[Walkthrough] Thirty hours Last of Us 2 - A change of perspective [3/5]

 

 

This is the third part of a walkthrough containing my honest thoughts about the Last of Us 2, you can find the other parts here. I'm about thirty hours in the game now and just as last time, I recorded a german podcast about my thoughts. In this part of the walkthrough, I will summarize these thoughts again. 

Disclaimer: 

I'm at the scene where the two female main characters and antagonists meet each other at the theater. I will spoil everything up to that scene, so please refrain from reading if you might be bothered by that. Thank you!

 

See all my taken screenshots here:

 https://postimg.cc/gallery/28fn7FN

 

The friend I play this game with and talk about it doesn't really feel like playing right now. While my impression of the game for the so far thirty hours is still great, with fantasic gameplay-sections, a lot of variety in areas and marvelous cutscenes, I already kept playing PAST the perspective change-scene and can fully understand him. I guess I'm now at the SHIT PART of the game where I start to understand the ongoing controversies, shitstorms and displeasure with TLOU2. But again, this isn't part of this article but of the next one. If anything, the hours 12 - 30 showed me how effectively NaughtyDog improved the lacking gameplay of LoU1 to an extend where it equals the story - probably exceels it not so far away.

Now, to be clear and spoilicious again where exactly I am:

I'm at the scene were Jesse gets shot by Abby and we are now forced to replay the three days in Seattle as She-Hulk. My desire to keep playing LoU2, which had build up the past few days proportionally, died down right away and I really dont feel like continuing right now. But for the content so far, my impression is even more positive than it was before.

 Last of Us 2 is a in so many aspects more refined and sophisitcated game than the first part and the story sequenes are without a question completely unmatched on the PS4.

 Before I talk about a few specific points, I have to mention one or two general things first.

- The Photomode is so very shamefully great, it's not even funny anymore. Every time I start LoU2 late at night and tell myself not to spend two hours taking screenshots again I fail, because its just so much fun and the game looks so stunning even on the normal PS4. All those filters and effects create some great scenes and possibilites for Wallpaper-shots, alone the redish-colorfilters are ALL great, every single one of them creates a stunning picture in almost every frame of the game. It's shameful and a bit silly tro admit, but it really is fun to take screenshots, even going as far as stopping storycutscenes to do so, which is an absolute DEAD SIN in a game like LoU. But I did one or two times because the shots look just that good. Maybe some players argue such a gimmick shouldn't be in LoU2, but to me it's a welcome addition, especially if there is a second playthrough. 

- The variance and creativity of the surroundings and levels in loU2 is just marvelous. In Last of Us 1 we more or less had only two types of areas: the summerly, green-brown-orange cities which were overgrown by nature, and the winterly cities and forests. I'm generalizing here but that was 80 % of the game. Those surroundings looked awesome and this summerly-overgrown-colorpattern formed the style of LoU, but the second part obviously saw it as its job to work on the variance of the areas. We have destroyed cities at night, a lot of streams, the ocean and flooded streets, houses that are literally ripped apart, underground-tunnels and horrorsections, Tomb Raider-esque watersurvival-sequences, a zoo... NaughtyDog got more out of the apokalyptic world this time than it did with part 1, because there IS more to it than overgrown cities. There is almost every color in Part 2, the game is a lot darker and better staged. 

- Even before the perspective-change, there are a LOT of flashbacks. Some of them are great and important, like the one with Ellie and Joel in front of the firefly-hospital, but generally those flashbacks annoyed me quite a bit. Of course I liked to see more of Ellie & Co., but they always forced me away from the action, from Ellies and Dinas revenge-story, and thereby hurt the pacing quite a bit. I would have appreciated those flashbacks with a few examples more as additional scenes after you played through the game once. 

 

- LoU2 has the Dark Souls-problem. Ellie is a fullgrown killer and capable survivalist, but she cant fucking jump. There are a LOT of places all over the game where it is absolutely possible to jump over a small fence, gap, hole or wall to proceed, but Ellie wont do it because NaughtyDog didn't intend her to go this way but only this one spot in the area where she has to proceed. This doesn't make any sense in most cases and is generally just a big logical-error that needs a great potion of suspension of disbelief. Of course you can ask how that would be avoidable, but its still bothering. What is, though, FAR more triggering is a SERIOUS gameplay-error that is just not acceptable in a stealth-survivor-game in the year 2020. 

You cant carry corpses. That's just entirely irritating. Every stealth game since 2010 has this standard option to move killed enemies away so other living enemies dont find them but in LoU2 you can only move them a bit while killing them. But Enemies can STILL FIND THEM AND RING THE ALARM. What the fuck, Naughty dog? It would be plain logical that Ellies moves the corpses away, but we cant. We have to be lucky and smart enough to kill enemies at spots where hopefully no one finds them.

 

 

After a few negatice criticpoints there are specific things I want to point out, and those are mostly positive.

- The museum-flashback with Joel was lovely if we not think about the context. Seeing Joel and Ellie together is always welcome. I also see some foreshadowing in the Ellie-Space-thing as I already mentioned. The Wall-storytelling with the lines and messages written on the walls of the museum was great and tragic. It's this subtle storytelling that happens in the head of the player that I appreciate here.

