Was The Last of Us: Part II Really a Masterpiece? - A Critique on a Controversial Game

probably one of the most anticipated games of his generation the last of his part two unfortunately received backlash for its story right before its release and after but despite this this game one game of the year in 2020 lots of people think that different games deserve this mostly signing with the ghost of sushimok but what exactly made The Last of Us Part Two so controversial in this game we are going to analyze the entire game start to finish I will summarize the scene then after giving my two cents on the topic at hand keep in mind if you have never played this game before this is your spoiler warning everything I'm going to say in this video is going to spoil at least something so proceed at your own risk let it be known that I'm a die-hard The Last of Us fan I love the world the characters and the plot of the first game so you may think that I'll be biased and trust me you will be surprised so without further Ado grab some popcorn follow my twitch grab a drink on the stab straight into the video [Music] thank you [Music] kidding me [Music] what the hell are you doing [Music] kicking out the story is Joel sitting down cleaning his guitar and across from him is Tommy essentially what happens here is a recap of what happened in the previous game a refresher I found this to be quite helpful for someone who's new to this series or hasn't played the first game in a while this will help them get up to speed with the story at hand Jolie tells what had happened at the hospital him literally taking out all of the fireflies grabbing Ellie for his own selfish reasons and then taking out Marlene knowing that this is pretty brutal Tommy takes this in an uneasy Manner and tells Joel that they should head back to Jackson if you guys can't remember Jackson's the town that is run by Tommy and Maria during this time he plays Joel taking in the scenery with a nice score playing in the background I do want to say that the visuals in this game are absolutely incredible the only game that can top this in my opinion would be Horizon forbidden West though it doesn't seem like it through YouTube compression and loss of HDR when converting to an MP4 format this game technically speaking is a masterpiece in its own right Interiors are well filled with decoration flora fauna or abundant and the amount of detail when it comes to level design is insane the devs that created this game visually need a round of applause to go further on that loss of HDR when recording this causes blacks to be deeper and icky looking this goes away in later recordings when I turn this feature off so keep in mind if things look a little ugly in the beginning it's because of me not the game when Joel and Tommy finally get to town and there is a couple of words shared that are important Tommy understands the lengths that which Joel went to save Ellie not to mention he knows Joel's past when it comes to Sarah so with this Tommy says that he will take Jill's lie to the Grave specifically because if he were in Joel shoes he would have done the exact same thing this shows the incredible amount of trust between the two brothers which builds the foundation of the plot in a way a transition happens to where we see Ellie doing her own thing doodling and listening to music an important thing not only for in-game reasons but it's also builds Ellie's personality that is shown almost all the time through the game to start out this conversation is a little awkward to say the least Joel was scared to talk to Ellie after the LIE he told her so in order to ease the tension he tries to tell Ellie a dad joke profess the joke halfway through this is me every time I try to be funny around my friends it always ends up in pain and loneliness Joe has a surprise for Ellie though he pulls out the guitar he was cleaning and gives it to her as a gift this very guitar is an important plot point for way later in the game so keep that fresh in your mind there is a little mini game where you strum the guitar if you know how to play the guitar you can certainly have fun with this for me at least I suck a lot Joel then plays an important Pearl Jam song that I probably can't play because of copyright even though Joel's singing it so I'm not gonna risk that but I will say that it was a beautiful scene and seeing Ellie's reaction to it was pretty heartwarming she compliments Joel in her own cute way saying that his performance didn't suck which I agree with that [ __ ] was gas especially from someone that grew up in the pnw I love my Pearl Jam Nirvana and Alice in Chains but after this scene the title screen shows with the Dreadful cord playing in the background pretty much signifying that this game isn't going to be the light-hearted and I sincerely mean that if you're queasy to blood and violence this video probably isn't for you there's some really sickening scenes here even during the beginning so throughout this video I'm going to try my best and not analyze literally every sentence if I find something important to talk about I will but if I did it to everything this video would be longer than a feature film regardless we play as Ellie four years later she wakes up by the banging on the door of a certain individual Jesse pretty much the head of patrol in Jackson I like his dress and Suits up explores the town goes into a pub and an awkward scene happens where dude apologizes to Ellie for making some insensitive comments about her sexuality to comment on this briefly Elliot as a gay character is no problem whatsoever and if you find it problematic well I encourage you to go into the real world and understand that these people exist if you still have a problem with it I heard therapy is a great place to be the point I'm trying to make is if a character is gay there's nothing bad about that at all problems arise though when there is a character whose sole personality is their sexual reality there's no depth to this character other than that I will have a problem with it and criticize it but since we have already spent a game in a DLC with Ellie that isn't going to be an issue actually in this game Ellie probably has more depth behind her than the previous game in the series Better or For Worse backing away from this tangent I should probably mention this during a conversation with Jesse we find out that Ellie and Joel aren't on good terms apparently Joel came to defend Ellie from the dude that said some not cool things resulting in Joel pushing the dude back and causing a scene Ellie got mad at him for that and that brings us here the next day Ellie even states that she has no idea why she got mad at Joel for doing that but we the player now it's heavily implied that Ellie found out about Jules lie we don't get confirmation of that until later but it is important to mention it now this brings us to a little Combat tutorial before Ellie goes on patrol it takes the form of a snowball fight with some kids alongside Dina Ellie's love interest well I guess saying that this is a Combat tutorial is probably being generous I guess this is a way to make the player gradually get acclimated to the combat system which I appreciate to some degree it isn't the best by any means but it gets its point across I think I just liked doming kids with snowballs over anything else but after this is another conversation that has to do with a kiss the same ad is the Joel incident making this whole thing connected this scene just has some simple banter back and forth but nothing important I will say that this does feel like some high school [ __ ] but considering Ellie in this game is like 18 to 19 it makes sense regardless Ellie and Dean go on their way on patrol but a transition then incurs to a different character a character we haven't seen before Abby and oh my God is this chick built like a brick [ __ ] house I actually Envy her protein intake and rigorous training program liver King needs to take a few notes from this chick the thing to mention here though is that they're in the same area as the settlement in Jackson so one can assume that they're there for that specific reason to see if someone is in that specific settlement or at least scout out the place I'm assuming people watching this has already played the game so I'm just gonna come out and say it Abby's here to take out Joel Abby used to be a firefly life so her reasoning is Justified but there is a coincidence here how in the absolute living hell did they find out where he is did they get a tip from someone was there Clues left behind I have no idea and that bugs me though we do find out later and even that bugs me the entire plot is based on how Abby found Joel and when that plot point isn't believable then that makes the entire story not believable keep that in your mind that is a really important statement I just made I am taking this as a video game logic but if your game provides itself on realism then you need to treat your game as realistic this is far from it no one in their right mind is going to figure out where Joel is located four years after the incident at the hospital this point by itself brings the game down badly and I'm not even going to try to sugarcoat it once again I mean that keep this in the back your mind but going further this man named Owen tells Abby that he needs to show her something the two eventually travel to a Cliffside that overlooks the Jackson settlement now this worries Abby and Owen rightfully so but as they're looking at the city Owen tells Abby that Mel is pregnant a woman that is back at the shelter where they were just at this angers Abby which causes her to scout out ahead alone but before this they were arguing about how they were going to even be able to infiltrate the settlement and get to Joel Abby's gung-ho Owens reserved this whole male being pregnant plot line is important for sure but it also feels out of place for somewhat odd reasons it's another coincidence in order to cause doubt in Abby's mind which then leads her to find Joel on her own soon which then in turn is another coincidence do you see where I'm going with this this game constantly runs on coincidences and this is in no way how to structure a narrative let's take a look at the Witcher 3 for instance since that's the last game I've been playing religiously within that game geralt is actively looking for Siri going from velen to novograd to skelica the narrative connecting those three locations is so good because there's no coincidence and if there is it doesn't matter because they're hidden very well to explain when a girl fights Jennifer it's because a note was left telling girl to meet at a certain location and if it comes to that location with a battalion of nilf card soldiers because it was established in the previous game that she's been captured by nilfgaard so it's not a coincidence when geralt finds Tris and novograd it's because she was forced into hiding from The rodanian Witch Hunt this caused her to take up secret jobs in order to make coin so she went to the king of Beggars which in turn is how geralt found her not a coincidence it makes sense given the circumstances there's a lot more examples I can give that would make sense but I'm gonna stop there when a game just randomly throws out the fact that this girl is pregnant which in turn causes a domino effect to ensue which in turn causes Abby to off Joel because for whatever reason they were at the same spot at the right time it makes the story not believable it turns players away this explains why almost half the people that bought this game quit after Joel's death his death didn't make sense given the circumstances that were established before though the story that continues afterward makes up for this just a tad bit I can't help but feel empathy towards those people they missed out on a Redemption of Abby all because of horribly written introduction of the said character so the tldr of this Abby's introduction sucked and they should have gone a different direction with it but spoiler alert it doesn't really get better only slightly so as we go further in the level this is when we get introduced to real Combat and stealth so structuring this differently than the previous videos I'm just going to talk about combat now combat's almost identical to the previous game you have different weapons that you can use for different scenarios the revolver pistol long rifle shotgun bow and so forth each of them is upgradable depending on your playstyle some upgrades are more important than others for me at least I focus on weapon recoil because I suck at fps's on Console the added element that is different to the previous game would have to be going prone and also kind of the overhauled workbench animations which I'm not going to talk about that prone is probably the most important thing prone is something that I found extremely helpful and helps keep the game grounded hiding under cars desks and other things it adds more suspense and overall Joy to the game the pill system is back in the game with an overhauled regression different Lanes of abilities is added every time you pick up an instruction manual in the world this adds a different element of exploration the more you explore the more rewards you will gain in the long run in these trees the main columns are survival crafting stealth Precision field tactics Close Quarters covert Ops and Firearms with those skill trees being different for which character you play as Abby or Ellie all self-explanatory I love the number of skills available this causes the player to not feel overpowered during the game you have to pick and choose which branch is more tailored to your playstyle if you like running in a gunning go the firearms and momentum route if you like stealth go the covert Ops or stealth route you will almost never find yourself upgrading everything unless you do a new game plus run or if you quite literally explore every nook and cranny speaking of stealth it is almost the exact same as part one which is a good thing if it ain't broke don't fix it the things they added to stealth such as going prone only improves the mechanic I guess the only thing I don't like about the couple added features would have to be dogs but we will get to that when it comes stealth around in fact did is pretty much the same stay quiet and when clickers come around be even quieter stealth around survivors is also the same stay out of their cone vision and be quiet lights off like it's pretty much the same as the last but even though the stealth isn't broken and they did the right thing by not fixing it I can't help but notice that traditional combat is a more viable option than it was in the last game for whatever reason I found myself getting in a lot more fire fights and succeeding than I was stealthing and going forward I don't want to say that this fundamentally breaks stealth because it doesn't but it does take away the suspense and horror factor of the game if you can take down a horde of infected efficiently and still have the crafting components and ammo necessary to keep going something needs to be fixed keep in mind that I played this game on normal like I do every analysis I do the game either needed to give me less supplies or the difficulty needed to be readjusted sure I could of course adjust the difficulty slider whenever I see fit but that just takes away from the immersion a well-balanced game is when you choose a difficulty and feel that it's fair so you don't have to adjust it mid game when you do have to adjust it mid game it means that your game isn't well balanced at least in my opinion let me know what you guys think in the comments overall I think the game did well in some aspects of combat and stealth and poorly and others going guns blazing should feel risky rather than preferred route difficulty in this game should have been well balanced rather than just adding a difficulty slider to fix the problem regardless I still think that combat and stealth is overall fun but when these problems are blatant I feel obligated to voice that regardless we get to a point where another transition takes place playing as Ellie at this point when I was first playing the game when it came out I understood that this game is most likely going to do this countless times and I will get to that at a certain moment in the