I think the problem is Youtube can't stop advertising them for him. (though I haven't seen a lick of new promo stuff in months) I can't see Aron willingly look at anything Part II related for the next 3 years.
I think the problem is Youtube can't stop advertising them for him. (though I haven't seen a lick of new promo stuff in months) I can't see Aron willingly look at anything Part II related for the next 3 years.
Everytime someone posts in this thread, Aron'll get notified about it. I discussed it with him and he just wants to distance himself from TLOU for now... Something that would be pretty hard if this thread stays active.
Take your discussion over here.
Edit: Welp, we're here now...
The Last of Us Remastered just randomly got a patch the other day, and it seems to improve loading times! (Also probably in preparation for the PS5 compatibility)
I think what possibly happened here is that they tested it on the PS5 and found that the loading was longer than they'd like even with the SSD. So they went back and dug into the actual PS4 code to see what they could change. That way even the PS4 saw benefits to these changes. After all Remastered was released in 2014, and they've released three actual PS4 games since then, so they've learned a lot about how the console works.
Wow, the PS5 is so fast it even makes the PS4 console faster, too!
So despite the backlash this game got I still bought it on sale and first impressions are uh..
What happened here? How do you go from Left Behind to Ellie’s sexuality being presented with the subtlety of getting hit by a truck? Is Druckmann taking pages from Life is Strange or something? Fuck actually I think Life is Strange handled relationships better than this game is doing so far.
Right now it’s literally just the first game with a prone and dodge mechanic added in. Nothing else to say there.
I stopped at Joel’s death to write this. It’s bad yeah. I don’t think I can add anything meaningful except they somehow made a more disrespectful death than Kenny forgetting his seatbelt.
These new characters:
Overall looking back on the start of the game so far it feels like it’s rushing to kill Joel for no reason. I’m not against killing Joel but you could take another hour or two to give the characters more time to shine game? At least make the character who kills Joel interesting in some way beforehand.
I’ll make another post here when I finish the game.
What happened here? How do you go from Left Behind to Ellie’s sexuality being presented with the subtlety of getting hit by a truck?
I don't get this. It's out there, it's already been subtle-y teased (as subtle as a full lesbian kiss can be in Left Behind) so why should it be presented with the same attitude later down the line? (And it'd be hard to avoid the subject when you make that person your main character.)
So despite the backlash this game got I still bought it on sale and first impressions are uh..
(Spoiler)
I’ll make another post here when I finish the game.
Okay, after thinking about it for a bit now, I think what @Cocoa2736 is implying is in reference to Ellie and Dina's flirtatious scene in the dead weed warehouse.
A scene in which people lovingly talk to one another about their awkward feelings of affection towards each other is probably not what people were expecting from a game like TLOU, especially following the dark undertones of the first game's ending and might have been expecting more Joel and Ellie moments. I don't mind it, especially in how Joel's absence in the first 2 hours ties into the game's themes and specific reveals later, but I can understand the frustration behind it. He should be able to clarify when he's back online though.
Going off on a bit of a tangent here, since I just felt like mentioning something I don't think I've had the chance to yet, (end-game spoilers and themes below)
Joel's death sucks and it's supposed to. Yes, Joel's death is emotionally impacting for many. Yes, it made them mad. Yes, people are allowed to feel mad -- either at Naughty Dog for doing this or the character who kills him -- but don't be mad at the fact that they're making you mad, if you catch my drift.
This moment is supposed to be infuriating. You're supposed to be mad and dislike the fact that Joel dies, because Ellie does too. It's supposed to be this perfect unison of player and character motivation, where after seeing this beloved character die -- someone who you probably expected to see more of in the prologue or even had a larger country-spanning adventure with -- there's a huge sense of loss and missed opportunities and regret. It should -- if effectively handled and given time, which I think they really rushed through to get to Seattle unfortunately -- make the player find other motivations and goals in the game, hopefully aligning them with Ellie's misguided quest to do what you always do in video games when you're mad -- Murder with a capital M. Or, revenge.
This whole angry, unfulfilled struggle is one of the central elements of Ellie's arc in the game, being that while she resents Joel for taking away her choice to be a cure, she regrets pushing him away and burning their relationship in the process, because by the time she tries to forgive him for it and make reparations, it all gets taken away, and it was all for naught. "Stop dwelling on what could have been, and cherish what you already have" probably isn't the best message to send to your fans who have been waiting, theorizing and paying 60$+ for a sequel after 7 years, but it's an interesting way to try and tie-in these depressing feelings with the original game's near-unanimous praise.
I understand perfectly fine what they were trying to go for. They just failed miserably. Killing off a major character at the beginning of a sequel isn't an uncommon trope by any means. Sometimes it succeeds, this time it certainly didn't.
The death isn't bad because its supposed to be, it's bad because its bad. I wish I could feel like it's the otherway around, but I cannot possibly justify the shit they pulled.
Okay, after thinking about it for a bit now, I think what @Cocoa2736 is implying is in reference to Ellie and Dina's flirtatious scene in th… moree dead weed warehouse.
A scene in which people lovingly talk to one another about their awkward feelings of affection towards each other is probably not what people were expecting from a game like TLOU, especially following the dark undertones of the first game's ending and might have been expecting more Joel and Ellie moments. I don't mind it, especially in how Joel's absence in the first 2 hours ties into the game's themes and specific reveals later, but I can understand the frustration behind it. He should be able to clarify when he's back online though.
Going off on a bit of a tangent here, since I just felt like mentioning something I don't think I've had the chance to yet, (end-game spoilers and themes below)
(Spoiler)
I understand perfectly fine what they were trying to go for. They just failed miserably. Killing off a major character at the beginning of … morea sequel isn't an uncommon trope by any means. Sometimes it succeeds, this time it certainly didn't.
The death isn't bad because its supposed to be, it's bad because its bad. I wish I could feel like it's the otherway around, but I cannot possibly justify the shit they pulled.
i wish we could stop comparing whatever happened in this game with what happened in ANF. like it really diminishes how utterly awful and meaningless the ANF deaths were when u compare it to what happened to Joel. u still got a 25 hour game of ellie being salty about Joel and a whole ass conflict stirred up just bc of his death, anf gave us 10 minutes w our characters and their deaths werent even a plotpoint or relevant. lol
Because trusting strangers like that, even after killing and smuggling people for 20 years, was lazily written and forced. I don't see how that is completely in-character for Joel or even Tommy. Bill just told both Ellie and Joel that people are worse than infected because they can be very unpredictable. And what does Joel do in the sequel? Make a "Surprise Pikachu" face when Abby's group were looking at him. Living in a peaceful place for a small number of years is not an excuse of changing your view towards the people outside those walls. Most of them are either thieves, murderers or just survivors.
i wish we could stop comparing whatever happened in this game with what happened in ANF. like it really diminishes how utterly awful and mea… moreningless the ANF deaths were when u compare it to what happened to Joel. u still got a 25 hour game of ellie being salty about Joel and a whole ass conflict stirred up just bc of his death, anf gave us 10 minutes w our characters and their deaths werent even a plotpoint or relevant. lol
let me rephrase: u got a 15 hour game of ellie being salty about joel and a whole ass conflict just because of his death, then u get 10 more horus following his killer exploring why she killed him + some repercussions for his death
versus 10 minutes with kenny/jane and their stupid meaningless unexplored deaths
u still got a 25 hour game of ellie being salty about Joel and a whole ass conflict stirred up just bc of his death
Ellie was in the game for like 15 hours. Did I miss something?
So despite the backlash this game got I still bought it on sale and first impressions are uh..
(Spoiler)
I’ll make another post here when I finish the game.
