Without spoiling anything about The Last of Us Part II, there's an note in an aquarium and the information within it gives important context to the story and contrasts the critical decisions characters have already made. One of The Last of Us Part II’s major themes explores vengeance and how communities get lost in cycles of violence. This small note reflected those themes and called out major characters on their actions. It was an important story beat, tucked away in an easily ignored note.
The only reason to read notes in this game is to find the safe combinations or hints as to where a safe might be. Last night I finally hit the last straw with a safe on a boat since I couldn’t find the note with the combination anywhere. I finally just googled what the code was.
And turns out, the note with the combination is in literally the next room after you do a Triangle door opening thing. (That usually means you have to leave the area, not this time, I guess.)
I’m done looking for notes. Every note is the same “I’m dying, I’m so sorry, blah blah blah” crap. I’m just looking up the combinations from now on. This game is too long and I’m done fumbling around for shit any longer.
They should have done audio logs framed as a podcast. I’d totally believe 20 year old dumb dumbs doing a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend rewatch pod during a zombie apocalypse.
The move here is to do a zombie movie bro podcast as the zombies show up. “So George A. Romero got the racism right but here’s everything he got wrong about zombie apocalypses…”
The galaxy brain version has the podcast bro coming across all the “environmental storytelling” bits and doing CinemaSins-esque “critiques” of all the dead people who wrote the notes and stuff.
“Ok, this guy says in his note that three days ago he and his bro couldn’t cross the bridge because it was blocked, but I was just there and I EASILY vaulted over the chest-high barrier on my own. They definitely could have got over it together. FAIL.”
