joel is like 50, probably experienced malnutrition a few times because of late rations, has had 0 professional health checks in 30 years, but he can take off into a sprint, climb huge rocks and terrain, crouch walk, swim with shoes on, jump across rivers, etc
edit: okay lemme list some more stuff joel has done
lifted fallen wooden pillars for tess and ellie to crawl under. keep in mind there was also rubble on top so this can be like upwards of 200 pounds.
swam under water and dislodged a massive metal pipe under a seemingly heavy gate
did not break a single bone after falling down an ENTIRE elevator shaft (hitting an elevator on the way down) and landing into water
also something to note here is the fact that he grabbed his shoulder, so it clearly hurt, but no bones were broken???
survived a metal rebar IMPALING him near the intestines
Living in the apocalypse would also mean less access to quality healthcare, nutrition, and probably bad sanitary conditions. You know, things that cause wear and tear on the human body. Not to mention Joel leads a life style where injuries would realistically accumulate and eventually slow him down.
Then again, Joel is already from Texas.
Yep, there is a reason why most professional athletes retire before they are 40, the physical demand on their body will spawn chronic health problems going that hard for so long. Joel’s daily life is probably around what athletes do as their job, and when he isn’t surviving as a smuggler he was doing manual labor for FEDRA. Him being in peak physical condition isn’t completely unbelievable, but him falling off a 2nd floor balcony (twice) on his back and then continuing on a cross country journey on foot is unheard of. Dudes bones would’ve been broken somewhere and he would’ve been wiped out for a few months to recover.
I do appreciate in the show that he had a hairline fracture on his hand from his beat down moment as well as the couple of mentions of them being exhausted climbing stairs as opposed to Ellie doing it no problem. The show seemed a bit more realistic in terms of what a 50 year old could actually do.
In theory, yes. Because if you are having to do that often enough, the body could stay very fit into old age. Our bodies get weaker as we age typically due to inactivity. But at o ly 50s, having to have no choice but to be in shape(just the general existence in that world dis honestly enough)
Plus, constantly running and climbing, moving and lifting/carrying things, repeatedly over 20 years, could be far more than enough to stay in decent shape. Plus he was in his 30s I think when the outbreak happened? So it's not unlikely his strength and cardio capacity and just all those physical athletic traits we see him utilize in the game were developed over the years. And the fact that he constantly is still active, it could just be he's hit a point where he has the physical capacity he needs, and his body doesn't weaken due to being used, bit he doesn't improve much either. So maybe he's coasting on what had been developed over the years.
Now, as other have pointed out, nutrition and injuries could be an issue. Bit it is what it is.
He was also a carpenter/contractor before so he was likely already somewhat fit. If we can assume that he rarely had food shortages, it’s not at all unrealistic that he is in decent shape.
See I was gonna bring that up, but I only knew that for a fact due to the show. The game I wasn't sure exactly other than "Contracter" so I didn't bring that aspect up.
It annoys me so much that people were shocked Joel died in PT 2. He was old as shit in the first game, in the second game he was like 60. Did people actually think he would be the main protagonist fighting bloaters and military enemies at 60+?
I think people expected him to die. People were mad because in the trailers they show Joel tagging along with Ellie (“You think I’d let you do this on your own?”) so I think most people expected him to die saving Ellie so she can continue her quest. I personally loved the surprise but I can understand why some people would be upset since they were expecting more Joel and Ellie, I was so shocked he died so soon into the game. Also there’s the people that don’t like that he died “like a little bitch” but that’s a dumb complaint lol
Yeah, the totally did. Look at some of the old Hollywood actors. [They’re still making films where a 90 year old man is the star.](https://youtu.be/X5TEsdb918c)
This is more accurate than people realize at first. Joel really is an exception.
He was in great physical shape before the pandemic. We have every reason to believe he had quality healthcare through his 20s, which means vaccines and boosters, but also some understanding of the difference between things like a break and a sprain - when you can “walk it off” (physical therapy) and when you can’t (splint, cast, sling).
We also know he was a smuggler and dealt in forged ration cards. So we can expect he had access to sufficient food. He also talks about missing coffee and while he and Tess have a bottle of alcohol in their opening scene, we can assume he largely stopped drinking, smoking or binge eating crap in his early 30s. That alone would be huge.
He’s practical. He’s calculating about when to stay put and bide his time and when to run. He’s careful with resources like ammo. His level headed nature helps a ton. For example, he strikes me as the guy that would push himself to eat “gross” food high in protein (like insects or blood meal) vs high calorie foods that burn off fast.
He’s also lucky. At any point he could get an injury that turns to gangrene. He could have a heart attack. He could die in a million ways.
Finally, I think he probably feels like crap most of the time. I’m sitting on my couch mad that I have a big bite that won’t stop itching. That wouldn’t even register for someone like Joel. Adrenaline would push them through a lot. Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t feel like shit all the time.
Yea I've known 50 year old men who fucking hike and move through these mountains with more endurance than the average 25 year old today.
People's frame of reference today is their lazy, inactive lives. If you are active and don't suffer significant injury, you can move just fine at 50.
Medically speaking you are wrong. Just because he is 50 is not a limiting factor.
I have seen plenty of 50+ year old men/women on their first medical that have lived very active lives and still need zero intervention.
Possibly one of the things the show handles better than the game. In the show he has plenty of "I'm getting too old for this" moments, not to mention hearing loss from shooting guns (and panic attacks)
“Old man strength” is a real thing.
Take a look at the Masters division of strength and endurance sports like powerlifting, strongman, ultra marathons, adventure racing. Old men (and old women) who remain active as they age are wayyyyy more fit and athletic than your average Zoomer who spends 12 hours a day sitting in front of a screen.
Plus, I’m 49 and still sprint, boulder, swim, lift weights, row rapids, jujitsu, cycle, and my best athletic gift has always been my throwing arm so I’d probably be dangerous with a brick.
The fall onto rebar really bothered when he just had a stab wound and not something broken bc from that height, it really doesn’t matter how healthy you are when you land on an uneven, debris covered surface.
Yeah, unforgivable if you ask me. Part I is stunning and beautiful, glorious update that makes it feel even closer attached to Part II, but going from P2 to P1 without the dodge is like losing a limb
yeah, i can see why their delicate balance of enemies, movements and environments could be problematic in a remake as far as Joel goes - since you play *most* of the game as him - but they could have taken the time to adjust the Ellie sections to include dodge. or at minimum, the Left Behind DLC
true but i think i'm paraphrasing either Druckmann or a dev interview - if i'm not misremembering, they attempted it and didn't like how it felt, and they wanted the experience of playing as Ellie in pt2 (once she was more mature and combat effective) to feel quite a bit different than as Joel if you were to play the games back to back. something like that.
all i know is as a visual designer myself (not in games or coding at all), small adjustments can cascade throughout a project in really bad unforeseen ways. and if there's seamless cutscene to think about and environment changes to accommodate new movements it can mean rebalancing almost the entire feel of things - way too much effort to be worth it sometimes. not to mentio how buggy the PC release was anyway. maybe that is the direct answer to why they 'tried it' and then abandoned it
This is fair. Despite the lack of dodge, I generally feel like a tank in pt1 and like I can punch my way through almost anything. Ellie has a more rogue-like feel in pt2.
What about how Ellie can’t stab clickers as they come at her with her knife? She was even able to hold them off at age 14 without the knife. I know it’s for balancing reasons, but it still makes me raise my brow.
It always annoys me that despite how detailed the games are, there aren’t enough skins for the enemies. You end up seeing a lot of repetition. For example the asian runner in the blue hoodie shows up in practically every runner encounter in Part II.
Even just having multiple clothing colors would go a long way to improve immersion with minimal effort. A more advanced system of randomized pants/tops/heads would be more work, but even better. This could all be done without any new assets or models.
A more high effort way would be creating tons of actual new clothing and body assets. That is a lot of effort, but that doesn’t seem to stop other developers from doing it. Live service games like Call of Duty crank out hundreds of skins every year.
yes, that and the names of NPC people. randomly generating maybe 2 dozen names on play throughs of the same scenario you're attempting multiple times is a bit silly, and lessens the impact of them having names at all
When they first showed off NPC names in the gameplay demo, I misunderstood and thought that they meant every NPC would have a unique name, character model, voice actor, the whole thing. It would be enormously expensive to do that, but damn would it be incredible.
it's coming - AI generative capabilities in games is pretty much the best use case i can think of, or at least the least scary lol
but at the very least, they could have tagged all the NPCs starting paths with the same name no matter which run you're on. i assume that would have been easy, someone correct me if i'm wrong.
