The COMPLETE Last of Us Series Story Retrospective

I think switching each day is exactly what should have happened. Then we wouldn't have had quite the same issues with Abby's day 1. Ellie's day 3 should also have ended at the aquarium after discovering Mel was pregnant.

Im writing this comment as im watching, im at the start of part 2 and noticed a small error with your timeline

You noted how it was stupid of tommy to give his and joels names given that joel given the conversation where joel tells tommy about taking ellie away from the fireflies

From our perspective we did just see that conversation but in the actual timeline that conversation with tommy likely happens soon after joel and ellie arrive at jackson at the end of the first game

Its not explicitly stated but you can tell it didnt happen recently due to joels character model using his younger appearance and the modern one being older with longer hair and whatnot

Also its pretty safe to assume that tommy didnt wait 5 years to ask joel "so what happened when you got there?"

Part 2 is better than part 1

What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the perspective shift afforded by Abby's campaign isn't really possible unless you spend time with Abby and empathise with her. It's also not really possible if you start the game from Abby's perspective (as I've heard suggested) because you're supposed to go from a place of not empathising with Abby to a place of empathy then to the catharsis of Abby moving past vengance.

I think part 2 is a great game, and the thing that makes it great is exactly what makes people hate on it, killing joel in front of us and then forcing us to play as and empathise with his killer. Its understandable that people wouldnt resonate with that as well as the themes of the first game, but i gotta say the first game, while arguably the greatest game ever made, never made me feel the complicated bundle of emotions that the second did. I remember honestly crying during the final fight just wishing that ellie and abby would just stop and fucking talk.

I think the dialogue when Tess is bitten indicates Joel and Tess were a couple.

As a father with a daughter, these games have a special place in my heart.
I hope we get a conclusion to this dark twisted roller coaster!

My one criticism when you mention Tommy giving out his name: Joel didn't JUST tell Tommy what he did to the fireflies. Joel saying what happened was 4 years prior. He tells Tommy what happened at the hospital as he cleans the guitar he's about to present to Ellie.

They were not making a cure but a vaccine. Good for only a few people.

Probably could have made the game more bearable not fixed not perfect of course but maybe just annoyed people rather make them rage quit and just write off the game as it never existed,

They could have done Abby’s story’s first an new character getting over grief and the void feeling and preluding to a past ded that she did that was important but did nothing for her as her story continues as normal but we don’t know what happens more specifically it’s more important we don’t who until the last day you see every one you spent all this time and getting to know are now dead it was to then run into Ellie at the end before jumping to the beginning and we see what Abby’s crew did to our favorite pair then playing as Ellie tracking and hunting them down and have the ending let the player pick because as Abby’s story may be important I don’t feel she’s should just be redeemed because she’s the message the writers want to use rather let that be the players choice as Ellie’s choice especially sense we see what it did to Abby and their sound not be just a simple good or bad ending rather did Ellie lose her humanity in the pursuit or was pulled back by her loved ones helping she it not worth losing anymore of her self over it

remember when i worked for gamestop, i would recommend this game to anyone buying a ps3 or ps4, and also uncharted series. the story of the games is what kept me coming back.

When this game was first announced in the Game Informer Magazine, I didn't think that this game would be my favorite gaming franchise of all time right next to Telltales The Walking Dead. Everything about this game is perfection in my eyes.

You were wrong about the radio part, the person she speaks to is actually from the Fireflies, they likely just happened on them or could hear the chat on the radio, but its definitely fireflies on the radio.

They honestly should have had us grow to like Abby first then kill Joel either half way in or at the end leading into a third game leaving us conflicted on how we feel about Abby. Killing Joel first ruins what they were trying to do

I hear you about the pacing for Part 2, but I also think, revenge itself is taxing, and its a struggle to keep going, reminding yourself of why you're doing it, which is why i think the story is structured the way it is. Ellie is tired, her friends are tired, and she has these flashbacks to remind herself why she's here, and its a struggle to keep yourself moving forward, killing and so forth. I think the game wants to relay that feeling to the player, getting frustrated feeling like youre not getting anywhere, like day in and day out you're just doing the same thing without anything to show for it, any closer to your goal, you wonder if you should just stop, you wonder what the others are up to, you wonder why youre even here. etc. At least thats how I feel about the story.

