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redreader posted:Did anyone else already mention that after saving the goth girl (alyssa?) a bunch of times, she refuses to be helped by you later on because 'every time I see you something flies at my head', or whatever? There's a plank you have to grab so she can walk over to where Max is. Even though I didn't bother helping her before (I'm a bad person) that didn't seem to affect anything as I still saved her.
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Oct 26, 2015 02:12
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Axelgear posted:Given all the content of the other episodes, and how weirdly disconnected Ep 5's overall path felt, I'd apply Hanlon's razor; they might simply have had no idea how to end it, which feels understandable. The whole grand arc wove together both Max's reconnecting with her old friend AND the detective story/stories of Rachel Amber and Max's weird time powers. The final episode causes the connection between these to come unwoven, though, and then tries to forcibly stitch them back together with the final decision. It comes off as a clumsy attempt to fix a break in the narrative, rather than an attempt at any particular message. Charitably, they may have run out of time and money to do the ending justice. But that sort of assumes that they didn't have at least a decent plot outline before starting this project. Which, if so, is an incredibly amateur hour mistake to make. I mean, episodes 1-4 had their minor flaws and quibbles, but they kept the plot moving along and full of a variety of engaging, believable characters. The hints and plot hooks were interesting but not too heavy handed. The shifting gears in the last episode are just mind-boggling to me. Again and again I come back to the feeling that, like, whichever writer was the genius behind the start of the story suddenly quit/died/got rewound out of existence by a time wizard, and some talentless hacks took over to bang together an ending at the last minute. For one example, the moments throughout the game where you're given an option to 'sit', and Max will just chill and have a little internal monologue while some pensive music plays. I thought these were really well done in the previous episodes. The one in alt-Chloe's barren upstairs room, for example, was brilliant. So understated, and yet incredibly powerful at really driving home everything you need to know about this timeline you've created. But then in episode 5, we get one scene in the diner, where you chill with Pompidou (if you didn't let him get shot, you monster) and which would be nice, except for the giant loving tornado heading towards you. I mean, people are dying in the street, you should be running for your life, and instead you're just like 'I'm gonna chill with this dog and wax poetic about life'. That, to me, says that the person who wrote this scene is either not the same person who had their hand in the Chloe's-barren-bedroom scene, or that that person suffered irreparable brain damage between then and now. You can't generate the same 'pause and reflect on life' moment when there is a spinning vortex of death headed right towards you. And then the other scene is in the nightmare, where there's a chunk of the junkyard hideout building thing in the midst of the bizarre flashlight stealth sequence. Again, it seems totally out of place. Max is apparently having a complete mental break at this point, inventing monsters in her head that have all the worst real or imagined aspects of people she knows, but never mind that, just gonna kick back on this chair for a bit and relax. The previous episodes seemed so good about managing the mood of the scenes, going from mysterious, to threatening, to humorous, to dangerous, to whatever. And then this one is just 'gently caress it, put it all in a blender, hit frappe and pour whatever comes out in a box and ship it'. edit: spelling BobTheJanitor fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 02:13
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I agree, but you can chill at the art museum too and that one was pretty nice.
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Oct 26, 2015 02:18
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BobTheJanitor posted:Again and again I come back to the feeling that, like, whichever writer was the genius behind the start of the story suddenly quit/died/got rewound out of existence by a time wizard, and some talentless hacks took over to bang together an ending at the last minute. I wondered that, myself, but I've been unable to find an episode-by-episode writer credit as of yet. I had this same feeling with Telltale's Walking Dead Season 2, though, in regards to episodes 3 and 4, and it was correct there; two writers who'd not done any of the previous episodes or season and everything felt so horridly out of place and forced. That might be the case here, but I doubt it, given the unused content files left in the game and the generally disjointed feeling of the episode; it doesn't feel like one person flubbing up an arc but an arc that gets aborted followed by an attempt at two other arcs. BobTheJanitor posted:And then the other scene is in the nightmare, where there's a chunk of the junkyard hideout building thing in the midst of the bizarre flashlight stealth sequence. Again, it seems totally out of place. Max is apparently having a complete mental break at this point, inventing monsters in her head that have all the worst real or imagined aspects of people she knows, but never mind that, just gonna kick back on this chair for a bit and relax. The previous episodes seemed so good about managing the mood of the scenes, going from mysterious, to threatening, to humorous, to dangerous, to whatever. And then this one is just 'gently caress it, put it all in a blender, hit frappe and pour whatever comes out in a box and ship it'. Am I the only one who saw the seat by the lighthouse, thought that was just another "sit and think" situation, and missed a chance to get the bottle photo as a result?