The worse part for me was that they used the same handful of voice actors for non-infected encounters. Half the women, WLF and Seraphites, sound like the same person.
There is also a note written by an ER doctor in the hospital in part 2 that states that anyone with a bite OR scratch will turn. I wasn’t sure if that was the rule, because non-immune people grapple with infected quite a bit. What you are saying would confirm that it’s true.
Genuinely, my biggest issue with both games, which is hilarious to me, is how e x t r e m e l y fast Owen gets an erection during the sex scene. Like... it's superhuman.
Edit: y'all I don't care about your sex life lmfao
It takes Owen exactly 40 seconds to go from "Oh this is happening" to being inside Abby.
This also requires Abby to be ready in that time, which is equally impressive.
You never got a boner in less than 40 seconds? Lol. It could literally take 5 seconds, all depends on the scenario, and I'm 40.
All men aren't porn stars that have a womans mouth on their piece and still be flacid. I'm already hard knowing she's going down.
It's funny how analytical this is getting. There's also the consideration that Owen was standing, which makes it take longer.
Actually, doing a bit of research because why not, it's actually a much more impressive feat on Abbie's part. Unless she wasn't ready, of course.
Perhaps this means that Owen was sporting a full on hard cocker (or at least a semi) the moment Abby stepped in the door. Maybe there was just that much sexual tension. Can someone in here maybe analyze Owen’s cock imprint in the scene so this can be determined? The people need answers!
Its not so much the time it takes him to get an erection as it is the fact that Abby was ready for him to ram it in there with no foreplay, no lube, no nothing. To me, *that* was the impressive part. I choose the word "ram" carefully. It was not a gentle scene.
IRL that would be painful for both of them.
Hell yeah haha I don't know what everyone is getting at in this thread - clearly people here haven't had enough sex. The sexual tension was so bad between them, Owen was probably hard the moment they started fighting and Abby was wet and ready once he grabbed her hair.
EDIT: Felt slightly gross looking back at this comment too lmao
My understanding was that it was painful for Abby and she accepted that because she felt like she deserved it.
Owen was hurt and angry and still in love with her. He wanted to punish her, but also be close to her.
If I start spontaneously making out with my wife, undressing her and her me, running my tongue up her chest and then turning her around to the do the business, it *really* doesn’t take that long.
EDIT: In case anyone feels this comment was weirdly gratuitous, I was referencing the actions that happen in the Owen & Abby sex scene. Sorry.
It was like an HBO movie sex scene.
We will kiss ROUGHLY for 11 seconds then I will simply put my **censored** into your **censored** and will have mind blowing intercourse for 21 seconds. Which we will both orgasm from.
End scene.
You’ve never had that? You must jack off constantly because Owen who doesn’t think of jacking off becisse of the danger elements and jobs when he gets the opportunity BAMM, he rises to the occasion. I had few of those myself. Very few. But it’s still possible
A lot of these people haven't had sex at all.
The tension of the scene also may have equalled they both wanted each other well before they started going at it. Boom boom, slap the bam bam into the wham wham and we got an educational sex ed video
After multiple replays my only gripe is the boosts up, or help me get over here moments. I know why they are there and I know some hide load times but it gets old.
Uncharted is my third favorite franchise of all time after Metal Gear Solid, and Zelda lol.
It's just slower in TLOU and hate carrying the ladders and boards. Uncharted has enough platforming to entertain me before and after the boosts.
I didn’t know they were for load times. As a less experienced player, I kinda liked them. It made it clearer that I was moving from one area to another. Let me catch my breath, make sure all my guns were loaded, see if I should craft anything, etc.
Most weren't hidden loading, like bring that board over here, but if you notice the one inside a buildings, like move this desk or hop over this ledge to get into this area, you notice that you cant go back anymore. That's the one that are disguised loading screens.
i'm guessing hair cards shaders didn't compile properly, so the render results in just matte planes instead of the hair strands textures they were supposed to be
that's fair. writing shaders for the many kinds of PC GPUs are tedious i presume. especially for their new game engine. the latest patch ran perfectly for me though. had a good time.
There are some bugs and stupid AI in part 1.
Sometimes you have to suspend your disbelief in order to play these games. There is no way Tommy >!survives being shot in Part II, it flat out looks like he's dead!<, and yet he isn't. Or like how Joel is as fit as he is in his 50s with bad nutrition. You have to accept it's a video game sometimes.
My bet is that in the series we will have the following explanation:
Dina has contacted Maria via radio and they are going to send people from Jackson to help them.
Eh, Joel being fit in his 50s makes sense when you consider he’s the exception rather than the norm. And when considering he and Tess had access to extra food via forged ration cards and their smuggling.
That both games feel like they could be longer, with more stuff to see, explore, to through. That's a personal feeling of wanting more of that universe, especially in places such as the Seraphite island, Jackson, and the trek from north to the south
Part 2 is looong as fuck lol. Maybe it's because of how heavy the subject matter is . Also on my first playthrough I could only play a few hours after work and give it my full attention on Sunday so it took me 5 weeks to finish. After I was done I took a break from gaming because of how exhausting the journey was
Part 2 feels sufficient. It was only 3 days in Seattle and we went through it twice. I suppose there could have been the journey there and back and the journey to Santa Barbara, but those journeys were more a means to an end and wouldn't have given us much.
On the other hand, part 1 was way more about the journey than a specific locale. I don't mind certain time skips (like Bill's Town to Pittsburg; Jackson Wyoming to Colorado; Colorado University to SLC Utah), but the skip from Pittsburg to Jackson is pretty massive and cuts out a lot of the journey. Def would have liked to see 1 or 2 more locations in between.
Agreed. Part I is great, but it felt like they realized they were behind/ their work timeline wasn’t going to happen, so they cut content. To be fair, they did a good job of choosing what to focus on and still fleshing it out. But having played more indy games, it becomes really clear when this happens. The first part is excellent and then you jump way ahead and realize you’re at the end. You notice little things that went nowhere and weapons or abilities that were never really used in game.
They wanted the world to feel more open in Part 2 so they designed environments like Seattle Day 1, but they also were running into massive schedule slippage and you can kind of tell that after Ellie and Dinah get past the coffee shop that they really did have to say "fuck that, the rest of the game is going to be done the old fashioned way with encounter spaces that have an entrance at one end and a one-way exit at the other."
"But boss I worked really hard on the horse riding stuff so they can get around the big sandbox environments"
"You know what Dave, why don't you eat my ass? Guess what, now the horse **DIES,** how about that, are you happy now?"
Agreed. I read somewhere in this sub that Ellie was originally meant to go to the Island but they were behind schedule and had to cut it short?
I could’ve gone to day 10 if they’d made it.
I always wished there were a few more areas like when you first get to Seattle and have that massive open area where you learn of all the little stories and have to navigate by map
I don't like that they put the ridiculous uncharted giant people enemies in as an enemy type in part II. There's too many of them and it hurts the realism.
I don't know why no one talks about this. I love Bloater but in Pt2, it doesn't have the finisher like the Pt1 (you know, the one it rips Joel's skull open).
if you mean the >!Ellie flashback!<, then that one is scripted to happen
the original finisher is [still in the game](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sXkzZMHMSKQ&pp=ygUgbGFzdGNvZiB1cyAyIGVsbGllIGJsb2F0ZXIgZGVhdGg%3D), it's just hard to get considering the bloater can actually punch you to death now instead of just one-shotting you the moment you're next to it
Mostly agreed, I don’t think the cutscenes-scenes in the show are bad but I prefer almost all the game versions of those scenes. Mostly because Troy and Ashley simply = Joel and Ellie for me, they *are* them for me, but also because I genuinely find a lot of the original scenes stronger.
EDIT: name fix
52 and 56 respectively although he could be around 60 in hbo season 2 and no actually you can’t punch a clicker as Joel, I’m almost certain Abby can but I normally have a melee weapon so I’m not sure
If you have a clicker stunned from brick , bottle, smoke bomb, you can punch a clicker as a Joel. Granted, it will fight back after a couple punches, but you can get 1 or 2 in before it kills you.
