The Last of Us Part 2 Review
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- My Last of Us 1 review can be found here:
• The Last of Us Review
I didn't want to censor the violence or profanity, as a result this video has limited ads. If you'd like to support me another way I'm on Patreon:
/ matthewmatosis
There's a tiny spoiler for Odin Sphere in this video too, not worth worrying about I think.
There's a few instances of flashing lights but also probably not anything to worry about.
"i've only been living in the apocalipse for a few months..."
the extremely dry way you said it made me giggle
@@BugVlogs go outside
@@ffnovice7 seethe
Did you giggle like a highschool girl? That's the important part here.
lol at him comparing a bad flu season to a zombie season.😂
Apocalypse* Shit should auto correct for you but you may have butchered it too fucking bad lmao
Just dropping by to say that it's entirely possible to restring a guitar so that it can be played with the opposite hand. That is all.
That's not the point of the scene... or the entire game, for that matter.
Interesting, though. I didn't know that.
Yeah but it can be a nightmare to switch hands. You basically have to relearn how to play.
You don't even need to restring the whole guitar. Tape a few of your fingers together and see that it's still perfectly viable. You aren't gonna be sounding like Eric Clapton but it's not impossible.
@@danielleanderson6371 Which could have been a possible ending, the idea of starting over could have been represented visually that way.
Django Reinhardt exists too
The biggest issue with switching perspectives so frequently is that the game is constantly trying to change my motivation. it starts out as just being routine, then it's to get revenge on someone we're made to hate, then it's to indulge in the museum flashback we know won't ever pay off and feel comfy with Joel, then it's back to revenge, then again, it's to indulge in Joel, then hatred again. The first half is constantly jumping back and forth between telling us to feel good and to feel hateful.
Then Abby's campaign comes in and it's even more jumbled; the character the game's told us to hate for the last 10 hours is now someone we're meant to be rooting for, and with such a significant amount of time working directly against her, many including myself just kept trying to throw her off every cliff I could find. This comes to a head in the Santa Barbra section where we're now jumping back and forth again multiple times within a few minutes of each other between having to hate one of our protagonists, and actively trying to help the one we've been hunting as the other to live out a good life.
Half of the time, i don't know how I should feel because the game is constantly trying to motivate me with inherently contradictory sources of encouragement.
also doesn’t help that these POV changes are extremely poorly placed
The feeling is supposed to be disjointed, as feelings are complex and don't line up with logic. The feeling is not the motivation for playing the game. The motivation to play the game is to feel, whether or not it contradicts each other (because that happens in real life, too).
@A Z Yes, but this is where I think the medium works against the story. In film, the audience is more willing to feel conflicted because they are watching a story unfold. They are being asked to do nothing but feel, the journey is taken for them. In a video game, you move the story forward. The character's motivation is as much yours as it is their's, because you are the driving factor deciding if they reach their ultimate goal in the end. That's why other games that introduce these kinds of elements often make the player character more morally grey or ambiguous, at least in their initial goals. Spec Ops: The Line gradually pulls the curtain up from over a generic military shooter, and the character's ultimate goals are still painted as at least somewhat heroic until the final stretch where it all comes crashing down. NieR Automata has the player switching between multiple perspectives in the final act, but both are working towards the same end goal, just with different motivations for doing so, and in the end the player gets to choose who they ultimately align with. The Last of Us 2 seems annoyed that it even has to be a game in the first place, and it's narrative doesn't consider the medium at all. Neil Druckmann simply doesn't have a firm enough grasp of game design and how it can influence storytelling to properly convey his message through the medium.
@A Z You see there's supposed to be half-assed excuses for all examples of our bad writing. Combined with meaningless word salad/verbal diarrhea. Just feeeeeeeelings bro
Reading TLOU2 criticisms like this makes me realize how weird I must be, because when I play a game with a story, I never view the story as MY motivation, I never feel that I have a hand in the story or it's themes, that's all the developer's job, and I'm just along for the ride, be it for movie games or mostly gameplay focused games, I just feel like I'm the hand that makes the player characters move and everything else is out of my concern.
Seeing Abby and Ellie's different motivations and actions doesn't make me feel weird or jerked around at all, I'm just happy to be there and let the story play out while I shoot zombies.
When Abby and Ellie fight I find it to be a cool moment because it's the two characters I've been playing as the whole game, but apparently lots of people find it absurd because it reveals how little control you have over the narrative, when that, to me, was obvious in the first place? It's so confusing to me.
16:39 I love how Matthew very subtly shifted his tone, as if to say wearily “I know a lot of you are only here for my thoughts on this controversial story, so let’s do this”
As a "Mechanical Extrovert" myself, its not that I dislike slower moments or areas in which you just walk around & interact with stuff, its when gameplay & story clash, in what I am supposed to feeling. A scenario in which my character is in immediate life or death danger, with a slim chance of survival being based on them taking smart quick decisions clashes with my requirement being holding forward and going through a set of quick time events. If anything, they should be really demanding, for me, as a player.
In early Devil May Cry games, Dante was an invulnerable baddass in cutscenes but, during gameplay, you'd die in a few hits, if not careful. DMC3 opened with Dante getting 10+ scythes stabbed into him and he walks off, with a one-liner. This doesn't ruin the immersion or stakes, for me, because DMC is more of an action game with a simple narrative. DMC has an extremely underrated narrative but it is never betrayed by these moments of Dante enabling God mode, for a cutscene. It's forgivable because it doesn't impact the main events of the story and also because they are stylish beyond words.
The Last of Us Part 2 is going for a more complex story, which should harbour more towards realism & therefore should get more scrutiny for its short comings. Part 1 had that forever immersion breaking problem of Ellie sprinting in front of enemies, and going unnoticed. Part 2 has characters making stupid decisions like leaving windows open, leave maps for their hideouts, etc, all of which break immersion. The same can be said for set pieces in which little is demanded of the player, despite the clear threat & danger for the characters.
Bottom line is that gameplay & story should go hand in hand. It feels wrong when they break away from each other and there should be a high standard of organic gameplay for this game, being how well received the first one was. It should draw the player in and make the world feel real & alive. Dark Souls has a strong attention to detail and its probably part of the reason why those games are so well loved. They reward engagement, whereas this game seems to be hit 'n' miss, about it.
I know you said you don't want to bang on the ludonarrative dissonance drum too hard, but this is Naughty Dog we're talking about. Isn't the main example for ludonarrative dissonance supposed to be Uncharted? It just seems that Naughty Dog doesn't understand this concept and it applies to all of their games.
Even as far back as Jak 2 where killing civilian NPCs was extremely hard not to do 😂
Except you don't understand what Ludonarrative dissonance means. There's none of that in either the Uncharted or TLOU games.
Look up Sole Purpose's video on it; it's amazing break down of it. Ludonarrative dissonance has nothing to do if the player agrees with character's place/actions in the narrative, but whether the gameplay elements or story moments contradict the themes of the game. Violence and revenge being the foundation (also for the other themes) of the game means that it doesn't. There's no dissonance between the game and its themes.
blackmanwithcomputer the games gameplay elements do contradict with the ‘themes’ though... the theme wasn’t violence and revenge... it was that those things were bad, not what you should want, not a means to an end, etc. This is contradictory to the gameplay literally not giving you the choice to be purely pacifist at all
@@BWGmedia It is necessary tho, because most of the violence is in self-defense and people in this world view the violence as a necessary act. Violence/revenge being bad isn't the main theme to take away, moreso that violence/revenge is an easy out. Ellie has so many issues that she hasn't and doesn't want to deal with, and Abby comes along becomes a target for her to project on. Revenge is the red herring, while the graphic violence is just matter of fact. It's not there to make you feel good or bad about what you're doing, it's just realistic.
@@MrMannnMannn How is that dissonance in Uncharted 2? The game never set out to examine any of Nathan's actions, and his willingness to go out of his way to not kill people doing honest work shows that he's not a monster anyways. Everyone he killed was out of self-defense, so the amount is irrelevant. There's no dissonance between the game and its narrative.
For TLOU franchise, the violence is more realistic to ground the reality of the characters. This is what the violence here is, it's heavier than violence in Uncharted. It's also necessary to survive, regardless of morality.
It's also a red herring. The crux of the game is Ellie and Abby dealing with their emotional issues and them using those feelings to justify the violence as anything but that or that exacting violence on their enemies will make them feel better or, with the last fight, it's both cathartic and punishment at the same time.
The morality part works a lot better in a game like Dishonored, where it is based on how many people you have killed. The odd one, yeah that's understandable, tons of them, while that is just evil.
I agree
Way too much murder in this
Where as joel killed when confronted
Dishonored is a textbook case of how *not* to do it. The game is constantly throwing all these neat abilities at you and ways to kill enemies, but then punishes you if you use them instead of just 100% stealth everything. And then the double standard of, "It's okay to kill people, so long as the player character didn't do it directly.".
Already 5 minutes in and I really like how everything is edited down to be as concise as possible, no section on this vid feels stretched out. Longer doesn't always mean better!
As long as it needs to be, personally love his commentary on Dark Souls and Devil May Cry.
Is it just a regular thing on RUclips for commenters to relentlessly kiss the ass of the RUclipsr before even watching 1/4 of the video?
@@qumxlinger1081 Only ones that consistently produce well-written content. My original comment still stands after finishing the vid. Compare this to a video by NeverKnowsBest or Joseph Anderson and how this video does an excellent job of holding my attention, not just acting as background noise.
Longer doesn't always mean bad
Big Bernard I don’t know who those are but if they’re “European arm chair critic that talks about videe gamies (monotone voice is optional) for extended periods of time” #34635 I don’t think I’ll bother
This is an extremely well-reasoned and even-handed criticism. You've done it again, Matt. Never stop.
The Ellie fight is how I envisioned the end of MGSV before it was out. Fighting Solid Snake as Big Boss. But obviously, that isn't how it went...
That would’ve been the perfect end for the series and was the very reason I was so excited for that game in the first place. Oh well, still a fun game I guess.
@@SaberRexZealot my exact take on it too... *sigh
MGSV to me is like MGS2. Kojima tricked everyone into expecting one thing and he gave us the opposite. And I respect that
Of my many problems with this game, after a year and a lot more time to think about it, the ending really is what makes it impossible for me at least to take anything this game does seriously.
I do not at all believe Ellie would not kill Abby. I'm sorry but that flies in the face of everything Ellie has done up until this point.
Like Matthew says, Ellie lost two of her fingers to this woman, she has no clue about the nice things Abby has done, Abby is just Joel and Jesse's killer to her. There is no way Ellie would give up such an idyllic life with Dinah, travel to California, kill those three Rattlers and possibly all of them, and not finish the job. That's ridiculous.
I think in Part 1 and Left Behind the goal of Ellie's characterization is to show her innocence and altruism despite the grim world she was raised in. This is of course subverted throughout Part 2 as Ellie spirals into someone almost unrecognizable from herself in the previous games. To me, Part 2 is more of a character study than a moral proclamation; although it is still largely a condemnation of the cyclical nature of violence. Its mission statement is to push Ellie to her limits in order to uncover who she is.
