[Walkthrough] The first three hours Last of Us 2 - Thoughts and Fears

In this (german) article, I wrote a short text about LoU2 and how it was probably one of the most-expected games of our current generation. I wrote about how much I looked forward to it and that I didn't care for the ridiculous, shameful controverse before and - as I can't fail to notice - even now, which didn't really tarnish my excitement towards Part 2 of one of my favorite games of alltime. 


Now, after three hours of gameplay, I recorded a german Podcast with a friend of mine who plays the game too. In this Podcast we talked about our thoughts and impressions so far, speculated about the story, summarized what we liked and what not. I, however, also have the urge to share my thoughts regarding LoU2, ESPECIALLY considering how merciless it gets wrecked on all across the internet, with the english community, so I decided to start a walkthrough I will update every few hours. This first part and the ones to come is the first, exlusive-english text I write on this website, since I already produce the Podcast-Walkthrough in german.


Now that this is said, this is what you're getting here: 
Honest, subjective, summarized thoughts I have while playing the game. I'm open and happy for any discussion which might spread from those texts, as long as it isn't simply anti-LGBT. I got into LoU2 almost unspoiled, everything I knew was there is some female character which has strong-masculine traits and which gets hated, and the first two trailers. 


Last of Us Part one was, as I already said, one of my most-beloved games of alltime, the second place, to be precise. As so many of you, I completely fell in love with the story, characters, graphics, soundtrack and world, while the gameplay was okay and the multiplayer was way too addicting. 


I explicitly wanted to have the attitude towards Last of Us 2 to not hype it too much into the heavens. A giant Hype-tsunami can easily collapse on the funtrain if the desired product turns out to not be the holy grail of all things in existence, and my experience hold a lot of such cases where I hyped and got disappointed. So what I EXPECTED from Last of Us 2 was a great, consequent and beautiful, but not perfect, eye-opening or even revolutionary game. My expectations are realistically, I think. 

 
I babbled enough. Here are my summarized thoughts from said Podcast, my impressions from three hours Last of Us 2. 

Disclaimer: 

I'm at the scene where Ellie talks to Tommie in her house right now. I will spoil everything up to that scene, so please refrain from reading if you might be bothered by that. Thank you!


























- The Titlescreen as my first impression of LoU2 was kinda... disappointing. I mean, it's as quiet and subtle as the one from part one. Its easy to forget: The titlescreen from LoU1 was nothing but a sun-flooded window which had no deeper meaning in the story but worked. It was dreary yet somehow hopeful, just like the story. This title, on the opposite, is cold and empty, and probably sets the mood of part 2 accordingly. Still, I'm not a fan of it.

Here's what I would have prefered:
Ellie's gloomy, concentrated face covering the whole screen, rain pouring down on her in the dark, we only see her breathing quiet and steadily, she's intensily staring at something, possibly her next prey, all we hear is the relentless rain and her brathing.

I know such cineastic stuff isn't Last of us, but it would have made us FEEL the revenge that is about to unfold in LoU2 and would have said more than a boat. But hey, I dont really mind.  


 - The intro and start of Last of Us One was one of the most-iconic and masterful intros in all of videogame-history. And while my first thought towards the beginning of LoU2 with the told recap from Joel of the LoU-Ending especially for new players and his following, first awkward then heartwarming dialogue with a terribly-funny pun with Ellie was that it was almost perfectly done, I later realized how incredibly flat it falls comparised to the marvelous beginning of Part one. Still a successful start, I feel.


- Is this noise-filter intended or is something wrong with my settings? Now after three hours I barely see it anymore but it was questionable at first...


- I have to mention how much I appreciate the show dont tell-storytelling in Ellie's room when she's 18.(?)
We learn alone from her rooms that she's quite interested in space, planets and astronauts, maybe because her own world is dead? We still have her comic-passion, we learn about her current hobbies. Good joob as expected right here!


