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Who pulled it off better? Rockstar or Naughty Dog (RDR2/TLOU II MAJOR spoilers)

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.


Imagine believing Elliot & Abby have something on Arthur Morgan.



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dude thats a major spoiler. I am yet to play the game.. wtf
EDIT.. spoiler thread.. FML

It's literally in the title: edit since edited:
I'm sorry for you
 
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SCB3

Member
The last of us 2 story was a mess. To bad cause it was a well put together game other wise. It’s like they knew it was fucked so they chopped it up and made you play it out of order to try and hide the fact that it didn’t make sense.

RDR was just great.
Exactly this for me

TLOU2's gameplay was great, a really fun to play game with a substandard story that made little sense sometimes (the last part especially made no sense and was just stupid and meant nothing at the end )
 
T

The New Guy

Unconfirmed Member
The manner of Arthur's death was really tragic for me, as I got the "bad ending" and I just couldn't believe that R* would let that piece of shit Micah win. Got to give R* major props for doing that. Brought a tear to my eye, no cap.

The leaks killed Joel's death. If that happened in game we'd be talking about it completely differently.

I agree, but I still think it was too soon in the game as well even without the leaks. You barely see Joel before he gets killed off. You get some flashbacks with Ellie which were cool, but that's about it. I think the way they structured the game could have been a lot better. I found myself not even wanting to play it after the death scene because I felt myself taken out of the game. I didn't even want to play the Abby sections, despite how good the gameplay was. I just didn't care for her character. The game should have been a lot better than it was, and it's a shame.
 
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Arthur's death was handled way better. Thry aren't even in the same league, though to be fair both deaths were trying to achieve different things. Arthur's death was a relatively slow burn, it had time to really set in. You had just spent dozens of hours with this character, and there reaches a point where you know he is going to die. It made the urgency of what he was trying to accomplish that much more intense.

When he finally dies and you take over as John it was amazing. In fact I thought the whole ending and setup for Red Dead Redemption 1 was done so well. It was amazing. Incredible game.

The Last of Us II handled the death way differently, it was meant to be a shock to the system, I get that. I understand what they were going for. They were trying to emotionally set the scene for Ellie's tale of revenge. I had no issues with Joel dying, that is an interesting and bold direction to go. My issues with the way it was handled was that it was so hamfisted. It just didn't seem to have any emotional weight. I understood why Ellie was behaving the way she did, it just didn't resonate with me.
 

MrS

Banned
Arthur's character is the only thing that made me push through RDR2's uninspiring gameplay.
I agree with this. Guarma stuff was horrendous and I almost dropped the game at that point.

When he finally dies and you take over as John it was amazing. In fact I thought the whole ending and setup for Red Dead Redemption 1 was done so well. It was amazing. Incredible game.
I disagree with this. I felt playing as John was completely unnecessary. My feelings on this would be different if we got to kill Micah as John instead of Dutch *really* killing him / having a proper Micah boss fight. For R* to take that away from the player was a terrible thing. In truth though, after Arthur's death, I'd have been ok had the game ended there with that sledgehammer to the heart. Would have made for a truly shocking and memorable ending.
 
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Woggleman

Member
Both games are in my top five of the gen but I do think Arthur's was handled better. Despite the issues some have with the controls and gameplay Arthur Morgan really resonated with people. I love TLOU2 but I admit it is divisive.
 
I agree with this. Guarma stuff was horrendous and I almost dropped the game at that point.

I disagree with this. I felt playing as John was completely unnecessary. My feelings on this would be different if we got to kill Micah as John instead of Dutch killing him. For R* to take that away from the player was a terrible thing. In truth though, after Arthur's death, I'd have been ok had the game ended there with that sledgehammer to the heart. Would have made for a truly shocking and memorable ending.

If the game wasn't a prequel id agree, he's dead and move on. But the whole point of the game was being a part of Dutch's gang and all the events that lead up to RDR1. Throughout the game we saw John on the periphery, saw how his character changed from a young punk with misguided morals. By the end of the game we saw how John had evolved and could see him changing into the more stoic version of John we knew in RDR1. I dunno, it's all subjective obviously but I thought it was very well done.
 
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Woggleman

Member
Am I the only one that liked the Guarma part? I am a sucker for tropical and island stuff though in real life and in a game or a movie or whatever. My ideal place to live is in the islands.
 

Saber

Gold Member
Not sure its even a fair comparison. Its hard for anything be worse than Joel's death.

I wouldn't even compare to RDR1. Its insulting to real good writers.

There are a lot of things I trully dislike about RDR2, but story ain't one of them.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
Arthur by a landslide IMO. His story was incredibly tragic. He was a new character people didn't think they'd love more than Marston, and the majority did. Him getting sick, while unfortunate, felt very believable. With his days numbered he still pushed to do the things he felt were right. The man literally fought until his last dying breath. We watched him slowly degrade until he couldn't fight it anymore. It was so incredibly sad. I was a tearful wreck by the end of it.


