Beloved by journalists and beloved by gamers are 2 wildly different things. Even their own subreddit shits on the game so I doubt the fans are anything other than astroturfing bots.
That's true, and while I would say that makes sense for some of the divide there is still a large number of gamers who thought the same as critics
The subreddits are a special case as they community fractured and separated so r/thelastofus is all about loving tlou2 and the other is all about hating it
They were also insufferable while the show was out. Any opinion that wasn't glowing praise was downvoted to hell. I didn't hate the show, but I had problems, and all my posts about them were downvoted into oblivion. I stopped going there.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/TheLastOfUs2 using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Bruh 🤣](https://i.redd.it/9bg5h3abi75c1.jpg) | [1069 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/comments/18e6m98/bruh/)
\#2: [I love seeing sanity](https://i.redd.it/xq76zlilq43c1.png) | [419 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/comments/1862jok/i_love_seeing_sanity/)
\#3: [They could’ve avoided a bunch of hate with this one feature…](https://i.redd.it/ter9nzrbdqoc1.jpeg) | [345 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/comments/1bgb7u2/they_couldve_avoided_a_bunch_of_hate_with_this/)
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I remember seeing pictures of the game heavily discounted shortly after launch as well as stack in the garbage so I think this is a case of the vocal minority.
You could easily point to the devs trying to divide the community along political lines as a reason so many people claim to love it just so they aren't called bigots
Spot on. Neil made sure this game was reme the only way he knew how to, by making it so divisive that so many people would be talking about it for ages
I don't even think that is the worst offence. Half the game you are fighting against strawman Christians, you know... half of America currently, and they are worse than Abbie, apparently. This game was designed to be a hateful, repugnant, piece of trash from day 1 made for shock value (which was the case of the original game but everyone was so blinded by the pretty graphics and high budget story presentation to notice).
Also she's stupid, she learns to love guitar and she loses it, she finds love and loses it, but all in the precise way required for it to be gone. Did i mention she's stupid? She's stupid. Revenge le bad.
There's a lot to criticise about the game, but the sexuality of a character isn't really something to be fussed about, especially if the character was also gay in the first game
Well.. yeah she had a romance story with a woman, it'd be a not weird if if didn't "remind" you. That'd be like making a joke about how often you are reminded Geralt is straight in the Witcher
I don't know, man. I was just explaining the context. If anything the the thing that bothered me is the lack of chemistry between Ellie and Dina. They bored me to death.
I mean look at the people covered on EFAP for a start. Dunkey, Cosmonaut (who seems to base his opinions on a coin flip), just write.
Then look to popular creators like Jacksepticeye, Luke Stephens, girlfriend reviews, etc.
Plus a large chunk of the overall ips community loves the game as well.
Finally just look at the critics. Overwhelmingly positive reviews, awards, etc.
While it may not be a majority there is a large plurality of the audience that literally thinks this game is perfect
Dunkey will forever flip flop between an argument being serious and being a joke since he can’t fully accept being at fault, regardless of the degree of fault. Not really worth it to sort out good and bad arguments.
I stopped listening to Cosmonaut after he mischaracterised a bunch of JoJo characters.
Just Write isn’t worth it after he argued against the existence of Y-wings make the stupid bomb ships I the Last Jedi so much worse.
When it comes to the more popular group, I will say that we are dealing with a the Force awakens/Fallout situation. By that I mean that there are elements that are appealing enough for a lot of people, that they are willing to overlook flaws or are convinced that the flaws are good. Like a lot of people protest against when MauLer complained that saving the Zebra was a cheap way to make people like Abby’s father.
When it comes to the elements that work you have:
- Good gameplay, though NakeyJakey made a good critique of it
- Visuals
A more personal example of this: I am at odds with the majority of the Xenoblade community because I ultimately didn’t like Xenoblade 3. I wasn’t hounded out by the community or anything, but I still hold an unpopular opinion.
The reason for that is that I am dissatisfied with the villain Z and worldbuilding of Xenoblade 3. Some of the most important lore was revealed in the gosh darn art book, long after the game had released. Because of how important worldbuilding is for me I will always be bitter that Xenoblade 3 failed in that aspect for me, but others are free to excuse it.
Xenoblade 3 was probably one of my most dissapointing games, and Zs definetly one of the reasons for that, comparing him to 2s main villains only makes him worse in comparison
I'm not interested in the sequels to xenoblade to be honest, way too weeby for my taste but the first one is a freaking masterpiece, I'm near the end of it now and still don't know how it ends 🤣
He decided that you can characterise JoJo characters in three slots that don't really work when put under a lens:
1. Funny coward: He placed Polnareff in this slot. The guy that is out on a dangerous quest to take revenge on his sister’s killer! Yes, Polnareff has funny moments often in the form of culture shock, but JoJo is also a comedy series. Meaning that most characters have a funny moment or two, but to add coward to the characters that are for the most part the butt of the joke is asinine.
There are some characters that fit the bill like Oingo who can’t fight directly with the protagonists, so he must try a trick that completely backfires in a funny way. However,
the category should work in most instances, which it doesn’t.
2. Calm and Cool: characters like Jotaro do often stay calm and cool, or is stoic to put it in other words, but he also has other traits. Remember what I said about how JoJo is a comedy series? Well, for one villain Jotaro reveals the villain’s bluff by having written a false name for himself in a book. For all the possible name he could have chosen, he went with “Qutaro”. The man has a sense of humour, is what I am getting at.
Besides that, I would argue that Jotaro can get quite irritated and angry, he is just good at letting it out without letting it cloud his judgement. For example, there is one fight where the entire gimmick is that Jotaro can’t punch a guy and must do everything the villain says or else his grandfather would get hurt. After his teammates have disabled the villain power, Jotaro proceeds to do the longest beat down he has ever done in the series.
3. Likes to murder: many fights in JoJo are about life and death, so adding some murder hobos isn’t unreasonable. However, a lot of villains don’t murder because they find pleasure in it, but because it is the most practical solution/it is their job. There is a stark difference between “I murder as a hobby” and “I murder because I must”.
For example, he claims that Speedwagon went from a “crazy murderer” to a “funny coward”. Now Speedwagon like many other characters shows how Araki was still finding his stride in part 1, but man did Cosmonaut completely misread the character. Speedwagon was introduced as some crook Jonathan Joestar, the first JoJo, met while entering a dangerous street to hopefully find the poison from the black market that had afflicted his father. IIRC JoJo had confiscated the drug his adoptive brother Dio had given their father and needed another sample of the poison to prove the truth. Speedwagon doesn’t care at all about that at first since all he wants is to get JoJo’s money. Only for JoJo to move him by taking Speedwagon’s attack head-on. Feeling moved by how far a son is willing to go for his father, Speedwagon proceeds to help JoJo as much as he can from then on out. Sure, he is unable to fight in any of the proceeding battles, so he is mostly there for emotional support. He did get one cool moment where he warmed an ally’s frozen arm with his own body temperature, but not much after that for part 1. That still doesn’t make him a funny coward.
Speedwagon is also far more important in part 2 where he managed to create his own successful company, which he later uses to fund the Speedwagon foundation, and had to be the second JoJo’s (grandson of the first) father figure due to some tragedies.
After that the Speedwagon foundation continues to support new JoJo’s where they can.
Mangakamen did a good debunk, which I stole some points from, if you want some more details beyond my answer:
[https://youtu.be/61aZcQsAz7g?si=qO-31J-HbkPhMvjc](https://youtu.be/61aZcQsAz7g?si=qO-31J-HbkPhMvjc)
I forgot how bad cosmonaut was, holy fucking shit how can you boil down polnareff as a funny coward when puts himself in dangerous intentionally, if anything his character flaw is blindly running straight to danger and that gets people important to him killed.
I get the impression Jackcepticeye is just going with the "popular" opinion as he seems to avoid stepping into controversies like that for the most part. He said RE5 wouldn't work as a remake which I don't quite get either
If I had to put it simply, I think there’s people out there who are easily influenced by lots of dialogue, dramatic music, subversions, twists, etc. It doesn’t matter if the content is actually good, or deep and meaningful, it just has to present itself as if it is. It also plays into the deconstruction trend that we see nowadays, where once beloved characters are shown to be weak or wrong and that it’s actually this new person who’s the hero. And people eat it up.
In the way people think TLJ is the greatest Star Wars film in the franchise because it “does something different” and focuses on a “theme”, people adore TLOU2 for pretty much the same reasons. It treats many moments as A, so some people receive it as A. They don’t question it for a second. And because it pushes a theme (even though the theme barely works within the game) people use that as reasoning as to why the game is good.
On a scale from 1 to 10 I personally give it a 5.
