After finishing the game a few days ago and taking the time to let it all sink in, my thoughts:
It's obvious that Naughty Dog and I will never see eye to eye on the topic of mechanical systems. I won't list off all of the things I would hypothetically prefer to see being done differently so I'll simply give credit where credit is due. The animations are breathtakingly detailed, the crafting system is solid, the weapons are varied and fun to use, the super-repetitive environmental puzzles of the first one are thankfully absent and the exploration sections are surprisingly substantial (safe cracking). The new "dodge" mechanic doesn't exactly turn it into Vanquish, but hey, I'll take it. I'm still not a fan of the brain-dead enemies and the inherent shallowness of the combat in particular, but within the context of what they're trying to do, the type of emotions they want to convey through gameplay and the way they like to interweave gameplay and narrative elements through heavily scripted sections, I think this is about as good as it gets and a significant step up from the first game. The minimal HUD is a very nice touch, too.
The presentation, by and large, is absolutely incredible. Character models, facial animations, cutscene direction, textures, environments, etc... All top-notch, best-in-the-industry level. Unfortunately, I think the game isn't exactly doing itself any favors with its photo-realistic style. There are only so many derelict apartments and other familiar urban buildings I can visit before they all start to blur together after a while. Which is a shame because the graphic designers clearly put an insane amount of effort into the level design. Effort that I think would be much easier to appreciate with a different and more memorable art and/or presentation style. But I suppose that this would probably undermine a lot of the bleak, plausible world-building the story is based on.
I miss proper music in video games instead of this high-impact, low-substance ambient noise junk that so often goes hand in hand with the constant push towards photo-realism these days. Half-assedly scratching some guitar every 5 hours doth not a soundtrack make, Mr. Druckmann. Thankfully the small handful of proper (licensed) songs they use at key moments of the story are really good. The sound design is also top-notch, in and of itself.
PS: Although,
both of
these tracks are actually pretty good.
Please don't click if you haven't finished the game.
- Spoiler: show
- I adore the bold narrative choices ND made here, since I'm a total sucker for stories with multiple protagonists and shifting perspectives. I'm perfectly able and willing to enjoy straightforward stories that are meant to be followed from the fixed perspective of the heroic protagonists facing against clearly designated villains (in Lord of the Rings for example, nobody would ever think of trying to understand Sauron's perspective), but if a character-driven story wants me to take a step back and examine different characters' points of view, I'm usually all for it. That's what makes The Bridge on the River Kwai, Heat and The Handmaiden so special. Gaming-wise, it's a big part of why I have grown so attached to MGS, Fire Emblem and even RE to an extent. It's why I think Halo 2 is the best in the series despite all of its (numerous) flaws.
"Everybody is the villain in someone else's story" is not exactly a very complex idea, in fact it is probably very easy to mock and dismiss as an entry-level pseudo-philosophical platitude if one is so inclined. But it is a valid point, and the world would be a better place if more people took it to heart so I'm always gonna be receptive to it.
I like this trope so much that I am willing to forgive a lot of potential problems in favor of that core concept. Which in turn begs the question: Am I enjoying this story based on its own merit or because its central theme resonates with me so much? I'm honestly not sure. All I know is that I love this game's narrative. From start to finish.
I think it is a testament to the quality of the writing that despite most characters in this universe existing within a morally grey area, you learn to understand and empathize with them after a while. They're capable of committing abominable actions under certain circumstances but they also have redeeming qualities and understandable motivations. No heroes, few villains, mostly just flawed people in a flawed world.
I don't necessarily agree with Joel's choice at the end of the first one since it is a deeply selfish decision that causes even more bloodshed and pain for others, but I understand why he did it even without being a parent myself. I might even have done the same in his place.
Abby is being introduced at her absolute lowest and is never showing any genuine remorse over Joel's murder later on, which is a very interesting narrative choice. But it makes sense. In her eyes, Joel is just a random thug who took her father away from her and deprived the world of its best chance at a brighter future. I completely understand why she would feel the need to track him down within the context of that world.
Ellie... is probably the closest thing this game has to a villain, honestly (not counting Isaac). The reveal that she had learned the truth about the Fireflies years prior really casts her bloodlust in a very unflattering light, and her mindless savagery towards Nora feels like a point of no return to me. She's impulsive, selfish, immature, lacks self-control and seems incapable of taking the rational advice of her closest allies (unlike Abby). Despite all of that, I can understand her as well. She's ultimately a deeply traumatized teenager whose closest parental figure was a violent murderer and who had to sink at her absolute lowest to finally regain some semblance of humanity. In the world that she lives in, I can understand that.
And yet, despite all the carnage and cruelty and injustice of this world, it's the little things that count. The little acts of benevolence from all these deeply flawed characters that end up making all the difference in the world. Joel saving a complete stranger as the final act of kindness of his life of savagery. Owen instinctively preventing Ellie and Tommy from being murdered and casually written off as collateral damage. Abby going back to check on the kids she has no real obligation towards. Lev pulling Abby back from the brink when she's about to murder Dina and Ellie in cold blood. Abby being mature enough to take his advice to heart despite her legitimate anger, which is ultimately what will save both of their lives later on. Ellie learning to forgive. Even at their worst, these are still human beings with the potential to do the right thing.
