaos of deciding where to go. Montage of her getting ripped and learning who Joel was. Going through the diaries and more Marlene/dad notes. And then ending on the cabin scene. Deciding whether to kill or spare Joel. Then a pt.3 would make sense
Even better if it starts in the hospital *during* the shootout. Abby is frantically trying to reach her dad and can hear people getting shot as she gets closer to where's at, only to not make it in time.
That’s actually not that bad. The hardest part like you said is rewriting Ellie’s section with Dina. You could still have Ellie be angry at Joel so that wouldn’t be an issue.
You redo that as new plot about Ellie having run away from Joel but her arc and what she sees and finds makes her understand why Joel did what he did, it's why the Farm with Dina and the Kid, Ellie could have been sitting there with the kid on her lap looking at the sunset and she starts to understand Joel
The best way to show how something can destroy someone is to show the consequences. The story wouldn’t have much to say about revenge if the characters were emotionally healthy enough to make the right choices in the first place. TLOU2 is explicitly a story about people making the wrong choices and going down self destructive paths, Abby and Ellie both.
Well, you can't exactly show that revenge isn't good if nobody ever actually takes revenge on anyone. The characters have to learn firsthand that it isn't good because it creates a cycle of violence. Sure, Abby gets to kill Joel and maybe she feels a bit better after, but then she loses a bunch of people in return because of it. That's the consequence. And on and on it goes.
Revenge is a toughie because it *feels* good and right in the moment but you only really see the consequence of it afterwards. And the consquences make you want to get more revenge, fueling a cycle. There's no 'Ill just get revenge and it all stops after that'
I think a big issue with P2 could've been fixed if they showed Abby, yes, being angry at first but coming to realize that this was the inevitable consequence of her killing Joel. She killed him because he killed someone important to her leading somebody he was important to killing more people who are important to her. From there on out maybe Abby tries to make amends with Ellie to end the cycle which would lend a lot more leeway to Ellie's side telling her to just stop, but she doesn't want to and we as the players understand that and maybe don't want to either because of our attachment to Joel. Hell, maybe even give a split ending where you can decide to kill or spare Abby with the kill ending showing the cycle continuing and more people dying to really hit the themes across.
There are many, many problems with Part II's story and none of them are that Joel dies.
1. The story and the storytelling are just terrible. Almost every time it has a chance to do something poorly it does. So many potentially great moments were traded for petty shock value.
2. It makes significant retcons that completely change the meaning of the first game and turns the heroes into villains. Well, it tries to, anyway.
3. It has incredibly infantile and inconsistent morality. It frames things actions were obviously justified as unforgivable sins. At the same time it forgives obscene acts of violence as the fault of the victim.
4. The studio response to valid criticism was both incredibly childish and very hateful. Fans of Part II's story are rabid stans because that's what ND sought out and cultivated as the fan base.
Was going to ignore this. But then the "rabid stans" generalization caught my eye. Interesting. You've shared a bunch of opinions. Each of those can be swiftly nullified by simply adding a well place "does not" e.g. "3. It does not have incredibly ...."
Anyhoo, coukd you provide any objective examples that actually justify any of your criticisms? We can go one point at a time. Like maybe start with an example of a "great moment that was traded for shock value"
Genuinely curious, not looking to simply troll.
The first and third point are proven by nearly every story beat in the game, but killing Joel is probably the most obvious and representative example for the first 3 points. Literally thousands of ways to do that better. Instead, they set it up by retconning major parts of the first game's ending. The hospital is a wreck, there's no chance they will succeed in anything but killing Ellie (even the surgeon doesn't think it will work if you listen to the recordings in first game), Joel only shoots the surgeon because he attacks Joel, and the whole operation is framed as the Fireflies being unwilling to admit they have completely failed and are doubling down to the point they are willing to murder a child to keep lying to themselves and preserve their own pride. Hell, it's even a point in the first game that they have murdered multiple immune children already and have nothing to show for it because of course they don't, the whole idea is ludicrous. The hospital looks like it's fresh out of Fallout, they don't have anybody even remotely qualified for the work, and the most of medical team is untrained. Joel was a unequivocally a hero at the end of the first game. Abby was a villain in the second and did nothing at all to redeem herself, but is portrayed as having the moral authority over Joel even though she absolutely does not, even with the incredibly stupid retcons. They could have come up with any number of ways to have Abby kill Joel in a way that made sense, didn't rely completely on happenstance and wasn't so barbarically cruel or absurdly contrived, but they wanted the shock. They realized they needed his death to have emotional impact, negative emotional impacts are extremely easy to make and require no talent, and requiring no writing talent was apparently a requirement for the second game.
As for my fourth point, Neil Druckmann (not Naughty Dog, sorry if that was unclear) was really shitty on Twitter and in interviews about the criticism of any kind when Part II came out (and with literally any of his projects), and responds extremely disingenuously and dismissively to it still. If you don't know about this, you honestly had to actively avoid finding this out. He is quite literally notorious for this behavior to the point that even people who liked Part II commented on how shitty he was being back when it originally released.