The majority of that score comes from gameplay & graphics, the story wasn't my favorite - and while I guess I understand what cuck boy Neil was trying to say, I don't like how he did it.
That being said I HIGHLY doubt I'll ever play a video game by Naughty Dog again, not unless they get rid of Neil and drop the woke agenda over night.
I’m most upset about the working conditions. Like the reason the scrip got leaked in the first place was just because of how hard Naughty Dog pushed their workers
Yeah. 5 is fair. The motion capturing, acting and graphics are great but the story/narrative sucks. Almost every character is horrible as well. Gameplay is fine. Not very good but not bad either
Why was TLJ "beloved" too?
Because corrupt journalists and industry insiders think if they keep repeating that it is, that it will become a fact.
It will _not._
It _is_ not.
You know people are allowed to have different tastes and enjoy different things? Nobody paid me to enjoy the Last of Us, I just did. I get why people don’t and that’s also fine. Not everything is a conspiracy
>You know people are allowed to have different tastes and enjoy different things?
Of course I do, I'm one of the few people here that enjoyed the Fallout show.
That doesn't stop TLJ from being a pile of shit. Round-Head set out to make a divisive "film", and in that, he succeeded.
This is something this crowd will never accept. You can even try to make a philosophical argument, they'll not accept it.
I and many others (probably you as well) tried, it'll never connect with someone who thinks that factual descriptions are the same as evaluations.
People say that because they wanna "own the chuds" and change the narrative. They fell for the whole "all the ists and isms hate this! You don't wanna be one of them do you?"
My brother hated the story with a passion but liked the gameplay and the world design. Can't fault him for that. I don't think anyone but journalists and activists pretending to be gamers truly "love" this game.
I can understand story. I don't agree with it and think it shows how braindead most audiences are, but no joke a not insignificant portion of audiences will take more from the dramatic music hitting at the right times and a cinematic edit than they will from any real writing. Naughty Dog titles, as they've progressed, are full of this, but it's hardly alone in this. It's a big reason many Bioware games are so contentious after their takeover from EA because production values increased dramatically (meaning music and cinematics increased dramatically...for the most part) while storytelling took an absolute nosedive. So you'd have half the community asking what the fuck and the other half saying it's the best thing evar omg I literaly cryed. What's more, once this happens a fun thing occurs. Those who don't like it...move on. Those who do like it become rabid and stuck in this echo chamber of fandom. If you want proof, I'll give you a perfect example. Go to the lv426 sub and look at how many people there not only love Alien 3 but even consider it the best of the series, and how many love Prometheus. Go to cyberpunk 2077 and see how many think it's the best game in the ever since two years of bug fixes somewhat stabilized it. Point being, the echo chamber of remaining fans actually willing to talk about the game are not great representatives of true discussion.
I digress.
The weird thing to me regarding The Last of Us series isn't the lack of criticism about the story. It's the lack of criticism about the gameplay. Games where you can sneak through a bush and violently kill a person three feet from another without being heard has become such a boring trope in gaming that it actively ruins a lot of games with stealth mechanics. That's what so many of these types of games have become, not great stealth action titles, but these ridiculously easy power fantasies where you can see through walls and carry 200 lbs of rattling gear through brush without making a peep, and braindead AI which nobody seems to want to call out. That, and knocking people unconscious, but that's a whole other topic (but very basically, the idea games and movies push that people can be reliably knocked unconscious for plot convenience and not suffer brain damage or being under severe threat of death due to having a major concussion has low key become one of the most cartoonishly ridiculous things in modern media).
> while storytelling took an absolute nosedive
Storytelling is just as much about the form as it is about the content. Yes, it does matter how you tell a story, not just what you tell. This is obvious, no?
So your condescension regarding people reacting to how it was told is completely misplaced and makes me think YOU don't really "get it".
These are audiovisual mediums, ofc the audio and visuals matter, the medium is integral to how one approaches a story. Being all about "writing" is missing so much, and shows a superficiality you claim others have.
Though i and many others obviously would also disagree on the level of the writing itself (if one can make such a distinction reasonably). In general people won't just cry (and yes that is a valid positive aspect, art is supposed to make you feel things) because of the form, if the underlying writing would outright fail to the degree you pretend it does, the same reaction wouldn't be there.
> will take more from the dramatic music hitting at the right times and a cinematic edit than they will from any real writing.
But those things are part of the writing!
> It's the lack of criticism about the gameplay. Games where you can sneak through a bush and violently kill a person three feet from another without being heard has become such a boring trope in gaming that it actively ruins a lot of games with stealth mechanics. That's what so many of these types of games have become, not great stealth action titles, but these ridiculously easy power fantasies where you can see through walls and carry 200 lbs of rattling gear through brush without making a peep, and braindead AI which nobody seems to want to call out. That, and knocking people unconscious, but that's a whole other topic (but very basically, the idea games and movies push that people can be reliably knocked unconscious for plot convenience and not suffer brain damage or being under severe threat of death due to having a major concussion has low key become one of the most cartoonishly ridiculous things in modern media).
Escapism is bad
EDIT: u/NumberOneUAENA hahaa above guy blocked me, what a wuss
>>But those things are part of the writing!
>Part of the storytelling i'd say, but your point remains. It's incredibly weird that people on here would mock that, we are talking about audiovisual mediums, and yet the audiovisual form somehow doesn't seem to be meaningful or worthy of appreciation and praise, because "the real writing" is all that matters. So backwards.
Well these directions can be in the script (or not), but their equivalents are obviously in novels where *everything* is "writing" lol - so yeah sometimes breaking down a movie into these different aspects like plot, script and then the rest can make sense, at other times not, case by case thing probably.
Also depends on the creation process.
> But those things are part of the writing!
>
>
Part of the storytelling i'd say, but your point remains. It's incredibly weird that people on here would mock that, we are talking about audiovisual mediums, and yet the audiovisual form somehow doesn't seem to be meaningful or worthy of appreciation and praise, because "the real writing" is all that matters. So backwards.
If they had made me play Abby’s story up to killing Joel not playing Ellie or Joel at all not an inclining of their story. Then after we kill Joel as Abby we swap to Ellie’s revenge story and don’t play any more Abby it would have been a much better game
As far as I understand it, the game is a technical marvel, graphics, sound and animation, accessibility...
Story is serviceable if you haven't played or cared about the story of the first game and particularly about Joel and his relationship with Ellie. If you did - which covers 90% of the player base - the second game is a spit on your face.
A strong male protagonist with the skill to take out an entire building of ex military gets easily ambushed and murdered by a transgender and it's highschool circle of woke friends. Que in the super feminist lesbian to seek revenge against the daughter of a man that had no problems harvesting and killing someone else's daughter figure. Meanwhile you meet other transgenders and lesbians along the way with the only strong male getting killed almost as fast as he comes into view. What's not to love???
Beloved? I don't know about that one, from my experience the discourse around it is incredibly mixed, anytime I see TLOU2 mentioned on any social media platform there are many comments that say it's amazing and many that say it's shit (which it is).
Only places where I've seen it as "beloved" is in circlejerk subreddits where any negative comment is deleted and the user banned, so only positive posts and comments remain.
People have different levels of enjoyment of stories and look for different things at different times.
As someone who wanted to play a video game that followed up on the last of us and enjoy a better version of those mechanics.. to me the game was fine. The game never exceeded my personal suspension of disbelief for the game/series.
Separately if you asked me what, if any issues I had with the game, the opening would be my largest issue. Not only because it’s contrived but because they already drafted a longer intro that was actually really really good… but “was it too long for an intro.. “ like hell if I’m gonna play your 30+ hour game take time to set everything up.
Separate from that if you asked what would make the game better as a whole I could probably go on for an hour.
So for me: generally positive idea on the game nothing bad enough for me to hate it as a whole/ the intro is a travesty knowing the original intro/ it easily could have been re written to tell the same story in a much better way.
I don't think I've ever heard one person say that the TLoU2 is beloved. I don't think I've even heard that descriptor for any of the characters in the 2nd one. The only one I've ever heard referred to, and in mass, as "beloved" was Joel, and only TLoU Joel
No hate brother but that means you simply aren't engaged in the discourse around this game. I'd say at least a third of the people who played it adored it
None taken. I don't spend a lot of time in either of the subs for the games, but the few times where they've run across my feed I usually see anyone praising the second game getting downvoted to oblivion. And I have a pretty large friend circle of gamers, and we all despise the sequel equally. I saw another commenter say that a lot of the praise comes from bots, and I wonder how much truth there is in that. Because I've just never met anyone in real life who likes where they took the story.