video playing as Ellie again we loot certain areas get to a checkpoint and sign in stating that the two were there and everything is all in the clear do some more horseback riding and eventually clear out an infected building that leads to our introduction to spores in this game at least in the beginning you can see that Ellie is wearing a mask even though she's immune this is because she's hiding her immunity from Dina taking Joseph ice even after they had a falling out ongoing says this makes sense this section is also an introduction to clickers and I love clickers I even have a Funko Pop of one but what we're getting ahead of ourselves they're so creepy and ugly looking and with the graphics that this game has geez I will say that during this section A lot of small talk happens actually happens constantly throughout the narrative same as the last game I'm not gonna comment on this a whole lot in the video specifically because it's well small talk I'll only bring something up if it is important but also keep in mind this is off the script after I played throughout the game and wrote everything this game has less of those moments than the previous which is kind of a letdown you guys will see my frustration later on after this combat section a blizzard happens this causes Ellie and Dina to get cooped up inside an old bookstore a place where Dina and this dude named Eugene used to hang here you can find a lot of backstory behind this Eugene character he used to be a firefly he had a family and he's a huge pothead this man even has a pot farm in the bay basement of his bookstore how in the hell did he have the time to take care of it all I swear pop must be at least some kind of currency in this state of the world like people would kill for that [ __ ] like just relax take a puff and forget about the outside world I like how this game adds some kind of humanity people even in this state of the world will still do stuff like this guaranteed given that Ellie and Dina are young adults they're going to do this type of [ __ ] which ultimately they do and they bang afterwards when I first play this game I thought this stuff seemed out of place but all my other playthroughs I've grown to accept it not the sex I'm at the pot talking about the intimate scene though this thing felt so high school yeah it makes sense because of their age but damn being an adult and witnessing this makes me cringe I'm talking about raiding their kiss and [ __ ] was it isn't something that irritates me per se it just felt awkward maybe because in the base game they never did stuff like this so in the sequel when it was included it fell out of place I'm not sure this isn't going to affect the rating or anything but I do want to voice my thoughts going back to Abby's POV we see her struggling to get away from infected with a scripted sprinting segment this causes her to coincidentally run into Joel and Tommy since they were on patrol and for whatever reason they were in the same place as Abby yikes that's all I'm gonna say so is Abby you help Joel and Tommy fend off infected eventually get out of the building and go towards the cabin that houses Abby's friends why does Toby and Joel Just immediately trust this girl why do they willingly go to her Hideout it just makes zero sense Joe would have never done this in the previous game so why does he do it now he has grown soft at Tommy's camp that argument literally falls apart when the world is like the way it is you trust no one you don't know you have to be on your guard at all times you can't afford to trust someone willy-nilly this whole thing is so [ __ ] from the ground up that I'm actually angry that the writers thought this was a good idea to go down when Joel and Tommy finally get to the cab and introduce themselves everyone in that room starts to stare and it's dead silent you could probably hear a Pin Needle if it dropped and of course you know what happens I'll let the scene play but the stuff is so graphic I don't think the YouTube Gods would like it Abby puts an enormous hole in Joel's leg the others beat Tommy unconscious and they restrain Joel and torture him with Abby almost looking like she's having fun while doing so this seems so gruesome and I felt overcome with like rage watching it it isn't necessarily because I thought Joel didn't deserve it quite the opposite I knew he deserved it and that's why I was mad and conflicted which is what the writers intended Joe did some horrible things to people and he got what was coming to him but the thing that soured it all was what I stated before it was just all based on a domino effect of coincidences it sucks hardcore I as a player felt robbed Joel dying was inevitable but because of the piss poor sequences that led to this moment Joel's dead didn't feel right it wasn't paced properly it wasn't written properly hell I don't think it was even thought out properly and honestly felt like a cheap way to shove Abby into the plot so there are transitions of character povs having a game where we only play as Ellie would have been totally fine I don't get why they felt the need to put this other character in was it a way to mimic the previous game with transitions between Joel and Ellie if that's the case wow bottom line I really don't know how I feel about this even to this day playing the game more than once and I think others feel the same when we play as Ellie after a good sesh Jesse comes into the room unexpectedly and tells Dina and Ellie that Joe and Tommy haven't come back from their patrols this causes it the three to take different routes to try and find them after running around for a while Ellie opens the door to the basement when this is Joel's Last Breath Abby's friends see Ellie and take her down quickly after Ellie puts up a fight while Ellie is screaming in a blind rage like how players feel we see Joel get offed in front of us it's very tragic and quite gross we see some arguing happening in the group but ultimately someone kicks Ellie unconscious and when Ellie gets woken up by Dina and Dina says that she's sorry this whole sequence of events would just so all over the place in all honesty some good and some bad the emotion in the scenes is top-notch the emotions that the player feel is at an all-time high but the sequence of events that lead to this moment are horrible The Coincidence of Abby finding Joe at the right place at the right time is off-putting the whole pregnant plot line was weird as hell and plays into the coincidences the fact after four years Abby's group somehow knows where Joel is it's a writing Fiasco and it kind of make matters worse Tommy's still alive don't get me wrong I'm glad that this guy is here still with us but he just took an absolute beating to the face he should be more [ __ ] up than what he is I feel so foolish that everyone is still alive after this event if Abby's group was smart they would have ended everyone there and left leaving no one to follow them and I understand that the writers are self-aware later on Dean comments on this saying that it was weird that they kept Tommy and Ellie alive but just because they're self-aware doesn't mean it makes things A-Okay this group of people throughout the game murder people in Cold Blood deserving or not so for the writers to portray them as high and mighty only taking out those deserving such as Joel is absolute [ __ ] there's no reason for Ellie and Tommy to be alive it's literally unbelievable but regardless Ellie and Tommy talk about what the next steps are to track these guys down Tommy being reserved while Ellie is determined to chase after them this causes Tommy to ask Ellie for one day to get some men ready and talk to Maria it is mentioned that these guys are reside in Seattle they are known as the wlf and organized militia so this feat of tracking down Abby won't be easy shortly after a transition happens where Ellie visits Jules grave saying her last goodbye when this scene hid when the game first came out I just broke I actually cried having this character that we spent so much time within the previous game just dies like that takes a toll on you even if this is a video game it even hits harder when he realized that his death shouldn't have gone the way it did anyways playing as Ellie we take a stroll through Joel's home seeing pictures of him and Ellie coffee cups everywhere seeing his clothes that were worn in part one this is an emotional time for the player in Ellie and I love it though I have certain feelings towards Joel's death at least the game gave us enough time to grieve it lets you Ponder on what just happened unless you collect yourself this is kind of similar to what happened after Sarah's death where they played the opening credits letting the character breathe eventually Ellie opens up a box that holds Jill's watch and gun La takes them both and heads downstairs where Marie and Dean are waiting for us apparently Tommy left without us in a hurry and told Maria to not let us go to Seattle but knowing Ally Maria lets Ellie go on a single horse and lets Dina go with us she gives us some supplies and tells us to go get her husband with the introduction of day one in Seattle playing as Ellie we get onto the highway there's some brief conversations between Ellie and Dina talking about who the wof are Dina throws out factions from the last game such as the cannibals they met during winter or the bandits that Joel used to run with both are wrong but Ellie doesn't know this so she responds by saying she has no idea and there really isn't a reason to be asking these questions Joel used to run with a lot of people too many to count I love this sort of recollection of past events here not only to help the player keep up to speed but it also has the player questioning just like Dina is well after playing the game countless times it is quite obvious which group who would do such a thing but after navigating through the pnw force and following the highway the duo get to a checkpoint gate that is massive in size this causes Ellie to climb it make her way down turn on a generator and finally open the door the puzzles in this game are a huge step forward from previous though those puzzles are still in the game at least about 80 percent are more well thought out instead of just finding random things around the world to use in order to make it to your next objective this game has that but more so it is a multi-step process rather than just doing one thing which I like I'm not gonna lie some can be frustrating but most of the time I enjoyed myself oh by the way Ellie almost [ __ ] dies while trying to climb this wall well I I did die but let's just not talk about that one tiny thing I do want to mention around the world you can collect these trading cards that have to do with superheroes and villains I found these Collectibles fascinating for whatever reason which I guess is a plus we also found a paper that shows the codes in order to open certain Gates as well and to be honest you find a lot of noise in this game that shows relevant information regarding the plot I do want to say that this stuff is eh kind of a cheap way to navigate the player but at the same time in this apocalyptic world how are people going to remember important [ __ ] they don't have a Notes app in their phones because they don't have phones so a logical thing would be to write it down Boomer style so because of that it is believable but with that we find a note that tells us where we can find our next clue a place called saravina base it is pretty much a hotel but we'll get to that soon because we need to find gas in order to power generator in order to progress onward to that said base this causes an open world-ish section of the game which I found awesome within this section there's Bountiful loot to be found you can go into the bank and witness a robbery gone wrong on outbreak day in this Bank you can get a shotgun you can go into a courthouse take out some Infected get some Loot and small talk happens where Dina States it would be cool to be on jury duty now I've never been on jury duty but I've heard from people that that sucks so seeing these characters actively want to be a part of it it's pretty funny also LED just becomes unhinged just give me five minutes of my knife I tell you if they were lying or not oh wow okay you can visit a synagogue where you can find out more about Dina's background she came from a lineage of survivors from certain historical moments I don't think I can say the word because YouTube's been harsh pretty recently so I'll just let the dialogue play and you will come to that conclusion this place brings back a lot of memories sister used to drag me to a synagogue all the time he never struck me as much of a Believer nah I like coming from a long line of survivors you mean after outbreak day that and the Inquisition and the Holocaust my family always made it out alive barely but here is where you can get some gas gas in a synagogue I I guess you can even visit a music shop that houses a bunch of old records there's also a heartfelt cut scene that you can easily Miss Ellie plays the song Take On Me in front of Dina and when the song played I was in awe the emotion behind this the importance of the song even it just it can be underestimated it's essentially a preview of what's to come in the game the confrontation within her own self as well as the people that she's after she's struggling with the death of Joel on the effects from that while simultaneously taking on the wlf and possibly making that mental battle with their self worse in which in this case at the end of the game there's Bountiful places to explore here but for the sake of the length of the video let's move on Ellie and Dina finally get to the hotel that was supposedly a base for the wlf after taking out someone affected that were straight up eating a dead body yuck we make our way upstairs where we can find bodies that have been clearly shot Ellie and Dina both comment on this saying that it is something to worry about but the two get to a room that shows an ugly interrogation Tommy is the same trick that Joel did when he confronted David's men in the winter section of part one where he Joel would ask one person where a certain something is without verbally saying it if it matched what the other person said there was no lie but if it didn't match then some [ __ ] would go down which is exactly what happened here this game doesn't shy away from the horrors that happen in this kind of world people do some [ __ ] up things in the name of Revenge love and so forth but at least says that one of these dudes was there the night of the incidents so that is one person crossed off the list including these bodies we find another gate code that can lead us to another destination so to summarize super quickly because I just rammed straight through the sequence the section of the game is wide open for you to explore a new thing that's introduced to part two and I adore it I wish more levels in this game use this kind of a navigation and adds a new layer of exploration than his desk really needed don't get me wrong I love my linear level designing games but adding something like this doesn't take that away it's still linear in nature but the openness is something that I need to applaud the writers for and developers searching areas for supplies while also implementing these little short stories written down on a piece of paper is not only engaging but it makes post-apocalyptic Seattle worth looking around it feels lived in it feels like some bad [ __ ] went down as the duo push on we try to make it to the next gate but when trying to get there the two get ambushed which causes me to panic Paws out of me being scared oh my God what after being out of it Ellie comes to be all tied up and captured the dude that Ellie cut her with a knife at the beginning of the game wakes her up this dude starts to interrogate Ellie asking stuff like how many people came with her how did they find them and so forth so at this point the wlf know that certain people are out to get them I do then come strolling in asking the dude with a scar what exactly is he doing and he tells him that we were there when Joel died to keep the short and sweet the Two Men start arguing about whether to keep Ellie alive or not considering Ellie may not be alone the dude with the scar