Ellie: I can't forgive a random guy who calls me a mean word but I sure can forgive the person who killed my only father figure. 10/10 masterpiece

Best comment I've seen about this; "This is a game about right and wrong made by people who think they are always right."

I could understand Ellie realising at the last moment that revenge isn't what she really wanted and choosing to let Abby go... if she hadn't just tracked Abby across multiple states and killed over 300 people to get to her

" There was a sequel. Wasn't very good " - Joel

Hero: murders a thousand mooks. Gets to main villain: "If I kill you, I'll be just like you."

Notice how absolutely no one talks about this game anymore, while the first game was talked about positively for 7 freaking years.

Just imagine John Wick goes through the entire movie killing mobsters but at the end he spares the guy who killed his dog.

What pisses me off is all the people basically act like it's guaranteed that they'd find a cure. All the fireflys are like "she would want this", why not fucking ask her to be sure?

Can you believe that Ellie fell in love with a girl that happened to be bisexual and at the same time pregnant with her ex boyfriend's baby that would die later so Ellie and Dîna can have a baby of their own, a happy lesbian couple living in a farm in a post apocalyptic world... This has got to be some next level fan fiction writing

"No one wins" Abby did. She killed Joel and got away with it.

Joel absolutely WOULDNT trust a group of strangers so quickly. He would not do that. That’s my problem. He WOULDNT do that.

Joel legit saved abbys life, you think if abby had even half a brain she could see Joel is not this heartless animal she thinks him of

“Ellie’s gay by the way” - The Drinker

The Last of Us 2 is such a bad game that a movie reviewer had to criticize it.

Holy carp! The idea about Tommy convincing Gigantor that he's Joel and giving his life for his big brother sounds powerful af!

Joel's biggest downfall? Trusting a woman who looks like She-Hulk...... We waited 7 years for that. The whole story behind a fucking sequel should not in any way be over A RANDOM CHARACTER, murdering THE BELOVED PROTAGONIST...

If you’re trying to tell a story about how revenge and murder are dehumanizing, maybe don’t force the player to wade through an ocean of bodies and blood only to suddenly forgive the final boss

The Last of Us 2 Summary: Revenge is bad, life is sad, Ellie is gay btw.

My biggest problem with this game is not necessarily that Joel was killed off (although I still don't like it), it is that the game forces you to play half of it as his killer.

Ok but there’s a bigger plot hole that you missed. Where does Abby get her steroids from in a post apocalyptic world. Surely the devs didn’t think that we would believe a woman can look like that naturally? Wait…

They were animals, so I slaughtered them like animals. Not only the men, but also the women who had done nothing against me, and also their pets; but I saved Gigantor who savagely killed my parent figure in front of me.

Imagine if John Wick ended with John Wick forgiving the guy who killed his dog.

Last of Us 2 should have been a completely new story following New characters. They could've dipped into the early struggles of the outbreak and the creation of safe zones, or the fireflies. Maybe even do a story about ppl on their own journey that either come across happenings from the first game like environmental changes or witnessing events from a distance and choosing not to get involved. If done right u could string it out to allude to a possible meet up in future games. Could have your actions drag Joel & Ellie into getting involved.

The funniest thing about this game is how quickly it was sent to the clearance sale bargain bin. Within a month, game resale stores were inundated with TLOU2 copies that they had to put the kibosh on accepting them.

This is a stolen comment but I wanna leave it here for all to ponder: “It’s strange times we live in when a God of War sequel is making a better story about the bond between a father and their child and the values of strength, survival, determination, love, wisdom and forgiveness than a sequel to The Last of Us.” Let that sink in.

Gamers: "We want better game mechanics" Druckmann: "You want better gay mechanics, say no more"

Looks to me like the game also suffers from a classic modern trope. 'Selective Empathy'. You're supposed to care about Abbey, her life, her revenge and its consequences to the point where you understand why Elly doesn't kill her. But what about all the others she kills? The game seems to ignore that story-wise, those are all people too. With hopes, dreams, fears and souls. Snuffed out like they didn't even exist. What the developer forgot is that you can't have it both ways. You can't have a violent, murderous setting where people are offed left right and centre to then U-turn and have an emotional story about forgiveness, revenge bad and letting go. That's why the first game works, it knows this and doesn't spin you a tale about morality because both characters aren't afforded the luxury of morals most of the time. Kill or be killed, that was the rule. This trope returns in many games and movies these days and it's annoying because you have to turn your brain off and not think about the many murders committed and find compassion in your heart for the one character you *do* have a reason to loathe.

