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Now TLoU Part 2 has been out for a while, let me ask you. (Spoilers)

Did Naughty Dog do the right thing killing Joel?

  • Yes

    Votes: 159 34.0%
  • No

    Votes: 238 51.0%
  • Unsure

    Votes: 70 15.0%

  • Total voters
    467

trikster40

Member
But that doesn't really make sense that living in that town would make them complacent while at the same time have these rigorous organised patrols for infected and bandits in the area. Joel now has Ellie and a community to fight for and he knows how cruel the world can be so for him to drop his guard as quick as he did doesn't seem in character to me.

At the very least he should've been curious what a group of armed people are doing so close to the town.
You gotta remember. People get lazy, even characters like Joel. Ellie and he were going through a rough patch; they weren’t getting along great, so there’s distraction number 1. He got in the fight when someone attacked her sexuality, so now there’s some drama in the camp. When you live in a town and you’re not having to fight for survival every day, you drop your guard. Your instincts get dulled. Hell, there was a horde of clickers and they didn’t even see them coming. If the patrols had been so rigorous, they’d have never even gotten into that situation with Abby.

And in that game, I’d be more worried if people weren’t armed. Who’s be stupid enough to go anywhere without a gun.
 

Vick

Gold Member
Everything with Ellie was great, killing Joel was well executed and really gave the game the motivating force needed for it to feel like a necessary sequel. I could care less that he didn’t get a hero’s death. That would have felt arbitrary
i think Joel death and lamb PTSD are the only sequences worthy of the legacy of the first game, in terms of quality and expectations based on the talents involved.
But the switch to Abby was less good. I still enjoyed it and it probably had the stronger gameplay scenarios. Some of the supports like Manny were genuinely funny. But her arc isn’t strong enough to support 50% of the game. Her story is necessary because it reflects and makes the Ellie story stronger but I think it could have been done better with something like an 80:20 split

The main issue for Abby is she ended up in a morally grey quagmire. Even if you enjoyed her section and understood and empathised with her story like I did, you never root for her and never feel she is on an equal footing as main character.
If they had the real balls to make her an actual deranged character, a well written proper villain with actual humanity, without trying so hard by resorting to all those pathetic and cringy tricks to make us feel for her, i would think differently.

You know who i sympathized with, and was actually sorry for? Owen. And even Lev... which was nothing special in terms of writing anyway.
Perhaps the biggest mistake IMO was simply trying to make it a continuation of Ellie and Joel’s storyline
Couldn't we just have new characters and leave that fucking masterpiece alone?
But sales..
Naughty Dog should have recognised the narrative wasn’t quite sticking and worked it a bit further. I’m sure they would have seen in play testing everybody go into the Ellie boss fight and try to kill themselves and realise that something isn’t quite right with that
And it's not something over-analysed/nobody noticed, watching gamers playing pivotal moments shows how totally disconnected they were, no matter the "gender" nor "status", no one wanted to fucking fight Ellie as Abby in the theatre.. outside of mentally persons i guess.
Not sure why Druckmann would want players committing suicide by allowing Ellie to kill them. And i mean, it would be even kinda cool as an experiment i guess, an arthouse sort of thing.. but in the sequel of what at the time was the most critically acclaimed game even made? Something even movie directors looked upon (this is a thing, believe me, JJ Abrams said Uncharted 2 opening was "the best opening of anything cinematic – TV, film, game – that he’s ever seen")?

