How I Feel About The Last of Us Part II as a Viewer.

I almost never talk about games on my blog, but TLOU's story has a special place in my heart. There are some games where I refuse to watch because I'm hoping I'll experience it myself one day (Half Life: Alyx, Death Stranding) but I couldn't wait for TLOU.

I'll start by saying that I never played the first TLOU or TLOU2. I have, however, watched the game plays mostly uncut by players on YouTube. Does that make my review or how I think about the game irrelevant? Probably. But I just wanted to share my feelings after experiencing TLOU2 as an audience of a let's play.

Since I never actually played both of these games, I will be focusing on the story, the world and the characters of TLOU. I would also like to mention that I'm not a professional game reviewer, just a random person from Malaysia that likes storytelling in games. I just wanted to share my feelings about the game.

Sorry if my thoughts are all over the place.

The First Last of Us

Like many others, I believe TLOU deserves to be called a masterpiece. The first game sets Joel and Ellie on an adventure as unlikely partners, and how they slowly strengthen their bond through various events easily makes most of us attached to these characters.

At the ending of the first game where Joel decided humanity can screw itself by saving Ellie left me shocked.

I know Joel is a horrible person if you just think about all the things he had done. He killed and tortured countless lives to survive, and ultimately, he denied the world a fighting chance against the infection just because he doesn't want to lose another daughter figure. Is he selfish? Yes, but I can understand his actions.

Ellie's unconvinced 'okay' left me in a bittersweet state—I'm happy that Joel saves his surrogate daughter, which means their adventure can possible continue. But at the same time, I know deep down Ellie will never fully trust Joel anymore.

The moral ambiguity behind Joel's decision and the unclear 'was it a happy or sad ending?' is what I think makes the first game leagues better and different from other games. No game has made me feel so conflicted and yet, alright with the story's ending.

Part II After 7 Years

When there was news about a sequel, I was excited and hyped. Based on their record of delivering amazing stories like TLOU and Uncharted 4, I was confident in Naughty Dog for another unforgettable journey

Even while people are freaking about the released trailers and then a story leak, I decided to take it with a grain of salt. I avoided all spoilers as I didn't want to let others influence my opinion before experiencing the game myself, even if I'm just a viewer of another person's let's play.

/// TLOU2 SPOILERS AHEAD ///

Right at the start of the game, we witness Joel's brutal death done by the Abby with a golf club.

Gosh, seeing that scene made me let out a cry. I was devastated and especially angry at Abby for killing the person that saved her from zombies, and in such cruel way. And when Ellie couldn't save him and watched him die, my heart broke for Ellie.

I'm not going to argue about how Joel is out of character for him to reveal his name to bunch of strangers, but I guess that's the death that Naughty Dog thinks Joel deserves. Even if Joel didn't save Abby, the rest of the Abby's gang would probably find another way to murder him.

One needs to understand that this is a harsh world they're living in, where the rule 'kill, or be killed' applies. Not everyone gets a comfortable death—not Joel, not Abby's father, or the thousand other NPCs you killed along the way.

With Joel's death, Ellie is now on the quest of revenge, as she try to hunt down Abby to avenge her surrogate father even though she said she could never forgive him (but she'll try) the day before he died. Tagging along with her is Dina and later Jesse, and you get to learn bit and pieces of the Washington Liberation Front (WLF) and 'Scars'when you encounter these faction.

To get to Abby, Ellie killed many of Abby's friends and comrades. I didn't feel sorry for any of these characters, because I didn't know much about them. I only had the hint that Abby liked Owen and Owen got Mel pregnant.

Eventually, Abby hunts Ellie down and kills Jesse (I'm sad he died he was a chill character and ASIAN REPRESENT). But the scene stops before anyone could kill another, putting such a intense moment to a halt. And what happened next made me deeply upset—we get to play as Joel's ruthless killer, Abby.

Not only was I upset, I was furious. I couldn't understand why Naughty Dog wanted us to play as Joel's killer. To learn her story and sympathise with her? To learn the organisation that planned Joel's death and forgive them? Unfortunately, in my mind, Abby has the label 'Joel's murderer' on her forehead right from the start, and she left such a bad impression on me that I can't possibly switch to her side.

While playing as Abby we learn more about WLF and their war with the Seraphites. I'll admit the WLF base is freaking cool, even if I thought their leader, Issac was creepy. At this part of the game, I'm glad to got to learn more about the other factions and characters. I got to learn more about Abby's side of  her story, which calmed me down a bit and made me understand her point of view. I am also happy there were more Asian characters like Yara and Lev.

What I think Naughty Dog was trying to achieve at this part of the game is to make us see that Abby's side of the story mirrors to Ellie in many ways. Both girls are brought up in a harsh world, they both had a father figure that they loved very much, and there's a love triangle drama going on with a pregnant lady. I.. can understand what Naughty Dog was trying to do, I guess.