I will never preorder a game again after this. It’s two years and I still cannot forgive those fuckers for killing Joel. And really, killing him just to advance “the message” The most beautiful two characters together in any game where Joel and Elli Together and they completely destroyed it

Love how Ellie kills everyone who were just there when Joel was getting killed and spared the one who actually killed Joel.

“Is this a story that really needed to be told?” - The Critical Drinker About sums up my feelings.

Imagine sitting there for hours, exploring, leveling/boosting up, and acquiring resources for the main protagonist of the game while hunting down the antagonist and killing her cronies... Now, imagine halfway through, the game forces you to play, explore, level/boost up, and acquire weapons and resources for that same antagonist you've just spent hours prepping to kill... How dumb. Now, imagine spending hours upon hours finally getting to the final fight of the game, just to not finish what you started. The Last Waste of Time: Part II.

It's weird that none of the google results say anything positive about Joel's decision, google results also claim that last of us 2 is great game yet I find comment sections full of people defending Joel's decision and whenever I look for similar games to play, part 2 is never there. Honestly, after seeing countless woke movies where even negative reviews are censored (looking at you rings of powers), I start to think that results in google are not fully natural

Thought provoking narratives: Offer up a moral conundrum, and have a character choose one of these 2 evils, with the immediate and far reaching consequences being left up to the player to ponder upon whether the decision made was the right one. Uninspired and boring narratives: Revenge bad. Why revenge bad? Gigantor get revenge, then revenge good. But other girl get revenge? No good. Revenge mean lose fingers, no play guitar and wife take baby. Revenge. Bad.

Ellie "no stop she's pregnant" Abby "good" And we're meant to sympathize with this character?

This game felt like a fever dream when I played it. It is one of the best games I have ever played. Everything about its gameplay, graphics, and environments was perfect. But the story was so unbelievably bad, so enragingly horrible, I just couldn't believe it was from the same game I was enjoying playing so much. The whole story felt like that scene from Bojack Horseman, where Bojack wants to separate his name from his old sitcom. So he gets high and makes a pilot to a new show, where he literally takes a shit on his old sitcom's DVD. Trying to show that he's capable of being mature and edgy. That's kinda what it feels like ND is doing with The Last of Us, only they didn't sober up and realize just how fucking stupid the whole thing was after the fact.

Amy Hennig was forced out of Naughty Dog for not being feminist enough. Thanks Neil Druckman. Let's reiterate that. A woman who earned everything she had was bullied by a privileged, nepotistic white man into leaving her dream job. A woman who proved herself with her own talents had a horrible career setback by a man who thought too highly of himself. Amy Hennig greatly contributed to The Legacy of Kain, Jak & Daxter, and The Last of Us. Video game stories that are subversive and informative. Neil Druckman is responsible for TLoU Part II. A game that is more divisive than a calculator. I can only assume that Neil got Amy ousted because she isn't particularly good looking.

Gigantor doesn’t kill Ellie because she has the script. She knows Ellie will eventually save her and let her escape. She’s a genius!

- I don't like this game. - Why don't you like gay people? - No. I said, I don't like this game. - Why do you hate trans people? - No! I said I don't like this game. - Why do you like Trump? - NO I SAID...

Gameplay: ✅ Everything else: ❌

TLOU Ellie : "This can't all be for nothing" TLOU2 Ellie : "Actually I guess it can"

only problem with this review is that I think you should’ve clarified Ellie’s sexuality, I’m still incredibly confused

"This is Abby, a theoretical woman..." - One of the best descriptions yet

I had a chuckle when she said 'Bigot sandwich'. In a world gone to hell you'd think a word like that wouldn't even be part of people's vocabulary. Ellie must of found an old Iphone with the Young Turks and other SJW podcasts on it.

I watched this back when you first released it but it's only again after playing the game that I am amazed with the fact that you came up with not one, not two, but 4 significantly better plot lines then what they decided to go with in the game.

