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Josuke Higashikata posted:especially given that this will look dated in 5 years and outright bad in 10 wasn't her immunity because of the fungus in her being mutated and not actually doing anything to her while not allowing the actually dangerous spores to take root? they didn't need her antibodies, they needed to crack open her skull and get the precious mushroom out of her brain to i guess get samples of it and grow more, that's why they needed a brain surgeon to do it
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Jun 22, 2020 21:16
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Josuke Higashikata posted:i mean, the real point is that the structural infrastructure needed to distribute a vaccine to enough of the planet to make it so any disease is likely to burn out is hugely considerable even in 2020 real life earth. an already hosed world where they no longer even have largely functional roads means it's actually just impossible to make enough vaccine to make a difference.
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Jun 22, 2020 21:17
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Cardiovorax posted:On the other hand, Ellie and Joel manage to travel over 2300 miles through zombie-infested Postapocalyptomerica in what seems to be anywhere between one to two and a half months, so maybe we just weren't supposed to assume that this would actually be a meaningful hindrance. The story is divided into seasons, so they take almost a year. (True, in one of them Joel got hosed up and was out of action for a long time, but still)
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Jun 22, 2020 21:20
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The Unnamed One posted:The story is divided into seasons, so they take almost a year.
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Jun 22, 2020 21:24
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RottenK posted:wasn't her immunity because of the fungus in her being mutated and not actually doing anything to her while not allowing the actually dangerous spores to take root? they didn't need her antibodies, they needed to crack open her skull and get the precious mushroom out of her brain to i guess get samples of it and grow more, that's why they needed a brain surgeon to do it But the shroom is also outside of her skull, she's got it on her arm, where the bite mark was, and the X-ray shows it all over the place, although that would merely have been the art team loving up, the writers made the shroom be in safe places to collect and then went "Nah."
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Jun 22, 2020 21:29
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SIGSEGV posted:But the shroom is also outside of her skull, she's got it on her arm, where the bite mark was, and the X-ray shows it all over the place, although that would merely have been the art team loving up, the writers made the shroom be in safe places to collect and then went "Nah." the infection is based on the cordyceps so it makes sense to me that it resides in the brain, the stuff throughout her body can be artists loving up or some analogue of the mycelium in regular mushrooms
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Jun 22, 2020 21:36
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fridge corn posted:I've read The Road and Blood Meridian and dont really feel I need to read any more McCarthy tbh I only read The Road and didn't bother with BM despite people say it was way "better" than The Road. Even just now reading the wikipedia for Blood Meridian makes me think there's actually a lot in common with TLOU2 and I'm actually kind of wondering why McCarthy's lingering descriptions and intent to drag readers through horrible acts without recourse got so much praise and ends with someone getting something horrible done to them but lol "u get to connect my violent, hateful dots for me" Josuke Higashikata posted:i mean, the real point is that the structural infrastructure needed to distribute a vaccine to enough of the planet to make it so any disease is likely to burn out is hugely considerable even in 2020 real life earth. an already hosed world where they no longer even have largely functional roads means it's actually just impossible to make enough vaccine to make a difference. Couldn't it also be a cure that comes in a different form, perhaps just another fungus or mold born from the immune person's colony or some other anti-fungal dealio?
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Jun 22, 2020 21:37
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Cardiovorax posted:I looked it up the wiki because I wasn't sure that I was remembering correctly, but it seems that entire trip from Boston to Jackson really is supposed to have taken place in between summer and autumn of the same year, so less than three months at the outside. Ah, fair enough. Was considering the whole trip to Salt Lake City but yeah, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah are significantly closer to one another
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Jun 22, 2020 21:39
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RottenK posted:the infection is based on the cordyceps so it makes sense to me that it resides in the brain, the stuff throughout her body can be artists loving up or some analogue of the mycelium in regular mushrooms Sadly the shroom on her arm is part of the plot, it gets seen several times, at least near the start, when Tess gets infected and then in the cannibal pedophile camp. Also an upper spinal tap would have grabbed some of the brain shroom, and have been far less risky. Basically the plot contrivance is very thorough.
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Jun 22, 2020 21:42
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Maybe I'm seeing this wrong, but I think people might be assuming the wrong things about what the point of a vaccine like that would be. The ability to take the fight to the zombies without risking a death sentence with every tiny scratch would be an enormous boon towards humanity's ability to actually start making the world around them relatively safe again. It wouldn't have to be enough for everyone, it would just have to be enough that making even the tiniest mistake in the field wouldn't be suicide anymore. You could start taking places back instead of just trying to hold on to what few safe places are still left.