100% agree with that. The only real similarity is that both games were decisive among the fanbase. ANF is probably one of the most corporate games ever made where interference from higher ups lead to a game with 0 identity and a complete production mess leading to a project with no passion or voice. TLOU2 is actually put together and has a voice and vision. People acting like the game where the main character from the last game dies and then the rest of the game is all about that characters death is somehow comparable to previous characters who show up just to die in the dumbest ways and are then forgotten about right after, or characters that fall of bridges and no one cares, or characters who literally disappear from the story randomly (Max cough cough) is somehow comparable to TLOU2 because you didn't agree with direction. TLOU2 is not a perfect game at all, it 100% has some flaws, but it is no where near comparable to ANF.
i wish we could stop comparing whatever happened in this game with what happened in ANF. like it really diminishes how utterly awful and mea… moreningless the ANF deaths were when u compare it to what happened to Joel. u still got a 25 hour game of ellie being salty about Joel and a whole ass conflict stirred up just bc of his death, anf gave us 10 minutes w our characters and their deaths werent even a plotpoint or relevant. lol
The Last of Us Part 2 has won the Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, along with three other awards! The other awards being Best Storytelling, Best Audio and Playstation Game of the Year ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Keep in mind that the results of the Golden Joystick Awards are based on public voting and not made by a panelist of judges or critics like the Game Awards (which also includes a voting system) but I'm sure that won't stop some people from claiming it only won because of so and so and such and such.
Surprised that neither Ashley Johnson or Laura Bailey won Best Performer though. That honour went to Sandraa Saad as Kamala Khan. Kudos for her!
I was worried the evil side of the internet would strike again, hate-voting in this first batch of awards, overturning many of the nominations to games other than TLOU. Glad to see that's not the case and my faith in the popularity (and positivity) surrounding this game is renewed.
Also yeah, can't say this game somehow isn't beloved anymore since it's literally won an audience-based vote.
The Last of Us Part 2 has won the Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, along with three other awards! The other awards b… moreeing Best Storytelling, Best Audio and Playstation Game of the Year ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Keep in mind that the results of the Golden Joystick Awards are based on public voting and not made by a panelist of judges or critics like the Game Awards (which also includes a voting system) but I'm sure that won't stop some people from claiming it only won because of so and so and such and such.
Surprised that neither Ashley Johnson or Laura Bailey won Best Performer though. That honour went to Sandraa Saad as Kamala Khan. Kudos for her!
Hey sorry I didn’t respond but I just wasn’t in the mood to discuss this right away.
Poor choice of words on my part. I mostly just think the relationship between Riley and Ellie has a better introduction and so far is stronger narratively than Ellie and Dina. Maybe their relationship gets better as the game goes on (and it’s starting to after Joel’s death) but right now I don’t really care about Dina at best and at worst the dialogue around their relationship was kind of cringey starting out.
I’m a firm believer that one of if not the most critical goal of storytelling is audience satisfaction. You can do almost anything with a story, as long as the audience is content with the direction it’s taking and is interested in knowing where it will go. I love the idea of why Joel died on paper (I was already spoiled on it). Even knowing that watching his death almost sapped my interest in the game. I really believe the idea of why he died could’ve been great, it’s just that how it’s delivered was a mess. How the audience is supposed to feel is insignificant compared to how the audience actually feels.
Okay, after thinking about it for a bit now, I think what @Cocoa2736 is implying is in reference to Ellie and Dina's flirtatious scene in th… moree dead weed warehouse.
A scene in which people lovingly talk to one another about their awkward feelings of affection towards each other is probably not what people were expecting from a game like TLOU, especially following the dark undertones of the first game's ending and might have been expecting more Joel and Ellie moments. I don't mind it, especially in how Joel's absence in the first 2 hours ties into the game's themes and specific reveals later, but I can understand the frustration behind it. He should be able to clarify when he's back online though.
Going off on a bit of a tangent here, since I just felt like mentioning something I don't think I've had the chance to yet, (end-game spoilers and themes below)
(Spoiler)
i wish we could stop comparing whatever happened in this game with what happened in ANF. like it really diminishes how utterly awful and mea… moreningless the ANF deaths were when u compare it to what happened to Joel. u still got a 25 hour game of ellie being salty about Joel and a whole ass conflict stirred up just bc of his death, anf gave us 10 minutes w our characters and their deaths werent even a plotpoint or relevant. lol
Also, I have to say that ANF did some things better than TLOU2.
Kenny's death, no matter what how much I hate it, is much better than Joel's death because at least he made some sort of a sacrifice for the children he cared for, Clem and AJ. Joel died because he was such an idiot to trust a girl who he had just met for a few seconds and didn't do anything for him.
Javier Garcia is a very likable character. He is charming, funny and caring. Unlike Abby who seems to care more for a child than her friends who she has been with for more than 5 years.
The game gave us the option to kill Gabe, who is easily the worst character of the entire franchise. TLOU2 could have been easily forgiven if they at least gave us an option to either kill Abby or spare her life because it's obvious that a lot of players don't agree with the ending we got. It wouldn't even affect the possible sequel anyway because it would be bullshit to just have Ellie and Abby meet up again when they are both far away from each other. If Naughty Dog intends to do that in TLOU3, I will never take this franchise seriously ever again.
i wish we could stop comparing whatever happened in this game with what happened in ANF. like it really diminishes how utterly awful and mea… moreningless the ANF deaths were when u compare it to what happened to Joel. u still got a 25 hour game of ellie being salty about Joel and a whole ass conflict stirred up just bc of his death, anf gave us 10 minutes w our characters and their deaths werent even a plotpoint or relevant. lol
Also yeah, can't say this game somehow isn't beloved anymore since it's literally won an audience-based vote.
Don't worry, I'm sure there are already some conspiracy theories floating around because clearly it can't be something as preposterous as people actually liking the game.
I was worried the evil side of the internet would strike again, hate-voting in this first batch of awards, overturning many of the nominatio… morens to games other than TLOU. Glad to see that's not the case and my faith in the popularity (and positivity) surrounding this game is renewed.
Also yeah, can't say this game somehow isn't beloved anymore since it's literally won an audience-based vote.
You see, to me what makes a good meaningful death isn't how the character dies. I don't need my characters to go out with some badass self-sacrificing rampage for me to consider their deaths well done, I need the death to have meaning and long lasting impact on the narrative, for the characters who were related to the dead character to react and change and progress in some way because of the death. Finally I need the death to make at least some narrative sense.
You wanted Joel to go out in a strong, honourable manner or at least on his own terms and in control of the situation, instead he died by being outsmarted, manipulated and incapacitated. If your criteria for what makes a good death is this then I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong, but to me the former isn't any more valuable than the latter.
There wasn't one single character in the franchise that wasn't affected by Joel's death. The narrative shook to its core and his death paved the whole narrative of the second game. You can hate the direction, you can dislike how he died, but you cannot deny that his death impacted literally everything the game did after it.
Kenny died in an incredibly contrived car crash. Did he sacrifice himself? You can consider telling Clem not to die with him a sacrifice, sure, and I'd be with you on that had the narrative, after his death, acknowledged this sacrifice, or really, acknowledged that he died at all! But it doesn't! Kenny, the character? His death? What he meant to Clem? They are all erased from the narrative completely. Just like Jane. Just like his actual sacrifice at Wellington. You never see Clem reacting to the deaths, dealing with them or being meaningfully affected by them in any way. The narrative forgets about the death of a main character just like that and it remains ignored until the last very second of the series.
Personally, to me, comparing these deaths is like comparing night and day. Kenny, Jane and Wellington's deaths are one of the trashiest things I've ever seen in fiction and what happened to Joel isn't even in the same universe of how those characters were treated and (dis)respected. If TLOU continues following Ellie or those that surrounded her during the second game I can almost say for certain that Joel will never be forgotten about. This was not true for some of the most important characters and moments of the TWDG.
I really don't want to start another back and forth or make this comment any longer but Javier was... ass. His character was shit through and through and a big part of the reason why ANF couldn't be good even ignoring how they treated the series' past. What you say about those two characters is to me incredibly superficial. Yes, Javi likes pudding and Abby is a bitch, but is that really what determines which characters are good or not to you?
Finally you're criticizing a game which has never and probably never will implement narrative decisions for not giving you a narrative decision. That's like complaining about a romcom not implementing horror elements.
