This review contains spoilers
This game is a tough one for me. I'll start with the positives because I don't want to sound like I hated everything about this game because I definitely didn't but I do have a few serious issues that really irked me. The gameplay is so brutal and intense and much improved from the previous game. The voice acting is amazing as usual with naughty dog games. I respect what they were going for, they took a chance on something they knew would be controversial to tell the story they wanted and it worked... Maybe a little too well.
I'm just going to write out my issues in a numbered list for formatting purposes because I'm sure this will meander a little bit.
1. The first problem for me was that I felt the decision to kill Joel like 30 minutes into the game was pretty dirty considering Joel was all over the advertising material. At this point in the game I imagine a large chunk of the fanbase checked out immediately, however, I kept chugging along to see where it went. This action did exactly what they wanted it to do... It made me hate Abby with a burning intensity that no game has come close to before. In the next 10-15 hours of gameplay we play as Ellie going on an understandable but reckless quest of revenge that gets increasingly more violent and dark as it goes. Following the climax of Ellies portion we then get to "enjoy" the next 10-15 hours of the game playing as the person we hate, to see the story from her perspective. Again I get what they are trying to do here, everyone has a reason for the decisions they make and violence begets violence and all that jazz. However a number of issues spring from this decision to split the game into two separate halves, I will elaborate in the next few numbered items.
2. This split is totally jarring and occurs right at the climax of the main story and gives a serious kick in the balls to the pacing of the game.
3. This one is a negative to me, but some people might have enjoyed this part but I didn't want to play as Abby, I hated Abby, and the designers purposely made me hate Abby. Something about this just comes off manipulative to me. Ellie's section comes off uber violent and ruthless, she tortures people, she kills doggos (unavoidable on at least 2 counts), she kills a pregnant person (even though imo her hand was somewhat forced). Abby however, throws tennis balls to doggos, she saves a young outcast of the cultists, she comes off as heroic and good (for the most part). This manipulation really bothers me because they forced me to kill the dog, they forced me to kill the pregnant girl, they forced me to torture the woman for information. These weren't my decisions and I didn't want to do any of them. Again I get that the whole point is to make you see that no one is purely evil or good, and the decisions we make have downstream effects on everyone but I just found this to be a bad way to drive the point. I felt like I was being reprimanded for a decision that the game designers wrote into the game intentionally only to rub it in my face later. Almost like getting mad at your dog for peeing in the house even though you refuse to walk him or let him outside. The term Ludonarrative Dissonance describes this conflict perfectly. The games narrative wants us to feel guilty for our bloody rampage through Seattle but the game is designed in such a way where the minute to minute gameplay promotes and revels in large scale violence.
4. The decision to make you fight Ellie as Abby was insane. I've never lost a boss fight on purpose before. I don't care how much they tried to force me to care about Abby, she killed Joel, it was that simple to me. I must have let Ellie kill me purposely like 5 times.
5. After the Abby section we finally get back to the theater and get to see what is seemingly the finale of the game. Ellie has learned that revenge is a selfish desire and only causes more problems and returns home with her partner and child. But then completely out of character and without any real explanation as to logistically how this could happen Tommy has information that Abby is in Santa Barbara and essentially calls Ellies love for Joel into question because she doesn't want to travel across the country to try to kill Abby again. This is so out of character for Tommy, did we forget that he willingly went to try and handle the WLF by himself in order to stop Ellie from putting herself in danger at the beginning of the game? So what, he lost an eye so now he wants Abby dead more than when she killed his brother and beat the crap out him? It just makes no sense. So the loop essentially begins again, Ellie goes out to seek revenge one last time, and what happens? Ellie goes all that way for essentially nothing... Again. Ellie's presence actually works out pretty well for Abby because she is saved from the group of bandits, granted she has to take a beating from Ellie but still. Ultimately this again works out where Ellie is the one who comes up with the short stick, she loses her fingers and can no longer play the guitar Joel gave her. And this brings me to my next issue.
