[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by codynw

Yea something like this would have made the game so much better. I didn't hate the events of the game, just the way they told it could have been better.

Spoiler!

Although I'd skip the choice at the end, that's not Naughty Dog's style. Just have it end similar, with both staying alive and Ellie getting a "happy" ending on the farm, and Abby going off to find the Fireflies with Lev.

I hear what you're saying.

Spoiler!

I just figured if they were going to rip off Nier anyway with the "in the second half of the game you hate everything you're doing because you're sort of the bad guy" thing (which this game does less effectively than Nier, somehow), might as well do the ending of Automata while you're at it.

In seriousness I was responding to the complaint about Joel's choice in TLOU 1 losing meaning somehow from some players because of how he died and the way this game ended. Well, here, you get to choose what happens now. But there are consequences to satisfying your bloodlust and you're really not going to like them.

On reflection I think I would actually have the Ellie ending show her committing suicide (not on screen or anything. Maybe she plays the guitar in an empty house, puts it down, camera on guitar, gunshot). Just unambiguously bad news if the player chooses that route.

Originally Posted by bax

The original story was expertly told and a joy from start to finish, but to me anyways it held onto a lot of apocalypse/zombie tropes. Jump scares, cannibal groups, the whole story segment with Sam. It was all very well done, but stuff that had been done before in The Walking Dead and other movies/shows.

This misses the whole central point of the story in the first game, which is about the way the events of the game change the two central characters, and how that leads to the choice Joel makes at the end of the game. None of that has anything to do with apocalypse / zombie tropes. That was literally why it was so good. The zombie apocalypse stuff was just the setting for a story about two people. In this one, I only really care about one of the characters (two if you count Dina, I like Dina) and I don't really know what she's going through or what I'm supposed to be getting out of my experience playing as her.

Originally Posted by Bax

Overall, it was a good game. But it's kinda annoying that with what NG had to play with here, just minor tweaks to what they were working with could have turned this game from a good game at the end to something great or fantastic.

Yup. Exactly my issue. Just a missed opportunity. That said, I think that about most very good games. It's just that this is a bigger opportunity missed by a wider margin than some. When the target is "best game ever made", you set yourself up for a big gap between expectations and results.