Another example from my playthrough. I've been using Abby for who knows how long, i'm meeting with Manny again, he's in trouble because of a sniper (someone i'll have to fight, a sequence straight from the first one which is known for how fucking much players hated that sniper) but as long as he says "This sniper's a fucking pro" and i realize he's Tommy, i have the biggest, glorious sadist smile on my face.
And when he fucking
blows Manny's head off
walking like a Terminator from behind, i'm there cheering in happiness. Because i don't give a single shit about him anymore, not about Abby, nor him nor his father nor every single instance ND tried to make me sympathize with him.. he spit on Joel head while calling him pendejo and telling him to go to hell.. he fucking die and i'm happy to see it, end of story.
But as I said it’s still my second favourite game of the gen. I think with tweaks it could have been the run away favourite and I appreciate the boldness in narrative experimentation. I think something safe would have been much less interesting so they just need to nail the balance which is the hardest thing to do
And please stop treating me like a sort of agenda driven hater. I played the game, put hundreds of hours into it (the only Grounded playthrough lasted me 90 hours), LOVED the gameplay (indeed WAY superior to the first one, but still prefer melee and shooting in the original anyway), the environments, the art, the sound, you name it.
So we basically share the same exact opinion on the game.. but this was your response to me at the time:
I thought I loved TLOU2 and that it was a phenomenal game, but now that Bruce Straley liked Ghost of Tsushima I am convinced that TLOU2 was a rancid piece of shit

Thanks for connecting the dots, Vick Vick . Highly convincing
I know, that Thread was trolling in nature due to how pissed i was with the game given my veneration for the first one, but i found very interesting agreeing with every single thing you posted.

Yes. Because at the end of Tlou he went into a hospital and murdered everyone, thereby making him a cold blooded serial killer. Yes, he did it as a father who did not want to lose his child but still...he effectively is responsible for "creating" Abby and the new fireflies. I don't know about you but the ending to TLou was seriously disturbing. Here's a shot at a cure to save the world, next thing I know I'm killing everyone.
Maybe this will come as a surprise for you, and i can't find the source at the moment (if someone can please post it) but i read that fucking Druckmann himself at the end of the first game killed all doctors, every time.
If even after you've experienced Abby's side, you're still outraged then for me this reaction to Tlou2 is a-typical "AMERICAN HERO" bullshit, as in the hero's actions, no matter how heinous, grant him immunity. Well bullshit, that world died a long time ago. There's consequences dude. Joel rightly paid for his actions and jesus christ did you see how much it ruined Ellie? It turned her into a motiveless, murdering, revenging bitch. By sparing her, Abby allowed Ellie to see a different perspective of the same argument.
Just like Abby deserved to be beheaded at the end of this one, then.
Because unlike Joel, who actually did what he did to save a little girl and his motivations were fucking brilliantly exposed and SHARED by the players through the entire first game, Abby by pursuing her revenge (which makes her wrong to begin with) by torturing and killing a man who just saved her life, was responsible for the death of all her friends. And she herself killed the rest of her friends to save.. a literal stranger.

c5b.gif


Then again, i guess i'm the human and you the weird psycho since you weren't able to sympathize with Joel after the entirety of the first game?
And lol if you think Tlou was unique and original.
If you fail to see how unique what TLOU did at the time was, it's not surprising you embraced the complete downgrade of everything concerning the narrative aspects of TLOUII.

Here my emotional journey with this series, in terms of strong, raw emotions felt.

TLOU:
Sarah's death.
Tess's death.
Henry and Sam's death.
Ranch argument.
Joel changes his mind.
Joel incident.
David kidnaps Ellie.
Joel pursues Ellie.
Ellie destroys David's body.
The reunion.
Ellie lost her innocence.
Giraffe scene.
Ellie is drowning.
Joel is knocked out while trying to save her.
Ellie is alive.
Ellie should be killed to make a vaccine to save the literal shithole the world was shown as.
Joel goes on a rampage (best gaming moment of my life).
"I swear".

TLOUII:
Joel's death.
Lamb scene.
Joel defends Ellie.

In the first game, everything was shared by the player and earned inch by inch, nothing was granted in a masterclass of construction. You could say a lot happens in TLOUII as well, how many people die and suffer, but due to how things are designed and the puzzle assembled, there's an order-of-magnitude difference in what the player actually feels with the exception of those three, isolated instances. In my case at least.