Also, I have to say that ANF did some things better than TLOU2.
Kenny's death, no matter what how much I hate it, is much better than Joe… morel's death because at least he made some sort of a sacrifice for the children he cared for, Clem and AJ. Joel died because he was such an idiot to trust a girl who he had just met for a few seconds and didn't do anything for him.
Javier Garcia is a very likable character. He is charming, funny and caring. Unlike Abby who seems to care more for a child than her friends who she has been with for more than 5 years.
The game gave us the option to kill Gabe, who is easily the worst character of the entire franchise. TLOU2 could have been easily forgiven if they at least gave us an option to either kill Abby or spare her life because it's obvious that a lot of players don't agree with the ending we got. It wouldn't even affect the possible sequel anyway because it would be bullshit to just have Ellie and A… [view original content]
You wanted Joel to go out in a strong, honourable manner or at least on his own terms and in control of the situation, instead he died by being outsmarted, manipulated and incapacitated. If your criteria for what makes a good death is this then I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong, but to me the former isn't any more valuable than the latter.
All I wanted was a death that made a lot of sense, wasn't simple at all and took place NOT at the beginning of the game. How Joel died could have easily been written by a kid in 7th grade. I don't think I have ever heard of this trope of an important character dying at the beginning of a sequel actually work (Cough Cough Alien 3 Cough Cough). What I am saying is that if Joel was destined to die like that, then it makes the whole first game pointless. I cannot have the same feelings of the first game while replaying it without thinking about what happens in the future unless I pretend the sequel never happened. It all went down to zero. All these emotions went nowhere.
There wasn't one single character in the franchise that wasn't affected by Joel's death. The narrative shook to its core and his death paved the whole narrative of the second game. You can hate the direction, you can dislike how he died, but you cannot deny that his death impacted literally everything the game did after it.
Except most of the time in Abby's campaign, I was killing Scars, betraying the Wolves and making friends with former Scars. How was all of that affected by Joel's death actually? Owen decided to retire from the war with Scars because of ONE defenseless Scar who didn't fight back when Owen had him on sight. Abby chose to go along with his plan because he was her friend obviously. The wolves stabbed Abby in the back because she went AWOL for her own intentions. Abby saved Lev and Yara because they saved her life. She was still having nightmares with her father which means killing Joel did not change anything. The only thing Joel's death impacted Abby's shenanigans was the death of her friends and even if that's the main case, Abby is barely affected by them. Yes she did feel devastated towards them but she doesn't give any sign of depression from them during the epilogue. The only thing she suffered from is the Rattlers who tricked her into thinking they were Fireflies and took her as a prisoner/slave. Ellie did suffer PTSD but Abby didn't.
What I mean by all of this is that Abby's campaign would have been almost the same if it weren't for Joel's death. I didn't even think I was playing the same game while playing as her. It felt like a complete different story.
I really don't want to start another back and forth or make this comment any longer but Javier was... ass. His character was shit through and through and a big part of the reason why ANF couldn't be good even ignoring how they treated the series' past. What you say about those two characters is to me incredibly superficial. Yes, Javi likes pudding and Abby is a bitch, but is that really what determines which characters are good or not to you?
I didn't say his character was really good but Javier did not piss me off unlike Abby. Abby may be a badass when it comes to fighting people and infected but I can never relate to her own shenanigans. Her romance with Owen was cringey, forced and very LifeIsStrange-ish. Her revenge on Joel was evil as fuck. She just straight up went ahead and tortured him to death without actually telling him what he did to ruin her life, without having second thoughts about his choice of saving her life from infected and without thinking about his companions who never did anything to her and were witnessing her evil actions. Joel may have done some bad decisions and he is not a good person either but he had BETTER motivations than Abby could ever have. He never killed for fun, he killed for survival. He didn't kill those fireflies because he wanted to destroy humanity, he killed because he knew they wouldn't negotiate and just give up Ellie so easily. All he wanted was to not make the same mistake he did when he had Sarah. Abby doesn't even know why Joel killed her father and thinks her assumptions are the only way of acknowledging the whole reason. How can I actually relate to that? I can't tell if the game wanted me to hate her or sympathize with her.
Finally you're criticizing a game which has never and probably never will implement narrative decisions for not giving you a narrative decision. That's like complaining about a romcom not implementing horror elements.
You know that NON-make-your-own-story games with multiple endings do exist, right? Like Resident Evil Remake, the Far Cry games after FC2, The Darkness 2, Dying Light: The Following, Dishonored etc. If Naughty Dog wanted to do something new and unique, why not add ending choices for the story? That would have made a lot of players forgive the direction of the game.
You see, to me what makes a good meaningful death isn't how the character dies. I don't need my characters to go out with some badass self-s… moreacrificing rampage for me to consider their deaths well done, I need the death to have meaning and long lasting impact on the narrative, for the characters who were related to the dead character to react and change and progress in some way because of the death. Finally I need the death to make at least some narrative sense.
You wanted Joel to go out in a strong, honourable manner or at least on his own terms and in control of the situation, instead he died by being outsmarted, manipulated and incapacitated. If your criteria for what makes a good death is this then I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong, but to me the former isn't any more valuable than the latter.
There wasn't one single character in the franchise that wasn't affected by Joel's death. The narrative shook to its core and his death paved… [view original content]
You see, to me what makes a good meaningful death isn't how the character dies. I don't need my characters to go out with some badass self-s… moreacrificing rampage for me to consider their deaths well done, I need the death to have meaning and long lasting impact on the narrative, for the characters who were related to the dead character to react and change and progress in some way because of the death. Finally I need the death to make at least some narrative sense.
You wanted Joel to go out in a strong, honourable manner or at least on his own terms and in control of the situation, instead he died by being outsmarted, manipulated and incapacitated. If your criteria for what makes a good death is this then I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong, but to me the former isn't any more valuable than the latter.
There wasn't one single character in the franchise that wasn't affected by Joel's death. The narrative shook to its core and his death paved… [view original content]
You know that NON-make-your-own-story games with multiple endings do exist, right? Like Resident Evil Remake, the Far Cry games after FC2, The Darkness 2, Dying Light: The Following, Dishonored etc. If Naughty Dog wanted to do something new and unique, why not add ending choices for the story? That would have made a lot of players forgive the direction of the game.
That's kind of the point with TLOU though. Like the ending of the first game, many players didn't agree that they were forced to kill the doctors and save Ellie. You can shoot the doctor in the foot and he's dead lol, there's no choice, even if you disagree with Joel. So obviously they'd do the same kind of thing with Part II, where you're forced to reckon with decisions that the characters make.
You wanted Joel to go out in a strong, honourable manner or at least on his own terms and in control of the situation, instead he died by be… moreing outsmarted, manipulated and incapacitated. If your criteria for what makes a good death is this then I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong, but to me the former isn't any more valuable than the latter.
All I wanted was a death that made a lot of sense, wasn't simple at all and took place NOT at the beginning of the game. How Joel died could have easily been written by a kid in 7th grade. I don't think I have ever heard of this trope of an important character dying at the beginning of a sequel actually work (Cough Cough Alien 3 Cough Cough). What I am saying is that if Joel was destined to die like that, then it makes the whole first game pointless. I cannot have the same feelings of the first game while replaying it without thinking about what happens in the future unless I pretend the sequel ne… [view original content]
The only thing she suffered from is the Rattlers who tricked her into thinking they were Fireflies and took her as a prisoner/slave.
Y'know I never thought about this before. I assumed that the Fireflies in Santa Barbara were really there, but unfortunately as Abby and Lev were about to make their way to their camp, they get ambushed by Rattlers.
But that actually makes more sense if it's the Rattlers who were masquerading as Fireflies. They seemed to be waiting in front of the house, and there's no way they could find them that fast unless they picked up their radio chatter.
