Looks great. February 21 can't come soon enough. I loved the original, and this one looks very promising as well. But I also want to temper my expectations. We'll see.
Funny, I was just thinking about this game earlier today. It was starting to feel like we were never going to get it. This will be a week 1 purchase for sure.
Yeah, there's been a whole heap of coverage in the last few days, when press and other youtubers were invited to play 3-4h of 2 distrinct sections of the game. And I've watched it all, and now I wish I hadn't. I want to keep myself as untouched as possible until it releases. But it all looks wonderful.
And the best news, among the many, apparently it's about 50% larger than Last of Us 1. And they're also only releasing the singleplayer campaign, at least initially. Multiplayer might be a separate game entirely it seems. I also hope they do the Last of Us 1 treatment, and also release some post-release expansion like Left Behind. It was wonderful. And then release a remastered Last of Us 2 for PS5. Keeping my fingers crossed.
The only thing that's a bit sketchy for me is the addition of dogs in the game. Man, I suspect that's gonna add another layer of frustration to the combat. At least for me, since I'm prety awful with aiming on a controller. And I like to bump up the difficulty to make it a real survival experience. But I suspect the dogs are gonna make it way more difficult since it pretty much throws a wrench in my stealth game. We'll see, I guess.
That being stated, the product while showing signs of improvements gameplaywise, has not been tested.
Any assumption about the level of difficulty must be tempered by cultural habits.
So far, players might have been burdened by a cultural perception of how to play the product, sending back that idea of difficulty.
3 hours is a short time to test a product, especially when somewhat forced to go through the content.
There might be straightforward ways to deal with dogs or whatever else.
There was a big (20+ minute) walkthrough for The Last of Us 2, culminating with an uninterupted 8min gameplay segment released yesterday. Cool stuff. 22 more days, or around that time I can hardly wait. It's gonna be great!
This vid product release period was surrounded with the now usual accusation campaign of hidden agendas and stuff like that, showing how this is now part of marketing strategies to turn the eyes away from the quality of the product.
Gameplaywise, the product is much improved which is not difficult as it started from ground zero.
Storytelling, this is another story.
The plot was known beforehand and announced on this site after watching one trailer: the guy Joel is dead and the girl Ellie is on the trail thirsting for revenge. No issue with that, it was wired years ago.
The end itself also is wired: the protagonist is left alive. No surprise, very early, it is hinted as such.
No issue with that, storytelling does not depend on knowing the main plot, the end in advance, good stories can be told nevertheless.
It shifts though the focus on characters, on their developpment, their motivations to understand how they mature to reach the final decision.
This is where this product fails big time: it fails to deliver any cogent, credible version of how characters are influenced by their life experience to take the decision they take.
There are flashbacks, cross perspectives etc Yet when the decision happens, despite hours, no keys were provided to explain the decision.
The situation is such the writers felt compelled to place an addendum to try to explain the last move to players.
And the attempt reels
The girl felt the guy robbed her from her destiny when he saved her life from unproficient scientists. She never managed to forgive him.
As a response, though, she managed to forgive the killer of the man. What she was unable to give to her benefactor, she is able to give to the person who killed him.
Even though it grew popular during the last two centuries, forgiveness is not automatic, it is deserved, it is granted.
People are not forgiven for the sake of forgiving.
Storytelling is poor, the product is a failure and as it is now a marketing habit, this was dressed with rumours of hidden agendas and stuff. Common practice in the vid industry now.
Seems after being the biggest seller in its first week sales have fallen over 80% in the second week. The percentages are different in other parts of the worlds though.
What agenda?
Paid reviewers to praise it? If yes, that's nothing new, internet never forgets stuff like that (PCGamer's DA2 bullshit review for example).