Even things like Joel killing the Bloater or crying at the end rubbed me in the wrong way. They felt artificial, not honest.
But nothing compares to my loud laugh during Ellie's reaction when exposed with the truth.
As Ashley Johnson said, Ellie always knew Joel lied.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
The thing I suspect that makes or breaks TLOU2 is whether you see value in the worldview or just in the characters.

The biggest mistake would be reading it all as critique of Joel as a character; Critical Drinker falls into this pitfall in his video "Joel did nothing wrong". Its not about replacing "gruff white male" with "diverse new cast", its about exploring the ramifications of the cathartic "rescue" of Ellie that meant so much to players of the first game. Its a challenge to the player's perception -not the character as written.

Its goal is to make you reexamine whether -within the lawless worldview of the fiction- there's ever nobility in murder. Abby's motivation for hunting down the man who murdered her father is pretty solid. You may not like her, but its a dramatically valid angle. Its just a competing imperative with what is laid out by the first game, and what our expectations are/were of the sequel.

It challenges the heroic mythology that fans built up around Joel, not the character itself. And it does so because as the pluralization of the title lays out, its about "Us" under duress and what that means.
 

Certinty

Member
Whilst I didn't like them killing off Joel, it didn't annoy me to a point where I hated the story/game. But when you combine it with how bad the rest of the story was and how awful the new characters are and the fact you have to even play as the woman who killed Joel for half the game, it just got worse and worse.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
You gotta remember. People get lazy, even characters like Joel. Ellie and he were going through a rough patch; they weren’t getting along great, so there’s distraction number 1. He got in the fight when someone attacked her sexuality, so now there’s some drama in the camp. When you live in a town and you’re not having to fight for survival every day, you drop your guard. Your instincts get dulled. Hell, there was a horde of clickers and they didn’t even see them coming.
Joel and Ellie's relationship was shaky for a while before Seth made his remarks so the game could've given some indication that this affected his skills on the field.

Jesse lays out the importance of the patrols to Ellie and Dina when they're slacking off so it would seem to me that the patrols are considered very important in that community and not something they'd entrust to people who'd lost their edge.
If the patrols had been so rigorous, they’d have never even gotten into that situation with Abby.
You overlook that there was a blizzard obscuring the advance of the horde the same day Abby decided to go into town when Joel was also on patrol. Abby's a "lucky" girl.
And in that game, I’d be more worried if people weren’t armed. Who’s be stupid enough to go anywhere without a gun.
Worried for their mental health perhaps but I'd assume Joel and Tommy would have the safety of the town in mind first and by extension their own. Joel may be old but I don' t think he's lost his edge that much yet. And then there's still Tommy. To think they both would lose so much of their sharpness in the field is stretching it.
 

Vick

Gold Member
I'm no fan of TLUO2 but even I can see there's more moments than that in the game like the lift off scene. :p
I only posted what gave me strong and visceral emotions, as said in the post.
Sure alot happens in TLoUII, but i simply didn't care for most of it.
 

Fake

Member
I remember people saying Joel deserved to die in that way and at the same time defending Ellie
killing a preg woman

This pretty much tell how the fanbase are divided and 'why' they want to remake the first game instead of giving the part 2 a DLC or their promisse multiplayer that still missing.
 

Derktron

Banned
My argument still stands, if they wanted to kill him off and wanted to leave Ellie alone in the world then what they should have done is kill him later on during the story, not so early on. It happened way too soon and the fact that Abby was the one who did where Joel was self-cautious for everything he encountered, and now all of a sudden he left his guard down? That still bothers me the most, the fact that they killed him so early in the game not giving him and Ellie and chance in connecting more or showing what happened after all those years where they found a new settlement. I can care less if they killed him, some stories required to kill an important character to give the other main one a chance. I don't know I still think from the time I played the game they did it the wrong way. I still stand by that.
 

Haggard

Banned
Joel should have died defending Ellie as would have been fit for the father figure he was.
The way he died was dark, but not in a good way. It felt very forced and unlikely/stupid...like most of Abbie`s and Ellie´s decisions in the game, too.
 
