its not a masterpiece, like it definitely isnt but it has wonderful gameplay, i seriously disliked the story (it felt nonsensical, everything felt like it was exclusively done to just keep drawing dogshit paralels between the protagonists, the events of the story dont feel like shit thatd go down remotely naturally, ellie and abby were unlikeable, tommy and joel behaved like utter morons, dina was an annoying character, the fact that ellie only starts regretting anything. the way the characters just. travel through half the country and iirc theres nothing beyond that aside from ellie mentioning that LV was completely overrun by the infected, the way that both factions are just too exaggerated, the way the story stems from how neil wanted some palestinians killed after 2 idf soldiers were killed in the early 2000s (interview btw), which also relates to the factions with the seraphites being a zionist palestinian stereotype, etc etc
i would never say its a bad game because in the sense of playing it , it is great, but the level designs are also beyond hillcrest and captiol hill, quite nonsensical, for example the level where abby is leaving the aquarium, the flooded area right by the alaskan way viaduct, makes no sense, the entire geography of the area is weird with some ground having somehow risen up, this is only a minor example of the bizarre shit in that game's level/environmental design
theres areas like the previously mentioned hillcrest which are TRULY perfect level design beyond some relatively minor issues w the house designs (theres one or two that dont even have a bathroom or bedroom iirc), but from a gameplay standpoint it is wonderful, and i cannot stress this enough, capitol hill and hillcrest are the two single most enjoyable areas in the entire game, as well as santa barbara, which as much as i dislike the game's ending, the design for the town itself all around is quite good, the environmental design is superb, with the amount of foliage actually making sense in contrast to the areas of seattle that were actually part of the QZ (not counting hillcrest since it was external to the zone IIRC) with the exception of capitol hill, which from what i remember the only part with an extremely overblown amount of trees was the area around the TV station, with the combat in the school being also very well designed
It is not a masterpiece in my eyes, although it does look good, and plays good, the characters, map design and story drag it down
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u/TaliZorah_Aybara 1d ago
in what world did TLoU2 Fail? It is a literal masterpiece