doesn't want to office just yet he wants to know the details which in fact is smart while the other dude states that some dude named Isaac wants Ellie dead and for it to be over with but amidst the arguing Dina takes out someone but at the same time the glass gets shot out from under her and she falls this causes the deal with the scar to start strangling her through some qtes Ellie breaks free from being tied up and takes out the dude fast this eliminates another dude from the list of people that were in Jackson that makes two within the last couple of hours and I will say this game can get mentally draining fast this isn't a game where you can sit hours on end playing you need some breaks here and there so after this moment I really needed to sit for a second Ponder on what had just happened and then push forward so after that much needed break we get to a shooting gallery stealth section that we are all too familiar with from the previous game and I believe this is the first one of the game with this though since running and gunning is so much easier I decided to go that route took down a bunch of enemies and then pushed forward later though we get to a cutscene that details Dina and Ellie's next move after looting a picture and a note off of the scar dude Dina takes a look at it the picture isn't new that was taken from a polaroiding given to the guy using common sense it must be the guy's girlfriend or something I don't know Dina is the no and it stays that this woman was from the TV station and this woman was also at the lodge when Joel was well you know this gives us another lead and another person to take down which seems legit I will say that this has been feeling way too easy and the pacing has been odd when it comes to taking out these individuals I wish there was more space with it though it would have made the game just tad bit longer I don't think I would have minded it though having a section in the game where he plays Abby for a solid minute I do sometimes think about what this game would have been like if you only played his Ellie maybe better if they did this it would have been evenly spread taking out these people you wouldn't have to cram it into the first half of the game but whatever we still need to play through the whole game to see if that would have been the case as the duo move forward it is another open-ended exploration section that I love dearly exploring every rundown house gas station and store is very immersive especially when you read the notes left behind in depth and understand what had happened that that caused these houses to be abandoned but with that you also get your fair share of jump scares yeah let's go so during this part I also want to come back to the place where Dina mentions and asks why the wlf didn't take Ellie out when they had the chance you get this interaction with optional dialogue same as the last game pressing triangle at the right time will trigger conversations that are well worth the button press you get more information out of a character's thoughts motivations likes and dislikes and so forth love how they brought this back it was one of my favorite features from part one and I thought it was The Last of Us defining feature but regardless after Dina finishes talking about it Ellie simply says they [ __ ] up like okay this isn't a great explanation for why they let Ellie live I feel like it was the writers that were the ones that [ __ ] up and couldn't come up with any better explanation sure when you play as Abby you get to realize that the wlf are mostly decent people kinda that are in a shitty World they aren't exactly Saints but they don't go around killing innocent people but that argument connecting to why they let Ellie live falls apart when Ellie literally tracks them down all the way to Seattle to take them out Abby's group should have known better and it isn't believable you're in a goddamn apocalypse where people kill each other be without hesitation you are literally trying to survive jeopardizing that by just explaining hey they didn't do anything wrong so we aren't going to kill them fundamentally tears down the world that naughty dog was trying to build there is no good and bad in this world anymore the world is very gray you can't afford to be a good person so reiterating myself this [ __ ] isn't believable now I'm gonna stop because I'm actually getting heated writing this going forward we have to navigate our way through a trapperton street which well is harder than you think these things are genuinely hard to see and I love it you have to constantly look intently and make sure that you aren't going to trip over the wire and after you get through this you see a person's creative drawings same man same then we get to see a certain mural for an important figure and an enemy faction's religion the mural is a painting of a normal looking woman with words feel her love don't worry you'll find out why this certain faction worships this figure soon well they don't detail it well but it is enough to satisfy the Curiosity Ellie and Dina then comes across a horse that has been ripped open this horse also has Tommy's brand which means that Tommy has been through this area and it seems fresh and as the camera pans we get to see Dina throwing up and comes up with the excuse of the smell well this chick is prego which I'll go into detail later when it is revealed and let me tell you I hate this plot point so after following the trail of bodies and making your way to the TV station we see a messed up scenario wlf members are strung up on nooses dead yeah this is the type of [ __ ] that makes the last of us the last of us this [ __ ] is brutal and it is clear that there is another faction that is lurking in Seattle that seems sadistic in nature almost cult-like seeing horror like this not coming from the infected adds a whole another lay layer of survival horror to this game it makes it so you want to get the necessary information and get the absolute [ __ ] out of Dodge you don't want to stick around and find out who did this so after finding more bodies probably caused by the faction that hung the others we come across the girl that was in the picture and that was at the lodge in Jackson she was taken out by that certain faction though Ellie then loots her duffel bag and finds literally every picture of every single person that was at the lodge and this is a coincidence yes you can make the argument that hey maybe she wanted to keep them so she can remember her friends but that falls apart when the convenience of Ellie casually finding them happens this literally gives her every single person that she intends to take out it would have been better for Ellie to interrogate the certain people to figure out where the next Target is and what their name is just like Tommy did but going around of just randomly finding pictures of them and learning their names is so lazy and dumb that feels like a freshman in college Film School wrote this script I should know I've been one of these people I also just want to say briefly I've been in film school for five years specializing in script writing as well as film criticism I also minored in creative writing so I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about when it comes to this stuff I'm not trying to flex my credentials I'm just letting you guys know that I'm somewhat qualified in what I'm talking about so to summarize the scene this is quite literal garbage regardless after moving onwards some wlf members come into the scene and witness the horrors that the other faction caused they're horrified also going off of this if you take out an enemy and another one sees their bodies they will actually comment on it whether that be emotion of sadness anger or horror it's cool to see the reaction that the enemies have it's a nice detail that was added in after Street trash in this game for a couple minutes I feel the need to at least commend this game in some aspect but after fighting these enemies Ellie and Dina run away and find themselves near a Subway filled with infected let me tell you the atmosphere of this section is so damn incredible the red Pew of the subway the infected mixed with the wlf and the deafening clicks of clickers this section is just so damn immersive not to mention once you go deeper into the level you you get introduced to a new enemy the shambler this infected is built like a bloater but instead of just being a tank this thing when it gets near you it will blow spores at you dealing loads of damage this wise to stealth around these guys but well I didn't do that and wasted all my ammo and to be honest a lot of the subway section is mostly just stealthing in combat this isn't a bad thing by any means there just isn't a lot said during this for obvious reasons but after trying to get topside we ran across a Subway cross the trains stacked on top of each other this causes us to navigate with caution but because my brain is trained to come up with bad scenarios all the time I had a strong feeling that we would fall someone gets stuck which is exactly what happens Ellie gets tackled by an infected and a qte plays until Dina saves us but while Ellie was following her mask broke and since Dina didn't believe Ellie's story about being immune Dina freaks out and tries to take off her own masks to save Ellie which of course Ellie forces Dina to calm down Ellie tries to tell her that she wasn't kidding when she said that she was immune I like to think that this is a huge story moment regarding Trust between the two but after it really isn't mentioned much besides like for an instance but I'm gonna move on so after the whole Fiasco infected start to go crazy because a lot of sound was made this causes a pretty good ass Chase sequence where you actually feel like you're about to die there was even a couple of times where you get a scripted tackle scene though it is small I like the addition because of the immersion and horror but soon we get to an abandoned theater and we have a rest finally I'm going to let the scene play and comment on it afterwards you want to tell me what's going what's going on with you what's going on with me Ellie I just saw you breathe spores an immune okay you're immune come on it's been a long time ago [ __ ] are you talking about I Was Bitten and nothing happened a chemical burn Maria and Tommy and Joel are the only ones who know you know foreign I can't get you infected if that's what you're worried about I can't make you immune either [Music] you say something really I think I'm pregnant what don't worry it's not yours what are we what are we supposed to do now how long have you known it was late a few weeks ago a few weeks we could have we could have still turned back I didn't know I wasn't sure okay I didn't want to be a bird well you're a burden now aren't you [Music] make sure this place is secured [Music] you just rest well that was pretty heavy to say the least so Dina finally knows that Ellie's immune but as you can see nothing is really said on it it felt like something shoved in here you know I I would have thought that Dina would have had a different reaction to this either excitement worry or asking the backstory behind it more in depth but there isn't any of that instead they shift the focus on Dina's pregnancy and the sole reason that this plot point is set in place is to mimic Mel's this is literally it that's the only depth to it later down the line things get heavy with the plot point in mind but as things stand now I just don't like it I will say though that the acting was phenomenal you can clearly see the emotions conveyed especially when Dina just looks at Ellie when she said that she was a burden like the what the [ __ ] look it was perfect but enough about that scene let's move forward during your time in the theater you used to explore essentially you walk around find out the entrance of the stage is locked so you go up the stairs and see a radio we go through the window to turn on the power and witness some dead dude that got fried we get back into the room until on the radio but Ellie doesn't know how to tune it She Bangs on the radio and some keys are underneath it which unlocks the stage room so when you explore just a tad bit more we find a guitar and Ellie decides to practice a little bit [Music] foreign [Music] where it's Ellie's birthday and Joel took her out for an adventure I love these flashbacks so damn much it feels so much like the original Last of Us it felt more light-hearted the banter between the two was great and just the atmosphere felt good don't get me wrong I like the atmosphere of this game but sometimes it's just too much you know this game is very depressing with little to no comedic relief so seeing these flashbacks feel good pacing wise this flashback consists mostly of experiencing the relationship between Joel and Ellie once again you see the two teasing each other by pushing each other into the water you see Ellie constantly bugging Jill about what exactly he's going to show her the slightening of the mood couldn't have come at a better time the two eventually get to a museum Full of Dinosaurs and spaceshit both of Ali's favorite things you get to see different types of dinos while also throwing a hat on top of their head and eventually we get to see the space section where we see the pilot seat of a rocket ship this is a beautiful scene where after hours of seeing Eliana happy with Joel's death we see a happy moment of them together again whoa foreign okay oh wow did you look at all these buttons oh man could you imagine just happy birthday kiddo what is this this is a thing that took a mighty effort to find take it close your eyes it'll be worth it okay seconds guys Arnold ten nine ignition sequence [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] thank you I do okay are you [ __ ] kidding me [Laughter] you're welcome kiddo what do you say we uh keep looking around huh yeah I guess all right [Music] okay Welcome To Earth you could see genuine happiness here it's something to lighten the mood with as well as help the player remember what it was like to be with Joel though it does make me handle Jules death a bit worse it does succeed at making his death more impactful he quite literally missed the dude being next to you also showing him being amazing dad just puts the icing on the cake I think while this scene played I said [ __ ] damn it dude for the reasons I just stated it just sucks to realize this dude is no longer here and the only time you're going to see him in these cute flashbacks and even then I think he has like maybe less than seven minutes of screen time so I guess the tldr is this seems awesome but it makes me hate the plot point of Joel's death more which I honestly think is what the writers intended but since Ellie is a curious little [ __ ] she wants to explore the part of the museum that Joe hasn't yet so she swims over to that specific side with Joel following her with him giving her a boost in order to get inside when Ellie gets inside she sees a series of writings on the wall these include I killed for them the Four soldiers at the gate the last one cried the woman tortured choked on her own blood the stragglers who snuck into the camp they just wanted food the kid who ran into the blast I couldn't stop him and the people in the van we locked them in and doused it with gas using common sense you start to realize that this dude feels guilty for everything his group has done and honestly it is kind of creepy finally we get to a couple other writings there's no light and Liars with a firefly above the last statement after getting absolutely scared shitless by a boar we see a dead body with a note on them there's no details what it was like to be a firefly saying that every time there was a sacrifice their leader said it was worth it we also get to find out that after the incident at the hospital the fireflies disbanded there are no more mostly for the fact that their work ended up not being worth it too much was sacrificed in judging by the notes on the wall they weren't exactly good people either which is why this person says that there isn't any light this brings a different type of angle to the group through this last game we were never given any reason to think that these guys were bad they wanted to use Ellie de fun and cure a noble