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There was a tornado is Washintong/Oregon today, so I guess we know what ending is canon!
Paul Zuvella fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 23:13
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Paul Zuvella posted:There was a tornado is Washintong/Oregon today, so I guess we know what ending is canon! Pack it up, Chloe murderers.
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Dec 11, 2015 23:44
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When I get home tonight, I'm going to kill her again just out of spite.
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Dec 11, 2015 23:52
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Geniasis posted:When I get home tonight, I'm going to kill her again just out of spite. *loads up save at the junkyard* "Chloe, shoot that car bumper" - rewind - repeat endlessly
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Dec 12, 2015 00:36
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Just finished this, enjoyed it a lot despite the wonky/cliche ending, and just wanted to say I've never felt a game nail the Pacific Northwest vibe so well. Alan Wake and Infamous Second Son felt like how tourists imagine the area while whoever did this really lived it. e.g. the sun always being near the horizon in fall/winter, something I never thought much about until my uncle from California mentioned it. I'm glad I read this forum though because I wouldn't get half of the references/slang without it (35 years old).
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Dec 19, 2015 03:18
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Beefstew posted:So, this game was a huge surprise to me. I don't think I've done a 180 in opinion on a game so hard since Deadly Premonition. I spent the first two chapters making fun of the hokey and teen-pandering dialogue, but wow, I loved how dark and hosed up it got as it went along. It's kinda clumsy, but it goes balls out and throws everything and the kitchen sink in there by the end. Episode 5 had more false endings than Return of the King and MGS4 combined. But Goddamn, it was a ride. Can't recall the last time I got so emotional over the game. I felt the same. I still wish they'd either gone for the gut punch and had sacrificing Chloe not only not prevent the Tornado but make you completely unaware that it's coming, and then a shared scene of at least some of the secondary characters surviving, maybe different ones for each ending, reinforcing that it's about the journey and your choices rather than the destination and trying to change things out of your control or introduced a third abbreviated playthrough that let you start again and was mostly the same but you have the option to focus on warning people and getting them to safety when things start going down, like how you can with the homeless woman, doubling down on "yeah, time travel can fix things, but only when you stop focusing exclusively on yourself and your own problems" or actually had a playable ending instead of going right up the climactic choice and then saying "and also some other stuff happened but you really don't care about that!" An few post-climax conversations on each choice would have gone a long way towards giving things weight instead of feeling cheap and could have been used to reinforce whatever themes they felt like. Or all of the above. All of the above would honestly have been the best. Ultimately it suffers because it uses the same cliche so many other time travel stories seem to use, except that in this case it works and fixes everything instead of also failing because you're STILL trying to fix your past and use time travel to escape the consequences of your actions except magically it works but only when it kills your friend and not any other time which really robs it of a lot of its power! GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 03:44
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GlyphGryph posted:I felt the same. In the time since that post, I've been drafting an informal essay that engages the game in dialogue with Blade Runner, Hyperion, and, more than anything else, the Parable of Abraham from the Bible. It's really, really unpolished right now, but some of the central points I'm making are: Chloe living did not CAUSE the tornado, and there's ample evidence to support this - instead, her dying in that specific way and time prevented it. The tornado was a natural phenomenon (in that it's appearance was not caused by time travel). It is essentially the wrath of God coming down on Arcadia Bay. Sacrificing Chloe is also The Bad Ending in this interpretation - it redeems the covenant, but nothing is learned by anyone in the town, except for Max, who just absorbs an incredibly fatalistic worldview where she would feel completely devoid of agency. You can argue that Max would be paranoid and overprotective of Chloe after the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending, but she's literally endured so much trauma in the other one with such deep and unsettling implications, trauma she can't even convey to anyone since it happened in another timeline, that she's bound for a mental hospital or an early grave. I know this is unsatisfying, but I'm afraid I don't have my thoughts organized enough at the moment to go any further. I might come back to this later. Beefstew fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 04:01
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The ending being a literal human sacrifice to appease either the gods or the force of nature is the first logical explanation I've heard of it. I'm going to run with that one because it actually fits the in-game evidence way better than the one they actually clearly intended. Looking forward to seeing the essay when it's finished.
