TwoLoo

I’ll preface by saying I never read the books. This show was initially very captivating, I like that the main character isn’t some blonde bombshell, shes still beautiful but it’s refreshing that she’s not stereotypically, overwhelmingly hot and sexualized. I like the cast (especially Ben Barnes) but was kind of confused about the supposed ‘crows’ storyline? It seems like Inej is a trained assassin but for some reason is inexplicably afraid to kill? I have no idea what was going on with Nina and Matthias (and Matthias’s actor had a horrible accent). The effects of the show were great and the powers and everything were very cool but the storyline became predictable fast (which can sometimes be okay) but then Alina just gradually becomes the worst character ever! She plays the stereotypical ‘damsel in distress’ and effectively proves to be both naive and useless. I’ve seen other commenters mention this is a pretty typical YA female character which is true, it’s just disheartening to see female characters that are supposed to be strong and independent lose all of their built-upon traits over silly things. Like we really got to see all of that history between her and Mal just to have her throw it all away because she couldn’t possibly fathom that they were interjecting her snail mail???? What’s up with that?! And let’s be real the love triangle move is SO old, it gives very big Peeta VS. Gale vibes. She gave up on her obviously intended romance with Mal so fast and she didn’t even try to contact him past the letters so it was pretty weak. I watched the whole show and it had some good things, but my big takeaway is that I wish Alina as a character wasn’t so insufferable.

*SPOILERS* * As a whole, this game was just a big NO. The early death of Joel didn’t shake me quite as much as it did for some but I was really hoping that since they killed him how they did (very brutal and unforgiving) that they would at least make it worthwhile and trigger a good story for Ellie. They did not. The revenge mission makes sense but Ellie takes it way too far and ends up brutalizing an entire group of people that end up being rather innocent in all of this. Taking on the new character of Abby is poorly done, and makes the game drag on immensely. By the end, you’ve done more gameplay as Abby than Ellie (at least it seems that way). On this note, there seems to be more cut-scenes than actual game play as well, so the game really just feels like a badly directed movie. 2 things that seemed remarkably useless in this game: having to play the guitar multiple times to progress the plot and the abundance of random, unrelated notes that are left in excess throughout the game. The guitar is cute to show Ellie’s connection to Joel the first time, but we really do not need guitar-gameplay multiple times throughout a zombie apocalypse game... this isn’t Guitar Hero. As for the notes, they would be cool if they followed only one or 2 storylines that could kind of be Easter eggs throughout the game, but instead it’s a slew of random people leaving notes that we will never relate to or feel anything for, as they never become relevant. I’m very disappointed to see a lot of the blatant hatred/discomfort towards LGBTQ groups on this list of reviews as I feel that there were things FAR worse about this game. As an LGBTQ supporter, the way they played out Ellie//Dina’s lesbian relationship as well as Lev’s transgender storyline was pathetic and forced. We see 0 chemistry between Ellie and Dina basically throughout the whole game. They immediately start calling each other “babe” and take off into a serious relationship when we don’t even know who Dina is or anything about her!? It’s a joke trying to make the relationship seem likeable from a player perspective because even if you did it with a male character and made Ellie straight it would still seem cringeworthy. Lev being transgender is fine and at least they don’t dwell on it for too long. I like the representation but this is STILL a zombie apolcaplyse and there are definitely more pressing things going on that need attention. The big bad Isaac gets shots (perhaps killed?) in a stand-off and we never hear anything about it ever again. A woman who is visibly pregnant goes into severe, dangerous, combat for reasons unknown and then gives a lecture about “looking out for the kids”. And the ending where Tommy (who has experienced as much horror and trauma as Ellie) comes to Ellie years later after the Abby face-off and guilt trips her/shames her into taking off on her new family makes 0 sense with Tommy’s character. The ending of the game was ridiculous, way too long, and overall waste of time. I wish I could give this 0 stars but the one good thing I will say is that the game is obviously beautiful/aestetchially pleasing.