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This is the fourth part of a walkthrough containing my honest thoughts about the Last of Us 2, you can find the other parts here. I'm almost done with the game, and I recorded a german podcast about my thoughts. In this part of the walkthrough, I will summarize these thoughts again.
I'm at the scene where the two female main characters and antagonists meet each other after the change of perspective and are about to fight. 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/56wHhp1
There are mainly three big parts I have to lose a few or not so few words about this time:
1. The incredible creativity and diversity in gameplay and leveldesign in TLOU2
2. Haven and how it is the strongest section of the PS4-generation
3. Abby's perspective, the core and the clou of the game, the farce of a story
If I have to write a short pre-conclusion, I'd say that I deeply and genuinely respect the enourmous amounts that went into the creativity and diversity of the gameplay and the surroundings of part 2, which is in these categories a so much better game than the first part could have ever been. I deeply enjoyed big sections of the gameplay. However, and that is the most important aspect for a LOU-game, the storytelling is a pure mess, an absolute insolence, blatant manipulation-attempt and an obvious fail. There is anger, frustration and condemnation for the designchoices made where I am right now, and all of this makes the whole game fall apart, unfortunately. But let's go a bit through my impressions chronologically.
- Abby's three days in Seattle are extremely, enourmoesly creative, they are a BIG jump compared to the gameplay-sections of Ellie, whose gameplay was quite similar to Part 1. Part 1 of Last of Us had an incomparable intense story and masterful characters, but widely lacked in gameplay as many players and fans agreed. It was monotonous, if decent for the most part. Ellies TLOU2-parts were exactly that, just slightly better. Abby's parts however were the new LOU, the creativity, the joy of a reimagined PS4-sequel. Shame they were with, well..... Abby.
We had uncharted-carchases, crooked ruined houses in which you had to move and fight on literally different levels, we had this rainy stormy night with an infected-hunt through the black woods which was incredibly intense, we had the genius and for this world completely REASONABLE sky bridges, we had this almost bladerunner-esque hotel which was rotten and open so you could see hundreds of meters down, up and to every direction. We had this small ship which felt like a thriller with the notes, we had a resident evil bossfight and a cool sniper-section. Really, there was so much love and effort in all those hours you HAVE to respect. I do, and I enjyoed them. I just would have enjoyed them more without a waste of oxygen as my playable character.
- The resient Evil bossmonster was a strange addition of the LOU-universe. It was decently build up in the first contact breakout-station and was thrilling to fight, but you can't help but wonder if we'll move towards Dead Space now. What's next, a flying alien infected? This creature was unexpected and greatly executed, but I strongly hope it stays the only one of its kind. Risky add from NaughtyDog in its grounded zombie-universe.
Best part of it was, of ocurse, letting Abby getting killed a dozen times. Or two dozen, maybe.
2. Haven
- From the very beginning, we as players are teased and informed that there will be this huge conflict and fight at the scar island, Haven. There was absolutely no doubt the climax of the game would take place there. But god, was it a motherloving, epical, breath-taking, awesome, intense climax.
Haven as the whole module was astonishing, completely insane in the most positive manner, alone for this one or thwo hours the purchase of the game was WORTH IT. This was easily the most intense section of the whole game, the best one too in my opinion. No, I would even go as far as to say the climax of Haven was the best sequence of the whole PS4-generation. Dramaturgical, optical, technical, atmosphärical it beats EVERYTHING we have so far on the current generation, nothing comes even close, not even games like witcher, and I undoubtly love the Witcher.
Wow. Just wow.
The tension is already set when we see the boats of the wolves attacking in the distance as we realize the great battle of Haven will happen RIGHT NOW and everything here will fall apart in a matter of minutes. The pressure is real.
Aside from the action, I strongly appreciate the medieval culture and living style of the scars which is, again, completely reasonable in a dead world where electriciy isn't available anymore. The calmer sections of the island felt like a vikings game, it was just so authentically crafted. What NaughtyDog achieved with the whole island is what they failed at miserably with Abby: To make the scars empathetic to an extend, to make me understand their way of living and to make me realize they're not all bad and evil.
- It was then a great dramaturcigal twist that Abby had to start fighting her OWN people AND all scars, letting everything around us decend into absolute chaos even faster. Then we're riding into literal hell and the thoroughbred hollywood-sequence starts. There are huge amounts of adrenaline as everything around us burns, everywhere there are fights, screams, destruction, the graphics are stunning even on my regular PS4, and there if pity for both sides.
Then at the end, you see the burning-down island from the distance and I couldn't help but think how incredibly tragic all of this is. Wolves and Scars were both insane fucks, but damn, those fractions had the whole america to them, they could have moved away from each other but instead they decided to burn each other down to the ground and get annihilated in the process. One can think about the Scars what one pleases, but in a few decades they really ACHIEVED something with their island, a working society, and its all lost and destroyed in a matter of minutes. Its tragic, really.
Yara's dead was a pity. For about two minutes.
This Story-Climax was NUTS, and one HAS to respect and appreciate that. If anyone denies the effort and technical greatness connected to Haven, he makes a fool or a blind hater of himself. I really loved Haven, and the only sour point of it is THAT I HAD TO PLAY IT WITH ABBY. I had to play it with a character I DO NOT CARE FOR IN THE SLIGHTEST. If she dies, if she lives - who cares? I would have loved to play Ellie on Haven much, much more, just as I would have prefered playing all of Abbys parts with her. Which brings us to the last section of my thoughts.
