tlou2 coulda done so many things different ong

like, i loved playing the game, the gameplay felt solid. the graphics were fucking incredible, the levels were lit ESPECIALLY the rat king, i mean seriously a very technically impressive game

but they really fucked up the storyline. they shot themselves in the foot as soon as they made the ending to tlou1. The Last of Us never NEEDED a sequel, which is partially why tlou2 was doomed to fail from the beginning

They fucked up with how they handled characters and the message of the story. Ellie lost her charm in tlou2, which is fair since Joel died, but they coulda done it better if the story was more linear and if they didn't kill Joel only 2 hours into the game

the pacing in the game was awful, how do you expect the players to react when you go from an intense cutscene where one of the characters gets shot in the face to a flashback of the ANTAGONIST OF THE GAME WHEN SHE WAS YOUNGER???

besides the pacing, there are 3 main storytelling decisions i would have done differently: first is joel's death, second is abby's torture by the rattlers, and third is ellie's decision on whether or not to kill abby

first off, joel's death. why the fuck would this man stand in the middle of the room like that. it makes no fucking sense and it's completely out of character. that man has been in the apocolypse for over 20 years and you expect him to just trust random people like that? OOC

second, abby's torture. we never got to see what the rattlers did to abby and how she got completely destroyed at the end of the game. if the game showed the players what abby had to go through, it would've made the players feel more indecisive about killing abby

lastly, ellie's decision. since ellie left dina and JJ, she should have killed abby and went back to the farm to see Dina and JJ gone. then she would have wondered: "was this really worth it?" it would've been so much more impactful if she actually killed abby and lost everything

if ellie killed abby, we could have seen the consequences of her revenge quest. how would lev survive without abby? this poor kid only had abby and ellie took her from him. would killing abby allow ellie to let go? no, and if ellie killed her the game would have shown that

was killing abby worth losing her family? she lost dina and JJ and she wasn't even able to let go of Joel's death, especially since she can't play the guitar anymore. ellie has officially lost everything. it would've made the players question her decision if she killed abby

rather then making the decision for ellie and deciding "killing abby is the morally incorrect choice", naughtydog could have killed abby and let the players interpret it in their own way. tlou1 allowed the players to determine on their own if joel's decision was right or wrong

naughtydog accidentally turned their back on the first game by deciding "joel's decision was wrong in tlou1" because the whole point of the ending of tlou1 was to be morally ambiguous. that's what they shoulda done with tlou2, but they didn't

the game would have been morally ambiguous and super depressing/tragic at the same time if ellie killed abby and the game showed the consequences of her actions. with the current ending of tlou2, ellie got fucked over without even killing abby. what's the point of that?

i feel like i'm not making any sense in this thread so imma pause for now but before i go to do my hw, i just wanna say that naughtydog should have made a prequel to the game about joel, tommy, tess, etc before deciding on the plot for a proper sequel cuz they rly fumbled the bag

literally anyone would want to play a game about how joel and tommy first learned how to survive in the apocolypse. imagine getting to see how joel joined the bandits and how tommy joined the fireflies and their falling out. imagine meeting marlene, tess, bill, etc. that'd be lit