The longer I've thought about the ending, the more I've come to view it as the stripping away of Ellie's ego and the revealing of her true self. Ultimately, Ellie is an altruistic and loving person, and it takes all the trauma, mistakes, and loss of the final act for that part of her to reemerge. That's at least my read on it.
I think sparing Abby gives the audience a lot more to chew on than killing her. It wouldn't have been faithful to Ellie's characterization throughout the series at large. Given how Abby and Lev reflect Joel and Ellie at the end of the two games, it's also likely that Ellie realizes Abby is no longer the monster she has been chasing for so long.
@@blue3895 I don't know how anyone could get two fingers bitten off and decide to be forgiving. I'd be so mad, I'd relish the revenge even more.
@@blue3895 fair point, but it's the overarching case of separation gameplay from the story that matters. You can stealth around a lot of enemies and the game offers you ways to keep the bodycount as low as possible. For some reason though the game doesn't let you choose whether or not to spare Abby. Yes, it's the journey of a character that you follow as a player, but even in a game without obvious choices your playthrough is not the same every time. This is why movie games are bad: they throw you on rails and shove a bunch of pretentious "moral dilemmas" in your face without so much of a thought about how you want to proceed with the story, how you want to react according to your vision/interpretation of a character/plot point despite proudly declaring about being morally gray, up to interpretation, worthy of a discussion and shit like that.
TLOU 2 (and many others) desperately NEEDS to be a discussion between itself and the player, but is instead a pretentious, out of touch monologue of lead writers.
No. it PAYS OFF everything Ellie's done to this point.
all she ever got for her hunt was death and misery, people she cared about got hurt or died, and she killed people brutally that now haunt her with regret and guilt.
it's a sunk-cost game. and she's finally realised it. she RETURNED to Jackson, only going back after Abby when Tommy planted a seed in her head. but it wasn't A case of "you need to get justice for Joel, it was closer to "You're obligated to obtain vengeance out of some sense of guilt and duty." she hates herself, but realises she doesn't hate herself for not finishing the job, but for starting it.
everything she did was just as much a waste of life, and pain and everything else, whether Abby dies or not. when heading off she perhaps thinks that Abby's death would justify all of it. before coming to the realisation that it won't. it's a sunk-cost fallacy.
her brutality hurt her more in the long-run then it did anyone else. so it was time to shed it. she just walked all the way to the end of that path out of the strength of her sense of obligation until she finally found she couldn't do it.
in every other case of killing, there was an internal justification.
she killed WLF soldiers because they had a "kill all trespassers" policy, it was kill or be killed.
she killed Jordan while he was trying to kill Dina.
she killed Nora in the act of protecting herself from WLF soldiers via a hostage take.
she killed Owen when he went for her gun.
she killed Mel in a self-defense scuffle.
She FORCED Abby to fight. there is no internal justification. it's not killing, it's a murder. so her killing of Abby would be incomparable to her other actions.
@@Omnipotentmonkey except there is justification in killing Abby. She killed her adoptive father in front of her in cold blood.
It's not that her realization that killing people is bad is wrong, is that it shouldn't have come when she was killing Abby.
18:10 Mel clearly took the normal road they talk about (Ellie and Jessie see it in Day 3 aswell). Abby has to go the long way because Issac won't let her.
Also I'm not sure how Joel is supposed to somehow prevent Ellie from reaching salt lake. He's not exactly gonna lock her up is he.
Yeah Joel mentioned that she ran off in the middle of the night
Yeah, that “cinema sins” part of the review was my least favorite
Probably ensure her that there is no cure and she dosen't need to search for any more answers. Like how you trust someone normally.
Was disappointed so much of this review was focused on the narrative rather than gameplay. Matosis is great, but I dont think he has much to say on stories. Given the CinemaSins analysis here while at the same time treating Kojima like he is at all a talented writer. Talk about dissonance.
@@Tamacat388 wtf are you writing about?
Agreed that "REVENGE BAD" loses so much meaning when you already killed over 100 people to get to the revenge kill. Elle had no problem killing nameless people or people who's names she learned moments before killing them. Why in the hell would she stop killing the one person she was after. Elle doesn't know what the player learned. To her Abby is just Joel's killer.
Ellie didn't kill those "100 people" out of revenge, she did it out of necessity or self defense. Even Mathewmatosis says as much.
@@Tiger66261 yh he did say it at some point in the video. But then he forgot about it.
Ellie knows she killed all her friends.
She knows that they let her live and she wasted it.
Ellie stopping at the 101 person is good for her. She gains nothing by killing Aby. She makes the right choice.
Why would you say "what is one more?". She gains nothing by killing that "one more"
@@Tiger66261 KIlling abbies crew was certainly part of the revenge plot. And most of the people she killed was in service or as a result of the revenge. "I caused those deaths with my actions and my hands, but it really wasnt my goal" is a pretty shallow excuse.
17:44, nice to finally hear someone say this. I definitely have issues with Part 2, but I’ve never understood why some people say the game disrespected Joel. And I’m very thankful he didn’t die in a “pandering blaze of glory”, as you worded it.
Personally I didn't mind that Joel died it was more the circumstances. There are scenes in the first game that make it seem silly. Joel sees through a whole ambush in the road in like seconds, but here he stands in the middle of a circle of armed strangers while Tommy gives them the coordinates to their base and their identities. He didn't have to go Rambo, but we have seen what he is capable of in the first game and I feel like the whole scene could have been better with a few characters moved over and a few lines different.
@@dropthexd3277 There is dialogue in Jackson that states they find and take in survivors. That's how the township has grown. Joel has been settled for several years by that point, evidently more relaxed, and expecting that any people they find are seeking shelter.
@@JeremyComans Doesn't Jesse say that Joel is a hard ass about everyone doing their patrols properly? Doesn't that go exactly against that?
Honestly, only experiencing both games recently, it just seems like killing Joel that early just doesn't really replace it with anything of equal value. Ellie seems weirdly calm and collected at the start of the adventure and Dina just really isn't engaging. The heart of the first game is Joel and Elly's relationship, there is nothing in the second game that really seems to carry or replace the heart they kill right at the start of the game by killing Joel and leaving Elly alone. I just feel like the game should actually give you that joel and elly relationship so you feel more when it's lost.
@@JeremyComans I understand that they bring in good people to grow their town, but I'm supposed to believe Joel hasn't dealt with any bad guys in those years? There are factions of cannibals and slavers and they still go out of the walls to do patrols.
@@geminia999 I got the impression they were worried about infected, especially if hordes were around. Not so much live folk.
The thing I absolutely cannot stand about this game is how contrived the writing gets just to get a specific thing to happen. That and the absurd amount of plot armor both Abby and Ellie have. The dialogue is also pretty atrocious, which is wild seeing as that was one of the strongest points of the first game.
The way the game tries to manipulate the player into sympathizing with Abby is pretty embarrassing too.
@JamesHLanier what are opinions
are you THAT into youtube arguments?
Being a long time viewer and not a native English speaker, it stroke me since the first line that Matt’s review just started as a very personal experience. It starts as a cozy dialogue which is told somewhere nearby a warm fireplace or a bonfire somewhere in the forest. That’s what always kept me here on this channel - Matthew’s personal take on every project he covers. Whether he takes it all as rational as possible, you can’t deny the effort and love he puts in every single video he does. I haven’t watched even 30 seconds of this vid and I don’t know what he is about to say about the game, but I still wanted to mention it. Keep doing what you are doing, Matthew. Your work is highly appreciated. Best of luck from Russia. 👍🏼
Mathew has a wonderful way of dissecting a game and highlighting all that is good and bad. I love his insight. In a league of his own.
It's actually interesting to listen to a very calm and measured review to this game.
Even myself when trying to be fair and rational can't help getting overly empassioned when discussing it and allowing bias into my argument.
While I heavily detract from this game, listening to you Matt has given me a little more appreciation to alternative perspectives, even though my own opinion still remains unaltered.
Exceptional review!
This is easily the only genuinely impartial take on this game I've seen, and its very refreshing. Every positive take relies on 95% whataboutism/ strawmanning of critics, and the negatives (understandably) gets caught up on the behind-the-scenes drama/propagandistic intentions.
The only thing I really disagree with is Joel's death: regardless of one's personal attachment to the character, it is unforgivably bad. I'll give all kinds of leeway to the inciting incident of a story, as its kind of inherently contrived... but this is a sequel with established characters, AND ALSO a story built entirely on the premise of endearing me towards characters in conflict with the the old ones I already like, and this scene seems purpose-crafted to derail both of these facts, which is kind of catastrophically bad when it takes place basically at the beginning.
We know from the first 5 minutes of TLOU that Joel was extremely cautious and survival-oriented even before the outbreak. We know from the very first scene with Tommy in TLOU that he is also extremely cautious when it comes to strangers around his settlement. Not only do both Joel and Tommy act inconsistently trusting towards Abby right around their settlement, they act in a manner totally inconsistent with what should be the normal level of trusting for the post-outbreak world, let alone the level for those two specifically. The fireflies never acted this incautious. The much more open and sociable Henry never acted this incautious. 14yr-old spark of humanity Ellie herself greeted Joel with a knife and a cuss. Their behavior isn't just inconsistent with their past behavior, it's utterly nonsensical based on the norms established for the entire setting.
... but we're just getting started. The whole point of this scene is to make me not like Abby so I can learn to like (or at least understand) her over the course of the game. There's 2 MASSIVE problems with this. One, it's basically the first impression we have of her character, when it should be the last. There is a very, very good reason the first scene with Joel is an endearing/sympathetic series of events with his daughter, and not him beating up some stranger for ration cards in his bandit days. There's an equally good reason his most morally questionable action that we actually see is saved for the very end of the first game and not shoved into the intro. First impressions count; you make the first impression of Abby so comically evil, I'm going to be hyperfocused on every possible attempt by the writers to make her sympathetic post-hoc, and unfortunately almost every single event in the narrative meant to make me relate to Abby would be pretty transparent even without the self-defeating introduction she got.
I kind of already touched on it, but number two is that this scene goes WAY beyond making Abby initially unlikable to the player for personal reasons and just makes her cross the moral event horizon right from the start, dooming any possible attempt to endear players to her regardless of who she killed to cross that horizon. Giving Joel a suitably unceremonious death is one thing, making Abby torture him with a blunt instrument for pure pleasure (not even the slightest hint of wanting to know why he even killed her dad, which any remotely normal person would be obsessed with getting an answer to) is another thing entirely. Nothing Ellie does in pursuit of her revenge even compares to this; she kind of tortures an already doomed woman for information and is severely damaged by it to the point of agreeing to call the whole revenge thing off, whereas Abby barely expresses the slightest tinge of guilt, learns absolutely nothing from it, and only ever suffers for completely unrelated reasons.
Combined with the first problem, my resulting opinion of Abby isn't that she was just a normal person put into a bad situation, but that she is two entirely different characters depending on the needs of the writers. One Abby pets dogs and makes lame jokes, the other loves torturing old men, smashing in the faces of pregnant strangers, and slaughtering her own teammates over a weird kid she met 3 days ago who would already be dead if not for an insane series of coincidences. The intentions of the writers are so blatant I can't even see her as anything other than a prop.