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Dec 19, 2015 04:08
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GlyphGryph posted:The ending being a literal human sacrifice to appease either the gods or the force of nature is the first logical explanation I've heard of it. It's easy to get mad at the game and the ending and see it that way, but that's not at all what happened. The simplest explanation - which is supported by the game itself - is that Sacrifice Chloe works because Max goes back to that first change, undoes it, and never time travels again. Or, in other words: it works because in that timeline, no time travel happened.
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Dec 19, 2015 04:12
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GlyphGryph posted:The ending being a literal human sacrifice to appease either the gods or the force of nature is the first logical explanation I've heard of it. Yeah, my theory kinda revolves around the concept of innocent sacrifice both in the game and in other works of literature. And I don't think it's that much of a stretch, considering Jefferson's game.
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Dec 19, 2015 04:27
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King of Solomon posted:It's easy to get mad at the game and the ending and see it that way, but that's not at all what happened. The simplest explanation - which is supported by the game itself - is that Sacrifice Chloe works because Max goes back to that first change, undoes it, and never time travels again. Yes, this is an explanation. It's not a logical, consistent, or believable explanation. It's also not true, trivially speaking, from the evidence we have available, although it may be true in "reality" because the writers certainly break their own rules often enough that it may have somehow happened despite making no logical sense. All you're doing in that ending is creating a temporal paradox via time travel, which is traditionally the exact sort of thing to create nonsense like destructive time tornado's in traditional time travel fiction, and if time traveling damages the timeline I don't see how a literal time paradox with an impossible outcome is a 'more stable' solution. Plus, there's literally no evidence in game that letting Chloe die will prevent the tornado, and multiple pieces of evidence it won't, until it actually happens and somehow works. I'm not seeing it Beefstew's way because I'm mad at it, I'm amenable to seeing it that way because it's the first explanation that actually fits the events the game shows us. When we go back in time and let Chloe die, the following changes to the timeline occur: 1. Max has her memories of a traumatic event completely erased. 2. Max never discovers her time travel powers 3. The "vision" of a tornado still happens, but is no longer connected to an actual event, leaving it temporally displaced 4. Max is completely erased and replaced by a Max from an alternate timeline If it's really supposed to be a "avoiding time travel completely fixes the storm" sort of thing those problematic deviations from a natural timeline above are kind of an issue. And it's worth pointing out our visions of the storm happen well before this event! So we know from the evidence that a) it's not Chloe being dead or alive that make the storm happen, since it happens in timelines where she has died and b) it's not the existence of time travel in general that makes the storm, or any storms, happen, since we can time travel to fix it. c) It's not something caused by either the events in the bathroom or changing the events in the bathroom, since the storm is still coming in a timeline where there are no bathroom events to change, but despite being a timeline with major differences nothing about the oncoming storm changes in the slightest. There must therefore be something special about this particular situation that has he power no other bit of time travel does, and it being some sort of perverse human sacrifice is the first explanation I've heard that explains why that might be. I don't think it's what the writers intended, but when we've eliminated the impossible whatever remains, no matter how improbably, must be the truth. I have very strong feelings about this game. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 04:34
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GlyphGryph posted:Yes, this is an explanation. It's not a logical, consistent, or believable explanation. It's also not true, trivially speaking, from the evidence we have available, although it may be true in "reality" because the writers certainly break their own rules often enough that it may have somehow happened despite making no logical sense. Quite the opposite, it's the only explanation that is logically consistent, both with the mechanics of time travel as they've been shown and with the mechanics of the weird phenomena as they were described throughout the game. Whenever Max performs a polaroid jump, she exists in that moment until the end of the jump, at which point she returns to where she jumped from. Max doesn't disappear, but some other Max who is not the Max we're interested in goes about her business until Max comes back. This is why Max had Chloe explain what happened after the party when Max saved Chloe in episode 5, for example. Points 1 and 4 in your list are just outright incorrect. Our Max jumps back to the bathroom, does nothing, then reappears at the end of the week, either at the lighthouse scene or the funeral. Since she did return, she presumably still has knowledge of her powers, so point 2 is also incorrect. Point 3 is a vision, not an actual event. If you look at that vision as a warning, then there's nothing weird about this at all. The entire reason that the final jump prevents the storm is because it eliminates all of the temporal paradoxes that Max caused. No decisions were made because of prior knowledge of events, no one was harmed or saved by events that could only be caused by time travel. Hell, look at saving Chloe in the bathroom from a purely mechanical perspective: it's impossible to do without rewinding! That in itself would cause a paradox. King of Solomon fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 04:54
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You're contradicting your own points, like... three or four times in one paragraph there dude. You can't point to something as a reason I'm wrong and then argue the same thing I claimed as a core element of proving a different point wrong.