Killing off Joel makes perfect sense to me. The happy ending of the first game came at a high cost, it was only a matter of time before somebody would come to collect. Just because we know, like, understand and empathize with Joel doesn't mean that Abby is any less justified in her desire for revenge than anybody else is.
Some of the attempts to humanize Abby felt a little unnecessary to me, but that's only because I was more than willing to give her the benefit of the doubt from the beginning. I also found it hard to empathize with Ellie after Nora's death. But I understand that ND were caught between a rock and a hard place on this one and that they felt like they had to compensate for most players coming into the game already deeply attached to Ellie by default. It's a difficult concept to balance out.
The sniper section against Tommy really hammers the point home that these people look like absolute savages from each other's perspectives. I thought that was very well done.
The theater showdown is by far my favorite part of the game, everything about it is just impeccably well directed in my opinion. The scene leading up to it on Ellie's side, Jesse's death, Abby getting the jump on them, the cliffhanger. Coming back to it from Abby's perspective, feeling her pain at the needless deaths of Owen and Mel, understanding her desire to end it once and for all with these scumbags who slaughtered all her friends after she chose to let them live, to the point when she comes so close to murder Dina out some basic primal sense of retribution, witnessing Ellie's desperation, to Abby being thankfully talked out of it by Lev, to her leaving and once again being the bigger person (ahuhu). So many raw, visceral, mixed emotions in such a short period of time. Just fantastic character work through and through. Voice acting was just... wow.
I also love all the neat little parallels between Abby and Ellie, since they are both on different parts of the same journey. Abby slowly finding a purpose post-revenge, Ellie slowly losing herself pre-revenge. Abby rejecting revenge in favor of motherhood, Ellie rejecting motherhood in favor of revenge. Etc. Lots of delicate scripting there, which I appreciate.
Not to mention the WLF and Seraphites who are unironically pulling one of those:
It's not all perfect, of course. I wasn't a huge fan of the Santa Barbara epilogue sequence, for once. For a story that is so well-balanced between the two protagonists up until that point, it feels more like a convenient setup for the conclusion of Ellie's character arc than a legitimate, equitable conclusion. I also think it was needlessly cruel towards Abby for obvious reasons. In the end, the suggestion that Abby and Lev ended up reuniting with the Fireflies on Catalina Island was a nice touch.
Some of the social commentary is also a tiny bit on the nose and this type of story structure is hard to pull off so I'm sure this is an easy one to nitpick when it comes to the exact locations of all the flashbacks, etc... But ND could have easily turned this into the simplistic John Wick-style gory revenge story with heroic sacrifices that some fans apparently would have preferred. I'm very, very glad they didn't. I cried both when Abby stumbled upon the bodies of Owen and Mel as well as during the porch scene with Joel at the end, so as far as I'm concerned ND accomplished what they set out to do.
- Spoiler: show
- Man, to say that I was disappointed by the popular reception this game got would be an understatement. So many folks out there who decided they were going to hate it as soon they read the leaks and never gave the story a fair chance. Some of the biggest streamers out there apparently spent their entire playthrough just cracking jokes and refusing to engage in Abby's side of the narrative entirely. Review-bombing. Making videos breaking their discs (?!?). Just a completely immature knee-jerk response overall. To say nothing of all the usual bigoted and political side of things, of course.
You know last year when I was making my dumb point about the gaming community at large not respecting video games? Shit like this is what I meant.
In some ways, the game really made me think of MGS2. Not only in the sense of of the protagonist swap and superficial backlash, but also because I get the sense that the devs wanted to subtly criticize the fans who had missed the point of the previous game. A lot of folks treated MGS1 like a basic militaristic shooty bang bang escapist action game without paying much attention to any of the narrative themes, and MGS2 is very much a response to that in many respects. Meanwhile, a lot of players perceived TLoU as some sort of simplistic boomer power fantasy and idolized Joel as a flawless hero, and TLoU2 feels very much like a direct response to that as well. Interesting parallel.
It's a weird position for me to be in because I feel like I'm usually on the other side of that particular fence, lamenting that a long-awaited sequel to a favorite of mine doesn't live up to the original. In fact, some of the complaints I read reminded me of the ones I had about MGSV, for example. I don't even particularly like Druckmann as a director, he seems a bit full of himself, his weird twitter crusade was embarrassing as well and his negative attitude towards traditional gaming rubs me the wrong way. (I often get the impression that all the "Gaming finally grows up!" hot takes are more of a feature than a glitch with him). But man, talk about missing the point. I've heard the game being described as a "basic empathy litmus test" and I think there is a lot of truth to that. It's a bit of a Rorschach test, if you're willing to walk a mile in Abby's shoes you will have very different emotions by the time the game ends than if you don't. Its core message is also very much anti-tribalism. And their first reaction is to draw hyper-partisan lines in the sand and to show themselves as incapable of empathizing with a different character than the one they're used to. Jesus.
That's not to say that there isn't any mature, nuanced and respectful criticism out there, of course. But man, do the usual toxic, emotionally-underdeveloped, twitch chat spamming, irony-poisoned, ghoulish reddit Fortniters have a tendency to drown out everybody else. Yuck.
Anyway, what a game. It may not have the frame-perfect gut punch ending of the first one, but it is bold, powerful and important in its own right. One of the very best of this generation for me and I think it will age like a fine wine. I've been thinking about it a lot since finishing it and I like it more and more. I have no idea where they could possibly take the story next in a potential Part III but I will be there Day 1 if they ever choose to do so.