bender
What time is it?
Yeah both of Ellie's flashbacks were very enjoyable.
I meant the section where Tommy is snipping Abby/Manny. ;p
Yeah both of Ellie's flashbacks were very enjoyable.
I hate to throw out ludonarrative dissonance, but the player acting as Ellie or Abby probably have close to 1,000 human kills including a lot of the inner circle of each others crew but they can't mange to complete they can't finish each other off because of the folly of revenge. That just rings a little hollow when you are sitting on a mountain of corpses and didn't even blink while taken those lives.
Whenever someone writes “should of“ or “would of” instead of should have/would have a person gets killed with a golf club.Should of kept the whole game as Ellie and then Abbys "story" as like a left behind dlc or something.
Sorry I really shouldn't of done that.Whenever someone writes “should of“ or “would of” instead of should have/would have a person gets killed with a golf club.
Sorry I really shouldn't of done that.
My favorite was also a Tommy sniper section. The one in which he puts a hole in Manny’s face. This is for spitting on my dead brother puta.The Tommy sniper section was my favorite section of the game.
I view that as kinda of the point. The game is trying to manipulate you (all stories do) into caring about Abby and viewing Ellie as the villain. It's not exactly going to go out of it's way to do the opposite since our attachment to Joel and Ellie from the 1st game and our introduction to Abby basically means by default we already heavily view Abby as the villain. It's trying to help us get over that bias, and I think it does it good way. It's not contrived at all, there's a lot of ground work and building laid for it. Being uncomfortable/conflicted/not liking Ellie being portrayed as a villain is an aim the narrative wants to achieve.I think the major mistake the game makes is trying to make people care so much about Abby after she kills Joel, and at the sacrifice of Ellie's character to the point of almost making her the villain.
The way that only Ellie gets the bitter and not-at-all-sweet end of the "revenge is a bitch" stick, I still hate Abby. She gets saved by Ellie in the end ffs and pretty better off having succeed in killing Joel and taking her revenge, the actual deed which even though complete doesn't give her respite from those nightmares she's having, but compared to Ellie it is a tummy hurt.
What Ellie has lost? Let's count.
Joel most of all, just as when she was in the path to forgive him, maybe she would never forget but she was robbed of her chance at mending their relationship, since finally she could see what Joel did was entirely out of love for her and his resolve in saying that he would do it all over again confirms that for her. Now all of it is pufff gone.
She has lost a chance of having a 'normal' life at Jacksonville, she is now ruined, a walking ghastly apparition of her former self, having PTSD like flashes of Joel being tortured AND killed right in front of her.
She has lost Dina and the baby, or any chance of returning to them because Abby has left so big an emotional scar, so big a void inside of her that she just couldn't let go of having her revenge.
She has lost Jesse and most likely Tommy, one is dead the other is again a ghastly apparition of their former selves because of Abby's revenge quest.
And finally she has lost two of her fingers, finger with which she was playing the guitar, the guitar that Joel gave her and thought her how to play that specific song, a song that she can no longer play without fucking up with two missing fingers, a song that was only thing left that she could connect with her father figure.
Fuck Abby.
I started to get weary of everyone's negative opinions on this game - which were transparently biased considering the general reception of the game among people whose opinions I tend to respect - that's why I was really glad to see Noah Caldwell-Gervais do a video on TLOU, Left Behind and TLOUpt2. I recommend anyone who wants to actually understand what's good and not-so-good about this game, in great depth, to watch this video. Rather than relying on the opinion of triggered firebrands.
In short:
I'm also so very glad that ND chose not to draw Abby as some faceless bad guy that you were to hunt down and kill. Showing that she had suffered a life full of PTSD due to her dad's murder, resulting in her shunning as she obsessed with finding and exacting revenge on Joel was rather excellent. It paralleled Ellie's story and issued a stark warning of what was to come.
To me it would have been so much better if Abby's father was the one who was against idea sacrificing Ellie and felt it would have needed more testing, while Marlene was the who pushing him to do it. It would made Joel killing Abby's father more tragic and Abby revenge more justifiable.Well her dad wanted to chop Ellie. Somehow ND expects us to care about abby "brutal" life where her father wanted to kill small girl and got killed back in return.
I don't think the game is asking if you like Abby. She explicitly cheats behind the back of her pregnant friend. Its just showing you her journey, up to you if you like her.
