Omar K

WARNING: ***Spoilers*** Really good story. I feel like many people are so angry about Joel's death that this event clouds their judgement (and thus reviews) with respect to observing the events and deeper meanings of the game from an objective standpoint. I also think the writers did an excellent job in making the audience feel a sense of hypocrisy within themselves - after all, how could you route for Joel over Abi, when Joel murdered her father, and with it, humanities chances at a cure. Yet, their sense of love for Joel is too strong for them to come to terms with Abi's justified revenge. As the story progresses, the writers build up parallel between Joel and Abi. For example, both putting lives on the line to care for others. Both trying to do the right thing, with a little selfishness thrown in, nonetheless, both characters' urges to care and protect are forefront. This intensifies this feeling of hypocrisy within people still trying to hate Abby. At some point in the story, to hate Abby is to hate Joel, which places the viewer in an uncomfortable place. Other things to mention: - The parallel between Abi and Ellie, both seeking revenge, and arriving at the same cross roads. - The creation of an evil character who we later find is decent, and ends up teaching Ellie forgiveness - interestingly both Joel and Abi are similar personalities that end up teaching Ellie lessons. I have to also mention that a lot of the negative reviews i've seen came from twitch bandwagons who mass hated the game before the story even finished. Twitch's negative side is it can foster hive behaviour, and unfortunately, they egged each other to go and leave poor reviews. This is unjustified, the game is great. For those saying the ending is bad - I say I doubt what we saw was an ending to the whole series, more like the end of a chapter. The things i didn't like include the forced nature of pushing LGBT, feminist, and Trans views. I get it that you're trying to normalise these things, but, it felt very forced - it felt like propaganda rather than telling a story. This took me out of immersion a few times and made it harder to like the characters. There is no need to call men bigots, there is no need for the semi baked relationships. The baby who's mother is now with another person, and who's father gets no say in what she chooses to do. What's the point in pushing these ideologies? They felt ingenuine. It was also hard to empathise with either Abby or Ellie with respect to their romantic sides - not enough story writing was put in to build up those relationships and what they meant. Also what's the point in mentioning that Eugene had a stash of weed and porn? I mean the writers are trying way too hard to normalise these debatable topics. If it were more like the first game, where there is little to no forced propaganda, I would give it 5 stars.