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BobTheJanitor posted:Counterpoint: I thought Brothers was another game that didn't stick the ending. But reactions vary a lot on that one. It depends on how amenable you are to the idea of your fantasy world suddenly getting an injection of hard, uncaring reality. I tend to go to games as an escape from life being crap, so reminders of that are quite the bucket of cold water. Brothers didn't bullshit you with meaningless moral choices. Your mission was very clear from the start and the ending was not in disagreement with how story progressed one bit. You get 'harsh reality' from the very start with the mother drowning, which scars the younger brother emotionally, and the next thing you know is that the father is also dying. It's always real. But it's also two brothers on a magic adventure in not-Finland. It's like The NeverEnding Story, but more grounded. What books do you read/films you watch if Brothers is too harsh for you?
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Oct 28, 2015 01:16
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lmao I'm used to choice-based story games lying about how much your choices matter but this one takes it to the next level of canonically erasing them from existence. I didn't think it was possible for the ending to suck hard enough to make me regret even buying the game, what a complete waste of time
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Oct 28, 2015 01:45
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Paladinus posted:Brothers didn't bullshit you with meaningless moral choices. Your mission was very clear from the start and the ending was not in disagreement with how story progressed one bit. You get 'harsh reality' from the very start with the mother drowning, which scars the younger brother emotionally, and the next thing you know is that the father is also dying. It's always real. But it's also two brothers on a magic adventure in not-Finland. It's like The NeverEnding Story, but more grounded. What books do you read/films you watch if Brothers is too harsh for you? Getting off topic, but it's my fault for setting out the bait I suppose. It's not that it's too harsh, really, more the way it was handled. (spoilers for Brothers, I guess) Like, I don't have a problem with characters dying in my fiction or sad endings or whatever. I'd probably put the end of TWD S1 way up on my list of well done endings, and it was clearly not happy fun times. But if the protagonists are dying off, I want to see it used well. Either a heroic sacrifice, or a blaze of glory, or at least properly set up for dramatic effect. Brothers was just like 'here's a giant spider and oh he's dead now'. Which, yeah, that's realistic. People die all the time for no good reason, just random senseless tragedies. But I don't really need a video game to tell me that. I go to fiction for the opposite of that, for structured stories full of meaning. And then to heap on top of that, it tries and (for me at least) fails hard in trying to make you feel sad and oppressed by it. Drag corpse through field, dig hole, drop corpse in hole, fill hole. It's like the game is screaming "ARE YOU SAD YET? WELL KEEP DIGGING!" I mean, I don't mind having my emotions manipulated by a story that's good at doing it. (see again the TWD S1 ending) But this just felt so ham-fisted and ridiculous. I was expecting to get back and have the father keel over. And then the house collapses around you. And then a piano lands on your head, followed by a whale, and then a meteor destroys the planet. (and then your ghost is forced to drag the rubble to the sun and incinerate it one chunk at a time) And, you know, this is just me. If it worked for other people, that's totally fine. I never want to tell someone they're wrong for enjoying a thing. But I finished that game with an eye-roll and don't ever plan to touch it again.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:40
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Hog Inspector posted:lmao I'm used to choice-based story games lying about how much your choices matter but this one takes it to the next level of canonically erasing them from existence. I didn't think it was possible for the ending to suck hard enough to make me regret even buying the game, what a complete waste of time Lol are you for real
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Oct 28, 2015 02:44
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BobTheJanitor posted:Words about Two Brothers These were pretty much my same feelings about that game, so it's not just you.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:53
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GOONS ARE MEAN
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guys I thought the ending was good if short. is that okay??
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Oct 28, 2015 02:56
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morallyobjected posted:guys I thought the ending was good if short. is that okay?? no that's illegal
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Oct 28, 2015 03:00
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morallyobjected posted:guys I thought the ending was good if short. is that okay?? This makes me angry.