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Oct 26, 2015 04:47
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Axelgear posted:Am I the only one who saw the seat by the lighthouse, thought that was just another "sit and think" situation, and missed a chance to get the bottle photo as a result? Nope, I did exactly the same thing. Silly game can't even remember its own player training. Sit to pause and think with no repercussions for all of these episodes, but then this particular seat moves the plot forward with no warning.
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Oct 26, 2015 04:52
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They did have an American editor/writer that looked over everything, maybe he wasn't as involved for Episode 5?
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Oct 26, 2015 05:00
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I just finished this. there's only one choice that makes a difference, and the whole thing is just and engine to make you feel really really sad. Terrible game. I feel really bad  I play games for fun goddammit.
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Oct 26, 2015 13:13
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Something that still throws me is - if Nathan Prescott killed Rachel Amber - is Chloe the first person Jefferson has killed? He seems remarkably at ease about that and about killing Max, considering his goal was just to take photos of unconscious girls. (And the game confirms he didn't go any further...) (Also why are spoiler tags so hard to do on phone?!)
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Oct 26, 2015 14:22
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VagueRant posted:Something that still throws me is - if Nathan Prescott killed Rachel Amber - is Chloe the first person Jefferson has killed? It isn't clear. Jefferson seems relatively at ease with murdering Chloe, Nathan, Victoria, and presumably Max. We don't see him freaking out, but then he already seems to have figured out that he can pin everything on Nathan and not have to deal with nosy detectives looking at him for the murder. On the other hand, he's clearly upset with Nathan for killing Rachel and having to clean up after him. I get the impression he would rather not murder and have the police involved, and doping up his victims so they don't remember what happened is his preferred MO. But he may well have killed before, either at Blackwell or in Seattle.
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Oct 26, 2015 14:31
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While the ending went completely up its own butt, I really liked the voice message that Nathan left you on your phone. That was some nice bit of writing. The last nice bit of writing. You really should be able to tell Alt Max to gently caress off. You first use your powers to save someone's life and almost every use after that is in the aid of finding a missing girl, helping a suicidal teen, saving a girls father, escaping death or stopping a girl from having a lovely day. But yes I did use it once to take a photo of a squirrel. I am the true monster. Fans fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 15:46
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My main problem with both endings is that they're basically just this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6V0FLIxaao.
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Oct 26, 2015 16:12
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I opened a text document to really dive into the implications of the ending, and the more I think about it the more I dislike it. The ending is incredibly hosed up, it really does go beyond the fact that your choices don't matter, even if that's the obvious consequence.
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Oct 26, 2015 18:14
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King of Solomon posted:I opened a text document to really dive into the implications of the ending, and the more I think about it the more I dislike it. The ending is incredibly hosed up, it really does go beyond the fact that your choices don't matter, even if that's the obvious consequence. Something about the ending really does seem to encourage endless over-analyzing, but not really of the good kind. God knows I've spilled enough text all over the thread about it. It's just hard to drop it, somehow. Like, I was kind of disappointed after finishing and thought that I would just forget it and move on, but I keep thinking back on it and getting ticked off all over again. So all the wall-of-text diatribes are some sort of vague attempt to exorcise the demons. An entirely bad story is easily forgettable, and a good story is satisfying enough that you can put it down when you're done and be content. But an almost good story that faceplants at the finish line is the worst. All build up, no release. It's opening your presents and getting a box of gravel. What do you do with all the leftover anticipation? In my case, I guess you funnel it into endless nerdy posts about the game. 