Doesn't explain how/why Owen thought the Fireflies had some reunion planned in Santa Barbara (did the Rattlers really want people to travel cross-country just to trap them?), but it's an interesting twist if there were never any fireflies there.
Her revenge on Joel was evil as fuck. She just straight up went ahead and tortured him to death without actually telling him what he did to ruin her life
To be fair, there's a good chunk of time where we don't know what happened between Joel getting clubbed golf-style, and lying on the floor with a mangled face and Ellie walks in. It's possible that while Abby was torturing him, she talked a bit about how he ruined her life. (And I'm sure she would want Joel to feel regret or guilt or some sort of remorse for what he did to her dad, even if it's just to save his own skin.)
And about Abby's story being disconnected and fairly unimportant to Ellie's Seattle journey, I'm gonna agree with you on that.
I think it's cool how we basically have two games in one in this entry, but it did dissapoint me that ND used this parallel-story device poorly. I was expecting to see events that played out in Ellie's 3 days in a different light or with different context, and we did with the Theatre fight, but apart from that most of the story is only lightly connected in small moments.
You wanted Joel to go out in a strong, honourable manner or at least on his own terms and in control of the situation, instead he died by be… moreing outsmarted, manipulated and incapacitated. If your criteria for what makes a good death is this then I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong, but to me the former isn't any more valuable than the latter.
All I wanted was a death that made a lot of sense, wasn't simple at all and took place NOT at the beginning of the game. How Joel died could have easily been written by a kid in 7th grade. I don't think I have ever heard of this trope of an important character dying at the beginning of a sequel actually work (Cough Cough Alien 3 Cough Cough). What I am saying is that if Joel was destined to die like that, then it makes the whole first game pointless. I cannot have the same feelings of the first game while replaying it without thinking about what happens in the future unless I pretend the sequel ne… [view original content]
All I wanted was a death that made a lot of sense (...) What I am saying is that if Joel was destined to die like that, then it makes the whole first game pointless. I cannot have the same feelings of the first game while replaying it without thinking about what happens in the future unless I pretend the sequel never happened. It all went down to zero. All these emotions went nowhere.
Well, I just disagree with everything you just said here and I'm not really up to discussing Joel's death again with you. I think we've both already said everything there was to say on that.
What I will touch upon though is you claiming Joel dying somehow makes the first game pointless? Did Lee's death make the whole TWDG S1 worthless? Again, who Joel was and what he did was very much not erased, it was the driving force of the whole game! I really can't see where you're coming from here.
Except most of the time in Abby's campaign...
When I said his death paved the way for the whole narrative I meant that every single theme and story arc the game builds upon is in some way or another related to the person Joel was, how it differently affected several different people and what his death left all those people with. NOT that every single event in this game is a direct consequence of his death in the literal sense.
You follow Abby's past for two big reasons: give context on why Joel was killed and show how Joel's actions affected this person's life for the worst. You follow Abby's present to see that killing Joel didn't heal her, something else did.
The thing is you are describing Abby's section on the game on a purposefully superficial manner. If you make no effort to look at the subtext of the game's events and don't try to understand what the narrative was trying to tell you, and when you do recognize subtext or themes you just end up dismissing them for no reason, then yes, Abby's journey will forever seem like an unrelated side adventure to you.
I didn't say his character was really good but Javier did not piss me off unlike Abby...
Abby is a horrible person who did despicable things. I agree with you! But my point is that that's NOT what makes a character be a bad character. Characters can be morally bad and still be good characters. Measuring who was the biggest asshole between Abby and Joel was not what I was trying to get at at all!
For example, Javier is not an asshole (mostly), yet he is to me a tremendously bad character.
You know that NON-make-your-own-story games with multiple endings do exist, right?
I'll follow with my analogy and assume that there's probably a romcom out there that managed to implement horror elements onto its narrative. So... do we start complaining every time a romcom doesn't include horror elements after that?
You wanted Joel to go out in a strong, honourable manner or at least on his own terms and in control of the situation, instead he died by be… moreing outsmarted, manipulated and incapacitated. If your criteria for what makes a good death is this then I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong, but to me the former isn't any more valuable than the latter.
All I wanted was a death that made a lot of sense, wasn't simple at all and took place NOT at the beginning of the game. How Joel died could have easily been written by a kid in 7th grade. I don't think I have ever heard of this trope of an important character dying at the beginning of a sequel actually work (Cough Cough Alien 3 Cough Cough). What I am saying is that if Joel was destined to die like that, then it makes the whole first game pointless. I cannot have the same feelings of the first game while replaying it without thinking about what happens in the future unless I pretend the sequel ne… [view original content]
The fact that you even asked that question made me chuckle. Lee died at the end of the game and Joel died at the beginning of the sequel. It's like comparing an apple with a banana.
Again, who Joel was and what he did was very much not erased, it was the driving force of the whole game! I really can't see where you're coming from here.
What I meant is that the relationship between him and Ellie is just pointless now. Whenever I watch some emotional scenes in the first game like Giraffe moment, I will never feel anything towards that moment anymore because Joel dies like a moron, his death isn't well paid off and Ellie becomes a one-dimensional trainwreck.
You follow Abby's present to see that killing Joel didn't heal her, something else did.
Yet she still didn't regret killing him and blamed Ellie for everything. Why she was surprised to see her friends getting killed is beyond me. She didn't even bother to warn Ellie not to come after her, she just let Jordan kick her in the face.
If you make no effort to look at the subtext of the game's events and don't try to understand what the narrative was trying to tell you, and when you do recognize subtext or themes you just end up dismissing them for no reason, then yes, Abby's journey will forever seem like an unrelated side adventure to you.
I understand it just alright but I still don't agree with it. Abby's campaign had no reason to be over 10 hours. I don't even understand why we had a whole chapter seeking medicine for Yara, only for her to die not 50 minutes later after being treated.
All I wanted was a death that made a lot of sense (...) What I am saying is that if Joel was destined to die like that, then it makes the wh… moreole first game pointless. I cannot have the same feelings of the first game while replaying it without thinking about what happens in the future unless I pretend the sequel never happened. It all went down to zero. All these emotions went nowhere.
Well, I just disagree with everything you just said here and I'm not really up to discussing Joel's death again with you. I think we've both already said everything there was to say on that.
What I will touch upon though is you claiming Joel dying somehow makes the first game pointless? Did Lee's death make the whole TWDG S1 worthless? Again, who Joel was and what he did was very much not erased, it was the driving force of the whole game! I really can't see where you're coming from here.
Except most of the time in Abby's campaign...
When … [view original content]
Again, who Joel was and what he did was very much not erased, it was the driving force of the whole game! I really can't see where you're coming from here.
I think I get it.
It's harder to appreciate and enjoy the first game's whole redemption arc, where Joel learns to open up again and try to improve as a person, when you know what his end point is. Getting ambushed and beaten to a pulp, while also having a distant, estranged relationship with Ellie.
In Lee's case, he dies protecting Clementine and does one last good deed in his dying breath.
Joel just has one bad day. He tries to help someone on a patrol and it blows up in his face.
Personally, I can still appreciate the first game (with a hint of sadness), but I get where Aron's coming from.
All I wanted was a death that made a lot of sense (...) What I am saying is that if Joel was destined to die like that, then it makes the wh… moreole first game pointless. I cannot have the same feelings of the first game while replaying it without thinking about what happens in the future unless I pretend the sequel never happened. It all went down to zero. All these emotions went nowhere.
Well, I just disagree with everything you just said here and I'm not really up to discussing Joel's death again with you. I think we've both already said everything there was to say on that.
What I will touch upon though is you claiming Joel dying somehow makes the first game pointless? Did Lee's death make the whole TWDG S1 worthless? Again, who Joel was and what he did was very much not erased, it was the driving force of the whole game! I really can't see where you're coming from here.
Except most of the time in Abby's campaign...
When … [view original content]
Truthfully, I didn't hate Abby--didnt exactly like her either, most of the time--but she wasn't the worst.