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Jun 22, 2020 21:43
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doingitwrong posted:This is the basic model of JRPGs brought to western action games. And, to be clear, JRPGs are BELOVED, so I get why people keep trying to make more cinematic game experiences. But it just doesn't do it for me. I hate when my character can do cooler things in cutscenes than they can do in game, or when you win the level but lose the cutscene, or the various attempts to make cinematic experiences interactive through QTEs and similar. It all is in the name of giving people experiences that are the opposite of what games are, for me. JRPGs are kind of a weird thing in their own universe where the goal of the game is to make your character godlike by leveling and mastering the system and story beats are only about getting to that next place where you can boost your character more and to give you a pretty cinematic experience. You expect to be invincible in gaming terms at the end (and sometimes have to kill god!). The gameplay is too much different to compare, really, it was always super disconnected from plot ever since Final Fantasy 2/4 where you used Life spells but characters could permanently die in cutscenes. By the time of 7, the villain could blow up the solar system and just gives you status effects although in plot, he was slowly summoning a meteor. They're more disconnected than anything really, and I think it kind of works because they don't toe the line.
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Jun 22, 2020 21:47
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Sorry for dredging this back up but the issue I have with Abby letting Ellie and Tommy live is that she doesn’t think they’ll come after her the way she went after Joel and it’s just stupid. At no point in the scene does she think “boy I sure hope this woman who is clearly emotionally attached to Joel and his clearly capable brother don’t make getting revenge their single all consuming goal in life the way I did.” I think the tone of that scene also and the way we’re introduced to Abby and the rest doesn’t do the game any favours either. In the scene Abby & Friends are painted as villains. It’s the game setting them up as the antagonists and it doesn’t really do anything to suggest otherwise. Our introduction to them has them talking about going after a peaceful settlement where we see children playing in the snow, they deliberately do this so that the switch over to playing as Abby has more of a shocking impact on the player and I think this totally undermines what they were going for and is why we’re seeing people (who aren’t right wing losers incapable of empathy) have such an intense dislike of Abby and her gang. This is fine and I think you can absolutely have a story where a character who is initially painted as an antagonist is explored more and the audience comes to like them but it’s a tricky thing to do and when you go out of your way to tell your audience “look, this person is the antagonist! Don’t you hate them? Don’t you want to get revenge?” You can’t be surprised when they don’t get on board with your attempts to redeem the character you told them they should be against. The funny thing is you can easily address this and give us a much needed insight into Abby’s character just by having one of her crew say “we kill these witnesses” and have her say something like “no, I’m not an indiscriminate killer like he was” It at the very least would address these two issues that in personally having a hard time overlooking.
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Jun 22, 2020 21:47
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Josuke Higashikata posted:i mean, the real point is that the structural infrastructure needed to distribute a vaccine to enough of the planet to make it so any disease is likely to burn out is hugely considerable even in 2020 real life earth. an already hosed world where they no longer even have largely functional roads means it's actually just impossible to make enough vaccine to make a difference. Eh, not if you worked from one side to the other. The mushroom zombies die relatively quickly and then sit in the dark and try to release spores, so a gradual spread from safe zone to safe zone would have humankind eventually win at the end due to lack of spread and attrition. They probably would win anyway, but a vaccine guarantees it. If the mushrooms didn't eat infected pretty quickly that would be different, but they aren't zombies, you can wait them out, and if people don't have to worry about spores due to vaccine, they're okay.
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Jun 22, 2020 21:53
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Darko posted:The gameplay is too much different to compare, really, it was always super disconnected from plot ever since Final Fantasy 2/4 where you used Life spells but characters could permanently die in cutscenes. Many JRPGs sort of work around this now by referring to the 0 HP status as "unconscious" or "wounded" or something like that rather than "dead." You can use a Phoenix Down/Raise spell/whatever to bring back someone at 0 HP because they're not actually dead, just badly hurt. Once they're dead, they're dead (barring resurrection being a thing in the plot). Dragon Quest still uses "dead" though so  Interestingly, tactical RPGs (including the Final Fantasy Tactics games) tend to be even clearer about it. Dropping to 0 HP in Final Fantasy Tactics puts a unit on a timer where they'll die permanently if you can't revive them before it hits 0. The Final Fantasy Tactics Advance games lighten up on this a bit by having Judges who forbid mortally wounding people in battle, so nobody actually dies, but if you're in a lawless zone with no Judge, now permadeath is on the table. And of course there's Fire Emblem's long history of "if you die in battle you're dead, period," though that's now optional in the modern Fire Emblem games.
