Game:

The Last of Us Part II (2020)

Duration: 16:27

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I was waiting for this part, because I wanted to start it with an explosive arrow. Yay.

So, I finished the game. The Rattler section was a lot harder than I estimated. There are SO many enemies to fight, and I used up almost all my ammo and crafted items. I died so many times, so I didn't bother to record all of that.

I also made it to the final fight with Abby. With the anger I felt over the game's story and all the conveniences handed to Abby and the prices forced upon Ellie, I had never watched full videos of that final fight. So my playthrough was the first time I had experienced it. After having actually played through Ellie and Abby's sections, I was able to accept it more.

I have to say, I am so glad I did not play this game blind, especially on release day. I would have been so angry over this story. It would have been so much to unpack, knowing how I knew other fans would feel about the game, what Naughty Dog had to say about the game on release, what the mocap actors said about the game, etc. At least now, three months later, after seeing everyone's opinions and watching other youtubers play through it and seeing their reactions, and seeing how opinions are so solidly split on it, I could go through my playthrough with some distance and a more evenly discerning eye.

After my playthrough, as I said in the Abby video, I accept it more, but not nearly enough to call it fully worthwhile. Ellie leaving her farm to go after Abby again a the end made NO sense, and no one, ever, should interpret long gameplay as simply accepting being spoonfed a story, simply accepting it at face value. If we're expected to not want a story we wanted and accept it selflessly for what it is, what gives Neil Druckmann the right to hand himself the exact story he wants to tell when he doesn't vet it at all against what fans would like to accept? There really are two sides to this coin. It doesn't just come down to what Naughty Dog wanted to do with their game. Especially when they charge for it and expect people to spend that much time with it. You can't just do what you want with a loved artistic property that you charge for just because it's yours, when part of what happens with that artistic property is a blithely hurtful crap story literally thrown in the faces of everyone you know is waiting for it and how much it will sell because you know everyone is waiting for it.

The perceived agenda over the final section of the game just feels weird. Yes, we wanted a final confrontation. But Tommy turning on Ellie in her home made no sense for his character, especially after they all agreed to take Dina home before Abby found them. Abby gets captured by the Rattlers and would have died if Ellie hadn't shown up. Ellie is driven to fight Abby and loses her fingers so she can't play guitar anymore. And in the final scene, we get the last flashback between Joel and Ellie that might have informed Ellie's motivations, but the events of that flashback happened the night before the game starts - but it's presented to us as if it was part of Ellie's internal game-long path to forgiving. If we had seen that flashback at the start, would all of Ellie's actions have made the same sense, instead of seeing strategically placed flashbacks to inform us about her current motivations before the next section starts? I will always think this story has its adolescent manipulative parts, granting Abby the convenience of a turning point with her nightmare about Yara and Lev, and showing Ellie wanting to give up her revenge but having it forced on her (and characterizing her as always mercilessly wanting revenge from the beginning) only to end up just saving Abby's life, losing Dina, and losing her ability to play guitar. Really, this is truly what people can call a crap story, with a suspicious agenda on the part of the writers, knowing people came back to play Ellie, not Abby.

At its base, the playthrough had its high points. There were parts I really liked. But those few primary points of cheap narrative design with some weird agenda of destroying Ellie's character will always stick with me. If conveniences were to be handed so freely to Abby, and Ellie is forced through all of these challenges and losses with no outs, then it's Ellie we should respect so much, because she is the one who got no free ride.

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