 

- I deeply appreciate the flashback with Joel and Ellie where he confesses what he did at the end of LoU1. Thankfully there wasn't your typical Hollywood-How could you-drama, but of course Ellie has to take in the fact that she was chosen before millions of people. What I find so intriguing about this flashback is that it does what flashbacks are supposed to: We now fully understand why the relationship between those two is so cold at the beginning of the game. It wasnt only because Ellie 'Is A TeEnAgEr NoW', and this wouldnt have worked as well if we had seen the confession earlier. 

- Ellie even has Dinas BRACELET now. This chick is fuckin' DEAD. There literally can't be more red flags for Dina than being pregnant, Ellies reason to live and giving her her freakin' bracelet anymore. 

- I absolutely LOVED the Hotline Miami-reference on the PS Vita with the maintheme right before Ellie takes down the hospital. This is just GENUIS considering its Ellies EXACT job to kill and stealth herself through rooms like the protagonist of Hotline Miami. Yeah yeah, silly fanservice for the sake of fanservice, but so, so smart. That's how you do references.

- Creepy stalker-sequences are genuinely creepy. 

- The scene between Dina and Ellie after the latter killed Nora, was again so telling and intense. How Ellie sits there, broken with what she did, I dont want to lose you, showed us just another time how important those girls are for each other. More please. Great romance between them.

That's about it. Many of the sequences and scenes and gameplay-sections were so incredibly intense and emotional. The story, the gameplay and the atmosphere is so much stronger and more captivating than it was in the already masterful first part. LoU2 is therefore (UNTIL NOW!) a consequent development in every aspect to the first part, as a successor should be. You have to appreciate that, no matter what you think about the characters or the story. 

For the last part, we have the dramatical climax where Ellie meets Owen and uh, the pregnant women, two comrades of Abby. Ellie shoots them and we have the great NaughyDog-Morally-Shocking-Moment: Ellie shot a pregnant woman.

I think its important for me to say that this dead/murder is in NO way even slightly worse than any other kill Ellie did. It doesn't matter at ALL that the woman was pregant, BECAUSE(!) Ellie didn't KNOW it. It would have been entirely different (And unspeakable ridiculous) if the woman showed Ellie her pregnant belly and begged for mercy and Ellie only slowly pointed her gun at the baby and said a dry 'Fuck you', shooting the woman and the baby. It would have been a statement and a hint how corrupted (And OoC) Ellie is by now and then the character would deserve hate. But that DIDN't happen, it was an accident, and Ellie was eaten up by her guilt later. Nothing wrong here, at least not more wrong than any other revenge-kill.

We then loose Jesse, which of course hurts, but not that much to be honest as Jesse wasn't that important. Dina will be devastated, but will she even have time to grief before Abby shoots her pretty, little head? We dont know, because this is where we change perspective. 

So far, Last of Us2 is the FAR better game than Last of Us 1.

But.

I'm not at the literal turning point where all goes down the shittrain. We have to play as Abby now and seriously, actually have to play the WHOLE FREAKIN' THREE DAYS AS THIS WASTE OF OXYGEN. I seriously don't give two infected fucks about this person, I literally couldn't care less about her thoughts and motivations. And OF COURSE we know exaaaaactly what will happen now, what Naughty Dog intends with this design-choice, what they intended the whole game and what will be the great, revealingf, eye-opening message of Last of Us 2:

Abby is just another, human person with her own weaknessess and goals, she isn't evil, revenge is bad. There is no black and white, only people. These three days will try to make Abby sympathetic for us, we will be supposed to feel with her so we get into a morally misery at the end:

'Aaah, who am I gonna cheer on now, they're both only persons who're trying to do the right thing, I'm really not sure who is right and who is wrong...'

BULL

SHIT!

Seriously, Abby is TRASH and - spoiler alert - this WONT change within these three days. This obvious and platant manipulation by naughty dog is easily the worst element in this game so far and so incredibly, incredibly flat, transparent and ineffective. Actually changing the perspective so we have to play as this disgusting person seems unbearable and I have not the slightest bit of motivation to keep going. I fully understand my friend doesn't feel like, and I fully understand 90 % of the players don't feel like. Who wants to be Abby?

Yes, we know revenge is bad, Naughty Dog. I'm fairly certain the story of Last of Us 2 will result to NOTHING ELSE than this fundamental revelation at the end. There's only one thing to do here, slow clapping for the genius writers. 

Respect. Thanks for the knowledge and the abuse of the LoU-franchise for it. I'm not spoiled in any way by the way, but alone this gimmick that I have to play Abby for three days is so obvious and platant, and it works ZERO. The only fun I will have out of this section is letting Abby die again and again and again and again. I already look forward to taking screenshots of it. The solemn reason I will continue to play is too get it over with and to reach the point where Ellie hopefully shoots Abby in her ugly, deformed head. Beware if I dont get this satisfaction, Naughty Dog.

The perspective change doesn't work at all and is a massive miscalculation at Naughy Dogs side. Im finally right at the opinion of the community I didn't quite understand so far. 

Let's see if it stays this way. With Abby. 

Fuck Abby. 

No srsly, fuck Abby.