Dylan Hutto

[POTENTIAL SPOILERS] The gameplay in this game is amazing. it's pretty much the same as it was in the first game, but with a few added features. You can now go prone to crawl under tight structures and hide in grass/brush, and when playing as Ellie, you don't have to craft shivs anymore. as she has her switchblade. Naughty Dog has also built on the skills chart previously seen in the last game. You start with one column of traits that you can apply to your character and can continue to open up new columns (IE stealth, crafting, etc.) by finding magazines in the world. You can now craft silencers for your handguns and arrows for your bow, making stealth a much more viable option. The graphics in this game are also phenomenal, it really helps keep you immersed in the world, whether in Jackson, Seattle, or Santa Barbara. The story however is where I have issues. None of the characters act like each other. Tommy and Joel give out their names like it doesn't even matter, when in the first game Joel ran someone over that posed as someone needing help. He knew it was a trap. Why wouldn't this be any different? Why would he willingly give out his name and go into an unknown group's "base?" And Tommy, later on in the game he gets pissed at Ellie for "not finishing the job" essentially. What? He and Ellie barely got out of Seattle alive, she saved you and you're angry with her? When in the beginning you didn't want revenge. It doesn't make sense to me. Next up is Abby. Laura Bailey did an amazing job playing her, but my issue isn't with her. It's her writing as well. She feels no remorse for what she's done. By this point, I've barely given any spoilers, so here goes. If you don't know already, Abby kills Joel. He dies within the first two hours of the game in the most pathetic way possible. The game attempts to make you feel for Abby by making you play as her AFTER she kills him. This is a huge mistake because right off the bat you already hate her and are thinking "Can't wait until this is over." But it won't be over, not for a long time. You play as her for 10 hours of the 25-hour game. Throughout it all, you keep thinking "when is this over, please let it be soon." They try to humanize her by introducing Yara and Lev and try to give Abby and them a Joel-Ellie relationship. But it just doesn't work. The dynamic between the two is great, but trying to make us like her by saying "hey look, Joel and Ellie 2" isn't doing it. This is a revenge story. They try to remind you that it is a revenge story at every turn by doing certain cliches multiple times. They pull the pregnant card twice, they pull the animal card twice. It's things like this that hold the story back immensely. The Flashbacks with Joel and Ellie are honestly the best and most well-written parts of the game. I want to love this game. I really do. But so much of the story just feels out of place and at times even forced. The game is still a good game, but the story really lacks. Even with just a few touch-ups, it could've been better. It felt like they wrote it and just kept rolling with it without revising it.