To me it would have been so much better if Abby's father was the one who was against idea sacrificing Ellie and felt it would have needed more testing, while Marlene was the who pushing him to do it. It would made Joel killing Abby's father more tragic and Abby revenge more justifiable.
JOE in his review was absolutely right. Player should have spent playing 3/4 of game playing as abby BEFORE that event. So that player could give a shit about her and her pov. Instead they did it at start and from that point you must rely on player giving a shit about murderer of their favorite character.
This aligns with my views on it.Enjoyed Ellie more because she's a great character. Thoroughly enjoyed playing as Abby and getting to see things from her POV.
My favorite was also a Tommy sniper section. The one in which he puts a hole in Manny’s face. This is for spitting on my dead brother puta.
Yeah go empathize with ISIS my friend. It's goodFor a moment I was worried that the reason why they did the character flip was because this game was a vanity project. It's only after finishing it did I realize what they were going for.
They wanted the player to try and empathize with a side that you absolutely hate. There is no other way to achieve this besides doing the character flip after playing as Ellie for 10+ hours. I agree that it kind of slowed down the building momentum which I didn't like but it puts the confrontation in a better context for the player. If they succeed you don't want either of them to die.
The really cool thing is that this game reflects life (esp. the political climate). We're so tribalistic that when we confront the other side we refuse to understand where they come from. I think one of the core messages of this work is that we should try to empathisize and understand instead of blindly following one group over the other. Damn, this game is so good.
The whole thing is stupid shit. Both killed people who has no stake in this revenge then spared each other.Don't forget that on two occasions Abby had the chance to kill Ellie and she spared her. She also had a chance to kill Dina and also spared her. She gave Ellie and chance at normal and happy life with Dina, Ellie just couldn't let go until it was too late. All things considered she did as many "favours" to Ellie as Ellie did in saving her.
Also as a result of Joel's actions Abby also lost her father and "normal life". You can tell she really believed in the fireflies and trying to save people etc.. and then Joel basically wiped them out and Abby was left with nothing. She was forced to seek comfort in arms of a militia and become a killer. Joel's actions resulted in that. Abby also has to live with the emotions of knowing that world is still fucked because Joel robbed them of a cure. The entire WLF war with the Scars wouldn't even be a thing if they had a cure. Maybe some players can't empathise with what Abby has lost compared to Ellie, but that doesn't mean that objectively she still hasn't lost a lot.
I like your point about the fingers and the guitar though. I never thought about that before, really interesting take.
The only thing incoherent was the "ludonarrative" between killing 100s of people and then feeling guilty killing ones attached to the story or outright sparing some. Yep that is "ludonarrative dissonance", can't argue against that.. But in terms of the actual story every single killing and sparing was fully coherent.The whole thing is stupid shit. Both killed people who has no stake in this revenge then spared each other.
Just a stupid incoherent and depressing story. TLOU2 was very good because of gameplay and graphics. It is just another MGSV, but complete.
For a moment I was worried that the reason why they did the character flip was because this game was a vanity project. It's only after finishing it did I realize what they were going for.
They wanted the player to try and empathize with a side that you absolutely hate. There is no other way to achieve this besides doing the character flip after playing as Ellie for 10+ hours. I agree that it kind of slowed down the building momentum which I didn't like but it puts the confrontation in a better context for the player. If they succeed you don't want either of them to die.
The really cool thing is that this game reflects life (esp. the political climate). We're so tribalistic that when we confront the other side we refuse to understand where they come from. I think one of the core messages of this work is that we should try to empathisize and understand instead of blindly following one group over the other. Damn, this game is so good.
Yeah go empathize with ISIS my friend. It's good
See, I wouldn't have minded that if that is how I felt with how they did it. I feel like their execution of that wasn't very good. Ellie/Abby both kill so many people on their quest for revenge and only give up on it when it comes to facing each other. Now, I know Abby got her revenge but Ellie killed so many on her journey - what about the people she killed along the way, couldn't they be a father or a mother to someone else? Who might want their own revenge?
One way they could have done this was by not focusing as much on different factions/groups (e.g. Seraphites/Scars v. WLF) of people and just take advantage of the post apocalyptic situation they had set the story in and make many of the encounters with the infected. Running into a few people who are in your way to your revenge is one thing but facing off so many and people among different groups? Come on....they decided it was good to introduce us to two new groups that we had no idea existed....