There’s a very big difference between buying a game that happens to have some microtransactions and one that is built around selling you microtransactions. This, even though they seemingly have toned it down a bit, seem to be the latter.

You spent paragraphs attacking people by inaccurately characterizing their opinions and then try to take the high road by accusing me of doing that.

If it has seasons or battle passes, I don’t want it. Hell, I actively root against it.

Don’t care, not buying a full price game with micro's anymore. Fuck what the industry has become. 

I do love the low commitment aspect. I believe they’ve crafted an experience that will demand pretty much 0 hours of my time. :P

Exactly. The pacing complaints are generally made by people who hate the game because Joel died but they want to have a more rational complaint or by people who are trying to find some sort of middle ground to explain the backlash to the game. 

Exactly this. If you know Abby’s reasoning before Ellie has completed her mission, it completely blunts the impact of that reveal. We better not learn why Abby did it until Ellie has killed EVERYONE.

Not to add to an already absurdly long comment, but I just realized that I should stress that my approach of analyzing art initially through the lens of the artist’s intent is not the only approach. Some people reject that line of thinking outright. That’s why the phrase “death of the author” exists.

Moving Joel’s death later would only work if they want to tell a completely different story with completely different themes. What about any of their public comments or handling of the first game would make you think they’d do that?

I would almost side with your argument in terms of the game splitting the fanbase and how the show should be structured to prevent that if you didn’t phrase people who liked it as “gave in to that manipulation”. Can you not possibly concede that people disagreed with you on how the story came across without them being…

It absolutely worked. There is nothing wrong with storytelling being manipulative. Complaining about it is more an indictment of the complainer and not the media itself.

This is the worst possible way to do it. The entire point is to hate Abby the way Ellie does and THEN seeing the other side 

A lot of that is because the novelty is gone, and that the devs fell hard into the classic sequel trap. The mistaken idea that a sequel has to be bigger, more complex, etc.

I agree, cheaper would be better, but given we live in the timeline where Nintendo ports 30-year-old games and charges $60 for them, and Sony has $70 as its starting price on everything, I was kind of impressed this wasn’t a complete gouge.

It also includes the DLC.  So let’s just say you ARE getting the game for $50 and the DLC for $10.  Sound good?

People often say “underrated” when they actually mean “overlooked.” In other words, the game didn’t receive the mainstream recognition or success some people thought it deserved.

Sure but the first one got overshadowed by Zelda and the next one by Elden Ring.

Yeah, but it’s a game that feels like it would be underrated.

I freaking love this game. I know it tends to get a lot of flack/be overlooked both because it had to follow the first (which set a high bar) and it repeated history of releasing in the shadow of a phenomenon (Breath of the Wild, then Elden Ring).

Did you skim the article? It was absolutely mentioned.