....but wait, there's more. Joel/Tommy acting dumb is contrived, but how did the WLF even get into the same room as them? Well Abby just happened to get a vague tip about Joel's brother being in some vaguely defined area. Then her boss, cutthroat leader of a violent faction on the verge of an all-out war and thus needing all available soldiers, just happens to agree to her going cross-country for a personal quest WITH SEVERAL MORE OF HIS MOST VALUABLE PERSONNEL. Then they just happen to stumble upon Jackson itself. Then Abby just happens to stumble into the biggest horde of infected ever seen before (in the dead of winter, no less). Then Abby just happens to run into Joel. The Joel and Tommy just happen to lose their only means to survive other than trusting in Abby. The game rapid-fires egregious contrivances to shove us into this revenge quest as fast as possible, no matter the cost, doing everything it can to kill the player's investment before it even starts. The entire game is powered by blatant contrivance; the WLF just happens to wear their uniforms and leave one behind to identify them. Ellie just happens to find named photos (who the hell puts names on photos of people they already know intimately?) of everyone she's looking for. Dina just happens to mark their own base on a map for no necessary reason. Ellie just happens to leave that map behind. Abby just happens to get captured by random bandits in california. Not one event in this game is remotely natural. I am constantly being thrown out of the experience by the relentless onslaught of weapons-grade contrivance.
Another funny thing is that the events of the plot actually support the exact opposite theme than what was clearly intended. I'm supposed to be made to feel that revenge and violence are bad, but given what actually happens, it seems revenge works out fine if you don't leave any survivors. The only thing continuing the cycle of violence was leaving Ellie and Tommy alive; other than that, the only issues Abby faces are completely unrelated to her vengeance quest and born of completely contrived events. In fact, if Joel was a bit more thorough in his scouring of the Salt Lake facility, Abby would be dead and this whole nonsensical sequel couldn't even exist. Moral of the story: don't leave survivors, I guess.
This is a hell of a comment but I couldn’t agree more.
>and the negatives (understandably) gets caught up on the behind-the-scenes drama/propagandistic intentions.
I don't remember that happening with EFAP, who are among the most negative of the game (some of their guests might've gotten caught up in that, but not Mauler/Rags/Fringy)
I detest this game and its plot/story to the core. Your thoughts were well structured and reasonable. It's not enough to make me change my opinion but this gave a clear perspective on why people would like it so much. Thank you for your insight.
On the opposite end, I love this game pretty much completely and I really appreciate Matt's consistently excellent presentation which gives me a clear perspective on why people would dislike it. It has been quite difficult to get an honest idea of people's dislikes with the genuinely unpleasant narratives on the majority of youtube channels and one particular subreddit.
@@javax6 there are a lot of reasonable reviews on the game that detail the criticisms well though
@Sr. Bolainas Does anyone actually care what Yahtzee thinks?
Sr. Bolainas wait are you talking about his RUclips videos?
@Sr. Bolainas The day he named Bioshock Infinite his 2013 game of the year is when I stopped taking him seriously, but that's just me.
He ends the review forgiving the game, just like Ellie forgave Abby. True pottery.
That's some good pottery indeed, mind if I borrow some clay?
Ellie doesn't forgive Abby, she just gives up on murdering her.
@@joshuabuckle1216 Makes sense. But it feels like Matthew tried to make some kind of joke like that when he said he "forgave" the game.
Definitely a fair review. But I don't know... I feel like if you have to go through so many mental hoops to justify story decisions, was it really that well thought out of a story beat in the end? In general, I just feel like the way this game was written was not suited for it to be a game. I feel like for it to be a game, there needs to be some sort of agency and involvement for the person playing it. People try to justify the player's lack of agency in the story by claiming that it's not the player's story, it's Ellie's/Abby's. But if that's the case, why is it even a game? I know the lead narrative writer brought on was a television writer; I feel like this may have worked against the game in the end, as it doesn't seem like this was a narrative even written for a game in the first place.
I personally could not get past the plot contrivances you mentioned (nor the way it was structured, for that matter), and to me it just felt lazy and convenient in the same way the last season of Game of Thrones felt: things happened because the writer needed them to happen in order for their plot to progress. Coming from the first game, which had so much nuance in all of its interactions, the constant violence, gore, and grimdark post-apocalyptic bullshit that you are berated with served to weaken the impact of each consecutive moment of violence. I think you put it best when you said that the game works on a micro-level at certain points, especially during some touching character interactions, but trying to zoom out a bit and looking at it from the macro-level reveals more of the plot's blemishes. The gameplay in TLOU2 can be really fun at times, sure, but that gameplay has no relevance to the plot, especially during the instances where we are supposed to believe that a character Ellie murdered is supposed to emotionally affect Ellie even though the 15 people she burned alive with Molotov cocktails to get to that character didn't have any effect on her at all.
Overall, the game felt really pretentious to me. Games are trying to be movies and forgetting that they are games, and I still don't think we've had "that" game that can be held up as the competitor to film, nor do I think we even need that game to begin with. Games are games; craft your story and your gameplay to work in tandem with each other and craft something wholly unique that could only be accomplished with an interactive medium. DON'T keep trying to emulate classic films when film is a completely hands-off experience for the viewer. They're two completely different mediums, and that's fine.
As a side note, something that also keeps me from liking the game is Druckmann's/ND's treatment of their workers. Morally I think it's wrong to keep people from their families, friends, and general lives just so they can craft your vision. His cute little "Dr. Uckmann" collectible card kind of just shows his tone deafness in the matter, and I think if he was really as progressive as he says he is, he would allow/push for his workers to organize a union and accept that a game may take a little longer to make because of that. Crunch is not "pushing human limits," it's borderline abuse, it's a practice that needs to go, and I'd feel better about giving Naughty Dog money if I knew that their programmers didn't have to suffer to make a game with a mediocre story and nice looking graphics.
Pff, "gives their relationship time to breath". What relationship?
My problem with the message of "helping others leading to happiness" is that at the end of the game Abby still hasn't redeemed herself. It's more of a psychotic self righteousness. She and her gang never questioned the act of torturing and murdering the man who saved Abby's life and offered help and provisions to the whole group just moments before. Abby gives some lips service to the idea of having to do good to balance out her sins, but even that sounded disingenuous and more like something her possibly autistic father said, when he meant that sacrificing Ellie retroactively gives meaning to all the things the fireflies have done.
Abby found happiness by telling herself that she did nothing wrong. She avenged her father and she helped a little boy, while betraying her own people, so now everything is good.
Whereas Ellie suffered through each (story related) death she caused, even though pretty much all of them were at one point in self defense. She lost evrything and doesn't even have the strength to rebuild. She was willing to let her targets live if they cooperated and she was even about to take Dina home and give up on her revenge. Time and time again Ellie was ready to do the right thing and still got screwed over by the plot.
So yeah, I completely agree when you say, this story doesn't leave much to think about.
This game should have been just about Abby. There was no need to include Joel and Ellie or any other Throwbacks to the first game aside from marketing and/or shock value.
The game could've been about the fruitless endeavor of petty warfare between different cultures, especially in the apocalypse.
We could've started with Scars Killer Abby and her friends, just doing their work as soldiers, until Abby gets saved by Lev and Yara and then the game becomes about friendship and/or love transcending factions and cultural differences.
With the game coming to a conclusion after Abby and Lev escape haven, understanding that it's not important where they're from and who their parent's were, but who they are now what actions they take.
This sound far more compelling than the actual game. And I also support the idea of this series becoming an antology series, the world is wide enough for different stories to be told in different games, giving small clues and references to previous games but let them being their own game. If they make the sequel about Abby and her journey and by the end you connect the first game with the second and realize who Abby is and what she becomes in the game because of the actions of the first game, you could have an entire different view of her, and the expectations of her crossing parts with Joel and Ellie could actually be exciting but instead with got this...
The idea that Abby should show remorse to what she did to Joel is a bit silly. She lost everything when Joel wiped out the fireflies. She has spent 4 years searching for Joel and plotting her revenge. She was basically living for the moment she could get revenge. She has internalized all of it over and over by the point we start the game.
@@bobba515 hey, it's not a problem if the goal was to make her irredeemable. the problem comes in when the game wants us to empathize with her or when we should care about her and feel bad about killing her friends and her dog.
@@commanderleo oh, I do see that... it just has nothing to do with her actions before. It's a neat little story on it's own and imo it should have been the whole game... Just Abby, learning more about the enemy faction and coming to understand that they are also people like she and the WLF. But her helping those kids that saved her life before doesn't redeem her for torturing the man to death that also saved her life. Also, right after saving one of the two kids, she is back to hate/revenge - killing.
The game gives us all those pretty little scenes to get us to like or empathize with Abby.... and fucks it up every time.
UnicornStorm I don’t know about that revamping the game idea, Abby and Lev are just so forgettable and bland to me. I remember the first time playing the Last of us 1 i was astounded by how well realized the characters were, they’re all so full of life and personality and it helps the player attach to them and remember them as characters. But none of the new cast do that for me unfortunately, and i can’t point out exactly why. They just feel so hollow and empty, like they’re pointless shells being used to further the plot along, they’re not actually developed or shown as people like the first game did with it’s characters. And that doesn’t help when you have to spend 10 + hours with them and they all feel so boring.
Whenever I finish a Matthew video, I always feel as if I've just been read some incredibly thoughtful piece of poetry. With this being no exception.
Probably because you're not smart enough to think for yourself. You use Matt's opinions to form/validate your own. No different from a Rick n' Morty follower
@@frogglen6350 Jesus, how needlessly hostile.
Easily the best review of this game out there. Though that was expected.
Oh my god a last of us 2 review that doesn't paint people as cretins for their opinion?
Just look at the comments. You'll find those.
@nikolai 1939 What do you mean?
@nikolai 1939 Understandable, I deleted my last comment because I didn't realise the tone you were trying to convey and came off as a bit defensive towards you but I wouldn't worry about that shit because you get crazy people everywhere it's just a matter of when.
Literally, there are tons of reviews like that. Try watching some Skill up.
The fighting revolving around this game is so dumb, I really wonder how intentional it is that Matt waits until halfway through the video to mention story in the hopes that the trolls (on both sides) won't make it that far and move on.
You really nailed my main issue with the ending; particularly the part where we're left wondering if it was worth it. Killing Abby would have made that a discussion while without it there really is only one possible answer. Theres no payoff, no satisfaction, and nothing interesting to really be said about the ending other than that it makes no sense and it's sad because everything up to that point while potentially flawed seemed like a reasonable direction to go in.
I groaned when I realized we had to have a faux boss fist fight with Abby, such a bad cliche to try at the end. I think it would have been more devastating if Abby was already dead, still a pretty pointless excursion though.
Nice review. The only point I really disagreed with was Matthew dismissing the ridiculously contrived nature of Joel's death by saying "Stranger things have happened." This coming from the same guy who complained extensively about only being able to open a door from one side in his Dark Souls commentary.
Well the commentary wasn't a review.
Pedantry.
It's my opinion that tlou should've been an anthology series. It was a mistake to attempt to continue the story of Ellie.
I'd have much rather seen new characters unrelated to the first game.
