After my first playthrough of tlou2, I realized how much we overhyped the first game. I thought to myself the first game was bigger, longer and better. Then I replayed tlou remastered, and found I was wrong. The sequel was better in everyway except for maybe the soundtrack. The first game was great, it had it's moments, but ellie was the star and driving force of that game, not joel.  and for every cool moment in that game, I could find more in the sequel. Then I replayed the tlou2 again, and then a third time on grounded mode, and now I am convinced it's one of the best games ever made, besting the first. Also the game story got better after my first playthrough. I picked up more on missed story elements, conversations between characters stood out more, things made more sense, I felt more connected to side characters I initially ignored or didn't care much for the first time. The story is so well written and crafted, the whole butterfly effect and and looking at things from different perspectives, every cutscene and spoken dialogue,  the hollywood level care into every direction. Visuals is on another level, and is the best looking game hands down, alongside death stranding. Music, we all know how good it is. Gameplay, physics is taken to a new level (glass and rope mechanics), so is enemy AI, the shooting and visceral action, damage models and ai reactions, animation and audio is again unprecedented in gaming. I don't think we will see a game on this level again till naughtydog makes a sequel or a new game. So definitely game in the year, not ghost of tsushima, and I doubt even a game like cyberpunk will exclipse it.

I am playing it at the moment, but it's mostly more of the same al be it with much better presentation. Animation is once again bought to new heights. However so far I think the story is less than the first one. Mind you I am not that far in. Also some of the dialogue options strike me as odd (biggot sandwich for example). I do enjoy the game and I can clearly see Uncharted is influence with the large open world map at the start which is 's bit like Madagascar. Still its a solid game, (8/10) but in my opinion not as good as the first one or God of War/Horizon Zero Dawn if we compare it to a Sony produced game with legs. .

It's by far the best character study case made in gaming story, with brave decisions in the storyline and a deep emotional character development.

"That being the case I doubt people would of fixated on Abby if she looked like this"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjrP17TRjFI

I feel that's Nier Automata.

 Video is really worth a watch.

As for TLOUII

I'll give you a take that's more unorthodox than what people will say, TLOU2 is likely doing no different than the original only change is the universal praise isn't there for the second game like it was for the first, we can all go back and fourth on what each person likes but overall it's a good game.

As for why the universal praise isn't there well the series no longer has that new IP tag and has expectations now so reactions are going to be more geared towards those expectations, the story is wayward imo not because of the controversial moment but because the execution is in contrast to the aim for example the game glorifies violence when the goal was to make violent actions look bad, it tries to make you feel for characters after making them unlikable etc... The irony of it is the one character TLOU fans hate I actually didn't mind. Compare this to the original game where things were more simple you're just a smuggler trying to deliver your payload and have to battle against the hostile world in order to do it which brings us to the next issue people who played the original have.

In the original game the world was a scary place due to the infected who have dangerous stages of mutation which are all unknown with the capacity of deviant mutations that are rare that happen due to certain factors as well as their end of life stage were areas fill up with spores, in TLOU2 the infected have been reduced to minor inconveniences in the game for most part such as you need to pass through a house and the are like 3 in it with a clicker. Compare this to another moment in the game were they are a serious threat such as the descent in the tall building for reference.

Everything else in the game was fine such as some of the set pieces, some of the boss encounters and such but I'll say this the game should have been in two scenarios much like RE2 does an A scenario and a B scenario as the switch of characters hurts the pacing and player momentum hard.

Memes?  Dude, I play Them's fightin' Herds.  If memes keep you from a game, then maybe you need to do some searching within yourself.  Things like that only have power if you give them power.  I personally hated Last of Us Part 2 so much that I never bothered to buy the game, despite beating the first game several times on PS3 (couldn't be bothered to play it again on PS4 when I wanted new stuff)

Speaking of nothing new, characters like Abby have been around before.  New characters which take the spotlight over the original characters...  Bunny from Power Puff Girls came out literal decades before Abby, and didn't get anywhere near as much hate.  Why is that?  Because even that character had more likable characteristics than Abby did, and we didn't spend 15 hours with Bunny.

But, I watched the game on twitch.  I gave the game a chance.  I got sick of seeing Ellie stab people in the neck of all things.  I didn't like how the game shifted focus to Abby for what? 7 hours? 15 hours? Whatever it was.  There was a better way to write that story.  It took a chance, and it failed, trying to make a message of, "Look at all this violence - nothing good comes of it."

Now that the cat is out of the bag, and people know exactly what the game is, we will see exactly how well the game does on PS5.  Even with an online mode.

And hate for last of us 2 is based around the handling of joel.  Everyone had a feeling he wasn't going to make it out of the game alive.  But to see it done so amateurishly is the cause of the backlash.  Not Abby herself. 

Spoiler alert. The hate for abby stemmed for the leaks, and she made out to be a transgender. She isn't a butch character, but I blame it to the direction/animation that just happened to be in the leaked footage, where she appeared and large and her face looked aliitle distorted looking. But when you play the game, she is actually the complete opposite to that menacing persona. And there are cutscenes that show she isn't butch, but infact lean and ripped. Abby is infact probably one of the most beautifully realized character made, her personality and qualities stand out, and is well made as joel/ellie if not better. And it's such a shame the undeserved hate she got, and I understand why neil said he is so proud of her and the character they created.

As for joel, he had it coming , everyday was a time bomb and his death was going to be ugly, and it fit perfectly the tone of the game, the series, the world they live in. His death and impact was beautifully redeemed with the flashback segments. People just don't know what kind of game they were playing, it's as though subconsciously they were expecting an uncharted like game, with an uncharted like ending. Were people expectinmg joel to die by a clicker or shot by some enemy or die of cancer or something? Then you have people expecting another joel and ellie team up and a repeat of the first game, which would have been pointless because their first outing together is unsurpasable, as in the emotions they experienced and what they went through in terms of raw emotion, is as good and high as it gets. Was joel supposed to sit at home and offer ellie advice and then save her along the way, like he did multiple times already?? The game had to go in the direction that it went.

Once they release the multipleplayer, people will start twitching and live streaming on youtube and such, and it will gain populatiry and more sales will come. There are people who love the multiplayer more than campain and are waiting. And this will sell well om ps4 and ps5 when the enhanced edition comes out.

I think this game actually hurt the franchise. Yeah, the game is very good, but it made people reconsider even liking the first one and opened the door to negative criticism of the "Naughty Dog formula". I think the only reason we still talk about it at all is the big hype surrounding Naughty Dog and the success of the first one, but I'll admit sometimes I forget it came out this year. Plus, while technically incredible, The Last of Us Part 2 lacks the broad appeal of the first one or games like God of War and Marvel's Spider-Man, so it's hard to consider it the Game of the Generation.

TLOU 'ship' is well known to be one of the 'fastest' out there. The crew shovels coal like there's no tomorrow. Many people take that ship because of the speed.

Well the ship has a new captain and crew and they don't shovel as much because they don't think speed is as important as some other things. Early passengers expecting the typical high speed are not happy since they weren't made aware of the changes. Some interested future parties have decided to board one of the other speedier ships instead.

Replacing the original captain and crew with similar minded individuals would have led to similar boarding pass sales going forward. Putting the captain and crew who don't care about speed as much on a new ship, or another typically slower ship, would have avoided the blowback while keeping people with different expectations happy.