Michael Williams

The game spits (metaphorically and literally) on the characters we've grown to love in the first game. N.D. clearly didn't understand that it wasn't some convoluted theme that made the first game so great, but the journey that Ellie and Joel went on. Their interactions felt organic. There wasn't shock factor plot twists for the sake of having shock factor plot twists. This game does everything it can to shock you because it seems N.D. can't comprehend that people actually like well-written stories about growth and family. Spoilers for an example (and here on out) of how badly the characters are handled in this game: Ellie and Jessie are looking for Tommy. Ellie agrees the whole time that Tommy is priority. They get to Tommy, and all of a sudden Ellie is furious with Jessie for not wanting to kill Abby and choosing to focus on getting Tommy out of there. Characters change personality on a whim so that the story has a reason to keep going, because if any of these characters stayed true to their TLOU1 selves then there wouldn't have even been a story. Joel is oddly trusting of random strangers he just met, even though the first game established that he knows way better than to ever let himself be known to strangers. Tommy held people at gunpoint for wanting to enter his settlement, yet in this game he offers people to come in and stock up on ammo, knowing full well they could just use it to kill him. That's just a fraction of the poor writing in this game. I don't understand why all these 5 star reviews aren't "reviewbombing", despite being a clear effort to save the game when all the bad reviews like mine are giving cohesive reasoning and evidence as to why this game deserves what it does. Sure, it looks pretty and has good sound, but I'm playing a game like this for the story over anything. Oh, one final note: The live action epilogue they did years ago was declared to be the ending of Joel and Ellie's story (you can find the quote on the wiki page). That alone proves this game was just a cash grab by Naughty Dog.