cause right but seeing this brings a darker nature to it they kill innocent people who wanted food they straight up lit people on fire and through all of it their leaders said that it was all part of the plan this whole thing is so [ __ ] and I love it and when Ellie sees this and Joel comes in and Witnesses this too it kind of plays into Joel's lie at the end Ellie starts to kind of believe him more I should say at least that's how I look at it this adds more depth to the game and the relationship that Ellie has with the lie that was told to her but this is when Elia wakes up from the flashback when we take some time to practice some guitar yeah I still haven't gotten any better [Music] we also meet Dina upstairs where she has morning sickness and she doesn't look to be doing too good as we talk to her she gives us some important information through the radio that was fixed we found out that Owen the dude that got Mel pregnant went to AOL for whatever reason but they still haven't got any information about Abby but after a cute little scene happens with some emotional music in the background Ellie essentially says that she's sorry that her getting anger was kind of stupid the plot point is stupid but same difference I guess but the intimate conversation gets interrupted when someone mentions on the radio that a lone Wanderer has been spotted which means that's probably Tommy this causes us to get all suited up and find them of course without Dina's help because well yeah we eventually got to Hillcrest in this section you essentially just get supplies ammo whatever it is that you need along the way through you hear gunshots of the group of wof in a truck start driving towards the sound this means that Tommy is either in trouble or causing trouble this causes Ellie to try and make it to him as quickly as possible as soon as after we get into a combat sequence this is also the introduction of dogs even in stealth dogs are able to sniff you out by following a scent trail that you leave behind you can also see your Trail in listening mode my thoughts on this new edition is mostly negative in my opinion I think it ruins the fluidity of combat and stealth for me at least it's almost a guaranteed non-stealth run with dogs around I just found myself always getting caught there are times where you're just low on supplies low on health and low on ammo and when a dog section comes you feel pretty much screwed out of surviving unless you stealth kill as much as you can thank God there isn't much of these sections but when they do happen I get pretty irritated after that's done with it we get to another similar section of just alluding and taking out more infected these bloaters though are something else at this point it was my first time wearing headphones while playing this game the rest it was just TV speakers so hearing those dudes in the 3D headphones wow but in this section there's one mechanic that I forgot to mention safes you finally saves around the world but in order to open them you have to find the combo first it's gonna be be on notes walls doors and so forth you pretty much just have to explore in order to get these things but when you do get the combo the rewards are well worth it in this section I got an extra holster which was much needed we also later get the bow in this house there's a note on the table detailing some gruesome stuff explaining that in their eyes the wlf isn't much better than the military and a certain individual that wrote the note did something horrible as well turns out you find this guy in the garage and my God was he a [ __ ] to take down regardless you can just Jack his bow and go on your way going into detail about the bow I love this thing and always have in the last of us but after some more stealth thing looting and shooting we get to see a scene that caused a lot of controversy in The Gaming Community [Music] oh [ __ ] what the hell are you doing here I think I'd let you do this on your own Jesse where's Dana be safe she's just sick what kind of sick fine Christ there's a lot of them hey how hurt are you I'll be okay your friends out there rushed me no warning no nothing tell me you didn't come alone give me a [ __ ] about it later getting it you know that right that's your plan we need to get some distance okay so if you guys can't tell this was the exact scene that played out in a trailer I forgot which one but it was the one where it was Joel instead of Jesse this is blatant promotion for something that isn't in the game while admittedly it doesn't change much when it comes to the story in my eyes considering we've already gotten past the point of Joel's death I still think misleading your fan base isn't something that you should do I also think that pacific Joel trailer had people excited and when his death happened they got even more mad because it seemed like they were promised Joel in the trailer I agree with this side it isn't something that you should do but we are two years after the release I got past my anger of this a while ago so saying this again doesn't bug me too much but the play now is to take out the remaining wlf Jack their car and get some mileage between us and them but when the two do get into the car the wlf come chasing after us initiating a set piece with driving and shooting as well as at the end the infected coming after us Jesse and Ally drive the car into the water get out and make their way to the theater I found this whole thing to be technical Marvel with that much going on at once wlf infected driving the car it must have been difficult to pull this off it is also effective at getting the player truly immersed I say that a lot in this video but it's true I was genuinely dodging and weaving when I was taking out the infected it was sick when Ellie and Jesse get back to the theater some odd ass [ __ ] plays out where Dean is excited and worried to see Jesse with Ellie and with this it seems like Dina is more interested in Jesse and seeing if he's okay rather than Ellie this is quite a pickle to be in and I feel for Ellie at this moment you're caring for this chick do whatever you can to make her happy and feel better but when you get back she barely greets you it's [ __ ] up in its own kind of way I found this effective when it comes to making me feel more connected with Ellie but afterwards there is another flashback with Tommy and Joel during this we target practice with Tommy and just have some bonding time but it is very clear that something is on Ellie's mind one can imagine that it's about what had happened with the fireflies eventually we meet with Joel he tells Ellie that at some point she needs to replace the strings on her guitar so Tommy and Joel come up with a plan to go to the nearest instrument store and get some strings if they have any but Ellie seems uncomfortable with this idea the question in my head is at this point does she know that he lied or at least has her doubts this is the first time we see Ellie and Joel be on opposite footing of one another as we make our way to the store we find out that the way to cross is blocked you must go through a hotel instead this causes Joel and Ellie to explore it but eventually they get to a spot where spores are visible this has Joel tell Ellie to put her mask on but she disagrees and states that no one's around why does she need to put it on but Joel replies with saying that you never know who you may run into this dialogue shows the standoffish nature between the two and it's unclear about what exactly it is it's very much seems like something happened before this and sadly I don't think it's shown in the game but the fact that Ellie's standoffish is something to keep in the back of your mind in the two push forward we fight some Infected a little bit but eventually I get scared shitless because the bloater busts through the wall and grabs Ellie I tried so hard to take this thing down it took about seven minutes then I finally got taken down and realized that this is a scripted sequence for the bloaters supposed to get his hands on Ellie pause I wish they would have just scripted this entire sequence instead with no gameplay I wasted seven minutes doing nothing essentially I was about to reload and save because I thought something was bugged thank God it didn't or else I would have to do it again I don't know it just pissed me off after that odd sequence ends Ellie finds a body in the floor and Joel takes out a clicker on the floor as well come to find out these two were the kids that fled Jackson apparently they wanted to help Society instead of being cooped up inside Jackson but about an hour into their Adventure they ran into a horde and got bit they don't want to turn so they decided to end themselves but the boyfriend was too much of a coward he shoots the girl and lets himself turn this whole story is pretty messed up and it shows that there's no hero in this there is no helping anything like they were planning to do all that it will do is get yourself killed and realizing this Ellie says only if they were immune this causes an argument of sorts to break out between Joel and Ellie only once again question is the lie that was told they're asking that she hasn't met anyone else with that was immune in all honesty this was kind of dumb question on her part which doe gives a good explanation of if someone else was immune they're not going to tell you for the same reason that Ellie isn't telling anyone it's too dangerous but also when I was thinking there are so many people in the world still if there are some that are immune they are probably across the country I just think she asked the wrong question here was a question that can be easily answered Joel pretty much tells Ellie that there was no cure and there's no use in questioning it so Elliot reluctantly agrees to get out of the hotel with Joel which causes the flashback to end I love this flashback in its entirety even though some dumb questions were asked some simple combat and stealth the deep conversation with Joel and witnessing the thoughts race through Ellie's mind all of it was the [ __ ] I needed especially since we've yet to get our answers from the previous game this is one step closer to finding out what exactly happened between Joel and Ellie we then find Ellie stitching herself up but Dina comes into the room and takes over saying that Jesse's all right there is some awkward silence here and the player in Ellie can clearly see that Dina still has feelings for the man understanding this Ellie says that Jesse's a good guy but the conversation gets interesting when Dina mentions that one of Abby's friends has been spotted at the hospital and she learned this from the radio that causes us to go on our way alone and try to find her as we're exploring the rest of Seattle without Dina you will come across some areas infested with infected that hides some pretty good loot and you'll have your traditional spooky encounters though this is the first time you get introduced to the stalkers in part two stalkers in this game are absolutely terrifying for a completely different reason even when you engage listening mode you still can't see them which makes stealth a whole other monster having enemies stealth against you as well adds a different difficulty layer as well as it makes things interesting but with that there's also some qtes where stalker bum rushes you like an NFL linebacker you get tackled through some glass and into the water effectively getting in closer to the hospital as well as getting you stinky and dirty from being in sewer water and when we do get top side we get introduced to the faction that has been teased throughout our entire time in Seattle the scars these guys mostly use melee weapons and Bows to take down their enemies as I said before they are almost cult-like not using anything that was used in the old world well besides like pistols and guns they also use stealth constantly which sucks for me because I like running and gunning the introduction of this fashion with the buildup behind it was excellently executed they're actually scary to go up against you can't use the same strategy on them as you do with infected or the wlf you're almost forced to stay stealthy whereas with infected in wlf you can go either way though with hindsight I do wish that we'd battle the scars just a tad bit more as Ellie you mostly go against the scars when you play as Abby which kind of sucks I like the idea of Ellie going up against an enemy she has no idea about rather than Abby knowing everything about this enemy hopefully I got my point across regardless you still take out more scars some in the parking garage where I totally botched stealth and once again right after the fact I believe they did this back to back just to get you accustomed to battling this faction which I see is a good thing there's even this part where this huge ass dude comes at us and I just absolutely hit a clip well we'll kind of I just thought it was cool oh my God going off of then I think this gun plays very well optimized everything shoots when I want it to nothing feels unfair and I legitimately want to engage in combat regardless of what faction it is but Ellie finally makes it towards the hospital first we take out this chick playing on the PS Vita you remember that [ __ ] I'm old this whole place is infested with wlf and I took down every single one of them without using stealth man I really suck at this but once you take out all of them I'm gonna Crawl Through the vents and drop down we finally confront Nora the girl that was there at the lodge while talking to her she's absolutely vile saying that she remembers still screams and calls him a [ __ ] you know that just flipped a switch in me we go on a goose chase throughout the hospital trying to catch up to Nora since she ran away while getting shot at but it comes up to a stalemate when she stops at a pit that leads into a sport written part of the hospital Ellie says [ __ ] it and sends both of them down there Nora runs away and we're left to take out some Infected as well as some wolves this wasn't too hard in all honesty you just have to pin them against each other finally we get to Nora hi Laura oh God [Music] laughs where's Abby you Firefly there are no fireflies anymore um where's Abby I'm [ __ ] dead anyway why would I tell you anything because I can make it or I can make it make it foreign think about what he did how many people are dead because of him last chance [Music] I'm not giving up my friend [Music] as you can see nor recognizes Ellie as the girl that is immune and she tells us that the fireflies are no more than like I said previously the interesting part about this scene is when Ellie just lets loose this is literally a visual image of what Ellie's feeling as well as the players unless the player let the rage out on the person who had a part in Joel's death it's [ __ ] up and it affects Ellie but it is something that must be done Ellie wouldn't have found out where Abby is without doing what she did also the fact that you have qtes while interrogating the swim and makes the scene 10 times better that was for Joel [ __ ] only then makes it back to the theater all messed up and it makes sense Ellie hasn't done something like this before she isn't desensitized but it sets up a solid character Arc that you will see later Ellie does some pretty messed up stuff and it gets to her kind of like PTSD well it's exactly like PTSD Ellie then goes to wash off with the help of Dina the scene plays where Ellie admits that she made Nora talk this is the first time we've seen Ellie open up emotionally and I thought it was a great timing this whole time we have been taking out enemies and just trying to find people there really hasn't been a time where something huge happens but when it does happen they do the best they can to conveying that emotion properly whether that plot Point Be Better or For Worse Ellie says that she doesn't want to lose Dina she has already lost Joel she doesn't need to lose another person and this really hit me after what she said in part one everyone has either died or left me everyone except for you Ellie eventually goes back to another dream flashback it is her back at the hospital in Salt Lake City maybe like a year or two before the events of the game you can look around the hospital find little notes that detail