"but I'm gonna call her Gigantor, because I'm an immature asshole and it makes me laugh! haha!" Best quote ever. Honesty is so refreshing!

"Pulled your finger out of Dina" bruh this dude a savage

Man the very fact that you've referenced Metal Gear Solid must be applauded. That series features such marvelous writing and character development which really hit a crescendo with Snake Eater. Good analysis in your video as well..

I'm just going to pretend part 2 never occurred. It's better this way.

I'm starting to really despise this trend of killing main characters from previous entries in a franchise in demeaning ways.

I shall forever call Abby as Gigantor.

Another thing that ruins the game is what seems to be Neil’s personal views shoved into the game. I remember when the leak happened, the enemies were going to be “homophobic christians”, something that seems to have been changed or altered, albeit not too much. And there were rumors that in the TV show, all the bad guys were going to be exclusively men. Don’t know if that’s going to be changed. And Neil’s self-insert……….how can a game dev make an insert of himself AND have it disrespect a main Character’s death so much?

"Ellie’s gay by the way" IGN 10/10

....heavily pregnant woman who goes into battle where she can be either killed or taken as a prisoner, the last of brain cells 2.

"Because Gigantor beat her fingers off for the massive protein hits."

Now imagine a post credit scene where Ellie wakes up, Joel is sitting beside her, Ellie breaks down and explains everything and Joel, trying to comfort her, says “Part 2? Just a bad dream, kiddo”.

Why is nobody mentioning the fact that this is not in fact a cycle of meaningless violence? Abby is a murderer who deserves to be brought to justice. On the other hand Joel is completely justified in his actions, because the Fireflies never obtained either his or Ellie’s consent for the procedure, what they are attempting would be recognised as murder by any civilised justice system. Therefore what Ellie is seeking is justice, not revenge. Justice recognises that some violence is necessary to prevent immoral people (like Abby and her friends) from committing immoral acts, either by sentence of death or imprisonment. Abby and her friends deserved to be punished because what they did was morally wrong. Ellie did not deserve what happened to her at all, and her, Tommy, and Joel all deserved to have justice done.

The Joel in the first game legit ran over a guy on the street that was pretending to be injured because he assumed he was faking it and was familiar with these kind of tricks because of his past. He didn't even hesitate when he did it.

The Last of Us 3: Ellie gets eaten by a bear and you watch her corpse decompose for 10 hours. Meanwhile, Gigantor finally becomes a real woman, only to realize she's Ellie's mother from another timeline. Also, dancing deer.

I still can’t get over plot’s stupidity. At least you could make it about someone close to Marlene who wasn’t a npc

Abby killing Joel in the intro is like a random Uruk killing Aragorn in the intro of Two Towers coz Aragorn killed that Uruk's dad.

The unceremonious murder of the previous male hero to promote a female one with no personality seems to be a common theme of 2015 - 2022.

I mean she could have just tuned the guitar to drop D then she'd only need one finger to play some sick power chords

The second "Nah it'll be fine" @ 7:05 gets me all the time😂😂😂😂😂😂

2 years later, but here we go - my biggest issue with the game - imagine you’re driving home, you stop at a gas station, you get a call from a close person, he / she tells you that one of your family members has just died, as you’re about to enter your car, some random guy asks you if you can help him change his tire cause it's an emergency- this random guy can be the best human that ever lived - you probably won’t help him, currently you don’t care about him, his life, where he has to go since he needs his tire changed asap, you just want to be with people you do care about.... simillar situation is in this game - we follow ellie throughout entire first game, for the first half of second game, we care about her, her story, her problems, her friends etc... we then have to put all of that on hold and have abby (who we most likely hate by now) and her friends, her story, her problems and all of her other stuff shoved down our throats.... just how exactly does that make sense.... i get it they want us to see things from her perspective, but there are million better ways to do that than ''stop thinking about characters you like immediately, lose all the emotional connections you have with them as well as negative emotions you have towards this character we want yo to empathise with and be a clean slate'' .... not only is that impossible for any non-sociopath, but it just so happens that joel and ellie's relationship from the first game was million times better done than whatever they did with abby.... also ''seeing things from other people's perspective, so we can empathise with them'' doesnt automatically mean ''i'm siding with that person''.... if my child needs kidney transplant and some other guy's kid needs one as well and it's either my child or his - should i ''see things from his perspective'' and decide ''you know what, this is a good guy, his son needs a kidney, i'm gonna let my kid die''....? (also i'll add what i add in every of my tlou2 comments - the first one had perfect ending, the devs messed up the moment they started poking it with a stick)

Killing 100 people? Totally justified Killing the one who actually murdered your Dad? No... no that's too far...

