So while I have owned TLOU Remastered for years, I have never sat down to play through it. I should just set it on easy and take my medicine but as a game it hasn't really interested me that much, despite owning a PS3 (for which I think I owned Heavy Rain and a bunch of Blu Rays); With all of this controversy, I wanted to see this game first hand, though, so I fired up Twitch and watched some native French-speaking dude yesterday and today play through to the end; (shoutout to MehdiRTX; audio was in English, captions were in French) who was starting at the beginning on Hard, practiced my high-school level Francais to boot. I skipped some bits but was unfortunately there for all of the things I didn't really mind missing. I probably watched 20+ hours of 28 the playthrough took. I also watched a ton of reviews, some other streamers, and the VGS summary. I wish I had just watched the VGS summary and nothing else and let this sit on the unplayed/unwatched pile forever.
My opinion is...what a damn shame this level of artistry is wasted here, for this. There are some genuinely amazing moments in this game, some truly affecting scenes, that in the end add up to so much less to the sum of their parts. I have never seen so much great work in service of so much terrible overall narrative. What a terrible, tragic ending. Maybe this game works as its own story in the TLOU universe, without Ellie and Joel, who are all-time famous characters; even if you haven't ever played TLOU, you know about the TLOU and the relationship between them. As part of the Joel and Ellie story, though, it's so spiteful to the fanbase I can't imagine what they were thinking. Loved Joel and Ellie Fuck. You. Watch them die, both literally and metaphorically. The amount of time spent with Abby, who I agree isn't doesn't seem to be the Trans we thought she was since we see her as a more effeminate kid (shoutout to her character's steroid addiction; she has been training for revenge for a long time), along with other characters we don't know or give a shit about but whose story mirrors Ellie's, makes this such a letdown. Don't worry, though, there is"T" in the game, just like there is"G" and "L" and "B". Maybe even some "Q" I missed, who knows.
They go out of their way to make Abby a better mirror version of Ellie; It really is a GOT S8, TLJ, creators destroying their creations to make a point in a way that seems so...unhealthy. It used to be that creators would try to hang on too long, and like Athletes, characters would live past their prime. Now, post GOT, there is this blood-lust that I don't recognize in American art. Normal things, or attempts at normal things, must be burned for the new to take hold. Ellies must die or be so changed beyond recognition so Abbys can be born. There is a boss fight with Ellie playing as Abby. Its terrible to watch. You spend a whole game trying to keep Ellie alive, the Original Sin of this game was keeping Ellie alive, so you get to punch and kick the shit out of her like she's the bad guy. In the end fight, a brutal affair between a shorn, emaciated Abby and seemingly more-muscular Ellie, Ellie loses a finger and along with it the ability to play guitar, the last thing she had tying her to Joel, which she played earlier to fantastic effect. It wouldn't be so bad except you don't get to choose, you just follow the game along; you are railroaded into this terrible ending. Some of these things are noted in other places and I am giving voice to them here but it was ghastly to watch, I can't imagine what it would be like to play through.
Not only do they attempt to humanize the "villain", they completely co-opt the story; its not really Ellie's story any more, it's Abby's. By the end, that's completely apparent. It's Abby that learns the lesson and comes out changed; Ellie the one who relents but still loses everything and everyone. Joel is the Daddy Killer, Ellie is the Dog Killer; Abby just wanted justice (and lats that matched her shoulders); She let's people ago time and again and "pays the price for her forbearance" by having Ellie kill all of her friends, just like Abby is saved multiple times by Joel and by Ellie. Ellie is the antagonist/villain of this story. Someone thought that is what people wanted. Now, art isn't always what people want but for fuck's sake, don't throw money at these people for these dark creations.