I just beat the game for the first time and I need to organize my feelings. The end was rough. It was hard to get through.
I'm not sure where I want a 3rd game to go. I'll likely come back but the first game to me is still near perfect whereas this game needs time for the feelings to settle but will be a bit behind. Right now though I'm leaning for a 3rd game to go somewhere else. Give me England, give me Germany, give me Japan. Really change it up. Need to digest more.
Comments:
The final scene between Ellie & Joel hit me like a truck. The first time I put this game down was actually after Joel's death.
End fight. Just, should have been shorter, they were both near dead it seemed like.
Pros:
Storytelling (outside of pacing), acting, graphics, small little items of people reacting in certain ways, little movements in body/hand, the small stuff that REALLY sells scenes.
Despite the issues I have with the Abby storyline below I really liked her with Yara/Lev. At first I was actually really angry about playing as Abby as I discuss below for a few reasons, but the story they built up was well done, not perfect, and I can't say what it was missing but it was missing a little for me.
Issues:
-I didn't like that they took away the vagueness of the cure. It just seemed like they made it a 100% sure thing if they killed Ellie and that's not how science works. It retroactively hurts the first game because to me the first game was damn near perfect.
-Pacing seemed way off especially at the end when we're just time jumping and covering hundreds if not thousands of miles. I felt like they tried to do too much. Fuck Ellie, why didn't you stay, god dammit. I was yelling at my TV.
-I have two issues with Abby. First is playing through the game as Ellie and then from the perspective of Abby. First on that is having a fully leveled up Ellie going back to square one with Abby. They tried to fix this by overloading you with pills/scrap to try and catch up. I wonder if they tested playing 1 day each as they drew closer together and alternating. Or if that would have broken it up even more. The other thing with Abby is I appreciate her perspective but I'm not sure how I feel as a person controlling the character to play them after they brutally murdered one main character and then make the player almost kill the other one. I get that it's talking about the world in which they live but I'm not sure I like it as the actual player.
I guess a sub issue with Abby, on top of the shift, I didn't like her flashbacks, I get why they were there, I just thought it broke up gameplay unlike the Ellie ones, and I'm not sure why.
The final scene between Ellie & Joel hit me like a truck. The first time I put this game down was actually after Joel's death.
End fight. Just, should have been shorter, they were both near dead it seemed like.
Pros:
Storytelling (outside of pacing), acting, graphics, small little items of people reacting in certain ways, little movements in body/hand, the small stuff that REALLY sells scenes.
Despite the issues I have with the Abby storyline below I really liked her with Yara/Lev. At first I was actually really angry about playing as Abby as I discuss below for a few reasons, but the story they built up was well done, not perfect, and I can't say what it was missing but it was missing a little for me.
Issues:
-I didn't like that they took away the vagueness of the cure. It just seemed like they made it a 100% sure thing if they killed Ellie and that's not how science works. It retroactively hurts the first game because to me the first game was damn near perfect.
-Pacing seemed way off especially at the end when we're just time jumping and covering hundreds if not thousands of miles. I felt like they tried to do too much. Fuck Ellie, why didn't you stay, god dammit. I was yelling at my TV.
-I have two issues with Abby. First is playing through the game as Ellie and then from the perspective of Abby. First on that is having a fully leveled up Ellie going back to square one with Abby. They tried to fix this by overloading you with pills/scrap to try and catch up. I wonder if they tested playing 1 day each as they drew closer together and alternating. Or if that would have broken it up even more. The other thing with Abby is I appreciate her perspective but I'm not sure how I feel as a person controlling the character to play them after they brutally murdered one main character and then make the player almost kill the other one. I get that it's talking about the world in which they live but I'm not sure I like it as the actual player.
I guess a sub issue with Abby, on top of the shift, I didn't like her flashbacks, I get why they were there, I just thought it broke up gameplay unlike the Ellie ones, and I'm not sure why.
I'm not sure where I want a 3rd game to go. I'll likely come back but the first game to me is still near perfect whereas this game needs time for the feelings to settle but will be a bit behind. Right now though I'm leaning for a 3rd game to go somewhere else. Give me England, give me Germany, give me Japan. Really change it up. Need to digest more.
