I've sat on my feelings on this game for months now. I think I finally realized the issue with this game, for me. The characters, I think, are not good? I'm still not sure how to express what I feel, but I find the characters lackluster compared to games like Red Dead 2, Last of Us 1, or even FFVII. The characters in this game, to me, are just extremely bland and I never had them click for me. And when I started to warm up to some, like Jesse, they just kill them off. So, to me, most of these characters just act as blank slates with very little personality for the sole purpose to accompany you during gameplay, or just to die to raise stakes in the story. I emphasize that these are my personal feelings, because clearly I'm missing something due to the overwhelming support and love for this game. This problem wouldn't have been an issue if the game wasn't so reliant on its story. The gameplay was fun and sometimes even fantastic, but the main reason people play the Last of Us is for the story, and the characters brought it down for me. I even like some of the concepts the story has, like Joel's death early on and whatnot.