Michael Ragnarsson

All issues with the story aside, this game was TEDIOUS! You spend so much time solving annoying puzzles to get through what feels like every other area you visit (and this is a Tomb Raider and Uncharted fan telling you there's too many puzzles), almost every time the action starts to pick up we get a flashback and even get a flashback WITHIN a flashback! We progress to what we think is the end of the game as one character just to restart the game as a character who most of us really don't want to play as after what she does until we FINALLY reach the same point only to have the game force us to try to kill Ellie before realising that there's still SO MUCH more game to go! From the very start of the game characters (Joel in particular) just didn't feel like the same characters from the first game, we only get a glimpse of the Ellie we remember and loved VERY late in the game and it doesn't last long. Characters are just killed off without offering any kind of plot progression reasoning, it's like they just inserted a bunch of characters for the sole purpose of killing them off. A lot of people will defend this by saying that it's been 4 years without addressing the fact that Joel and Tommy, in particular, had been living a certain way in this brutal world for 20 years and you don't just "get over" that in 4 years, especially when they are still venturing out into the dangers beyond their community on a regular basis. As far as the game-play and technical aspects, it's 9/10! The game looks great and they made a lot of small improvements to the mechanics and abilities of the characters, something as simple as a dodge ability makes fights that much better and the acting is mostly top-notch! However, the first game didn't become so popular for its technical aspects. It was one of, if not the, greatest story-based game we've ever seen and people fell in love with the story and characters so when a sequel is released which doesn't treat the characters right, in some cases doesn't even keep characters canon and offers up a boring, unsatisfying story it won't make many fans happy. *[SPOILERS from here on]* I really could go on and on about the story issues that I had with the game, like how they expect us to feel sympathy for Abby who REVELS in the chance to kill a pregnant girl just to hurt Ellie (who earlier unknowingly killed Abby's pregnant friend and then has a big breakdown when she realises what she's done) simply staring at Ellie and saying "Good" when Ellie begs her not to kill her because she's pregnant, which seems even less justified when you remember that Abby was sleeping with her pregnant friend's boyfriend... At the end of the day, by the time I reached the end I just felt depressed and dissatisfied. It's all well and good to have a message in your work but this was a game that I just didn't enjoy playing, will never play again and had to go play the new remastered Spongebob game directly afterwards just to try to forget what I'd endured over the prior 25 hours or so. I understand what they were trying to do and the message they were trying to get across but I don't believe that a GAME should make you feel miserable, dissatisfied and depressed. I've since watched a number of streamers play the game with some choosing not to finish, others having similar feelings and a very small minority actually claiming to enjoy the experience. Most of the viewers on these streams were laughing at how bad the game is with only a handful attempting to defend it at all. This game ticks all the boxes for what the critics wanted but gamers largely WILL NOT enjoy this game especially if they are a fan of the original.