6. The punishment seems to be so one sided in this game. Both Abby and Ellie follow the cycle of violence and revenge, Abby just gets her ultimate revenge earlier on. If anything Ellie is on morally superior ground because she could have killed her main target and chose not to, whereas Abby did follow through with killing Joel. However the story seems to punish Ellie so much more than Abby, Ellie loses her friends, her significant other, her kid, her father figure, her mental health, her fingers and subsequently her most loved hobby. She is a broken husk of her former self by the end of the game... Abby on the other hand loses a couple of friends and does go through some tough events with the bandits at the end but she has gained a true friend and partner in Lev, has a purpose, and is in a pretty good place mentally. Part 2 just seems to show so much favoritism to Abby compared its main characters. Joel gets brutally murdered 30 minutes into the game and Ellie is just a broken shell of who she used to be by the end credits.
7. The attempt to retcon Joel's decision in the first game to seem like it was purely selfish and evil was unforgivable to me. The most egregious display of this is Abby's father AKA the surgeon who got in the way. In the first game the surgeon operating on Ellie has sunken in eyes with dark black rings around them. He is wearing dingy green scrubs and giving off almost mad scientist vibes. The operating room is disorganized and dirty with a nice layer of filth on pretty much every surface. The setup doesn't inspire confidence and only helps convince you that you are doing the right thing. However in part 2, the surgeon is clean, well rested, and now wearing shiny new blue scrubs. The operating room is nice and clean with none of the aforementioned filth on the walls and equipment. They also go out of their way to show that he saves Zebras and is a really nice man who is struggling with the ethical dilemma in front of him. There was a clear change in tone here and it's just so obvious that it is off-putting to me.
The thing that made the first game great was that Ellie was a beacon of light in a horrible and dark world. She had unshakeable optimism and hope even though she had been through so much and this made her worth saving. The fireflies slogan is literally "when you are lost in darkness, look for the light"... Ellie was that light!!! It doesn't get more on the nose than that, and this is why so many people understood Joel's decision at the end of the game whether they agreed with it or not. And the writers respected the audience to make up their own mind about the final decision. Not in part 2 though... part 2 tells you exactly how you should feel, and that feeling is sad and empty. This game spits in the face of that light in the darkness theme by overloading the player with nihilism and cynicism. The world was already extremely bleak and when you turn the moral center of the game into a bloodthirsty asshole it just makes the game hard to get through and ultimately that's where I stand. I don't hate the game, but I can honestly say I don't think I will ever want to play it again because there is simply nothing endearing about it... unless you are into wallowing in a pit of despair.
I'm just going to write out my issues in a numbered list for formatting purposes because I'm sure this will meander a little bit.
1. The first problem for me was that I felt the decision to kill Joel like 30 minutes into the game was pretty dirty considering Joel was all over the advertising material. At this point in the game I imagine a large chunk of the fanbase checked out immediately, however, I kept chugging along to see where it went. This action did exactly what they wanted it to do... It made me hate Abby with a burning intensity that no game has come close to before. In the next 10-15 hours of gameplay we play as Ellie going on an understandable but reckless quest of revenge that gets increasingly more violent and dark as it goes. Following the climax of Ellies portion we then get to "enjoy" the next 10-15 hours of the game playing as the person we hate, to see the story from her perspective. Again I get what they are trying to do here, everyone has a reason for the decisions they make and violence begets violence and all that jazz. However a number of issues spring from this decision to split the game into two separate halves, I will elaborate in the next few numbered items.
2. This split is totally jarring and occurs right at the climax of the main story and gives a serious kick in the balls to the pacing of the game.
3. This one is a negative to me, but some people might have enjoyed this part but I didn't want to play as Abby, I hated Abby, and the designers purposely made me hate Abby. Something about this just comes off manipulative to me. Ellie's section comes off uber violent and ruthless, she tortures people, she kills doggos (unavoidable on at least 2 counts), she kills a pregnant person (even though imo her hand was somewhat forced). Abby however, throws tennis balls to doggos, she saves a young outcast of the cultists, she comes off as heroic and good (for the most part). This manipulation really bothers me because they forced me to kill the dog, they forced me to kill the pregnant girl, they forced me to torture the woman for information. These weren't my decisions and I didn't want to do any of them. Again I get that the whole point is to make you see that no one is purely evil or good, and the decisions we make have downstream effects on everyone but I just found this to be a bad way to drive the point. I felt like I was being reprimanded for a decision that the game designers wrote into the game intentionally only to rub it in my face later. Almost like getting mad at your dog for peeing in the house even though you refuse to walk him or let him outside. The term Ludonarrative Dissonance describes this conflict perfectly. The games narrative wants us to feel guilty for our bloody rampage through Seattle but the game is designed in such a way where the minute to minute gameplay promotes and revels in large scale violence.