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Fake

Member
Joel should have died defending Ellie as would have been fit for the father figure he was.
The way he died was dark, but not in a good way. It felt very forced and unlikely/stupid...like most of Abbie`s and Ellie´s decisions in the game, too.

Feels like Walking Dead or Game of Thrones.
 
It challenges the heroic mythology that fans built up around Joel, not the character itself.

This just feels like semantics, honestly. I think it does matter how you view Joel's action at the end of TLOU1, and the Drinker video is correct in that it points out the way TLOU2 tries to make you feel about Joel just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It's like every jumping-off point TLOU2 picked from the first game was the wrong one.

Would you kill one person to save a 1000 or a million? Not really an interesting or deep question, because the answer is always 'no' if you care about that person, and we all understand that at a basic level. We don't take lives to save lives - particularly not a child. Just like we probably wouldn't martyr ourselves for others if given the choice, based on what might benefit it might have down the line - which is why I don't buy Ellie's righteous anger at Joel. People have a basic sense of self-preservation and no one would get that angry at not being allowed to die - not even incredibly heroic and diverse video game characters. You see - whenever you actually scratch at the supposed depth of the storyline, you just see there's not much depth there.

The only real depth and meaning in the story was in the relationship Joel and Ellie managed to develop in the midst of all that misery. And Joel's actions didn't betray that - it stayed true to it - so to punish him for it is an act of nihilism in the context of the game's own narrative. And I don't see how people can think that everything Joel went through - the shocking death of his daughter and his own brutal murder - was worth it just so that Ellie could have a last-second conversion and realize revenge is wrong.

If you really wanted to kill him off, it needed to have a more heroic and meaningful position within the story. But if you took all the wrong lessons from TLOU1, and you're operating with a slightly warped set of values, you might write a sequel like TLOU2 and feel like Joel at some level deserved it.
 

zaanan

Banned
People not dying the way you want them to die is pretty much a fact of life.
Were people equally upset with the way that Ned or Robb Stark died? Just because they didn't die on the "right" terms or in the "right" way, doesn't mean their death can't be invaluable to the story.
Your comparison of TLOU2 to GOT is apropos, but not for the reason you think: In the last season of GOT, central storylines built up through all past seasons were resolved suddenly in unsatisfying and unbelievable ways, and long-established characters did things that were completely out of character. At root, these are the same complaints people have about TLOU2.
 
I voted unsure because I don't know what they would have done if they had decided to do something else. We don't know that the opposite would automatically be better.

Maybe people just don't like the new characters, but this is another issue.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
This just feels like semantics, honestly. I think it does matter how you view Joel's action at the end of TLOU1, and the Drinker video is correct in that it points out the way TLOU2 tries to make you feel about Joel just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It's like every jumping-off point TLOU2 picked from the first game was the wrong one.

Would you kill one person to save a 1000 or a million? Not really an interesting or deep question, because the answer is always 'no' if you care about that person, and we all understand that at a basic level. We don't take lives to save lives - particularly not a child. Just like we probably wouldn't martyr ourselves for others if given the choice, based on what might benefit it might have down the line - which is why I don't buy Ellie's righteous anger at Joel. People have a basic sense of self-preservation and no one would get that angry at not being allowed to die - not even incredibly heroic and diverse video game characters. You see - whenever you actually scratch at the supposed depth of the storyline, you just see there's not much depth there.

The only real depth and meaning in the story was in the relationship Joel and Ellie managed to develop in the midst of all that misery. And Joel's actions didn't betray that - it stayed true to it - so to punish him for it is an act of nihilism in the context of the game's own narrative. And I don't see how people can think that everything Joel went through - the shocking death of his daughter and his own brutal murder - was worth it just so that Ellie could have a last-second conversion and realize revenge is wrong.

