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ImpAtom posted:I really don't get how you can play the first LOTU and come away with the idea that the themes it bashed into your skull are accidental. It is not a subtle game. Like it shoves its themes so far into your face you'd think it was middle school English. It's not that the themes aren't there or that they flew over anyone's head. It's that you are using them to wildly misread the intention of the story.
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Jul 10, 2021 08:40
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blackguy32 posted:Except, Ellie did save Abby's life. Also considering the whole story, I don't think that is the takeaway at all. Fair, though I think the museum scene situates and contextualizes the world of 2LOU pretty well as a lawless one divergent from the living context of our own, and what that entails for humans AS part of the animal kingdom, which I don't think entirely forecloses on an understanding of how morality between groups would play out in such a scenario. We are as distant from the complex moral interweaving of 2LOU's world as the character's themselves are from rocket ships and dinos. One of the reasons laws themselves formalized amid human civilization was to end cycles of retributive violence. Each of these realizations lends weight to the idea that people in such environments would not necessarily act as we'd expect from our domesticated vantage point.
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Jul 10, 2021 20:59
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Bust Rodd posted:ArfJason is a terminal gimmick poster whose gimmick is not ever, even one time, being funny. Just stick them on ignore, their posts are 100% white noise trollbait. I don't know, "Donald Pentium" always makes me laugh. I do disagree with him about this game though.
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Jul 10, 2021 21:11
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What are the grounds on which Mel calls Abby a piece of poo poo who shouldn't come on the escape boat? This seems to play out like she has a point since Abby doesn't challenge her, but what has Abby done beyond carry out the brutal operations of the Wolves (torture, child killing) that Mel doesn't participate in herself but has gone along with for years? I don't think Abby can be exonerated for what she's done but Mel comes off like a hypocrite here, especially when this comes just after Abby has betrayed the Wolves to save the Scars girl.
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Jul 13, 2021 07:00
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I think it’s part guilt at what happened in Jackson (she’s not against killing Joel in the abstract but the violent nature of it seems to have bothered her) and she’s putting that on Abby, and also she knows that she’s the second choice and that Owen would pick Abby if it came down to it (and he would have if not for Ellie)
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Jul 13, 2021 07:05
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she sussed out that Abby and Owen had screwed each other. that plus her own guilt by association prompted her to lash out she still could have mended that bridge later but, well, Hurricane Ellie blew in
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Jul 13, 2021 07:05
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This far in I'm struggling to care that Ellie killed any of these people. They all suck except the Scar kids.
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Jul 13, 2021 07:24
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The game does also heavily imply that abby wasnt a great person anyway before the game started, we're only seeing the redemption arc and not her pre that arc
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Jul 13, 2021 09:40
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snoremac posted:This far in I'm struggling to care that Ellie killed any of these people. They all suck except the Scar kids. I felt the same. I got what the narrative was trying to do but it didnt quite work for me
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Jul 13, 2021 09:41
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Letting go of the assumption that the game is just trying to "make you feel bad" about anything you do in it is step one in appreciating it.
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Jul 13, 2021 09:54
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veni veni veni posted:Letting go of the assumption that the game is just trying to "make you feel bad" about anything you do in it is step one in appreciating it. I like the game a lot, i just dont feel it quite managed to do what it wanted to do
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Jul 13, 2021 10:24
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If there was an explicit idea that you were meant to feel bad you killed all of Abby’s friends, it didn’t really come off as well done. They were either jerks, killed offscreen, or in the case of Owen/Mel acted too dumb in the moment.
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Jul 13, 2021 13:50
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owen was a rancid moron who did the worst possible thing at every possible juncture and had the game's worst voice actor on top of it most of 2lou's original characters are just unremarkably "nice" and lacked chemistry compared to the first game, but i would have killed owen twice if possible
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Jul 13, 2021 16:57
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Nail Rat posted:I don't know if it's too five for me but I love the first one. I just finished a third playthrough and it probably won't be the last because now I'm actually considering going for trophies (boy is it stingy with trophies).
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Jul 13, 2021 16:58
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bobjr posted:If there was an explicit idea that you were meant to feel bad you killed all of Abby’s friends, it didn’t really come off as well done. They were either jerks, killed offscreen, or in the case of Owen/Mel acted too dumb in the moment. I disagree. I never felt bad about killing any of them, mildly conflicted at times but not bad and I don't think the game set out to make me feel bad as a player. I sympathized with Ellie's plight almost wholly for her entire first section. It only changed in the second half, because I, as a player of the game was able to experience it in a way neither Ellie or Abby ever would. I don't think the game sets out to make you think Ellie is bad, or the player is bad. It sets out to make you have complicated feelings about the whole thing by showing how different Abby's perspective is.
