RE: 1 She had just seen her pregnant friend murdered by Ellie and was in full rage mode.
RE: 2 I somewhat agree with you and mentioned that in my thoughts in my first post in this thread. That legit is like my only “gripe” with the story in that her change of feels towards them felt really abrupt, but I accepted it as her seeing her ex moving on in life with a child and having a purpose, and now she also wants more of a purpose too since she saw what she doesn’t have with her ex and Mel. It was partially a maternal thing too, and it clearly mimic’d the Joel/Ellie thing where there is a caretaker watching out for someone.
I read about it through the leaks. And trust me, the details surrounding it are even worse than the original leaks implied. Had I watched that “fresh”, I would have had the same or a much worse reaction.
I mean you can’t really know that. Sure you can say that but you really don’t know. Reading cliffs note in text versus experiencing it in game for the first time is just completely different. There is no comparison.
Watching it vs. playing it isn’t really comparable either. Watching it you do not have any tension/adrenaline built up at all which adds so much to this game.
There are certain situations where I know myself and how I would’ve reacted to something. This is one of them. When something is fundamentally stupid to me to hear already, and it turns out worse in the final product? It’s safe to say I would have reacted with more anger if I had seen that fresh.
If you watch one of those movie compilations, sure, if you actually watch a full playthrough with a streamer that is clueless, no.
And let’s be honest, the tension in that scene kinda dissipated when the horde was dealt with. By the time of the actual ambush, the tension only picked up again when Joel said his name but that was too short before he got half his leg blown away.
A lot of your criticism seems to stem from your inability to understand different ways to experience things.
If you got spoiled, would you say the game is completely unplayable? Does it even have replay value now that you know the events of the game?
Instead of shutting down arguments, you’re trying to discredit other people’s opinions, and frankly, that’s just hella stupid and narrow-minded.
The thing is, we don’t actually need to play the game to get what we want of it which is it’s story. None of the discussion here had nothing to do with it’s actually gameplay because there was no interest in it.
Yea but gameplay is part of the story so youre opinion is still half baked imo. You need the whole experience for your opinion about the game to really be worth listening to.
You can disagree with me, that’s fine. Just my stance. In general, I don’t care about the opinions of people who have only experienced part of a thing, especially in a way that wasn’t intended.
The time spent going from A to B is still the story. Every second of time spent with the game is also time spent with the story and the character and what they go through. The gameplay in the firefights is still the story. Every second engaged with the game is also time engaged with the story. Every little thing, moment, and action with the characters even during gameplay is still part of the story. Story doesn’t stop just because you are playing. If anything the playing makes you closer to the story then any other medium can get you because you’re taking part in it almost every second of the way. It’s not a passive story experience like a movie or a book. This is why when most people talk about game stories they get it wrong because they don’t count the game moments as part of the story even tho they deffinitly are. It’s a step in the journey that is that characters story.
People act like those compiled movies were out day 1. Most people who watched TLOU2 instead of playing it watched streams, as in, full streams with the gameplay included.
Especially because the idle chatter is important in this game. Maybe not so much to the overall plot, but because of the characters, which was the biggest draw of 1 to begin with.
Ain’t nobody out there talking about how Joel taking Ellie to the fireflies was a great story, they talk about how they connecting with each other was a great story and a lot of that happened during the gameplay with the idle chatter.
The flashback sections in 2 are a great example of this.
Kinda random, but I’d argue that there’s a dissonance between gameplay and story with 2 where the gameplay hurts the story.
Summary
Ellie and Abby shiv and neck-snap their way through dozens of people. This makes certain key points feel kinda dumb.
-Ellie kills at least 3 people she doesn’t know before she gets to Nora, yet beating Nora to death has her acting a bit fucked up.
-Ellie kills at least 3 women (some who may be pregnant, but not visibly) she doesn’t know before she kills Mel and Owen, but she’s fucked up behind killing a visibly pregnant woman.
-Abby kills many before getting to Ellie, but lets Ellie go. This, despite Ellie having killed her friends.
-Ellie lets Abby go at the end, despite killing who knows how many people over the course of the game to get to her.
All this hurts the themes of “violence solves nothing” and “revenge is bad” by making the characters seem stupid when they embrace these ideals. Lots of games have this dissonance, where the main/side characters are given more “weight” than mooks. But when you build your whole game around being a case study of how revenge is bad and whatnot, it seems stupid.
I thought the game wasn’t as bad as some people complained it to be, to be honest I think in an objective stand point, it is in a lot of ways better than the original.
There are some great upgrades/features to the gameplay the exceeds the original IMO, and i did find most it’s survival horror elements to be better than the original.
spoiler
I enjoyed playing as Abby, I loved the story with in it and just seeing his perspective. I really hated that sex scene scene, in fact the biggest negative of this game is that it is preaching this alt-left political ideology. Nothing against the LGBT community, but forcing that shit in media is annoying.
No one hates it, but there is a certain level of tolerance when it’s being forced in.
Regardless, despite the politics, I did find the story telling to be interesting and actually liked it. It’s it’s packaging of politics that sort of negs it for me.
Overall, I think it’s a great game and can be considered a masterpiece. I don’t consider it a masterpiece mainly because I think that title should go to FF7r (i know, there doesn’t have to be just 1 masterpiece). FF7r still is the best of the most anticipated games of 2020 as of late.
I don’t find ANY replay value in any of these games. I haver never replayed any linear single player story driven game like this ever. Nor do I intend to.
And I’m not “shutting down arguments” but it’s hard to have an argument about a game when the majority of the people have not even played the game, or have predetermined feelings about it reading some out of context spoilers months ago deciding they dislike the game, and on top of that never play the game just watch some streamer play it. Not saying you, but many people have already made up their mind before even playing the game so the discussion is pointless.
As I said in previous discussions with you, I do agree with some stuff you said about Abby’s story.
I will argue to the death that watching a playthrough of a game simply is no where NEAR the same experience as playing it yourself.
If ND intended this to be viewed and not played, they would have made a movie not a game.
I have never really replayed ANY single player games. I mean once I know the story, there is no reason to go back to it.
If games were 2 hours like movies then I’d go back and do it, but replaying TLOU2 would be like replaying 14 movies that are 2 hours long.
Literally no single player story driven game I have ever gone back and played. Uncharted, God of War, Zelda (other than TTLP since it’s mad short and I was a kid when that game came out), Resident Evil, anything. I could take a picture of my entire game collection and I’m pretty sure any single player story driven game I have never gone back and played.
With baby #2 arriving next month, time is extremely limited as it is now. Hell without covid I would never have finished TLOU2 so quickly. But I’m still not working.
