Don't read if you don't want spoilers: Spoiler Hot garbage. I don't even care about the ultra forced "inclusion" pandering. Nobody cares. I don't even REALLY mind the big twist that everybody knows. That's a bold narrative choice. My problems are this: They took all the character development of the first game and threw it out the window. The "twist" part was so non-sensical. Joel would not have let that happen. Characters do stupid things that don't fit with their character development to drive the stupid, forced narrative. The comparison to Game of Thrones is spot on. Remember in early seasons of Game of Thrones, characters you loved died, but it was OK because it was true to the story and the character development was amazing...and by the end, the characters are doing stupid stuff that was so out of character you basically now write off the entire series?...This is just like that. There is 0 joy in this game. You get force fed "revenge is bad"...we get it...there aren't even "green shoots" of hope or joy. The combat and missions are boring and repetitive and are just "in the way" of the story The game tries REALLY hard to make you care about the villain you are playing, but it doesn't make any sense. She is a totally non-sympathetic character. You feel MARGINALLY bad for some of the friends, but not her for sure. Totally ruins 1/3 of the game. The ending...what a let down. It makes no sense to go through all the trials and tribulations with such a stupid payoff. "Honorable" combat? What? The construction of the game with the flashbacks and stuff mess up the flow. Very poorly constructed narrative stream. I get that in a post apocalyptic world, we can have characters we love die, or bad things happen, but this is basically masochism disguised as a revenge plot.
All I've seen (without spoilers thankfully) are complaints about the political nature or praise about how it looks. But, story aside, how's the gameplay?
From what I've seen, the political nature isn't the issue for legit reviews, the lbgt squad is just review bombing. The negative, legit reviews say the character development and story telling is extremely worse than the first game and has several unlikable characters, plus plot holes and an unsatisfactory end. Gameplay also seems to be quite repetitive. IGN Japan only gave it 70pts for example, some other big outlets did the same. Google translation works pretty well for Japanese, so you'll get the gist. https://jp.ign.com/the-last-of-us-2/44388/review/the-last-of-us-part-ii
I'm enjoying it so far (about 6 hours in). Gameplay is like the first game so I'm not exactly sure what people are complaining about. I've been spoilered. I know what's coming. I can understand why it would turn some people off. I think your reaction to it might be determined by how open minded you are to the story not being what you expected or wanted. But my opinion might change after I actually finish it.
Think most of us don't care how big it is. Just give me PC power and Adaptability so we can play the game the way it was meant to be played, with all the comforts of home and not having to think about the tech.
Amazing. The thing I love about those game vs the original is the level design.One consistent thing that the game is being praised for is how immersive the gameplay such as the stealth mechanics are along with the intricate open level design with immense amount of detail. Unlike the first game, the gameplay alone makes this a great game. The AI was actually excellent. They flank. Merely laying prone on tall grass doesn't guarantee that you are hidden like in real life. They do random things like turn and look around without a scripted path making the tension higher as you can't assume you can just walk up behind them unnoticed and have to prepare for the possiblity the box might turn around any moment. Unlike other stealth games, when you sneak kill a NPC and that NPC is missing, the NPC's friends don't magically forget that the missing NPC ever existed after 20 seconds of searching. The NPC friends will remember that someone is missing the entire time untill you either go past them or kill them. It's because they actually gave names to all the NPCs where a NPC has a relationship with other NPCs. Even though a game like Red Dead Redeption 2 might be open world, for some reason Last of US 2 feels like you are given more agency in terms of gameplay. Rockstar games even though are open world have the most linear scripted missions with zero variability in how to tackle a mission. For example, if a RDR2 mission involves taking down a gang held up in a fort, you only have one route to trigger the cut scenes. You can't sneak attack from the top. You can only walk through a singular path through the front entrance of the fort. That's a typical Rockstar story mission. Zero agency and creativity. With the Last of Us Part 2 the level design for missions is open. An example would be a level in a suburban Seattle neighborhood where there is a enemy patrol. Unlike the Rockstar method of level design in story missions, the player can chose their own path to take down the patrol. The player can sneak through the second floor window of a house, or the player can distract the enemies to come out of the house and the player can stalk the enemies in the tall grass. You are given option and agency in how to take down enemies unlike in Rockstar games. The gameplay is amazing. The first Last of Us had rather mediocre gameplay. It was held up by the atmosphere and story telling. This gsme's gameplay can stand on it's it' as a great game.
Ya it definitely isn't repetitive. For this game I've never seen this much concentration on the negative reviews when the overwhelming majority of reviews are praying the game. For some reason people think the IGN Japan review is more accurate just because it's a lower score. If TLOU Part 2 is repetitive then what the hell does that make games like RDR2 where you literally have zero agency in your mission path or how you tackle a problem in a story mission?
Another thing this game is excellent at and probably is industry leading is in their animation work. The fluidity between transition animations is absolutely stunning. And the best thing about it is that it doesn't sacrifice gameplay like it does in RDR2. The reason why most games don't have as fluid animation is because realistic looking animations can hinder gameplay because there is a delay between the users input and the completion of a animation loop for a specific action. That's why Rockstar Games can feel slow clunky especially in Red Dead. Rockstar cared so much about the animation quality that the player controls felt so weighted, slow and laggy. Naughty Dog somehow surpasses Red Dead animation quality yet all inputs are instantaneous and quick. You feel so agile with Ellie. Movements such as going prone are so contextually aware. You pull back on the stick and hold the prone button Ellie lunges back in the prone position back facing the ground like a John Woo film. And it's so smooth and responsive. Combining those movements along with the dodge button makes controlling the character fun as hell. Red Dead doesn't make a good competitive multiplayer experience because of the clunky controls. I can see this game being an absolute thrill in P v P multiplayer. This is the type of game that makes as awesome Game+ mode like Spiderman because of how different you can change combat and stealth styles. This game reminds me a lot like MGSV. Recommendation when starting the game. Go to accessibility settings> motion sickness. For some reason the field of view slider is in there. The default setting I feel is too narrow. You can make it wider and it's significanltly better now.
The main point of the review and others is the decline in story, characters and storytelling, compared to the first game. I don't really care about gameplay and agree that RDR2 was repetitive with ridiculously long routes to missions. So with that said, how do you like the story and characters compared to the first game?
It made me dislike the characters I loved from the first game, and introduced a bunch of characters that I grew to dislike even more. And the story is dumb.
You didn't play it yet right? If you want a discussion about the story we can have it with spoiler tags of course. I think the story is well written.
Spoiler-free: You essentially play as a new character for about 60% of the game and the game tries to make you care about this character and the reasons why he/she did what he/she did at the beginning of the game. But most of the people who've either watched someone play the game or played the game themselves, didn't like the new character at all. For one, the new character is essentially shoved down your throat. Two, you don't get to play as Joel or Ellie for most of the game, and thus, their relationship (which is part of what made the first game so endearing) is basically forever on the backburner. tl;dr? Part II subverts the hype and expectations from finishing the first game while awaiting the second, and basically spits in your face. Everything from how the new character is introduced at the start of the game, to the final confrontation at the end just leaves you feeling empty inside. A lot of people have said they experienced zero joy throughout the entire game. Which is probably the worst thing you can say about a video game. What's the point of playing something or doing something that makes you miserable?
I HATE repetitive gameplay that feels like a chore. I stopped playing the Spiderman game after about 15 minutes because if it. I should avoid this game?