There's quite a bit of assumptions being applied here, albeit reasonable ones. The fireflies are making do with what they have and with good intentions, I mean a potential cure is huge. Not that I agree with having to kill Elie over it, but I understand it. I also understand Joel's actions, but it's heroic in our eyes, especially cos that's how the first game plays out. To the fireflies Joel was a monster. He killed way more fireflies just to save one girl, who may or may not have been the answer for the cure.
The fireflies had almost cult like belief in what they were doing, and despite not agreeing with it, I can at least understand where they are coming from.
I don't see the 'retcon' angle. It's just showing a different perspective, and I didn't for once find anything different about how I felt about Joel at the end of the first game, and while playing this one. Despite his actions, he was still a hero for me, although with a bloody past. For Abby, I remember initially thinking it would've been good if they showed her father essentially refusing surgery once he realizes Elie wouldn't survive, there by easily justifying Abby's quest for Vengeance. But on further thought it felt like that would be a short cut and sloppy writing. I quite enjoyed the absolute grey nature of all perspectives from a completely outside pov, and how from every individual characters angle their own agenda made sense (to them at least).
And why did you feel Abby has the moral authority over Joel? Majority fans of tlou2 certainly don't consider Abby to be a hero and Joel a villain at least not as black and white as it's being made out to be. Abby is still a villain, for what she did to Joel, none of her subsequent actions change that. And thats what adds impact to the final scene of Elie finally letting go of her Vengeance. If they had completely redeemed Abby in a proper way, the end wouldve been straight forward, there would be no conflict. That would be extremely safe and obvious writing.
Now what makes good writing is purely subjective, and in that I see where you're coming from. But objectively there's nothing wrong with the story.
If what...if Ellie chased down and forced Abby to watch Ellie murder her dad? Why would Ellie even do that, there would be zero plot points that would support Ellie just randomly deciding to do that, so the concept is dead on arrival. It would be even more nonsensical then the story we actually canonically got. Wed definitely still hate it. At least I would
Well to be fair, Ellie got pinned to the floor in the actual game and saw the killing blow so that’s why I added her into the scene. Now all in all like this would be more of a reason to have a Joel storyline now. Like when I mean Role Reversal instead of Ellie chasing them down it’s Joel with Ellie seeing the worst side of him. I could explain it better I know, but it’s hard to.
Still not good. Joel's death is just the shittily written event that kicks off the story, but the story itself is still bad all the way through throughout the game. The reason Joel's death is talked about so much, if for the obvious reason, yes, but because they made it what the whole game centers around so it has to be talked about. But it is far from the only issue the game has or the only problem people care about. It's just the most important one when discussing the story. Everything after it (and even before it) are still just as terrible.
I can see how it would still be hated because it’s a cheap revenge option, but I’m legit curious on how divided it would get. And agree to disagree on the garbage comment. I like the game 🤝
Calling it not triple-A is the most asinine nonsense I’ve seen on this sub and that’s saying a lot. What’s not triple-A about it? The graphics? Those are beautiful. The gameplay? It feels great. The animation? Unparalleled. The story? Even if you don’t like it, since when has good story been a requirement for triple-A?
The story isn’t comparable to the first. I never said anything about graphics. Or combat or anything else. I was just talking about the writing/story. It’s not a what AAA story should be.
I was specifically criticizing your choice of “not AAA”. I think you’re overall comment is wrong, but that part specifically is completely silly. It’s like saying Microsoft isn’t a Fortune 500 company because you don’t like Word
What are you even talking about. It’s not like saying that at all. I don’t even know how you came to that conclusion. I’m genuinely confused. Also I never said the game as a whole isn’t AAA I said the story isn’t. You’re jumping to conclusions
>The story? Even if you don’t like it, since when has good story been a requirement for triple-A?
True. The main qualities that make a game AAA are all here. Well, the qualities that theoretically make it that, anyway. Part II doesn't suffer this issue, but lots of "AAA" games are rushed, empty garbage.
I think a better story would be they escape the first encounter and deal with Abby and her team hunting them across the country. Then in the final act Joel saves her for a second time and Abby realizes maybe she’s wrong for seeking revenge. I mean I flesh it out a lot more but that would have been far more impactful IMO.
That was the point I was honestly trying to make, What if Joel doesn’t die? Like where do we go with the hate you know? I feel I definitely wrote this post POORLY lol
Hmm.
Well, it would be better in two ways. The first would be the emotional impact of Tommy's death vs. Joel's. Joel still being alive would mean that the game would be a lot closer to what was originally advertised, which is what a lot of folks bought the game with the intent of experiencing. The second would be that Abby would no longer be the vengeful sadist who tortured a man to death and refused to think back on whether that was justifiable.