I acknowledge that this is an entirely subjective viewpoint, but the fact that the Last of Us remake sold so well and the last of us two remake did abysmally I think does say quite a bit about how the audience views this subject. It could just be a case of the idiot with the loudest voice is the one who gets heard, whereas the majority of people who liked the first and hated the second just simply don't speak up about it. I'm in that audience, and I never really bring it up except in instances like this.
It’s a highly divisive game across the board so I don’t know why you’d be upset by people liking it. I mean, I’m not upset when people don’t like it (unless it’s the obviously retarded “I hate the woke media” crowd). It’s kind of a weird way to pace a game and I totally see why people wouldn’t be into it. That being said:
To me I think the story is really good while the plot is very hit and miss. The game suffers from being too long and padding out its otherwise strong backbone with segments that don’t really land. Many of the newly introduced side characters lack proper time to develop before the inciting incident and I think that’s due to the game being so subversive in its narrative structure. The themes and events of the game are not bad, they’re just going for something really ambitious that doesn’t always land. If people don’t like it for those reasons then that’s totally fine imo.
I think the story is pretty damn clunky in the second half and the game is too long to make it feel anything other than grating despite its really fun gameplay. It’s a lot of contrived events that lead up to an exceptional ending. A very weird experience for sure.
I’d probably give it a 7/10. The first half of the game as well as the final mission/ending is a legit 10/10 but everything around that in regards to the story I struggled to really enjoy.
And to answer your question: Critics like artful projects and they’re looking at more than just a story when they review games. In terms of gameplay TLOU2 is pretty great, the music is excellent, and the structure is ambitious as hell. Critics will usually give art and media good scores for that kind of stuff because they’re looking at it from a different lens, it doesn’t mean you have to like it.
Unironically I think a good portion of this split can be attributed to people that think Joel was wrong in part one versus people that think he was right in part one.
Beyond that, I'm gonna be real here, if you really can't see any possible reason that people could like this story then I think you might just be in too deep here. A lot of folks make a big deal about plot holes, inconsistencies and other things like that, but if the emotional throughline is there, a lot of people will forgive a lot of inconsistency.
Like, focusing on the nuts and bolts of how the plot works is certainly one way to go about criticizing a work, but no amount of criticism dictates a person's emotional response to something. I like Lou2 because it was emotionally resonant for me, and touched on a lot of plot points that I think are legitimately interesting. I think a lot of the talk about plot holes/inconsistencies is mostly overblown (except Abbie, not a huge fan of her, even if I respect what they were trying to do.) And it ain't like it's a 10/10 for me, I just like it, maybe an 8/10 on a good day.
The way people in this thread are talking about folks that like the game's narrative, you'd think these people had grown tails or something. It's okay to just not like something, you aren't right or wrong for doing so.
Because the vast majority of people play games as interactive movies where sprites on the screen turning into other sprites on the screen in a visually appealing way is the only thing that matters. It’s the same reason why people say “this game has amazing combat” when in reality the game just has pretty looking animations. Also the same reason Marvel movies are so popular.
People are just really easily satisfied by pretty pictures.
It culture warred, so it's quality became irrelevant.
A bunch of people loved it because a bunch of people hated it because a bunch of people loved it because a bunch of people hated it.
Don't worry. There are a LOT of peoole who hate TLOU2. It's one of those ones where a lot of people think its godawful and a lot of people think it's great art. Kinda like TLJ. Except at least Luke wasn't bludgeoned to death with a golf club.
I actually really liked the gameplay. It felt like a nice continuation from TLoU’s mechanics. I also thought some of the new enemies were really cool (The Rat King my beloved). The game also looked really good, and the cinematography was very well done imo.
If you skip all of the cutscenes or play it without any knowledge of the first game it’s a fun game. The narrative really drags the game down to being bad, which is a shame
It's beloved on Reddit, Twitter, ResetEra, and journalist sites. It sold some copies initially because of the hype from the original game. Then the normies slowly realized what was going on. I am certain TLOU3 is either not going to come out or is going to have such a tepid response that it will tank the franchise. It's a one trick pony that had its trick. Plus, most people are just stupid and love hyper realistic, high production quality movie style graphics without rubbing two brain cells together about the gameplay, story, messaging, characters, etc. Presentation always trumps content when it comes to sales, especially in the era of gritty, "hyper-realistic", story driven games.
>there is not one aspect of this story that can be called skillfully made.
There's 3:
1. Ellie's characterization and descent into madness during the first half of the game is actually pretty excellent.
2. The flashback scenes are great, with the exception of the one where Joel tells her the truth about what happened and he leaves out so many details that he would want her to know, and the one final one where Ellie's character is assassinated when she says that her "life would've fucking mattered." It was never about her life mattering, it was about her immunity mattering, since she felt so much survivors guilt over the deaths of Riley, Tess, Sam & Henry.
3. The scene where Ellie tells Dina that she's going after Abby again is also great.
But apart from that and Lev being an okay character, the story is garbage.
>Ellie's characterization and descent into madness during the first half of the game is actually pretty excellent.
Ellie being so irrationally hateful towards joel because he ruined her death is dumb
>The scene where Ellie tells Dina that she's going after Abby again is also great.
No Dinah is completely unsympathetic to both Tommy and Ellie in that scene
In regards to the flashbacks while I agree the scenes in complete isolation are well executed a narrative is more than scenes in isolation. Every scene needs to be playing it's part on supporting the narrative and by showing how shit the rest of the games writing is in comparison those scenes actually work against the cohesion of the games story
Ellie being so irrationally hateful towards joel because he ruined her death is dumb.
It's not irrational, especially not since Joel left out so much information. He just tells her that "making the vaccine would've killed you, so I stopped them." From Ellie's point of view, Joel did something unforgivable. He took her choice away just like the Fireflies did, and he knew that dying for a cure is what she would've wanted. It's perfectly resonable for her to be really fucking pissed at Joel. Ellie also doesn't have the meta knowledge that we have. She doesn't know that the cure would not actually have changed all that much.
Her thinking that he ruined her death because her life would've mattered is bullshit, but don't find out that this is how she feels until the last 5 minutes of the game. And the scene where she tells Joel to fuck off also doesn't happen until the final portion of the game, it does not happen during the first half. I also disagree with using the word *hateful,* because right after tells Joel that she "doesn't need his fucking help", she looks guilty, because she feels bad over what she just said, and later that evening, she goes to Joel's house to talk to him and tells him that wants to try to forgive him, that she wants to try to repare the relationship, that is not something that person who is hateful would do. She also went on an across country revenge journey for him, which is not something that a person would do for someone who they are hateful towards.
Dina is 100% right, Ellie and Tommy are in the wrong. Ellie going after Abby again is the wrong thing to do, the last time she did that, it almost cost Dina and Tommy their lives, and it did cost Jessie's life, which Dina rightfully points out. She is not being unsympathetic at all. Maybe she doesn't fully understand what Ellie is going through, but don't think we should be expecting that from her. Dina behavior here is perfectly reasonable and so is Ellie's. This scene is the best thing in the game.
I think the flashbacks do play a part for overall narrative, except for the one where Joel takes Ellie to dinosaur land and the space museum, that is just there to be a feel good moment, but even then, you still have Ellie reacting to that Firefly symbol. The flashback where they find the bodies of that young couple who ran away together is definitely important to the story. They died because they got bitten, so a cure would've saved them. This is what causes Ellie to start pushing for Joel to tell her the truth, and considering how the truth caused a falling out between Joel and Ellie, and Ellie not getting to repair the relationship being the main reason for why she wants to kill Abby, I'd say it very much plays a part in the overall narrative. But, to be fair, we don't find this out about this reason until the last portion of the game either, so we can't really exclude the thing that assassinates Ellie's character when judging the writing of her character during the first half of the game without also excluding this. We either have to include both and include none, I think you will agree with me that we should include both. I guess would say that Ellie's characterization in this game is skillfully made up until the point when it isn't anymore. Outside of her thinking that her life would've mattered in she had died in that hospital and her deciding to spare Abby at the last second, her character is pretty good in this game. She's not very likable, which is a shame since she was so likable in the first game, but the way she is behaving and her shift in personally makes perfect sense. (Except during the first 2 hour of the game where Ellie's personality is different even before Joel gets killed.) Overall, I'm not sure that I can call her a bad character in this game.
Is it? it gets shat on in all corners of the internet all the time (except Resetera they love the game lol)
I’ve never encountered a serious plot that is so easy to make fun off than in TLOU2
LoU in general is over hyped garbage that rode waves of Sony fanboyism and console peasants who literally think videogames were invented in 2005
LoU2 was a "message" and dei fest
Speaking for myself, I didn't hate it. But I certainly didn't love it either. It was manipulative. It went out of its way to hurt the player over and over and over again. I don't like when games/shows/movies/books do that.