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Jul 13, 2021 19:51
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don't get what's so bad about owen tbh 
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Jul 13, 2021 20:09
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Owen clearly sucks, but as a person, not as a character
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Jul 13, 2021 20:11
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:don't get what's so bad about owen tbh Two biggest things I have against him are his voice acting is weirdly robotic and stiff when you first meet him and are playing as Abby and also you can't be loving other people when you've already got someone pregnant and in love with you. Aside from that, good on him for becoming disillusioned with the endless war and wanting to get the gently caress out dodge first, shame he couldn't make it. Or wasn't also pregnant so you could kill him twice depending on what your opinion on him is.
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Jul 13, 2021 20:13
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RareAcumen posted:Two biggest things I have against him are his voice acting is weirdly robotic and stiff when you first meet him and are playing as Abby i know goons are bad with emotions but it's called playing coy op RareAcumen posted:and also you can't be loving other people when you've already got someone pregnant and in love with you. loving lmao BeanpolePeckerwood fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jul 13, 2021 |
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Jul 13, 2021 20:17
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Don't forget Owen is the main reason that Tommy and Ellie aren't also killed at the start. This obviously ends up not working in his favor in the long run, but he's consistently the only one who has a problem with what's happening.
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Jul 13, 2021 20:23
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This was my take on it too. If the Abby crew had maybe been more compelling or likeable then yeah i'd have had conflicting feelings about dealing with them. Instead we're supposed to just kinda get over how they mashed Joel's head in for keeping Ellie alive from a murder surgeon. Folk also rag on Joel for what he did at the end killing the leader of the fireflies and the surgeon, but seem to want to apply real current world societal norms to that situation. The game's set in a post apocalyptic world where there's no more rule of law. A person that's out to get you can and will get you with little to no repercussions save the potential of revenge. So killing them after all the lies seems like a totally pragmatic thing for Joel to have done in that situation to try and draw a line under it all before disappearing. That's also why i think Ellie should have killed Abby. Given Abby's track record, her "redemption" probably won't mean poo poo long term and she'll be back on the hunt for Ellie the moment something pisses her off enough (like if anything happened to Lev).
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Jul 13, 2021 20:41
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For all the talk about how dumb Owen is Nora was equally as dumb in her situation. I get how it would have negatively affected Ellie, but at the same time what did Nora think would happen.
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Jul 13, 2021 20:51
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:i know goons are bad with emotions but it's called playing coy op Dude sounded weird on the walk to Jackson, like, pulling Abby's attention away from looking down the cliff still stands out as weirdly delivered.bobjr posted:For all the talk about how dumb Owen is Nora was equally as dumb in her situation. I get how it would have negatively affected Ellie, but at the same time what did Nora think would happen. No one seems to understand that you can just lie to people. Just tell Ellie she's in some horribly overrun zombie area they haven't cleared out.
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Jul 13, 2021 21:27
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RareAcumen posted:No one seems to understand that you can just lie to people. Just tell Ellie she's in some horribly overrun zombie area they haven't cleared out. Shes explicitly going to get owen and mel to answer seperately so she can corroborate their answers - the same as she mentions in the hotel d1 (and joel does in winter TLOU1)
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Jul 13, 2021 21:32
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Pocky In My Pocket posted:Shes explicitly going to get owen and mel to answer seperately so she can corroborate their answers - the same as she mentions in the hotel d1 (and joel does in winter TLOU1) She found Nora in the hospital first though. Mel and Owen were last.
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Jul 13, 2021 21:40
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nearly everyone in 2lou is functioning off blind impulse and old grudges, too high-emotion to break away from their goals even when their pursuit of those goals is blatantly self-destructive. hence the moth motif spec ops the line did this better because that destructive impulse was contained entirely to walker, and the increasingly surreal environment emphasized that it was one guy's personal psychodrama. 2lou is way more grounded and that witless aggression extends to like 90% of the cast so it quickly becomes tiresome instead of compelling, especially in the final stretch, where ellie vacillates between vengeance and mercy like she's on a tilt-a-whirl just because the story needs to establish one final parallel between her and abby
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Jul 13, 2021 21:51
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Kin posted:This was my take on it too. If the Abby crew had maybe been more compelling or likeable then yeah i'd have had conflicting feelings about dealing with them. Instead we're supposed to just kinda get over how they mashed Joel's head in for keeping Ellie alive from a murder surgeon. I honestly don't think so. Months have passed since their encounter and there's no sign from Abby that she's stewing on things the way she was with Joel. She's already done the revenge thing, it didn't make her feel better, it strained her most important relationships, and before she had a chance to mend them the consequences took everything else from her. Even when Ellie shows up right in front of her she does everything she can to avoid a fight until Lev is explicitly threatened. Even then it doesn't read IMO as Abby swelling with bloodlust.