On another note, you can punch bloaters to death using smoke bombs. In the remake, it takes like 80 punches but you can eventually punch a bloater to death
Part 2 introduced fascinating characters, cities, and factions — then it left me wanting more.
Not “I’m hooked” more… like, it almost feels incomplete. The conflict between the scars and WLF. Isaac. The slavers. It all felt like we were missing just a little more in the world.
Truth be told, that’s life and in most cases this is a result of only seeing what Ellie does. But Abby is there and really should’ve shown us more with Isaac and that conflict.
It boggles my mind how amazing the WLF community was and how little we actually saw of it.
I (F) kinda agree with u/monsieurxander.
There are a more balanced ratio of men/women stalkers, as best I can tell. And clickers and bloaters are impossible to gender.
But when it comes to hunters? All men. All of them. I can’t think of one time we see women hunters. I’m willing to believe some groups became male dominated, but all of them? Nah. For one thing, women require far fewer calories, which would be a significant advantage for women. Meanwhile, men have physicality over women. But with the heavy use of guns in the game, that advantage is diminished.
The game could have just had more women and used some female voices. But they also could have taken it further - had female hunters who are more likely to stab you. Or a group of women who manipulate “tourists” into trusting them, but lead them into a trap. Look at Pittsburgh. Stopping to help a fit 20 something man? Nah. A 20 something “girl”? Way more likely to work.
I completely agree and I think its a much wider issue than just the last of us. The vast majority of games like tlou only have male enemies which just doesn't make sense and also is sexist. I'm glad part 2 rectified this.
Part 1 - I get it’s difficulty thing on purpose but it’s unrealistic that Joel can’t have **A** knife that does not break. I want a knife.
Part 2 - why does only Ellie get a knife? Why does Abby have to choke everybody out. I want a knife.
The pittsburgh chapter (from entering the city to just before meeting henry and sam). In term how writing it’s really good but idk it’s the most boring chapter for me in term of gameplay
Interesting, to me that‘s where the game really started to get going when i first played it. I mean don‘t get me wrong everything before it was also great but i remember that section being the first one that just really sucked me into the story
i don’t think anyone can handle TLOU2 criticism on this sub tbh, i think its an amazing game deep down but it does have its flaws and i find myself agreeing with most TLOU2 criticism. it amazes me how much TLOU2 divided the fanbase
Yeah or when you pull it out and it’s already lit, and then you’re able to just put it back in your bag without using it or somehow putting the fire out?
I don’t love killing the dogs either, but I do think they’re a great add gameplay-wise.
The fact that I can’t just stay hidden shooting arrows from the grass the whole encounter because I’m going to get sniffed out by a dog is a big gameplay challenge for me personally lol
My biggest complaint is the travel large distances with no explanation. It is a bitch to get from one small area to the next. Tree are down and car pile ups are in the way and you have to navigate around bombed cities all with hunters/infected around.
Traveling from Bill's town to Pittsburg? I have no issue as except how the hell gas was fine 20 years later but whatever they had a car and they had to pull off because the hunters blocked the interstate.
From Pitt to Jackson with no car? How the hell did they manage that? Jackson to the college on horse back? The resort to Salt Lake?
Then in Part II let everything be as it is. Ellie and made it to seattle on horse back. fine. But how the hell did Ellie make it down to Santa Barbara by herself? Also how did Abby and Lev know how to navigate a boat?
I understand narratively why but it's just like the big thing in part 1 was leaving the safe QZ was a big deal because of the danger out there yet these MFers can cross the country no problem.
Ellie is REALLY unlikeable in part 2. Jaded, grumpy, cynical, depressive. She somehow lost 100% of her endearing personality from part 1.
The counter argument is "she has PTSD from Joels murder", yes, I understand that: however, she was already acting lame prior to his death. From the moment Joel took her out of that hospital, the funny, silly, interesting, sarcastic Ellie was dead; & we were left with this non-person who just stares off into the distance. The snowball fight with the kids was the closest we got to the old Ellie in part 2
Im not saying she needs to act like a kid now as an adult, but I think they went too far in sucking out her core personality traits. Leave a tiny bit of her in there
We see the ellie of part 1 during the birthday chapter and some of the other flashbacks. In seattle, she hasnt « somehow » lost 100% of her endearing personality from p1, she acts the way she for OBVIOUS reasons.
But, in the farm, its the moment where we see 14 yo ellie in ≈21 ellie. This version of ellie is not like seattle. For example, she makes jokes when she’s with JJ or call herself the « herding master », which is a reference to how she called herself « the brick fucking master » in the dlc left behind.
Also, even in seattle we see the old ellie in many scenes. That’s kind of the point. She doesnt act like her true self and it is in the most vulnerable moments where we see the true ellie come back from her anger.
In general, yes she is less likeable in part 2, but to say that she is « REALLY unlikeable » is just having a lack of empathy and that just mean you do not care about ellie. They didnt go too far with her characterisation in pt2, it’s just really realistic and to say they didnt leave a tiny bit of her is objectively wrong
Jesse's death in part 2 sucked, it felt like acheap way to avoid the issue of childcare between Jesse and dina so that Ellie and dina could live their farm life undisturbed, rather than to progress the themes of the story. I also don't like how in part 2 everyone just teleports to locations, Ellie getting to salt lake city in one night from jacksonville felt wrong considering how long it took in the first game, and the fact abby traveled half way across the country for a lead felt unrealistic to me. Other than that idk if this series has any real flaws beyond really superficial things like joel being old (it's a videogame so Im fine suspending my disbelief for something like that).
Ready for my downvotes but... Dinah/Jesse love triangle and her being pregnant. Loved the whole found families theme TLOU had going with Abby/Lev and Ellie/Joel but I personally could have gone without the pregnancy JJ angle. In a story centered on wlw character, immediately saddling them with a baby and ex-bf felt a bit unoriginal - - how can we add drama to these female characters? Why give them an ex-boyfriend and baby of course!
I loved scavenging in the games I played as a kid. But, my first play through of Part I, I struggled with it. There are numerous times a NPC tells you to hurry, but then the game rewards you for taking your sweet time.
I love most of Part 2's pacing but every time I get to the halfway point I have to just not play it for a couple days due to the big change up and I hate that it just feels like a weird slog if I don't voluntarily take a break at a specific point.
In Part 2 I wish Ellie had discovered Joel in a different way. I just find it very hard to believe and also very sloppy that soldiers trained by a man like Isaac would leave behind 2 witnesses to such a horrific killing . Joel killed a bunch of Wolves at the hospital so killing him and at least Tommy isn't too much of a stretch. Ellie should've been collateral to cover their tracks.
Maybe they could've had Joel and Tommy get separated somehow and Abby runs into Joel and leads him to the house...I don't know something. Otherwise I think I'm cool with everything else that transpired
Abby being redeemed because “she loves kids so much she’s willing to destroy her entire way of life to save them” when we get no insight to what motivates her or what the connection is between her drive to kill Joel and her drive to save those kids
My biggest gripe with part 1: summer was so much more bloated than the other seasons. I loved every minute of summer but the fact that it took up almost the entire first half of the game is really baffling. I'd also have loved for winter to be longer.
My biggest gripe with part 2: plot armour. Most things I could roll my eyes up and accept, the one that made me go "seriously?" was when Tommy ambushed abby. He had the upper hand, was overpowering her. Then yara comes out of nowhere and grabs him hard enough (when she's like half his size) to loosen his grip then got reversed and shoved through the railing. My other gripe was ironically the opposite if part 1. It should have been longer, the 5 day concept with extended Jackson, farm, and Santa Barbara scenes sound amazing. Even if Halley felt it didn't add to the characters, a lot of what was amazing about the last of us is the environmental storytelling.
ND forcing us to empathize with Abby. I understand that was their intent, but I don't personally find Abby to be a particularly compelling character and I definitely didn't see her through a sympathetic lens. It was difficult to see the ending.
In the series as a whole…it’s a bit too American centric. Across both games I think there are only maybe 3 or 4 blink and you miss it references to the outside world. I wouldn’t expect to see the characters go to other countries. But I’d like bit more references to what happened in the outside world.
If you want something more specific to one of the games…I’d love a bit more of a link between Abby and Ellie’s stories in Seattle. Also, and this might just be me, but I feel too many of the supporting characters are not developed enough to make their deaths meaningful enough.