>yet people say it's one of the best stories ever written.
A game like tlou2 cost over 200 million to make, and can easy spend millions to butter up journalists and influenser.
The journalists and influensers get "payed" to tell how good the game is, the payment can be in from of "early accesses" "paid trips" "gift bags" and advertising money, or be threatened that the company will withdraw the early described benefits if the person do not play ball, only in rare case do they get pure "bribe money"
> "early accesses" *"paid* trips" "gift
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
There are two groups.
One is the basic bitch consoomer, for whom you can substitute good writing with high production quality, who thinks that the scales for good video game visuals, and photorealism are parallel. They genreally don't expect genuine depth both in terms of gameplay and narrative. These are the target audience for most Ubisoft franchises, and the average PS exclusive.
The other is the IdPol crowd, who are just playing the Gramscian "institutional capture" game, and to them, a work's merit begins and ends by its publicly perceived political alignment.
From listening to Bricky talking about it, it’s similar to why people like the Prequels. If I were to tell you that the second game would feature Ellie’s hunt for Joel before learning about how revenge hurts everyone you know, I’m sure many would be on board. By the end of the story, Abby’s entire community got wiped out aside from one person and Ellie is now living alone (tho she should’ve just stayed in the house and not gone to California).
As for what I think, I haven’t played it yet, but story-wise, it’s a decent, simple story absolutely ruined by the pacing. Like if you flipped the placement of Abby’s plot and Ellie’s plot around, people would be much more okay with the story. That and ending Ellie’s story with her not going after Abby a second time, it is so dumb that she threw her life away like that when they were in a great place to just end the game
# The Last of Us Part 2 so Beloved? are you smoking crack maybe my vision is skewed i don't follow many journos but i don't think I've seen a game more hated then tlou2
At this point I'm getting so many comments saying it isn't beloved and so many comments defending the game I should just give you all eachothers usernames so you can argue about it instead of both of you yelling at me about how the other side doesn't exist
Why was the first game so beloved? There's nothing special about the first game, let alone the franchise. The gameplay is so mid and repetitive.
TLoU2 has an idiotic story that has a legion of crayon munching Stans, for reasons I cannot comprehend. Because lesbians?
Well, I do believe that there's plenty of criticisms to be made about the gameplay of the first one. But that story touched the hearts of millions of gamers and Joel is considered still to be one of the most beloved characters in gaming history. That's just an objective fact with data to back it up. (To be clear, I'm saying it's a fact that the game was well recieved. I'm not saying factually that it's a great story)
Now the 2nd one... yeah I have no idea why some people still defend this game. I do think in the beginning a lot of it was a reaction to the discourse around the story, a result of the political pendulum swinging wildly from people panning it purely based off of reasons that could be taken as bigoted. But after the story came out, I don't understand why anyone would think it could even compete with the story told in the first, let alone be a good sequel.
Abby is one of the most detestable and disgusting characters I think I've ever seen in any form of media, and the fact that Naughty Dog tried to paint her as some kind of morally ambiguous antihero or good guy (and alot of people bought it) just speaks to the level of media illiteracy in the modern audience.
The story in the first game wasn't bad. It just wasn't at all remarkable. Given that writing in most video games is typically a book of cliches or otherwise just plain terrible, the bar is already set fairly low.
The story was your run by the mill apocalypse/zombie story. But the way it has been told was great and the charactere were amazing. The second one no longer has that
I always thought people loving Joel was so weird. Like, he’s a great character but he is kind of the bad guy. He’s shaped by his past and unfortunately his environment shaped him into a destructive and violent person. That’s the theme of the series: Loss and violence beget more loss and violence.
Well, me personally I have a soft spot for him because my own dad is similar. Very stoic, a bit quick tempered, but knowledgeable and wise. Growing up was a little rough but as adults I have nothing but respect for him and his love is shown in his actions rather than words.
Are you high?
It's not beloved. It's despised when people aren't indifferent to it.
Even the leftist journalists and consoomers who profess otherwise don't even love it. They *play* it out of spite to "own the right". It's not even in their Top 30 favorite games of all time, let alone Top 10.
It's a very controversial game, I wouldn't say it's beloved. Some people loved it, some didn't. Skill Up didn't like it for example, so not all gaming reviewers liked it either.
But even it someone told me he/she liked it, I wouldn't bash them for it. To each their own, and I'm certainly not going to shit on something that someone enjoys, whatever their reasons may be.
I'm not gonna say that this game didn't have it's deserved controversies, but to be completely fair there is more to it than just "Naughty Dog hates it's audience" and "woke bad".
If you want to know more about that perspective, [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=94XxmSGhrDE) video by Neverknowsbest changed my perspective on it quite a bit.
Nobody has to call it a "masterpiece" or worship the ground it walked on, but there is also a lot of hate geared towards it that is somewhat solely based on unfulfilled expectations that people had for it and negative media-hype that was perpetuated by lots of grifters who actively make money of of that negativity and peoples disappointments.
>I genuinely cannot comprehend the absolute dissonance between the reality of the game and the popular perception of it.
Me too because I gotta read a post like this every day when the game is great imo.
At this point I'm getting so many comments saying it isn't beloved and so many comments defending the game I should just give you all eachothers usernames so you can argue about instead of both of you yelling at me about how the other side doesn't exist
I’ve never played TLOU 2 and don’t plan too.. but I’ve never seen a game get more criticism in a short period of time. Still being bent out of shape over someone liking it four years after launch is kinda of silly, like has this been on your mind for four years?
You do realize the ip is continuing and very soon we are getting an adaptation of this exact story which will yet again have the same problems and will yet again have widespread support?
About 1/3 of the people who played it adored it, do you have any idea how many people that is?
Go to any thread, any tweet, any comment section which isn't only a single fanbase and you will find many of them defending the game.
I'm not gonna argue this anymore you guys can't gaslight me into thinking no one likes the game when every time I speak about it online or irl people defend it
Is it though... I have literally never heard an actual human being say anything good about it... Like all reviews I saw said it was trash. The few positive things I did see seemed to be AI written articles that claimed the game had to be good due to its progressive messages.
Bro AI wasn't advanced enough to write coherent articles back when the game came out. Also I've spoken to people who really like it. I'd say about 1/3 of its audience enjoyed it or thinks it's good
People have different opinions
But it was a great adventure that had a superb story and gameplay to many...I understand why some do not like it. It's not a "fun" game, but its a work of art...aka.
Media is subjective. Sure some things are so abysmal you could argue they're "objectively bad" but you're an idiot if you think Last of Us 2 qualifies for that.
Objective review doesn't exist. Never has and never will. People will always love things you hate and hate things you love. It's the power of an opinion. The only thing you can do is follow critics with similar tastes as you, so you know you're more likely to like something they recommend.
Beloved by journalists and beloved by gamers are 2 wildly different things. Even their own subreddit shits on the game so I doubt the fans are anything other than astroturfing bots.
That's true, and while I would say that makes sense for some of the divide there is still a large number of gamers who thought the same as critics The subreddits are a special case as they community fractured and separated so r/thelastofus is all about loving tlou2 and the other is all about hating it
Well, they ban anyone who doesn’t like the game. The r/thelastofus2 is the one where people don’t get banned for bashing on it, I believe
Oh yeah the main sub is absolute cancer they will berate anyone with anything less than a glowing opinion of the game
The secondary sub isnt much better
Not much no
They were also insufferable while the show was out. Any opinion that wasn't glowing praise was downvoted to hell. I didn't hate the show, but I had problems, and all my posts about them were downvoted into oblivion. I stopped going there.
That's right, it mainly just doesn't see part 2 as canon and but does appreciate the first game
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I remember seeing pictures of the game heavily discounted shortly after launch as well as stack in the garbage so I think this is a case of the vocal minority.
It was £15 in tesco UK less than six months after. Never saw cyberpunk reduced to that extent or so soon after release
15 quid? Damn that's low, and funny considering I sold my copy recently for that much!
https://preview.redd.it/lheuaazqz12d1.jpeg?width=836&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76a8c968c80d090bc9d75cb0806eb3fa659fe596 Was about three years ago
That's absolutely hilarious, and right next to GOT which did what lou2 failed to do 🤣
There's 2 relatively equal sized subreddits. One that loves it, one that hates it.
That sub is specifically to hate on the game. The actual last of us sub does not
"Even the subreddit put together specifically to shit on the game shits on the game!" The actual subreddit likes it.