If you really wanted to kill him off, it needed to have a more heroic and meaningful position within the story. But if you took all the wrong lessons from TLOU1, and you're operating with a slightly warped set of values, you might write a sequel like TLOU2 and feel like Joel at some level deserved it.

Its not a semantic difference. Joel's character is absolutely preserved in the sequel, hell the end of the game is Joel outright telling Ellie that he'd do it again, in spite of everything and how their relationship has suffered in the aftermath. And most importantly, Ellie finding some measure of peace and acceptance in that memory.

What the game presents is Joel's answer to the question. What we, and every member of the cast of characters takes from that is another story.

And no, Joel as a character deserves the end he gets. He lives by the sword and dies by the sword, PROTECTING ELLIE.
 

RCU005

Member
the fact that they killed him so early in the game not giving him and Ellie and chance in connecting more or showing what happened after all those years where they found a new settlement.
Naughty Dog could do a game about this. In fact, it could've been done like that for this exact purpose. If they didn't want to move the story forward, they could still make a game about that time. Now that Joel is dead, people would be all over it, so like I said, it could have been a strategy.
 
Sold out? It makes sense that there would be surviving children of that massacre!?! How in the fuck is that selling out lol? You cry for originality and blah blah but you don't even see what's in front of you. Tlou IS NOT ORIGINAL IN ANY WAY. That journey has been told a thousand times.

I mean you can barely support the points of your own argument. Apparently everything is cliche and bourgeois lol. It's all about context brother. You need to frame the actions in the context and that's what the series is about, it's about seeing the other side of someone else's argument. You're only choosing to see one side of the story and ignoring the other side. That's the power of ignorance. Ignorance and the refusal to understand someone else's motives is the reason why were destroying each other IRL over and over. Don't get me wrong, when I first played the game I was outraged by Joel's death and I was looking forward to killing Abby and everyone else in that room. Then when I was given control of Abby I hated every minute of it. I refused to follow her story and forced myself to reach the Ellie episodes. But slowly, especially through her treatment of Lev, I began to see things from Abby's POV. Abby was someone's little girl too. Sure, she went a bit overboard with the bench press but I understood her motives too.

If even after you've experienced Abby's side, you're still outraged then for me this reaction to Tlou2 is a-typical "AMERICAN HERO" bullshit, as in the hero's actions, no matter how heinous, grant him immunity. Well bullshit, that world died a long time ago. There's consequences dude. Joel rightly paid for his actions and jesus christ did you see how much it ruined Ellie? It turned her into a motiveless, murdering, revenging bitch. By sparing her, Abby allowed Ellie to see a different perspective of the same argument.


Here's much better question, how do much more powerful would Tlou2 have been if Joel was alive? His death propels Ellie forwards, without what is she doing? She's living a lie anyway.


And lol if you think Tlou was unique and original.
Lou was not original but it was well done for a videogame. Lou 2 took a risk (not with the plot point of Joel dying, like I’ve said almost everyone expected that) but that they retroactively removed entirely the moral dilemma of the first games ending and made it a clear cut case of (as you said) serial killing. It just reduced the impact of that games ending. Several things were debatable - how much do you trust the fireflies? Was a cure actually feasible? How would they distribute it? Why just accept that at face value? They didn’t even want to tell Joel, why is this the only way you can get it? You’re telling me Ellie, a child, is the only person in existence to provide this cure? You’re telling me she can’t be consulted or even asked about it? Like there were gray areas - completely gone in the sequel. The second game made things way more black and white - which maybe they were always intended to be - but many people (myself included) imposed more complexity on the narrative than was actually there I guess.
 
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Fake

Member
People act as if he's been killed by Ellie. All decisions made in the game have respected sense and reflect humanity that never the case in Hollywood BS.

Disagree. Joel could pursuit those how give ther order to pull the trigger, but he move on, unlike a certain group of kids that manage not only to find Joel into this shit world, but somehow have resources to do it.