However, I later realised that this section doesn't matter at all to me. It has nothing to do with Jackson, nothing to do with Ellie and her quest, and it's just separate campaign. Although learning more about Abby made me understand her more, I still can't put what she had done to Joel and Ellie behind me. There fact that Abby is Joel's killer still remains, and saving little kids can't erase her deed, at least for me.

I think Naughty Dog has decided to throw everything that made fans of TLOU fans—the dynamic between Joel and Ellie—out of the window in the second game. By killing Joel from the start and making players play as Abby, they basically got rid of everything we loved, which makes this section of the game so difficult for many people to play. And with the fact that it has nothing to do with Ellie, makes it so much less engaging.

I just can't understand why they thought this was a good idea. It was like fans paid for the sequel to play a separate campaign with different characters. Even if you were never attached to the characters from the first game, Abby's campaign feels like a filler episode that explains the world around them. It has nothing to do with Ellie and her quest.

With the constant flashbacks and time traveling, the whole game feels disorganised. I felt like they could have done a better job reorganising the story parts to make the game flow better. For example, they could introduce Abby's friends and their drama first before showing how Ellie killed them. If we knew from the start that they were going to die, we wouldn't bother to get to know them or get attached to them.

After Abby lets go of Dina and Ellie, we learned that the couple left Jackson to stay at the farm. I was  unsatisfied Abby won the fight against Ellie but I was beginning to accept that maybe this whole revenge thing has to end. Both Abby and Ellie has lost so much already, and even though I support Ellie more than Abby, I was tired of all the killing.

But then Tommy decides to stir things up and set Ellie to kill Abby again. At this point, I sincerely do not care anymore. I don't give a shit who kills who because I'm emotionally tired and just want this story to end.

What's the Point?

In the end, Ellie couldn't end Abby's life and lost everything. I can understand why people were pissed—Ellie killed so many people to get to Abby only to let her go in the end. It's unsatisfying, I totally understand. But I think why decided to went ahead with this is because Naughty Dog wasn't just trying to make a game, they were trying to send a message.

You can find many people interpreting as 'revenge is bad' or 'it's Ellie's way of forgiving Joel', but my first thought after taking the time to digest the game was 'if you're going to pick at old wounds, you're gonna get hurt'.

The act of Joel killing Abby's father is unforgivable, there's no denying that. But Abby and the old Fireflies' obsession to get revenge caused their downfall. They were fine at WLF, they had high ranks and could live comfortably in a post-apocalyptic world, but they wanted to settle the score with a person that they weren't even sure how he looked like.

Tommy and Ellie clearly treasures Joel, which is why they wanted to seek revenge. But similar to Abby, they couldn't let go of all the anger and lost the people closest to them. Not only did they lose their partners, but they lost an eye and two fingers respectively.

I won't say they will live happily ever after if they stayed put, but I think they wouldn't have to go through so much agonising emotional, mental and physical pain if they weren't so hell-bent on revenge.

I was really disappointed when Ellie left her guitar behind as it was the only thing that ties her back to Joel. But in my opinion, I think she did it to move on from all the anger and feelings of betrayal she had from the relationship she had with Joel. I think she was looking forward to a life without Joel and leave it all behind, as sad as it may sound.

How I Felt

In the first game, I felt like I was on a journey with Ellie and Joel in an post-apocalyptic world. In the second game, I felt like I was in a class and Naughty Dog was the teacher trying to teach me a lesson about forgiveness.

Even if I ignore the things I don't like about the story and the character developments, I was still frustrated from the beginning to the end. By the end of the game, I was emotionally tired because Naughty Dog wanted me to.

And that is something I don't understand. Why do you want to make your players frustrated? Why do you want them to feel miserable?

Even if you're trying to send a message to the players, make it worth the pain and suffering. Instead all we had was a horribly sad ending where our characters loses everything. There is no hope at the end of this game, and the tragedy of all this is that Naughty Dog wants it this way. The game is dark because they want to make this game dark, not because there was a good, dark story to tell.

Regarding to the LGBTQ aspects of the game, I don't really care. I don't care whatever sexuality the characters has or if they're trans or not (I didn't even think Abby was trans), because what matters to me is their personality and their character development. I am, however, not a fan of all the love triangle drama.

After everything I said, do I think TLOU2 is a bad game? No. But is it a masterpiece? Also no.

Here's what I think, if you managed to make half of your audience disappointed with what you've put out, I think you have failed. I don't think everyone agreed TLOU was a masterpiece, but it was the majority. Right now TLOU has managed to split the viewers exactly in half, and that isn't a good sign.

Trying to defend a game by saying people couldn't understand art and deep storytelling is bullshit. It means you failed to understand your target audience, and are butthurt when your product failed to meet expectations.

But no matter what I say, it doesn't matter. Naughty Dog envisioned TLOU2 to be that way and stuck  with their guts. They had super high expectations to hit and I respect their decision to go ahead with what they believe was right, even if most of us didn't like it.

Do I regret learning the story of TLOU2? Nope. But if there's TLOU3, I don't thinking I will be as excited. In my opinion, they could have just left TLOU the way it is—at the top and as a masterpiece.