TLOU 2 (Spoilers inside)
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So, I just finished TLOU 2. The gameplay was a bit repetitive and meh (just like in the first part), but the story was interesting and refreshingly different from the average post-apocalypse game. I would buy it again.
Now that I've played the game, can anyone explain to me what all that fuss and review-bombing was about? I understand that not everyone might like this game, its story and the way it's structured, but if you're surprised by the big plot twist or the moral ambiguity, you haven't paid attention in part 1. And I didn't see any political controversies that apparently some people found within the game. (The accusation was already ridiculous with Far Cry 5, but it seems even more ridiculous here.)
Does anybody understand what the hell the big controversy is even about?
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@dfdub I haven't played either game, but I've heard enough talk about the controversy to have some idea:
- Guy named Joel was the hero of the first game. People liked Joel and empathized with him because they played as him. Joel in the first game was pretty paranoid, down to not even giving his name out to strangers, because he's living in a post-apocalyptic mess where everyone's out to kill him.
- In the second game, you never get to play as Joel.
- Early on, Joel tells some random person his name. This is completely out of character. Random person then proceeds to kill him, in a horribly brutal way.
- You then have to play as that random newcomer who just murdered your favorite character.
- Perspective eventually switches to Joel's adopted daughter (?) who's trying to hunt down random-murder-girl. She proceeds to murder her way through a swathe of everyone random-murder-girl has ever lover or cared about, to try to get to her.
- Eventually it comes out that random-murder-girl murdered Joel for revenge because he had killed her father back in the first game.
- Adopted-daughter-girl finally confronts random-murder-girl and... chooses not to murder her, because
. - At no point in any of this horribleness does the player have any choice to take the plot off of its horrible rails of horribleness and grimdark messes. You do what the creators of the game make you do, with no agency and no way to choose to not be a horrible person, or, conversely, to actually take revenge on random-murder-girl at the end.
- The publisher was incredibly deceptive about the whole thing, making it appear in trailers and similar prerelease material that Joel would be a major PC. When some leaks came out showing what actually happened, the publisher engaged in some extremely dubious DMCA abuse to try and shut up anyone talking about it, because they knew full well fans would hate what they were doing to a beloved character.
- The publisher has also been caught trying to pressure negative reviews, both professional and fan-written, out of existence.
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@dfdub I haven't played either TLOU, but the impressions I've gotten from bits of reviews and commentary are:
- One of the main characters dies for no good reason.
- The antagonist who killed #1 did it for some confusing/also not good reason?
- Said antagonist's actions are also ignored/accepted by other characters in ways inconsistent to how said secondary characters would be expected to react.
- The other main character doesn't react to 1, 2, or 3 in a consistent way/the player isn't allowed to react in the way they want.
- Profit.
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Oh is this what the voice actress who played the other main character got death threats over?
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@loopback0 said in TLOU 2 (Spoilers inside):
Oh is this what the voice actress who played the other main character got death threats over?
Yes. Also, the totally not incel group of tards decided that random-murder-girl has an unpossible body shape. Even though she was modeled after an actual, living woman
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@Mason_Wheeler
You got the order completely wrong. You first play the adoptive daughter that gets revenge, who becomes increasingly violent in the process, but eventually gets confronted by the main antagonist who killed Joel. The perspective then changes to her and tells her story before you get to the final two confrontations.In the process, you learn that she had a very good reason to kill Joel and actually is arguably a somewhat better person than the character you played before, making you question your revenge quest.
I very much understand that the story isn't for everyone, since it's the exact opposite of a feel-good Batman-like heroic story, but if you expected that, you didn't pay attention in the first game IMO. And since the whole point of the game is surprising the player with the story twists, it makes a lot of sense for the publisher to combat leaks - if I had seen them before playing, it would have literally ruined the whole experience.
@Parody said in TLOU 2 (Spoilers inside):
One of the main characters dies for no good reason.
He dies unexpectedly, but for a very good reason. At the end of part 1, he made a shitload of enemies by making a morally questionable decision. I actually suspected that he would be killed off long before I saw the trailers.
@Parody said in TLOU 2 (Spoilers inside):
The other main character doesn't react to 1, 2, or 3 in a consistent way/the player isn't allowed to react in the way they want.
Well, the player having no choice is consistent with part 1, so I'm not sure why anyone expected otherwise. And I think the reaction of the main character is pretty realistic and consistent, just not very mentally healthy, which is kind of the point of the story.
Same with the actions and reactions of all other characters. If there are actual plot holes, I must have missed them. As I see it, the main issue of players who dislike the game is that it's realistic instead of following the usual game logic, not the lack of realism. That, unlike the criticism I've read, I'd actually understand.
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@Mingan said in TLOU 2 (Spoilers inside):
Also, the totally not incel group of tards decided that random-murder-girl has an unpossible body shape. Even though she was modeled after an actual, living woman
And even though it is heavily implied in the game that she's taking steroids, which explains her body shape.
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@dfdub said in TLOU 2 (Spoilers inside):
@Parody said in TLOU 2 (Spoilers inside):
One of the main characters dies for no good reason.
He dies for a very good reason. (Also a response to the other entry. - P)
You didn't ask for your opinion on what happened. You asked for what people upset with the game thought about it, and I'm telling you how I've interpreted what I remember of what others have said.
I myself don't care. I haven't played either of the The Last of Us games. I don't like horror games, survival or not. I don't buy games on release, waiting for reviews to see if they're any good and sales to save money, so they've usually been spoiled already.
I will say that the overly strong responses (Death threats? Really?) are stupid and always will be. It's one downside to the Internet making communication cheap and easy.
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@Parody said in TLOU 2 (Spoilers inside):
You didn't ask for your opinion on what happened. You asked for what people upset with the game thought about it, and I'm telling you how I've interpreted what I remember of what others have said.
Yeah, I also wasn't trying to argue with you personally. The problem is that you haven't played the game yourself and I'd love to hear the view of someone who played it and genuinely disliked it. Because I honestly don't understand most of the criticism.
I'm presenting counterarguments to what you said so that when a person who actually played the game and disliked it replies, they can reply to my replies.
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I'm playing through this now, having just finished the Part I remake. I got interested from the HBO show, which is also good.
So far, yes, I don't see what all the
was about, either.
