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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jul 2, 2020 5:12:50 GMT
JEFFREY WRIGHT?!
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Post by stephen on Jul 2, 2020 12:31:08 GMT
Hot take: Abby >>>> Ellie .
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Post by stephen on Jul 2, 2020 23:08:20 GMT
I finished it last evening. My biggest worry going into it was that it wouldn’t be able to justify its existence, as the first game was so perfect as a self-contained story that I didn’t want them to ruin it by expanding it. Sequels are notoriously hard to pull off, and while video games have a generally better track record than movies, you rarely have such perfect one-shot stories like The Last of Us that don’t demand a follow-up.
I will admit the first few moments of gameplay are a bit clunky in comparison to the OG game, and some very odd directorial choices (the scene with Joel and Tommy at the start felt awkwardly staged). But the game finds its groove soon enough, and when we’re faced with the crux of the game’s emotional pay dirt, Druckmann and Co. really know when to bludgeon you and when to shiv you. I do think some of the enemies are unnecessarily nerfed for much of the game; I played on Hard difficulty and it felt pretty much what a “Moderate” playthrough was on the original.
I also should note that I found Abby far more compelling than Ellie, and her storyline was very captivating. I almost wish we had never played as Ellie, and just had her as an unseen figure who was wreaking havoc throughout the countryside, cutting a swath through Seattle while we heard rumors of her from the Wolves.
I still wanna marinate on it a bit longer, but while I think I still slightly prefer the first game, Part II does justify its existence and I do hope Craig Mazin implements elements of this game into his adaptation (if not outright adds the whole thing to the mix).
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Post by DeepArcher on Jul 3, 2020 1:38:06 GMT
I finished it last evening. My biggest worry going into it was that it wouldn’t be able to justify its existence, as the first game was so perfect as a self-contained story that I didn’t want them to ruin it by expanding it. Sequels are notoriously hard to pull off, and while video games have a generally better track record than movies, you rarely have such perfect one-shot stories like The Last of Us that don’t demand a follow-up.
I will admit the first few moments of gameplay are a bit clunky in comparison to the OG game, and some very odd directorial choices (the scene with Joel and Tommy at the start felt awkwardly staged). But the game finds its groove soon enough, and when we’re faced with the crux of the game’s emotional pay dirt, Druckmann and Co. really know when to bludgeon you and when to shiv you. I do think some of the enemies are unnecessarily nerfed for much of the game; I played on Hard difficulty and it felt pretty much what a “Moderate” playthrough was on the original.
I also should note that I found Abby far more compelling than Ellie, and her storyline was very captivating. I almost wish we had never played as Ellie, and just had her as an unseen figure who was wreaking havoc throughout the countryside, cutting a swath through Seattle while we heard rumors of her from the Wolves.
I still wanna marinate on it a bit longer, but while I think I still slightly prefer the first game, Part II does justify its existence and I do hope Craig Mazin implements elements of this game into his adaptation (if not outright adds the whole thing to the mix). Glad I'm not the only one out there who vastly preferred Abby's sections. Her Seattle Days 2 & 3 were my favorite stretch of gameplay by far, so much unique stuff in there (the breathtaking Uncharted-esque skyscraper climbing, Rat King boss fight, that set-piece on the Seraphite island), and I honestly think I just enjoyed playing as her more than Ellie. The Ellie and Joel stuff still made for the biggest emotional wallops for me -- it's been like ten days since I've finished it and I don't think an hour's gone by that I haven't thought about that final cutscene, and how staggeringly good Johnson and Baker are there -- but I definitely enjoyed playing through Abby's parts more overall, and I thought everything surrounding that character was a brilliant move.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jul 3, 2020 1:47:11 GMT
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jul 3, 2020 6:14:24 GMT
So Ellie’s off to find Abby in Santa Barbara. She’s about to become a straight up villain, isn’t she?
