| firebush03 said: For me, it just felt a little forced fixing the cam on Ellie's face during Nora's death and such. (It was almost as if the game was shouting at the player, "Hey! This is important! Look how Ellie is being impacted by revenge! Revenge is evil!!". Good storytelling doesn't need to tell the player when something is important.) Like I cannot fathom the difference between slitting hundreds of soldiers throats versus beating in Nora's skull. Ellie was acting in self defense when Nora started running, so it's not like the death was too much different from all the other deaths. Same goes for Ellie's encounter with Owen and Mel. Ellie even says "That was stupid" after having killed one of the ppl b/c she needed info, but ended up acting out of self defense before she was able to get anything. There rlly wasn't any torture involved in these deaths. It was all pretty instant, and in response to threats of harm from the ppl she was confronting. Also, funny thing worth mentioning, but there was one enemy (I can't remember where? It was on the second floor of a house or smth...) who -- before I was able to give them a final blow -- started begging for mercy. And so, without any hesistation, I sparred them by walking away. Two second later, I have a bullet shot Ellie's way, to which I duck for cover and turn the camera to see what has happened, just to see that same person standing up, hiding behind a door with their gun drawn. I eventually have to take them out, but it was almost just like a slap-in-the-face to this "revenge is evil!!" narrative the writer(s) were trying to push. (You don't commit to the revenge plot? Okay, well you're gonna die b/c the person you sparred is just gonna kill you.) And to add: I realize I'm kinda being "that guy" who's arguing why a game is bad Lol. Let me clarify by saying that I hope my comments don't damper your enjoyment of the title! I would've loved to enjoy the story as much as you do, though it just didn't strike me very well. |
I thought it was kinda brilliant keeping the camera on Ellie while letting your imagination fill in the gaps to what's happening. The unseen is always more powerful if the sound is there, at least to me.
I do have to disagree with the self-defense stuff. Nothing Ellie does it out of self-defense, she went on this revenge mission. She's hunting these people down. Nora running away doesn't make it self-defense to run after her. And slow torture is very different from slitting throats to 'save yourself'. They don't show it, but right after the screen goes to black, she 'suddenly' knows where Abby is (After Nora firmly stating she won't give up her friend and Ellie stating I can make it so much worse for you, Nora already being infected by spores) Ellie then states "I made her talk" and Dina sees what that took from her.
(You don't commit to the revenge plot? Okay, well you're gonna die b/c the person you sparred is just gonna kill you.)
That's the whole story! Ellie says it herself, "You should have killed me". But you can run away in a lot of cases.
But I get where you're coming from. Ludonarrative dissonance is just as strong here when killing everyone along the way as in RPGs where you spend more time running errands than solving the imminent disaster. Hence stories simply work better in movies and on TV. The TV show doesn't have Joel/Ellie kill hundreds of people along the way. And stretched out over 25 hours, the story beats will seem more disconnected and out of place.
I'm playing on easy in my second play through to experience the story more. Sneaking by most encounters, focusing on the narrative rather than the hunter looter game play cycle.
As always, the more open the game, or even the levels in this case, the harder it is to tell a story :/
You're not dampening my enjoyment at all. This discussion makes me look deeper into the story since I'm playing through it now. Owen and Mel are up next.
Btw I also always look at things from a "morally ambiguous" lens. For me that results in always having a disconnect with games that treat things as black and white. Hence I'm resonating with Tlou2 as its finally not an after thought or small part.
The Witcher 2 kinda does something similar in chapter 2, where you can choose which side to play through. I played through that concurrently from both sides to see the different perspectives. That chapter is still my favorite part of The Witcher series. However Geralt is still the shining hero on either path, you only get a look at the different perspective from the factions involved. Tlou2 does it so much better setting the 2 perspectives against each other.
