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wyoming posted:Yeah, sitting in silence while your love is murdered in the same room as you seems far worse than letting a town get killed by a natural disaster at a distance. One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. I guarantee you that people who watched both endings who don't actively dislike Chloe find it emotionally harder to watch that scene than to watch as the city is obliterated at a distance, even though you know the number of deaths is way more significant. Chexoid posted:It's like, hey universe, if you don't want me to gently caress with time, don't give me total time control powers, bitch. While I get the complaints about people wanting to know the origin of the powers, I fully understand why Dontnod decided to go with the hammy "I guess we'll never know" lines in the script. Frankly I don't think they needed the lines at all (since they were awful) but I get that they were worried people would call it out as a plot hole if they didn't try to address it. The thing about it is that Life is Strange is entirely about that final choice. Everything over the course of five episodes exists in part to drive towards the choice you're given at the very end of the game. Things like the investigation into Rachel Amber's death and Kate Marsh's suicide/survival are designed to get you to feel empathy for one of two groups, the townsfolk or Chloe. At the same time however its worth noting that in both endings all of those choices are wiped off the map. Did you let Kate die? She's alive now. The same with Frank and his dog, Victoria etc. Nothing you do in Life is Strange actually matters except that final choice and that is by design, the main thrust of the gameplay isn't the focus itself, its the crucible that forges the player's narrative and feelings to put them in the right frame of mind for the finale. The thing about the powers is that they're extraneous to that dynamic. The origin of her powers either doesn't affect the outcome of the final choice, or it massively fucks it up. For example, lets say her powers are because she happened to be bathed in chronitons from the terror zone... or whatever. Neat fact, but irrelevant. It doesn't add anything to the content of the main story or change any of the actions of anyone involved. By contrast let's say Max's time powers are granted to her by satan in a weird Faustian Gambit. The prince of darkness knows that the tornado will result and eventually Max will be forced to choose between Chloe and the town, and that if she chooses Chloe that she is forever damned (or something). That is going to massively swing the delicate balance of the finale away from the 'bad' ending and towards the 'not satan' ending. At best the reason doesn't matter, and at worst it influences the crowning achievement of the game in a way that ruins what they were going for by making an obvious 'right' choice.
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Oct 22, 2015 07:08
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Well that was a 5/5 for me. I'm really really confused about one plot point though. Can someone explain to me why Max has to tell Chloe to fill her in with all the poo poo you changed at the party? I don't recall her ever loosing her memory when she time traveled through pictures before. I think I started to lose track of alternate realities or whatever when you meet up with her on the beach. Why don't we remember what happened in between?
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Oct 22, 2015 07:23
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Portland Sucks posted:Well that was a 5/5 for me. I'm really really confused about one plot point though. It's like hit movie Click starring Adam Sandler. She's not really aware of the details of what changes.
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Oct 22, 2015 07:26
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Portland Sucks posted:Well that was a 5/5 for me. I'm really really confused about one plot point though. she can change little moments, but she doesn't actively experience everything between what she changed and what the present ends up being. And, her past-self doesn't keep the knowledge and thoughts that she has from the future--it's like future-Max is just temporarily taking over the body and giving it back to past-Max, while past-Max gets cordoned off somewhere without any knowledge until future-Max leaves.
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Oct 22, 2015 07:27
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Portland Sucks posted:Well that was a 5/5 for me. I'm really really confused about one plot point though. Have you seen the newest X-men movie? It's basically that. While Max inhabits the past version of herself she retains all her memories etc and can change things as she wants. As soon as she leaves the past version of herself the Max of that period reasserts itself and goes on as if nothing ever happened. This is why you get things like Max jumping back in time to tear up the Every day heroes photo only to end up back in the dark room because of an unintended consequence. Past Max doesn't remember what she did when she was inhabited, and present Max doesn't remember anything that happened in the 'new' timeline she's created/jumped to.
