Daniel Petrich

Spolier: In short, the gameplay is good, the environments are beautiful. HOWEVER, all of this is ruined by an atrocious story. No one is angered at them purely by the fact Joel dies. It is the MANNER IN WHICH HE DIED. It had absolutely no continuity from the entire first game. It is as if they forgot the extremely complex character they created which made the first game so great. He turned into a 'cookie cutter' character so they could further Ellie's story, which at times is actually enjoyable if you can forget/forgive how they killed off Joel and just think up a scenario for yourself in which he died. When you kill off a loved character, it is very tricky. Not everyone will like it. As producers though, you have to try and find a way to do it so that it does not BREAK the entire first game. New Joel would not be the protagonist in the first one. He would have died in Pittsburgh plain and simple. He probably would have died well before the events of the first game. They executed a beloved death extremely poorly. They did things simply for 'shock' value and it lacks in a lot of regards what made the story of the first one so great. First one had complex themes and subtle nuances that just drew you in. You really felt invested with every character and when certain ones died, you felt heartache, sadness, and in some cases relief. Every emotion was present and powerful. This one, not really any subtlety, not so much for nuances either. Cookie cutter plot lead to what I call a 'plot' driven death, not really one that aligns with character. The kicker, was it a 'plot' death for a background character? No. They killed a beloved character purely to emit emotion. They didn't really think it through. Or they were completely negligent. There was absolutely no regard for the complex character created before, he is now what I call 'cookie-cutter'. As a standalone it is not too shabby. As the sequel to the first as far as continuity goes, it is very very poorly executed. And the end.... after her rampage, she all of the sudden realizes, "revenge is bad". What's bad is there is no choice for you at the end. They shove it down your throat that it "is not" the way... if they gave you a choice at the end it would be a much more powerful moment. Sadly, it falls extremely short the way they chose to go.