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Oct 26, 2015 22:48
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BobTheJanitor posted:What do you do with all the leftover anticipation? Fanfiction.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:52
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Plom Bar posted:Fanfiction. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
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Oct 26, 2015 22:57
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BobTheJanitor posted:Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency? I've been registered on this god damned web site for over 11 years and you for a year longer. Any sense of decency either of us might have had perished alongside John Kerry's presidential campaign.
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Oct 26, 2015 23:08
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BobTheJanitor posted:Something about the ending really does seem to encourage endless over-analyzing, but not really of the good kind. God knows I've spilled enough text all over the thread about it. It's just hard to drop it, somehow. Apparently, in my case it's about 600 words in a word document, going into too much detail about how much the ending treats Max and Chloe like poo poo. There's a subsection dedicated to a more positive take, and the whole text vomit is basically bullshit, but it's there and I'm probably going to keep tweaking it.
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Oct 26, 2015 23:14
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BobTheJanitor posted:Something about the ending really does seem to encourage endless over-analyzing, but not really of the good kind. God knows I've spilled enough text all over the thread about it. It's just hard to drop it, somehow. That kind of over-analysis is pretty common in this situation. I hold that it's your brain trying to rationalize an emotional reaction; because the story was making you feel Good, most of the way, and then not only was the ending Bad but it was Bad in such a way that all the stuff you enjoyed gets retroactively diminished by it. It's a bigger swing in quality then if the game had just smash cut to black at some point in the second half of ch5 because at least that wouldn't have changed how you felt about things before it, and it's easy to fixate on that kind of quality drop. I am aware this is a tired and well-worn comparison but this is exactly how the ME3 ending broke a whole bunch of minds back in the day in almost exactly the same fashion for almost exactly the same reasons.
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Oct 26, 2015 23:22
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Plom Bar posted:I've been registered on this god damned web site for over 11 years and you for a year longer. Any sense of decency either of us might have had perished alongside John Kerry's presidential campaign. Sorry, just quoting something from the McCarthy hearings out of context, because apparently I like incredibly obscure humor that isn't amusing in the first place. I freely admit to having lost all decency long ago. And to be fair, I actually did shamefully skim a bit of a fanfic of a post-ending sequence intended to provide some closure. But I gave up without reading much, because that's a bit nerdy even for me, and hearing some random internet person's imagined resolution really didn't provide any sense of closure. It's more just poking the wound at that point.
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Oct 26, 2015 23:34
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BobTheJanitor posted:Something about the ending really does seem to encourage endless over-analyzing, but not really of the good kind. God knows I've spilled enough text all over the thread about it. It's just hard to drop it, somehow. I think the biggest problem with Episode 5 is DONTNOD stopped respecting their characters and just forced them into cheap drama and wallowed in angst just to try and look deep. Just look at Nathan and Victoria, they were both built up as deeply troubled kids and the game made them sympathetic and in the case of Victoria had them start to change for the better but neither of them get any resolution for their arcs in either ending. Hell the reward for Victoria rejecting her pettiness and envy is several hours of terror before getting unceremoniously murdered. It feels cheap as hell to have players get invested into their characters and just throw it all away like that. At least Undertale ended up being pretty much what I wanted when it came to characters and player empathy. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 23:39
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Accordion Man posted:Yeah, I usually don't get real disappointed with games, for example I played through Mass Effect 1 and 2 some time before 3 came out, so I was looking forward to it, but when I heard it was a mess I was just like "Oh well" and moved on and didn't buy it. But Life is Strange really let me down because it was really good up until Episode 5, it was unique and nicely written with characters and story that got me invested in it. I'm one of those loser nerds that actually enjoy a game that's well-written, especially if they can tie it in with the gameplay. So I really loved the game up until they screwed the pooch at the very end and I honestly felt like I got trolled. I know its a bit silly, but I still felt a bit betrayed, that I thought DONTNOD knew what they were doing, (And there was enough quality to think that) when it turns out they kind of didn't. I think that there was a sudden, dramatic shift in DONTNOD's plans for the game's story at some point either during episode 4's development or in the very early stages of episode 5's. There's just such a dramatic shift in tone and writing quality that I can't imagine a scenario where this was planned from the beginning.