Ellie, I love you to death, but I’ve already seen you do too many terrible things to bear any more.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jul 3, 2020 16:09:28 GMT
I don’t know if I’ve ever said this, but my single greatest fear in life is ending up alone. Of losing the people that I love and care about, and that no one will be there for me when I die. It’s for those reasons that I’ve always related to Ellie’s character, why I was with her even at her most deplorable of actions, and why I’m not convinced I *wouldn’t* do half the shit she does here. This game asked me to confront all of those uncomfortable fears and then some, and by the time the ending comes along to hammer home the point of what hate-fueled actions achieve, I felt emotionally drained by it.
I need a fucking drink.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Jul 4, 2020 2:49:11 GMT
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jul 4, 2020 4:31:36 GMT
Things like this make me die a little on the inside.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jul 6, 2020 14:23:45 GMT
I’m happy this has become a thing
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jul 9, 2020 19:00:47 GMT
Also, in regards to *that* early moment... Can we please get off the high horse of calling Joel a hero, and that his death was a tragedy. As much as I love the first game to death, and love Joel... HE. IS. NOT. A HERO!
Alright, were I put in the same exact situation he was in the first game’s ending, I would have done the same exact thing, and wouldn’t have thought twice about it. However, that does not make his decision the morally right one. Just because we can empathize with his decision doesn’t make anything he did heroic, and in all honesty, he kind of had it coming.
Too many people are trying to draw these thin lines between black and white, and what is good and bad. That’s counterpoint to everything that these games are about. There IS no divide between good and bad anymore. This is a morally grey world that has no right or wrong answers, where no one living in it is good or bad. David may have been a savage, but he was right: “You kill to survive, and so do we.” There are no heroes or villains here. It’s flawed people, reduced to their most basic animal instincts, simply doing what they think is best to survive, whether those choices are well-meaning or not. So trying to paint some clear Angels and Demons portrait is not only against the point of the series, but painting a man’s dubious final decisions as heroic is tone-deaf at best, and morally objectionable at worst.
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Post by DeepArcher on Jul 9, 2020 19:29:03 GMT
Also, in regards to *that* early moment... Can we please get off the high horse of calling Joel a hero, and that his death was a tragedy. As much as I love the first game to death, and love Joel... HE. IS. NOT. A HERO!
Alright, were I put in the same exact situation he was in the first game’s ending, I would have done the same exact thing, and wouldn’t have thought twice about it. However, that does not make his decision the morally right one. Just because we can empathize with his decision doesn’t make anything he did heroic, and in all honesty, he kind of had it coming.
Too many people are trying to draw these thin lines between black and white, and what is good and bad. That’s counterpoint to everything that these games are about. There IS no divide between good and bad anymore. This is a morally grey world that has no right or wrong answers, where no one living in it is good or bad. David may have been a savage, but he was right: “You kill to survive, and so do we.” There are no heroes or villains here. It’s flawed people, reduced to their most basic animal instincts, simply doing what they think is best to survive, whether those choices are well-meaning or not. So trying to paint some clear Angels and Demons portrait is not only against the point of the series, but painting a man’s dubious final decisions as heroic is tone-deaf at best, and morally objectionable at worst. Exactly. I'll always maintain that the ending of The Last of Us is some of the most brilliant storytelling I've seen in a game (or any medium really), because there is absolutely no "right" or "wrong" answer to the moral quandary it poses and acts as a fascinating Litmus test for how different people read it. It's brilliant because we can condemn Joel's actions from a distance, all while knowing that we would probably do the same exact thing in the same circumstance.
And to your point, it's been borderline disturbing to see how many people herald Joel unquestionably as a hero who "deserved a hero's death" or whatever. This guy not only destroyed what may have been the last hope for survival of the human race in the long run, but he did so selfishly against what Ellie herself would have wanted. And while you can understand it from Joel's perspective as well -- he saw more value in Ellie's life than in her death, which is also totally justifiable in itself -- you can't exonerate him entirely from any wrongdoing. Doing so is actually a disservice to the character because it totally removes all the complexity that's crucial to him.