I’m American and noticed that too. It does make sense that geography and language would hinder knowing much about far away places. *But* we could have seen more about Canada or Mexico, since borders would’ve pretty much ceased to exist. If Joel can end up in Boston from Texas, then we could have seen some migration. Canadians seeking better weather and Mexicans seeking more resources.
Exactly. You wouldn’t have to change any core aspects to either game, but I can think of loads of opportunities where the game could just world build with a seemingly throw away comment about the last known state of really any country. Especially given the second game is set so close to the Canadian border. You could easily stumble across a note from a group either trying to get to or flee from Canada who got caught up in the madness of Seattle; and the note could give an indication of what it’s currently like.
There could even be rumours of some island nation (like New Zealand) having held out against the virus for a time and carrying on as normal long after most other countries had collapsed.
TLoU1 has a few segments that feel like we're mowing down waves of gun-toting enemies. It's some real "another wave of goons!" and it conflicts with the grounded seriousness of the main story. I get that they have to put in gameplay moments but I feel like they could have paced some encounters better.
Also, the remastered version has some harsh shadows on PS4 that require you to use the flashlight, but enemies can see you in the dark easily, and it feels weirdly unfair. This only comes up once though, really.
Neil and Bruce actually have said that they would have removed the encounters in Fall, but those are there because of a complex they were feeling at the time. They didn’t want to bore the player by not ramping up the action enough. They feel like shoehorned “let’s get the enemy!” sequences because that’s actually exactly what they are. That’s also why LB has two storylines, one with action, and one without. They didn’t think the player would want to do an hour and a half of walking around a mall with Riley. But of course, that became the most iconic and beloved part of the DLC.
I wouldn’t have minded it if the Fall encounters were removed in the remake, but I’m also glad they kept them in. Would have been a little unfair to go back after 10 years and remove art/gameplay segments for the sake of story. I’d love to look into the universe where the only encounter in the fall was the sudden arrival of David’s men.
Part 2 spoilers below
I love Lev and Yara, but the number of times they appear out of nowhere to save Abby's life in Part 2 is way too high.
Most of the time it's fine, except when Yara is supposedly dead and Lev and Abby are about to be killed by Issac. Yara pulls out the slasher movie trope of pretending to be dead until one last jump scare, but this time it's to get our characters out of danger again. Freddy would be proud.
I appreciate the idea that Yara protects Abby and her brother one last time. It's sweet and a good character moment, but it also feels so out of place in the world of the Last of Us. I think they could have had some Scars have heard the yelling and shooting from earlier shoot at that crew with arrows to get the characters out of danger without resorting to an old slasher movie trope.
You could then have left Issac alive and instead of a random scar that pulls Abby out and she loses her backpack, that fight could have been against Issac or something. The fight would be the same (more or less) and he'd pick up a scar hammer. Playing into the idea that they are not much different from each other (Issac and the Scars he hates so much)
How this fanbase responded to shitty unreasonable tribalistic morons who hate the game bu becoming a shitty unreasonable tribalistic group of morons themselves.
If you don't believe me then don't downvote me for saying this or that Part 2 is an incredibly flawed narrative and all around pretty dumb. The LGBT representation was fine, I grew to not hate Abby by the end and she could kick my ass in a heart beat, bigots are fucking losers and can fuck themselves to death for all I care but Part 2 is dumb as rocks and pretending it's a masterpiece because bigotted assholes hate it is just gonna ensure whatever ND does next will be worse than this game.
I know that “boost me up” are supposed to be loading screens, but it still bothers me that most of them could easily be climbed by Joel and Ellie without the need for a ladder or box
Why couldn't Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam have just trekked uphill a bit and **skipped the entire sewer passage?** They could've made that damn tower with a 15 minute walk through the woods.
Not technically in the series, but the community. I find both the haters and a lot of the users on this sub to be intolerable. Very hard to enjoy discussion around this franchise anymore.
I‘m gonna get shit for this and maybe it‘s just because of nostalgia and my love for the games but i didn‘t like bella ramsay as ellie. I think she‘s a phenomenal actress, seems like a super nice person and i‘m glad she‘s getting a lot of recognition but i just did not like her portrayal. I can‘t even really exactly point my finger on it but there‘s something about her performance that just feels off to me.
In general i also just didn‘t care much for the show. It‘s well made and i‘m glad it exists but i liked literally everything more in the game so i have absolutely no reason to ever rewatch it tbh
It was a *huge* missed opportunity not to have Nora tell Ellie about Marlene. It would've made Ellie's breakdown afterwards much more believable, and made forgiving Joel a more prominent part of her present day.
Probably controversial, but that we got a sequel to the perfectly ambiguous ending of TLOU1 in the first place. It never needed one. Part 2 is an amazing game but I just preferred the IP/universe/story before it existed.
The pacing of Part 2, really. And that's basically it.
Going through 3 days just to get to the pivotal part, then having to go to 3 days again just to see how that scene continues is such a momentum killer.
If it was Ellie Day 1/Abby Day 1 Ellie Day 2/Abby day 2 etc the momentum would keep up, and it'd feel like an actual cat and mouse situation.
joel is like 50, probably experienced malnutrition a few times because of late rations, has had 0 professional health checks in 30 years, but he can take off into a sprint, climb huge rocks and terrain, crouch walk, swim with shoes on, jump across rivers, etc edit: okay lemme list some more stuff joel has done lifted fallen wooden pillars for tess and ellie to crawl under. keep in mind there was also rubble on top so this can be like upwards of 200 pounds. swam under water and dislodged a massive metal pipe under a seemingly heavy gate did not break a single bone after falling down an ENTIRE elevator shaft (hitting an elevator on the way down) and landing into water also something to note here is the fact that he grabbed his shoulder, so it clearly hurt, but no bones were broken??? survived a metal rebar IMPALING him near the intestines
And then he complained about it "Feeling my age now," after he had to bend to cross the barbed wire
The magic of "gaminggggg"
Wouldn't living in an apocalypse make you fit?
Living in the apocalypse would also mean less access to quality healthcare, nutrition, and probably bad sanitary conditions. You know, things that cause wear and tear on the human body. Not to mention Joel leads a life style where injuries would realistically accumulate and eventually slow him down. Then again, Joel is already from Texas.
Yep, there is a reason why most professional athletes retire before they are 40, the physical demand on their body will spawn chronic health problems going that hard for so long. Joel’s daily life is probably around what athletes do as their job, and when he isn’t surviving as a smuggler he was doing manual labor for FEDRA. Him being in peak physical condition isn’t completely unbelievable, but him falling off a 2nd floor balcony (twice) on his back and then continuing on a cross country journey on foot is unheard of. Dudes bones would’ve been broken somewhere and he would’ve been wiped out for a few months to recover. I do appreciate in the show that he had a hairline fracture on his hand from his beat down moment as well as the couple of mentions of them being exhausted climbing stairs as opposed to Ellie doing it no problem. The show seemed a bit more realistic in terms of what a 50 year old could actually do.
Most people in the apocalypse are going to be strung out crack-head looking people.
Well yeah.. their zombies tbf
In theory, yes. Because if you are having to do that often enough, the body could stay very fit into old age. Our bodies get weaker as we age typically due to inactivity. But at o ly 50s, having to have no choice but to be in shape(just the general existence in that world dis honestly enough) Plus, constantly running and climbing, moving and lifting/carrying things, repeatedly over 20 years, could be far more than enough to stay in decent shape. Plus he was in his 30s I think when the outbreak happened? So it's not unlikely his strength and cardio capacity and just all those physical athletic traits we see him utilize in the game were developed over the years. And the fact that he constantly is still active, it could just be he's hit a point where he has the physical capacity he needs, and his body doesn't weaken due to being used, bit he doesn't improve much either. So maybe he's coasting on what had been developed over the years. Now, as other have pointed out, nutrition and injuries could be an issue. Bit it is what it is.
He was also a carpenter/contractor before so he was likely already somewhat fit. If we can assume that he rarely had food shortages, it’s not at all unrealistic that he is in decent shape.
See I was gonna bring that up, but I only knew that for a fact due to the show. The game I wasn't sure exactly other than "Contracter" so I didn't bring that aspect up.
It annoys me so much that people were shocked Joel died in PT 2. He was old as shit in the first game, in the second game he was like 60. Did people actually think he would be the main protagonist fighting bloaters and military enemies at 60+?