People live around camps to protect against those creeps, but
Ellie and her girl live in a house and nothing is going on in this world
don't make any fucking sense.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Disagree. Joel could pursuit those how give ther order to pull the trigger, but he move on, unlike a certain group of kids that manage not only to find Joel into this shit world, but somehow have resources to do it.

People live around camps to protect against those creeps, but
Ellie and her girl live in a house and nothing is going on in this world
don't make any fucking sense.

I mean, those zombies aren't endless for that spoiler part, I've seen much worse in the movies/series to say the least. John Wick for example is one of the worst movies and most pathetically produced movies I've seen in recent years and being overly praised for reasons I don't know. A normal human walking carelessly and all gangs are too afraid to shoot at him while he's coming, because the director thought it was cool to wait for him to come and kill them.

So yes, I don't like that kinda BS, and it's much more present in Hollywood.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
I remember people saying Joel deserved to die in that way and at the same time defending Ellie
killing a preg woman

This pretty much tell how the fanbase are divided and 'why' they want to remake the first game instead of giving the part 2 a DLC or their promisse multiplayer that still missing.

Ellie was an asshole indeed, that's what I liked.

Also GTA games all have the worst of the worst as protagonists, no one is complaining. Actually, lots of games have criminals as heroes.
 
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Faithless83

Banned
What people still fail to realize, is that the problem is how the "so called writers", shat on the fans to push virtue signalling.
It wasn't Joel dying that was the problem, it was the out of character decisions, the plot holes, the pacing and the support cast , that was a step down in every way from the original game, WHILE killing the ambiguity of the original ending.
All for the sake of "hey man, killing is wrong", on a game that everything you do is to kill people.

"If you don't agree with us, we don't need you as a fan", attitude is what will slowly but surely kill the woke crowd.
People act as if he's been killed by Ellie. All decisions made in the game have respected sense and reflect humanity that never the case in Hollywood BS.
Love you man, but I couldn't disagree more on this.
There are so many out of character choices that had me laughing from the absurdity of it.
The supporting cast is weak and nothing more than someone to talk with Ellie, no other reason for being there.
Abby's story was forced and makes what was already a bad paced game even worst.
A weak revenge story that tries it's best (even though it fails), to have our sympathy towards someone who killed one flawed, but beloved character. Failing to provide the revenge that we wanted, while erasing everything that was brilliant from the first game.

The only hero in the story was the LEAKER, that saved me from wasting money and time on that dumpster fire of a game.

I won't give money to woke BS studios, I'm quite happy giving japanese my money instead. At least six of my friends cancelled their preorders after I warned them. All fans of the first game.
 

Madflavor

Member
What are they even gonna do for TLoU3? How do they top killing Joel in a horrific way and forcing you to play as his killer?

Neil may have to accept facts that Part 3 may just have to be a lighter in tone story. Otherwise if he tries to up the anti from here, it’s probably going to come off very forced. Once you kill off Joel like that, it’s going to make players fairly numb to whatever comes next.
 

Derktron

Banned
Naughty Dog could do a game about this. In fact, it could've been done like that for this exact purpose. If they didn't want to move the story forward, they could still make a game about that time. Now that Joel is dead, people would be all over it, so like I said, it could have been a strategy.
I agree anything is better on the way executed it. Still a great game though.
 

Fake

Member
What are they even gonna do for TLoU3? How do they top killing Joel in a horrific way and forcing you to play as his killer?

Easy. Just look how Abby and the kid got so much attention in this game, not to mention
Ellie let her live and escape with a boat very easily.
 

rob305

Member
They didnt have to kill him. The story of TLOU2 was awesome and I’m sure they could have made a different awesome story without killing Joel
 

Justin9mm

Member
Here we go again.. arguing about the story..

Love it or hate it.. It's the developer who have the right to decide how the story goes and it's their artistic creation. Who do people think they are dictating what they think should have happened and believing their way is the right way!