 - I think its most unfortunate and a real shame the Ball-szene from the E3-Trailer wasn't in the game AT ALL. Naughty Dog really left it for the trailer exclusively, certain that almost every player SAW that trailer. I'm certain they're wrong, especially new players or players who aren't into the whole journalism-stuff probably haven't seen any trailers and are wondering what the hell those characters are talking about. Yes, it works without the scene, but it is such a wonderful scene with such astonishing facial expressions and emotions that I would have loved to see it again in the game.

Yeah, the scene was cut together with the later gameplay in the trailer, but it would have been easy to get it into the start of the game completely now. Odd decision.

- I love Dina as a character, as she fits to Ellie perfectly. Ellie is, of course, cold, emotionally shut-in, introverted and blunt. Dina, on the other hand, is exactly the outlet Ellie needs, she is gentle, kind and brings a warmth back in Ellie's life she maybe didn't know since the loss of her mother. Joel is her father, yes, but living with a lovely girl you like in a peaceful 'city' is different from fighting for your live together with your father every day.

The snowball-sequence showed perfectly how good both of those girls harmonize with each other.
"Wanna fuck them up?"
"Yep."
"Lets do it!"

They're funny, they're smart, they're charming, they're cute together. That's what I'm here for.


- The weed-ratemykiss-escalation-scene showed that again together with all the build-up and was the best scene to me so far, I loved it. There was so much subtext and hidden emotions going on among the few words, their expressions were again ridiculously-detailed and their body language told us everything we needed to know. Rate my kiss was a silly yet smart and adoable dialogue and the intense kissing was beautiful, not only because of the insane animations.
This better be more than a six is my new favorite-to-go-meme.


- I absolutely cannot understand or even tolerate how incredibly lazy Naughty Dog are with their NPCs. Like, fucking sickening pukereflex-lazy. The VERY FIRST SECTION in the game where Ellie walks through her city is FULL with Copy & Paste-NPCs. I literally made ten steps before I found the first clone. It's not enought those NPCs are piss-ugly (Horizon, Witcher, even freakin' Nier Automate... all those games have better NPCs) they're even cloned on an impertinent level. I made various screenshots where two clones are standing right next to each other. In the FIRST GAMEPLAY SECTION. I wouldn't have mind that much if those clones were spread out in the game more, but dozens of clones in the first minutes of this game? Wow. Just wow.

Wasn't Last of Us 2 delayed multiple times for 'polishing'? Where is this polishing?


- I'm only a bit bothered how the NPC-dialogues going on have no subtitles. You have to walk towards them with Ellie and HOPE the game recognizes it so it gets a bit louder but even then its hard to hear correctly. Unfortunate if you think about how much options you have at the beginning and some of those dialogues are highly relevant.













Joels Death

Generally, I think of Joel's killing as incredible blatant, flat and lazy. There was a 50:50-chance of what would happen at the beginning of Last of Us 2, and every single player who saw the trailers knew that:

Joel dies, sending Ellie on a bloody revenge-road

or

Dina dies, sending Ellie on a bloody revenge-road

While I have no problems with Ellie slaughtering through a few dozens of those fuckers in her bloodlust for revenge for Joels death, every single player expected this. Yes, Naughty Dog had a red hering with the E3-trailer and Dina, I too thought it would be her dying, but I wouldn't give the developers any credit for killing Joel off instead. As said, it was a 50:50 chance and is the easiest (But probably also the only) way to set up a revenge-plot. What else could get Elli going?

It is lazy and cheap, but having said that, I dont think its terribly wrong. I'm actually relieved it was Joel and not Dina.

Hear me out.

If Dina would have died, Ellie would have gone out for revenge and, just as he says in the trailer, Joel wouldn't have left her do this alone. Both of them would be back in action and we would have EXACTLY THE SAME dynamics as in LoU1 the whole game, two hard-boiled, nefarious profilkillers slaughtering their way thorugh everything that lives and shits.

Killing off Dina would have been an issue in itself: Establishing a new maincharacter in a giant trailer and the first few hours of the game who is loved by Ellie and who harmonizes perfectly with her, who is build-up to be liked by the players, ONLY TO KILL HER OFF a bit later to start Ellie's revenge plot would have been unspeakbly ridiculous. Killing off Joel as a figure who has done his job in the story and cant really contribute that much anymore seems the lesser evil to me.