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Oct 28, 2015 04:27
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Seconding the hype for Blues and Bullets. The Wolf Among Us left a mystery-choice-and-consequence-game-shaped hole in my heart, so Life is Strange had me hooked with the hope of a glimmer of Telltale Games' Veronica Mars. The clue board in episode 4 was one of my favorite segments. Of course, if you need another storygame set in America made by a French developer, there's a new David Cage interactive cinematic experience to look forward to.  Viridiant posted:This makes me angry. goons in the dork room goons in the dork room
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Oct 28, 2015 04:48
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Did anyone notice the Easter Eggs in the credits? So far I've found two: - At the end of Episode 4's credits, where it normally says "Thanks for playing!", it says "Thanks for crying!" Episode 5 also has an extended version of this message. - In Episode 5's credits, the song credit for "To All Of You" appears printed entirely in reverse.
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Oct 28, 2015 07:24
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Plom Bar posted:- In Episode 5's credits, the song credit for "To All Of You" appears printed entirely in reverse. It has it in both forwards and reversed, iirc. It's the song that's playing during the backwards nightmare, if that's not obvious.
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Oct 28, 2015 11:32
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Is there an official LiS soundtrack, or even just a list of what tracks were used in each episode somewhere?
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Oct 28, 2015 11:46
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At least let me know what that last song was. It was badass.
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Oct 28, 2015 11:55
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Sakurazuka posted:Is there an official LiS soundtrack, or even just a list of what tracks were used in each episode somewhere? Just listen to this on repeat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4 But you can also check here. http://dontnodentertainment.wikia.com/wiki/Life_Is_Strange_(Soundtrack)
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Oct 28, 2015 12:01
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Play Ghost Trick it's the best.
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Oct 28, 2015 12:50
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Hog Inspector posted:lmao I'm used to choice-based story games lying about how much your choices matter but this one takes it to the next level of canonically erasing them from existence. I didn't think it was possible for the ending to suck hard enough to make me regret even buying the game, what a complete waste of time It's cute to see people who treat fiction as a window into an alternate reality getting all pissy when the story doesn't go the way they want.
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Oct 28, 2015 12:58
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Mr. Flunchy posted:It's cute to see people who treat fiction as a window into an alternate reality getting all pissy when the story doesn't go the way they want. A window? No... But a mirror maybe. quote:For anything so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Life is Strange was at its best when it was examining the human relationships of Max Caulfield and its weakest when explaining the time travel stuff. 
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Oct 28, 2015 13:28
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I liked time travel puzzles and I mean puzzles, and not just trial and error with dialogue options, but there wasn't an awful lot of them. Three maybe?
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Oct 28, 2015 13:34
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Paladinus posted:I liked time travel puzzles and I mean puzzles, and not just trial and error with dialogue options, but there wasn't an awful lot of them. Three maybe? The actual time puzzles were pretty good, except maybe in the last episode when the answer was rewind, and then rewind again further. That seemed to catch a whole lot of people looping in one spot looking for the thing to click. But from a story perspective, staying away from time science magic and focusing on interpersonal stuff was definitely their strong suit.
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Oct 28, 2015 14:54
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LiS was at its funniest when examining the human relationships of Max Caulfield because said character alternated between being a listless, phlegmatic cipher for the insecurity and narcissism of young adulthood and a badly-written monster person. This is fully represented by the endings which are also very funny.
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Oct 28, 2015 15:08
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This game is like the opposite of It's A Wonderful Life. Max tries so hard to be a positive force in the life of everyone she meets, only for the universe to slap her across the face with the revelation that everything would turn out just fine if she wasn't around at all/did nothing. And for good measure it either takes away her best friend/lover or places on her head the destruction of an entire town. A good thing for a teenager about to enter into college to experience, that demographic isn't suicidal at all. This story is amazingly mean.
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Oct 28, 2015 15:51
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Viridiant posted:This game is like the opposite of It's A Wonderful Life. 
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Oct 28, 2015 15:59
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Sakurazuka posted:Is there an official LiS soundtrack, or even just a list of what tracks were used in each episode somewhere? Larry Parrish posted:At least let me know what that last song was. It was badass. For the save Chloe ending it's Obstacles by Syd Matters https://youtu.be/NqWcpEZ3GY0 Don't know if there's a soundtrack, but that song at least is available on amazon and itunes.
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Oct 28, 2015 16:26
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There's some playlists with all the songs on Google Play Music.