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Dec 19, 2015 05:03
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Actually, this would be better served as a new post.quote:If it's really supposed to be a "avoiding time travel completely fixes the storm" sort of thing those problematic deviations from a natural timeline above are kind of an issue. And it's worth pointing out our visions of the storm happen well before this event! Before the bathroom event, Max gets precisely one vision, and it's fair to say that it happens no more than about 20 minutes in "world" time before the event in question. Here's what we actually know from evidence: A) Chloe being alive or dead is irrelevant to the storm. B) The storm happens because either 1: Max time traveled a shitload, or 2: made at least one change that doesn't make any sense. This is the really critical thing here. In one timeline we have the storm appear because Max jumped back five years to save her friend's dad, which is an event that we can see had immense consequences aside from the storm. In most of the others there is generally a lot of time travel happening. The only other timeline we see where there wasn't a lot of time travel was when Max turned in her photo and warned David about Jefferson; Max shouldn't have that knowledge, so the timeline breaks and the storm happens. Since it's not mechanically possible to save Chloe without rewinding, saving Chloe itself is a temporal breakage. The single common thread in all timelines that have a storm is that Max time traveled and changed something. The one timeline we see where Max did not actively change anything from how things would be if she did not have her powers is when you Sacrifice Chloe. I also have strong feelings about this game. GlyphGryph posted:You're contradicting your own points, like... three or four times in one paragraph there dude. You can't point to something as a reason I'm wrong and then argue the same thing I claimed as a core element of proving a different point wrong. I'm sure I'm just blinded to it because I wrote it, but the only contradiction I'm seeing is that I guess I might have said point 4 is incorrect, then used point 4 as an argument to explain my position? If so, let me clarify. Point 4 is incorrect because our Max still exists. She is not in control during the majority of the week, but she does return, memories (and presumably powers) completely intact.
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Dec 19, 2015 05:12
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GlyphGryph posted:I have very strong feelings about this game. Same. The problem is that the first time Max time travels, she does so completely unconsciously, and as the result of her reflexive response to watching some one get shot in front of her (keeping in mind that at that point she didn't know it was Chloe), not as a mindful decision on her part. Thus, by choosing to abstain from action, she's acting on knowledge that she could only have obtained through time travel. So, regardless, a paradox is created. Furthermore, there's the problem of exactly when Max acquired the powers. It follows that her initial vision of the tornado marks the point where she gets them, which means that Zombie Max only has to reach our her hand just so, discover she can rewind time again, and the trouble starts all over. The only interpretation of the bad ending I've seen that makes sense is that Max never actually got the power to rewind time, and that everything after the first shooting is a delusion created by Max' inability to cope with her failure to save Chloe's life, and that choosing to sacrifice her at the end breaks the illusion and restores her back to reality. It's literary garbage, and offensive to me on many levels, but it's the only way for that ending to make sense.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:55
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Plom Bar posted:Same. This is the part that got me but an ending where Max and Chloe end up shot and dead in the bathroom just seems super depressing so I'm kind of cool with the plot hole at the same time.
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Dec 19, 2015 09:56
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Max time travels a bunch before leaving the classroom to impress Jefferson.
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Dec 19, 2015 09:57
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King of Solomon posted:I'm sure I'm just blinded to it because I wrote it, but the only contradiction I'm seeing is that I guess I might have said point 4 is incorrect, then used point 4 as an argument to explain my position? If so, let me clarify. Point 4 is incorrect because our Max still exists. She is not in control during the majority of the week, but she does return, memories (and presumably powers) completely intact. This is exactly what I'm talking about. We have the "no time travel Max" completely wiped from existence as a result of time travel. That's, uh... kind of a really big thing. She also overwrites a chunk of no-time-travel Max's past, since we know from previous conversations that alt-Max's have no clue what went down while Max-prime is doing polaroid travel,hence the explain thing
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Dec 19, 2015 15:19
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It's a shame they couldn't get physical copies out before Xmas. I've bought the game for a bunch of people, but handing out a download code doesn't feel right.
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Dec 19, 2015 15:35
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Paladinus posted:Max time travels a bunch before leaving the classroom to impress Jefferson. No, she does that after time traveling the first time to try and get the bathroom sooner. When you use the photo you return to a time before any of that. The butterfly photo comes before any time travel.