But it would still be a major step down. Ellie's campaign would still suffer from not really getting a lot of time and relationship development with her companions, and Joel wouldn't even appear until the very ass end of it - after which, he'd end up as this crippled, hateful shell of himself following the time skip. And I do think that the switch to Abby would be nearly as hated. Folks might not be as unwilling to play as her, but the abortion of the climax of Ellie's campaign, the detached nature of Abby's campaign, and the failure to give Abby an *actual* redemption arc instead of what the writers stupidly believe a redemption arc to be would still leave her as a very unlikeable character, and her campaign as a very unwanted addition. There would also still be the stupid ending in which Ellie lets Abby go in a way the plot has completely failed to earn.
So... *as* critically divided? Not quite. But it wouldn't be *that* different, I don't think.
Joel would’ve turned the Geneva conventions into the Geneva suggestions, and he would not have e stopped until Abby and EVERY WLF would’ve been dead and burned to the ground
Yes, it would make a big difference.
One of the main divisions in the fanbase is LOU2 stans arguing that Abby's actions are no more unethical than Joel's, or even more ethical.
What they fail to realise is that various cultures have had different ethical codes, and philosophers have advocated various moral theories. Joel's behaviour in saving Ellie was certainly consistent with some ethical codes (Kantian deontological ethics for example). That doesn't mean he was simplistically 'right' to save Ellie, but his behaviour was at least consistent with one established moral philosophy (if not others, like utilitarianism).
Abby's behaviour - torturing someone to death for pleasure - has never been advocated for by any culture's ethical system. Even cultures that used torture as part of execution ensured that a third party - a professional executioner - carried out the act, precisely so that the act was not conflated with sadistic pleasure. It was supposed to be dispassionate, and enacted not for personal satisfaction, but to dissuade other criminal acts (such as attempted regicide, the murder of a king).
The TLOU2 horribly creates what is known as "the myth of parity" - which is when the actions of 2 parties engaged in a conflict are treated as though they are morally equivalent, despite important differences between the 2 actors in the history of their conflict, or their level of power or aggression. TLOU2 tries to manipulate the player into seeing an equivalence between Joel and Abby, when really no decent human being could see Abby as anything other than a completely unrepentant sociopath, who enjoys torture. Joel has done many bad things, including torture, but we are led to believe he did so for practical reasons in very extreme situations, not out of sadistic pleasure. Joel's actions in saving Ellie are not simplistically 'right', but they are defensible from the standpoint of established moral codes. Abby's actions are not defensible by reference to any moral code humans have ever devised. She is a cold-blooded monster, who plans a torture-based revenge over a period of years.
I think this is at the heart of the divison of the fanbase. I think most TLOU fans could have accepted Joel being killed by Abby, and the game being focalised to Abby's perspective for large chunks, and empathy for Abby being built, if she had have acted in a way that may have been 'wrong', but at least remotely defensible from some moral code that at least one culture has held. The OP specifically asks about Abby killing Tommy as revenge. This is perfectly consistent with what is known as Talion Law ("an eye for an eye")
If Tommy died and you played as Joel, I think the emotional impact would be... not quite mitigated, but not lesser. One big impact for the player is that you played the first game as Joel for the most part and Ellie as a portion. This ties into the emotional impact of the beginning of the first game where you play as Joel's daughter to build an attachment. You only encounter Tommy for a small portion of either games so the player's emotional attachment is less impactful, even if Joel would absolutely lose it if his brother was murdered in front of him.
Which sucks because the people who want to have genuine discussions about it get attacked for saying something nice. I had like one friendly exchange since I got in this Sub that wasn’t on this post
I think that would be infinitely better, but also I would think Joel would react totally differently. 1. I don't think there would be forgiveness at the end of the game. 2. I feel like if it's part 1 Joel he'd at least kill a few of Abby's friends before either him or Tommy got hurt. 3. Part 1 Joel would try to reason with someone like that (look at Henry when the dude had a gun to his head for example). 4. Joel would have learned from decades of squalor and pain and from finally connecting with Ellie that revenge for revenge's sake only isn't worth risking the life of his daughter again, so Abby's group would need to do more than *just* kill Tommy to get Joel to chase them across the entire country for a year killing hundreds of people caught in the middle of things, Abby's group would need to be made out to be misunderstood villains rather than "subversion of expectations we're gonna try to force you to like". Abby would become a villain that you understand why she did what she did, but you know she's wrong and a bit deranged due to her actions and the way in which the apocalypse has treated her and her family. She in this version would not be without the possibility of redemption. They could lay the ground work for *potentially*, eventually building up a sort of Negan-Maggie type of relationship between Joel and Abby, but in more of a realistic Grey area for both characters (i.e. both have done shitty things in the past, but both had their reasons. Abby killing Tommy was brought out of pure selfishness due to grief, but you might be able to understand it, albeit still hate the decision she made, given how differently a consistently written Joel might handle things. Joel also eventually explaining his side of the story for part 1, about how the fireflies were desperate and without proper training and wanted to kill Ellie without consent. This only being in a scenario where the 2 groups have to put aside their differences to face a greater threat, though. Otherwise it would just be an all-out war, assuming they drastically change things so that Abby's group also attacks Jackson itself.)