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Jun 22, 2020 21:53
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Jun 22, 2020 21:59
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SwoleNerd posted:Sorry for dredging this back up but the issue I have with Abby letting Ellie and Tommy live is that she doesn’t think they’ll come after her the way she went after Joel and it’s just stupid. At no point in the scene does she think “boy I sure hope this woman who is clearly emotionally attached to Joel and his clearly capable brother don’t make getting revenge their single all consuming goal in life the way I did.” Something about the dialogue here twigged me to the point too early to sympathize with Abby where it was clear in the dialogue that she wanted to lead Joel away from the town instead of risk an attack on innocents. There was some specific phrasing or something that I can't remember where I was more in the "wait a minute, she's going to be careful to just get Joel" point, meaning that I figured he specifically killed someone close to her in LOU1. Harrow posted:Many JRPGs sort of work around this now by referring to the 0 HP status as "unconscious" or "wounded" or something like that rather than "dead." You can use a Phoenix Down/Raise spell/whatever to bring back someone at 0 HP because they're not actually dead, just badly hurt. Once they're dead, they're dead (barring resurrection being a thing in the plot). Yeah, it's been wounded or faint for a while, but when I was 12 years old or whatever playing FF2, there were a lot of complaints about why we can't bring Tellah back using a Life spell. Shining Force and other TacRPGs on the other hand at the same time used chess rules where if the leader was dead, everyone was.
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Jun 22, 2020 21:59
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wt4Q6AnhLk&t=3s
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Jun 22, 2020 22:01
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Darko posted:Yeah, it's been wounded or faint for a while, but when I was 12 years old or whatever playing FF2, there were a lot of complaints about why we can't bring Tellah back using a Life spell. Shining Force and other TacRPGs on the other hand at the same time used chess rules where if the leader was dead, everyone was. Oh yeah, even as late as FF7 they were still calling it "dead" when you were at 0 HP, leading to a lot of "why can't I just use a Phoenix Down on Aeris???" stuff I find it kinda charming that Dragon Quest still says a character "dies" when their HP hits 0, especially because sometimes they have actual plot deaths alongside it. It's endearingly old-school and I just roll with it at this point.
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Jun 22, 2020 22:03
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Darko posted:Something about the dialogue here twigged me to the point too early to sympathize with Abby where it was clear in the dialogue that she wanted to lead Joel away from the town instead of risk an attack on innocents. There was some specific phrasing or something that I can't remember where I was more in the "wait a minute, she's going to be careful to just get Joel" point, meaning that I figured he specifically killed someone close to her in LOU1. Then this is some bad comprehension on my part because now that you’ve pointed this out and I’m thinking about it you’re right, she does do that. I probably dismissed it as them not wanting the entire town to start shooting at them out in the open but yeah. My pride wants to kick back with a “they needed to be more explicit with this!” but I’ll be honest, maybe they were and it went over my head. I’m willing to accept I may in fact be the clown in this situation. It’s not without precedent.
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Jun 22, 2020 22:07
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Darko posted:Something about the dialogue here twigged me to the point too early to sympathize with Abby where it was clear in the dialogue that she wanted to lead Joel away from the town instead of risk an attack on innocents. There was some specific phrasing or something that I can't remember where I was more in the "wait a minute, she's going to be careful to just get Joel" point, meaning that I figured he specifically killed someone close to her in LOU1. Yes that's exactly right. Abby never planned to lead an all out assault on Jackson (unlike Ellie who is willing to kill everyone in her way), she really just wanted Joel. This is a dead horse topic. Everyone can agree 'logically' that it would have made sense to leave no witnesses, but anyone who can't understand the principles behind why she didn't kill them is being purposefully obtuse.
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Jun 22, 2020 22:07
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SwoleNerd posted:The funny thing is you can easily address this and give us a much needed insight into Abby’s character just by having one of her crew say “we kill these witnesses” and have her say something like “no, I’m not an indiscriminate killer like he was” It at the very least would address these two issues that in personally having a hard time overlooking. This is exactly what happens, though. Manny wants to shoot Ellie, Owen stops him, Manny states it's too risky to leave them alive, and Owen says "too bad". Mel too chimes in with "we can leave no loose ends", Jordan (hat guys who gets cut on the cheek by Ellie) is getting angry, Abby snaps and yells "We're done", while looking very... well, not happy with the situation.
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Jun 22, 2020 22:08
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Char posted:This is exactly what happens, though. Manny wants to shoot Ellie, Owen stops him, Manny states it's too risky to leave them alive, and Owen says "too bad". Mel too chimes in with "we can leave no loose ends", Jordan (hat guys who gets cut on the cheek by Ellie) is getting angry, Abby snaps and yells "We're done", while looking very... well, not happy with the situation. Yeah, I just watched the scene again and you’re all right. They actually do the thing I said they should do but better than the way I said they should so gently caress me I guess. The Last of Us 2 has truly made me ashamed of my words and deeds but not the ones carried out in game.