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Oct 22, 2015 07:28
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Caros posted:One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. I guarantee you that people who watched both endings who don't actively dislike Chloe find it emotionally harder to watch that scene than to watch as the city is obliterated at a distance, even though you know the number of deaths is way more significant. I don't know, maybe for someone who hasn't seen anything else in the game, but otherwise that statistic includes pretty much every other personality you've met in the game. Presumably that includes Kate, whose safety and well-being I was already way more invested in than Chloe's because her story was the game's most grounded moment. Watching Chloe die for the fifth or sixth time was a lot easier for me than killing off not just Kate but the entire rest of the town -- the game really goes out of its way to condition you to expect and accept Chloe's death. Sio fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 07:29
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Portland Sucks posted:Well that was a 5/5 for me. I'm really really confused about one plot point though. It's not that she loses her memory, it's just that she didn't experience any of the changes she made, the first time she does it, she wakes up in preppy clothes, friends with Nathan and Victoria, no idea what's happened in the years since she saved William. Caros posted:Have you seen the newest X-men movie? It's basically that. Or yeah, this. Varam posted:I don't know, maybe for someone who hasn't seen anything else in the game, but otherwise that statistic includes pretty much every other personality you've met in the game. Watching Chloe die for the fifth or sixth time was a lot easier for me than killing off the rest of the town -- the game really goes out of its way to condition you to expect and accept Chloe's death. The game doesn't condition you for poo poo, her death is always tragic, expect for maybe when she shot herself.
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Oct 22, 2015 07:35
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wyoming posted:The game doesn't condition you for poo poo, her death is always tragic, expect for maybe when she shot herself. The tone isn't really relevant in terms of whether you'e being conditioned to accept it or not, is it? I don't think you can get all the way to Episode 5 without recognizing that Chloe is seemingly living on borrowed time no matter what Max does.
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Oct 22, 2015 07:49
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Life is Strange 2: Chloe is actually the new Hitler you morons
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Oct 22, 2015 08:06
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Anyone willing to let Joyce die is a monster. That woman is a saint. In every argument with Chloe or David, Joyce was the voice of reason.
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Oct 22, 2015 10:34
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I still wish there were some more puzzles or whatever that were actually fun instead of the horrible bottle puzzle. The nightmare sequence was really fun for example.
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Oct 22, 2015 10:39
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But Max did say the bottles were poo poo so it's OK, right?  It's probably supposed to be player's nightmare.
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Oct 22, 2015 10:49
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Caros posted:The thing about it is that Life is Strange is entirely about that final choice. Everything over the course of five episodes exists in part to drive towards the choice you're given at the very end of the game. Things like the investigation into Rachel Amber's death and Kate Marsh's suicide/survival are designed to get you to feel empathy for one of two groups, the townsfolk or Chloe. At the same time however its worth noting that in both endings all of those choices are wiped off the map. Did you let Kate die? She's alive now. The same with Frank and his dog, Victoria etc. Nothing you do in Life is Strange actually matters except that final choice and that is by design, the main thrust of the gameplay isn't the focus itself, its the crucible that forges the player's narrative and feelings to put them in the right frame of mind for the finale. I think this is why I liked the game up until the very last choice. For me it just fell totally flat. Chloe grew on me as a character but the constant Sofie's Choices that Max was forced to make felt overused by the end and I didn't like the way that the last decision was all that mattered even though it was obviously intentionally set up that way from the beginning. Having to pick between Chloe and her dad was a legitimate choice (even though you don't make it) whereas Chloe versus an entire town was really stacked. I think a better choice if they had to do it, would be if saving Chloe and not having the time tornado hit required Max to have to die to whatever was causing the nose bleeds after extreme power use. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 12:41
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I did love the reality breaking down stuff with the dead birds and whales. The start of the nightmare was super good! I was hoping for a everything is hosed you've destroyed reality thing and are on the edge of death from using timetravel but it instead turned into some lame stealth thing. At least it was easy.
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Oct 22, 2015 13:12
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See I hadn't considered the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay option as a macro-level version of Max's choice to sacrifice William in exchange for Chloe, I think that makes reasonable sense. Part of me was wondering/hoping there'd be an option for Max to sacrifice herself somehow to save Chloe as well as the town.