4. The decision to make you fight Ellie as Abby was insane. I've never lost a boss fight on purpose before. I don't care how much they tried to force me to care about Abby, she killed Joel, it was that simple to me. I must have let Ellie kill me purposely like 5 times.
5. After the Abby section we finally get back to the theater and get to see what is seemingly the finale of the game. Ellie has learned that revenge is a selfish desire and only causes more problems and returns home with her partner and child. But then completely out of character and without any real explanation as to logistically how this could happen Tommy has information that Abby is in Santa Barbara and essentially calls Ellies love for Joel into question because she doesn't want to travel across the country to try to kill Abby again. This is so out of character for Tommy, did we forget that he willingly went to try and handle the WLF by himself in order to stop Ellie from putting herself in danger at the beginning of the game? So what, he lost an eye so now he wants Abby dead more than when she killed his brother and beat the crap out him? It just makes no sense. So the loop essentially begins again, Ellie goes out to seek revenge one last time, and what happens? Ellie goes all that way for essentially nothing... Again. Ellie's presence actually works out pretty well for Abby because she is saved from the group of bandits, granted she has to take a beating from Ellie but still. Ultimately this again works out where Ellie is the one who comes up with the short stick, she loses her fingers and can no longer play the guitar Joel gave her. And this brings me to my next issue.
6. The punishment seems to be so one sided in this game. Both Abby and Ellie follow the cycle of violence and revenge, Abby just gets her ultimate revenge earlier on. If anything Ellie is on morally superior ground because she could have killed her main target and chose not to, whereas Abby did follow through with killing Joel. However the story seems to punish Ellie so much more than Abby, Ellie loses her friends, her significant other, her kid, her father figure, her mental health, her fingers and subsequently her most loved hobby. She is a broken husk of her former self by the end of the game... Abby on the other hand loses a couple of friends and does go through some tough events with the bandits at the end but she has gained a true friend and partner in Lev, has a purpose, and is in a pretty good place mentally. Part 2 just seems to show so much favoritism to Abby compared its main characters. Joel gets brutally murdered 30 minutes into the game and Ellie is just a broken shell of who she used to be by the end credits.
7. The attempt to retcon Joel's decision in the first game to seem like it was purely selfish and evil was unforgivable to me. The most egregious display of this is Abby's father AKA the surgeon who got in the way. In the first game the surgeon operating on Ellie has sunken in eyes with dark black rings around them. He is wearing dingy green scrubs and giving off almost mad scientist vibes. The operating room is disorganized and dirty with a nice layer of filth on pretty much every surface. The setup doesn't inspire confidence and only helps convince you that you are doing the right thing. However in part 2, the surgeon is clean, well rested, and now wearing shiny new blue scrubs. The operating room is nice and clean with none of the aforementioned filth on the walls and equipment. They also go out of their way to show that he saves Zebras and is a really nice man who is struggling with the ethical dilemma in front of him. There was a clear change in tone here and it's just so obvious that it is off-putting to me.
The thing that made the first game great was that Ellie was a beacon of light in a horrible and dark world. She had unshakeable optimism and hope even though she had been through so much and this made her worth saving. The fireflies slogan is literally "when you are lost in darkness, look for the light"... Ellie was that light!!! It doesn't get more on the nose than that, and this is why so many people understood Joel's decision at the end of the game whether they agreed with it or not. And the writers respected the audience to make up their own mind about the final decision. Not in part 2 though... part 2 tells you exactly how you should feel, and that feeling is sad and empty. This game spits in the face of that light in the darkness theme by overloading the player with nihilism and cynicism. The world was already extremely bleak and when you turn the moral center of the game into a bloodthirsty asshole it just makes the game hard to get through and ultimately that's where I stand. I don't hate the game, but I can honestly say I don't think I will ever want to play it again because there is simply nothing endearing about it... unless you are into wallowing in a pit of despair.