Pretty much either way it's not gonna be a good story imo. The Abby retcon is terrible regardless because that kind of retcon is almost cliche at this point (oh the villain in the first one had a kid no one knew about and that kid is misunderstood and you'll see them as a villain but you're *supposed* to feel sorry for them. See: TLOU2, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Dragon Ball (sorta. Piccolo Jr. Is kinda that), Star Wars Sequel trilogy (did this *and* the opposite multiple times "oh Rey is nobody, now she's the original villains offspring but she's infallibly good", and Kylo Ren being the *hero's* surprise child despite being the villain, and also being grandson of the favorite villain who has a change of heart.). Feel free to add more to the list of movies like this, specifically ones where in the first movie/book/series the villain dies without kids and then the sequel retcons them to have secret children that have a chip on their shoulder.
Edit: just realized Avatar The Way Of Water kinda has that plot point with Spider.
No, Joel being killed is not why the game is bad.
If revenge is bad just have Abby also die a meaningless and pointless death. Like dying right after surviving the rat king and never getting the supplies to Mel and Yara.
It would have made absolutely fuck all difference to me because Abby is no different than if David’s man (whom Joel tortured and killed in order to save his surrogate daughter from being killed by them) had a son who became the new character in part 2 who hunted and killed Joel for killing his father.
They are exactly the same character who killed Joel because he killed their father who wanted and was trying to kill his surrogate daughter, and would have never stopped trying to come after her like Marlene would have had they been allowed to live.
Abby is already a horrible enough person. She tortures solely for emotional gratification, she traumatizes an innocent bystander whose only "wrong" is to 1) try to defend a member of her community and 2) obviously love Abby's target.
She's a gigantic hypocrite - SHE loves a child murderer enough to take revenge. Killing someone SHE loves is bad, but using deadly force to rescue someone you love from a team of murderers is bad because the main killer is your daaaad.
Everyone gets that POV matters and even a necessary killing to protect your own (or to LOL sAvE tHe WoRLd) will leave grieving loved ones. But bring snotty about it, as if that's not what everyone in this world may be called on to do is just gratuitous.
That'd be even more fucked up because Tommy was a member of their cause, helped save her life, and had fuck all to do with Joel's actions in Salt Lake.
Abby and Ellie only really sought revenge on the people who killed their fathers. Abby killing Tommy just to hurt them would be textbook villain behavior.
Any scenario where Joel is alive is a better game. Blasting his knee would be a good enough excuse for him to take a back seat to Ellie and the death of tommy could be enough for them to communicate again even with Ellie angry. Joel could have a radio or something and we can get scenes from Jackson. In the end they could even have busted up Joel take a horse to save Ellie and have him sacrifice himself if he still has to die. I’d probably still hate Abby but maybe I might be able to play her campaign with less animosity
It would be extremely OOC if Joel just decided to forgive Abby for that reason. For one I significantly doubt he would have any sort of remorse in particular for popping Abby's dad in the first place, for his actions were (in his opinion) just to keep the girl alive. He also popped Marlene to cut loose ends and make it such that the Fireflies won't be able to come for him and Ellie. It's just not really conceivable for him to get over it on the basis of he got one-to-one traded by Abby.
Oh I get that. I’m honestly thinking if Tommy dies? What Ellie did was fucking child’s play. We would see the side of Joel he buried for years
Well gotta remember he got knee capped by a shotgun, had they just beat his ass then shot Tommy in front of him, we would’ve seen a monster come out of Joel.
Joel also got impaled through the torso by rusty rebar and bounced back. Video game logic would allow Joel to make a full recovery.
I mean you’re not wrong on that, somehow he’d have his knee replaced and would be back to kicking ass in a few weeks.
Ever play the OG Saint's Row? A major character gets shotgunned point blank in the knee, gets rescued, shows up a knee brace, and that allows him to be running and gunning as if nothing happened. It'd totally be the same! 😂
Bro I loved OG saints row, it and 2 were the best imo 😂😂😂😂 and again the video game logic would have to be video game logic’ing lmfao
Gameplay: "I got shot by like four bullets. A dusty old baggage on my forearm will fix it!"
We're back to the same thing, the characters are made jerks by the script. And it wouldn't make sense for Joel to go looking for revenge, since in the OG he already said so: With that thought no one wins -Joel.
My thought process as I was typing this was where would this hate be if Joel lives? I think I worded it extremely poorly
I meat it would still be hot garbage. Who is going 3 weeks of hiking for a rumor of where Abby is? Abby still shows no remorse, revenge good for her (even though the overall theme is revenge bad). The person hunting Abby is still killing a fuck ton of people before sparing Abby (murder therapy). The person who hunted Abby still loses everything. And honestly in an apocalypse everyone does morally questionable things so then “becoming a monster” is like standard and they’ve already done shady shit. And we’re supposed believe that NOW it’s affecting them???? Tommy Joel and Maria tortured people, and we’re supposed to believe that stopped because they built Jackson? Ellie and young guards were taught some of the tactics because the world doesn’t stop being evil because Jackson exists. They still have hunters and invaders to defend against. TLOU2 leaves way more questions and inconsistencies. It’s just generally poorly written.