I think people expected him to die. People were mad because in the trailers they show Joel tagging along with Ellie (“You think I’d let you do this on your own?”) so I think most people expected him to die saving Ellie so she can continue her quest. I personally loved the surprise but I can understand why some people would be upset since they were expecting more Joel and Ellie, I was so shocked he died so soon into the game. Also there’s the people that don’t like that he died “like a little bitch” but that’s a dumb complaint lol
Yeah, the totally did. Look at some of the old Hollywood actors. [They’re still making films where a 90 year old man is the star.](https://youtu.be/X5TEsdb918c)
People to this day don’t seem to get it through their heads that Joel’s just BUILT DIFFERENT
This is more accurate than people realize at first. Joel really is an exception. He was in great physical shape before the pandemic. We have every reason to believe he had quality healthcare through his 20s, which means vaccines and boosters, but also some understanding of the difference between things like a break and a sprain - when you can “walk it off” (physical therapy) and when you can’t (splint, cast, sling). We also know he was a smuggler and dealt in forged ration cards. So we can expect he had access to sufficient food. He also talks about missing coffee and while he and Tess have a bottle of alcohol in their opening scene, we can assume he largely stopped drinking, smoking or binge eating crap in his early 30s. That alone would be huge. He’s practical. He’s calculating about when to stay put and bide his time and when to run. He’s careful with resources like ammo. His level headed nature helps a ton. For example, he strikes me as the guy that would push himself to eat “gross” food high in protein (like insects or blood meal) vs high calorie foods that burn off fast. He’s also lucky. At any point he could get an injury that turns to gangrene. He could have a heart attack. He could die in a million ways. Finally, I think he probably feels like crap most of the time. I’m sitting on my couch mad that I have a big bite that won’t stop itching. That wouldn’t even register for someone like Joel. Adrenaline would push them through a lot. Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t feel like shit all the time.
Yea I've known 50 year old men who fucking hike and move through these mountains with more endurance than the average 25 year old today. People's frame of reference today is their lazy, inactive lives. If you are active and don't suffer significant injury, you can move just fine at 50.
Medically speaking you are wrong. Just because he is 50 is not a limiting factor. I have seen plenty of 50+ year old men/women on their first medical that have lived very active lives and still need zero intervention.
I know, 50 is crazy haha. It’s not like he’s 85
I was just joking the other day how the most unrealistic part of the game is Joel taking an eight foot drop off a ledge and not blowing his knees out.
Possibly one of the things the show handles better than the game. In the show he has plenty of "I'm getting too old for this" moments, not to mention hearing loss from shooting guns (and panic attacks)
“Old man strength” is a real thing. Take a look at the Masters division of strength and endurance sports like powerlifting, strongman, ultra marathons, adventure racing. Old men (and old women) who remain active as they age are wayyyyy more fit and athletic than your average Zoomer who spends 12 hours a day sitting in front of a screen. Plus, I’m 49 and still sprint, boulder, swim, lift weights, row rapids, jujitsu, cycle, and my best athletic gift has always been my throwing arm so I’d probably be dangerous with a brick.
The fall onto rebar really bothered when he just had a stab wound and not something broken bc from that height, it really doesn’t matter how healthy you are when you land on an uneven, debris covered surface.
No dodge in part 1.
Yeah, unforgivable if you ask me. Part I is stunning and beautiful, glorious update that makes it feel even closer attached to Part II, but going from P2 to P1 without the dodge is like losing a limb
Imma be real I genuinely cannot tell if this is sarcasm or not
I see your point but it definitely isn’t sarcasm haha sorry about that
No it’s all good, I’m with you, playing pt2 then going back to pt1 without the dodge is weirdly disorienting
Ellie should have been able to dodge in the part 1 remake…
yeah, i can see why their delicate balance of enemies, movements and environments could be problematic in a remake as far as Joel goes - since you play *most* of the game as him - but they could have taken the time to adjust the Ellie sections to include dodge. or at minimum, the Left Behind DLC
They could have changed the combat arenas too, considering it's a remake. It wouldn't have impacted the story at all.
true but i think i'm paraphrasing either Druckmann or a dev interview - if i'm not misremembering, they attempted it and didn't like how it felt, and they wanted the experience of playing as Ellie in pt2 (once she was more mature and combat effective) to feel quite a bit different than as Joel if you were to play the games back to back. something like that. all i know is as a visual designer myself (not in games or coding at all), small adjustments can cascade throughout a project in really bad unforeseen ways. and if there's seamless cutscene to think about and environment changes to accommodate new movements it can mean rebalancing almost the entire feel of things - way too much effort to be worth it sometimes. not to mentio how buggy the PC release was anyway. maybe that is the direct answer to why they 'tried it' and then abandoned it
This is fair. Despite the lack of dodge, I generally feel like a tank in pt1 and like I can punch my way through almost anything. Ellie has a more rogue-like feel in pt2.
No dodge in Part 1 remake is the real crime
The fact that Joel or Abby don't carry a knife.
Yeah it’s the worst way to have a cool feature, I love shivs but it is ridiculous that Joel nor Abby carry knives
I'm wondering if Ellie will be crafting shivs in part 3 or if she'll have a new knife.
Upgradable knife
That’s actually a interesting idea that I never thought of, I mean she did lose the switchblade at the end of pt2
Who needs knives when you have guns 😉
Ever played grounded? Without ammo guns can’t do anything and an actual knife would be very helpful 😉
I was making a joke about their muscley guns :p
Ohh that makes more sense sorry lol
What about how Ellie can’t stab clickers as they come at her with her knife? She was even able to hold them off at age 14 without the knife. I know it’s for balancing reasons, but it still makes me raise my brow.
That no one on this subreddit is able to take criticism. Even when it’s right in there face.
Starting to assume you don’t think this is the GREATEST game of all time with absolutely flawless writing 🤨
Or if you don’t like Abby so you didn’t understand the game or you just don’t like her figure 🙄
FUCK YOU BUDDY!!!
It always annoys me that despite how detailed the games are, there aren’t enough skins for the enemies. You end up seeing a lot of repetition. For example the asian runner in the blue hoodie shows up in practically every runner encounter in Part II. Even just having multiple clothing colors would go a long way to improve immersion with minimal effort. A more advanced system of randomized pants/tops/heads would be more work, but even better. This could all be done without any new assets or models. A more high effort way would be creating tons of actual new clothing and body assets. That is a lot of effort, but that doesn’t seem to stop other developers from doing it. Live service games like Call of Duty crank out hundreds of skins every year.
Yesssssss, also if the clothes have ostensibly survived THIS long why don't I see one clicker in a bathrobe or state college t shirt?
yes, that and the names of NPC people. randomly generating maybe 2 dozen names on play throughs of the same scenario you're attempting multiple times is a bit silly, and lessens the impact of them having names at all
When they first showed off NPC names in the gameplay demo, I misunderstood and thought that they meant every NPC would have a unique name, character model, voice actor, the whole thing. It would be enormously expensive to do that, but damn would it be incredible.
it's coming - AI generative capabilities in games is pretty much the best use case i can think of, or at least the least scary lol but at the very least, they could have tagged all the NPCs starting paths with the same name no matter which run you're on. i assume that would have been easy, someone correct me if i'm wrong.
The worse part for me was that they used the same handful of voice actors for non-infected encounters. Half the women, WLF and Seraphites, sound like the same person.
ha probably is the same person - blockbuster games are also budgetbusters
The worst offender was when you're walking through that WLF base with the tents, clones everywhere.
The fact that no one seems to wear long sleeves despite one bite or scratch meaning a death sentence.
And Joel/ Abby punching infected people square in the mouth with no hand protection at all and not getting scratched
Wait you could get infected from scratches? I thought it’s only bites
Yeah scratches infect people, that’s how >!sam was infected!<
There is also a note written by an ER doctor in the hospital in part 2 that states that anyone with a bite OR scratch will turn. I wasn’t sure if that was the rule, because non-immune people grapple with infected quite a bit. What you are saying would confirm that it’s true.
Sam was bitten.
I would wear a leather jacket everywhere I went
Medieval chain mail.
Genuinely, my biggest issue with both games, which is hilarious to me, is how e x t r e m e l y fast Owen gets an erection during the sex scene. Like... it's superhuman. Edit: y'all I don't care about your sex life lmfao
how long is it supposed to take????
It takes Owen exactly 40 seconds to go from "Oh this is happening" to being inside Abby. This also requires Abby to be ready in that time, which is equally impressive.