I didn't like how Joel died, I also didn't really like the arc of Lev and the forced feeling of the conversations regarding his sexuality but I still respect their artistic vision whether I agree or not. It's their game and that's the way it goes.

Some gamers have become very toxic self entitled pricks. I've said this before, the hate on this game is an embarrassment to the gaming industry.

I'm glad despite all that hate, it still won GOTY because it's still a technical marvel and common sense had prevailed.
 

Arsic

Member
No and yes. Joel dying was inevitable for the franchise. The way they chose to kill him and the way the narrative was presented was absolute shit.

First poster gets it. He died in a very lazy written way that isn't correct for the character/s they had written up to that point.

Joel and Tommy would've had their guns on fridge bitch the moment they got away from the hoarde or prior. They would've been super suspicious of a group camping outside of their settlement for days. They would've never gone with her, or said their real names.

It needed to be more epic. Like her gang confirms it's him then do a night raid on the entire town starting fires to flush him out then trap and kill him as he fights for his life in a epic fashion.

This was just half assed and yet it wasn't even the worst part/s of the narrative....
 
Really tho? Everyone I know thought Joel would be dying, people weren’t even sure if he’d be alive for the second game
Why would he have to die? Personally I don't really care, I never likes Joel and all the time I was playing The last of us 1 I felt like I was playing with a secondary character. When you finally get to play with Elke is where things get interesting.
 
Joel's death was fine. His story arc was over.

The biggest problem in TLOU2 was Ellie's contrived anger at Joel for saving her life and not allowing her to get murdered for a pipe dream. It was totally unrealistic and only proved to serve the plot. It was a rare case of bad writing in a series that's generally been stellar at this.
 

Astral Dog

Member
I just don't care about playing as this psycopath puppy killer Ellie and big Abby 🤷‍♂️ not that Joel wasn't a dick too but most of the first game he was looking at helping Ellie(at least until he realized there was no other option) and Ellie helping Joel, i feel like this theme of revenge has been done before but better, on movies.
 

Salz01

Member
The art and technical work is first class. The characters, plot, and story is amateur. Blows my mind this is from the same team that made the first one. Every character in the first one is better thought out and written. I really wish they didn’t make a second one or redo the first one. There was no need.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
So we basically share the same exact opinion on the game.. but this was your response to me at the time:

I know, that Thread was trolling in nature due to how pissed i was with the game given my veneration for the first one, but i found very interesting agreeing with every single thing you posted.






If you fail to see how unique what TLOU did at the time was, it's not surprising you embraced the complete downgrade of everything concerning the narrative aspects of TLOUII.

Here my emotional journey with this series, in terms of strong, raw emotions felt.



TLOUII:
Joel's death.
Lamb scene.
Joel defends Ellie.

In the first game, everything was shared by the player and earned inch by inch, nothing was granted in a masterclass of construction. You could say a lot happens in TLOUII as well, how many people die and suffer, but due to how things are designed and the puzzle assembled, there's an order-of-magnitude difference in what the player actually feels with the exception of those three, isolated instances. In my case at least.

Even things like Joel killing the Bloater or crying at the end rubbed me in the wrong way. They felt artificial, not honest.
But nothing compares to my loud laugh during Ellie's reaction when exposed with the truth.
As Ashley Johnson said, Ellie always knew Joel lied.
you seem to be a bit biased.
plenty of good character building and dramatic moments in TLOU2
what about the whole 180 this character stuff in the second game.
Nothing?

I think the writing in 2 was way more mature and interesting then 1
the problem I think is that people don't like what happens.

and link that to quality of writing.

TLOU2 is a next step in story telling in games.
and the overall medium.

one small comment on that., This has nothing to do with the gameplay however. As i still think all of the devs games are rather boring.
 

farmerboy

Member
First poster gets it. He died in a very lazy written way that isn't correct for the character/s they had written up to that point.

Joel and Tommy would've had their guns on fridge bitch the moment they got away from the hoarde or prior. They would've been super suspicious of a group camping outside of their settlement for days. They would've never gone with her, or said their real names.