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Oct 22, 2015 13:12
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Having to sacrifice your own life for your friend who you weren't there for in her time of need would have played better into the hero idea the game was running with rather than using your power to kill a whole bunch of people in order to save her which I would assume would result in some serious survivor guilt especially since her mom is one of the dead and also makes Max a monster. To me it felt like they just chose something "big" to weigh against Chloe to make to the choice harder but resulted in being really unfair. I think I would have been ok with a three way choice where you either let Chloe die in the bathroom, die yourself by overusing your power to save her without creating the tornado, and then the selfish option where you two run away together and let the town get wrecked. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 13:40
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BobTheJanitor posted:Welllllll I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it's almost impossible to make it work right with all the variable sound levels and emotions in the voice acting. The end result kinda comes across a bit too much like 'bzzzzt-hello-Max-you're-quite-good-at-turning-me-on'. But kudos for making the effort to provide an ending. More than can be said for the dev team. On the other hand, at least the lip-synching *is* up to their notoriously high standards!
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Oct 22, 2015 14:32
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I was looking forward to MGSV as game of the year, and I was taken by surprise (earlier tonight) to find out that this was it for me. I did not in any way see the end-of-ep-4 thing coming.VagueRant posted:I do honestly wonder how much more I would have enjoyed the ending if I had played them all in a row without months of anticipation and fan theories. I think you guys are absolutely right here. I just played through the entire game in the last 4 days. I tried to remain spoiler-free. I thought I'd been spoiled: "it was a dream all along" and "max kills herself in the end" but neither were true. The real end was not what I expected at all. Best game. Macaluso posted:I really loved the nightmare/reality loving up sequence. The birds splattering on the window, the weird MGS-esque sequence, the walking through all the Chloe/Max memories. The game trolling you with the bottles. The giant squirrels made me Not sure what the extra bottles in the nightmare sequence really meant. 'oh it's a callback to the junkyard bit'? Did not see giant squirrils. The dorm sequence totally reminded me of PT. Apart from all that I noticed a couple of weirdnesses. Like, they got USA voice actors but the translator was English, an Englishman who was doing a really good job and trying hard but made like one or two mistakes. I am from the UK / SA and I see language differences a lot. In the USA you have 'grades' for school work, in this game there were 'marks'. Also someone in the 5th episode offered to give you a 'lift', as opposed to a 'ride'. Also really: is Chloe lesbian or not? I can't figure it out.
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Oct 22, 2015 14:42
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a bit. In fact the whole sequence going through the dorm hallway multiple times was
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Chloe is DTF in all realities.
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Oct 22, 2015 14:55
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exquisite tea posted:Chloe is DTF in all realities. This is probably the correct answer. Chloe seems like the kind of teenager that would mistake emotional intimacy for physical intimacy.
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Oct 22, 2015 15:16
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That's more true of Max though, Chloe has at least one confirmed girlbang that we know of.
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Oct 22, 2015 15:21
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I think it's fairly established that she's bisexual. She thinks guys are attractive (and even teases Max about Jefferson) and dated some "bad boys" according to her mom, but is in love with Rachel and Max.
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Oct 22, 2015 15:25
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redreader posted:Apart from all that I noticed a couple of weirdnesses. Like, they got USA voice actors but the translator was English, an Englishman who was doing a really good job and trying hard but made like one or two mistakes. I am from the UK / SA and I see language differences a lot. In the USA you have 'grades' for school work, in this game there were 'marks'. Also someone in the 5th episode offered to give you a 'lift', as opposed to a 'ride'. People in the USA say "lift" when driving people somewhere. that's what I say most of the time, and I was born here (and I live in Oregon, no less). the "marks" thing is less common, but Blackwell is supposed to be a fancy private school, and they like to sound fancier sometimes and use Latin/British English phrases sometimes (if it was a school/faculty person who used it--I don't remember), so it wasn't particularly jarring. "high marks" is also used for "good grades", on occasion
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Oct 22, 2015 15:36
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Kaislioc posted:You can choose to sacrifice the town to save Chloe or you can choose to let Chloe die and... not worry about anything else like Jefferson or Kate because hey it would have all just worked itself out anyway. Not sure if that annoys me or not. Yeah it's way too neat and makes the whole game plot pointless, especially as Max forgets everything in that ending (no future knowledge to trigger Time Tornadoes!). So she doesn't even remember the "lesson" of not loving with time. Which either makes it inevitable that she uses those powers again because they never really explain when or why she got them or why she'd lose them. She's trapped in a loop, forever rediscovering "don't gently caress with time!" thing, repeating the loop until she "learns" not to gently caress with time only to forget it once she pops back into proper time space an-  That or the powers popped in randomly just for this week and popped out once she learned her lesson (which she forgets)  e: To run with it a little further, if the time powers don't just randomly come and go then that means she'll repeat the loop until she *doesn't* decide to not do anything (with whatever event it happens to be that trigger her using the powers). Only then could she remember to not use her powers again / trigger another time tornado. So at some point she actually has to live with having triggered a time tornado and letting it destroy whatever it is that Time Tornadoes decide to target. So yeah, the nature of the time powers *do* matter for the plot. Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 17:40
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redreader posted:. Also someone in the 5th episode offered to give you a 'lift', as opposed to a 'ride'.