I do think Joel's death was a bit shakily executed in how it's riddled with coincidence (Abby goes out and just happens to find the exact guy she's looking for, they just happen to end up in a situation in which she can easily lure them into the perfect trap, Ellie just happens to find them as soon as Abby deals the killing blow), but I have absolutely no problem with the gist of the decision and, needless to say, find the outrage absurd. People thinking that a man who doomed the entire human race to save the life of one girl is a "hero" and that a woman who killed one man to avenge her father's death is an irredeemable "villain" are literally the exact ideas that this game sets out to challenge (and not to mention pretty indicative of the sexist double standards people have when evaluating characters' morality), leading to outrage that is just willfully missing the entire point of the game.
I also have to mention, one of the dumbest arguments I keep reading about Joel's death is that "Joel died for nothing" and "Joel should have died heroically saving Ellie," when, you know, Joel literally died for saving Ellie's life and we know that even still he would do it all again if he could.
This game isn't perfect, and it's certainly not beyond criticism and interrogation, but oh my god so many of the outraged takes are just so bad and I'm exhausted with trying to keep up with it...
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jul 10, 2020 1:01:23 GMT
While I don’t agree with every point raised in this video, I absolutely agree with the criticisms against the game’s structuring. I think the thing that made Abby’s sections not sit well with me is how it brought the momentum of the game screeching to a halt. Had it been cut into two separate campaigns (say, like a Kingdom Hearts style split narrative), I’d have been much more forgiving. The midway shift is bold, and the storylines are each great stuff, but I wish it didn’t come at the expense of the game’s pacing.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jul 15, 2020 4:01:08 GMT
Playing this again, finding new stuff I missed.
The “Take on Me” bit is the most precious thing ever. 💕
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Post by stephen on Jul 15, 2020 17:06:54 GMT
So here's a question for those who have played and beaten Part II: should it (or elements of it) be included in Craig Mazin's upcoming adaptation?
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Post by DeepArcher on Jul 15, 2020 17:53:20 GMT
So here's a question for those who have played and beaten Part II: should it (or elements of it) be included in Craig Mazin's upcoming adaptation? I mean, I'm a bit conflicted on the adaptation in general (glad it exists, but I'm not sure what I personally would get out of it and if I'll want to watch an imitation of something that already means a lot to me), but personally I love the story of Part II and don't see they couldn't do a first season adapts the first game, second season to adapt the second game type of deal.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Aug 16, 2020 22:51:13 GMT
Wow.
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Archie
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Post by Archie on Nov 15, 2020 20:07:29 GMT
Everyone is such a horrible person in this game. Except Abby’s dad because he saves Zebras?
Not good, Jim.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Nov 9, 2021 1:24:42 GMT
Okay, so I’m replaying the game for the first time since last year, when I was mixed, but overall pleased and receptive to the game, even if I had some misgivings with it (though my issues were more about structure than story beats, which I still stand by, and give ND major kudos for).
Ill just say that, so far, while I still think The Last of Us is the better game, and on a good day still my favorite video game, this is of similarly high quality regardless. And regardless of how your emotions were swayed by *that* early twist (and so many have viciously let that alone ruin it for them)… this game had BALLS! And I imagine that’s only gonna become more apparent as I continue replaying it.
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Post by Archie on Aug 10, 2022 0:08:31 GMT
Finally finished this lol. The first half is complete ass tbh. Ellie and her friends bored me to tears and the pacing is terrible. Abby's section of the game kicks major ass though. Wish the whole game was from her perspective.
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Post by stephen on Aug 10, 2022 0:18:24 GMT
Finally finished this lol. The first half is complete ass tbh. Ellie and her friends bored me to tears and the pacing is terrible. Abby's section of the game kicks major ass though. Wish the whole game was from her perspective. I am always here for some Abby praise.
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