Last of Us 2 is in my humble opinion the best game of the ps4-generation in terms of graphics, gameplay and atmosphere. It could have been again the best game of the generation as LOU was for the PS3, but it isn't, because of Abby and the design-choices surrounding her.
3. An abbysolute desaster of a story
There is but one message NaughtyDog is able to give us with the second part of their popular mega-franchise, one message that we already learned at the kids-channel when we were five:
"ReVeNgE Is BaD kIdS HaNdS oFf FrOm ThE ReVeNgE KiDs!"
Thank you, Naughty Dog. You can go fuck yourselve now.
The WHOLE three days with Abby, the change of perspective, was, as EXPECTED by me at the first second, COMPLETELY POINTLESS and changed absolutely NOTHING. Abby is a mere waste of oxygen, she's the literal evil, the worst Abbyny, I dont feel with her one bit no matter how hard NaughtyDog tries - and jesus, do they try.
This design-choice with the three days, the twins and all is one of the most blatant, insolent and dumbest manipulation-attempt I ever experienced in a video game and the only satisfying aspect about it is that it DOESN'T FREAKING WORK.
Yes, Abby is also just a human being who isn't all evil and tried to do the right thing, but above every good deed she does and every funny joke she has with Owen floats the fact that she unnecessarily tortured and killed Joel with a fucking golf bat and is generally an egomanic hate driven asshole.
What Joel did was - so to speak - to save his child, it was murder out of panic and desperation and because they wouldn't let Ellie go, but ABBY went agains all advice and reason of the people around her, chased Joel who just saved her ass minutes ago down and killed him in front of Ellie. She DESERVES everything Ellie did to her, she deserves every single one of her dead friends and by god does she deserve twelve bullets right into her ugly face.
I understand that Abby wants to revenge her father, and I understand that Im biased because I grant Ellie her vengeance more than Abby, but the last of us is the story of ELLIE, she is the protagonist I love and I want to allow myself to cheer for her and not for Abby. Fuck Abby.
This game was a rough diamond in the making until Abby decided to sharp it herself destroyed it with her hulk-smash.
The entire and only function of the twins were TO PRODUCE EVEN MORE SYMPATHY FOR ABBY. THEY HAD LITERALLY NO OTHER REASON TO BE IN THE STORY THAN TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER WITH HER CHARACTER. They're okay as characters but the problem is that they're pure plot tools which is the peak of NaughtyDogs insolent manipulation-attempt. The fact that you spend a good portion of the three days fetching stuff so Abby can help those twins is ridiculous and almost impertinent.
But that wasn't enough. Neil Druckman wasn't satisfied with a LGBT-bookstore, a (great!) lesbian protagonists couple, a muscular and masculine antagonist and an anti-revenge-message.
Of COURSE we had to throw in a transsexual scarkid which gets chased by a killersociety because it came out.
Holy mushroomlicking crap.
I would love to imagine an even flatter, misplaced and blatant statement in a zombie-end time-game, but I can't. It wasn't enough to make Lev a girl who is about to get married to an elder and isn't happy with that, no, we actually had to throw in Lev being trans and thereby being condemned by society. GET IT? Transphobia is BAD! THANK YOU, NEIL DRUCKMAN. Thats just what I needed in my LOU2. And the fact that nobody says it directly is supposed to make it subtle and smart? Oh for fucks sake!
We get it, Neil, Naughtydog. You're all-tolerant. I'm too, really. But there are things and elements and (good) political statements which should only very, very subtle and carefully brought into a story-driven zombiegame. If you HAVE to get your anti-transphobia-message in there Neil, then DO IT SUBTLE. At this point I'm afraid I have to support all the accusations against Headwriter Neil Druckmann that he abused his position as director of th game to force his political views into the story. I support those views and its okay to implement some of them in your game because we're all just humans and its okay to add something of ourselves in the stuff we make - BUT NOT IN A RIDICULOUS CHILDLISH MANNER LIKE THIS PLEASE.
It worked with Ellie and Dina, didn't it? And this relationship is wonderful. So you ARE capable of doing this the smart way, arent't you?
The absolute biblic low, however, is the climax of the three days: We are actually, unjokingly, seriously forced to PLAY ABBY and HUNT DOWN Ellie. I couldn't believe they did this, without a choice. This was the point I threw away my controller and refused continue playing. I will, eventually, but not so soon. This choice is inexcusable and spits in every single face of every single player of the first part. Forcing us to play a piece of shit character we hate, do fight the protagonist we all love and support to make a revenge-statement. What a complete mess.
To think that we had quotes like this one before the release:
"This game is still about the story of Joel and Ellie"
Last of Us 2 fell apart with its second half. The story is a mess and the whole Abby-aspect is the cancer of this game that could have been a masterpiece. Again. However, my hate for big aspects of Part 2 doesn't completely blind me: The gameplay is superior, the graphics are amazing, the diversity in the levedesign is nothing short of marvelous. To say this game is a complete piece of trash, worthless or, frankly, not at least decent in terms of gameplay is ridiculous and truly nothing but blind hate. You know exactly which community I mean and if you're part of it. Still, right now I'm strongly with you that this game isn't what it should be and that it wrecked a lot what was build up in the first 20 hours.
I'm just scared how it will all end.
Can it become even worse?
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