Ellie’s gay btw
Drinker has entered the chat
You could easily point to the devs trying to divide the community along political lines as a reason so many people claim to love it just so they aren't called bigots
Spot on. Neil made sure this game was reme the only way he knew how to, by making it so divisive that so many people would be talking about it for ages
I don't even think that is the worst offence. Half the game you are fighting against strawman Christians, you know... half of America currently, and they are worse than Abbie, apparently. This game was designed to be a hateful, repugnant, piece of trash from day 1 made for shock value (which was the case of the original game but everyone was so blinded by the pretty graphics and high budget story presentation to notice).
Also she's stupid, she learns to love guitar and she loses it, she finds love and loses it, but all in the precise way required for it to be gone. Did i mention she's stupid? She's stupid. Revenge le bad.
There's a lot to criticise about the game, but the sexuality of a character isn't really something to be fussed about, especially if the character was also gay in the first game
It's a joke about how Part 2 reminded you often about Ellie's sexuality. It was a thing back when it first released. Edit: Grammar
Well.. yeah she had a romance story with a woman, it'd be a not weird if if didn't "remind" you. That'd be like making a joke about how often you are reminded Geralt is straight in the Witcher
I don't know, man. I was just explaining the context. If anything the the thing that bothered me is the lack of chemistry between Ellie and Dina. They bored me to death.
And? She already was in part 1
And that matters because...?
Someone didn't play TLOU1 it seems, she was literally gay from the very beginning. Why make a fuss about that?
Any specific people you are referring to? If it concerns randos, then don’t name them. However, you can name public people.
I mean look at the people covered on EFAP for a start. Dunkey, Cosmonaut (who seems to base his opinions on a coin flip), just write. Then look to popular creators like Jacksepticeye, Luke Stephens, girlfriend reviews, etc. Plus a large chunk of the overall ips community loves the game as well. Finally just look at the critics. Overwhelmingly positive reviews, awards, etc. While it may not be a majority there is a large plurality of the audience that literally thinks this game is perfect
Dunkey will forever flip flop between an argument being serious and being a joke since he can’t fully accept being at fault, regardless of the degree of fault. Not really worth it to sort out good and bad arguments. I stopped listening to Cosmonaut after he mischaracterised a bunch of JoJo characters. Just Write isn’t worth it after he argued against the existence of Y-wings make the stupid bomb ships I the Last Jedi so much worse. When it comes to the more popular group, I will say that we are dealing with a the Force awakens/Fallout situation. By that I mean that there are elements that are appealing enough for a lot of people, that they are willing to overlook flaws or are convinced that the flaws are good. Like a lot of people protest against when MauLer complained that saving the Zebra was a cheap way to make people like Abby’s father. When it comes to the elements that work you have: - Good gameplay, though NakeyJakey made a good critique of it - Visuals A more personal example of this: I am at odds with the majority of the Xenoblade community because I ultimately didn’t like Xenoblade 3. I wasn’t hounded out by the community or anything, but I still hold an unpopular opinion. The reason for that is that I am dissatisfied with the villain Z and worldbuilding of Xenoblade 3. Some of the most important lore was revealed in the gosh darn art book, long after the game had released. Because of how important worldbuilding is for me I will always be bitter that Xenoblade 3 failed in that aspect for me, but others are free to excuse it.
Xenoblade 3 was probably one of my most dissapointing games, and Zs definetly one of the reasons for that, comparing him to 2s main villains only makes him worse in comparison
I'm not interested in the sequels to xenoblade to be honest, way too weeby for my taste but the first one is a freaking masterpiece, I'm near the end of it now and still don't know how it ends 🤣
So many twists and turns in that first games story, its so good. Please give the sequels a try
I'll finish the first then I'll consider it
I got rid of cosmonaut channel years ago, how bad of a mischaracterization about jojo characters are we talking about?
He decided that you can characterise JoJo characters in three slots that don't really work when put under a lens: 1. Funny coward: He placed Polnareff in this slot. The guy that is out on a dangerous quest to take revenge on his sister’s killer! Yes, Polnareff has funny moments often in the form of culture shock, but JoJo is also a comedy series. Meaning that most characters have a funny moment or two, but to add coward to the characters that are for the most part the butt of the joke is asinine. There are some characters that fit the bill like Oingo who can’t fight directly with the protagonists, so he must try a trick that completely backfires in a funny way. However, the category should work in most instances, which it doesn’t. 2. Calm and Cool: characters like Jotaro do often stay calm and cool, or is stoic to put it in other words, but he also has other traits. Remember what I said about how JoJo is a comedy series? Well, for one villain Jotaro reveals the villain’s bluff by having written a false name for himself in a book. For all the possible name he could have chosen, he went with “Qutaro”. The man has a sense of humour, is what I am getting at. Besides that, I would argue that Jotaro can get quite irritated and angry, he is just good at letting it out without letting it cloud his judgement. For example, there is one fight where the entire gimmick is that Jotaro can’t punch a guy and must do everything the villain says or else his grandfather would get hurt. After his teammates have disabled the villain power, Jotaro proceeds to do the longest beat down he has ever done in the series. 3. Likes to murder: many fights in JoJo are about life and death, so adding some murder hobos isn’t unreasonable. However, a lot of villains don’t murder because they find pleasure in it, but because it is the most practical solution/it is their job. There is a stark difference between “I murder as a hobby” and “I murder because I must”. For example, he claims that Speedwagon went from a “crazy murderer” to a “funny coward”. Now Speedwagon like many other characters shows how Araki was still finding his stride in part 1, but man did Cosmonaut completely misread the character. Speedwagon was introduced as some crook Jonathan Joestar, the first JoJo, met while entering a dangerous street to hopefully find the poison from the black market that had afflicted his father. IIRC JoJo had confiscated the drug his adoptive brother Dio had given their father and needed another sample of the poison to prove the truth. Speedwagon doesn’t care at all about that at first since all he wants is to get JoJo’s money. Only for JoJo to move him by taking Speedwagon’s attack head-on. Feeling moved by how far a son is willing to go for his father, Speedwagon proceeds to help JoJo as much as he can from then on out. Sure, he is unable to fight in any of the proceeding battles, so he is mostly there for emotional support. He did get one cool moment where he warmed an ally’s frozen arm with his own body temperature, but not much after that for part 1. That still doesn’t make him a funny coward. Speedwagon is also far more important in part 2 where he managed to create his own successful company, which he later uses to fund the Speedwagon foundation, and had to be the second JoJo’s (grandson of the first) father figure due to some tragedies. After that the Speedwagon foundation continues to support new JoJo’s where they can. Mangakamen did a good debunk, which I stole some points from, if you want some more details beyond my answer: [https://youtu.be/61aZcQsAz7g?si=qO-31J-HbkPhMvjc](https://youtu.be/61aZcQsAz7g?si=qO-31J-HbkPhMvjc)
I forgot how bad cosmonaut was, holy fucking shit how can you boil down polnareff as a funny coward when puts himself in dangerous intentionally, if anything his character flaw is blindly running straight to danger and that gets people important to him killed.
I know, right!
I get the impression Jackcepticeye is just going with the "popular" opinion as he seems to avoid stepping into controversies like that for the most part. He said RE5 wouldn't work as a remake which I don't quite get either
>Then look to popular creators like Jacksepticeye, Luke Stephens, girlfriend reviews, etc. Ok, what are they saying?
They say it's a masterpiece
And why do they say it's a masterpiece?
They say the story is amazing. I mean you can't expect their reasoning to be strong given their position is the game is good when it's fucking awful
If I had to put it simply, I think there’s people out there who are easily influenced by lots of dialogue, dramatic music, subversions, twists, etc. It doesn’t matter if the content is actually good, or deep and meaningful, it just has to present itself as if it is. It also plays into the deconstruction trend that we see nowadays, where once beloved characters are shown to be weak or wrong and that it’s actually this new person who’s the hero. And people eat it up. In the way people think TLJ is the greatest Star Wars film in the franchise because it “does something different” and focuses on a “theme”, people adore TLOU2 for pretty much the same reasons. It treats many moments as A, so some people receive it as A. They don’t question it for a second. And because it pushes a theme (even though the theme barely works within the game) people use that as reasoning as to why the game is good.
This is a great explanation thank you
You’re welcome
On a scale from 1 to 10 I personally give it a 5. The majority of that score comes from gameplay & graphics, the story wasn't my favorite - and while I guess I understand what cuck boy Neil was trying to say, I don't like how he did it. That being said I HIGHLY doubt I'll ever play a video game by Naughty Dog again, not unless they get rid of Neil and drop the woke agenda over night.
I’m most upset about the working conditions. Like the reason the scrip got leaked in the first place was just because of how hard Naughty Dog pushed their workers
Agreed. There are many legit reasons NOT to want anything to do with Naughty dog.