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Oct 28, 2015 16:29
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a kitten posted:For the save Chloe ending it's Obstacles by Syd Matters I was looking for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYoINidnLRQ but thanks.
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Oct 28, 2015 16:42
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Its official that the sacrifice chloe ending is canon because the ending song is better.
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Oct 28, 2015 16:45
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Larry Parrish posted:Its official that the sacrifice chloe ending is canon because the ending song is better. Good.
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Oct 28, 2015 16:48
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Wrong
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Oct 28, 2015 18:21
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BobTheJanitor posted:Almost all of this tends to get handwaved away as 'red herrings', although I'd argue that a red herring is something that the plot intentionally brings up and then later resolves as an innocuous side detail. Character X is acting suspicious, and it turns out they were actually planning a surprise party is a red herring (a terrible cliched one, but still). Character X is acting suspicious, and then the story ends without ever touching on it again isn't a red herring, it's just an unresolved, dropped plot thread. And this game has enough dangling plot threads to knit a blanket out of. But that's just the game being Lynchian. It's true to its influences. Perhaps you don't care for those influences, and I get that, especially when it really leaned hard into the Lynch stuff in the final episodes when the previous ones went a lot lighter, but it was always there bubbling under the surface. Plus I think that ambiguity creates intriguing ways to consider the endings. You could argue that Max should save Chloe because letting her die wouldn't change anything. There's every reason to believe that a rich and powerful family funding a "Vortex Club" that is throwing an end of the world party the very night this tornado appears is probably the root cause. Especially coupled with the creepy emails between Nathan and his father. Then there's the fact that alt-Chloe word still had all of the strange phenomena, which could imply that Max isn't the root cause. I think it's likely that letting Chloe die doesn't resolve anything.
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Oct 28, 2015 19:23
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Mr. Belding posted:But that's just the game being Lynchian. It's true to its influences. Perhaps you don't care for those influences, and I get that, especially when it really leaned hard into the Lynch stuff in the final episodes when the previous ones went a lot lighter, but it was always there bubbling under the surface. I actually disagree. Given how the ending goes if you sacrifice Chloe, it becomes apparent that Max's use of her powers is the source of the phenomenon. If you look at it from that perspective, then the odd phenomenon happened in the alternate world because Max saved William, not because it was going to happen regardless. You stop the storm by going back to the first change Max made using her powers and undoing it. Following that choice, because Max (presumably) didn't use her powers at all, the unusual phenomenon - including the storm - do not occur. I really don't think this was the original plan, and feel like it's really messy, but that's my interpretation of the ending choice. Basically: Max has to decide whether she's willing to deal with the consequences of her actions. By sacrificing Chloe, you've decided that the consequences are too severe and that Max should do nothing. By sacrificing the town, you decide that you are willing to accept those consequences. I can kinda see what they were going for there, but I really strongly think there needs to be a third option that basically says this is a false choice.
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Oct 28, 2015 19:36
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King of Solomon posted:I actually disagree. Given how the ending goes if you sacrifice Chloe, it becomes apparent that Max's use of her powers is the source of the phenomenon. If you look at it from that perspective, then the odd phenomenon happened in the alternate world because Max saved William, not because it was going to happen regardless. You stop the storm by going back to the first change Max made using her powers and undoing it. Following that choice, because Max (presumably) didn't use her powers at all, the unusual phenomenon - including the storm - do not occur. THE CYCLE CONTINUES.
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Oct 28, 2015 19:38
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King of Solomon posted:I actually disagree. Given how the ending goes if you sacrifice Chloe, it becomes apparent that Max's use of her powers is the source of the phenomenon. If you look at it from that perspective, then the odd phenomenon happened in the alternate world because Max saved William, not because it was going to happen regardless. You stop the storm by going back to the first change Max made using her powers and undoing it. Following that choice, because Max (presumably) didn't use her powers at all, the unusual phenomenon - including the storm - do not occur. Yes, but in the ending where you save Chloe there is no evidence that allowing her to die would have stopped the storm. I get that its natural to treat both endings as part of the same coherent universe, but I don't think it's necessary and it's certainly not as interesting. Although they certainly break the potential ambiguity by naming the choices as they did.