the immunity that Ellie has but eventually you get to the room where it all went down Ellie finds a bag and inside that bag is a recorder so this is another coincidence in all honesty but I'll let it slide because these are all over the place in the previous game so the recorder has the recording of Abby I'm pretty sure she says that she wanted to go after Joel and Ellie but no she can't go alone and even if they buy some miracle found another person that's immune it wouldn't matter because no one else has the ability to reverse engineer that immunity Joel off the only person who can damning the entire world I like how they address the plot point of the fireflies for some reason having the ability to make a cure in part one I always had trouble coming to terms with this because it doesn't seem believable but fixing that plot Point here by saying that there was literally only one person that could made me kind of happy it makes sense in a world like this it makes sense that he is with the fireflies and also totally tears apart Joe's argument that he stated before along with other things to show the emotion and weight of this realization I'm going to play the cut scene when Joel has to come clean with the truth tell me what happened here if you lie to me one more time I'm gone you will never see me again but if you tell me the truth I'll go back to Jackson no matter what it is just say it Joel making a vaccine would have killed you so I stopped them foreign [Music] touch me [Music] I'll go back but we're done [Music] this sucks man Ellie [ __ ] breaks down in the first game she had the feeling that her life mattered but Joel took that feeling Away by not letting her fix mankind Joel decided for her although I agree with Joel 100 even if they did try to reverse engineering here there's no guarantee that would work and even then that show would be a hot commodity how would they distribute it how would they deal with the people trying to be selfish what about the people that actually don't want the infection to end and cure would honestly fix nothing in my eyes but it still doesn't matter because Joel decided for Ellie Ellie wanted to mean something and Joel took that away anyways Ellie wakes up and tries to find Dina and Jesse when she does we see that Dina isn't looking so good she's pale and has night sweats her pregnancy is progressing so when Jesse pulls this aside he asks if she is prego and Ellie says yes at first I was worried that Dina would get mad at Ellie for telling him but I don't think that's the case the biggest thing that is said though is that Dina needs to head back to Jackson since she is in no state to be here but since Ellie's vengeful and wants to find Abby as well as Tommy she doesn't want to to leave quite yet but Jesse oddly agrees and the two leave Dina to go find Tommy my biggest question is wouldn't someone try to check out the theater I mean I get the doors locked but still there must be other ways in also Tommy must know that Ellie Dina and Jesse are in Seattle shouldn't he be trying to find them why is it us trying to find him this is a case of this being a video game and I just have to accept it which kind of sucks if I'm being honest don't worry though this won't affect the score while exploring when Jesse There are some interesting optional conversations for example they talk about what if the wlf came to Jackson Ellie says that they won't because for one the people in Jackson try to legitimately help Abby it wouldn't look good if that information slipped to Isaac especially since their actions caused us to come to Seattle two the wlf are kind of just taking out everyone they're almost at war with the scars it seems I don't think they can afford to spare some people back to Jackson a second time these conversations aren't important at all but it does answer some questions that are in the back of your mind which I appreciate there is also some optional dialogue where Jesse says that he would have come to Seattle if Ellie had asked Jesse looked up to Joel sort of like a role model I like this character building when Jesse this stuff's pretty hard to miss but when you get the dialogue it's well worth it there was also some funny dialogue talking about how Joel thought Ellie had a crush on Jesse but eventually we get to a bridge that overlooks the aquarium that Ellie is trying to get to they see a bow fly past him which means that that is their next goal in order to get to Abby as soon as we get to a spot where we can get a chance at stealing the boat after sneaking around for some time a scene plays where Ellie and Jesse debate on if they should go to the marina or to go to Tommy's location we found out through enemy chatter that there is a sniper somewhere near a bridge but since Ellie is so hell-bent on getting revenge she has convinced herself that the best way to save Tommy's to take down Abby of course this doesn't sit well with Jesse so he goes on his own way in a certain point of view she is doing what Joel did when he took her out of the hospital she's being selfish she's doing what is best for her rather than doing what is best for those she cares about I find this point interesting it shows the rabbit hole she's gone down and there may not be a way to get back out of it I've seen a lot of people criticize this point in the game though saying that it isn't in line with Ellie's personality but I argue that after witnessing Joel's death it is going to do some [ __ ] to you of course she's going to want revenge in my book that overrides her personality there is a clear motivation here not to mention throughout the game you see the clear vengeful nature of hers this is honestly her new personality and it's believable just because you don't agree with what Ellie is doing doesn't mean that her personality must fit what you think is best that's the beauty of Storytelling but I will say later on during the later parts of the story my opinion changes on this regardless we keep pushing forward whether that be stealth taking out wlf using this word controlling moat in coming across the wlf and scars fighting each other speaking on that I always thought this mechanic's cool where two factions fight each other and take each other out this was in the last game a lot same with this game it's always a treat when you don't have to fight because they have done that already amongst themselves we also get this pretty dope bloater fight though you can take it out quite easily if you have the proximity bombs mollies and shotgun ammo eventually though we do get to the aquarium when getting there we stealth around for a tad bit and look for supplies but after getting into the vents and falling down because as they aren't steady a dog attacks Ellie and eventually we off it this part kind of got to me especially after knowing we'd kind of get close to this dog from Abby's point of view but we'll get to that eventually we think it's at the part where Ellie confronts melon Owen she tries to do the same scare tactic as Tommy where each person has to point to the location on the map and they have to match up but Owen not listening attacks Ellie But ultimately gets shot Bill tries to take us out as well but Ellie overcomes this and officer as well with Owen's dying words he says that Mel was pregnant and this sends Ellie to a panic attack probably because Dean is pregnant too and it sends her into this panic because what if this was Dina how would Ellie react it's an extremely messed up situation in very gray on one hand you want to make these people pay but on the other you're becoming a monster you're becoming someone that you don't want to be at the beginning of the video I said that I don't like this pregnancy plot point which I still don't because of the coincidences that go along with it but this certain plot Point does well in conveying the gray nature in this world every action someone makes can be evil in a certain point of view in Ellie's point of view Abby's group is evil because what they did into Joel in Abby's point of view Ellie's evil because what has she's done to her friends Ellie literally offed everyone along with Tommy not to mention the [ __ ] that Joel did is the icing on the cake the game does a damn good job at making everything rigid at this moment I was thinking is this all worth it in the end the trauma that you created for yourself the end of a potential life and so forth I honestly don't like either side of this coin there is no lesser of two evils here they're both [ __ ] up in their own way it's kind of masterful Ellie then wakes up at the theater we meet with Tommy and Jesse who are talking about which is the better way to get out of Seattle but after some playful banter between Tommy and Jesse about a gold necklace from Maria Tommy goes to the front of the theater now I do want to let the scene play I have quite a bit of things to say after this so bear with me also it's pretty graphic so fair warning oh [ __ ] stand up hands in the air I shoot this one don't you do it Ellie get out of here stand up now get your [ __ ] dare shut the [ __ ] up all right stop toss your weapon toss your weft I know why you killed Joel he did what he did to save me there's no cure because of me I am the one that you want just let him go I killed my friend we let you both live and you wasted it foreign so to summarize Jesse dies Abby has a gun pointed at Tommy and Ellie and the scene cuts to Black where we play as Abby have a hard time deciding whether I like this or I don't Jesse just gets offed so quickly we barely had time with him we honestly barely knew anything about him and the death was just so sudden to where I just felt shock rather than empathy on one hand even though we barely knew Jesse if I thought he was a good character it's odd he was an honest dude who would do anything for his friends he always had Ellie ending his back but on the other the lack of time with him caused me to also not care about his death I know I'm being contradictory but that's the point I care about him but I also don't and because of that his death made me feel very uncomfortable I think the right word for this would be neutral not a con but also not a positive but also because of this I can clearly see why so many people would be upset by this lots of people may have liked him which in turn caused people to be pissed at his death the writing fell out of pace and sudden the tldr I don't know how I think about this the one thing I know I hate though is the start of the second half of the game playing as Abby you literally play as her after Jesse's death things would have been so much better if they made his play as Abby right after we took out Owen and Mel that way though we still have harsh feelings about Abby it would have angered players a tad bit less this Sudden Change also makes people dislike the pacing this effectively will make people turn off the game because of Abby being playable if you built up Abby as being this incredibly horrible person why would you force people to play as her I understand that you want people to see her POV but right after you off Jesse really she already took out Joel needless to say I understand now why people hate this game but we're still going to push forward and find out if that opinion's going to stick at the start of playing his Abby it's mostly just filler it's a flashback essentially as happy you try to find your father you save a zebra which now that I think about it's kind of the same as the giraffe scene and then the conversation plays out where Owen tells Abby's dad that Ellie made it to the hospital at this point I knew where things were headed Abby's dad was the head surgeon when it came to Ellie before I get ahead of myself another scene plays for Marlene is talking to Abby's dad Marlene's very hesitant which very much changed my view on the fireflies in the first game I thought they were evil in all honesty the scene painting in a different light made me empathetic you could see Marlene's contemplation she never wanted to do the surgery but it was either save Humanity potentially or be selfish same as Joel's decision then Marlene asks what if it was Abby now seeing a line made me very interested in dare I say almost changed my mind about Abby it's a legitimate question I mean look at Joel he already lost a daughter knowing the hell is he going to lose another one and with that there was hesitation with Abby's dad but Abby then walks in and tells her dad that she would want him to do the surgery exactly what Ellie wanted Joel to do everything was reversed between the two characters wherever Ellie goes Abby goes in the opposite direction Abby was only at the loss to take out Joel in the next Scene It confirms This Ellie on the other hand wanted to take out literally everyone not just Abby the dichotomy between the two is well made even if the pacing is off a lot of the time but next we see Abby witnessed the death of her father mirroring Ellie's reaction in Joel's death as I said these two characters are very similar but go about the revenge in different ways this transitions to the scene of Joel's death Abby and Owen only wanted to stop at Joel not to take out Ellie while everyone else thought differently again different than what Ellie wanted to do this brings the question which character went about it the right way Ellie is a piece of [ __ ] for killing a pregnant woman as well as all of Abby's friends even when they let her live but Abby is also a piece of [ __ ] she tailed Joel for four years and absolutely tortured him even when she had no idea but the backstory between him and Ellie she knew next to nothing you start to hate both characters they aren't good people but we still have more to see on Abby's side wake up as Abby with Manny there with us the wlf has set up camp at Lumen field and if you guys don't know it's the home of my Seattle Seahawks when you travel through the stadium you get to see what the wlf life is like huge Community lots of Agriculture classrooms lunchroom dog parks and more love how they made this place well lived in with lots of detail and also shows the wlf maybe aren't that bad they're just doing what they can to survive it almost is a replication of Jackson there's a lot of similarities in this game and it's very intentional side note I like how you can spend how long you want petting a dog and playing fetch I was here for a solid five minutes enjoying myself from here nothing crazy happens besides an on-rails combat sequence some scars Ambush Mel Manny and Abby you're in the back of a car taking out as many as you can until you get into this weird mega store similar to Costco here you take out some Infected using stealth and after is another scripted infected combat sequence I'm going to be honest the beginning of Abby's POV is quite boring and slow lots of people have issues with the pacing of her side they could have easily cut about like 30 percent of her story in the game would have been just fine with it on further playthroughs it really is a drag the real interesting story elements come from Abby and Mel trying to mend their relationship back together it is mostly just the developers and writers trying to get the player interested in the friends that Abby has Manny's pretty much your typical frat boy who loves to drink and get you know laid he also likes anime which makes him my favorite Nelson personality really is dependent on Owen the conversations between her and Abby only talk about him and her pregnancy and I don't like this you can't have a character's personality solely dependent on that there must be something deeper Dina had more death to her than just her pregnancy so there's no excuse for Mel to run into that problem I guess the only other thing she talks about is her being a medic and healing people which is cool but it's far from interesting eventually we come across a true section of stealth and combat with Abby everything is new you don't have Ellie's upgrades you don't have her guns everything is reset essentially part of me hates this but on the other hand you get a couple guns that are only accessible by Abby so I guess it evens out the crew then gets to a gas station where we are ambushed by some scars we take out a whole lot of them until suddenly some wlf comes and helps us on the way to the base we see that Mel is injured badly which makes her unavailable