My problem with her had nothing to do with Joel(for a few innate reasons, mind) or even what she was gonna claim with Dina, but rather how I didn't really feel a whole lot of connection between her situation and how the rest of the story plays out. Between being kinda the same person in the first game, the famine of chances to reflect what's happening in Ellie's story, the Rattler stuff feeling like a Gravity Rush 2 situation, and perhaps just how long the fucking game is even as a cutscene movie, her and therefore a chunk of the story's ideas don't quite add up in an accessible nevermind satisfying way.
The fact that you even asked that question made me chuckle. Lee died at the end of the game and Joel died at the beginning of the sequel. It's like comparing an apple with a banana.
I fail to see what dying at the end of a game as opposed to the beginning has anything to do with anything? Either a character dying erases the value of every moment you spent with them or it doesn't.
What I meant is that the relationship between him and Ellie is just pointless now. Whenever I watch some emotional scenes in the first game like Giraffe moment, I will never feel anything towards that moment anymore because Joel dies like a moron, his death isn't well paid off and Ellie becomes a one-dimensional trainwreck.
Now this is more substantial. If you believe Joel or Ellie's characters got ruined and misrepresented by the second game I could see how your past experience could be soured (not completely pointless and erased), but well, I don't share that same opinion at all. I think they were fine and I am not up to have a lengthy back and forth about it, nothing personal.
Yet she still didn't regret killing him and blamed Ellie for everything. Why she was surprised to see her friends getting killed is beyond me. She didn't even bother to warn Ellie not to come after her, she just let Jordan kick her in the face.
Again, you don't need to convince me that Abby is a bad person and that was she did was immoral. I know torturing people to death is a bad thing! I think she is an ok character despite being an awful human being, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Being a goody two shoes does not equate to being a good character to me (and I'm also not saying that morally good, honourable characters can't be good characters).
I wouldn't have liked it for Abby to regret killing Joel if I'm being honest with you. I think that would've been unnecessary, uninteresting and wouldn't help the message of the game in a significant way. Maybe it would've made Abby more likeable, I mean, sure, but I didn't need Abby to be extremely likeable or a good person for the messaging of the game to work. One of the biggest points of the game is to showcase how messed up, unhealthy and destructive Abby's obsession was, so yeah, Abby too had to be messed up, unhealthy and destructive.
Perhaps they could've done more on emphasizing the dread and emptiness Abby continued to feel even after she got what she wanted, yeah, but regret over killing your dad's killer? Meh. That's a theme more tonally compatible with The Walking Dead.
I understand it just alright but I still don't agree with it. Abby's campaign had no reason to be over 10 hours. I don't even understand why we had a whole chapter seeking medicine for Yara, only for her to die not 50 minutes later after being treated.
Then fine, you disagree with the direction the game took. I knew this! We aren't even talking about the original point any more. Kenny's death sucks a lot!
(And to not leave the Yara thing unaddressed I believe we spend some time focusing on Abby helping those two scars to show that what was really keeping Abby in a shit place wasn't the fact that she hadn't fulfilled her revenge yet, it was that she was a shit person who kept doing shitty things because she was involved in pointless warfare that kept catching innocents in its crossfire. Once she stopped doing that her demons ceased a bit. Yara's death doesn't erase Abby's progression.)
Did Lee's death make the whole TWDG S1 worthless?
The fact that you even asked that question made me chuckle. Lee died at the end of… more the game and Joel died at the beginning of the sequel. It's like comparing an apple with a banana.
Again, who Joel was and what he did was very much not erased, it was the driving force of the whole game! I really can't see where you're coming from here.
What I meant is that the relationship between him and Ellie is just pointless now. Whenever I watch some emotional scenes in the first game like Giraffe moment, I will never feel anything towards that moment anymore because Joel dies like a moron, his death isn't well paid off and Ellie becomes a one-dimensional trainwreck.
You follow Abby's present to see that killing Joel didn't heal her, something else did.
Yet she still didn't regret killing him and blamed Ellie for everything. Why she was surprised to see her friends gett… [view original content]
I understand how knowing how something ends affects your perception of it when you revisit it. What I don't understand is something completely losing it's value and your past experience being completely erased by it. I absolutely hate everything the walking dead games did after season 2, but that never meant to me that season one as its stand alone journey became void of its thematic value or that my enjoyment first watching and rewatching it stopped being real and deserved.
Moving on, Lee dies in an honourable manner and Joel dies in a dishonourable manner. I strongly believe believe that one approach isn't intrinsically better than the other, they just have to fit the narrative and message the writer is trying to convey and I think Joel's death does that. I don't think I writer should shy away from giving characters grim endings because it might add a sour note to past instalments. I believe writers should write forward, focusing on what the first experience is and not what the revisit might be. This is personal. You can disagree and I won't tell you that you're wrong. It how you consume fiction, not me.
And as a side note: I don't see the first game as a journey about redemption at all. I see it as Joel slowly finding the ability to love again after the loss of his daughter. In the process of finding it Joel still commits what was probably the biggest atrocity of his life. We end the game with him lying to Ellie's face about... well, everything. I don't look at Joel at the end of part 1 and see a good man, I look at him and see someone who cares about someone other than himself again.
Again, who Joel was and what he did was very much not erased, it was the driving force of the whole game! I really can't see where you're co… moreming from here.
I think I get it.
It's harder to appreciate and enjoy the first game's whole redemption arc, where Joel learns to open up again and try to improve as a person, when you know what his end point is. Getting ambushed and beaten to a pulp, while also having a distant, estranged relationship with Ellie.
In Lee's case, he dies protecting Clementine and does one last good deed in his dying breath.
Joel just has one bad day. He tries to help someone on a patrol and it blows up in his face.
Personally, I can still appreciate the first game (with a hint of sadness), but I get where Aron's coming from.
Javier? I think I got from Javier the same I expect to get from a secondary character, yet he was our lead.
He had no strong values or characteristics that made him interesting enough to carry any narrative. He didn't progress throughout the whole game. He doesn't have an arc. He doesn't learn anything. He isn't and introspective character and is never put in any situation that ever makes him question anything about himself or the situations surrounding him. He has no agency in the narrative and is instead dragged along it for the entirety of the game. The characters around him are the action and he is someone that only ever moves because another character had to make the wave.
What is perhaps the one thing he has going on for him is his relationships with David, Kate and Gabe and even those were heavily flawed and superficially explored.
It's that Lee dies doing something & leaves something construed as a positive behind at the end of his life story, whereas Joel did something ultimately...egocentric(with less ego, mind?) and eventually got beaten to death for it, sparking even more death and darkness to go with the previous.
Abby is unhealthy
See, this is sort of another example of what I'm talking about. Maybe it really could've used bit more to get it to stick, cause otherwise, Abby comes across as your standard "strong and reliable, but mostly stern" character for most of her story.
Joel commits atrocity
This. It's the objective takeaway and by extension, the dissonance between what actually happened and why a lot of people felt so strongly about him dying.
Javier
Now that, I agreed with. I distinctly remember raising vaguely related concerns about his character back then and it indirectly shines to part of why I was much more about characters like Kate and later Gabe.
The fact that you even asked that question made me chuckle. Lee died at the end of the game and Joel died at the beginning of the sequel. It… more's like comparing an apple with a banana.
I fail to see what dying at the end of a game as opposed to the beginning has anything to do with anything? Either a character dying erases the value of every moment you spent with them or it doesn't.
What I meant is that the relationship between him and Ellie is just pointless now. Whenever I watch some emotional scenes in the first game like Giraffe moment, I will never feel anything towards that moment anymore because Joel dies like a moron, his death isn't well paid off and Ellie becomes a one-dimensional trainwreck.
Now this is more substantial. If you believe Joel or Ellie's characters got ruined and misrepresented by the second game I could see how your past experience could be soured (not completely pointless and erased), but well, I … [view original content]
Comments
I think the problem is Youtube can't stop advertising them for him. (though I haven't seen a lick of new promo stuff in months) I can't see Aron willingly look at anything Part II related for the next 3 years.