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Oct 28, 2015 19:45
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Mr. Belding posted:Yes, but in the ending where you save Chloe there is no evidence that allowing her to die would have stopped the storm. I get that its natural to treat both endings as part of the same coherent universe, but I don't think it's necessary and it's certainly not as interesting. Although they certainly break the potential ambiguity by naming the choices as they did. To be clear, I chose the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending, and have only seen the other ending based on that goofy youtube video posted earlier and my friend's description. I agree that based on the information from Sacrifice Arcadia Bay alone, there's no indication that the other choice would solve anything, but given the lack of a third option, it's the natural conclusion to make.
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Oct 28, 2015 19:48
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The argument that saving William caused weird environment stuff to start happening in the alternate time stream just doesn't fly, for me at least. The huge time gap from the change to the week-of-weird is the problem. I guess it's possible to write the story that way, but it would be pretty nonsensical, bad writing. Why does it wait around for years before showing up, whereas in the 'main' timeline it happens that week? Presumably after photojumping Max should have come back to the blank crater where Arcadia Bay used to be, long since overgrown and retaken by wildlife. For these presumably uncaring mindless forces to wait around for years until the 'right' Max quantum leaps back into her body and only then start reacting (although not really, since the previous day's events had apparently already happened in the form of dead wildlife and such being there before you jump in) is just something I can't think of any reason to justify. Unless you want to say that there is some kind of consciousness behind the forces that are supposedly punishing us for time-fuckery, and that it made an active choice to wait until we got back to start screwing with us. Which is writing an awful lot of assumptions into the story, and would open up way too many questions. Not least of which is: how do we find this entity and kick its rear end? Or maybe we want to argue that anything stemming from time travel usage is going to result in this particular week being the focus of dead whales and tornadoes and whatever, no matter which version of the timeline you go to (since this is the 'when' in which we started time wizarding). But then, of course, going back to the beginning and sitting on your hands wouldn't undo anything, because you're still using time travel to get there and this theory basically only works if you assume that time has a 'memory' and no matter how many times you overwrite it, the tornado of doom is still coming. I come back to the only real reason for the ending being that the devs wanted to do it this way and didn't care about how nonsensical it was.
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Oct 28, 2015 19:54
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BobTheJanitor posted:The argument that saving William caused weird environment stuff to start happening in the alternate time stream just doesn't fly, for me at least. The huge time gap from the change to the week-of-weird is the problem. I guess it's possible to write the story that way, but it would be pretty nonsensical, bad writing. Why does it wait around for years before showing up, whereas in the 'main' timeline it happens that week? Presumably after photojumping Max should have come back to the blank crater where Arcadia Bay used to be, long since overgrown and retaken by wildlife. I think the ending is pretty bad writing anyway, so saying that it reflects strangely onto previous events in the story or that they didn't fully think through the implications isn't much of a stretch. I think the right perspective is in your third paragraph, that the "when" you start your time wizardry is the important thing. However, I think that since the implication is using time wizardry to make changes is what causes the storm, by jumping back to the beginning and sitting on your hands, you're basically returning to the natural timeline, and in the natural timeline there is no storm.
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Oct 28, 2015 20:12
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King of Solomon posted:I think the ending is pretty bad writing anyway, so saying that it reflects strangely onto previous events in the story or that they didn't fully think through the implications isn't much of a stretch. I think the right perspective is in your third paragraph, that the "when" you start your time wizardry is the important thing. However, I think that since the implication is using time wizardry to make changes is what causes the storm, by jumping back to the beginning and sitting on your hands, you're basically returning to the natural timeline, and in the natural timeline there is no storm. I know that's clearly the perspective they wanted us to take, I'm just saying it doesn't scan. Even if you go back and relive a timeline in which you didn't screw with stuff, that doesn't actually erase the existence of the other one (apparently, since in alternate world the tornado is still coming) so it's pointless. If it does, then there should have been no tornado in alternate world. It's just not possible to have it both ways. But I'm basically repeating my argument here. It feels like this wasn't so much a mistake as a last minute change in the plot, and they originally intended the eco-weirdness and tornado to be related to but not caused by the time travel, which obviously leads to crucial differences in how the ending would play out.