"You never get the impression that Naughty Dog were pulling their punches"
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree, the amount of plot armor had reached the point of farce in this game. At many points of the game it felt like many of the punches Naughty Dog were delivering were completely fake.
TLOU1 > TLOU2
That’s literally unrelated but k
Plot armor is when writers artificially keep a character alive through contrivance especially when they know the audience would be furious otherwise.
The fact that Joel, arguably the most loved character from the franchise, is murdered in such a brutal and bleak fashion, and Abby is left alive by the end of the game, is telling of the amount of risk ND took. To not acknowledge that is honestly disrespectful to the entire team who made this game possible.
@@o-renishii5853 The risk they took was shit. It is not at all what we fans of the first game were asking for.
@@o-renishii5853 Meanwhile Ellie is saved half a dozen times in the cutscenes because of plot armor/contrivances/characters suddenly being dumb and Abby is hit in the skull with a hammer and suffers no meaningful effects from is a fatal wound. Tommy was shot in back of the skull, Ellie's arm was broken and her face smashed to the point her eyes were bleeding and they both managed to travel across several states afterwards in the post-apocalypse else and return to Jackson to heal their wounds.
I agree with your point about the ending making little sense. It seems as if ND mistook the character for the player. We, the player experienced all those things about Abby, from her father being basically Jesus Christ to playing fetch with cute doggies. The player is made to like Abby. But Ellie isn't. Ellie wasn't there. As far as she knows, Abby could be a homicidal maniac, worse than David in the first game. She has very little knowledge about her relationship with Lev. The player knows that Lev is like Ellie 2.0 and Abby is like Joel 2.0 but as far as Ellie is concerned, Lev could be a slave or hired help to Abby, or even kidnapped by her.
Revenge wasn't really touched upon in the first game. We can only guess what would Joel do in a similar situation based on his actions in the second half of Winter. He went on a killing spree, sank back to his old raider/hunter days. So why would an image of Joel make her stop killing Joel's murderer? He would have done the same thing as she did. If the message is that she does not want to become Joel then why would they choose that image from that cutscene where they try to make peace with each other? I get what they are trying to tell us but I feel that the build-up to this moment is lacking. Forgiving Joel is not the same as sparing Abby. Sparing Abby doesn't mean forgiving her. Nothing in her body language tells us that Abby is now forgiven. She is just spared.
@Morphing Taxi I don't think she knows that. She does know that they are fireflies after the hospital level, Nora tells her all about that (there's a conversation with Jesse in the next part that completely confirms this). Yet, she still goes on and kills Mel and Owen and even Abby if we fuck up the boss fight as Abby. Yes, Abby lets her live twice, but the first time does not mean anything as it is before Ellie starts her quest on revenge, so this did not influence her at all. And the second time, to be honest, it's Lev that spares her and Dina, not Abby. Ellie knows that if it would be up to Abby, they would have died there.
And no, they are not even. Ellie did not kill Nick (Tommy did), Leah (Scars did) or Manny (Tommy did). She killed Nora, but Nora died the moment she fell to the spore-filled room which was not planned and was a complete accident. And she killed Mel and Owen by self defense. Fuck, she even killed the stupid dog by self defense. So Ellie, in the end, barely killed anyone from the group that killed Joel. And still let Abby go. To be honest, I did not care at the end if Abby lives or not but I just played like 12 hours as Abby before. I knew her. Ellie did not.
@Morphing Taxi
Wow. She spared Ellie 2 times. Guess that erases the fact that she murdered Joel.
We eatin tonight boys
simp
Ryan Grille haha you’re such a funny guy.
Is it just me or is watching two teenage lesbian girls make out make you feel like a creep too?
The only time that has a good reason to make people uncomfortable is if it's framed in a way that's clearly meant to be erotic for the viewer. Otherwise it's ethically no different than any other love story.
Yes, two girls in their underwear in a weed garden is pretty erotic.
@@thecodemachine I haven't actually played the game so I wouldn't know, but if that's an accurate description then it is in fact creepy.
They're 19. So no it's not that creepy.
My core issue with the story was based on the structure, the half way switch made me feel nothing about anything in Abbys section, whereas if they had alternated perspectives, they could’ve really increased tension and made me care about Abbys friends.
The difference between the dog petting moments are that you're forced to play with bear as Abby to progress the story.
“It’s hard not to respect Naughty Dog. They could have made a good game, but they took a risk and made a bad one. Much respect.”
I really did not wanted for Ellie to kill Abby at the end and she finally "forgave" her as she sees the first normal joel memory in years. So it worked for me. She left the guitar there to finally let go. To be able to live on her own and not be crippled by memories. She lost everything and will start anew
Glad to see you're branching out into movie reviews.
I agree 100% with what you said on the Ellie boss fight. It made me completely disconnect and actually quit the game after 30 hrs with no desire to go back to it.
I completely agree with every criticism in this review, it's pretty much what's been going on in my mind for this last month
31:24 I often thought the same about Abby, why is she entitled to a revenge story, she knows the context of how and why her Father died. As a member of the WLF she was labelled as the number one killer of Scars (The Seraphites) how many of them were someones child, how many of them were parents, how many were pregnant?
If only Abby's Father got kicked in the head by the Zebra, all this bloodshed could've been avoided, as he was the only person with the knowledge to attempt creating a cure, I'm surprised he was allowed to run around outside at all.
One of the things i like about the ending is that, 2 people robbed Ellie of making the most important decisions of her life, sacrificing herself, forgiving Joel and to choose if she wanted to kill or forgive Abby(which she was probably thinking over the course of the game, although we only find that out at the end) i also think a part of why she left the Dina and JJ was because of that, she felt powerless to the will of other people and she finally wanted to make a decision for herself, she wanted to be selfish, like others were to her.
Btw, am i the only one that likes Owen, i just felt bad for the guy, Joel completely fucked up his life and now he just tries to live in his own little bubble( the aquarium), he is literally sheltering himself from the real world, he clearly hates his life and doesnt know what to do, thats why he wants to find the fireflies, to find some hope that he used to have.
Yeah, Owen was the best WLF member besides Abby IMO. I actually really cared about him, and wished that Abby hadn’t pushed him away on her quest for revenge
@@iMasterchris Yeah, sadly Abby was just thinking about herself, he got unlucky with the cards life gave him.
Ellie didn't think she would die in the clinic. She had plans on life after all would be said and done. Her sacrifice would have achieved nothing because spores aren't a serious threat in her world but zombies and other people are. And Fireflies were manipulative evil shits in the first game.
Even if she was going to make that choice she was a teenager. She gets no choice in that matter. That is why her fate was decided when she was first given to Joel and when he saved her life. It wasn't her sacrifice to make, she would have been sacrificed by other people.
The two things I hate in this game:
One, having incompetent companions dont make sense. Two, the Bald Seraphite that shrugs off headshots is out of place.
In the first game having to balance Ellie's AI in a way that she isnt too overpowering was a good excuse because of where she was in the story, she's an inexperienced kid learning from Joel along the way, it makes sense for her to often mess up or be hesitant in combat.
In TLOU2, Dina and Jesse were established to be just as capable as the more experienced Ellie. The game had Dina boasting kill counts, and Jesse managing alone against WLF and Scars, etc..
But the game gives em storm trooper aim, just so they can "lEt y0u d0 tHiS oN y0uR oWn" -trailer joel.
As for the Bald Seraphite.
I get that tank enemies should be able to tank, but having their bare scalps be made out of kevlar isn't the right way to go. Give them a helmet, or something to communicate that they wont die from a point blank shot to the dome.
Like why the hell would you design an enemy like that in THIS kind of game? Last time I checked, this franchise followed grounded rules. APPARENTLY ITS BORDERLANDS NOW, I wasnt aware I was gonna be up against an Ultimate Badass SeraphPIECE OF FAKCBDUSMAMAKJGIEBSJ
thats it. thanks for scrolling down here. good job.
I wouldn't say the companions are incompetent. Maybe you had your difficulty for them messed up
The companions are definitely an upgrade from the first game. At least they can kill people in this one. There’s much more to dislike about the game.
@@SAMSARALIVEEEEEE you can change how good the companions are too
Christ. What a phenomenally well written review. Strangely enough, it has convinced me to try it out because of what you said about the gameplay elements.
How did you find it?
I completely agree with your viewpoint. You can't have this cold hearted ruthless killer Ellie just turn down her opportunity to kill the person that killed her father figure. It just doesn't make sense, she kills people on the daily without thought and you're telling me she let Abby run free? Bullshit. Thats like saying the punisher would let the person that killed his family run free, no-fucking-way.
Hey Matthew, love your reviews and I think you did a good job presenting a fair a detailed review again here even with the polarizing landscape discussion about this game has been.
I agree with a lot of your points though the ending landed better with me that it did for you. I didn't think it made NO sense considering that from Ellie's perspective she does know that Abby has spared her twice, has already been tortured for months, and that she is taking care of an innocent kid who would likely die without Abby. Ellie has gotten by with killing thus far by demonizing her enemies but that's pushed to its limits when she's confronted with clear evidence humanizing Abby. It's clear too that Ellie has doubts about her crazy revenge mission before she even reaches Abby and my interpretation is that Ellie doesn't even want to fight Abby by the time she finds her and my interpretation is she's only driven to the final confrontation because of that lingering desire for her quest to not be for nothing. However I can still see how the ending can break other people's sense of disbelief. Anyways I hope you keep up the good work and I look forward to your future videos
Ellie didn't feel for Abby what she felt for everyone else she killed. This is a point I often see overlooked. For PTSD patients, even people who've done terrible things to victims will, very often, remain associated with them emotionally to the point where they feel they can't live without them.
This happens because a large part of our inate and unique human ability to think about the future in a meaningful way comes at the cost of tokenization. We seek meaning in suffering and death through religion; we over-obsess with career success and we struggle for financial stability all for the purpose of a happy life for our future children -- those are all "tokens". They are thing that don't exist and may never exist but we grasp onto those because, without them, many of us feel life would stop having meaning.
If you live a life where the only emotional drive for you going forward is genuinely wanting revenge for something so life-shattering that it's all you think about, then the thought of losing that "token" terrifies you, because it means losing your purpose. Maslowe's pyramid of needs explains this quite well; when all of your bodily necessities are met, success becomes a token. When that is met, enlightenment (in the form of religion, charity or sometimes even cults) becomes a token. When ALL of it is met, celebrities have reported feeling a sense of impending dread and emptiness.
This is why PTSD happens to begin with; those things never leave you and you live wishing to never return to that situation again. But once that element is gone, all that's left is an empty, hollow shell of someone who doesn't remember what it's like to live without that same element.
This doesn't mean military veterans who are PTSD victims secretly love war, obviously. And it doesn't mean Ellie deep down likes Abby. It means her existence is meaningful to her, in ways that all of the others were not. So, her decision to spare her strikes her as meaningful, whereas it doesn't with others. They are not her tokens, Abby is.
This, coupled with Joel's ultimate betrayal of her wish for her life to be used to bring about a cure might have pushed her over the edge to make her stay her hands. You were wrong when you mentioned that sparing her may only have given her a cure for her PTSD. In fact, it's the opposite; after she leaves Abby to run away, THAT is only the start of her recovery. If it ever comes.