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Jul 13, 2021 21:59
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I'll be honest, I don't think I actually understood the ending. I get why Ellie was so hellbent on the mission and easy to persuade into getting back into it because I'm a good boy who checks her journal constantly but I don't really know how to explain it or anything. Like, killing Abby would lead to Lev coming after her. And if Lev kills her then more people from Jackson would come after Lev and I imagine it'd turn into another Seraphites vs WLF endless war but I don't think that was what I was supposed to think of. I just went with 'Oh, Joel died immediately the day after she had made some amount of peace with Joel's decision as was ready to maybe begin to work on forgiving him over the next however many years. No wonder it took three people saying stop and Dina being pregnant to dissuade her'
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Jul 13, 2021 22:19
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Ellie isn't thinking through any of that. She just doesn't know how to deal with her grief and with that one push from Tommy she's convinced that killing Abby is the only way to bring her peace. She's not thinking about Lev, about Jackson, about any cycle of vengeance. She's not thinking about the future at all.
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Jul 13, 2021 22:55
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christmas boots posted:Even when Ellie shows up right in front of her she does everything she can to avoid a fight until Lev is explicitly threatened. This is why I put redemption in quotation marks. I don't think she had really changed. She just shifted her rottweiler like devotion from one group of people to another. If anything happened to Lev, (just like when something happened to her dad or when something happened to her friends), I'm sure she'd go on another psycho spree, irrespective of the reason something happened to Lev.
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Jul 14, 2021 00:43
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How long have I got to go? Ellie has just left Dina at the farm and I've got control of Abby again.
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Jul 14, 2021 02:24
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snoremac posted:How long have I got to go? Ellie has just left Dina at the farm and I've got control of Abby again. You’re in the endgame. Only a few hours left I’d say depending on your skill level. If you’re really good might be like an hour
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Jul 14, 2021 03:43
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christmas boots posted:You’re in the endgame. Only a few hours left I’d say depending on your skill level. If you’re really good might be like an hour
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Jul 14, 2021 03:59
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Yeah you can definitely finish it in a night
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Jul 14, 2021 04:05
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christmas boots posted:Ellie isn't thinking through any of that. She just doesn't know how to deal with her grief and with that one push from Tommy she's convinced that killing Abby is the only way to bring her peace. She's not thinking about Lev, about Jackson, about any cycle of vengeance. She's not thinking about the future at all. Oh yeah I know she's not thinking that far ahead, I was just wondering if I was overthinking things.
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Jul 14, 2021 20:55
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when ellie says 'just take him' at the end she sure as poo poo ain't talking about lev, and only her sudden fingerstumps served to jailbreak her mind
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Jul 14, 2021 21:50
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:when ellie says 'just take him' at the end she sure as poo poo ain't talking about lev Yeah, I definitely didn't think that when I beat it.
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Jul 14, 2021 22:05
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RareAcumen posted:Yeah, I definitely didn't think that when I beat it. it's kind of the whole point of the ending shot, and the entire reason she lets abby live, and the whole theme of the game
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Jul 14, 2021 22:47
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Having finished, I had a good time but this won't leave a lasting impression on me like the first game. A point of the game is revenge is destructive to those around you and isn't a cure for grief, which I'd be fine with if Ellie's grief was handled in a similar way to Joel's. For Joel it hovers in the background and isn't a motivation for his journey. It colours his developing relationship with Ellie and then explodes in such a shocking way that it's more viscerally felt. It also makes you reflect on his past actions to make more plain how dubious a guy he is. TLoU2 tries to sustain the same emotion over 40 hours and it's clear with every beat where it's going and what point is being made. There's no surprises beyond minute to minute plot developments. But I really liked the scene with the lamb that captured her trauma so well.
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Jul 15, 2021 03:01
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Yeah, I've seen some people think it's unrealistic that Ellie would leave to get Abby one last time based on a somewhat vague clue, but the lamb scene is really good at selling how she still isn't over things or able to put it behind her and work on moving on. It's most likely better than the planned hunting scene where she kills a boar that sounds like Joel. It also didn't help that Tommy was the one that set her up for it.
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Jul 15, 2021 03:31
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