Finished, at last. Don’t know what to think yet, I’ll have to let it sink in. It was an emotional roller coaster unlike anything I’ve previously experienced, I can say that much.
I'm hoping Naughty Dog pulls a Rockstar move from the PS2 era and puts out a few more games with this gameplay. I'm just craving more story and more content... The gameplay on TLOU2 is solid, it could hold a few more games easy.
I could definitely use a game that takes place around Outbreak day! Maybe an international adventure too, would be rad....
Got in from work today. Got washed up & comfortable. Nothing happening at all, so I said fuck it I'll continue with the game. I'll never mind the story & just enjoy everything else.
Played the whole of Day 1 as Abby. I already like her story better than Ellie's. It's more enjoyable straight away. New characters. New conflict, with the WLF & the Seraphites. It's immediately more interesting, for me. I'm very surprised, but there you go.
The gameplay section in the forest at night, when the Seraphites try to string Abby up but she escapes with the 2 kids, was fantastic. Running from the infected by torchlight. Stopping to fight with bricks & fists. Then taking down the big wifey with the sledgehammer. Then getting stuck in the ruined house with clickers swarming from every angle. I unloaded with incendiary shotgun shells & pipe bombs. It was fucking brutal, it was carnage & it was brilliant. I loved it.
So happy I jumped back in, instead of taking a break. This game is a rollercoaster.
Seriously now. I already know all the twists and turns. I'm already disappointed. It can't get any worse than that. And i might enjoy the game for what it is.
Besides i need a new game.
I'm hoping Naughty Dog pulls a Rockstar move from the PS2 era and puts out a few more games with this gameplay. I'm just craving more story and more content... The gameplay on TLOU2 is solid, it could hold a few more games easy.
I could definitely use a game that takes place around Outbreak day! Maybe an international adventure too, would be rad....
I hope there are a few different play styles as well that feel unique. Agile like Ellie, brute force like Joel or Abby, maybe a counter focused play style, styles with traps etc.
Got in from work today. Got washed up & comfortable. Nothing happening at all, so I said fuck it I'll continue with the game. I'll never mind the story & just enjoy everything else.
Played the whole of Day 1 as Abby. I already like her story better than Ellie's. It's more enjoyable straight away. New characters. New conflict, with the WLF & the Seraphites. It's immediately more interesting, for me. I'm very surprised, but there you go.
The gameplay section in the forest at night, when the Seraphites try to string Abby up but she escapes with the 2 kids, was fantastic. Running from the infected by torchlight. Stopping to fight with bricks & fists. Then taking down the big wifey with the sledgehammer. Then getting stuck in the ruined house with clickers swarming from every angle. I unloaded with incendiary shotgun shells & pipe bombs. It was fucking brutal, it was carnage & it was brilliant. I loved it.
So happy I jumped back in, instead of taking a break. This game is a rollercoaster.
First half gameplay: aight this is cool. These graphics are pretty. Lot of opening drawers.
Second half gameplay: AWWWWWW SHIT NIGGA WE GOT MUSHROOM ZOMBIES COMING OUT OF WALLS. WE GOT SNIPERS. WE GOT SCRIPTED CHASE SEQUENCES. WE GOT HEAVY MELEE BIG BOY ENEMIES. WE GOT GENUINE BOSS FIGHTS.
First half gameplay: aight this is cool. These graphics are pretty. Lot of opening drawers.
Second half gameplay: AWWWWWW SHIT NIGGA WE GOT MUSHROOM ZOMBIES COMING OUT OF WALLS. WE GOT SNIPERS. WE GOT SCRIPTED CHASE SEQUENCES. WE GOT HEAVY MELEE BIG BOY ENEMIES. WE GOT GENUINE BOSS FIGHTS.
I actually like the story for the most part but I never thought I would see the day where a ND game is getting praised more for the gameplay then the story, Not that other ND games had bad gameplay but this is leaps and bounds over their previous ones.
Got in from work today. Got washed up & comfortable. Nothing happening at all, so I said fuck it I'll continue with the game. I'll never mind the story & just enjoy everything else.
Played the whole of Day 1 as Abby. I already like her story better than Ellie's. It's more enjoyable straight away. New characters. New conflict, with the WLF & the Seraphites. It's immediately more interesting, for me. I'm very surprised, but there you go.