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Dec 19, 2015 16:55
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Its time travel guys. If you try to think about it logically for longer than 2 seconds its going to break in literally any story that uses it. So just take it at face value.
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Dec 19, 2015 16:57
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Paul Zuvella posted:Its time travel guys. If you try to think about it logically for longer than 2 seconds its going to break in literally any story that uses it. Actually there is no logic to something that doesn't exist. Just watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2nNzNo_Xps And relax.
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Dec 19, 2015 17:05
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GlyphGryph posted:This is exactly what I'm talking about. We have the "no time travel Max" completely wiped from existence as a result of time travel. That's, uh... kind of a really big thing. She also overwrites a chunk of no-time-travel Max's past, since we know from previous conversations that alt-Max's have no clue what went down while Max-prime is doing polaroid travel,hence the explain thing Regarding Max, we're not even sure we're playing Max Prime, we could be playing an off shoot. Isn't time travel fun?
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Dec 19, 2015 17:38
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GlyphGryph posted:This is exactly what I'm talking about. We have the "no time travel Max" completely wiped from existence as a result of time travel. That's, uh... kind of a really big thing. She also overwrites a chunk of no-time-travel Max's past, since we know from previous conversations that alt-Max's have no clue what went down while Max-prime is doing polaroid travel,hence the explain thing So, the weird thing about that is that this alternate Max that gets wiped out from existence more or less only exists for a week. It's far more egregious when you save William, because then you're wiping out a Max that has existed for five years and has had time to really branch off and become her own Max.
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Dec 19, 2015 17:48
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wyoming posted:No, she does that after time traveling the first time to try and get the bathroom sooner. No, Paladinus is right. While it's true that the initial time travel incident does occur before she uses her power in class, in the resulting timeline, she retakes the butterfly photo again (accenting this action by mentally tracing the steps), meaning that the photo she uses to travel back to that moment had to have been taken after she'd already used her power to some extent. This also nullifies the whole "Max wouldn't know about her power" point too, because at that point even Zombie Max would have that knowledge. That ending just unravels more and more.
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Dec 19, 2015 20:35
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the time tornado is actually an in-story representation of the unraveling of the ending
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Dec 20, 2015 00:50
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i just finished life is strange. so uh my main thing is, it's not like max invented a time machine. she was just magically given time travel powers out of nowhere for no reason. so why is the game trying to beat you down for using said powers? it just doesn't make any sense. is the logic that she's born with it? did she inherit it then? how did no one else in the family line gently caress poo poo up and decide 'ah this is probably fine, a storm wipes out ann arbor, gently caress it whatever'. you combine the "i suddenly have time powers" with the vision and the only natural conclusion is "i have to stop that from happening", not "clearly i should never use these powers i was just given and everything will be fine". fate was not directing towards chloe dying, if anything max was fated to use the power she was just given. i just feel like the game contradicts itself. also i have a hard time believing that if max did nothing, that nathan would get caught, and mr jefferson would get busted, and max jet sets off to san fran. that ending just felt, goofball. more likely, nathan's rich rear end family protects him, david bullies kate marsh off a building, jefferson continues to kidnap people, and max still becomes a victim. why does kate marsh not kill herself in the good ending?? max needed time travel knowledge and the push to become Super Nosy Detective by Chloe to save her!! what the gently caress and if she 'had her powers all along', then. it's even cheaper. because if she doesn't discover them with chloe's death, she'll just discover her powers some other time. so like. sacrificing chloe is really just kicking the can a little further down the road. anyway i let the city get destroyed gently caress that town, everyone at that school a fake rear end loser, ride off to another town queer twee teens The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Dec 21, 2015 |
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Dec 21, 2015 06:47
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Quest For Glory II posted:i just finished life is strange. so uh my main thing is, it's not like max invented a time machine. she was just magically given time travel powers out of nowhere for no reason. so why is the game trying to beat you down for using said powers? it just doesn't make any sense. is the logic that she's born with it? did she inherit it then? how did no one else in the family line gently caress poo poo up and decide 'ah this is probably fine, a storm wipes out ann arbor, gently caress it whatever'.