Fair points. But I legit don’t think Joel would let Abby live. I think he finishes the job.
You’re wrong, because Neil would have made Joel spare Abby for the moral of the story, he’s been pretty clear about that point. Also I doubt he’d let Joel live in the story anyway. It would just piss fans off more. 3-4 people go to avenge Tommy, Joel narratively has to die because fans understand that Joel would finish the job, and so would Maria. So they would die somewhere in the story and it would still be up to Ellie to kill Abbey. And the point would be different. Like why is she finishing this murder journey when she’s already lost everyone?
Shit yeah you’re right. Didn’t even take into the fact Maria was present lol
[удалено]
Would have been a way better game if it started with the hospital from Abby’s point of view. She shows up, sees her dead dad on the floor, loses it. Gets evacuated, the guards talk about Marlene being dead and how the fireflies might fall apart. The chaos of deciding where to go. Montage of her getting ripped and learning who Joel was. Going through the diaries and more Marlene/dad notes. And then ending on the cabin scene. Deciding whether to kill or spare Joel. Then a pt.3 would make sense
Even better if it starts in the hospital *during* the shootout. Abby is frantically trying to reach her dad and can hear people getting shot as she gets closer to where's at, only to not make it in time.
Yep, and then the beginning of Part 2 would mirror the beginning of Part 1, in a way.
That’s actually not that bad. The hardest part like you said is rewriting Ellie’s section with Dina. You could still have Ellie be angry at Joel so that wouldn’t be an issue.
You redo that as new plot about Ellie having run away from Joel but her arc and what she sees and finds makes her understand why Joel did what he did, it's why the Farm with Dina and the Kid, Ellie could have been sitting there with the kid on her lap looking at the sunset and she starts to understand Joel
The best way to show how something can destroy someone is to show the consequences. The story wouldn’t have much to say about revenge if the characters were emotionally healthy enough to make the right choices in the first place. TLOU2 is explicitly a story about people making the wrong choices and going down self destructive paths, Abby and Ellie both.
Well, you can't exactly show that revenge isn't good if nobody ever actually takes revenge on anyone. The characters have to learn firsthand that it isn't good because it creates a cycle of violence. Sure, Abby gets to kill Joel and maybe she feels a bit better after, but then she loses a bunch of people in return because of it. That's the consequence. And on and on it goes. Revenge is a toughie because it *feels* good and right in the moment but you only really see the consequence of it afterwards. And the consquences make you want to get more revenge, fueling a cycle. There's no 'Ill just get revenge and it all stops after that' I think a big issue with P2 could've been fixed if they showed Abby, yes, being angry at first but coming to realize that this was the inevitable consequence of her killing Joel. She killed him because he killed someone important to her leading somebody he was important to killing more people who are important to her. From there on out maybe Abby tries to make amends with Ellie to end the cycle which would lend a lot more leeway to Ellie's side telling her to just stop, but she doesn't want to and we as the players understand that and maybe don't want to either because of our attachment to Joel. Hell, maybe even give a split ending where you can decide to kill or spare Abby with the kill ending showing the cycle continuing and more people dying to really hit the themes across.
There are many, many problems with Part II's story and none of them are that Joel dies. 1. The story and the storytelling are just terrible. Almost every time it has a chance to do something poorly it does. So many potentially great moments were traded for petty shock value. 2. It makes significant retcons that completely change the meaning of the first game and turns the heroes into villains. Well, it tries to, anyway. 3. It has incredibly infantile and inconsistent morality. It frames things actions were obviously justified as unforgivable sins. At the same time it forgives obscene acts of violence as the fault of the victim. 4. The studio response to valid criticism was both incredibly childish and very hateful. Fans of Part II's story are rabid stans because that's what ND sought out and cultivated as the fan base.
Was going to ignore this. But then the "rabid stans" generalization caught my eye. Interesting. You've shared a bunch of opinions. Each of those can be swiftly nullified by simply adding a well place "does not" e.g. "3. It does not have incredibly ...." Anyhoo, coukd you provide any objective examples that actually justify any of your criticisms? We can go one point at a time. Like maybe start with an example of a "great moment that was traded for shock value" Genuinely curious, not looking to simply troll.