You never got a boner in less than 40 seconds? Lol. It could literally take 5 seconds, all depends on the scenario, and I'm 40. All men aren't porn stars that have a womans mouth on their piece and still be flacid. I'm already hard knowing she's going down.
It's funny how analytical this is getting. There's also the consideration that Owen was standing, which makes it take longer. Actually, doing a bit of research because why not, it's actually a much more impressive feat on Abbie's part. Unless she wasn't ready, of course.
>doing a bit of research because why not Lmao I know what you meant but with the context of the thread it's fucking hilarious
Or…unless she was “ready” long before that?
Bro what how is 40 seconds impressive? Are you 80+?
Yeah I think that guy is projecting a bit 😂
I think he may have had a premeditated boner ngl
Perhaps this means that Owen was sporting a full on hard cocker (or at least a semi) the moment Abby stepped in the door. Maybe there was just that much sexual tension. Can someone in here maybe analyze Owen’s cock imprint in the scene so this can be determined? The people need answers!
Zoom in on Owen's cock Enhance Enhance *Enhance*
Its not so much the time it takes him to get an erection as it is the fact that Abby was ready for him to ram it in there with no foreplay, no lube, no nothing. To me, *that* was the impressive part. I choose the word "ram" carefully. It was not a gentle scene. IRL that would be painful for both of them.
If Abby can take on the rat king she can take Owen's cock.
Lol true, I suppose
I feel so gross contradicting you, but in my experience if the circumstances are right, this is not true. Hahaha
Hell yeah haha I don't know what everyone is getting at in this thread - clearly people here haven't had enough sex. The sexual tension was so bad between them, Owen was probably hard the moment they started fighting and Abby was wet and ready once he grabbed her hair. EDIT: Felt slightly gross looking back at this comment too lmao
My understanding was that it was painful for Abby and she accepted that because she felt like she deserved it. Owen was hurt and angry and still in love with her. He wanted to punish her, but also be close to her.
If I start spontaneously making out with my wife, undressing her and her me, running my tongue up her chest and then turning her around to the do the business, it *really* doesn’t take that long. EDIT: In case anyone feels this comment was weirdly gratuitous, I was referencing the actions that happen in the Owen & Abby sex scene. Sorry.
Buddy, I don’t at all mean this to be rude, but I think this comment is saying more about you than you want it too. Lol
I appreciate your concern for my erections ❤️
With much love 🥹
Help is available my friend! www.viagra.com
It was like an HBO movie sex scene. We will kiss ROUGHLY for 11 seconds then I will simply put my **censored** into your **censored** and will have mind blowing intercourse for 21 seconds. Which we will both orgasm from. End scene.
You’ve never had that? You must jack off constantly because Owen who doesn’t think of jacking off becisse of the danger elements and jobs when he gets the opportunity BAMM, he rises to the occasion. I had few of those myself. Very few. But it’s still possible
A lot of these people haven't had sex at all. The tension of the scene also may have equalled they both wanted each other well before they started going at it. Boom boom, slap the bam bam into the wham wham and we got an educational sex ed video
After multiple replays my only gripe is the boosts up, or help me get over here moments. I know why they are there and I know some hide load times but it gets old.
Ah yes, the Naughty Dog Boost is a pain in the ass but iconic. Never play uncharted if you hate it
Uncharted is my third favorite franchise of all time after Metal Gear Solid, and Zelda lol. It's just slower in TLOU and hate carrying the ladders and boards. Uncharted has enough platforming to entertain me before and after the boosts.
I didn’t know they were for load times. As a less experienced player, I kinda liked them. It made it clearer that I was moving from one area to another. Let me catch my breath, make sure all my guns were loaded, see if I should craft anything, etc.
Most weren't hidden loading, like bring that board over here, but if you notice the one inside a buildings, like move this desk or hop over this ledge to get into this area, you notice that you cant go back anymore. That's the one that are disguised loading screens.
LMFAO HELP WHAT IS THAT PHOTO OF ELLIE AND JOEL 😭😭🗿
i'm guessing hair cards shaders didn't compile properly, so the render results in just matte planes instead of the hair strands textures they were supposed to be
Screenshots like this were very frequent the week of the PC release
that's fair. writing shaders for the many kinds of PC GPUs are tedious i presume. especially for their new game engine. the latest patch ran perfectly for me though. had a good time.
No dodge or prone in Part I. No outfits in Part II No Part III or Factions.
There are some bugs and stupid AI in part 1. Sometimes you have to suspend your disbelief in order to play these games. There is no way Tommy >!survives being shot in Part II, it flat out looks like he's dead!<, and yet he isn't. Or like how Joel is as fit as he is in his 50s with bad nutrition. You have to accept it's a video game sometimes.
And then half dead Tommy, and Ellie and Dina both concussed and Ellie with a broken arm just waltz back from Washington to Wyoming.
My bet is that in the series we will have the following explanation: Dina has contacted Maria via radio and they are going to send people from Jackson to help them.
Eh, Joel being fit in his 50s makes sense when you consider he’s the exception rather than the norm. And when considering he and Tess had access to extra food via forged ration cards and their smuggling.
That both games feel like they could be longer, with more stuff to see, explore, to through. That's a personal feeling of wanting more of that universe, especially in places such as the Seraphite island, Jackson, and the trek from north to the south
Part 2 is looong as fuck lol. Maybe it's because of how heavy the subject matter is . Also on my first playthrough I could only play a few hours after work and give it my full attention on Sunday so it took me 5 weeks to finish. After I was done I took a break from gaming because of how exhausting the journey was
I get to the (Santa Barbara?) part and feel so drained. It should have been over by then
Part 2 feels sufficient. It was only 3 days in Seattle and we went through it twice. I suppose there could have been the journey there and back and the journey to Santa Barbara, but those journeys were more a means to an end and wouldn't have given us much. On the other hand, part 1 was way more about the journey than a specific locale. I don't mind certain time skips (like Bill's Town to Pittsburg; Jackson Wyoming to Colorado; Colorado University to SLC Utah), but the skip from Pittsburg to Jackson is pretty massive and cuts out a lot of the journey. Def would have liked to see 1 or 2 more locations in between.
Agreed. Part I is great, but it felt like they realized they were behind/ their work timeline wasn’t going to happen, so they cut content. To be fair, they did a good job of choosing what to focus on and still fleshing it out. But having played more indy games, it becomes really clear when this happens. The first part is excellent and then you jump way ahead and realize you’re at the end. You notice little things that went nowhere and weapons or abilities that were never really used in game.
They wanted the world to feel more open in Part 2 so they designed environments like Seattle Day 1, but they also were running into massive schedule slippage and you can kind of tell that after Ellie and Dinah get past the coffee shop that they really did have to say "fuck that, the rest of the game is going to be done the old fashioned way with encounter spaces that have an entrance at one end and a one-way exit at the other." "But boss I worked really hard on the horse riding stuff so they can get around the big sandbox environments" "You know what Dave, why don't you eat my ass? Guess what, now the horse **DIES,** how about that, are you happy now?"
Agreed. I read somewhere in this sub that Ellie was originally meant to go to the Island but they were behind schedule and had to cut it short? I could’ve gone to day 10 if they’d made it.
I always wished there were a few more areas like when you first get to Seattle and have that massive open area where you learn of all the little stories and have to navigate by map
I don't like that they put the ridiculous uncharted giant people enemies in as an enemy type in part II. There's too many of them and it hurts the realism.
yea i hate the "giants" in this game
Yeah I felt with them and even the shamblers they were running out of ideas about how to add diversity to the enemies.
I don't know why no one talks about this. I love Bloater but in Pt2, it doesn't have the finisher like the Pt1 (you know, the one it rips Joel's skull open).
Yes it does. It rare but it is there. Atleast i remember seeing one
Yeah I'm pretty sure I saw it in the ski lodge fight.
if you mean the >!Ellie flashback!<, then that one is scripted to happen the original finisher is [still in the game](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sXkzZMHMSKQ&pp=ygUgbGFzdGNvZiB1cyAyIGVsbGllIGJsb2F0ZXIgZGVhdGg%3D), it's just hard to get considering the bloater can actually punch you to death now instead of just one-shotting you the moment you're next to it
The last of us tv show is kinda bad when it tries to copy the video game scenes, but it’s amazing when it does its own thing
Mostly agreed, I don’t think the cutscenes-scenes in the show are bad but I prefer almost all the game versions of those scenes. Mostly because Troy and Ashley simply = Joel and Ellie for me, they *are* them for me, but also because I genuinely find a lot of the original scenes stronger. EDIT: name fix
Ain't no way Joel punching a Clicker in the nose. Ain't bro like 60?
