About this game
Watching Ellie crouch behind a rusted car, all sharp angles and that stupidly iconic backpack, I felt something weird. Not dread, not the usual post apocalyptic tension. More like... my brain doing that record scratch noise. Because this isn't the Ellie from the HBO show or the remaster. This is a version where the cordyceps apparently mutated into a horny virus and nobody told me. The art is deliberately rough, like someone sketched it on a napkin during a boring meeting, and honestly? It kind of works for the whole "everything is broken" vibe.
The dialogue choices pop up with the subtlety of a brick through a window. One minute you're scavenging for supplies, the next you're picking between "share a blanket for warmth" and something that would make Joel choke on his coffee. The game doesn't even pretend to be subtle about it. I clicked a totally innocent option about checking for injuries and suddenly there's a close up of Ellie's skinny frame with her shirt riding up, and the text just goes full send into describing things in a way that would get you banned from Twitch. The parody aspect is so on the nose it's practically inside the nostril. Remember that scene in the original with the giraffes? Yeah, this game has a version of that. Let's just say the wildlife is... different.
There's a crafting system that makes zero sense. I collected three rags and a bottle of something and the game told me I could now make a "distraction device." What does it distract? Who knows. The visual novel format means you're mostly clicking and reading, but every few scenes there's a choice that branches into something explicit. The teen tag is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and the whole thing feels like it was coded in a basement by someone who really, really liked The Last of Us but wished it had way more questionable content. The skinny character model for Ellie is accurate to the source material I guess, but something about the way the artist draws collarbones is living rent free in my head now. Not in a good way. Or maybe in a good way? I need a shower.