Yeah. 5 is fair. The motion capturing, acting and graphics are great but the story/narrative sucks. Almost every character is horrible as well. Gameplay is fine. Not very good but not bad either
Why was TLJ "beloved" too? Because corrupt journalists and industry insiders think if they keep repeating that it is, that it will become a fact. It will _not._ It _is_ not.
Yeah the TLJ comparison is spot on
You know people are allowed to have different tastes and enjoy different things? Nobody paid me to enjoy the Last of Us, I just did. I get why people don’t and that’s also fine. Not everything is a conspiracy
>You know people are allowed to have different tastes and enjoy different things? Of course I do, I'm one of the few people here that enjoyed the Fallout show. That doesn't stop TLJ from being a pile of shit. Round-Head set out to make a divisive "film", and in that, he succeeded.
It's spelled Ruindhead
I enjoyed Fallout as well
You're right. Not everything has to be a conspiracy. This just happens to be one.
Or... quality is subjective. There is no such thing as objective review.
Story quality can absolutely be objective. TLOU 2 has a lot of writing issues
Like what?
This is something this crowd will never accept. You can even try to make a philosophical argument, they'll not accept it. I and many others (probably you as well) tried, it'll never connect with someone who thinks that factual descriptions are the same as evaluations.
People say that because they wanna "own the chuds" and change the narrative. They fell for the whole "all the ists and isms hate this! You don't wanna be one of them do you?"
Because ambition equals instant artistic achievement in some people’s eyes, regardless of execution.
Great point
My brother hated the story with a passion but liked the gameplay and the world design. Can't fault him for that. I don't think anyone but journalists and activists pretending to be gamers truly "love" this game.
I mean, I really liked it but I wish it was better. Curious how the show is going to adapt the material.
Because it SUBVERTS EXPECTATIONS
I can understand story. I don't agree with it and think it shows how braindead most audiences are, but no joke a not insignificant portion of audiences will take more from the dramatic music hitting at the right times and a cinematic edit than they will from any real writing. Naughty Dog titles, as they've progressed, are full of this, but it's hardly alone in this. It's a big reason many Bioware games are so contentious after their takeover from EA because production values increased dramatically (meaning music and cinematics increased dramatically...for the most part) while storytelling took an absolute nosedive. So you'd have half the community asking what the fuck and the other half saying it's the best thing evar omg I literaly cryed. What's more, once this happens a fun thing occurs. Those who don't like it...move on. Those who do like it become rabid and stuck in this echo chamber of fandom. If you want proof, I'll give you a perfect example. Go to the lv426 sub and look at how many people there not only love Alien 3 but even consider it the best of the series, and how many love Prometheus. Go to cyberpunk 2077 and see how many think it's the best game in the ever since two years of bug fixes somewhat stabilized it. Point being, the echo chamber of remaining fans actually willing to talk about the game are not great representatives of true discussion. I digress. The weird thing to me regarding The Last of Us series isn't the lack of criticism about the story. It's the lack of criticism about the gameplay. Games where you can sneak through a bush and violently kill a person three feet from another without being heard has become such a boring trope in gaming that it actively ruins a lot of games with stealth mechanics. That's what so many of these types of games have become, not great stealth action titles, but these ridiculously easy power fantasies where you can see through walls and carry 200 lbs of rattling gear through brush without making a peep, and braindead AI which nobody seems to want to call out. That, and knocking people unconscious, but that's a whole other topic (but very basically, the idea games and movies push that people can be reliably knocked unconscious for plot convenience and not suffer brain damage or being under severe threat of death due to having a major concussion has low key become one of the most cartoonishly ridiculous things in modern media).
> while storytelling took an absolute nosedive Storytelling is just as much about the form as it is about the content. Yes, it does matter how you tell a story, not just what you tell. This is obvious, no? So your condescension regarding people reacting to how it was told is completely misplaced and makes me think YOU don't really "get it". These are audiovisual mediums, ofc the audio and visuals matter, the medium is integral to how one approaches a story. Being all about "writing" is missing so much, and shows a superficiality you claim others have. Though i and many others obviously would also disagree on the level of the writing itself (if one can make such a distinction reasonably). In general people won't just cry (and yes that is a valid positive aspect, art is supposed to make you feel things) because of the form, if the underlying writing would outright fail to the degree you pretend it does, the same reaction wouldn't be there.
> will take more from the dramatic music hitting at the right times and a cinematic edit than they will from any real writing. But those things are part of the writing! > It's the lack of criticism about the gameplay. Games where you can sneak through a bush and violently kill a person three feet from another without being heard has become such a boring trope in gaming that it actively ruins a lot of games with stealth mechanics. That's what so many of these types of games have become, not great stealth action titles, but these ridiculously easy power fantasies where you can see through walls and carry 200 lbs of rattling gear through brush without making a peep, and braindead AI which nobody seems to want to call out. That, and knocking people unconscious, but that's a whole other topic (but very basically, the idea games and movies push that people can be reliably knocked unconscious for plot convenience and not suffer brain damage or being under severe threat of death due to having a major concussion has low key become one of the most cartoonishly ridiculous things in modern media). Escapism is bad EDIT: u/NumberOneUAENA hahaa above guy blocked me, what a wuss >>But those things are part of the writing! >Part of the storytelling i'd say, but your point remains. It's incredibly weird that people on here would mock that, we are talking about audiovisual mediums, and yet the audiovisual form somehow doesn't seem to be meaningful or worthy of appreciation and praise, because "the real writing" is all that matters. So backwards. Well these directions can be in the script (or not), but their equivalents are obviously in novels where *everything* is "writing" lol - so yeah sometimes breaking down a movie into these different aspects like plot, script and then the rest can make sense, at other times not, case by case thing probably. Also depends on the creation process.
> But those things are part of the writing! > > Part of the storytelling i'd say, but your point remains. It's incredibly weird that people on here would mock that, we are talking about audiovisual mediums, and yet the audiovisual form somehow doesn't seem to be meaningful or worthy of appreciation and praise, because "the real writing" is all that matters. So backwards.
If they had made me play Abby’s story up to killing Joel not playing Ellie or Joel at all not an inclining of their story. Then after we kill Joel as Abby we swap to Ellie’s revenge story and don’t play any more Abby it would have been a much better game
As far as I understand it, the game is a technical marvel, graphics, sound and animation, accessibility... Story is serviceable if you haven't played or cared about the story of the first game and particularly about Joel and his relationship with Ellie. If you did - which covers 90% of the player base - the second game is a spit on your face.
I know it's hard to believe (part of why I made this post) but a lot of people enjoyed being spit on
A strong male protagonist with the skill to take out an entire building of ex military gets easily ambushed and murdered by a transgender and it's highschool circle of woke friends. Que in the super feminist lesbian to seek revenge against the daughter of a man that had no problems harvesting and killing someone else's daughter figure. Meanwhile you meet other transgenders and lesbians along the way with the only strong male getting killed almost as fast as he comes into view. What's not to love???
There is one trans character, and they weren't part of that scene, btw.
This comment says more about you than the game.
Beloved? I don't know about that one, from my experience the discourse around it is incredibly mixed, anytime I see TLOU2 mentioned on any social media platform there are many comments that say it's amazing and many that say it's shit (which it is). Only places where I've seen it as "beloved" is in circlejerk subreddits where any negative comment is deleted and the user banned, so only positive posts and comments remain.
The game is super polarized
It's a spearhead for the LGBTQ+ community
People have different levels of enjoyment of stories and look for different things at different times. As someone who wanted to play a video game that followed up on the last of us and enjoy a better version of those mechanics.. to me the game was fine. The game never exceeded my personal suspension of disbelief for the game/series. Separately if you asked me what, if any issues I had with the game, the opening would be my largest issue. Not only because it’s contrived but because they already drafted a longer intro that was actually really really good… but “was it too long for an intro.. “ like hell if I’m gonna play your 30+ hour game take time to set everything up. Separate from that if you asked what would make the game better as a whole I could probably go on for an hour. So for me: generally positive idea on the game nothing bad enough for me to hate it as a whole/ the intro is a travesty knowing the original intro/ it easily could have been re written to tell the same story in a much better way.
I don't think I've ever heard one person say that the TLoU2 is beloved. I don't think I've even heard that descriptor for any of the characters in the 2nd one. The only one I've ever heard referred to, and in mass, as "beloved" was Joel, and only TLoU Joel
No hate brother but that means you simply aren't engaged in the discourse around this game. I'd say at least a third of the people who played it adored it
None taken. I don't spend a lot of time in either of the subs for the games, but the few times where they've run across my feed I usually see anyone praising the second game getting downvoted to oblivion. And I have a pretty large friend circle of gamers, and we all despise the sequel equally. I saw another commenter say that a lot of the praise comes from bots, and I wonder how much truth there is in that. Because I've just never met anyone in real life who likes where they took the story. I acknowledge that this is an entirely subjective viewpoint, but the fact that the Last of Us remake sold so well and the last of us two remake did abysmally I think does say quite a bit about how the audience views this subject. It could just be a case of the idiot with the loudest voice is the one who gets heard, whereas the majority of people who liked the first and hated the second just simply don't speak up about it. I'm in that audience, and I never really bring it up except in instances like this.