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Jun 22, 2020 22:25
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Why does he dress like that
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Jun 22, 2020 22:27
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General Dog posted:Why does he dress like that #brand
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Jun 22, 2020 22:28
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SwoleNerd posted:Sorry for dredging this back up but the issue I have with Abby letting Ellie and Tommy live is that she doesn’t think they’ll come after her the way she went after Joel and it’s just stupid. At no point in the scene does she think “boy I sure hope this woman who is clearly emotionally attached to Joel and his clearly capable brother don’t make getting revenge their single all consuming goal in life the way I did.” Except the scene as revisited later in the game makes it really obvious that Abby does decide enough is enough and that she took it too far by torturing Joel, when she interrupts an argument about killing the witnesses by loudly saying “We’re done.” Like, I know it’s not a monologue where she outlines her regrets and how she’s not a monster, but that is basically how it went down. There’s an entire conflict between Mel and Abby over Mel being disgusted with what Abby did to Joel and with Abby almost silently agreeing with her about it. e: well poo poo, it turns out the real monster is... me, replying before reading
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Jun 22, 2020 22:31
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In the end, the game suffers from the fact that the story didn't need to be told. I never felt the first game was particularly well-written myself, but it ends perfectly. It's ambiguous. You can guess Ellie knows Joel is lying but it's never stated. You don't even know if Joel really just doomed everyone because it's unclear they would have been able to actually create a cure. This version wants to make some sort of comment on cycles of revenge, but the writing isn't up to the task. So it ends up feeling like an excuse to beat the poo poo out of its characters. And there's the whole "the only way to interact with anything in this game is to kill it" thing. Spite fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Jun 22, 2020 |
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Jun 22, 2020 22:31
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Oxxidation posted:#brand Seems like he could remove two accessories there and still have a distinct look.
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Jun 22, 2020 22:32
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SIGSEGV posted:Sadly the shroom on her arm is part of the plot, it gets seen several times, at least near the start, when Tess gets infected and then in the cannibal pedophile camp. Also an upper spinal tap would have grabbed some of the brain shroom, and have been far less risky. We don't know if the shroom stuff at her arm has spores though - i did bring up that it can be the analogue of mycelium, and the bit that grows spores is in her brain. I mean, the advanced infected do have the shroom burst out of their head first, even if it overgrows all over eventually. But to be completely honest going into specifics like exactly how the mushroom grows and spreads and how one would get it out kind of feels like going into the ewok genocide thing, there's a point where i stop caring if the writers hosed up something about realism in a piece of media and to me it's usually if it's still clear what they meant to convey.
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Jun 22, 2020 22:48
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SwoleNerd posted:Sorry for dredging this back up but the issue I have with Abby letting Ellie and Tommy live is that she doesn’t think they’ll come after her the way she went after Joel and it’s just stupid. At no point in the scene does she think “boy I sure hope this woman who is clearly emotionally attached to Joel and his clearly capable brother don’t make getting revenge their single all consuming goal in life the way I did.” I think that last bit you say is implied if you look at Abby's character during her part of the story. She's not particularly cruel and bloodthirsty outside of her revenge quest aimed at Joes specifically, it didn't feel out of character to me that she'd be uncomfortable with killing people that she sees as uninvolved bystanders and just leave hoping that they won't be crazy (and good at killing) enough to go after their group, especially since they're associated with and protected by a military force.
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Jun 22, 2020 22:54
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I think if by some miracle killing Ellie did yield a vaccine and if they somehow had the resources to make and distribute more, once word got out every raider, warlord, and militia would be gunning for the Fireflies ASAP to take it for themselves. And seeing as how they got wiped out by one angry daddy they wouldn't have lasted long.