to do missions with us like I said this beginning is very slow they should have cut quite a bit of this in order for things to be level soon after we get to the base a lot of NPCs are here chatting amongst themselves you can even and interact with the chick that was playing the PSP game as soon as we meet with Nora who was tending to Mel she leads us to a dead body by the name of Danny the person who is out on patrol with Owen Apparently after talking with Isaac Nora says that Isaac had a look in his eye something went down but when going into the base itself you see all the torture chambers for scars and this stuff is pretty dark in all honesty scars chained up saying prayers to themselves blood all over the floor it makes you question if the wlf are doing the right thing these questions are good when it comes to the narrative storytelling you want to know why they're doing this what are they looking for why are they even at War and when we get to Isaac this man is torturing a butt ass naked dude and when we talk with Isaac some more he says that they are preparing for ways of invasions on the Scar's home Island you can clearly see that this dude is held mental control which is why he's torturing so many people it also comes to show how hard it is to live in harmony in this world either you get run down by infected or get taken out by another group trying to get your territory but we also find out that Owen shot Danny in order to protect a scar this brings another angle in to the mix is this battle between factions really worth it and I like this plot Point these people are honestly not so different it was just the way they were brought up in a [ __ ] up world one seems cult-like governed over religion while the wlf is more like a military authoritarian dictatorship Owen may have been the first to realize that none of it is worth it both factions are bad so why be a part of it we then get to see the early relationship between Owen and Abby now dating a cute interaction plays out where you see Abby is afraid of heights Owen base her by jumping off the ferris wheel into the water with Abby following suit the plot of this is important to some degree considering the relationship between the two is constant throughout the game but this stuff kind of seems like filler or at least just a mirror of the relationship between Ellie and Dina if they had to cut this stuff out the story would have still been good I just don't see or feel the need to watch the relationship Blossom as we move forward in the aquarium we come across a boat with a bunch of drawings from a child I will say that these drawings are creepy as hell and unsettling but when looking at these Owen concludes that this maybe is a family that joined the WL less and Abby thinks that they may have been killed by scars although this is a minor story told in drawings and notes left around things improve the World building and understanding the small story brings a small amount of emotion it is something that I loved about both games in the series it's their charm I guess and moving forward we see the beauty within the aquarium the child's drawings everywhere the colorful nature small amount of normal in a messed up world keep in mind that this is important to Owen Owen wants normality in his life after the disbanding of the fireflies while Abby's the opposite she doesn't want normal she only wants revenge and later you see that but before then you get to see the conclusion of the small story of what happened to the kids apparently the kid and their sibling briefly started talking to the seraphites the scar was playing mind games with the children saying that their father wouldn't be able to protect them for long that he impeased their independence this caused the kid to join the scars while their dad offed himself because he feels like he'd failed them the [ __ ] is dark and unsettling like like I said it's a highlight of both games and it makes you feel bad for these characters that you know nothing about but going back to what I was talking about regarding Owen and Abby eventually they get to this fort that the kid built himself it leads into this dome-like room that has an amazing view of the sea life after witnessing a Seal Swim by the two get intimate but stop Abby says that even though all the leads dried up with finding Joel she still is determined and wants to make it back for training again she is hell-bent on finding Joel and seeking Revenge while Owen doesn't like this idea he wants to be normal again after leaving the fireflies I found this connection of Revenge between Abby and the past and Ellie and the present somewhat successful the problem arises when you have a huge climax for the Abbey and suddenly hit a brick wall with Abby's story it starts out so slow and makes the player lose interest quickly and I know I've said this before but I just want to say it again especially when everyone hates Abby at this point the biggest issue of this game is pacing it comes with the territory of having two playable characters with Abby's story just starting out they should have done something different here eventually though Abby leaves Owen behind to go to training the game then cuts to Abby in the present slash pass whatever you want to call it it consists of following Manny around looting buildings seeing the man's sex Den Whispering Spanish in my ear hey that's private oh my God this is your place how many Sextons do you have in this QC okay and eventually going on your way alone while Abby is on her own I encountered the traditional infected sequences as well as scars I will say that there was this one part where a clicker just busts through a wall and scared the [ __ ] out of me but for some reason I failed the scripted segment and died even though I was pushing back on the stick I was audibly confused when this happened maybe it was a bug maybe I was just being stupid and didn't push hard enough on the stick I I don't really know the one thing I will say is that whenever Abby's alone in the level [ __ ] just gets more suspenseful and scarier mostly from the fact that little dialogue is said barely any music and all you hear is the screams of the infected at times overall this game is more horror than the previous one which is a good thing progressing in the narrative we get to see bits and pieces of what life is like as a scar I said before that these guys want nothing to do with the old world they built their own stuffs just shelter appliances benches tools and so forth they only use the Overworld technology only when it is convenient this includes guns elevators and so forth it gets pretty iffy when it comes to their philosophy it's hard to decipher what their actual goal is a character we meet later Lev gives us some insight but not enough to the point where it is definitive what their goal is but at a certain point Abby gets Ambush and gets captured by the scars when this happened I almost had a heart attack I was streaming this on Twitch so enjoy my reaction into the past to another flashback where we meet Owen at his aquarium we get to see what he has done to the place he put up Christmas lights decorations made a makeshift Everclear machine he also put up some targets around the place where friendly competitions of Nerf practice of course I mopped the floor in this friendly game and beat Owen and Mel's high score oh he writes B's weird what the [ __ ] oh dude I whipped they ass this is not even funny Owen then shows us a room that he has decorated even more because of some shine and an awkward thing happens where Abby Sees the stockings of melan Owen you can clearly tell that she's super jealous Abby breaks the news that she has a lead on where Joel might be a settlement in Wyoming she explains that some former fireflies got picked up at the wall coming into Seattle and after talking to them that is how she found out about Joe's whereabouts this is incredibly convenient and I don't find it a good explanation I wanted something more complicated something more in-depth that seems believable but we didn't get that it just seems like the writers took a lazier approach to this thinking that it wouldn't matter much it just pisses me off you have this incredibly important character but his death is treated with such disrespect when it comes to the explanation behind it a six-year-old could have come up with this explanation it's ridiculous and I guarantee that most of you would agree fan or not of the game Abby even goes as far as to tell Owen that everyone else is behind the idea of going to Wyoming to track him down even Mel who is [ __ ] pregnant going along with this Adderall reaction to the reveal and stream essentially saying that none of this makes sense just because a couple of fireflies gave him a lead how how do they give him that lead I mean like he said it's it's been [ __ ] we're doing this together it's been a decade so how would they know where he is that makes no sense clearly for my reaction I was not pleased in no way in hell would they know where Tommy is after a decade of him quitting the fireflies did they meet him recently were they trading with him did they used to live in a settlement it's so incredibly convoluted they needed a lot more explanation behind this and it's infuriating how careless they were with the writing snapping forward to the present we see Abby get dragged by our feet and gets hung up like the rest of the wlf we see before this we see the scars are downright brutal with the religious beliefs carving out sin and so forth in all honesty I think I said this before the scars are more scary than infected we then see a girl named Yara get dragged the same way as Abby the scars brutally Hammer the ever-living crap out of her arm and seeing this made me cringe so hard not in the manner of making fun of it but in the manner of wow that's gotta hurt how they get to this ah God damn but all of a sudden arrows start flying which takes out most of the scars while the other scar is looking for the perpetrator Abby chokes out the remaining scar but effs herself by kicking the bucket literally and suffocating luckily Yara tells the child to cut us down the child's name is Lev Lev's story is quite interesting so keep that in the back of your mind when we do get cut down we hear infected scream in the background because of the gunshots that have been fired so this brings a combat and Chase sequence that is super engaging and fun in my opinion so much suspense is here in the amount of adrenaline I had was Immaculate soon after we see the scar that is trying to take out Yara because Abby's Bill like an NFL linebacker she tackles his offensive lineman and we open up a can of whoop ass and take our backpack with all of our supplies for some reason or another I was so ingross in the world at this moment I was screaming I was rooting for Abby I was doing all these things but for what reason we've already established that Abby's character isn't written very well so why is this the case it can be narrowed down to a couple things one maybe it's just because I was streaming and I was trying to be entertaining two even though though Abby has bad writing she's still kind of likeable in my eyes or three I was just simply enjoying myself getting invested into every combat encounter stealth section dialogue sequence and cut scenes I believe was the third option this is a game where the story becomes masterful only when you ignore the blatant coincidences and plot holes and simply accept them after all this is a video game not everything is going to be realistic if that was the case the game would have been 70 hours long for a single narrative story so at this point I was just accepting what was happening and because of that I wanted to keep playing then again it could just be the other two options and I just wasn't being aware so whatever I guess later we get brought to this weird run down house the whole bunch of infected flooding in we give a boost to Yar and Lev to get out and they tell us that they're gonna find another way for Abby to get out of there so while this is happening you battle loads and loads in effect until they eventually get you out of there this [ __ ] takes forever but in a good way I was getting overwhelmed losing ammo losing health because I didn't have the time to heal myself Abby even says at one point that she thought they abandoned her which is why it was taking so long but soon we see Lev motion us to her and we get on our way sitting outside is Yara clearly in a lot of pain pick her up while Lev finds an RV where we consider down safely we reset her bone make a splint and we leave the two alone thanking them for cutting us down this causes us to continue our search for Owen alone during this time nothing of narrative importance happens we just battle some Infected here and there on land and on boat on this boat though we did find a crossbow which was extremely helpful in trying to be better in stealth not to mention that the atmosphere on this wrecked a boat was well done things were scary dark and I felt claustrophobic but we then finally find Owen after breaking into the aquarium this dude is still drinking his shine and he seems depressed after Abby asks him what happened Owen tells us that he encountered a known scar after hitting the scar hard on the head and sending him to the ground the scar didn't reach for his gun didn't defend himself didn't do anything he accepted his death and was ready this caused Owen to feel sympathy and not take out this scar this caused his partner Danny to get heated which resulted in shots being fired and taking Danny ever since then Owen hid out at his aquarium telling Abby that he doesn't want to do any fighting anymore again he just wants to have a normal life not to mention Abby ran into this sort of same experience she got saved by scars and helped them to safety this causes her to tell Owen that she could fix what had been done to take Owen back to the camp and explain everything to Isaac but for some what reason after they stopped arguing they get physical with each other and Owen just claps Abby's cheeks what what in the mustiest after is a dream sequence the same one that plays every time where Abby Sees her dead father but this time she sees Levin Yara hung this causes her to wake up and try to find them she feels an obligation to help them after hearing Owen's story she's starting to believe Owen's philosophy I personally like this plot point because it's going to be direct comparison to Ellie and Joel there are some things I don't like sure but at this point I'm starting to see what the writers are trying to do putting Abby and Joel's shoes we of course get to live in Yara they are still here but Yara is in critical condition it also seems like scars know exactly where they are so except the utmost importance to get them out of there as quickly as possible the screen was cut to Black and we made it back to Owen's aquarium we met with Owen and this dog that Ellie off previously Melvin walks into the room everyone's surprised to see Abby with scars rightfully so we find out that yara's arm is completely shattered needs to be cut off this gives Abby another mission to find the right supplies in order to do so which is located at the main hospital where Nora was at when we played his Ellie but since getting there normally would take a long time and Yara only has like at most day Lev says that scars have secret passageways on skyscrapers that help them get to places quicker knowing this Abby and Lev go on their way part of me understands this of course but why is Mel automatically willing to help these scars she's voiced that she doesn't like them so just because they helped Abby that means that Belle is going to help them we learn later in the game that Mel isn't exactly fond of Abby so literally none of this makes sense but oh well on our way back to the hospital some dialogue happens where Abby and Lev get relatively close with one another with Abby teaching Lev some English lingo and Lev teaching Abby thoughts and beliefs of the scars though not too in depth which I get frustrated with I still like how Lev gives a tad bit of insight while traversing with love we get to see Abby's phobia Heights can I be completely honest with you I don't care about this they've been showing this throughout the story as if it means