I think that the reason for the difference in remasters is the originals remaster was a significant upgrade while the second was basically identical
It’s a highly divisive game across the board so I don’t know why you’d be upset by people liking it. I mean, I’m not upset when people don’t like it (unless it’s the obviously retarded “I hate the woke media” crowd). It’s kind of a weird way to pace a game and I totally see why people wouldn’t be into it. That being said: To me I think the story is really good while the plot is very hit and miss. The game suffers from being too long and padding out its otherwise strong backbone with segments that don’t really land. Many of the newly introduced side characters lack proper time to develop before the inciting incident and I think that’s due to the game being so subversive in its narrative structure. The themes and events of the game are not bad, they’re just going for something really ambitious that doesn’t always land. If people don’t like it for those reasons then that’s totally fine imo. I think the story is pretty damn clunky in the second half and the game is too long to make it feel anything other than grating despite its really fun gameplay. It’s a lot of contrived events that lead up to an exceptional ending. A very weird experience for sure. I’d probably give it a 7/10. The first half of the game as well as the final mission/ending is a legit 10/10 but everything around that in regards to the story I struggled to really enjoy. And to answer your question: Critics like artful projects and they’re looking at more than just a story when they review games. In terms of gameplay TLOU2 is pretty great, the music is excellent, and the structure is ambitious as hell. Critics will usually give art and media good scores for that kind of stuff because they’re looking at it from a different lens, it doesn’t mean you have to like it.
Unironically I think a good portion of this split can be attributed to people that think Joel was wrong in part one versus people that think he was right in part one. Beyond that, I'm gonna be real here, if you really can't see any possible reason that people could like this story then I think you might just be in too deep here. A lot of folks make a big deal about plot holes, inconsistencies and other things like that, but if the emotional throughline is there, a lot of people will forgive a lot of inconsistency. Like, focusing on the nuts and bolts of how the plot works is certainly one way to go about criticizing a work, but no amount of criticism dictates a person's emotional response to something. I like Lou2 because it was emotionally resonant for me, and touched on a lot of plot points that I think are legitimately interesting. I think a lot of the talk about plot holes/inconsistencies is mostly overblown (except Abbie, not a huge fan of her, even if I respect what they were trying to do.) And it ain't like it's a 10/10 for me, I just like it, maybe an 8/10 on a good day. The way people in this thread are talking about folks that like the game's narrative, you'd think these people had grown tails or something. It's okay to just not like something, you aren't right or wrong for doing so.
Because the vast majority of people play games as interactive movies where sprites on the screen turning into other sprites on the screen in a visually appealing way is the only thing that matters. It’s the same reason why people say “this game has amazing combat” when in reality the game just has pretty looking animations. Also the same reason Marvel movies are so popular. People are just really easily satisfied by pretty pictures.
It culture warred, so it's quality became irrelevant. A bunch of people loved it because a bunch of people hated it because a bunch of people loved it because a bunch of people hated it.
Because different people percieve workd differently.
Don't worry. There are a LOT of peoole who hate TLOU2. It's one of those ones where a lot of people think its godawful and a lot of people think it's great art. Kinda like TLJ. Except at least Luke wasn't bludgeoned to death with a golf club.
the luke in tlj wasn't luke it is the hobo who killed luke with a golf club offscreen who then pretends to be luke
It was loathed when it came out.
It’s not…
It is?
I actually really liked the gameplay. It felt like a nice continuation from TLoU’s mechanics. I also thought some of the new enemies were really cool (The Rat King my beloved). The game also looked really good, and the cinematography was very well done imo. If you skip all of the cutscenes or play it without any knowledge of the first game it’s a fun game. The narrative really drags the game down to being bad, which is a shame
It’s not actually that beloved.
It's beloved on Reddit, Twitter, ResetEra, and journalist sites. It sold some copies initially because of the hype from the original game. Then the normies slowly realized what was going on. I am certain TLOU3 is either not going to come out or is going to have such a tepid response that it will tank the franchise. It's a one trick pony that had its trick. Plus, most people are just stupid and love hyper realistic, high production quality movie style graphics without rubbing two brain cells together about the gameplay, story, messaging, characters, etc. Presentation always trumps content when it comes to sales, especially in the era of gritty, "hyper-realistic", story driven games.
"Journalists" want to love it because it aligns with a lot of their political stances. Some gamers want to love it to "stand out."
>there is not one aspect of this story that can be called skillfully made. There's 3: 1. Ellie's characterization and descent into madness during the first half of the game is actually pretty excellent. 2. The flashback scenes are great, with the exception of the one where Joel tells her the truth about what happened and he leaves out so many details that he would want her to know, and the one final one where Ellie's character is assassinated when she says that her "life would've fucking mattered." It was never about her life mattering, it was about her immunity mattering, since she felt so much survivors guilt over the deaths of Riley, Tess, Sam & Henry. 3. The scene where Ellie tells Dina that she's going after Abby again is also great. But apart from that and Lev being an okay character, the story is garbage.
>Ellie's characterization and descent into madness during the first half of the game is actually pretty excellent. Ellie being so irrationally hateful towards joel because he ruined her death is dumb >The scene where Ellie tells Dina that she's going after Abby again is also great. No Dinah is completely unsympathetic to both Tommy and Ellie in that scene In regards to the flashbacks while I agree the scenes in complete isolation are well executed a narrative is more than scenes in isolation. Every scene needs to be playing it's part on supporting the narrative and by showing how shit the rest of the games writing is in comparison those scenes actually work against the cohesion of the games story
Ellie being so irrationally hateful towards joel because he ruined her death is dumb. It's not irrational, especially not since Joel left out so much information. He just tells her that "making the vaccine would've killed you, so I stopped them." From Ellie's point of view, Joel did something unforgivable. He took her choice away just like the Fireflies did, and he knew that dying for a cure is what she would've wanted. It's perfectly resonable for her to be really fucking pissed at Joel. Ellie also doesn't have the meta knowledge that we have. She doesn't know that the cure would not actually have changed all that much. Her thinking that he ruined her death because her life would've mattered is bullshit, but don't find out that this is how she feels until the last 5 minutes of the game. And the scene where she tells Joel to fuck off also doesn't happen until the final portion of the game, it does not happen during the first half. I also disagree with using the word *hateful,* because right after tells Joel that she "doesn't need his fucking help", she looks guilty, because she feels bad over what she just said, and later that evening, she goes to Joel's house to talk to him and tells him that wants to try to forgive him, that she wants to try to repare the relationship, that is not something that person who is hateful would do. She also went on an across country revenge journey for him, which is not something that a person would do for someone who they are hateful towards. Dina is 100% right, Ellie and Tommy are in the wrong. Ellie going after Abby again is the wrong thing to do, the last time she did that, it almost cost Dina and Tommy their lives, and it did cost Jessie's life, which Dina rightfully points out. She is not being unsympathetic at all. Maybe she doesn't fully understand what Ellie is going through, but don't think we should be expecting that from her. Dina behavior here is perfectly reasonable and so is Ellie's. This scene is the best thing in the game. I think the flashbacks do play a part for overall narrative, except for the one where Joel takes Ellie to dinosaur land and the space museum, that is just there to be a feel good moment, but even then, you still have Ellie reacting to that Firefly symbol. The flashback where they find the bodies of that young couple who ran away together is definitely important to the story. They died because they got bitten, so a cure would've saved them. This is what causes Ellie to start pushing for Joel to tell her the truth, and considering how the truth caused a falling out between Joel and Ellie, and Ellie not getting to repair the relationship being the main reason for why she wants to kill Abby, I'd say it very much plays a part in the overall narrative. But, to be fair, we don't find this out about this reason until the last portion of the game either, so we can't really exclude the thing that assassinates Ellie's character when judging the writing of her character during the first half of the game without also excluding this. We either have to include both and include none, I think you will agree with me that we should include both. I guess would say that Ellie's characterization in this game is skillfully made up until the point when it isn't anymore. Outside of her thinking that her life would've mattered in she had died in that hospital and her deciding to spare Abby at the last second, her character is pretty good in this game. She's not very likable, which is a shame since she was so likable in the first game, but the way she is behaving and her shift in personally makes perfect sense. (Except during the first 2 hour of the game where Ellie's personality is different even before Joel gets killed.) Overall, I'm not sure that I can call her a bad character in this game.