I mean in general
i like the last of us and its setting and i hope they make more games exploring its universe (not necessarily following Ellie).
Everytime someone posts in this thread, Aron'll get notified about it. I discussed it with him and he just wants to distance himself from TLOU for now... Something that would be pretty hard if this thread stays active.
Take your discussion over here.
Edit: Welp, we're here now...
1.6 thousand comments?? That's how much was in the last thread? Holy shit.
Thanks mods. Or mod. Either Dojo or blind.
i really wanted to be first
My thread, my rules, Ironwood.
Welcome to anarchy. (no wait, that happened 4 months ago.)
I kid, I kid,
The Last of Us Remastered just randomly got a patch the other day, and it seems to improve loading times! (Also probably in preparation for the PS5 compatibility)
someone on reddit thinks it's because of this:
Wow, the PS5 is so fast it even makes the PS4 console faster, too!
So despite the backlash this game got I still bought it on sale and first impressions are uh..
What happened here? How do you go from Left Behind to Ellie’s sexuality being presented with the subtlety of getting hit by a truck? Is Druckmann taking pages from Life is Strange or something? Fuck actually I think Life is Strange handled relationships better than this game is doing so far.
Right now it’s literally just the first game with a prone and dodge mechanic added in. Nothing else to say there.
I stopped at Joel’s death to write this. It’s bad yeah. I don’t think I can add anything meaningful except they somehow made a more disrespectful death than Kenny forgetting his seatbelt.
These new characters:
Overall looking back on the start of the game so far it feels like it’s rushing to kill Joel for no reason. I’m not against killing Joel but you could take another hour or two to give the characters more time to shine game? At least make the character who kills Joel interesting in some way beforehand.
I’ll make another post here when I finish the game.
I don't get this. It's out there, it's already been subtle-y teased (as subtle as a full lesbian kiss can be in Left Behind) so why should it be presented with the same attitude later down the line? (And it'd be hard to avoid the subject when you make that person your main character.)
Agreed, to be honest, I find it weirder if a game tries to be subtle about that subject matter. It really shouldn't.
Okay, after thinking about it for a bit now, I think what @Cocoa2736 is implying is in reference to Ellie and Dina's flirtatious scene in the dead weed warehouse.
A scene in which people lovingly talk to one another about their awkward feelings of affection towards each other is probably not what people were expecting from a game like TLOU, especially following the dark undertones of the first game's ending and might have been expecting more Joel and Ellie moments. I don't mind it, especially in how Joel's absence in the first 2 hours ties into the game's themes and specific reveals later, but I can understand the frustration behind it. He should be able to clarify when he's back online though.
Going off on a bit of a tangent here, since I just felt like mentioning something I don't think I've had the chance to yet, (end-game spoilers and themes below)
Joel's death sucks and it's supposed to. Yes, Joel's death is emotionally impacting for many. Yes, it made them mad. Yes, people are allowed to feel mad -- either at Naughty Dog for doing this or the character who kills him -- but don't be mad at the fact that they're making you mad, if you catch my drift.
This moment is supposed to be infuriating. You're supposed to be mad and dislike the fact that Joel dies, because Ellie does too. It's supposed to be this perfect unison of player and character motivation, where after seeing this beloved character die -- someone who you probably expected to see more of in the prologue or even had a larger country-spanning adventure with -- there's a huge sense of loss and missed opportunities and regret. It should -- if effectively handled and given time, which I think they really rushed through to get to Seattle unfortunately -- make the player find other motivations and goals in the game, hopefully aligning them with Ellie's misguided quest to do what you always do in video games when you're mad -- Murder with a capital M. Or, revenge.
This whole angry, unfulfilled struggle is one of the central elements of Ellie's arc in the game, being that while she resents Joel for taking away her choice to be a cure, she regrets pushing him away and burning their relationship in the process, because by the time she tries to forgive him for it and make reparations, it all gets taken away, and it was all for naught.
"Stop dwelling on what could have been, and cherish what you already have" probably isn't the best message to send to your fans who have been waiting, theorizing and paying 60$+ for a sequel after 7 years, but it's an interesting way to try and tie-in these depressing feelings with the original game's near-unanimous praise.
I understand perfectly fine what they were trying to go for. They just failed miserably. Killing off a major character at the beginning of a sequel isn't an uncommon trope by any means. Sometimes it succeeds, this time it certainly didn't.
The death isn't bad because its supposed to be, it's bad because its bad. I wish I could feel like it's the otherway around, but I cannot possibly justify the shit they pulled.
Why is it bad?
i wish we could stop comparing whatever happened in this game with what happened in ANF. like it really diminishes how utterly awful and meaningless the ANF deaths were when u compare it to what happened to Joel. u still got a 25 hour game of ellie being salty about Joel and a whole ass conflict stirred up just bc of his death, anf gave us 10 minutes w our characters and their deaths werent even a plotpoint or relevant. lol
Because trusting strangers like that, even after killing and smuggling people for 20 years, was lazily written and forced. I don't see how that is completely in-character for Joel or even Tommy. Bill just told both Ellie and Joel that people are worse than infected because they can be very unpredictable. And what does Joel do in the sequel? Make a "Surprise Pikachu" face when Abby's group were looking at him. Living in a peaceful place for a small number of years is not an excuse of changing your view towards the people outside those walls. Most of them are either thieves, murderers or just survivors.
Ellie was in the game for like 15 hours. Did I miss something?
let me rephrase: u got a 15 hour game of ellie being salty about joel and a whole ass conflict just because of his death, then u get 10 more horus following his killer exploring why she killed him + some repercussions for his death
versus 10 minutes with kenny/jane and their stupid meaningless unexplored deaths
but go off and defend anf king
Yeah, the points about Joel and especially the new characters are kinda egregious.
100% agree with that. The only real similarity is that both games were decisive among the fanbase. ANF is probably one of the most corporate games ever made where interference from higher ups lead to a game with 0 identity and a complete production mess leading to a project with no passion or voice. TLOU2 is actually put together and has a voice and vision. People acting like the game where the main character from the last game dies and then the rest of the game is all about that characters death is somehow comparable to previous characters who show up just to die in the dumbest ways and are then forgotten about right after, or characters that fall of bridges and no one cares, or characters who literally disappear from the story randomly (Max cough cough) is somehow comparable to TLOU2 because you didn't agree with direction. TLOU2 is not a perfect game at all, it 100% has some flaws, but it is no where near comparable to ANF.
Did I mention the stuff that changed or got cut here?
The Last of Us Part 2 has won the Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, along with three other awards! The other awards being Best Storytelling, Best Audio and Playstation Game of the Year ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Keep in mind that the results of the Golden Joystick Awards are based on public voting and not made by a panelist of judges or critics like the Game Awards (which also includes a voting system) but I'm sure that won't stop some people from claiming it only won because of so and so and such and such.
Surprised that neither Ashley Johnson or Laura Bailey won Best Performer though. That honour went to Sandraa Saad as Kamala Khan. Kudos for her!
I was worried the evil side of the internet would strike again, hate-voting in this first batch of awards, overturning many of the nominations to games other than TLOU. Glad to see that's not the case and my faith in the popularity (and positivity) surrounding this game is renewed.
Also yeah, can't say this game somehow isn't beloved anymore since it's literally won an audience-based vote.
Hey sorry I didn’t respond but I just wasn’t in the mood to discuss this right away.
Poor choice of words on my part. I mostly just think the relationship between Riley and Ellie has a better introduction and so far is stronger narratively than Ellie and Dina. Maybe their relationship gets better as the game goes on (and it’s starting to after Joel’s death) but right now I don’t really care about Dina at best and at worst the dialogue around their relationship was kind of cringey starting out.
I’m a firm believer that one of if not the most critical goal of storytelling is audience satisfaction. You can do almost anything with a story, as long as the audience is content with the direction it’s taking and is interested in knowing where it will go. I love the idea of why Joel died on paper (I was already spoiled on it). Even knowing that watching his death almost sapped my interest in the game. I really believe the idea of why he died could’ve been great, it’s just that how it’s delivered was a mess. How the audience is supposed to feel is insignificant compared to how the audience actually feels.