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Oct 28, 2015 20:35
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BobTheJanitor posted:I know that's clearly the perspective they wanted us to take, I'm just saying it doesn't scan. Even if you go back and relive a timeline in which you didn't screw with stuff, that doesn't actually erase the existence of the other one (apparently, since in alternate world the tornado is still coming) so it's pointless. If it does, then there should have been no tornado in alternate world. It's just not possible to have it both ways. But I'm basically repeating my argument here. I guess it's better to look at this from a different perspective. In any timeline where you make a change from what would happen naturally - that is, without time wizardry - you get the storm, and it happens approximately when the decision to make the change takes place, not when the changed event takes place. By jumping back to the timeline where Max did nothing, there was no change from the natural events, so there is no storm. Given the way the narrative was structured from episodes 1-4 (particularly given Max gets her first storm vision before unlocking her powers), I don't think this was the original plan.
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Oct 28, 2015 20:44
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I think it's perfectly fine say that it's bad or lazy writing, but only in the same way that people call happy ever after romance novels bad or lazy writing. They are adhering to the tropes of their genre, and in this genre symbolism is specifically allowed to break the laws of reality and doesn't necessarily have to follow a coherent set of in-world rules. If the only purpose of the vortex is to force a specific choice on the player then it can do that. If time travel is a plot device it can exist without explanation. Basically being interesting, thematic, atmospheric, or symbolic is enough justification for anything. This sort of thing has a literary history including everything from Kurt Vonnegut to Tom Robbins and in television from things like Twin Peaks, Lost, and Carnivale, and in films like Jacob's Ladder and Lost Highway. It doesn't mean there can't be explanations but if you think those are what the works are about then you're bound to find the work disappointing.
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Oct 28, 2015 22:43
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Dontnod's CEO gave an interview at Paris Games Weekquote:When questioned directly by a presenter about possibly releasing Life is Strange on mobile and tablets he responds positively, but gave no details on if and when such a port would be released. Guilbert also commented that Life is Strange cost under €6 million to develop, which is not exactly cheap, but not the 10s of millions many games can hit nowadays. I hope they do a nice physical edition, I'll probably end up buying the game again.
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Oct 28, 2015 22:50
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Mr. Belding posted:I think it's perfectly fine say that it's bad or lazy writing, but only in the same way that people call happy ever after romance novels bad or lazy writing. They are adhering to the tropes of their genre, and in this genre symbolism is specifically allowed to break the laws of reality and doesn't necessarily have to follow a coherent set of in-world rules. If the only purpose of the vortex is to force a specific choice on the player then it can do that. If time travel is a plot device it can exist without explanation. Basically being interesting, thematic, atmospheric, or symbolic is enough justification for anything. This sort of thing has a literary history including everything from Kurt Vonnegut to Tom Robbins and in television from things like Twin Peaks, Lost, and Carnivale, and in films like Jacob's Ladder and Lost Highway. It doesn't mean there can't be explanations but if you think those are what the works are about then you're bound to find the work disappointing. See, that's not really why I think it's bad writing. The rest of the game messed around with the rules in a lot of weird ways; for example, Max's ability to stop time outright only popped up the one time at the end of episode 2. My problem is that the ending doesn't fit with the rest of the game either narratively or with respect to game mechanics. Like people - myself included - have mentioned many times over, the only decision that matters in the game is the last one. In a game that's filled with choices that build on each other and change based on your previous actions, with varying consequences, here you have a choice that does none of that. It's just a Sophie's Choice that's slapped on to the end and more or less explicitly says that by doing anything at all you've created catastrophe. There's a reason I've said that I feel like they made a serious swerve in their plans when they worked on episode 5. In a lot of ways it just doesn't fit neatly with the type of story or the type of game that took place in episodes 1-4. E: It's a shame there doesn't seem to be a translated transcript of that interview in this link, I'd love to see what he has to say. King of Solomon fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Oct 28, 2015 |
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Oct 28, 2015 23:28
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