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Jun 22, 2020 22:55
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RottenK posted:I think that last bit you say is implied if you look at Abby's character during her part of the story. She's not particularly cruel and bloodthirsty outside of her revenge quest aimed at Joes specifically, it didn't feel out of character to me that she'd be uncomfortable with killing people that she sees as uninvolved bystanders and just leave hoping that they won't be crazy (and good at killing) enough to go after their group, especially since they're associated with and protected by a military force. Yeah, it's justifiable in the story, i think, and i'm kinda beginning to get more okay with the conceit, but i guess i just don't see someone who's only willing to kill one person going on this big revenge quest. CharlestonJew posted:I think if by some miracle killing Ellie did yield a vaccine and if they somehow had the resources to make and distribute more, once word got out every raider, warlord, and militia would be gunning for the Fireflies ASAP to take it for themselves. And seeing as how they got wiped out by one angry daddy they wouldn't have lasted long. Yeah, the whole thing is that humanity's largely already adapted to living in the world with the virus and fighting for the vaccine would be almost inevitable as the threat to humanity has more to do with the ineffectiveness of our institutions than anything to do with zombies.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:03
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RottenK posted:We don't know if the shroom stuff at her arm has spores though - i did bring up that it can be the analogue of mycelium, and the bit that grows spores is in her brain. I mean, the advanced infected do have the shroom burst out of their head first, even if it overgrows all over eventually. For me it's less about the retcon thing and more about how the writing of the old game tripped itself so badly it completely changed the intended ending and the new game is trying to sell itself on its deep and thoroughly mind stimulating writing. If I'm going to go in, I'll be at least quite skeptical.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:08
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Darko posted:The gameplay is too much different to compare, really, it was always super disconnected from plot ever since Final Fantasy 2/4 where you used Life spells but characters could permanently die in cutscenes. In FF5 a party member dies and they try casting Cure and Life spells to no avail.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:09
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Would this game have been better if it were told in chronological order? Opens with the dinosaur scene, the resort scene, Ellie getting doubts about Joel, leaving for SLC and stating the central conflict, building the relationship with Dina....then Joel dies (with buildup) and we understand why Ellie is doing what she's doing. Rather than this stupid kind of mystery writing where she dodges every question. Also wondering how well it would work if the plots were staggered, like Ellie day 1, Abby day 1, etc, though that might be worse
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Jun 22, 2020 23:20
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FalconImpala posted:Would this game have been better if it were told in chronological order? Opens with the dinosaur scene, the resort scene, Ellie getting doubts about Joel, leaving for SLC and stating the central conflict, building the relationship with Dina....then Joel dies (with buildup) and we understand why Ellie is doing what she's doing. Rather than this stupid kind of mystery writing where she dodges every question. Nah it was cool, more games should mess around with non-linear storytelling imo
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Jun 22, 2020 23:27
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FalconImpala posted:Would this game have been better if it were told in chronological order? Opens with the dinosaur scene, the resort scene, Ellie getting doubts about Joel, leaving for SLC and stating the central conflict, building the relationship with Dina....then Joel dies (with buildup) and we understand why Ellie is doing what she's doing. Rather than this stupid kind of mystery writing where she dodges every question. Honestly, I think there was too much Ellie in seattle in general.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:28
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BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:Nah it was cool, more games should mess around with non-linear storytelling imo Yea a ton of the tension came from knowing what the characters were approaching; like Abby arriving back at the aquarium.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:31
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Panzeh posted:Honestly, I think there was too much Ellie in seattle in general. I enjoyed all of it but yeah the Abby settings were a lot more varied, her sections of the game are just better. e: I think it ties in a lot with their characters in that Ellie's story is a one-note revenge story where she's losing the people she cares about as a result whereas Abby's story is actually about letting people in (but of course, she's only able to achieve it having already completed her revenge) BOAT SHOWBOAT fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Jun 22, 2020 |
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Jun 22, 2020 23:34
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BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:Nah it was cool, more games should mess around with non-linear storytelling imo I agree completely but I also think it would be cool to have a “play all the sequences in chronological order” option as a bonus.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:38
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 06:13 |
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Assuming that we can't just axe the story and start again from scratch, a potentially more interesting way to tell the same story while maintaining the unusual non-linear, multi-protagonist story structure would be to start with Abby on Seattle Day 1. Things proceed like the game but explicit references to Joel's murder would be removed so Abby and her friends only vaguely reference recently tracking down some evil bastard and taking revenge. Intersperse the story with scenes with Abby and her dad showing how much they love each other, which gradually hint more and more that he was the Firefly surgeon until it is revealed just before you get to the theatre on Day 3. There, you confront Ellie and you're like "woah wtf". Then time rewinds to show Ellie's story and you see Abby and her friends, who you have presumably grown to like in the first half of the game, brutally torture and kill Joel. The game proceeds with Ellie's perspective and you end the game with her putting her switchblade through Abby's heart in the theatre and cut out the unnecessary coda with the Rattlers. Or not, who cares. By putting Abby murdering Joel first, they permanently turned much of the audience (if the general user reaction is to be believed) against her. Try as they might, walking back from that and earning the audience's empathy requires much better writing than what they gave us. So, since they were committed to the ill-advised dual-protagonist story structure, a better option probably would have been to just tell Abby's story first and make the audience root for her until they pull the rug out from under you and then switch to Ellie.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:56
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