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Oct 22, 2015 17:46
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What makes you think she forgets what happens? The entire point of the ending is she remembers.
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Oct 22, 2015 17:46
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Pimpmust posted:Yeah it's way too neat and makes the whole game plot pointless, especially as Max forgets everything in that ending (no future knowledge to trigger Time Tornadoes!). So she doesn't even remember the "lesson" of not loving with time. Which either makes it inevitable that she uses those powers again because they never really explain when or why she got them or why she'd lose them. She's trapped in a loop, forever rediscovering "don't gently caress with time!" thing, repeating the loop until she "learns" not to gently caress with time only to forget it once she pops back into proper time space an- Max does remember everything once Friday rolls around. Basically she goes back, 'fixes' things an then goes into autopilot until Friday at which point the real max reasserts herself with no memory of the previous week but all her memories from before. It's why she reacts to seeing the butterfly. The clock never stops in San dimas, every time max goes back and fucks with things in an alternate timeline time continues to progress as normal, which is why it takes until Friday for max to be become max again.
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Oct 22, 2015 17:47
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Pimpmust posted:Yeah it's way too neat and makes the whole game plot pointless, especially as Max forgets everything in that ending (no future knowledge to trigger Time Tornadoes!). So she doesn't even remember the "lesson" of not loving with time. Which either makes it inevitable that she uses those powers again because they never really explain when or why she got them or why she'd lose them. She's trapped in a loop, forever rediscovering "don't gently caress with time!" thing, repeating the loop until she "learns" not to gently caress with time only to forget it once she pops back into proper time space an- Max remembers everything that happens, you dolt. Max is the player. Everything you remember, she remembers.
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Oct 22, 2015 17:47
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The problem with that is that if she forgets everything (during the time skip portion to friday) so things can autopilot along, but then she gets all her memories back on Friday she still has tons of "forbidden" knowledge about people and stuff she did in all those alternative timelines, which means she could accidentally trigger another time-tornado. She'd have to somehow keep track of what she "should" know about things and what she shouldn't know, and constantly make decisions to not... gently caress with time with time-travel gained knowledge. I'm not seeing how that would work unless she moved away from Arcadia Bay in a hurry, but then she'd have made a choice based on time travel knowledge too and  They're right, don't gently caress with time.
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Oct 22, 2015 17:54
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Pimpmust posted:The problem with that is that if she forgets everything (during the time skip portion to friday) so things can autopilot along, but then she gets all her memories back on Friday she still has tons of "forbidden" knowledge about people and stuff she did in all those alternative timelines, which means she could accidentally trigger another time-tornado. She'd have to somehow keep track of what she "should" know about things and what she shouldn't know, and constantly make decisions to not... gently caress with time with time-travel gained knowledge. I'm not seeing how that would work unless she moved away from Arcadia Bay in a hurry, but then she'd have made a choice based on time travel knowledge too and You're thinking too hard about this, mate.
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Oct 22, 2015 18:00
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Obviously Only half serious, of course I know it's because some writer at a studio decided on this particular time-travel resolution and wanted to deliver a certain experience to the players. It's just doesn't hold up very well once you pitch a bunch of goons at it with magnifiers.