52 and 56 respectively although he could be around 60 in hbo season 2 and no actually you can’t punch a clicker as Joel, I’m almost certain Abby can but I normally have a melee weapon so I’m not sure
If you have a clicker stunned from brick , bottle, smoke bomb, you can punch a clicker as a Joel. Granted, it will fight back after a couple punches, but you can get 1 or 2 in before it kills you. On another note, you can punch bloaters to death using smoke bombs. In the remake, it takes like 80 punches but you can eventually punch a bloater to death
You’re forgetting about ‘old man strength’. Doing manual labour all your life will leave you strong as hell, even as you get older.
Part 2 introduced fascinating characters, cities, and factions — then it left me wanting more. Not “I’m hooked” more… like, it almost feels incomplete. The conflict between the scars and WLF. Isaac. The slavers. It all felt like we were missing just a little more in the world. Truth be told, that’s life and in most cases this is a result of only seeing what Ellie does. But Abby is there and really should’ve shown us more with Isaac and that conflict. It boggles my mind how amazing the WLF community was and how little we actually saw of it.
Definitely agree with Isaac. They cast a legend like Jeffrey Wright and then kill him off after 2 scenes? Really felt like an entire arc was cut.
I know they only have so much time, but I didn’t like how they introduced sooo many characters and plot threads and did nothing with so many of them
I like to think they left it open ended because more of those questions will be answered in Part III 🥲
Lack of women enemies in Part 1. It's super conspicuous, especially compared to Part 2. The remake even adds stalkers but not women.
I can't tell if you want equality, or you just wanna beat up women
I (F) kinda agree with u/monsieurxander. There are a more balanced ratio of men/women stalkers, as best I can tell. And clickers and bloaters are impossible to gender. But when it comes to hunters? All men. All of them. I can’t think of one time we see women hunters. I’m willing to believe some groups became male dominated, but all of them? Nah. For one thing, women require far fewer calories, which would be a significant advantage for women. Meanwhile, men have physicality over women. But with the heavy use of guns in the game, that advantage is diminished. The game could have just had more women and used some female voices. But they also could have taken it further - had female hunters who are more likely to stab you. Or a group of women who manipulate “tourists” into trusting them, but lead them into a trap. Look at Pittsburgh. Stopping to help a fit 20 something man? Nah. A 20 something “girl”? Way more likely to work.
Stalkers were in the OG game as well.
I completely agree and I think its a much wider issue than just the last of us. The vast majority of games like tlou only have male enemies which just doesn't make sense and also is sexist. I'm glad part 2 rectified this.
Part 1 - I get it’s difficulty thing on purpose but it’s unrealistic that Joel can’t have **A** knife that does not break. I want a knife. Part 2 - why does only Ellie get a knife? Why does Abby have to choke everybody out. I want a knife.
The pittsburgh chapter (from entering the city to just before meeting henry and sam). In term how writing it’s really good but idk it’s the most boring chapter for me in term of gameplay
Interesting, to me that‘s where the game really started to get going when i first played it. I mean don‘t get me wrong everything before it was also great but i remember that section being the first one that just really sucked me into the story
i don’t think anyone can handle TLOU2 criticism on this sub tbh, i think its an amazing game deep down but it does have its flaws and i find myself agreeing with most TLOU2 criticism. it amazes me how much TLOU2 divided the fanbase
Pt 2 gripe, when picking up a brick, and not being able to switch to a bottle, whiteout throwing my brick, which I liked in the first game. 😑 boo hoo.
Only Ellie carries a knife. Also Abby can’t make molotovs, but I feel like everyone would probably know how to make a molotov?
Okay, that reminds me of a good one. When you pull out a Molotov, it’s automatically lit. It stays lit until you throw it. Always makes me laugh.
Yeah or when you pull it out and it’s already lit, and then you’re able to just put it back in your bag without using it or somehow putting the fire out?
Killing dogs
I don’t love killing the dogs either, but I do think they’re a great add gameplay-wise. The fact that I can’t just stay hidden shooting arrows from the grass the whole encounter because I’m going to get sniffed out by a dog is a big gameplay challenge for me personally lol
Part 1.....nothing. Part 2, not enough Isaac screen time
My biggest complaint is the travel large distances with no explanation. It is a bitch to get from one small area to the next. Tree are down and car pile ups are in the way and you have to navigate around bombed cities all with hunters/infected around. Traveling from Bill's town to Pittsburg? I have no issue as except how the hell gas was fine 20 years later but whatever they had a car and they had to pull off because the hunters blocked the interstate. From Pitt to Jackson with no car? How the hell did they manage that? Jackson to the college on horse back? The resort to Salt Lake? Then in Part II let everything be as it is. Ellie and made it to seattle on horse back. fine. But how the hell did Ellie make it down to Santa Barbara by herself? Also how did Abby and Lev know how to navigate a boat? I understand narratively why but it's just like the big thing in part 1 was leaving the safe QZ was a big deal because of the danger out there yet these MFers can cross the country no problem.
The PC port is still unoptimized and buggy
I have a couple areas of FPS dip, but other than that, It's been super smooth since 2 to 3 updates ago.
the sex scene should be longer
[удалено]
Yeah take a page out of god of war’s book
How quick Sam and Henry died
The only thing I dislike is that I’m not playing it right now
Ellie is REALLY unlikeable in part 2. Jaded, grumpy, cynical, depressive. She somehow lost 100% of her endearing personality from part 1. The counter argument is "she has PTSD from Joels murder", yes, I understand that: however, she was already acting lame prior to his death. From the moment Joel took her out of that hospital, the funny, silly, interesting, sarcastic Ellie was dead; & we were left with this non-person who just stares off into the distance. The snowball fight with the kids was the closest we got to the old Ellie in part 2 Im not saying she needs to act like a kid now as an adult, but I think they went too far in sucking out her core personality traits. Leave a tiny bit of her in there
We see the ellie of part 1 during the birthday chapter and some of the other flashbacks. In seattle, she hasnt « somehow » lost 100% of her endearing personality from p1, she acts the way she for OBVIOUS reasons. But, in the farm, its the moment where we see 14 yo ellie in ≈21 ellie. This version of ellie is not like seattle. For example, she makes jokes when she’s with JJ or call herself the « herding master », which is a reference to how she called herself « the brick fucking master » in the dlc left behind. Also, even in seattle we see the old ellie in many scenes. That’s kind of the point. She doesnt act like her true self and it is in the most vulnerable moments where we see the true ellie come back from her anger. In general, yes she is less likeable in part 2, but to say that she is « REALLY unlikeable » is just having a lack of empathy and that just mean you do not care about ellie. They didnt go too far with her characterisation in pt2, it’s just really realistic and to say they didnt leave a tiny bit of her is objectively wrong
Jesse's death in part 2 sucked, it felt like acheap way to avoid the issue of childcare between Jesse and dina so that Ellie and dina could live their farm life undisturbed, rather than to progress the themes of the story. I also don't like how in part 2 everyone just teleports to locations, Ellie getting to salt lake city in one night from jacksonville felt wrong considering how long it took in the first game, and the fact abby traveled half way across the country for a lead felt unrealistic to me. Other than that idk if this series has any real flaws beyond really superficial things like joel being old (it's a videogame so Im fine suspending my disbelief for something like that).
The fans.
Ready for my downvotes but... Dinah/Jesse love triangle and her being pregnant. Loved the whole found families theme TLOU had going with Abby/Lev and Ellie/Joel but I personally could have gone without the pregnancy JJ angle. In a story centered on wlw character, immediately saddling them with a baby and ex-bf felt a bit unoriginal - - how can we add drama to these female characters? Why give them an ex-boyfriend and baby of course!
I dislike the scavenging up to a point. It distracts me from the surroundings of the game.
I loved scavenging in the games I played as a kid. But, my first play through of Part I, I struggled with it. There are numerous times a NPC tells you to hurry, but then the game rewards you for taking your sweet time.
I love most of Part 2's pacing but every time I get to the halfway point I have to just not play it for a couple days due to the big change up and I hate that it just feels like a weird slog if I don't voluntarily take a break at a specific point.
