Zachary Denoyer

I will save you all the trouble of buying this terribly written and beloved character ruining mess. Spoilers ahead. [Personal Review] The gameplay is phenomenal, if a bit familiar. The graphics are superb, but that’s a given. Let’s dive into the story, which is the most important part for a Story-Driven game. Yes, the leaks were all true. No, holding out to see if they are still wrong is silly. Joel dies offhandedly to a formerly unseen character, Abby, who was the daughter of a Fireflies doctor. Joel here is written differently but wonderfully voice acted by Troy Baker. Joel’s character is changed to be more of a ‘trying hard to understand’ father figure for Ellie. He defends Ellie’s sexual identity but is turned away due to his lies about Ellie’s potential as a cure for humanity. Which plays into the failed ‘another evil is just another good’ narrative. Abby may be a buff badass with a horrid past, but that’s all she is characterization-wise, she’s cruel, ignorant, and a violent reflection of human anger and twisted ideals that try so hard to parallel Joel’s. Ellie’s character has been changed too from an optimistic 14 year old and into a rude and unjustly selfish young adult. There’s a few others characters that occupy screen-time, but are frankly boring caricatures that try to make you care about them only to just die offhandedly later. Jesse being a strong point of these characters is given a caring and brotherly attitude toward Ellie. Well he is also murdered by Abby offhandedly with a single bullet and dropped from the story. Does Ellie avenge Joel? No, Ellie doesn’t get revenge on Abby, but spares her due to a poorly written ‘circle-of-violence’ trope that fails to paint the main characters in a bad light and retcons the evil Fireflies from the first game into wrongly sympathetic characters with broken ideals and aspirations. It’s a trope that tries to be highlighted by sparing Abby, but just doesn’t make sense because of Ellie’s revenge-driven actions throughout the title. Is it the worst game ever? No. Does it deserve unending praise? No. Score-wise this title is at least a 3/5 for me. Story matters.