The gameplay section in the forest at night, when the Seraphites try to string Abby up but she escapes with the 2 kids, was fantastic. Running from the infected by torchlight. Stopping to fight with bricks & fists. Then taking down the big wifey with the sledgehammer. Then getting stuck in the ruined house with clickers swarming from every angle. I unloaded with incendiary shotgun shells & pipe bombs. It was fucking brutal, it was carnage & it was brilliant. I loved it.
So happy I jumped back in, instead of taking a break. This game is a rollercoaster.
I actually like the story for the most part but I never thought I would see the day where a ND game is getting praised more for the gameplay then the story, Not that other ND games had bad gameplay but this is leaps and bounds over their previous ones.
The gameplay is so good though. ND really have reached a high level of quality game "feel"
I'm almost playing this like Uncharted at times. Staying on the move, running & gunning, switching up between all the combat tools available. Entering & exiting stealth. Confusing the enemy. Against humans anyway, I always try & go full stealth against the infected where the game allows me.
For me, Last of Us part 1 had serviceable gameplay & an incredible story. Uncharted 4 & Lost Legacy both had great gameplay & fun stories. Last of Us part 2 has (in the first half at least) a terrible story & incredible gameplay.
Just got it. What difficulty settings do people use. I feel like hard with resources in light and allies in moderate might be a good balance. I don't like resource management.
So I beat the game again today on Survivor+ and I think I'm done until the PS5 HD version.
As a complete package - an absolutely phenomenal game.
So many new things noticed replaying and so good seeing the early part knowing what comes later. Mind blown over and over again with the contextual animation system. Exceptionally amazing melee with the addition of the dodge. How the attacks differ depending on positioning in regards to both the enemy and surroundings is just next level. The game is made to feel as grounded and realistic as possible and it shines on "survivor".
All of the subtle storytelling through eavesdropping on enemy patrols before attacking, through environmental design and "artifact" notes stories you find containing some of the best writing of the whole game. How characters react and comment on events unfolding and their surroundings. How their idle animations and facial expressions change from scenario to scenario depending on the situation, all in gameplay.
The meticulously animated item pickups! omg I love that shit hope they will keep developing this tech for future projects #TeamRDR2.
How they improved both enemy and companion AI. While a huge problem in TLOU1, In my 2 playthroughs a buddy clearly breaking enemy line of sight was barely to be seen on screen.
Only some corpses disappear in combat but in a way less obvious way than TLOU1 as well. I really hope this is permanently resolved in HD remaster, still - the amount of carnage you paint rooms with is hella impressive. The blood physics! How it all looks in HDR in general.
The accessibility features which can actually make game more fun in NG+. All the quality of life stuff - like when you fully upgrade a character or weapons, the upgrade items despawn from the rest of the game so you don't end up stopping at prompts to pick up trash. Worth all the praise it got for the gameplay alone.
Also, I love the story and I don't give a fuck.
It's not perfect, nothing is perfect. The whole arc of Ellie is awesome, it's well motivated with a great conclusion.
Zero issues with the prologue despite knowing all the arguments made against it. Zero issues with playing as Abby, on the contrary.
While I disagree with most of the criticism I've seen for the game, it doesn't mean I can't point out areas where I think the budget could have had been spent elsewhere:
The whole chapter of Yara telling you the story of Lev in the Aquarium is totally redundant as anyone with 2 brain cells at that point has figured out what you're supposed to learn there.
My biggest gripe tho is how the Seraphites were such a huge undeveloped potential. In one of the interviews Drucknann sad they've had a whole scenario of Ellie going to hell and back on the island that was cut and IMO it's apparent. What is the motive of their rituals? Why do they hang and disembowel "unbelievers"? What is the story behind the"Martyr's Gate" and the prophet, that was apparently captured and killed by Isaac? When you travel to the island as Abby hoping to find out - you pretty much get another kill-a-bunch-of-dudes scenario all over again. And while the attack of WLF is awesome and gives a new twist to the encounters - from the plot perspective I feel it's disappointing.
I only hope now ND is cooking up some DLC diving deeper into it.
So I beat the game again today on Survivor+ and I think I'm done until the PS5 HD version.
As a complete package - an absolutely phenomenal game.