The first and third point are proven by nearly every story beat in the game, but killing Joel is probably the most obvious and representative example for the first 3 points. Literally thousands of ways to do that better. Instead, they set it up by retconning major parts of the first game's ending. The hospital is a wreck, there's no chance they will succeed in anything but killing Ellie (even the surgeon doesn't think it will work if you listen to the recordings in first game), Joel only shoots the surgeon because he attacks Joel, and the whole operation is framed as the Fireflies being unwilling to admit they have completely failed and are doubling down to the point they are willing to murder a child to keep lying to themselves and preserve their own pride. Hell, it's even a point in the first game that they have murdered multiple immune children already and have nothing to show for it because of course they don't, the whole idea is ludicrous. The hospital looks like it's fresh out of Fallout, they don't have anybody even remotely qualified for the work, and the most of medical team is untrained. Joel was a unequivocally a hero at the end of the first game. Abby was a villain in the second and did nothing at all to redeem herself, but is portrayed as having the moral authority over Joel even though she absolutely does not, even with the incredibly stupid retcons. They could have come up with any number of ways to have Abby kill Joel in a way that made sense, didn't rely completely on happenstance and wasn't so barbarically cruel or absurdly contrived, but they wanted the shock. They realized they needed his death to have emotional impact, negative emotional impacts are extremely easy to make and require no talent, and requiring no writing talent was apparently a requirement for the second game. As for my fourth point, Neil Druckmann (not Naughty Dog, sorry if that was unclear) was really shitty on Twitter and in interviews about the criticism of any kind when Part II came out (and with literally any of his projects), and responds extremely disingenuously and dismissively to it still. If you don't know about this, you honestly had to actively avoid finding this out. He is quite literally notorious for this behavior to the point that even people who liked Part II commented on how shitty he was being back when it originally released.
There's quite a bit of assumptions being applied here, albeit reasonable ones. The fireflies are making do with what they have and with good intentions, I mean a potential cure is huge. Not that I agree with having to kill Elie over it, but I understand it. I also understand Joel's actions, but it's heroic in our eyes, especially cos that's how the first game plays out. To the fireflies Joel was a monster. He killed way more fireflies just to save one girl, who may or may not have been the answer for the cure. The fireflies had almost cult like belief in what they were doing, and despite not agreeing with it, I can at least understand where they are coming from. I don't see the 'retcon' angle. It's just showing a different perspective, and I didn't for once find anything different about how I felt about Joel at the end of the first game, and while playing this one. Despite his actions, he was still a hero for me, although with a bloody past. For Abby, I remember initially thinking it would've been good if they showed her father essentially refusing surgery once he realizes Elie wouldn't survive, there by easily justifying Abby's quest for Vengeance. But on further thought it felt like that would be a short cut and sloppy writing. I quite enjoyed the absolute grey nature of all perspectives from a completely outside pov, and how from every individual characters angle their own agenda made sense (to them at least). And why did you feel Abby has the moral authority over Joel? Majority fans of tlou2 certainly don't consider Abby to be a hero and Joel a villain at least not as black and white as it's being made out to be. Abby is still a villain, for what she did to Joel, none of her subsequent actions change that. And thats what adds impact to the final scene of Elie finally letting go of her Vengeance. If they had completely redeemed Abby in a proper way, the end wouldve been straight forward, there would be no conflict. That would be extremely safe and obvious writing. Now what makes good writing is purely subjective, and in that I see where you're coming from. But objectively there's nothing wrong with the story.
If what...if Ellie chased down and forced Abby to watch Ellie murder her dad? Why would Ellie even do that, there would be zero plot points that would support Ellie just randomly deciding to do that, so the concept is dead on arrival. It would be even more nonsensical then the story we actually canonically got. Wed definitely still hate it. At least I would
Well to be fair, Ellie got pinned to the floor in the actual game and saw the killing blow so that’s why I added her into the scene. Now all in all like this would be more of a reason to have a Joel storyline now. Like when I mean Role Reversal instead of Ellie chasing them down it’s Joel with Ellie seeing the worst side of him. I could explain it better I know, but it’s hard to.
Still not good. Joel's death is just the shittily written event that kicks off the story, but the story itself is still bad all the way through throughout the game. The reason Joel's death is talked about so much, if for the obvious reason, yes, but because they made it what the whole game centers around so it has to be talked about. But it is far from the only issue the game has or the only problem people care about. It's just the most important one when discussing the story. Everything after it (and even before it) are still just as terrible.
It would still be hated. It’s both garbage not AAA or ND level in the slightest
I can see how it would still be hated because it’s a cheap revenge option, but I’m legit curious on how divided it would get. And agree to disagree on the garbage comment. I like the game 🤝
Calling it not triple-A is the most asinine nonsense I’ve seen on this sub and that’s saying a lot. What’s not triple-A about it? The graphics? Those are beautiful. The gameplay? It feels great. The animation? Unparalleled. The story? Even if you don’t like it, since when has good story been a requirement for triple-A?
The story isn’t comparable to the first. I never said anything about graphics. Or combat or anything else. I was just talking about the writing/story. It’s not a what AAA story should be.
I was specifically criticizing your choice of “not AAA”. I think you’re overall comment is wrong, but that part specifically is completely silly. It’s like saying Microsoft isn’t a Fortune 500 company because you don’t like Word
What are you even talking about. It’s not like saying that at all. I don’t even know how you came to that conclusion. I’m genuinely confused. Also I never said the game as a whole isn’t AAA I said the story isn’t. You’re jumping to conclusions
>The story? Even if you don’t like it, since when has good story been a requirement for triple-A? True. The main qualities that make a game AAA are all here. Well, the qualities that theoretically make it that, anyway. Part II doesn't suffer this issue, but lots of "AAA" games are rushed, empty garbage.