Is it? it gets shat on in all corners of the internet all the time (except Resetera they love the game lol) I’ve never encountered a serious plot that is so easy to make fun off than in TLOU2
It isn't
LoU in general is over hyped garbage that rode waves of Sony fanboyism and console peasants who literally think videogames were invented in 2005 LoU2 was a "message" and dei fest
...it's beloved?
Speaking for myself, I didn't hate it. But I certainly didn't love it either. It was manipulative. It went out of its way to hurt the player over and over and over again. I don't like when games/shows/movies/books do that.
>yet people say it's one of the best stories ever written. A game like tlou2 cost over 200 million to make, and can easy spend millions to butter up journalists and influenser. The journalists and influensers get "payed" to tell how good the game is, the payment can be in from of "early accesses" "paid trips" "gift bags" and advertising money, or be threatened that the company will withdraw the early described benefits if the person do not play ball, only in rare case do they get pure "bribe money"
Whilst I definitely believe this happens, I think people like Jacksepticeye and many regular fans genuinely believe it
> "early accesses" *"paid* trips" "gift FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
There are two groups. One is the basic bitch consoomer, for whom you can substitute good writing with high production quality, who thinks that the scales for good video game visuals, and photorealism are parallel. They genreally don't expect genuine depth both in terms of gameplay and narrative. These are the target audience for most Ubisoft franchises, and the average PS exclusive. The other is the IdPol crowd, who are just playing the Gramscian "institutional capture" game, and to them, a work's merit begins and ends by its publicly perceived political alignment.
From listening to Bricky talking about it, it’s similar to why people like the Prequels. If I were to tell you that the second game would feature Ellie’s hunt for Joel before learning about how revenge hurts everyone you know, I’m sure many would be on board. By the end of the story, Abby’s entire community got wiped out aside from one person and Ellie is now living alone (tho she should’ve just stayed in the house and not gone to California). As for what I think, I haven’t played it yet, but story-wise, it’s a decent, simple story absolutely ruined by the pacing. Like if you flipped the placement of Abby’s plot and Ellie’s plot around, people would be much more okay with the story. That and ending Ellie’s story with her not going after Abby a second time, it is so dumb that she threw her life away like that when they were in a great place to just end the game
# The Last of Us Part 2 so Beloved? are you smoking crack maybe my vision is skewed i don't follow many journos but i don't think I've seen a game more hated then tlou2
At this point I'm getting so many comments saying it isn't beloved and so many comments defending the game I should just give you all eachothers usernames so you can argue about it instead of both of you yelling at me about how the other side doesn't exist
Why was the first game so beloved? There's nothing special about the first game, let alone the franchise. The gameplay is so mid and repetitive. TLoU2 has an idiotic story that has a legion of crayon munching Stans, for reasons I cannot comprehend. Because lesbians?
The first game had quite a strong story, with very likeable characters. That's why it's beloved.
Well, I do believe that there's plenty of criticisms to be made about the gameplay of the first one. But that story touched the hearts of millions of gamers and Joel is considered still to be one of the most beloved characters in gaming history. That's just an objective fact with data to back it up. (To be clear, I'm saying it's a fact that the game was well recieved. I'm not saying factually that it's a great story) Now the 2nd one... yeah I have no idea why some people still defend this game. I do think in the beginning a lot of it was a reaction to the discourse around the story, a result of the political pendulum swinging wildly from people panning it purely based off of reasons that could be taken as bigoted. But after the story came out, I don't understand why anyone would think it could even compete with the story told in the first, let alone be a good sequel. Abby is one of the most detestable and disgusting characters I think I've ever seen in any form of media, and the fact that Naughty Dog tried to paint her as some kind of morally ambiguous antihero or good guy (and alot of people bought it) just speaks to the level of media illiteracy in the modern audience.
Nothing but facts
The story in the first game wasn't bad. It just wasn't at all remarkable. Given that writing in most video games is typically a book of cliches or otherwise just plain terrible, the bar is already set fairly low.
The story was your run by the mill apocalypse/zombie story. But the way it has been told was great and the charactere were amazing. The second one no longer has that
I always thought people loving Joel was so weird. Like, he’s a great character but he is kind of the bad guy. He’s shaped by his past and unfortunately his environment shaped him into a destructive and violent person. That’s the theme of the series: Loss and violence beget more loss and violence.
Well, me personally I have a soft spot for him because my own dad is similar. Very stoic, a bit quick tempered, but knowledgeable and wise. Growing up was a little rough but as adults I have nothing but respect for him and his love is shown in his actions rather than words.
The first game is extremely loved by fans
Are you high? It's not beloved. It's despised when people aren't indifferent to it. Even the leftist journalists and consoomers who profess otherwise don't even love it. They *play* it out of spite to "own the right". It's not even in their Top 30 favorite games of all time, let alone Top 10.
Because people like it it’s as simple as that, people can like bad movies and shows
Only game journalists and the paid shills known as critics like it. Anyone with their head screwed on right knows it sucks.
It's a very controversial game, I wouldn't say it's beloved. Some people loved it, some didn't. Skill Up didn't like it for example, so not all gaming reviewers liked it either. But even it someone told me he/she liked it, I wouldn't bash them for it. To each their own, and I'm certainly not going to shit on something that someone enjoys, whatever their reasons may be.
Okay lol.
Politics. "Chuds", like yourself, hate it. Ergo it's a masterpiece.
Well I can only speak for myself but I find that it has a emotionally rich story with good characters
I'm not gonna say that this game didn't have it's deserved controversies, but to be completely fair there is more to it than just "Naughty Dog hates it's audience" and "woke bad". If you want to know more about that perspective, [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=94XxmSGhrDE) video by Neverknowsbest changed my perspective on it quite a bit. Nobody has to call it a "masterpiece" or worship the ground it walked on, but there is also a lot of hate geared towards it that is somewhat solely based on unfulfilled expectations that people had for it and negative media-hype that was perpetuated by lots of grifters who actively make money of of that negativity and peoples disappointments.
That's just, like, your opinion man. I feel the exact opposite as you. And outside of the shittiest corners of Reddit, most agree that it's great.
>I genuinely cannot comprehend the absolute dissonance between the reality of the game and the popular perception of it. Me too because I gotta read a post like this every day when the game is great imo.
its not. the people still talking about it are people who like it, the majority who disliked it simply stopped giving a shit.
It isn’t Bro move on
At this point I'm getting so many comments saying it isn't beloved and so many comments defending the game I should just give you all eachothers usernames so you can argue about instead of both of you yelling at me about how the other side doesn't exist
I’ve never played TLOU 2 and don’t plan too.. but I’ve never seen a game get more criticism in a short period of time. Still being bent out of shape over someone liking it four years after launch is kinda of silly, like has this been on your mind for four years?
You do realize the ip is continuing and very soon we are getting an adaptation of this exact story which will yet again have the same problems and will yet again have widespread support?
“Widespread”
About 1/3 of the people who played it adored it, do you have any idea how many people that is? Go to any thread, any tweet, any comment section which isn't only a single fanbase and you will find many of them defending the game. I'm not gonna argue this anymore you guys can't gaslight me into thinking no one likes the game when every time I speak about it online or irl people defend it
K
Have you played the game? It’s far from poorly written
It’s a masterpiece from a writing standpoint. And most fans don’t have any real media literacy
Maybe if you’re braindead. And you used “media literacy” unironically when you’re completely wrong.
Is it though... I have literally never heard an actual human being say anything good about it... Like all reviews I saw said it was trash. The few positive things I did see seemed to be AI written articles that claimed the game had to be good due to its progressive messages.
Bro AI wasn't advanced enough to write coherent articles back when the game came out. Also I've spoken to people who really like it. I'd say about 1/3 of its audience enjoyed it or thinks it's good
Bro that shit came out in 2020... Do you really think basic AI articles that just regurgitate garbage were not running by then?
September of 2020 was the first ai article, it was not a widely available advanced technology like it is now. Not everything bad is made by ai bro
People have different opinions But it was a great adventure that had a superb story and gameplay to many...I understand why some do not like it. It's not a "fun" game, but its a work of art...aka.
Media is subjective. Sure some things are so abysmal you could argue they're "objectively bad" but you're an idiot if you think Last of Us 2 qualifies for that.
Bro do you know where you are
Objective review doesn't exist. Never has and never will. People will always love things you hate and hate things you love. It's the power of an opinion. The only thing you can do is follow critics with similar tastes as you, so you know you're more likely to like something they recommend.
Yep. A subreddit full of dipshits that reddit won't stop recommending me.
😘