The problem is this argument doesn't apply to Abby who's free to kill Joel and move on with zero guilt for it. It's the game respecting Abby's feelings but not Ellie's despite Ellie being the lesser evil between the 2. Had she gone through with her revenge it would've made an ending where the player can debate whether it was all worth it but the ending we got just gives an immovable no.
@@tyronetiggums6441 Your assertion that Abby is guilt free after killing Joel is incorrect. While the game never explicitly tells the player Abby feels remorse for killing Joel, it clearly conveys it through her many nightmares and talks with Mel and Yara. She even overtly admits to helping Yara and Lev due to immense guilt, she just remains tightlipped about what she's guilty about, but the subtext tells us it's Joel.
Abby's goals of protecting and helping Yara and Lev are her searching for another token now that she's killed Joel and realized it wasn't worth it. You can even see it on her face after delivering the final blow to him. Getting revenge didn't end her nightmares of her father's death. It's only until she leaves behind her ego and commits a selfless act in saving Yara and Lev that her nightmares finally relieve. Part 2 ends before Ellie is able find her new token now that she has ended her obsession with Abby.
OP's argument is perfectly fine.
Your thought process is pretty next level, it requires me to think more deeply about what is in front of me as well. Or why exactly this game felt ''off,'' from start to end. It wasn't just poor writing or character development- it was the puppet situation you described. Really informative and enjoyable. YT recommended your Bioshock Infinite critique and I was impressed. You've only gotten better here.
Your reviews really are on another level
I think the dumbest part of this game (besides snake eater doing everything LOU2 tried its hardest to do but failed leagues better as an *after effect* to what snake eater was trying to do but succeeded) is the theater fight is completely backwards. The fight is (pretentiously overhyped up in her physique) strong woman Abby vs the thin Ellie who's always had to rely on cunning since she was young to make up for being physically weaker than most of the people trying to kill her. Yet somehow as the ultimate sign of the creators having no basic intelligence in this cat and mouse boss fight where you have to use stealth to get an attack in or get easily murdered because they will out brute force you, ABBY is the underdog you play as.
To completely spell it out so there's no argument to defend this, reread this scenario, but replace every use of Abby and Ellie's name with "Goliath" and "David" respectively. They couldn't have been bothered to think this boss out one bit, to the point where even the good ending joke of dying in this fight is gone by just thinking for 2 seconds "wait shouldn't the smaller woman we are juxtaposing against a woman we really like bragging we made semi buff be the one you play as in this stealth duel?"
This one moment is why i refuse to give any credit to this garbage. You were so dead set on telling a pretentious narrative you refused to think any of it out on a minimum effort. You have Batman V Superman, but decide SUPERMAN should be the one using cunning and stealth because if they attacked them head on that BATMAN would easily win that encounter with brute force. And if you're making this scenario and refuse to acknowledge how poorly thought out it is, why should I give any credit you were thinking anything through here? In fact if I'm being pessimistic, why should I believe even the first game wasn't a fluke? Because this level of incompetence makes it impossible to even believe this was written by the same person without the belief that the first game was just dumb luck. (and i dont even remotely like 1, but even i think its Shakespeare by comparison to this nonsense)
Excellent review, even though I disagree regarding your conclusions.
The fact that Ellie is a killer was never in question even in the first game. But none of those carried an ulterior meaning or weight behind them like Abby's death would, ostensibly. I believe that to be the huge differentiating factor. Killing some other random soldiers or people, is not the same as killing this person who you have mentally built up to be such a monster.
If one has ever experienced the feeling of seeing their parents age, I think it is not dissimilar to that. Seeing the image you had of someone change or be altered in some fundamental fashion as the narrative you subconsciously built around them comes crashing down. Your father is not the strongest man after you see him wince and topple from age the first time. Similarly, the hate and rage that painted Abby as this horrific detestable woman is chipped away as Dina and others question why Abby spared them, and Ellie sees the grief she causes, seeing Abby cry and suffer, finally culminating in "winning", and crushing this "monster" under her boot so to speak. But this momentary victory before she stops, is why I enjoy the ending. Ellie does not stop short, nor find herself robbed of revenge. She gets it, it is in her hands. Unlike the example of the bubble wrap, this was a means to an end. This was mean to "right" things and bring "justice". To use the bubble wrap metaphor, it is as if all that popping was in pursuit of a goal, of weakening the wrap enough rip it, only to realize that it was lined with chicken wire and ripping it wouldn't work anyways. You can still complete the task... but at the point all it is doing is causing harm and destruction for no gain. Ellie journals this herself, expressing how conflicted she is in the final segment, and how guilt and obligation to Joel (and perhaps Jessie/Tommy) motivate her more than any true feeling of justice or rage any longer. To then see this "monster" in an in-arguably human moment caring for someone else, and having suffered as much as she apparently did since Ellie murdered all her loved ones, Ellie initially walks away from the conflict all together before being obligated by a feeling, a memory. It is only fair then, that memory has her step back from that final moment as well.
The particular scene she remembers, detailed in the introduction, is one where Ellie is aspiring to be a person capable of forgiveness. As you surmise, she is likely filled with regret and anger over all the bottled up love that she found herself unable to express for Joel in those years in between, and after his death there is a cancerous feeling that if only she had forgiven him sooner, it could have been different. That is why for me personally, the ending works incredibly well. Ellie has her "victory" but knows it is hollow. It won't, cannot, undo the pain she has felt. It won't right any wrongs any more than Abby's previous "victory" righted any over Ellie. The only thing to move past the pain, the same pain and anger that caused her to reject Joel as her father figure, is to grow to a place where she wanted to be from the start. A place where she was capable of forgiving such an incredible, massive "sin" against herself and humanity as killing the Fireflies and saving her. So she lets Abby go, not because she forgives her necessarily, but because Ellie can feel that this isn't going to do what she had hoped. It won't bring closure or justice or anything, only more pain. But maybe if she can learn to let go of that rage and accept the world as it is, then she can avoid repeating her mistakes. Killing Abby was meaningless to Ellie once this is apparent. It would just be another body. Anyone who has experienced these kinds of extreme emotional moments with loved ones who become unstable and fixated on something can understand that this sort of epiphany is not uncommon when resolving such trauma, nor unrealistic to be depicted this way. They come from moments of extreme focus, where someone reached an emotional peak or nadir that finally allows them to be introspective to what their obsession has taken them to.
I enjoy this because while we are certainly not in a quandary over the nature of the ending itself within the text quite as much as the first title, I find Part 2 to be engaging because while you ascribed moral ambiguity to the first title it is very apparent by reactions to Part 2 that many players did not and only saw Joel as an objectively good person. But the discussions over why or why not this choice at the end feel right or not are something players cannot gloss over this time around. For me, it works. And for you it did not. And the dialog to be had there to me is what is really special. Many other games ask difficult questions but fewer forced the players through experiencing difficult emotions within themselves like this I feel. But as I begin this response with, I fully respect how this did not work the same for you, but I am glad the game tried regardless.
In an alternate universe where the plot wasn’t leaked, there would be a lot more reviews like this one for me to enjoy. While I don’t agree with everything you said, I appreciate that you clearly tried to think critically and unbiased during this review.
To me, this game is about a number of characters all struggling to find meaning in their lives. Ellie in particular I think is so angry at Joel because he robbed her of the clearest purpose anyone could ever have in this world. To give her life for the chance to save humanity. The game seems to suggest that absent that sacrifice, everyone's life in the apocalypse follows a similar trajectory. Experience loss -> become lost and consumed by it -> find people to love, and begin to regain your humanity. Abby is between the second and third, and Ellie is between the first and second. Tommy made it all the way through, and with Joel's death, was sent spiraling back to the first stage.
To me, Ellie in sparing Abby sees the futility of this cycle. Joel may have robbed her of her unique chance at meaning, but he, like abby, and like Ellie now was just trapped in that cycle of holding on to anything that gives them meaning and humanity in a world like this. She's experienced it now, and so can see from his point of view and forgive him. He had no choice but to do what he did, neither did Abby. But she hopes to avoid the same fate. That's the hope present at the end of the game, I think.
It begs the question tho. What’s the point of the sequel.
At then end when Joel said "if the Lord gave me a second chance I would do it all over again" I though that was him saying he would've let the firefly's make the cure, not that he would save Ellie again
It's striking to me that, of all the reviews I've seen from you, this is by far the one that had the most curses in it. Of course my memory could be failing me, it did that in a lot when I was in school, but I just can't recall any of your other reviews where you've said "shit" more than once, especially your more recent ones. In fact one of the only other times I clearly remember you cursing is in the Dear Esther review, and that was for pure comedic effect, so this review having more cursing, and without levity is something I can't help but feel might be indicative of something more underneath the surface, or perhaps just an oversight and I'm reading too much into it.
'Journey or the other hand... has none'.
That's one of my favourite segments in any review.
While I do get the comparison you made between the endings, with Ellie's sunk-cost approach, I feel it's misguided.
In the first, it's lets see if we can't do this one big positive thing to cancel the sunk-cost of all the negatives.
in part 2, it's let's add another negative to make the previous negatives worth it.
it's a double negative, Ellie's realised both the sunk-cost fallacy, and the fact that there is no GAIN here.
all of the WLF and Scar kills are justified by simple virtue of the fact that they're hunter-killers. they would kill her on SIGHT, so while she's there, pursuing her goals, it's kill or be killed. if they didn't present a violent obstacle they'd be free, And Ellie perpetually attempts to offer outs to all of the people she can, Owen, Mel, Nora are all held at gunpoint and offered a degree of amnesty, that they do not take (understandably)
by contrast, the final fight is one that Ellie is forcing on a whittled down, broken Abby, and she realises it. she realises the futility of the death up to this point, that she never wanted to kill anyone other than Abby, but that at this stage, killing Abby is an atrocity. it CANNOT justify itself in any way.
in both the first game and the second she takes a perhaps unrealistically altruistic choice.
36:14 the first fret on that guitar is modeled to be way too short. The intonation would be terrible. 0/5.
Fun fact about the ending:
In an interview with the lead writers they actually wanted it to be seen as Ellie leaving Joel behind and moving forward with her own life, basically meaning she doesn't forgive him making the ending all the more stupid that she gave up everything for literally nothing while also showing no scene of Abby having a hopeful or happy ending leaving the game to just feel hallow and poorly thought out (which if you read that same interview also implies 90% of the symbolism and deep ideas weren't even in the original draft, they just got put in as the team thought of ways to shove it in)
You don’t have to hate someone or refuse to forgive them to move on... I don’t know what you’re trying to say here. She DID forgive Joel. That’s WHY she can move on.
@@iMasterchris no, she said she wanted to try and forgive him, it was very specific wording and the game was her quest to try and find forgiveness for the actions he did that put her in that mess, so that would mean her choosing to stop choking Abby at the last second and leave his guitar behind is her deciding it was in fact, all for nothing and that she couldn't forgive him. Why the hell would someone who forgives a passed loved one not keep a momento of that person (guitars can be restringed for the other hand) or finish the thing you set out for months to do that led to the deaths of hundreds?