The Red Dead series pushes the “revenge bad” plot 1000 times better.

One of the writing "rules" I learned was that you can use an improbable coincidence to get your character into trouble, but not out of it. However I see this principal broken so many times and it's maddening. What a cheap way out for writers. I'm glad you called it out.

To make it easy I just don’t consider the last of us two canon, works like a charm

Original: The last of us Sequel: The lack of us fans II

"See, there was a sequel. Wasn't as good." - Joel Miller

After having played this a few times, I’ve come to feel that its main flaw was in its structure. Had we begun the game as Abby discovering her fallen father and built up many hours to growing with her struggles until meeting Joel, I doubt there would’ve been such resistance to his death. Or at least it would have been understood. But if you’re going to simply kill him right off the bat in the most brutal and disrespectful manner by a complete stranger whose motivations have not been established after many players had spent time playing him protecting, getting to know, and coming to love Ellie, and then demand players to jump in her shoes after that fact, of _course_ people will hate her, and no amount of trying to make the player empathize with her after that would ever be enough. Players will refuse on general principle. Perhaps that was the point, that the game is a type of empathy experiment to see how many could overcome such bias, but I think it was a failure in narrative structure before it even began and should have been shot down at the conceptual stage. Many players hated Abby so much they lost all interest in even playing the game due to disgust, which was perfectly understandable, and Neil should have understood this. Forcing us to fight Ellie as the murderer of the one we invested dozens of hours in playing as protecting and growing to know her was nothing but incredibly insulting and came off as a slap in the face to the fans, nigh borderline contemptuous of them. You can’t underestimate the power of player investment and attachment to established characters. That’s something you honor and protect, not betray and exploit.

My biggest problem with the story was that when Ellie goes to get revenge on Abby, the main theme of the story is "Seeking Revenge will only take you down a path of endless pain", but when you play as Abby this is switched around entirely. The fact of the matter is that Ellie and Abby are ultimately guilty of the same things, but we're supposed to see Ellie as being morally reprehensible, and Abby as morally righteous.

Abby: Who are you? Joel: My name is Nathan and this is my brother Sam. *END CREDITS*

Ellie is gay by the way. Just wanted to let everyone know in case someone missed it.

As a man, Gigantor's biceps made me kind of jealous.

I think we all knew Ellie was gay from the Left Behind DLC from the first game. As to Abby, it would have been better story telling if she had more emotion than a brick wall (and she didn't murder Joel so brutally), the fact that the game makes us play AS her for about 10-15 hours really annoyed me to the point of if I happened to die to being cornered by a Clicker, I was like "oh no, Abby died" in the most sarcrastic voice possible. I felt more attached to her dog, Huey I think his name is, Lev and his sister, and Manny than Abby herself. The game beats us over the head with the idea that Ellie and Joel are bad and Abby is good, but when your supposed "good" character feels no remorse for killing innocents (ie. Dina after learning she is pregnant), yeah, there is no attachment to that character, AT ALL. EDIT: Another factor that annoyed me was that in the first game, Ellie's immunity was a huge part of the story, but in the second it barely gets a mention and only because Dina witnesses Ellie breathing spores after she loses her mask, then it gets swept under the rug like it wasn't that big a deal.

Wasn't this supposed to be a zombie apocalypse game?

"This is Abby. A theoretical woman." Lol.

I remember when this game came out!! Wow.. The shock and confusion and amazement of the gameplay were just epic.. Looking back, it is still 1 of the most tragic video game stories I've ever seen.

All of your alternate scenarios for the plot are so much better than what we got. They are not only clever, but they are emotionally and morally fulfilling. Last of Us 2 bothers me greatly because it mirrors the worse aspects of humanity, the "my clan" over anyone who opposes us, even if we are in the wrong and our clan is the moral bad guys. It is the state of politics we watch every night on the news.