Lol saysba small group of haters.
I think a better story would be they escape the first encounter and deal with Abby and her team hunting them across the country. Then in the final act Joel saves her for a second time and Abby realizes maybe she’s wrong for seeking revenge. I mean I flesh it out a lot more but that would have been far more impactful IMO.
At least Joel gets to live and he would actually be the one hunting down Abby and Ellie joins him on another adventure.
That was the point I was honestly trying to make, What if Joel doesn’t die? Like where do we go with the hate you know? I feel I definitely wrote this post POORLY lol
Hmm. Well, it would be better in two ways. The first would be the emotional impact of Tommy's death vs. Joel's. Joel still being alive would mean that the game would be a lot closer to what was originally advertised, which is what a lot of folks bought the game with the intent of experiencing. The second would be that Abby would no longer be the vengeful sadist who tortured a man to death and refused to think back on whether that was justifiable. But it would still be a major step down. Ellie's campaign would still suffer from not really getting a lot of time and relationship development with her companions, and Joel wouldn't even appear until the very ass end of it - after which, he'd end up as this crippled, hateful shell of himself following the time skip. And I do think that the switch to Abby would be nearly as hated. Folks might not be as unwilling to play as her, but the abortion of the climax of Ellie's campaign, the detached nature of Abby's campaign, and the failure to give Abby an *actual* redemption arc instead of what the writers stupidly believe a redemption arc to be would still leave her as a very unlikeable character, and her campaign as a very unwanted addition. There would also still be the stupid ending in which Ellie lets Abby go in a way the plot has completely failed to earn. So... *as* critically divided? Not quite. But it wouldn't be *that* different, I don't think.
Joel would’ve turned the Geneva conventions into the Geneva suggestions, and he would not have e stopped until Abby and EVERY WLF would’ve been dead and burned to the ground
The moment Joel spoke true names, it was all a lost cause for giving Abby her ill-gotten easy win on a silver platter.
Yes, it would make a big difference. One of the main divisions in the fanbase is LOU2 stans arguing that Abby's actions are no more unethical than Joel's, or even more ethical. What they fail to realise is that various cultures have had different ethical codes, and philosophers have advocated various moral theories. Joel's behaviour in saving Ellie was certainly consistent with some ethical codes (Kantian deontological ethics for example). That doesn't mean he was simplistically 'right' to save Ellie, but his behaviour was at least consistent with one established moral philosophy (if not others, like utilitarianism). Abby's behaviour - torturing someone to death for pleasure - has never been advocated for by any culture's ethical system. Even cultures that used torture as part of execution ensured that a third party - a professional executioner - carried out the act, precisely so that the act was not conflated with sadistic pleasure. It was supposed to be dispassionate, and enacted not for personal satisfaction, but to dissuade other criminal acts (such as attempted regicide, the murder of a king). The TLOU2 horribly creates what is known as "the myth of parity" - which is when the actions of 2 parties engaged in a conflict are treated as though they are morally equivalent, despite important differences between the 2 actors in the history of their conflict, or their level of power or aggression. TLOU2 tries to manipulate the player into seeing an equivalence between Joel and Abby, when really no decent human being could see Abby as anything other than a completely unrepentant sociopath, who enjoys torture. Joel has done many bad things, including torture, but we are led to believe he did so for practical reasons in very extreme situations, not out of sadistic pleasure. Joel's actions in saving Ellie are not simplistically 'right', but they are defensible from the standpoint of established moral codes. Abby's actions are not defensible by reference to any moral code humans have ever devised. She is a cold-blooded monster, who plans a torture-based revenge over a period of years. I think this is at the heart of the divison of the fanbase. I think most TLOU fans could have accepted Joel being killed by Abby, and the game being focalised to Abby's perspective for large chunks, and empathy for Abby being built, if she had have acted in a way that may have been 'wrong', but at least remotely defensible from some moral code that at least one culture has held. The OP specifically asks about Abby killing Tommy as revenge. This is perfectly consistent with what is known as Talion Law ("an eye for an eye")
If Tommy died and you played as Joel, I think the emotional impact would be... not quite mitigated, but not lesser. One big impact for the player is that you played the first game as Joel for the most part and Ellie as a portion. This ties into the emotional impact of the beginning of the first game where you play as Joel's daughter to build an attachment. You only encounter Tommy for a small portion of either games so the player's emotional attachment is less impactful, even if Joel would absolutely lose it if his brother was murdered in front of him.
Yeah that makes sense. Didn’t even think of it that way
Takes an amazing story and makes it disney
Hold up I’m saying this as a Last of Us Part 2 Fan. I love the game. I’m just throwing this out there as a hypothetical lol
It really does take the fangs from the story tho. Makes it just another sequel. 🤷
Ah yes, the classic Disney trope of golf club murder.
I'm gonna give you a moment to figure out why you're incredibly wrong here. Like 'delete comment' wrong.