It needed to be more epic. Like her gang confirms it's him then do a night raid on the entire town starting fires to flush him out then trap and kill him as he fights for his life in a epic fashion.

This was just half assed and yet it wasn't even the worst part/s of the narrative....

You know, after wrestling crocs for years a stupid stingray got Steve Irwin with one jab.
 

farmerboy

Member
So both Joel and Tommy had a lapse in judgement at the same time, eh? Alrighty.

5yrs of relative safety, in a well run commune out in the woods somewhere can afford you the comfort, that when enjoyed a little too much, can result in a lapse of judgement.

You'd rather believe that Joel is some sort of tank, who survives countless encounters with human and clicker antagonists for his whole life?
 

Hugare

Member
I respect the concept's ambition of trying to make you think about violence and what Joel/Ellie were causing to other people. Its interesting.

But I loved TLOU due to its heart and personal story. Those bittersweet and heartwarming moments throughout the game between Joel and Ellie bonding.

On paper, TLOU 2 story rocks. But it felt too cold and detached. On purpose, I know, but it lost what made the first game special.

I loved Part 2 for what it is, I understood what it tried to say, but I still wanted more heart and warmth.

Like, let Ellie and Joel at least hug once in that last cutscene goddamit.
 
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Fake

Member
5yrs of relative safety, in a well run commune out in the woods somewhere can afford you the comfort, that when enjoyed a little too much, can result in a lapse of judgement.

You'd rather believe that Joel is some sort of tank, who survives countless encounters with human and clicker antagonists for his whole life?

Strange how only Joel and Tommy suffer from this 5 years of relative safety.
 

Dorohedoro

Member
I respect the concept's ambition of trying to make you think about violence and what Joel/Ellie were causing to other people. Its interesting.

But I loved TLOU due to its heart and personal story. Those bittersweet and heartwarming moments throughout the game between Joel and Ellie bonding.

On paper, TLOU 2 story rocks. But it felt too cold and detached. On purpose, I know, but it lost what made the first game special.

I loved Part 2 for what it is, I understood what it tried to say, but I still wanted more heart and warmth.

Like, let Ellie and Joel at least hug once in that last cutscene goddamit.
If Part 3 happens I can see it having a similar tone as the original, still dark just not going balls deep into it. Maybe even lighter than that.

And I read somewhere that they were originally supposed to hug in that cutscene but I don't remember what made the writers decide not to.
 

Woggleman

Member
Part 3 should be five years into the future and Ellie is a recluse living by herself in a town not far from Jackson like Bill. She is paranoid' alienated from everybody including Dina and JJ and does not trust anybody. Word gets back to her that Jackson suffers a terrible bandit attack so she goes back to see what she can do and she finds the town in shambles with only a few survivors. Some of those survivors are Tommy who has leaned to walk again but wears an eyepatch in his right eye and has closed himself off from everybody and Dina plus JJ.

Her and Tommy find out where the bandit camp is and they go to wipe it out and find a few people being held hostage. They free the hostages and one of them tells Ellie and Tommy about a doctor in Mexico who can develop a vaccine from immune people. without killing them so Ellie sees this as her chance to redeem herself and finally give her life some meaning. Tommy comes with her we see too broken people destroyed by vengeance and hate bond and rediscover their humanity through a greater purpose.

When they get to Mexico they find Abby involved with this group who are party of the newly formed Fireflies and Tommy wants to just kill her while Ellie realizes that though they will never be friends this is bigger than the both of them. She calms Tommy down and they develop this vaccine but realize it is a long way to rebuilding the world. Ellie and Tommy return and her Dina reconcile. The theme of the third game will be hope and will switch between Ellie and Tommy in gameplay. There could be SP Abby DLC if people want that.

We could also learn through notes what the origin of the outbreak is and the kind of human tinkering that made it jump from insects to people.
 
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