You call gritting your teeth and taking a golf club dozens of times without begging for mercy "dying like a coward"??

She didn't go straight from killing David to petting giraffes... there were several months in between. People seem to forget the time scale... tons of reviewers say "Joel recovered too quickly" but he took more than three months to recover... and Ellie was scavenging for (and finding) medicine as she travelled. Leaves were still on the trees when Joel was injured, and snow was thick when he recovered. The medicine may have just been to knock out a final nasty infection/fever.

It’s sad Ellie thinks her life only matters if she dies…

One of my biggest things I think would’ve helped TLOU2 is if they did promotion and framed the entire game as Abby’s crew and only them. People already thought the first one was a perfect ending so they wouldn’t have questioned much and also promoting it as playing ex fire flys who joined the WLF in a war with the seraphites in Seattle would’ve fooled a lot of people into it and it starts as Abby’s Seattle day 1 and has stable hints of Ellie and Joel as they progress and we wouldn’t be so confident that the sniper that killed manny was Tommy and as the player gets to the theater to avenge our dead friends we are met with Ellie and confused and shocked. Atleast I hope it’ll turn out that way just because we were believed they wouldn’t be in this game. And then we proceed on Ellie’s side.

dam it still gets me both time, Idk how people can play the game, then say the show is good or Bella Ramsey is even decent. Can't compete with this game, just can't

Ellie being mad a Joel for saving her life never sat well with me. Ellie understood that Joel had a daughter who was killed in his arms. Ellie also mentions that after everything at the hospital is done they’ll go and do whatever Joel wants to do. So it’s pretty clear that the fireflies never even gave Ellie a chance to choose whether she wants to live or die. I don’t understand why she’s not more mad at the fireflies for not even giving her the choice to live or die. Instead she’s mad and not ever going to forgive Joel for saving her life. At the need of part 1 Joel should’ve just straight asked Ellie did the fireflies even give you a choice to live or die.

In the end I think Naughtydog is trying to convey that everyone in this world has a story behind them. When you only live for revenge you will ultimately lose everything. However we are all human and have every right to feel the way we feel. In the end how you deal with those feelings is what will define you. We will all die at some point better to live a happy life rather than one built of revenge. God Of War has the same message. They did it much better with a free rogue lite dlc called Valhalla.

Bro you called Tommy Tyler and Marlene Aileen! You must be playing “The First of Us” or something 😂 wtf

I’m actually pretty upset with myself for putting off playing Part 2 for so long because of people on the internet hating on the game. Then I decided to try it for myself with the remaster. Such a beautifully tragic game. Its gameplay is so damn good and the story is fantastic. I loved Joel but he was a guy who made a lot of enemies and it makes sense that it would catch up to him. I love both of these games. I think you did a fantastic job breaking them down.

"Did I go a bit overboard with the shotgun? Probably."

Bro most of us lit Jerry on fire with the flamethrower.

Everytime i get to the part where sam is bit and i have to shoot an infected off of one of them i instintively shoot the infected on sam because he is closer to ellie, it happens that same way everytime i play because i had grown to love ellie as a character and want to make sure shes out of harms way. i dont know if its intentional or not but i find it interesting

Did anyone else know that when you meet jesse in day two that was supos to be joel

I think if Dina, her home, and JJ weren’t enough to stop Ellie from going to Santa Barbara, nothing should have stopped her from killing Abby, that dang ending

There is no part 2, everyone move along move along

10 months late, but here's something i think is extremely important, and was misinterpreted.

The "Tell don't show" method of storytelling in tlou2 is very much on purpose, and I think calling it "Ass Backwards" is a disservice to the writers. Referencing the same scene you used (Where Joe sticks up for Ellie), at the beginning of the game, all we know about the too of them is that they have a daughter-father relationship, and that the question of what happened with the fireflies still weighs in Ellie's mind. Putting that scene at the beginning would simply be a normal Joel standing up for Ellie.