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Oct 26, 2015 23:45
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This is all an elaborate plot, next they launch the kickstarter for the true ending and then they're set for life.
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Oct 27, 2015 00:00
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Are you guys really mad about SOMA too?
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Oct 27, 2015 00:03
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BobTheJanitor posted:This is all an elaborate plot, next they launch the kickstarter for the true ending and then they're set for life. Is it bad that I would pay for this? Maybe the price of one episode at most
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Oct 27, 2015 00:40
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Episode 6: Oops
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Oct 27, 2015 00:44
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Episode 6 would play out like Alan Wake: American Nightmare and have absolutely nothing to do with the main game's plot and pretty much just be Chloe/Max lesbian roadtripping through the American Midwest.
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Oct 27, 2015 00:49
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Indrazar posted:Is it bad that I would pay for this? No, I would probably pay more than it was worth for this. Hell, if they had some reason to explain the dip in quality and what they had done to fix that problem, I would probably pay a silly amount of money for it. Dr. Killjoy posted:Episode 6 would play out like Alan Wake: American Nightmare and have absolutely nothing to do with the main game's plot and pretty much just be Chloe/Max lesbian roadtripping through the American Midwest. And an incredibly embarrassing amount of money for this.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:16
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In the interest of being nice, I do think there are clever bits about the ending: Chloe feels abandoned by her father and best friend. Max decides not to contact her out of shame. She delays action until the last moment, where the consequences (Chloe being rightfully pissed) are at their worst. The Everyday Heroes contest is a celebration of the small ways regular people can make a difference. Max decides not to enter out of shame (the everyday hero in her picture is herselfie). Chloe, a young woman with no one to care for her in the way she needs is set on a self-destructive path. Her ~fate~ is sealed the moment she decides to blackmail Nathan and run away. This could've been prevented by an everyday hero, but it wasn't. Max can only helplessly watch the consequences of her inaction. Her time magicscience allows her to see what she could've had. She could've had a great relationship with Chloe. She could've won the contest. But she was so afraid of the consequences, she avoided them completely. She only intervened at the eleventh hour, and now the consequences are at their most dire. Max is keen to watch others through the camera and through her snooping. But if she truly cared, if anyone truly cared, they'd do more than watch. Kate shouldn't have had to stand on the edge of a roof to get the support she needed. Victoria shouldn't have had to be humiliated to receive sympathy. Chloe shouldn't have had to die for Rachel's body to be found. We can ask "What if?" all we like, but if we never act, we leave the world to chance. still fuckin wanted rachel to have to have magic modeling powers goddammit
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Oct 27, 2015 01:32
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Episode 5 was really good, the ending worked emotionally and was thematically consistent with everything that went before.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:33
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wyoming posted:Are you guys really mad about SOMA too? I never completed it, because I think it's boring to hide from robots over and over again and I'm also tired of contrived sea monsters. I didn't like Amnesia that much either. gently caress video games.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:36
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Mr. Flunchy posted:Episode 5 was really good, the ending worked emotionally and was thematically consistent with everything that went before.  Your avatar agrees.
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Oct 27, 2015 02:58
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I was talking to my grandparents about life and they were basically like "If god isn't real, then what's the point to living? We're all born, we all die. It's the choices and the intent that matter, not the end result. We all end up in the ground together no matter what anyone does, so the journey ends up being the most important thing, not the ending" Life is.... Unfair.
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Oct 27, 2015 03:56
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wyoming posted:Are you guys really mad about SOMA too? SOMA had a completely thematically consistent ending though, the only thing to mad over is how loving dumb Simon was at the end.