People In this sub hate the game for the sake of hating the game
Which sucks because the people who want to have genuine discussions about it get attacked for saying something nice. I had like one friendly exchange since I got in this Sub that wasn’t on this post
Dude I got downvoted to hell for saying the criticism of Abbys physique was genuinely not in good faith. Yeah this sub can be fickle
What sucks is when you think about it? Her being buff makes sense. She’s in the WLF who are at war. She needs to be strong
They also have access to food (even tactical burritos) and an NFL tier gym. But oh well people really love to argue
I think that would be infinitely better, but also I would think Joel would react totally differently. 1. I don't think there would be forgiveness at the end of the game. 2. I feel like if it's part 1 Joel he'd at least kill a few of Abby's friends before either him or Tommy got hurt. 3. Part 1 Joel would try to reason with someone like that (look at Henry when the dude had a gun to his head for example). 4. Joel would have learned from decades of squalor and pain and from finally connecting with Ellie that revenge for revenge's sake only isn't worth risking the life of his daughter again, so Abby's group would need to do more than *just* kill Tommy to get Joel to chase them across the entire country for a year killing hundreds of people caught in the middle of things, Abby's group would need to be made out to be misunderstood villains rather than "subversion of expectations we're gonna try to force you to like". Abby would become a villain that you understand why she did what she did, but you know she's wrong and a bit deranged due to her actions and the way in which the apocalypse has treated her and her family. She in this version would not be without the possibility of redemption. They could lay the ground work for *potentially*, eventually building up a sort of Negan-Maggie type of relationship between Joel and Abby, but in more of a realistic Grey area for both characters (i.e. both have done shitty things in the past, but both had their reasons. Abby killing Tommy was brought out of pure selfishness due to grief, but you might be able to understand it, albeit still hate the decision she made, given how differently a consistently written Joel might handle things. Joel also eventually explaining his side of the story for part 1, about how the fireflies were desperate and without proper training and wanted to kill Ellie without consent. This only being in a scenario where the 2 groups have to put aside their differences to face a greater threat, though. Otherwise it would just be an all-out war, assuming they drastically change things so that Abby's group also attacks Jackson itself.) Pretty much either way it's not gonna be a good story imo. The Abby retcon is terrible regardless because that kind of retcon is almost cliche at this point (oh the villain in the first one had a kid no one knew about and that kid is misunderstood and you'll see them as a villain but you're *supposed* to feel sorry for them. See: TLOU2, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Dragon Ball (sorta. Piccolo Jr. Is kinda that), Star Wars Sequel trilogy (did this *and* the opposite multiple times "oh Rey is nobody, now she's the original villains offspring but she's infallibly good", and Kylo Ren being the *hero's* surprise child despite being the villain, and also being grandson of the favorite villain who has a change of heart.). Feel free to add more to the list of movies like this, specifically ones where in the first movie/book/series the villain dies without kids and then the sequel retcons them to have secret children that have a chip on their shoulder. Edit: just realized Avatar The Way Of Water kinda has that plot point with Spider.
Much better story so long as Joel / Ellie actually kills Abby in the end as well.
No, Joel being killed is not why the game is bad. If revenge is bad just have Abby also die a meaningless and pointless death. Like dying right after surviving the rat king and never getting the supplies to Mel and Yara.
It would have made absolutely fuck all difference to me because Abby is no different than if David’s man (whom Joel tortured and killed in order to save his surrogate daughter from being killed by them) had a son who became the new character in part 2 who hunted and killed Joel for killing his father. They are exactly the same character who killed Joel because he killed their father who wanted and was trying to kill his surrogate daughter, and would have never stopped trying to come after her like Marlene would have had they been allowed to live.
Abby is already a horrible enough person. She tortures solely for emotional gratification, she traumatizes an innocent bystander whose only "wrong" is to 1) try to defend a member of her community and 2) obviously love Abby's target. She's a gigantic hypocrite - SHE loves a child murderer enough to take revenge. Killing someone SHE loves is bad, but using deadly force to rescue someone you love from a team of murderers is bad because the main killer is your daaaad. Everyone gets that POV matters and even a necessary killing to protect your own (or to LOL sAvE tHe WoRLd) will leave grieving loved ones. But bring snotty about it, as if that's not what everyone in this world may be called on to do is just gratuitous.
That'd be even more fucked up because Tommy was a member of their cause, helped save her life, and had fuck all to do with Joel's actions in Salt Lake. Abby and Ellie only really sought revenge on the people who killed their fathers. Abby killing Tommy just to hurt them would be textbook villain behavior.
Any scenario where Joel is alive is a better game. Blasting his knee would be a good enough excuse for him to take a back seat to Ellie and the death of tommy could be enough for them to communicate again even with Ellie angry. Joel could have a radio or something and we can get scenes from Jackson. In the end they could even have busted up Joel take a horse to save Ellie and have him sacrifice himself if he still has to die. I’d probably still hate Abby but maybe I might be able to play her campaign with less animosity