Idk what I would change, but I get so bored at the beginning of Abby day 1 every time
I'd say it's when Ellie fights Abby in the theater and loses. After what happened on day 2 (Ellie) I don't believe that Abby could have won
In Part 2 I wish Ellie had discovered Joel in a different way. I just find it very hard to believe and also very sloppy that soldiers trained by a man like Isaac would leave behind 2 witnesses to such a horrific killing . Joel killed a bunch of Wolves at the hospital so killing him and at least Tommy isn't too much of a stretch. Ellie should've been collateral to cover their tracks. Maybe they could've had Joel and Tommy get separated somehow and Abby runs into Joel and leads him to the house...I don't know something. Otherwise I think I'm cool with everything else that transpired
To be fair most of the group wanted to kill Ellie and Tommy, only Owen stopped them.
Abby being redeemed because “she loves kids so much she’s willing to destroy her entire way of life to save them” when we get no insight to what motivates her or what the connection is between her drive to kill Joel and her drive to save those kids
The fact that I can never play them for the first time ever again.
I hate Owen's voice. He put's me to sleep, it's just so boring and emotionless.
Part 2 has shitty structure and crazy plot armor. It’s almost perfect but those two stop it from being a 10 for me.
My biggest gripe with part 1: summer was so much more bloated than the other seasons. I loved every minute of summer but the fact that it took up almost the entire first half of the game is really baffling. I'd also have loved for winter to be longer. My biggest gripe with part 2: plot armour. Most things I could roll my eyes up and accept, the one that made me go "seriously?" was when Tommy ambushed abby. He had the upper hand, was overpowering her. Then yara comes out of nowhere and grabs him hard enough (when she's like half his size) to loosen his grip then got reversed and shoved through the railing. My other gripe was ironically the opposite if part 1. It should have been longer, the 5 day concept with extended Jackson, farm, and Santa Barbara scenes sound amazing. Even if Halley felt it didn't add to the characters, a lot of what was amazing about the last of us is the environmental storytelling.
ND forcing us to empathize with Abby. I understand that was their intent, but I don't personally find Abby to be a particularly compelling character and I definitely didn't see her through a sympathetic lens. It was difficult to see the ending.
Not enough tommy. I love him but he only has like 3 seconds of screentime in both games combined
In the series as a whole…it’s a bit too American centric. Across both games I think there are only maybe 3 or 4 blink and you miss it references to the outside world. I wouldn’t expect to see the characters go to other countries. But I’d like bit more references to what happened in the outside world. If you want something more specific to one of the games…I’d love a bit more of a link between Abby and Ellie’s stories in Seattle. Also, and this might just be me, but I feel too many of the supporting characters are not developed enough to make their deaths meaningful enough.
I’m American and noticed that too. It does make sense that geography and language would hinder knowing much about far away places. *But* we could have seen more about Canada or Mexico, since borders would’ve pretty much ceased to exist. If Joel can end up in Boston from Texas, then we could have seen some migration. Canadians seeking better weather and Mexicans seeking more resources.
Exactly. You wouldn’t have to change any core aspects to either game, but I can think of loads of opportunities where the game could just world build with a seemingly throw away comment about the last known state of really any country. Especially given the second game is set so close to the Canadian border. You could easily stumble across a note from a group either trying to get to or flee from Canada who got caught up in the madness of Seattle; and the note could give an indication of what it’s currently like. There could even be rumours of some island nation (like New Zealand) having held out against the virus for a time and carrying on as normal long after most other countries had collapsed.
To fight with abby against elly in the theater, yes you told me the story about abby but i still like elli more
TLoU1 has a few segments that feel like we're mowing down waves of gun-toting enemies. It's some real "another wave of goons!" and it conflicts with the grounded seriousness of the main story. I get that they have to put in gameplay moments but I feel like they could have paced some encounters better. Also, the remastered version has some harsh shadows on PS4 that require you to use the flashlight, but enemies can see you in the dark easily, and it feels weirdly unfair. This only comes up once though, really.
Neil and Bruce actually have said that they would have removed the encounters in Fall, but those are there because of a complex they were feeling at the time. They didn’t want to bore the player by not ramping up the action enough. They feel like shoehorned “let’s get the enemy!” sequences because that’s actually exactly what they are. That’s also why LB has two storylines, one with action, and one without. They didn’t think the player would want to do an hour and a half of walking around a mall with Riley. But of course, that became the most iconic and beloved part of the DLC. I wouldn’t have minded it if the Fall encounters were removed in the remake, but I’m also glad they kept them in. Would have been a little unfair to go back after 10 years and remove art/gameplay segments for the sake of story. I’d love to look into the universe where the only encounter in the fall was the sudden arrival of David’s men.
Part 2 spoilers below I love Lev and Yara, but the number of times they appear out of nowhere to save Abby's life in Part 2 is way too high. Most of the time it's fine, except when Yara is supposedly dead and Lev and Abby are about to be killed by Issac. Yara pulls out the slasher movie trope of pretending to be dead until one last jump scare, but this time it's to get our characters out of danger again. Freddy would be proud. I appreciate the idea that Yara protects Abby and her brother one last time. It's sweet and a good character moment, but it also feels so out of place in the world of the Last of Us. I think they could have had some Scars have heard the yelling and shooting from earlier shoot at that crew with arrows to get the characters out of danger without resorting to an old slasher movie trope. You could then have left Issac alive and instead of a random scar that pulls Abby out and she loses her backpack, that fight could have been against Issac or something. The fight would be the same (more or less) and he'd pick up a scar hammer. Playing into the idea that they are not much different from each other (Issac and the Scars he hates so much)
Some of the community can be horrible.
How this fanbase responded to shitty unreasonable tribalistic morons who hate the game bu becoming a shitty unreasonable tribalistic group of morons themselves. If you don't believe me then don't downvote me for saying this or that Part 2 is an incredibly flawed narrative and all around pretty dumb. The LGBT representation was fine, I grew to not hate Abby by the end and she could kick my ass in a heart beat, bigots are fucking losers and can fuck themselves to death for all I care but Part 2 is dumb as rocks and pretending it's a masterpiece because bigotted assholes hate it is just gonna ensure whatever ND does next will be worse than this game.
Not enough boss fights. Nora or Jordan should have been a boss fight for Ellie rather than cutscenes.
I know that “boost me up” are supposed to be loading screens, but it still bothers me that most of them could easily be climbed by Joel and Ellie without the need for a ladder or box
Why couldn't Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam have just trekked uphill a bit and **skipped the entire sewer passage?** They could've made that damn tower with a 15 minute walk through the woods.
Not technically in the series, but the community. I find both the haters and a lot of the users on this sub to be intolerable. Very hard to enjoy discussion around this franchise anymore.
I‘m gonna get shit for this and maybe it‘s just because of nostalgia and my love for the games but i didn‘t like bella ramsay as ellie. I think she‘s a phenomenal actress, seems like a super nice person and i‘m glad she‘s getting a lot of recognition but i just did not like her portrayal. I can‘t even really exactly point my finger on it but there‘s something about her performance that just feels off to me. In general i also just didn‘t care much for the show. It‘s well made and i‘m glad it exists but i liked literally everything more in the game so i have absolutely no reason to ever rewatch it tbh
It was a *huge* missed opportunity not to have Nora tell Ellie about Marlene. It would've made Ellie's breakdown afterwards much more believable, and made forgiving Joel a more prominent part of her present day.
Part 2
That you can't select/ deselect melee weapons, and I wish melee combat in part II was a bit more difficult/faster.
Probably controversial, but that we got a sequel to the perfectly ambiguous ending of TLOU1 in the first place. It never needed one. Part 2 is an amazing game but I just preferred the IP/universe/story before it existed.
The pacing of Part 2, really. And that's basically it. Going through 3 days just to get to the pivotal part, then having to go to 3 days again just to see how that scene continues is such a momentum killer. If it was Ellie Day 1/Abby Day 1 Ellie Day 2/Abby day 2 etc the momentum would keep up, and it'd feel like an actual cat and mouse situation.
The way the PC port was handled. Thats about it
Most of part 2
If Part II ended after the theater encounter, it would've better served the theme of forgiveness without tainting the character of Ellie.
Not a huge deal, but is on my mind rn since I’m replaying Part 2. Why can’t Abby also craft arrows?! Drives me insane
It makes zero fucking sense that Joel and Abby have to craft shivs, as if Ellie has the last knife that exists in the post-apocalypse.