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Oct 27, 2015 10:22
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BobTheJanitor posted:I mean, people are dying in the street, you should be running for your life, and instead you're just like 'I'm gonna chill with this dog and wax poetic about life'. Though I did completely miss that 'Sit'-purtunity. I also managed to end the gallery scene way prematurely because I thought talking to the principal would end it rather than the photo. Geektox posted:One of the games of the year for me for sure. Also reading this thread made me realize apparently I'm the only person who still says "hella" YorexTheMad posted:I understand where comparisons to ME3 come from--games with branching narratives that converge on a single exclusive decision at the end--but where that comparison fails for me is that the entirety of Life is Strange built towards its possible endings. Whichever choice Max picks at the lighthouse is a natural resolution to what her and the player experience; just about every major event and previous choice is building Max and the player to accept the consequences of their final decision. ME3's ending was mechanically similar but didn't narratively or thematically fit with the series at all, it just makes something happen so the story can end. When I finished LiS I didn't have any of that sort of resentment. I knew it could've been something greater for me, but what we have is at least something consistent for the story. Plom Bar posted:I'm not angry anymore. I don't hate the last episode. The endings still evoke some unfortunate tropes that I wish could have been handled more gracefully, But I've been thinking about this game nonstop since completing it on Tuesday night, and a not-small percentage of that time has also been spent crying about it a whole lot. Under other circumstances, I'd chalk that one up to being a woman. The simple truth is that anything that manages to engage with me on such a profoundly emotional level is not something I can truly hate. Speaking as a not-woman, this is one of very few games that I've cried with. Episode 4 in particular left me rekt not just during but for a long time after. My father died when I was around the same age as Chloe/Max in the game, and I remember at the time feeling that if there was a way I could be taken instead of him, I would do it. After playing that episode I found myself thinking back on the alt-Chloe scenes frequently and tearing up. Episode 5 had some great moments as well, with David's "thank god she's just a stoner" and (optionally?) revealing to Chloe the truth about that alternate dimension. Buzkashi posted:My best friend and I are basically under the impression that the only people who are sacrificing Arcadia Bay are doing it out of irony or spite, because I think only a complete monster would honestly be like "Yes Chloe I'm totally okay with your mom dying horribly in a diner explosion so I can have you all to myself forever." Keeping in mind the alternative is Joyce living on in a world where Chloe is super dead, I think that aspect is a bit of a wash.
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Oct 27, 2015 10:32
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Sakurazuka posted:SOMA had a completely thematically consistent ending though, the only thing to mad over is how loving dumb Simon was at the end. As did Life is Strange, goons just seem to be angry at that theme.
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Oct 27, 2015 10:39
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wyoming posted:As did Life is Strange, goons just seem to be angry at that theme. Almost every single RPG/story-based game thread in Games has people doing all this masturbating in spoiler tags about what they want the ending to be and without fail they're super mad when they reach the end. It's happened in every single RPG thread. The people who post in this forum are permanently damaged and cannot handle playing an RPG without writing a fanfiction at the same time.
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Oct 27, 2015 10:51
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'Everyone else on this forum is terrible except me' is the dumbest goon gimmick yet. Everyone who paid $10 to post on a website is an idiot.
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Oct 27, 2015 10:56
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Having an ending you'd like for a piece of media you are enjoying: permanently damaged as a person
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Oct 27, 2015 10:58
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I liked SOMA's end because it made sense and was aptly foreshadowed the first time you switch bodies. It made complete sense in the rules they established with how copies work. I didn't like Life is Strange's ending because "Max you are the Tornado" is delivered to you by Warren based on seemingly gently caress all and there's no real reason for the Tornado to want to murder everyone in Arcadia Bay except "Well gently caress you I guess"
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Oct 27, 2015 11:00
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SirSamVimes posted:Having an ending you'd like for a piece of media you are enjoying: permanently damaged as a person Being upset that the ending is different than what you expected or wanted is pretty dumb. A story isn't something you solve, that's what the gameplay is.
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Oct 27, 2015 11:02
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