I honestly think Kenny’s death in ANF was better than Joel’s death in Part 2. I brought it up because I didn’t think that was even possible.
Also, I have to say that ANF did some things better than TLOU2.
Kenny's death, no matter what how much I hate it, is much better than Joel's death because at least he made some sort of a sacrifice for the children he cared for, Clem and AJ. Joel died because he was such an idiot to trust a girl who he had just met for a few seconds and didn't do anything for him.
Javier Garcia is a very likable character. He is charming, funny and caring. Unlike Abby who seems to care more for a child than her friends who she has been with for more than 5 years.
The game gave us the option to kill Gabe, who is easily the worst character of the entire franchise. TLOU2 could have been easily forgiven if they at least gave us an option to either kill Abby or spare her life because it's obvious that a lot of players don't agree with the ending we got. It wouldn't even affect the possible sequel anyway because it would be bullshit to just have Ellie and Abby meet up again when they are both far away from each other. If Naughty Dog intends to do that in TLOU3, I will never take this franchise seriously ever again.
Don't worry, I'm sure there are already some conspiracy theories floating around because clearly it can't be something as preposterous as people actually liking the game.
You see, to me what makes a good meaningful death isn't how the character dies. I don't need my characters to go out with some badass self-sacrificing rampage for me to consider their deaths well done, I need the death to have meaning and long lasting impact on the narrative, for the characters who were related to the dead character to react and change and progress in some way because of the death. Finally I need the death to make at least some narrative sense.
You wanted Joel to go out in a strong, honourable manner or at least on his own terms and in control of the situation, instead he died by being outsmarted, manipulated and incapacitated. If your criteria for what makes a good death is this then I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong, but to me the former isn't any more valuable than the latter.
There wasn't one single character in the franchise that wasn't affected by Joel's death. The narrative shook to its core and his death paved the whole narrative of the second game. You can hate the direction, you can dislike how he died, but you cannot deny that his death impacted literally everything the game did after it.
Kenny died in an incredibly contrived car crash. Did he sacrifice himself? You can consider telling Clem not to die with him a sacrifice, sure, and I'd be with you on that had the narrative, after his death, acknowledged this sacrifice, or really, acknowledged that he died at all! But it doesn't! Kenny, the character? His death? What he meant to Clem? They are all erased from the narrative completely. Just like Jane. Just like his actual sacrifice at Wellington. You never see Clem reacting to the deaths, dealing with them or being meaningfully affected by them in any way. The narrative forgets about the death of a main character just like that and it remains ignored until the last very second of the series.
Personally, to me, comparing these deaths is like comparing night and day. Kenny, Jane and Wellington's deaths are one of the trashiest things I've ever seen in fiction and what happened to Joel isn't even in the same universe of how those characters were treated and (dis)respected. If TLOU continues following Ellie or those that surrounded her during the second game I can almost say for certain that Joel will never be forgotten about. This was not true for some of the most important characters and moments of the TWDG.
I really don't want to start another back and forth or make this comment any longer but Javier was... ass. His character was shit through and through and a big part of the reason why ANF couldn't be good even ignoring how they treated the series' past. What you say about those two characters is to me incredibly superficial. Yes, Javi likes pudding and Abby is a bitch, but is that really what determines which characters are good or not to you?
Finally you're criticizing a game which has never and probably never will implement narrative decisions for not giving you a narrative decision. That's like complaining about a romcom not implementing horror elements.
All I wanted was a death that made a lot of sense, wasn't simple at all and took place NOT at the beginning of the game. How Joel died could have easily been written by a kid in 7th grade. I don't think I have ever heard of this trope of an important character dying at the beginning of a sequel actually work (Cough Cough Alien 3 Cough Cough). What I am saying is that if Joel was destined to die like that, then it makes the whole first game pointless. I cannot have the same feelings of the first game while replaying it without thinking about what happens in the future unless I pretend the sequel never happened. It all went down to zero. All these emotions went nowhere.
Except most of the time in Abby's campaign, I was killing Scars, betraying the Wolves and making friends with former Scars. How was all of that affected by Joel's death actually? Owen decided to retire from the war with Scars because of ONE defenseless Scar who didn't fight back when Owen had him on sight. Abby chose to go along with his plan because he was her friend obviously. The wolves stabbed Abby in the back because she went AWOL for her own intentions. Abby saved Lev and Yara because they saved her life. She was still having nightmares with her father which means killing Joel did not change anything. The only thing Joel's death impacted Abby's shenanigans was the death of her friends and even if that's the main case, Abby is barely affected by them. Yes she did feel devastated towards them but she doesn't give any sign of depression from them during the epilogue. The only thing she suffered from is the Rattlers who tricked her into thinking they were Fireflies and took her as a prisoner/slave. Ellie did suffer PTSD but Abby didn't.
What I mean by all of this is that Abby's campaign would have been almost the same if it weren't for Joel's death. I didn't even think I was playing the same game while playing as her. It felt like a complete different story.
I didn't say his character was really good but Javier did not piss me off unlike Abby. Abby may be a badass when it comes to fighting people and infected but I can never relate to her own shenanigans. Her romance with Owen was cringey, forced and very LifeIsStrange-ish. Her revenge on Joel was evil as fuck. She just straight up went ahead and tortured him to death without actually telling him what he did to ruin her life, without having second thoughts about his choice of saving her life from infected and without thinking about his companions who never did anything to her and were witnessing her evil actions. Joel may have done some bad decisions and he is not a good person either but he had BETTER motivations than Abby could ever have. He never killed for fun, he killed for survival. He didn't kill those fireflies because he wanted to destroy humanity, he killed because he knew they wouldn't negotiate and just give up Ellie so easily. All he wanted was to not make the same mistake he did when he had Sarah. Abby doesn't even know why Joel killed her father and thinks her assumptions are the only way of acknowledging the whole reason. How can I actually relate to that? I can't tell if the game wanted me to hate her or sympathize with her.
You know that NON-make-your-own-story games with multiple endings do exist, right? Like Resident Evil Remake, the Far Cry games after FC2, The Darkness 2, Dying Light: The Following, Dishonored etc. If Naughty Dog wanted to do something new and unique, why not add ending choices for the story? That would have made a lot of players forgive the direction of the game.
What was wrong with him?
That's kind of the point with TLOU though. Like the ending of the first game, many players didn't agree that they were forced to kill the doctors and save Ellie. You can shoot the doctor in the foot and he's dead lol, there's no choice, even if you disagree with Joel. So obviously they'd do the same kind of thing with Part II, where you're forced to reckon with decisions that the characters make.
Y'know I never thought about this before. I assumed that the Fireflies in Santa Barbara were really there, but unfortunately as Abby and Lev were about to make their way to their camp, they get ambushed by Rattlers.
But that actually makes more sense if it's the Rattlers who were masquerading as Fireflies. They seemed to be waiting in front of the house, and there's no way they could find them that fast unless they picked up their radio chatter.
Doesn't explain how/why Owen thought the Fireflies had some reunion planned in Santa Barbara (did the Rattlers really want people to travel cross-country just to trap them?), but it's an interesting twist if there were never any fireflies there.
To be fair, there's a good chunk of time where we don't know what happened between Joel getting clubbed golf-style, and lying on the floor with a mangled face and Ellie walks in. It's possible that while Abby was torturing him, she talked a bit about how he ruined her life. (And I'm sure she would want Joel to feel regret or guilt or some sort of remorse for what he did to her dad, even if it's just to save his own skin.)
And about Abby's story being disconnected and fairly unimportant to Ellie's Seattle journey, I'm gonna agree with you on that.
I think it's cool how we basically have two games in one in this entry, but it did dissapoint me that ND used this parallel-story device poorly. I was expecting to see events that played out in Ellie's 3 days in a different light or with different context, and we did with the Theatre fight, but apart from that most of the story is only lightly connected in small moments.