something like sure you want to convey Abby's personality this is something very important to storytelling but something as simple as continuously showing Abby's phobia of heights means nothing to the narrative it just feels like filler dialogue in a way to show a set piece like do the writers know that you can show a set piece without showing meaningless personality traits it took so [ __ ] long to cross this bridge that sits on a crane I get that you want to be careful Crossing this [ __ ] totally but this takes so long man and honestly feels like 30 minutes even though it was five the Riders were trying to make Abby relatable but that falls apart when she literally offed one of the most beloved characters in gaming I will say that Lev is the person that's growing on me he mentions that he shaved his head which in turn caused the scars to go after him so with intuition You can conclude that Lev is transgender I really don't want to hear this is woke cause it isn't woke culture and I quote is the promotion of liberal Progressive ideology and policy as an expression of sensitivity to systemic injustices and prejudices and this is a direct quote from dictionary.com so take that as you will what love is feeling isn't a progressive ideology it's just a personal feeling he has within himself not to mention this plot with Lev isn't even shoved down your throat it's only mentioned in depth twice in the game once with little backstory before we Traverse the bridge with Lev another more in depth with Yara and even then it's a two-minute cut scene the woke culture that you claim to be in this game is barely touched on what I'm saying here is if you hate the game simply because it's woke you have the wrong explanation as to why you hate the game take this example in The Witcher 3 one of the most acclaimed games ever made Geral literally bangs 70 of the women population in the game now replace the woman with men are you now just going to hate the game simply because of that stating that it's woke are you going to completely disregard the amazing story that it has because of it being woke and call it a trash game this is what I mean when I say that using the term woke to say that A Game's bad is such a horrible take the last of us has a lot of problems but it isn't woke they're just including characters that are part of the lgbtq community big whoop so what just play the [ __ ] game and understand the story totally hating the game because of what I stated just makes you look transphobic and keep in mind and I've said this before beginning I went through five years of University studying fiction writing screenwriting film criticism whatever it is the [ __ ] that you're complaining about has been in the industry far longer than you've been alive this isn't a new thing so stop using this [ __ ] excuse anyways the string from my tangent left's character is pretty cool he says that fear is a way to make a person stronger trying to cheer up Abby seeing that being scared makes you faster stronger smarter and More in tune with your surroundings the seraphites taught her that with this backstory it really makes me question who is more in the right year the scars that wlf they're both only fighting about land the only difference is the ideologies scars are more religious in nature the wlf are more dominance oriented meaning with more land they cover the safer things will be along with more supplies and keep in mind that These two factions both had peace before this means that they can certainly stand each other it's just a matter of who is more selfish eventually Abby slips on the bridge and falls into the pool that's located in the hospital a part of the hospital that hasn't been cleared out of infected this means spooky time that I'm not not ready for if y'all don't know me I don't do well with horror games or in general actually so for some of this I had to actually take my headphones off and play some interesting conversations happen though during our exploration Lev says that some wlf members believe in God and prey just like the Sarah fights she then asks Abby if she believes and her answer is no it's not important at all but these conversations always interest me for some reason also somewhat brings a connection to the wlf and scars going deeper we come across some spores but Lev didn't have a mask he escaped the scars quickly and wasn't thinking about grabbing one so now it's up to us to find one for him deep down in this infected section of the game this part of the level was insanely terrifying to me there's fungus everywhere infected around every corner some stalkers even burrowed on some of the fungus on the wall and just jump scare you out of nowhere but we eventually find a mask for Lev and we give it to him and we clear out the rest of the infected in the area when we get out a conversation plays on if Lev has any regrets of shaving his head he states that serophytes aren't supposed to have any regrets that he wishes he would have just run away and not have gotten Yara involved with any of it so Lev actually does have regrets but doesn't want to admit it this is an interesting Deep dive into what love is thinking he cares for Yara deeply although he doesn't regret shaving his head he does regret getting the people he loved involved it's sad and understandable and like I said Lev's kind of growing on me but then we get to the hospital where the potential supplies are at Abby tells Leb to stay put or else surely the wlf are going to take him out Abby goes through the gate tells the soldiers a lie on why she's at The Outpost and goes around looking for supplies but since the guards at the gate are [ __ ] and snitched on us Abby gets locked up and is getting prepped to be taken back to the fob where Isaac is but Nora then comes into the picture and frees us from the Cuffs Abby tells Nora that Owen is the one with the Bastion arm and needs some medical supplies nor safe that the only sort of supplies she can get is deep into the hospital where the outbreak first started in the city meaning that's going to be pretty rough down there so with that nor leads us there when you're down in the depths of the hospital there are locked doors that you need a generator to power and Behind These doors are loads of infected so when you eventually do unlock these said doors you have to deal with all of them not too big of a deal right well after getting the supplies out of an ambulance you come across this gross huge intimidating scary looking infected this initiates a Chase sequence which then in turn leads to a boss fight this dude is so damn hard to take down I had limited amounts of ammo here and trying to establish the area for more was like finding a needle in a haystack to make it worse after you defeat the boss a smaller infected crawls out of it and you have to take that thing down granted he isn't as hard as the big dude pause it's still a [ __ ] to try and take them out since his invisible health bars is never ending so when we get top side love pulses aside since there's a whole bunch of wlf soldiers walking around but we did see a boat to the side and take that instead thank God because I would not survived I don't don't even think I had any animal left after that encounter with the big dude when we get to the aquarium we see 11 Abby sitting down petting the doggo at this point I was thinking deeply about the story and for somewhat reason I feel like Abby's segment in this game takes so much time and a whole lot of it is boring in all honesty want to know why I'm not going into depth with the small conversations with characters during this gameplay it's because it's either one meaningless or two it's a boring conversation with no dialogue hat why is it that in the first game this was the highlight but here it's all but missing it makes me so mad not to mention they make Abby out to be this such amazing person caring for scars caring about all their friends petting dogs and so forth but when we play as Ellie she feels like a piece of [ __ ] Ellie constantly kills animals disregards her friends for the sake of revenge is a total [ __ ] to Joel for years not even wanting to ask why he did what he did and later in the game well we'll get there eventually the game had a clear agenda that they were trying to convey and it was executed so poorly I don't care about Abby being a good person though she's a likable character after it's I just still there's something about her that is so off-putting she took out Joel that in my mind makes her a bad person on Ellie's side it just feels like her whole personality flipped she's no longer this funny energetic loudmouth girl she's brain dead vengeful selfish and an [ __ ] and I know I said before that I kind of understand her personality change but after progressing hours into the story I totally agree with the people that don't like her as a character anymore I think the majority of this game's problems would have been fixed if we had less screen time of Abby less coincidences more engaging dialogue during combat and better pacing playing this game again for an analysis made me extremely frustrated but regardless we see that Yar is okay A Dream sequence happens again geez and we see that Abby's dad is there waiting for her signifying that she has found peace with his death when Abby wakes up she talks to Mel and I'm going to let this play and I have a few serious words after come with you convince her Bowen just me what are you still doing up I was changing our advantages I can't believe she's on her feet already tough what are they fighting about love doesn't want to leave Seattle oh and invited them to come to Santa Barbara it's very open I figured you'd have talked him out of going by now actually I'm going with them but not if you come he may fall for a little act with these kids but I don't there's nothing to fall for Isaac's top scar killer suddenly had a change of heart nothing to do with Owen right I haven't always done the right you're a piece of [ __ ] Abby you always have been I'm done with you want to do right by these kids get out of their lives before you screw them over too so Mel calls Abby a piece of [ __ ] for ruining people's lives now put this into perspective Mel literally went into a battlefield multiple times knowing she had Owen's kid she put herself in danger by going to Wyoming while pregnant she also had a hand in Joel's death which also makes her a piece of [ __ ] she assumed Abby did this for Owen's sake which makes her selfish and also a piece of [ __ ] everything Mel does and dangers herself her child and Owen she doesn't care about Owen if she consistently puts herself in dangerous situations jeopardizing a potential family I hate Mel with a passion and this isn't intentional writing let me be clear this is very bad riding on druckman's part they want you to care about Mel simply because she's pregnant the same as Dina and enjoying that connection this is what will get you to care about this character no after this we meet with Yara and she says that the argument was about her and Love's mom Lev wants to go back and explain to his mom mom how he feels inside Yara thinks that this is a bad idea and it is Yara says that parents are sometimes held responsible for the sins of their child this is why it's extremely dangerous for Lev to go back home either he will be killed by his mother because she's extremely loyal to the scars or he will be turned over to the elders and they will decide Love's fate also we find out that Lev was given the job of getting married off to the elders instead of becoming a soldier like Yara and this caused Lev to cut his hair to be like the men so he wouldn't have to be married off soon after we get confronted by Owen this whole thing in all honesty was quite cringe she only states that he wants Abby to go to Santa Barbara with him even though Mel is against the idea this in turn makes Owen a horrible person and unlikable because he cheated on Mel who's about to have a baby and is trying to convince Abby that everything is going to be okay this whole pregnant plot line that involves Owen Mel and Abby is just so uninteresting and not needed I'll touch on this more in a couple minutes after we see the left stupidly go back to the same Allen that he was so desperately wanting to leave and even told Abby his only regret was to leave and not tell anybody so seeing this dude leave makes no sense to add on to this when Owen says that he'll go with Abby to find Lev Abby says get your priorities straight dude you literally slept with him and [ __ ] up his and Mel's relationship get your priority straight this whole sequence is just so cringe and so bad I was not needed in the slightest and it makes me hate all of these characters even more while we're walking to try and find a boat to be able to make a tour love is Abby and Yara hear some gunshots which causes Abby to yell to Yara to stay behind when we get topside we see Manny who I guess coincidentally is there a sniper took out a squad he's trying to find out who this dude is and take him out and of course we know this dude's Tommy anyone has played this game literally figured that out way too fast Tommy continuously shoots at us making it difficult to press forward he even should set cars to draw an infected toward us when we do eventually get to where he is he just offs Manny the same way as Jesse are we like gonna get any relationships go going with other characters not named Dina or Lev and they are trying so hard to connect the two though Abby does confront Tommy they fight eventually Yara stunson so Abby can push him off the edge of the railing and I swear Tommy has the strongest plot armor in this entire game it's not even funny anymore all of this is quite ridiculous how much the plot armor these guys have until eventually one of them gets killed off stupidly when we eventually get to the island the Sarah fights inhabit we see indications that the invasion of the wlf is about to happen soon and because of this there are lots of scars that we need to clear apart from this nothing noteworthy and dialogue happens as usual mostly just about senseless nonsense about seraphite religion and everyday life for them though it is interesting it isn't enough to feel the need to talk about it Abby in Europe finally gets to the house that yar's mom lived in they both find her dead with love sitting in the corner Lev tells us that he offed his mom because she wouldn't stop chasing him things got violent and ultimately love how to defend himself though I'm not entirely connected with Yara and Lev just yet you can't help but feel sorry for the kid he just wanted his mom to love him for who he is but I still have to be honest love shouldn't have even gone to the island in the first place when just before he told Abby his only regret was leaving the island and not telling anyone so yes this is an emotional scene but he gets taken away from a plot hole and to make matters worse the trio get cornered by wlf soldiers Yara just gets off the same way as Jesse which feels like a slap in the face to her character we never get close to her we never got to understand most of her background we never even got the chance to make a decision on if she was a good character or not she feels wasted like the writers but no thought behind her at all all of a sudden Isaac comes strolling out tells Abby to stand down but since the art isn't dead yet I guess she shoots Isaac offs him and then she finally dies everything here was so rushed and jumbled to the point where I had no idea what was happening it sucks that these potentially interesting characters are gone just like that the narrative story bees in this game rely heavily unsurprised rather than suspense which is a problem but because the game wants a huge emotional scene behind this Lev asks why Abby took out her fellow soldiers her people Abby simply responds by saying love is repeat people now this connection between the two characters just happened so incredibly fast in the matter of days in game keep in mind it took traveling across the country months of getting to know each other and countless barriers for Joel and Ellie to connect comparing that to this wow saying it is anything but rushed is wrong after this is countless amounts of shooting Galleries and stealth sections these aren't tremendous in any way it's just the