@@stevsux4442 You're allowed to have that take, but it's not at all what the writers intended nor what they meant by the quote you brought up. If you're actually interested in that stuff, there's plenty of interviews on youtube with the director and cast + a podcast about the game where they go in depth about the ending. No need to spread misinformation.
Cheers.
@@AwesomerArtie I did read what the writers said, if you read my comment you'd see the part where I mention an interview with Neil Druckman and one of the other head writers, if there's other interviews where they say the opposite then your take is just as misinformed as mine since that'd mean the devs aren't being honest about their own writing
@@stevsux4442 They're really not being dishonest, quite the opposite. People who made this game are pretty open about it. If you want to you can look into it yourself, or you can choose not to, and it's especially your choice to have the interpretation of the game you want to have. I'm not here to convince you, just to inform.
I'll play Wario Blast with you, Jon. It's in a box in my shed somewhere.
I bought Ellie's descision to spare Abby at the end mainly because I and Ellie saw the parallels between Herself/Joel and Lev/Abby.
"At this point, the characters need to keep a low profile"
*SO ANYWAYS, I STARTED BLASTING*
Such a great moment. :D
Sooo endearing... *We kinda, sorta shooouuuld, but naaah.*
💥 - - - 🔫😋
@@Maharani1991 p
Blasting - Subtronics
"I figured I'd hit something sooner or later!"
One issue you failed to mention was the scene where Ellie looks directly into the camera and says "truly this is The Last Of Us Part 2" didn't really work for me, it felt forced and would've worked better if Joel said it in a flashback.
Joel perfectly described this game
"They made a sequel, wasn't very good"
The part where Abby looked into Joel's eyes and said "I'm going to call you an n-word" really threw me off, if Joel said that to Abby instead I think the scene would've worked better. Because of that, in its current state my rating for this game is 3/10.
Another problem I noticed is that after Ellie kills the disobedient dog, she calls it "Stupid Dog", but in the credits it's listed as "Naughty Dog".
We need more Anthony Fantano meme comments in videogame review threads lmao
Luke Kelleher the sequel was amazing wym
37:30 thank you for saying this. TLOU 1 ambiguous ending was one the reasons I loved the story. A sequel never seemed necessary to me.
Totally agree. Not needing a sequel is very much the underlying problem with part 2 overall imo.
c _a_ p _i_ t _a_ l _i_ s _m_
@@lettuceprime4922 not even close. Don't bring that up.
@@Gadget-Walkmen - I think I will bring it up.
@@lettuceprime4922 It's most certainly not because of captialism.
Absolutely lost it at "-it seems as though Ellie has retained her humanity and become The Last of Us 2".
Matthew is always funny when he tries
*_WELL ELLIE_*
She truly was the last of us part 2
Maybe the real Last of Us 2 were the friends we made along the way
It really makes you FEEL like "The Last of Us 2 TM"
nobody can say anything about the speed of your reviews anymore cause something of this quality in a bit over a month from the game's release is crazy. thanks matt, you're the best at what you do and no one's come close
Superbunnyhop is decent
Agreed... and if I can impose: people should throw a buck or two at his Patreon as well. Even a sum of $12/year shouldn't be anything to balk at.
Joseph Anderson is more my cup of tea, but matthewmitosis isn't bad by any means. sometimes the structure of his videos feels all over the place though
sahil signorile when Joseph Anderson’s videos are good, they really are excellent. However when they’re bad, they’re downright infuriating to listen to. His soma review is what I would cite as an example of some of his worst work. But nonetheless, Joseph Anderson does make some incredible videos. His video on the witness is particularly good
EDIT: accidentally replied to the wrong person
Deus Vult That’s my opinion of it as well, and I’m not sure why. I don’t always agree with Matthew but I am never infuriated like I am with Anderson. Granted, I disagree with Anderson more often, but I wonder if it’s something about the presentation.
"Abby's crew range from completely unlikable dickhead to just plain boring." Made me spit my drink out. Such great delivery.
SavingABabyKitten god I hated the new characters.
@@josephabrams8529 Are you sure you didn't love them? Try telling yourself you did and then see how you feel about them.
Hated Manny especially, he was so clearly made to be the likeable funny cool guy to get us roped into Abby's world.
TheUnholyOne ...why?
@@josephabrams8529
Twas a joke. You can't just flip your emotions around, you can't just pretend you like something.
The message of the game is to never leave survivors, as the cycle of revenge is only perpetuated through showing mercy.
Yet you murder countless names characters on your way to come to this conclusion at the person you hate the most. I feel like this needed more setup than oh now I’m done killing people mercilessly. This should have been the story of the third game, and not the second I think. It’s not a terrible idea, it’s just not executed in a satisfying way
@@Aldoz let me have a flashback mid murder to a memory about a person who was very dear to me and was murdered by the person who I am currently trying to murder. Oh and my hand hurts, because half the fingers were bitten off 10 seconds ago by the same person. Ah, I think I finally found it in me to forgive and let the murderer go. What a load of shit.
@@crimsonpotemkin No no no, it totally makes sense. You're just coming from it from the perspective of a human being. You need to think of it from the point of view of a monster, like Neil Druckmann.
If you, say, abused hundreds of employees, fired someone for being sexually harassed, or treated people like shit because you're jealous of their writing talent and tired of them telling you to reign in the self-inserts, wouldn't you want them to forgive you? Y'know, without *doing* anything to earn forgiveness?
The irony
Also that mercy means every single character or Npc killed on the way to abbey was for nothing if they wanted to have a really hard hitting ending have Abby explain herself and expect to be killed by Ellie and Ellie thinks about how many people she killed to get here and how many people she knew that got killed getting her there so then killing abbey would be more of a having the hands of the dead pulled the trigger type thing
I kept thinking the same thing while playing lol
I can't even begin to tell you how refreshing the writing of your reviews are when it comes to game analysis.
No screaming. No blatantly influence regurgitations from around the internet. 10/10.
@@Boxxcutter Exactly
Truly! This channel is easily one of, if not, the best when it comes to cerebral video game focused content. The writing style is also feels so perfect and concise; nothing seems overdone in the slightest.
I absolutely agree. His ability to remain objective and be so thorough in his analysis is damn impressive. Love the work. This man deserves more subs.
Even thou I love Mauler, Matthew is the god when it comes down to analysis, almost 2 points per minute showing evidence and avoiding opinions when he is trying to make a point. I agree, he might be very well the best reviewer I ever followed.
Finally, now Matthew can tell me my opinion on the game
You were rushing to type this message didnt you?
kek
Ah yes relatable
Hah! Nice one...
Just like when Anthony Fantano reviews an album and I can form an opinion afterwards
To me, this game reinforces the fact that the video gaming medium is still too eager to mimick the cinematic medium, instead of playing on his own strengths. Flashbacks and cutscenes with unavoidable outcomes can lead towards an "interactive movie experience", more than a videogame. So, I think the reaction of the player to this game is mostly based on how much one agrees to "live a movie", and forgive the weaknesses of its script.
Exactly the same problem as in Red Dead Redemption 2
Unless those games are about time-travel, there is no point of having playable flashbacks that have no effect to the main gameplay.
Coolio M you act as if not being able to see previous events in the timeline and just told about try em is better than just simply playing/ visually seeing them.
Games can have flashbacks to depict character moments but it shouldn’t be as frequent.
@@Gadget-Walkmen Nah, I doubt most players would find it fun/unique/interesting being an onlooker of a unchangeable "past" segment in which you can't disrupt it & have to play through until the main game plot starts. We don't need more games like Beyond Two Souls with it's jumbled up timeline.
_Since there were tension-breaking interactive flashbacks, in which you can die lmao, why not have some change to it's story in someway?_
_Like going to the music store & have players choose which instrument you can play in the future/main gameplay?_
Legendary Super Semite there not there for “artistry”. They are are there for the sake of show casting previous events either for the audience to get a emotional attachment from them or trying to depict what happened in the past for key story info like what The Last Guardian did having a cutscene in what happened for the plot to start.
At the end, why doesn’t Ellie keep the guitar and just learn how to play slide?
Or re-string and play with her right hand? Totally doable :D
A guitar in a post apocalyptic world is pretty cumbersome if the implication is that she goes on a new path. It's also implied she or at least someone comes back to the house multiple times and used the guitar since it has more wear than the last time we've seen it.
Then you ruin Neil's idiotic depression simulator.
S4ns it’s like you didn’t even play the game
Or carve some replacement protective out of wood and play. It worked for Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath.
I really appreciate your comments about the constant switching of perspectives and how it makes you feel like playing a scripted role rather than having real control of the game. The boss fight against Ellie annoyed me because it felt like the clearest example of this in that Ellie only loses the fight because we’re not playing as her. I sort of get that Naughty Dog were trying to make you embody different points of view but they never pulled it off as far as I’m concerned - it just made me feel jerked around.
I don't usually mind this perspective shift boss fight in other games where this is the case(no spoilers), so I'm not sure if I would here - but the whole authored/scripted experience thing is one aspect of games I'd love a video on if you make good on the threat to do some Topic videos, Matthew. It's the strongest feeling I'm left with from Uncharted 2 and that made it very clear these games aren't for me, that feeling of being an actor following along with a script only the director knows. And, at least in Uncharted 2, getting a face full of cinematic lead if I couldn't pick up on the cues.
It’s interesting because another reviewer said the same of the first game. I wanna say it was Noah Caldwell-Gervais’ review that discussed it. That levels were designed in a fashion that many encounters and events could be encouraging the players’ to take up a “role” of sorts in the game’s act.
Haven’t gotten to where he talks about it in this video yet as whether he took Noah’s review into account with that conclusion, but yeah.
Having a scripted role like that is the entire point of the game though. You don't have real control. You can't. This is not that kind of game.
@@Kriss_ch. what cues do you mean, that if you missed you'd be screwed?
@@intelligenceparadigm4931 Then why play it at all?
I feel like you can do antagonists as characters in a story medium. Golden Sun and Lost Age served as a two part tale and you played as the protagonists in the first and the antagonists in the second. What was great about lost age was you eventually got that team to join you and you beat the game as one cohesive whole by the end. Isaac, having no voice at all in the first game, speaks out his quest in the second game that stays true to his character, much like how Felixs dialogue in the first game made his silence in the second give you a sense of how he ultimately has to join Isaac and realize the truth.
And these were on the Gameboy Advance. From the early 2000s. It was a turn based RPG but the story had alot for a handheld game to go through for dialogue and characters actually had depth and some arc to their own selves throughout the story. It ultimately brought them together. The way you could transfer your save from the first game over to the second and use the first team is a awesome way to preserve them as they were apart of the story.
Tons of games have done it, it's not really anything new or revolutionary.
@@nickelakon5369 I wouldn't say GS and TLA was innovative or anything either. It was something I personally experienced that I felt was cool. Point I was making was you can make it work to have that dual narrative as long as it's handled well. Risky or not. GS played it safe since Isaac's party never directly fights Felix's in either game. It was more about the greater picture that both parties realized Menardi, Saturnia, Agatio and Karst had their own reasons for lighting the lighthouses and they accepted that duty in a subtle way and came together to light the final one.