Well, I just disagree with everything you just said here and I'm not really up to discussing Joel's death again with you. I think we've both already said everything there was to say on that.
What I will touch upon though is you claiming Joel dying somehow makes the first game pointless? Did Lee's death make the whole TWDG S1 worthless? Again, who Joel was and what he did was very much not erased, it was the driving force of the whole game! I really can't see where you're coming from here.
When I said his death paved the way for the whole narrative I meant that every single theme and story arc the game builds upon is in some way or another related to the person Joel was, how it differently affected several different people and what his death left all those people with. NOT that every single event in this game is a direct consequence of his death in the literal sense.
You follow Abby's past for two big reasons: give context on why Joel was killed and show how Joel's actions affected this person's life for the worst. You follow Abby's present to see that killing Joel didn't heal her, something else did.
The thing is you are describing Abby's section on the game on a purposefully superficial manner. If you make no effort to look at the subtext of the game's events and don't try to understand what the narrative was trying to tell you, and when you do recognize subtext or themes you just end up dismissing them for no reason, then yes, Abby's journey will forever seem like an unrelated side adventure to you.
Abby is a horrible person who did despicable things. I agree with you! But my point is that that's NOT what makes a character be a bad character. Characters can be morally bad and still be good characters. Measuring who was the biggest asshole between Abby and Joel was not what I was trying to get at at all!
For example, Javier is not an asshole (mostly), yet he is to me a tremendously bad character.
I'll follow with my analogy and assume that there's probably a romcom out there that managed to implement horror elements onto its narrative. So... do we start complaining every time a romcom doesn't include horror elements after that?
The fact that you even asked that question made me chuckle. Lee died at the end of the game and Joel died at the beginning of the sequel. It's like comparing an apple with a banana.
What I meant is that the relationship between him and Ellie is just pointless now. Whenever I watch some emotional scenes in the first game like Giraffe moment, I will never feel anything towards that moment anymore because Joel dies like a moron, his death isn't well paid off and Ellie becomes a one-dimensional trainwreck.
Yet she still didn't regret killing him and blamed Ellie for everything. Why she was surprised to see her friends getting killed is beyond me. She didn't even bother to warn Ellie not to come after her, she just let Jordan kick her in the face.
I understand it just alright but I still don't agree with it. Abby's campaign had no reason to be over 10 hours. I don't even understand why we had a whole chapter seeking medicine for Yara, only for her to die not 50 minutes later after being treated.
I think I get it.
It's harder to appreciate and enjoy the first game's whole redemption arc, where Joel learns to open up again and try to improve as a person, when you know what his end point is. Getting ambushed and beaten to a pulp, while also having a distant, estranged relationship with Ellie.
In Lee's case, he dies protecting Clementine and does one last good deed in his dying breath.
Joel just has one bad day. He tries to help someone on a patrol and it blows up in his face.
Personally, I can still appreciate the first game (with a hint of sadness), but I get where Aron's coming from.
Truthfully, I didn't hate Abby--didnt exactly like her either, most of the time--but she wasn't the worst.
My problem with her had nothing to do with Joel(for a few innate reasons, mind) or even what she was gonna claim with Dina, but rather how I didn't really feel a whole lot of connection between her situation and how the rest of the story plays out. Between being kinda the same person in the first game, the famine of chances to reflect what's happening in Ellie's story, the Rattler stuff feeling like a Gravity Rush 2 situation, and perhaps just how long the fucking game is even as a cutscene movie, her and therefore a chunk of the story's ideas don't quite add up in an accessible nevermind satisfying way.
I fail to see what dying at the end of a game as opposed to the beginning has anything to do with anything? Either a character dying erases the value of every moment you spent with them or it doesn't.
Now this is more substantial. If you believe Joel or Ellie's characters got ruined and misrepresented by the second game I could see how your past experience could be soured (not completely pointless and erased), but well, I don't share that same opinion at all. I think they were fine and I am not up to have a lengthy back and forth about it, nothing personal.
Again, you don't need to convince me that Abby is a bad person and that was she did was immoral. I know torturing people to death is a bad thing! I think she is an ok character despite being an awful human being, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Being a goody two shoes does not equate to being a good character to me (and I'm also not saying that morally good, honourable characters can't be good characters).
I wouldn't have liked it for Abby to regret killing Joel if I'm being honest with you. I think that would've been unnecessary, uninteresting and wouldn't help the message of the game in a significant way. Maybe it would've made Abby more likeable, I mean, sure, but I didn't need Abby to be extremely likeable or a good person for the messaging of the game to work. One of the biggest points of the game is to showcase how messed up, unhealthy and destructive Abby's obsession was, so yeah, Abby too had to be messed up, unhealthy and destructive.
Perhaps they could've done more on emphasizing the dread and emptiness Abby continued to feel even after she got what she wanted, yeah, but regret over killing your dad's killer? Meh. That's a theme more tonally compatible with The Walking Dead.
Then fine, you disagree with the direction the game took. I knew this! We aren't even talking about the original point any more. Kenny's death sucks a lot!
(And to not leave the Yara thing unaddressed I believe we spend some time focusing on Abby helping those two scars to show that what was really keeping Abby in a shit place wasn't the fact that she hadn't fulfilled her revenge yet, it was that she was a shit person who kept doing shitty things because she was involved in pointless warfare that kept catching innocents in its crossfire. Once she stopped doing that her demons ceased a bit. Yara's death doesn't erase Abby's progression.)
I understand how knowing how something ends affects your perception of it when you revisit it. What I don't understand is something completely losing it's value and your past experience being completely erased by it. I absolutely hate everything the walking dead games did after season 2, but that never meant to me that season one as its stand alone journey became void of its thematic value or that my enjoyment first watching and rewatching it stopped being real and deserved.
Moving on, Lee dies in an honourable manner and Joel dies in a dishonourable manner. I strongly believe believe that one approach isn't intrinsically better than the other, they just have to fit the narrative and message the writer is trying to convey and I think Joel's death does that. I don't think I writer should shy away from giving characters grim endings because it might add a sour note to past instalments. I believe writers should write forward, focusing on what the first experience is and not what the revisit might be. This is personal. You can disagree and I won't tell you that you're wrong. It how you consume fiction, not me.
And as a side note: I don't see the first game as a journey about redemption at all. I see it as Joel slowly finding the ability to love again after the loss of his daughter. In the process of finding it Joel still commits what was probably the biggest atrocity of his life. We end the game with him lying to Ellie's face about... well, everything. I don't look at Joel at the end of part 1 and see a good man, I look at him and see someone who cares about someone other than himself again.
Javier? I think I got from Javier the same I expect to get from a secondary character, yet he was our lead.
He had no strong values or characteristics that made him interesting enough to carry any narrative. He didn't progress throughout the whole game. He doesn't have an arc. He doesn't learn anything. He isn't and introspective character and is never put in any situation that ever makes him question anything about himself or the situations surrounding him. He has no agency in the narrative and is instead dragged along it for the entirety of the game. The characters around him are the action and he is someone that only ever moves because another character had to make the wave.
What is perhaps the one thing he has going on for him is his relationships with David, Kate and Gabe and even those were heavily flawed and superficially explored.
It's that Lee dies doing something & leaves something construed as a positive behind at the end of his life story, whereas Joel did something ultimately...egocentric(with less ego, mind?) and eventually got beaten to death for it, sparking even more death and darkness to go with the previous.
See, this is sort of another example of what I'm talking about. Maybe it really could've used bit more to get it to stick, cause otherwise, Abby comes across as your standard "strong and reliable, but mostly stern" character for most of her story.
This. It's the objective takeaway and by extension, the dissonance between what actually happened and why a lot of people felt so strongly about him dying.
Now that, I agreed with. I distinctly remember raising vaguely related concerns about his character back then and it indirectly shines to part of why I was much more about characters like Kate and later Gabe.