So many new things noticed replaying and so good seeing the early part knowing what comes later. Mind blown over and over again with the contextual animation system. Exceptionally amazing melee with the addition of the dodge. How the attacks differ depending on positioning in regards to both the enemy and surroundings is just next level. The game is made to feel as grounded and realistic as possible and it shines on "survivor".
All of the subtle storytelling through eavesdropping on enemy patrols before attacking, through environmental design and "artifact" notes stories you find containing some of the best writing of the whole game. How characters react and comment on events unfolding and their surroundings. How their idle animations and facial expressions change from scenario to scenario depending on the situation, all in gameplay.
The meticulously animated item pickups! omg I love that shit hope they will keep developing this tech for future projects #TeamRDR2.
How they improved both enemy and companion AI. While a huge problem in TLOU1, In my 2 playthroughs a buddy clearly breaking enemy line of sight was barely to be seen on screen.
Only some corpses disappear in combat but in a way less obvious way than TLOU1 as well. I really hope this is permanently resolved in HD remaster, still - the amount of carnage you paint rooms with is hella impressive. The blood physics! How it all looks in HDR in general.
The accessibility features which can actually make game more fun in NG+. All the quality of life stuff - like when you fully upgrade a character or weapons, the upgrade items despawn from the rest of the game so you don't end up stopping at prompts to pick up trash. Worth all the praise it got for the gameplay alone.
Also, I love the story and I don't give a fuck.
It's not perfect, nothing is perfect. The whole arc of Ellie is awesome, it's well motivated with a great conclusion.
Zero issues with the prologue despite knowing all the arguments made against it. Zero issues with playing as Abby, on the contrary.
While I disagree with most of the criticism I've seen for the game, it doesn't mean I can't point out areas where I think the budget could have had been spent elsewhere:
The whole chapter of Yara telling you the story of Lev in the Aquarium is totally redundant as anyone with 2 brain cells at that point has figured out what you're supposed to learn there.
My biggest gripe tho is how the Seraphites were such a huge undeveloped potential. In one of the interviews Drucknann sad they've had a whole scenario of Ellie going to hell and back on the island that was cut and IMO it's apparent. What is the motive of their rituals? Why do they hang and disembowel "unbelievers"? What is the story behind the"Martyr's Gate" and the prophet, that was apparently captured and killed by Isaac? When you travel to the island as Abby hoping to find out - you pretty much get another kill-a-bunch-of-dudes scenario all over again. And while the attack of WLF is awesome and gives a new twist to the encounters - from the plot perspective I feel it's disappointing.
I only hope now ND is cooking up some DLC diving deeper into it.
I agree. But we did get some of that from Lev and Yara. I feel they could go much deeper. I am happy though that they never really became an enemy for Ellie. There just was no motivation there for her to be
Though I like the idea that Ellie ended up on the island. Imagine the fight between her and Abby was in that setting as the island burned - instead of the random big dude who Abby fought
The combat in this game it's really good, but something that i find it's a breakthrough it's the dodge system.
ND has been trying to give players some form of dodge since Uncharted one but now it's when it finally clicked, sum the dodge to how it interacts with the new borrowed mechanics and it just feels like nothing else.
For example the prone, the prone and how you can dive into prone from running it's obviously inspired by MGSV, but they didn't stop there, you can dive by using the dodge as a dash and holding crouch mid animation, it's so fucking good.
And it doesn't stop there, everything they borrowed from other games has been carefully tuned for this game, shooting on your back it's mixed with the stopping power from guns and the RE4 stun then melee it's mixed with ND's amazing contextual melee. It all flows.
All of this high risk high reward mechanics really shine when the stakes of combat are high and resources are limited, i hope ND keeps improving in this direction. The dodge should become a staple of ND's games just like contextual melee already did.
People are mostly upset because they want to have nothing to do with a character (much less play for 10+ hours as one) that tortured and killed one of their favorites, and who is generally unrelatable and unlikeable.
People are mostly upset because they want to have nothing to do with a character (much less play for 10+ hours as one) that tortured and killed one of their favorites, and who is generally unrelatable and unlikeable.
Do they even know the reason why character X tortured and killed character Y?
I guess they don't.
I'm going to complete the game and then ask my friends again what is it I'm supposed to hate in the second half.
I just completed TLOU remastered 3 weeks ago so the story is still very fresh in my head.
One of my friend who hates this game is a pc master race who doesn't even own a PlayStation and claims he knows all about the story and why I should hate it because he watched the game on Twitch.