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Dec 21, 2015 06:51
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Quest For Glory II posted:i just finished life is strange. so uh my main thing is, it's not like max invented a time machine. she was just magically given time travel powers out of nowhere for no reason. so why is the game trying to beat you down for using said powers? it just doesn't make any sense. is the logic that she's born with it? did she inherit it then? how did no one else in the family line gently caress poo poo up and decide 'ah this is probably fine, a storm wipes out ann arbor, gently caress it whatever'. I knew there was a reason I liked you
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Dec 21, 2015 07:18
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This is why I continue to think that the entire game is just the delusions of a high schools student who's childhood friend was murdered a few feet from her, desperately trying to make up a reality where she could save her. My life is better for it you should try it.
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Dec 21, 2015 07:19
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and how come a turtle races a rabbit? They don't even have the level of cognitive reasoning to organize a race afaik?
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Dec 21, 2015 07:57
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Baes before bays.
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Dec 21, 2015 08:06
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Paul Zuvella posted:This is why I continue to think that the entire game is just the delusions of a high schools student who's childhood friend was murdered a few feet from her, desperately trying to make up a reality where she could save her. max is tina belcher but her friend fiction has less butt touching in it The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Dec 21, 2015 |
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Dec 21, 2015 08:38
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Paul Zuvella posted:This is why I continue to think that the entire game is just the delusions of a high schools student who's childhood friend was murdered a few feet from her, desperately trying to make up a reality where she could save her. Well one of the major themes of the game is the nature of regret and how Max doesn't truly have the ability to change the past, because ultimately, none of us do. Video games are not real life.
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Dec 21, 2015 09:43
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Just finished the game. Most of you had a problem with the ending, but I had a problem with Chapter 2. That entire chapter could have been cut, and I would be much happier.
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Dec 23, 2015 03:48
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Shadow225 posted:Just finished the game. Most of you had a problem with the ending, but I had a problem with Chapter 2. That entire chapter could have been cut, and I would be much happier. I think a lot of people were pretty down on episode two, I know I was.
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Dec 23, 2015 03:53
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Paul Zuvella posted:I think a lot of people were pretty down on episode two, I know I was. I was until that last moment.
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Dec 23, 2015 05:22
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Shadow225 posted:Just finished the game. Most of you had a problem with the ending, but I had a problem with Chapter 2. That entire chapter could have been cut, and I would be much happier. I thought that episode was meant to give a sense of urgency to solving the Rachel Amber mystery and finding out what happened to Kate. I liked it. Of course, I can't remember anything about it other than the ending and being nice to virtual people. 3 was one my least favorite because of the whole breaking the past with time travel angle at the end. A solid (traumatizing) failure was good growing material for Max's character, but I still couldn't wait for it to be over. It's part of the reason the ending bugged me, it was deja vu all over again. Quest For Glory II posted:max is tina belcher but her friend fiction has less butt touching in it someone didn't pick the bae ending. p.s. I watched the disney time travel sitcom (the episode name was "The Butterscotch Effect") and 
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Dec 23, 2015 05:48
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The ending was perfect. Remember those times Chloe talked about burning down the town and leaving Arcadia Bay behind? That was what it was. It was a metaphor for that. It was about burning your personal connections and ties to a mundane school and predictable life to set off on a strange and terrifying adventure. It wasn't about killing everyone in Arcadia Bay, it was about escaping Arcadia Bay. The storm/destruction is a metaphor for two lovers striking out on their own and leaving their tiny little hometown behind. Chloe talks constantly about getting out, going to LA, how much she hates it here and the choice is if Max goes with her or not. It's about choosing between growing up or staying a child. It's not a story that needs to be taken literally. It's a game deeply rooted in poetry, symbolism and metaphor. Much like a Nolan movie it's about the music, beat and emotion rather than the literal facts on the ground. Also it was a very Mage: The Awakening story and seeing if you had the will to walk the path of the Thistle, even through the Abyss.
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Dec 23, 2015 11:59
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Thanqol posted:It's not a story that needs to be taken literally. It's a game deeply rooted in poetry, symbolism and metaphor. Much like a Nolan movie it's about the music, beat and emotion rather than the literal facts on the ground. I love his work (pre-DKR) but he's a clinical, very fact-based storyteller. He doesn't deal in vagueness at all, every plot point is thoroughly established and explained. Even Inception spells basically everything out with clear cut exposition, but just throws a question mark on The End. It's the opposite of the vague non-explanations of Max's power and the storm.
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Dec 23, 2015 12:05
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