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Oct 22, 2015 18:03
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People who intentionally pick a bad ending shouldn't be surprised when they get a bad ending imo
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Oct 22, 2015 18:08
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Pimpmust posted:They're right, don't gently caress with time. [/spoiler] Nah, gently caress with time, make out with hot punk girls. Also "lift" is super common, on the west coast at least. The writer is from Northern California.
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Oct 22, 2015 18:19
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Radish posted:Having to sacrifice your own life for your friend who you weren't there for in her time of need would have played better into the hero idea the game was running with rather than using your power to kill a whole bunch of people in order to save her which I would assume would result in some serious survivor guilt especially since her mom is one of the dead and also makes Max a monster. To me it felt like they just chose something "big" to weigh against Chloe to make to the choice harder but resulted in being really unfair. Just because you're aware of how the endings play out doesn't mean Max is. Once she tears the photo, she will never know whether or not their wild rear end guess about letting Chloe die would save the town or if the tornado would come anyways.
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Oct 22, 2015 18:21
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Reclaimer posted:Just because you're aware of how the endings play out doesn't mean Max is. Once she tears the photo, she will never know whether or not their wild rear end guess about letting Chloe die would save the town or if the tornado would come anyways. Yeah this. I mean, i certainly know there's a whole different ending, but all Max has to go on is Warren's speculation and a gut feeling. As far as she knows letting Chloe die leads to an exponentially worse outcome. Taking the other choice means the only lesson she/I've leaned is "don't help someone, even if given the opportunity to"
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Oct 22, 2015 18:49
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As far as Max and Chloe were concerned the ending choice given to the player was exactly the terrible choice Max had to make and they were pretty convinced of it. If she stopped loving with time from the very beginning then the time tornado, the animals killing themselves, crazy weather, etc would not happen. Personally I think they should have just made catching Jefferson several times the climax and then written some reason she had to choose between continuing to gently caress with time to save Chloe one last time and whatever was causing the nosebleeds would kill her or letting Chloe die and taking it for Max. I think that would have been a better last decision and closer in feel to the previous decision she had to make regarding Chloe's dad but this time it's in your hands and it sticks.
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Oct 22, 2015 19:01
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Radish posted:As far as Max and Chloe were concerned the ending choice given to the player was exactly the terrible choice Max had to make and they were pretty convinced of it. If she stopped loving with time from the very beginning then the time tornado, the animals killing themselves, crazy weather, etc would not happen. Nathan is going down for murder. He obviously ratted Jefferson out. Out of everything in the ending, the fact that this confuses anyone at all is super bizarre
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Oct 22, 2015 19:04
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Yeah I remembered that and edited it out.
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Oct 22, 2015 19:05
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Radish posted:As far as Max and Chloe were concerned the ending choice given to the player was exactly the terrible choice Max had to make and they were pretty convinced of it. If she stopped loving with time from the very beginning then the time tornado, the animals killing themselves, crazy weather, etc would not happen. Jefferson gets caught because his protege guns down a girl in a school bathroom and undoubtedly flips on him to get a better deal the moment he realizes he is otherwise hosed for life. No omniscient time knowledge needed. As for your alternate ending? No. A big theme of the game is max and Chloe being stronger together and the relationship they have with one another. An ending where one of them always dies is a bad ending because both endings are grim as hell. The save Chloe ending has a lot of death in it but it's actually the positive and uplifting ending. Everything is wiped out but life moves on, the animals come back the sun is shining and so on. The choice at the end of the game is entirely between whether they get to stay together or not, and changing it the way you suggest makes it sort of pointless. They will never be happy no matter the cost, so what does it matter?
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Oct 22, 2015 19:10
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Yeah I'm straight up going to disagree that the ending where Max manipulates time to save her friend and kills a ton of people to do it (including other close friends of hers) is the uplifting one specifically after she was freaking out about how much death and destruction she caused manipulating time without fully understanding what she was doing. If you think the Max or Chloe Sophie's choice ending is too grim that's fine, but it feels pretty clear that the one where Chloe understands her fate is going to be for the greater good and both she and Max accept that is the more uplifting ending as sad as it is. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 19:14
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