By the end of the game, we see their relationship slowly deteriorate to the point where they stop talking 2 years before the beginnings of the game. This context is important, as without it, the intent of Joel, who respects Ellie's boundaries and wishes, but still cares about her enough to protect her, is completely gone. Added to that, Ellie's anger would simply feel like angsty teen anger, rather than legitimate betrayal from a relationship founded on a lie.
The game does everything in its power to show you a degrading relationship between a dad and his kid, and with the knowledge of Joel being dead, it terrifies you to think that this is the last interaction they had. THAT is the purpsoe of the scene. Joel was wrong on lying, sure. But he's dead now, and her last chance to make up was missed.

Of course, it then shows you a layer of hope with the scene outside his house, but that's a different topic. My point is thay the use of flashbacks and secrecy is intentional. The game builds secrecy and suspense on Ellie and Joel's relationship, all to deliver that last scene with Joel outside his house. Where they're both willing to move on. That's what the whole game is about. Blame, revenge, she forgiveness.

Vaccines can’t be used on fungal infections

I always assume Abby doesn't kill ellie because she knows who she is, that she is immune. And Tommy was a firefly and they don't kill him because he did nothing wrong.

I played this game when it first dropped. As a gamer since the days of Atari, this Sara's death scene solidified that this, for me, is the greatest game of all times. I've never gotten teary eyed and needed a minute to process what I just saw in a video game up until this point. That this game brought me there was, and is till this day, the most impactful moment in gaming history. This game is genius.

I would also say that, the reason I like Part II more than Part I, is because Part II took more risks and did a great job at subverting expectations. Part I is incredible, and it deserves all the praise and more, but there’s no doubt that the story was more predictable, as Naughty Dog was kind of playing it safe. There’s a reason why Part II had a significantly darker tone. If Part III does indeed happen, I have no doubt the story will also be dark and bold, as far as storytelling.

I think a good way to save the pacing, while still maintaining the same structure, would be for Abby and Ellie to somehow knock each other out during their fight, and that’s when Abby’s story starts. I think the reason why Abby’s half felt so disorienting, is because we have that climax in the back of our minds quite a bit. Only a few times, did I forget that Abby was STILL holding Ellie at gunpoint, during Abby’s story.

I hate Abby so much I'll never play the second one but the first game is one of my favorite games of all time.

Even tho I agree with everything u said. I look at it like really they just wanted to show the loss tht she experienced. Tht would give us an insight of what she went through before. But yes to show her possibly sleep n wake up n see tht her lover and friend changed and she was ok would have been amazing, i would have ended it right there. As Ellie wake up and touch her she turns around and is infected. And the look on Ellie face would have went to black screen. 🤌🏾🤌🏾

Jordan doesnt kill Elle or Dina for the same reason the kids in a horror movie walk into a room full of knives and axes knowing full well a slasher is out and about!!!

So how do elle and joels brother get away from abbys gang?

No one is a hero in the last of us, not Joel, not Ellie, not Abby, they’re all just people trying to survive and protect their loved ones. I love both games equally, and I understand that most people hate Abby for killing Joel. But again, no one is a hero or a good guy per say in this series. I’m heartbroken seeing that Ellie threw everything away and is at an even lower point than Abby by the end of the game, maybe if there is a part 3 somewhere down the line, Ellie can find her redemption too.

Sequels were always sort of hit or miss when it came to media…

We have come a long from playing Tetris on a Gameboy or Super Mario 1 on Nes.. Now we're interacting in living playable movies , that questions the human condition at it's core..


Incredible.

Such an ending it lets more space for a tlou pt 3 tbh

Some people are very immature and just refused to play the second game because of the one major story beat... I understand not liking it. But we arent supposed to. And I still praise them for even going there. Because even though it happens... Its EFFECTIVE. It makes us feel hate... Like Ellie. Making that call was the only way to TRULY make us want revenge just like her... and feel her same emotions in real life. It was masterful. And a character study on ourselves in a way. Can WE OURSELVES truly see the other side to the story and understand and even forgive?. And If you actually pay attention... and watch.. and listen.. and read. There is some TRULY deep, and detailed story telling going on. I still find new things when I replay in characters like Owen, and Dina , and Jesse ...etc. So much cool character writing for each person.

a lot of bad takes, abby is a 1-dimensional character who makes arbitrary decisions based upon n guilting the player into sympathizing with her