Joel's death felt so incredibly quick. Rushed, even. So much so that it felt like it was done just to get a rise out of fans. It could've been handled differently, even better IMO, and it could've struck harder. Yes, "it was done for a reason", I get that. But that reason could've still been provided while being handled differently to draw in more emotion. The lead up felt strangely out of character to a lot of folks, and he was gone. That was it. It left me shaking my head, hating Abby, hating that it felt so rushed, and that the lead up, to me at least, felt incredibly careless and bizarre on his part.
 
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sainraja

Member
It's completely different.

From a writing perspective, Arthur's arc is very straightforward. It's the story you've seen told countless times, and gives Arthur the promised redemption in the title, a redemption paid in blood. The only twist here is that instead of Arthur being forced down the redemption path because an external factor, in the case of Joel it's a young girl (also predictable), it's a terminal disease that leads him to confront the man he his and his deeds. He can hear Death's clock ticking, and must choose what kind of man he is willing to be in the final moments of his life. So his death is romanticized, and even though Arthur and John have a very thin relationship as presented in the game story, we the audience are tricked into putting more weight on it on the back that John is the main protagonist of Read Dead Redemption, and we the audience already have a relationship there.

Joel's arc is also very straightforward. Becomes a waste of a man, a shell of his former self, after losing his daughter. Ellie gives him a second lease, an opportunity to become the loving father he once was and redeem himself. Except the twist here is that at the end there's no redemption, no blood sacrifice of his own. Instead a man is unwilling to lose his daughter twice, and he is willing to take "innocent" lives to "save" her, and lie to her about it. It's not that he is wrong in what he does, because there's really no right or wrong there. There are only questions. His death is more powerful, because he is stripped of everything we've come to know about him, he is made defenseless and we the player are made powerless to stop what we know is coming. His death hurts, it doesn't make us sad or filled with pity, it pisses us off and makes us mad and wanting to revolt, to seek revenge.

Joel's death is symbolic of the world he lives in while Arthur's death is a romanticized idea that even a bad man can redeem himself at the end, even through violence. Personally I think TLOU2 did something that is more ambitious, bolder, with more impact. Truer even.

I think you have outlined the differences very well here. So props!

It was hard for me to relate to Joel in the first game so the impact of what happened in the TLOU: P2 wasn't as big and then a little bit of it got spoiled (just enough, I saw the picture of Abby with the golf club from the leaks.) When playing RDR, I just never got any motivation to push through it (could not relate to the characters, to the story, etc.) I might give it another go but it just didn't happen.
 
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Kerlurk

Banned
 
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sainraja

Member
What a joke comparison.

It's like a cooking competition where you compare a rock to a meal.

Tlou2 is not even edible, or palatable.

Killing the main character at the beginning is largely unheard of, and just so they can pander to identity politics is retarded.

That's not story telling, but just a vehicle to promote Neil's/ND politics.

I have no interest in such propaganda.

I think what naughtydog did with Joel takes guts to do (killing him at the start of a game or even at the end of the game doesn't matter.) Develop and work on a character and then have him killed off takes guts. However, their execution was very poor. There was no clear setup for it (it seems it was shoehorned in, specially with how they went and changed how the doctor looked from the first game.) They did it for the shock factor and not because the story was going to lead up to it, which is what I find unfortunate.

I think they should have used the first half of the game to set that up. They should have shown Abby a little conflicted about it. I mean, I don't care who you are, if you've had 5 years to sit on it, you're not going to just golf club someone to death. Unless you are just a psycho!
 
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anothertech

Member
Well, one of the best written stories in recent history vs one of the biggest bungles in game writing in all of history. Woke culture be damned.

Not really a fair fight I'd say.

RDR2 will love on in my memory as a story of passion and inspiration for years to come.

TLOU2 will be pushed from my memory deliberately until it dissolves into sweet nothingness that I one day forget.

No contest.
 

Warablo

Member
They wrote Arthur so well, I don't even like John Marston anymore. I wanted to restart the game to get Arthur back.
 
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CatLady

Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
The final mission with Arthur when he goes back to say thank you to his horse hit like a ton of bricks. Joel’s death was fine but Arthur’s just...damn

No question RDR2. As I've said many times in various threads, I did not like RDR2, but the last chapter went a long way in redeeming the game. That scene with the beautiful Arabian horse I'd captured and Arthur's death was was heartbreaking, impactful and very tastefully done. Yeah, I cried.

I never played TLOU2. Since I only liked 2 PS4 exclusive (TLOU being one of them), I got rid of my PS4 after the E3 reveal where we learned Ellie not Joel was to be the main character. When we later learned Joel was going to get killed off and then I saw the spoilers of Joel's death that got leaked it confirmed I'd made the right decision. It was totally tasteless and felt like it's main purpose was shock value. It's not impactful, at least not in a good way. It's disgusting.
 

tassletine

Member
RD2 easily. I don’t even know how Rockstar managed to write something with that much scope and still manage to shift the tone as wildly as it does, without the whole thing falling apart. The character work is exceptional.
LOU2 has good writing but it is very limited in scope and it’s bag of tricks is used up quick. Far too long for the story it tells.
 
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