“Ellie’s gay by the way” This game in a nutshell

"Bit her fingers off for the massive protein hit" . Pure gold. XD

I am just going to pretend this game never happened and go on with my head canon of what I thought this game would be. Joel and Ellie return to the settlement of Jackson to enjoy the initial beauty of a tight knit post apocalyptic community living in an environment not ruined by the ravages of man. But the realities of survival begin to weigh on them both, especially Ellie, because there is a reason why there is a genre called survival horror. Ellie grows increasingly bitter about the world she lives in, and more deeply mourns the one she lost. Joel is forced to watch Ellie and the rest of the community suffer with increasing guilt that he single handily robbed them of a chance to escape it. It builds to a point where Joel is forced to relive the horror of losing his daughter again, but this time Ellie is dying of a disease that would have been banal to deal with in the world they lost. Joel goes on another quest to find what’s needed to save Ellie, but in doing do is forced to abandon Ellie and the community, with no way of knowing what their fate might be. During this time Ellie recovers, and goes after Joel in the hopes of finding home bringing him home before this dangerous quest kills him. Ultimately she is unsuccessful, reaching Joel, but too late to save him, or even let him know that she lived. Joel dies fighting a group of infected which would have killed Ellie, but is ultimately unaware that he has saved her again.

Video games do NOT need sex scenes. It is the lowest kind of pandering.

Almost 1 year later and the game is completely irrelevant. No one talks about it anymore while the first part left a huge impression on gamers for several years.

Myself from some years ago would agree with you that "taking risks" needs to be praised, but now my very cynical myself can't stop thinking that that concept is used often to justify lazy writing. Still great analysis Drinker

After about 2 yrs i can finally say that it just feels abrupt… like killing all the npcs its not like ellie’s emotions change or her moves get more lazy like imagine if in the later part of the game you couldnt set an enemy on fire or like your melee gets more sloppy because you are tired but there is nothing its like they expect the players to think ellie sees gigantor’s life like we do

They should have given us her back story and shown us her character development before she killed Joel. Starting her story off brutally killing him makes her unredeemable in our eyes.

This game feels like a fan fiction from someone who really, really hated the first part

"Ellie is Gay by the way." - The Critical Drinker 2020.

I've never been so dissatisfied, disappointed, and pissed off at a game in my life.

This is the greatest review I’ve ever seen. How have I never heard of channel before?

Luke: I'm going to die a pointless death to subvert expectations while angering my core fans. Joel: FORE!!!

This game took risks in an idiotic way. Like sending a pregnant woman to the frontline. They just did it to do it. It felt all so very unearned and unreasonable.

This is the most honest review of this game I've seen. Totally balances the good, bad and ugly. 100% truth!

I will never accept how they treated Joel in this game. They turned a hero from the 1st game into a villain on the 2nd. If they give him an arc which made him a true villain, it'll be ok; but not like this

First game Ellie: “I’m afraid of ending up alone.” Second game Ellie: *ends up alone*

The only thing bigger than Abby’s arms was the mistake they call “the story”.

Hey Drinker, long time viewer, first-time posting a comment. I agree with all of your points, especially about the ending of the first game and whether or not we needed part 2 at all. In fact I think of all the videos people have been made about this game, I feel your video has done well at looking at both sides of the arguments (for or against the game). As someone who loves both games I agree about how brave the second game was and I liked how it showed that after the end of the first one, they didn't "live happily ever after". Living "happily ever after" to me would have felt out of place with the world they'd presented in the first game. LOU part 2 isn't a perfect game, but overall I enjoyed playing it. Playing as Abby caught me off guard, but in the end I thought it was a creative thought-provoking way of making me think about how the villain is in their own mind the hero of the story. The Ellie fight as Abby was really challenging, and the tension of thinking "I might just kill Ellie" was something else. Also, Joel's unglamorous death felt closer to real life for me since in real life, true heroes don't always have a glamorous death and aren't always given the glory they deserve. I thought that was an interesting choice, and brave. In the end the game left me with a lot to think about. Anyway, that's all I've got to say, I'll go away now...