stuff we've been seeing the entire game and keep in mind as I've said before there isn't much dialogue happening in these segments but eventually we did get to the town Haven a place where most scars reside we also see that this place is entirely on fire and there is a sequence that plays where we fight this Behemoth of a man that refuses to get taken down you slash his face punch him in over and over stab him and it takes so much for this guy to finally go down but when he does so web and Abby find a boat and get the hell out of Dodge to finally get back to the aquarium here you all know what happens I have a reaction to this so I'm gonna let it play trust me it shows my disappointment wait whoa whoa whoa wait I forgot she dropped the map what a [ __ ] convenient thing to happen what a [ __ ] convenient thing to happen wow okay wow so clearly the map being on the ground is a huge coincidence one that doesn't seem believable one that furthers the plot with no deep thought behind it one that disappoints me so much when it comes to the direction of this game they could have done this many different ways Ellie had to literally track every single person down from Abby's group in this game and even then she never even found Abby by herself but when Abby wants to find Ellie it's handed to her on a silver platter what the actual [ __ ] is this game doing so incredibly rushed when it comes to story moments endearing gameplay it's so incredibly slow the pacing is god-awful in this game to where it actively wanted to stop playing but this brings Abby to the theater where Tommy Jesse Dean and Abby are you pretty much just have to find a way into the theater and the same cutscene plays of Abby often Justine having a gun pointed at Ellie and Tommy when things escalate Abby shoots Tommy in the head but don't worry since Tommy has tremendous plot armor he survives yet again and you'll see during the ending of the game but after the cutscene there is a boss fight this is similar to the David boss fight in part one I'm gonna sneak around and not make noise catch Ellie by surprise ain't gonna get a couple of hits in during this I wanted Elliot to take me out I didn't even want to engage in the boss fight when this happens you know you're structured your game wrong and to make everything much worse Abby's about to off Dina and Ellie but she just stops only because Lev told her to that makes it two times where Abby spared Ellie even when Abby knows all too well that Ellie will come after her again it's so stupid and the whole pregnancy plot was only to draw a connection with Dina in which Abby understands this and doesn't kill Dina like bro at this point I just don't like Abby or Ellie their characters are written so piss poor Naughty Dog dropped the ball so incredibly hard after we cut to Ellie back and Jackson when Dina and their child JJ it almost seems like a dream sequence a life Ellie finally wants we spent time with the baby we dance with Dina we get JJ's favorite toy we also heard some cute sheep some normal Farm type [ __ ] it's like red dead and it's sheep herding minigame but when we get into the shed Ellie has TSD of when Joel died this is understandable for sure but it all falls apart when the next scenes we have is when Tommy tells Ellie he knows where Abby is for one how the [ __ ] is Tommy alive he gets shot in the head and it's just unbelievable next why on Earth would Ellie go after Abby again she has the life she always wanted a family people who love her why would she risk that all the seek revenge another time what the [ __ ] this game feels so unbearably long as it is now you want to add on game time from the result of coincidences and unnecessary plot points regardless Ellie wakes up from a sleepless night goes to her guitar and a flashback happens this flashback was a trailer from the game before it came out I believe it shows Ellie and Dina getting romantic the dude that was a bigot and Joel's stepping in and Ellie being a complete [ __ ] to him the scene is important for the end of the game so I'll say my thoughts on this until then after this cut scene Dina finds Ellie packing in the kitchen to keep it short Dina begs Ellie to stay but Ellie won't listen and she goes on her own way what I don't understand is why doesn't Dina have a direct conversation with Ellie about how how she's feeling like yes in Ellie's Journal it's revealed Dina wants Ellie to talk about things but at this moment why not force her to talk about it show Ellie that you [ __ ] care you just let her up and leave when you damn well know how she's feeling unbelievable after this we go back to Abby's point of view in Santa Barbara you alert houses toxins this nonsense with love and find the Firefly Outpost Owen was talking about here Abby contacts the fireflies and they say to go to a certain location and meet them there when we get out of the garage Abby gets jumped and love gets his [ __ ] rocked so incredibly hard he get knocked out cold foreign this brings us to another perspective switch where Ellie trying to find Abby in Santa Barbara here you Traverse the desert looking area going House to House looting fighting infected and here Ellie constantly talking about finding Abby but we get to a part where Ellie steps on a booby trap and gets strung upside down and getting stabbed by a tree branch Ellie eventually passes out and an unknown time has passed in all honesty wouldn't she have like Blood Out died from being upside down for too long I don't know it just seems like either people have unnecessary plot armor or die Suddenly It's a guessing game some people walk up badass Santan Logic the rapper here they mess with Ellie cutter down and of course Ellie has something nasty to say to them this causes logic to [ __ ] with her and ultimately meets his demise but Ellie pushing him into an infected that ran into the same trapezer she also shoots Santa in the leg Ellie asks Santa where Abby is he states that if she lets him live he'll tell her where Abby is after telling Ally Ellie just offs him with no hesitation it's also worth mentioning that she gets bitten by the infected but since she's immune nothing happens to her but from here on you'll find this faction called the Rattlers these guys have no depth to them no story to tell and it's only shown that they're slavers that capture people I will say these combat sequences with them are dope as hell you get a suppress submachine gun and taking these guys out feels like playing The Last of Us in Call of Duty mixed it's an odd mixture sure but it's hella fun not to mention the level layout gives plenty of opportunities to you you can stealth and go underneath cars fences and so forth you can go guns blazing with a submachine gun you can free some chained up infected and they'll go after the Rattlers there's so many things that you do in this section but in all honesty this feels like the only new edition of the combat compared to the previous game other than proning if it isn't broken don't fix it but I'm disappointed that they didn't add enough new things enemy types and so forth but we get close to Abby's location after creating a diversion by freeing some captured people that led a jailbreak we make it towards the beach where Abby's tied up to a wooden pole with Lev across from her Ellie surprisingly cuts her down looks at her very creepy like and we follow her carrying Lev to the beach so Ellie being a horrible person and putting a knife to Lev's throw it in which I never thought Ellie would do the final fight of the game breaks out I just I don't know what to say anymore the ldi I knew would never put a knife to a child especially after taking out Mel who was pregnant and also having a child of her own it just makes no sense being vengeful or not but we must live with it after a brutal fright that wasn't hard at all Ellie is on the brink of drowning Abby but [ __ ] stops and tells her to leave what the hell was the point of the whole section then you already messed up the story might as well finish the job here I'm done trying to decipher all of these cutscenes I'm actually pissed that this has happened throughout this game I was having a decent time yes some shitty story beats happen early on but it was manageable minus Joel's death but this later half of the game sucks total but they dropped the ball hard not even close to the bar the first game set so after Ellie loses a couple of fingers fighting Abby and watches her leave we cut back to the farm here you can explore the house for a bit see that everything is gone because Dina moved out Ellie literally lost everything only for her to let Abby live Jesus Christ I guess the highlight of this ending was the flashback scene that made me tear up a bit I guess [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] coffee where'd you get that uh people that came through last week a little embarrassed as to what I had to trade to get it but it's not bad I had Seth under control yeah I know and you need to stop harassing Jesse about my Patrols Dana is she your girlfriend no no she that was just one kiss that doesn't mean anything she just I don't know I should do that but you do like her so stupid I have no idea what that girl's intentions are but but I do know that she would be lucky to have you you're such an [ __ ] I'm not trying to I was supposed to die in that hospital my life would have [ __ ] mattered but you took that from me foreign I would do it all over again I don't think I can ever forgive you for that but I would like to try [Music] okay [Music] okay I'll see you around yeah foreign death Ellie confronted Joel and made peace with his decision to save her and she was willing to understand why he did and what he did though I don't think this ending was the greatest at least it was well thought out scene that sends Ellie on a quest to let the past go this results in the end of the game the end of The Last of Us Part Two since the comment is the same with only a few new additions to the game this section is mostly going to be about the pros and cons of the game going into depth about what I did and didn't like so first things first the pros the combat is amazing fluid brutal and fun to engage with even though there wasn't anything new added besides the cool ass weapon customization and proning the gameplay still felt new and Innovative the world felt so lived in and run down I felt so immersive and scary at points to the point where I had to take my headphones off because my scary meter was off the charts flashback scenes of Ellie and Joel specifically the museum one that one was very emotional it felt like old times something I wish the whole game was like finally I like the new faction the scars these guys felt more menacing than even infected they were brutal or religion driven and the TV building level was out of this world it felt like something that would actually happen during a Zombie Apocalypse Now the cons the crazy number of coincidences Abby finding Joel was a result of a half-assed response of we picked up some fireflies at the wall okay well what did he say did they see Tommy recently nothing about it was explained properly Abby finding Ellie Tommy and Jesse because Ellie dropped her map Abby finding Joel unexpectedly was a horrible coincidence Ellie finding Abby and Santa Barbara because Tommy gave a half-assed excuse was also a coincidence do you see what I'm saying there is just too many for this game to be considered believable the pregnancy plot line why would Dina go with Ellie knowing she's possibly pregnant same with Mel going on runs when she is clearly pregnant this is stupid all in the name of drawing a connection between Dina and Mel I didn't care about Mel at all I barely cared about Dina because we didn't spend enough time with her everything was so jumbled and horribly paced this brings me to pacing the jump between Ellie to Abby completely messed up the pacing they ramped up Ellie's part so much to the point when we play as Abby it feels like we hit a brick wall and everything goes downhill from there Ellie going after Abby again was a horrible decision it makes no sense Tommy comes out of nowhere to say he found Abby even though Ellie has everything she has ever wanted at this point to make it worse concluding the story Ellie lets Abby live Tommy was a horribly written character in the game for example people he tells Ellie that he doesn't want her to go after Abby and after Ellie convinces him that they should do it knowing Ellie is going to go no matter what he leaves Ellie behind to go by himself and puts Ellie in danger this doesn't align with his original character also at the end he does a full 180 by bullying Ellie into chasing after Abby even though at the beginning of the game he was so adamant about not letting Ellie go like what the hell 11 Abby's connection was incredibly rushed and was only amused to draw a connection between Joel and Nellie's relationship it wasn't believable that they got this close in a matter of days when it took Joel and Ellie literally months to get to that point there are so many cons it would make up an entire other video naming them off the game just Falls completely flat in the narrative Department it is embarrassing dropping the ball this hard to conclude this video I just want to say I'm a huge fan of The Last of Us world I even have the exact same tattoo as Ellie I love these characters so much you can even say that I'm a fanboy but me coming out and saying this game is badge to speak volumes before doing this analysis I loved part 2 and I refused to hear anybody else's criticisms about the game game after analyzing every scene every plot point every combat encounter my opinion changed this game felt rushed there were too many coincidences too many unnecessary deaths and the death of Joel was spit in the face to the fans so without further Ado let's get on with the ratings at the bottom is not even close this is when a game Falls completely flat on its face and is nowhere near a masterpiece has a lot of work to do and even then I don't think it could fix the game next is it has potential this is when both positives and negatives are strong but ultimately the negatives far away the positives maybe a DLC can add some good to the game next is amazing this is when the game is really good in the positives outweigh the negatives but because the negatives are a little too many the game isn't a masterpiece at the top is Masterpiece this is when the game is master class has barely any issues and has a place in the gaming Hall of Fame so what is The Last of Us Part Two before this analysis I would have rated it Masterpiece but after playing it for this video I'm gonna have to rate it it has potential the game isn't awful to fully deserve the not even close rate rating the game has good combat good World design and good exploration but because the narrative is badly written the pacing is bad and the characters aren't interesting it causes this game to have the it has potential rating hopefully if they make the last of his part 3 it will be better than this travesty thank you guys so much for watching the videos I've been doing school and work so if you see the uploads becoming slower that's why also if you guys love my live stream inclusion in my videos let me know and I'll do more of it my next video is either going to be Halo 2 or one of the Assassin's Creed games not named Origins Valhalla or Odyssey will most likely be from the Ezio Trilogy the Kenway games or Unity let me know what you guys want to see more of also if you guys want to see like the Jack and Daxter games I'm more than happy to do that I kind of want to go back to the oldies anyways I'll see you guys later have a good one peace out foreign

Channel: ImGardenGnome

Views: 169,573

Keywords: the last of us part 2, the last of us 2, the last of us, the last of us part ii, the last of us 2 review, last of us, last of us 2, the last of us 2 gameplay, the last of us part 2 review, last of us part 2, the last of us part 2 is a masterpiece, the last of us 2 is a masterpiece, the last of us part 2 gameplay, last of us 2 masterpiece, the last of us 2 trailer, the last of us 2 joel, the last of us 2 ending, last of us 2 controversy, the last of us part 2 analysis

Id: 5BfaUOdgndM

Length: 128min 3sec (7683 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 23 2023