Lulu Abuelshar

This game isn't what you want but that doesn't make it bad. I actually think its a tragic piece of art. People who are rating it poorly are completely dismissing the depth of the story. More in-depth review with SPOILERS: After going through the stages of grief and processing my immediate emotions (which were similar to most of the poor reviews here) I think I have come to understand this story better especially the ending. I don't know about you but the ending of the last of us 1 was pretty unsatisfying also. No cure, he lies to ellie, allies became enemies, and the potential for a bright future was gone. Yes the relationship between joel and ellie is what made the game special but the driving plot was about the cure and we didn't get that, we didn't get the end to the story we were promised. We know now more than ever that ellie was willing to sacrifice herself for a cure and therefor joel did the wrong thing by "saving" her. He was selfish and by doing that he started this cycle of revenge. This story is painful and sad but its not bad just because it's not what we wanted. For a while though there was still something that bothered me. I hated abby. Even after being put in her shoes I still hated her. She was unlikable and although you can objectively be like her actions and what motivates her is no different than ellie I still couldn't get around it. Another thing that bothered me was why does she get revenge? I get it now. You're not supposed to like abby, ever. Abby actually ends up almost worse off then ellie does. All of the people she loves are dead and she experiences torture that we can't even imagine in the end. Abby got what she deserved and she ended up that way because she got revenge, because she did the wrong thing. If the point of the story is "revenge is bad", than ellie killing abby would objectively make ellie as bad as abby, if not worse. That and Lev would inevitably go after ellie and the revenge cycle would continue. Ellie did the right thing, something joel couldn't do. She left a bigger person and although rebuilding the life she had may be difficult its not impossible. There is potential to make up for the pain that she has caused to herself. I think some may see the ending as pointless. Like why did she have to go all the way back and lose so much in the process just to let abby go? Its like she does it for nothing but its not for nothing. As satisfying as revenge is, it wouldn't have saved ellie from her ptsd or bring joel back. She had to go through that to learn for good that revenge wasn't the solution. She had to make that decision for herself. Every other time she wasn't able to kill abby , it was not because she chose not to but because she wasn't able to. In the end she got to make a choice. It was the right call. Ellie's life isn't over. It has potential to be better. She will now be able to heal and be free of her desire for revenge. I know this isn't satisfying in fact it is deeply unsatisfying. But that doesn't make the story bad. I personally have grown to love it.