Ellie has her revenge-goal and Dina is still alive. Those are two factors which please me. Again, I dislike the need to kill off Joel to get a plot for the game, I suffered and ached at his death scene and felt strong emotions wailing up inside me. It was a tragic and sad death. But better him than Dina.


- As much as I look forward to a hateful Ellie slaughtering those manpigs one after another, I hope this game isn't only that. A simple revenge-plot would be too dull for Naughty dog, and in the first game I didn't really know where the journey would go, despite its simplicity. I hope I dont know where the story goes here too.

I expect Ellie to go on this journey alone, as I can't imagine Dina being the type to acompany her on a bloody revenge. I would, however, love both of them pulling through this together. 


- Not killing Ellie, a girl who is present while the 'Fireflies'(?) kill Joel, and who is screaming that she will fucking kill them all, doesn't strike me as smart. And I think the only reason they didn't kill Tommy either is because then Ellies plotarmor which is the only thing that saves her here would have been TOO obvious. One could argue those guys didn't want to kill unnecessarily, but it still is an incredibly risk. She wasn't even blinded or something by them.


- Last of Us 1 loved its cuts to black. The most iconic-scene I remember doing this was, LOU ONE SPOILERS, the two brothers, where the younger one gets infected and runs at the older one, cut to black, autumn, Ellie and Joel moved on. Worked fantastically, because our brain always filled the gaps. That being said, I strongly dislike them doing it all over again here after Joels death.

We see Ellie emotional wrecked for a few seconds when he actually dies, but cut to black afterwards, into the future probably a few days. We KNOW Ellie probably was a complete mess, cried, screamed, mourned, but we dont get to see it.

Especially after it was shown how difficult and cooled her relationship with Joel was beforehand, seeing her emotionally-devastated now would havbe been a painful but necessary painoff. Instead we only get to see her cold and distant again, which is of course convenient and easier for the developers.

Everyone expected this cut, it would have been a strong move to not fulfill those expectations.


- Back to the start of the game for a minute:
I think THIS SCENE should have been the very first sequence in LoU2. We start with Ellie in the wintery woods, looking for Joel, climbing towards the cabin, as the events and Joels death plays out. Cut to black, four years earlier. Dialogue with Tommy. Perfect. The cut to black would have made SENSE then, we would have gotten a thrilling, emotionally-devastating intro again, and NaughtyDog wouldn't have to pretend that Joel would play a role in this game other than Ellies raison d'etre.



Abby
Again: Without knowing much details, I think the controversy beforehand regarding if she is transgender or not and if we need such topics in our last of us is incredible ridiculous and telling about every single one of you. When we have nothing more important to be upset about in our videogames than the question if a masculine character is trans or not anymore, then we're in a dark fucking place.


BUT - With Joel's death, looking back Abby is an unnecessary character to me. Now I hate her, now I condemn her, that has nothing to do with the fact thats shes a woman but that she fucking killed Joel and is a disgusting piece of shit. In hindsight I dont see the point of the gameplay-sections with her, which additionally pulled me out of the immersion between Ellie and Dina every single time.

The sections with her were unneccessaary to me and didn't add anything to the experience aside from the knowledge that she is "Just another human who tried to survive". Okay, I still take the right to not take her side. I hope I wont have to play her again but Im afraid I will and Im even more afraid this has something to do with the controversy surrounding her and the game. Well, I wont do much with her expect letting her die again and again. Bitch.










Fazit after three hours

According to my 'realistic', not too-high-hyped-expectations, I think the game so far is good. Not fantastic, but really fine, with emphasis on the marvelous cutscenes, the well-written characters, the soundtrack, the atmosphere and the story. The gameplay doesn't strike me as special so far and Abby is a nuisance. The graphics are good, if not as great as expected from LoU2.

I expect a lot of gameplay now and am thrilled to find out how the thing with Abby continues.



Thank you all for reading thid and sharing the experience with me.

- Yoraiko