@Linda Niemkiewicz it's the writers quite literally forcing Abby into the plot and putting her on a pedestal while simultaneously damning Ellie and undo everything that she was defined by the first game for.
Doesn't want to be alone? Now she is.
Her switchblade that belonged to her mother is gone.
Joel is gone, the prominent character that became an important person in her life.
Dina was supposed to be with her now she's gone.
Tommy hates her for not killing Abby.
She is the one that lost the most from anyone and rendered her character the very thing she was trying to not be in the first game. Pretty sad that ND thought taking misery and making a big boy story out of it by cutting into the very characters themselves would be clever. We know now that will be their main mo. I personally just miss the old ND. Even before the first game. Jak and Daxter was their personal highlight to me. Shouldnt have catered to the masses to make these realistic stories because this is what happens when you give their ego way too much praise.
18:32
"Tommy wastes his ambush attempt against Abby, maybe he lost his infinite ammo bandana."
Fucking bury me lmao
run the jewels
I wonder, if sandwich guy had murdered all of Ellie's friends & family, would she have forgiven him for his rude words? That seems to be the key.
No. You can kill thousands of people, but as long as you're tolerant of your neighbor it's fine. On the other hand, you a bigot you die a bigot.
One of my biggest gripes with TLOU2 is that, in some of the flashbacks, they're quite clearly different to the original game in an attempt to evoke sympathy for the other side.
If you need to warp your games history to evoke sympathy, I'm not going to feel sorry for my previous actions when I can see the manipulation. I'm going to feel hostility towards the developers lying to me in an attempt to pull strings that simply aren't there without buying into your revisionism.
Are you referring to the fireflies and Marlene? I went back and watched a lets play of the final part of the first game and was laughing at how openly antagonistic the fireflies were in that one. Guard escorting Joel out of the building so they can kill Ellie in peace says "give me a reason(to shoot you)" lmao. Flashbacks in Last of Us 2 are like here we are the super peaceful Fireflies and the only option is to kill a little girl/I wish there was another way. We also have kids and would hate to die and leave them orphaned. :(
@@dropthexd3277 in tlou1 its revealed in a file that ellie isnt the first child the fireflies have killed and they are no closer to a vaccine for the fungus, they were going to kill her for something they knew would have no results so joel was totally right to save her from them. this games attempts to paint joel as a monster who stopped what could have been the cure for the fungus is laughable at best and a slap to the face at worst.
@@incelliousthewizard7883 this is not true. There's no evidence that they found any other people that were immune
the most BS thing about this manipulative revisionism was how they told Ellie wanted to die in TLOU2, meanwhile in TLOU1 we literally have a powerful scenes between Ellie & Joel as she wanted to live, don't want to be alone, & Joel was the only one she got as everybody that she hold dear were dead. ND has totally lost its own narrative continuation at that point.
It really feels like TLOU2 is not being made for TLOU1 fans.
It's gaslighting of the player.
The comparison between introverted and extroverted is brilliant. It's probably the best explanation why some adore Naughty Dog games and some others believe them to be over rated.
Seriously, probably the #1 thing I took from this review that made me understand both sides of the story without seeing into their heads. It's obvious from someone's play style which of the two they are, and how the two mindsets impact how they enjoy the game.
It’s weird because I can totally get both sides. I love linear movie like games like The Last of Us just as much as agency focused games like DMC or The Witcher. Depends on the day I guess.
@empty shogun yeah my issue with ND games is sometimes the gameplay actually detracts from the story, not add to it. I also ended up watching this game first as a commentaryless playthrough first. (I've since played through it 3 times) but I actually think I would have enjoyed it less if I had played it through. All of the story beats just hit better when theres not two hours of gameplay inbetween them, altho I do believe you lose SOME of the impact in other manners.
@@lockekappa500
Im more into story than gameplay, but think there should be a balance.
I absolutely hated the story in this one but glad ya liked it
I still think there is more to it than that. As games, a lot of people love ND for their stories, but if it was a movie, eg Uncharted 4 wouldve been laughed out of the room with its story. TLOU prolly wouldve fared better as a movie, but it certainly wouldnt be celebrated in the way it is as a game.
With the dog patting...my contention would be that the dog at the start of Ellie's journey...you can walk past and ignore...whereas in both of the sections of Abby's journey when you are with a dog (as you have shown), the game locks you in a room and you are forced to play with the dog to proceed...this is completely contrived and just infuriated me because you can just see the strings of the writers saying, "look how clever we are. Isn't this dog awesome? You like dogs, don't you?" Got to be honest though, by that point in Abby's side, I was just apathetic to all of her 'feelings' scenes...and yes...I laughed my arse off at Ellie killing her in the 'boss fight' and also when Manny got his comeuppance.
Manny was the worst, I don't understand why there are people who like him.
@@ralelunar Manny is so clearly written to be a likable character that is comes off as way overly forced and ended up pushing myself and many off from him. My guess why some people like him is to some extent how much they have interacted with similar "cheap" likeable characters before. One may not notice how forced his likable-ness is if one hasn't experienced that trope often enough.
@@peckc16 i think what matt says about the zebra scene "working against abby, because it reveals the hand of the writer conspiring in her favor" really nails it. this is why so many people didn't connect with Abby and her story. after the reset, you are hit with a barrage of scenes and characters that are clearly meant to make Abby more likeable. Abby's nature hike with her dad, culminating in the zebra scene. her own home base with her dog that you are forced to pet and play fetch with. and her wacky comic relief friend that's supposed to be "likeable" even though we only know him as "the manbun guy who spit on joel's corpse".
on the subject of playing with her dog, i think its worth mentioning (albeit anecdotally) that every time ive seen someone's first playthough of that moment they always throw the ball outside of the cage to deliberately ruin the game of fetch. matt does it in this video at the 28:04 mark. it's like a desperate attempt to break the out of the "actor" role and go against the grain just to be a participant. it just goes to show how brilliant and seamless matt's writing and editing has become, he's able to introduce this clip as he's talking about petting a dog, but by the end of the clip you're thinking about the difference between what you want to do as a player, and what you're expected to do as someone controlling a character.
@@chastermief839 awesome response and yes than you for clarifying my point using Matt's language it's one of the reasons I find him to be among the best in game critiques. I mentioned else where how I remember a video on the history of game journalism and something that hit me was just how young the gaming industry is as a whole, and how the game critic field is even younger. Gamers are still developing language to critically examine games and I have always felt Matt finds a way to push beyond simple game reviews. For example his bit on some players using gameplay to store energy to expend during cinematics while others do the reverse seems so simple but really makes me think about how I play games in those terms.
As for the dog I just wanted to add that I too threw the ball outside the cage on my first try. 😂 I also tried to throw away the okushy and avoid Alice later on in the aquarium just to see if I could (you can't). Your comment made me think how I'm one of those people who instantly shoots AI companions/ NPCs just to see how the game responds 😂
@Linda Niemkiewicz Manny was the one who spat on Joel's corpse, and get's shot through the face by Tommy in the 'sniper' section...god that death was satisfying...unintentionally I would presume xD
Honestly I don’t care at all if he hates it or loves it, I just want to hear more of matts beautifully written opinions.
simp
Epic Onion simp
Yeah, the "thoughts on" series was a nice touch by Matt in not letting us wait for too long on some games he would like to have a word on, instead of integrating them to his "Mega Microvideo" series.
Perhaps because that series already is going to be related to a general theme for all those compiled thoughts.
I also love his non biased highly critical reviews, alongside Nerrel and Dunkey they make the best review content IMO.
Real talk.
Simp
I really dont like the scene where Ellie confronts Joel. Joel doesnt explain himself properly, he doesnt explain all the context behind his decision. Its a frustrating scene to watch
THIS !!! I’m so tired of media in general just refusing to let characters explain themselves for the sake of drama
It is frustrating but I will say this is one thing that sort of makes sense to me. I've met people like Joel who are laconic to a fault. He doesn't really understand emotions and is afraid of them so he never knows what to say
"...It feels like a rejection of the strengths and denial of the weaknesses inherent to the medium (27:50)" - Matthewmatosis.
I Think that is a great summary of this game, the director's intention and why the experience it tries to communicate doesn't work for so many people.
That is a good quote.
If there's one sentence to describe why this game missed the mark for so many people, its this sentence.
LockeKappa I also think “The Last of Us 2 almost feels like it’s less than the sum of it’s parts” is fairly prescient as well. It’s a bunch of high quality elements (for the most part) that never really coalesce into anything special.
@@josephabrams8529 And this is exactly what Mathew said about God of War 2018.
Felipe Tartas Another great review to be sure.
Mr. Matthewmatosis, my biggest dream is for you to make a Ninja Gaiden Black commentary just like you did for the first Devil May Cry. More people need to know how good that game is. Thank you
I can't believe you threw the dog's ball over the fence, you monster.
We were the dog the entire time. And the ball was the hope of a satisfying story.
Over the fence. Never to be seen again.
In the second fetch sequence, I tried to get the squid toy stuck in the open cage hanging from the ceiling, but I think it has collision detection over the opening :(
Globalist Gamer tried the same thing, didn't work
Its not his fault, its clear that Abbynator has no control over her strenght.
15:59 so matthewmatosis, you have goopy goblin gamer brain?
I just rewatched that video and returned to this to rewatched it, what a happy coincidence.
Dog bless
@@bbs8942 هههههههههه
Your idea about mechanical extro- and introverts hits so close to home, sometimes I feel genuinely exhausted when I can't play and have to watch a cutscene.
Yeah, I like that one a lot - even though depending on the game and it's execution I can feel either of the two ways.
It's one of the main problems I had with gow4. Having to slow walk between areas when you're with freya or during certain sequences and then being outright blocked from moving by invisible walls until the cutscene gets to a certain point honestly bores the hell out of me.
I was always going to be at odds with TLOU2, simply because for me Joel and Ellie's story was finished. My imagination could fill in the gaps of what happened after the ending and even then it didn't really matter. Going back and destroying my perceptions of these characters just feels a very phony and cheap way of making a sequel.
What they should have done is a new story in the same world, new characters, and new setting.
I love the idea of the same universe with a different story and new characters.
Eugene Mr. Krabs True. The world of TLOU, while beautiful, is always carried by it’s characters. The first game understood this. The zombie apocalypse setting was a backdrop for the characters, their drama and their journey, the second game regresses from that in my opinion.
@@SquidBloop lmfaooo 🤡🤡🤡
@@SAMSARALIVEEEEEE I actually think that The Last Of Us's world (ironically) really stands out from other post apocalyptic universes. It's one of the only ones I can think of where the American goverment hasn't collapsed, even after 20+ years.
Reminder that metal gear rising, a game with a talking robot dog and a senator that kicks the player character like a football through a field goal while quoting MLK and Ronald Reagan, did a better job of making you think about the gameplay consequences of your character's actions than TLOU 2.
In what way did it do a better job than The Last of Us 2?
"Nanomachines, son"
overcome with guilt every time the game gives me an S rank for murdering six people without taking damage
@@mariezeephyllix7736 MEMORIES BROKEN
What? The whole Ripper mode transformation was to show how Raiden and the player enjoy all the killing and don't give a shit about the lives of some random cyborgs. Raiden's "justice" facade mirrors how the player might justify why they play games, but we really just want to hack 'n' slash.