Do they even know the reason why character X tortured and killed character Y?
I guess they don't.
I'm going to complete the game and then ask my friends again what is it I'm supposed to hate in the second half.
I just completed TLOU remastered 3 weeks ago so the story is still very fresh in my head.
One of my friend who hates this game is a pc master race who doesn't even own a PlayStation and claims he knows all about the story and why I should hate it because he watched the game on Twitch.
And why should we? Joel's decision was based on love. It may not have been the right choice, but it's one that's at least understandable by those who witnessed him losing his child. They could empathize with him. What's Abby have at the point she kills Joel? What backstory? Nothing. She's a complete stranger we know nothing of torturing and killing a character we know a great deal of and care about a lot.
Why shouldn't they dislike her in the way she's presented?
The manner in which Abby kills Joel (i.e. by bludgeoning him with a golf club) is brutal and understandably offensive to those who believe that Joel deserved a better death. However, if you consider the gameplay mechanic of bludgeoning enemies to death with blunt instruments (e.g. hammers, bats, wooden sticks, crowbars, etc), Abby's method of killing Joel is consistent with the world of The Last of Us. Just think of how many people you kill as Joel by bludgeoning them with blunt instruments.
The manner in which Abby kills Joel (i.e. by bludgeoning him with a golf club) is brutal and understandably offensive to those who believe that Joel deserved a better death. However, if you consider the gameplay mechanic of bludgeoning enemies to death with blunt instruments (e.g. hammers, bats, wooden sticks, crowbars, etc), Abby's method of killing Joel is consistent with the world of The Last of Us. Just think of how many people you kill as Joel by bludgeoning them with blunt instruments.
Yep. In a post-apoc world you get the death you get. Maybe its a dramatic death where you die in the arms of your loved one. And maybe you get your face instantly blown off by a sniper hundreds of meters away. Nobody gets to choose.
And why should we? Joel's decision was based on love. It may not have been the right choice, but it's one that's at least understandable by those who witnessed him losing his child. They could empathize with him. What's Abby have at the point she kills Joel? What backstory? Nothing. She's a complete stranger we know nothing of torturing and killing a character we know a great deal of and care about a lot.
Why shouldn't they dislike her in the way she's presented?
Yep. In a post-apoc world you get the death you get. Maybe its a dramatic death where you die in the arms of your loved one. And maybe you get your face instantly blown off by a sniper hundreds of meters away. Nobody gets to choose.
I have no idea. They kept insinuating that everyone will hate the 2nd half of the game. So far my friends who are playing the game are enjoying the story in the 2nd half of the game too.
I will not reveal to my friends that I am already at the 2nd half. I'll complete the game, digest everything then question them.
Reached the second half today, my rating for the game went from 7/10 to 5/10. Absolute failure in storytelling, gameplay/story synergy, and thematic messaging. The gameplay at this point is totally stale too.
replayed through it yesterday and today because my girlfriend wanted to see the story. i moved difficulty down to light (which i recommend trying after beating it yourself because suddenly you feel like such a badass) and I also completed it in just under 10 hours, that’s including skipping no cutscenes. I was surprised how quickly i beat it this second time since my first run was at like 25 hours. I guess you can halve the time just by knowing where to go, skipping supply runs and not dying much.
Got in from work today. Got washed up & comfortable. Nothing happening at all, so I said fuck it I'll continue with the game. I'll never mind the story & just enjoy everything else.
Played the whole of Day 1 as Abby. I already like her story better than Ellie's. It's more enjoyable straight away. New characters. New conflict, with the WLF & the Seraphites. It's immediately more interesting, for me. I'm very surprised, but there you go.
The gameplay section in the forest at night, when the Seraphites try to string Abby up but she escapes with the 2 kids, was fantastic. Running from the infected by torchlight. Stopping to fight with bricks & fists. Then taking down the big wifey with the sledgehammer. Then getting stuck in the ruined house with clickers swarming from every angle. I unloaded with incendiary shotgun shells & pipe bombs. It was fucking brutal, it was carnage & it was brilliant. I loved it.
So happy I jumped back in, instead of taking a break. This game is a rollercoaster.
Just got it. What difficulty settings do people use. I feel like hard with resources in light and allies in moderate might be a good balance. I don't like resource management.