11:42 Doesn't sound insane at all to me. You look at a game like Alien: Isolation where for the vast majority of the game you can't make noise because you could attract the Xenomorph even if you've cleared past an area of androids or humans. I think the immersion would have been greater if you were constantly running the risk of luring clickers or nearby human enemies to your location by making noise EVEN after clearing out an area/level. That way, as you stated, the tension still exists even while freely scavenging.
Would love to hear Matt's thoughts on Alien Isolation. For me it's the most underrated game ever. I absolutely loved it. Damn shame it won't get a sequel.
@@alansmith4655 It's one of the most immersive games I've ever played and I don't use that term lightly it's an immersive sim it's up there with Ultima, System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex, you name it. It gets you to invest into a world and never stops pulling you in. 11/10
That entire concept is rain world
@@SE_Lin honestly, It's the total opposite for me. Look up Under The Mayo's alien isolation review if you want to know what I mean
@@Nightflyermike I've seen his review and his points are valid if you play on low difficulty and are really trying to scrutinize it. The AI isn't actually as good as people say it is, the movement is really limited, the puzzles are dumb, but so many of the other games I mentioned also suffer from those kinds of issues. Me saying it's an 11/10 though was kind of an exaggeration I'd probably give it 8. Just because some immersive sims have the same problems as Isolation doesn't mean all of them do, sure it could have been better but it's still really good.
I enjoy Mayo's Doom content but honestly a lot of times he covers other games I don't enjoy it I only liked his Into the Breach video. his opinions on Devil May Cry 5 are so annoying because he's kind of right right but he doesn't actually know why he's right the arguments and examples he gives are just avoidable cases of player error a lot of the time.
He hasn't played the game enough, DMC is like Eternal you need to really engage with it to play well at all let alone master it. He goes on about how important it is to master all the tools Eternal gives but in DMC it's like he doesn't put in a fraction of the effort to try and get it. Why not? It's a much deeper and more rewarding game than Eternal, less buggy too.
He doesn't have to be a god, he doesn't have to use 100% of every character moveset, but it would be easier to take his critiques seriously if he was using at least like 30-50% of the moveset of characters like Nero who are intentionally more streamlined, trying to use exceed & using moves like calibur and breaker moves like gerbera's jocky because these provide horizontal movement and can help you position the camera better.
It won't avoid the really bad mishaps and jank that can happen, the camera can spaz out from no fault of your own in DMC5 but so many who criticize it don't realize you are not meant to ignore camera controls in DMC games and in DMC5 the most because you are never not in control of the camera. Camera effects directional inputs of which there are many in DMC. You don't need constant adjustment unless you are doing specific techniques but it's a good habit to learn in DMC. It's like it's wanted for DMC5 camera to do all the work in framing the action for you when that's not really possible in a 3D action game without fixed camera. Mayo should understand this well as a God of War fan but I feel like he won't even enjoy the DMC games with fixed camera angles that much given his presumptuous and pretentious attitude towards DMC5. It's not a game you can play for 40 hours and then critique like you really know what you're talking about.
We never got the recipe for bigot sandwiches?
0/10
One line of improvised dialogue
It's just a BMT in white bread.
You've probably got the best economy of words out of all the "videogame analysis" channels on RUclips. It's almost uncanny.
Check out Tim Rogers (Action Button), he's possibly a thesaurus in human form. No denying Matt's talents of course, this was an excellent review
Matt and Tim and the best check out Tim Rogers
I can't wait until Joseph "the town is making him stupid" Anderson releases his sixteen hour analysis where he spends eight hours making unnecessary hamfisted metaphors and seven straight up lying about a core plot point or game mechanic.
@@remembertotakeshowerspleas355 So true. I think Joseph Anderson is really hit or miss.
@@remembertotakeshowerspleas355 lol I like Joe just fine but he is definitely much more opinionated and not concise at all. Different styles for different folk.
Well I really liked this review,as was purely just about the game and nothing around it.
This type of review is pretty hard to find in RUclips about this game.
I think you did a pretty fair job here.
Appreciate the care taken in making sure this game gets as fair a shake as possible.
The contrast between Matt being one of the few to seriously criticize the first game while also being one of the few to give a fair look at the second is so funny, considering that he was equally fair in evaulating both of them.
@@slenderMax28
"Few"
There have been a lot of critics on RUclips who gave this game a fair look. Chances are, you probably just don't agree with most of them.
@@frogglen6350 Most "critics" on youtube are reactionary idiots who have surface level critiques that amount to "I don't like it, so it was clearly a failure". MM at the least is firm but fair, he doesn't get lost in the sea of pandering to idiots on youtube.
@@Tiger66261
Last of Us 2 is a failure though. *Niel abused his workers. Pointless disgusting Ma'am sex . Plot holes* You just sound mad that Ghost of Tsushima is the bigger success
Frog Glen when did they ever mention Ghost of Tsushima?
i laughed so hard 11:13
The bigger issue I had with the presentation of the combat encounters is any disconnect between narrative and gameplay is purely the fault of intentional developer decisions this time around. The first game had plenty of issues with poor AI and animations not always working as intended, but these are clearly things that the developers wouldn't have let happen if given more time/resources. Conversely in part 2, there's they didn't have to bring up the windows, you didn't have to see people drive up right below you. These are clearly decisions that the developers made that actively hamper the experience in an attempt to drum up cheap tension. ND definitely had better tools and more resources this time around but its been wasted on an experience that doesn't work best as a third person shooter video game. Feels at lot like bioshock infinite all over again.
Should have been entirely melee combat focused
Denzel Romero it is if you play it on Survivor
@Roman Buloichyk So by that last sentence, are you essentially saying that "positive" opinions are more valuable than "negative" ones? Why? If criticism is constructive and accurate (not simply inflammatory) what makes it better or worse than praise?
If anything, an accurate deconstruction of flaws should be incredibly valuable to every creator. There is no growth or improvement of craft without it.
There is certainly a place for praise and encouragement, when the work merits such. Otherwise, it is the burden of every creator in every craft that they must bear honest criticism of their work, if they wish to hone their skills. Iron sharpens iron, so to speak.
I disagree. For instance in the school scene the danger would not have felt nearly as present if you didn't see or hear them come in (would you have even known about them at all?). The majority of those instances serve story elements in at least some way. I would also argue that their time was better spent nailing the subtleties in animations or voices than refining those moments of ludonarrative dissonance; like Mathew said, he always acted like he was supposed to his first playthrough. Even if some of those moments still happened while you were playing the part, it's still technically you breaking your own immersion. I think this is simply some leftover pains from them using the wrong medium for the job. The Last of Us 2 would fit much better as a movie.
I mean, even at the end of Kill Bill, the Bride does actually kill Bill.
Because Tarantino knows how to tell a story and leave the audience entertained. Not killing Bill after killing EVERYONE else would have been incredibly contrived.
Robocop, Django Unchained, True Grit, even when villains get revenge like Oldboy these were all well received movies. Revenge tropes exist for a reason because movies, books, shows, etc wouldn't be good without them.
Either they get revenge and ride off into the sunset, get revenge and get either put in jail or die in the end satisfied, or they get revenge and they feel cold proving that revenge is a fool's errand.
@@TallDude404 but Bill didn't spare Beatrix, he intended to kill her and thought he had, Abby didn't want to do shit to Ellie, just joel. She even let Ellie go and showed mercy, your comparison doesn't make sense if you trying to say Abby is Bill and Beatrix is Ellie.
Relax it’s a joke. Keep in mind Bill wasn’t even in the first film
@@brandon17760 Killing + Torturing your dad in front of you is not doing shit to Ellie? Sure, she spared her. Would you live the rest of your life thinking "she spared me"? Nobody would, revenge is the logical path, specially in a setting as violent as TLOU universe.
I really enjoyed this review. I feel like it's super fair and manages to come up with some good points that sort of brush aside the surface level criticisms of this game and offers some new perspectives on why it might not work that I think are totally fair. I really really respect the bit where you boil the game's logical fallacy's down to two slides that the viewer can just pause to watch because man, that's a rabbit hole that a lot of reviewers go down that just takes so much time...and it's absolutely right to skip over that in service of the bigger picture.
18:31 I'm glad somebody called out that Ellie takes off her silencer when confronting Nora.
Doesnt matter cause she was gonna torture her for information anyways
@@MM-hi Right? Like what does a silencer matter if Nora is screaming? Dumb criticism.
This is pretty easy to explain but if this is really the only thing to latch onto then it’s an immaculate review
@@wonderguardstalker There other problems with the review. Such as him complaining that Joel didn't stop Ellie from going to the hospital, when Joel literally says she left in the middle of the night. Or complaining about Ellie not killing Abby when Ellie's killed others, when it's pretty obvious Ellie regrets all that killing, and it'd be fucked up to leave Lev to die.
Muhfucka Jones Kinda wish the game had focused more on Ellie’s thoughts emotions etc going into that “reveal” and seeing more of how it happened. And also wish the game didn’t make it into a melodramatic “revelation” when the first game’s ending implied Ellie didn’t believe Joel but chose to believe him for everybody’s sake. And why the fuck should Ellie care about Lev. At this point and as far as she knows, that kid is dead.
Abby was able to kill Joel because Joel and Tommy just happened to let their guard down to a large group of armed strangers that hardened survivalists like the two of them would be extremely cautious around.
Abby was able to reach Joel because Joel just happened to be on patrol outside of his heavily secured compound on the same day Abby and her crew arrive in Jackson.
Abby was able to find Joel all by herself in a blizzard because a huge horde of zombies just happened to push her towards the very building Joel and Tommy were held up in.
Contrivance, thy name is The Last of Us Part II
And even after saving her dumb ass no questions asked, making them even, the bitch still tortures and kills him. What a great and likable protagonist.
Didn’t Abby follow tommy and Joel’s footprints? I thought that’s how she found them
@@MrBeesknees95 But wouldn't it be ever so convenient that the footprints were Joel and Tommy's? Add to that the random horde of zombies that appears and disappears when plot needs to happen
You're first point is good but you're second point is garbage. So many things happen because of coincidences.
the team originally intended for Abby to integrate herself into Jackson and then kill Joel a few weeks / months into her stay there. this would’ve done away with the plot convenience, but I’m assuming they dropped it because it would’ve made Abby impossible to empathize with, which says a lot about the writers priorities.
As great as the facial/motion/whatever capture technology was, all the praise for it becomes moot for me because I think back to how amazing DMC V looked. Unlike TLoU 2, the graphics for DMC V were the icing, not the cake
I'd go as far to say DMC V will age better because the character designs are still super exaggerated so a sense of style is still present.
The RE engine also aims at "realism", I dont know how, but DMCV managed to used in its "fantastic" style.
I would say, TLOU2's faces are *technically* better, but artistically
I haven't ever seen a game trigger the uncanny valley discomfort in me before (not on purpose, like a horror game), which probably means, that those are cutting edge faces with a lot of small details, but not enough of those details to make for a perfect rendition
simp
@@justkiet amen brother.