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It still feels like a Homer Simpson quote: The lesson is never try.
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Jan 28, 2016 06:37
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MonsieurChoc posted:It still feels like a Homer Simpson quote: The lesson is never try. It really sucks that my early fear that the game would just throw all of its coming of age story themes away and become silly David Cage style nonsense became realized. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 06:46
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This game did not give me what my imagination told me I was promised.
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Jan 28, 2016 06:52
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Beefstew posted:This game did not give me what my imagination told me I was promised. I'm not pulling these themes and stuff out of my rear end, they're all there in the game. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 07:02
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I get what they were going for, I just think the game fumbled the execution and it also contradicts a lot of the earlier themes. I mean, a coming of age story where you erase all your decisions is pretty weird. They could have made an ending where neither final choice is perfect and you can't have everything WITHOUT deleting the entire game.
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Jan 28, 2016 07:12
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MonsieurChoc posted:I get what they were going for, I just think the game fumbled the execution and it also contradicts a lot of the earlier themes. Max remembers all the poo poo that happened in the good ending. So it still counts towards her character and she grows as a person. And in the bad ending she says gently caress it, noting else matters except that one thing. So it also still counts.
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Jan 28, 2016 07:15
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Hard to believe that Mass Effect 3's ending happened four years ago. That thread is still active. Wonder where this one will be in 2019? Except ME3's ending was genuinely horrid, discounting Citadel, which owned.
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Jan 28, 2016 07:25
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If you stop playing as soon as you get to the Elusive Man, Me3 has a fantastic ending. I hate how far I looked ahead in the game, because I spoiled myself on too much, but I'm still enjoying the game for the little things. knowing who the killer is or what happend to Rachael for example doesn't ruin stuff like finding out that Chloe and Rachael were possibly closer than initially thought.
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Jan 28, 2016 07:49
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Robiben posted:Max remembers all the poo poo that happened in the good ending. So it still counts towards her character and she grows as a person. So the resetting of time is a complete and total reset of her memories, and Kate just survives her suicide attempt, somehow and then when they finally get to the date and time when max made the jump, then i guess she'd get her memories back and go "WHAT THE gently caress" The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 08:20
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wait a minute gently caress. they knew a tornado was coming and they had a loving vehicle. why did they not just loving drive away from the coast and get the gently caress out of there, why did they go to the lighthouse at all, gently caress why didn't they scoop people up from the diner, throw them in the shelter, and then hit the fuckin road before it even hit The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 08:24
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Quest For Glory II posted:I thought it was already established that outside of the actual in-the-moment changing of events through the photo, she doesn't take her memories beyond that. that was what she warned chloe outside the vortex club. inconsistent writing wouldn't surprise me though!! Nah, she gets her memories back when it hits the "present" which is just before the funeral. Quest For Glory II posted:wait a minute gently caress. they knew a tornado was coming and they had a loving vehicle. why did they not just loving drive away from the coast and get the gently caress out of there, why did they go to the lighthouse at all, gently caress Man why didn't this group of young people just leave the haunted mansion? The ghost is clearly real and not just a legend like they thought!
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Jan 28, 2016 09:02
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Quest For Glory II posted:why did they go to the lighthouse at all To this point, Max sees it in her visions and assumes (correctly) that it's safe.
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Jan 28, 2016 09:03
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Robiben posted:To this point, Max sees it in her visions and assumes (correctly) that it's safe. That's literally how the game starts
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Jan 28, 2016 10:08
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JVNO posted:Imagine you sink a lot of effort into an RPG, powering up your characters for the final confrontation. You've really invested in your characters and the effort of preparing for this confrontation. The ironic thing is is that you literally do nothing to prepare yourself for the final confrontation. Zero effort is put into figuring out what the tornado is or why it's happening. Birds and whales are dying and all you do is think "weird poo poo is weird". The game doesn't give you the option of "help Chloe find Rachael" or "figure out tornado vision". The end result is the same though: being with Chloe or stopping tornado. I guess I can see why people are upset they didn't make the endings more unique. You do spend a lot of emotional effort making your own Max and it'd be nice to see payoff from that. How they actually would have implemented it I have no idea, given the ending options.
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Jan 28, 2016 13:08
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Robiben posted:Nah, she gets her memories back when it hits the "present" which is just before the funeral. Yeah, why are people saying she forgets everything that happened?
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Jan 28, 2016 13:23
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I guess the lack of choices in the ending never bothered me because I played The Walking Dead which has a similar situation of your choices not really effecting the plot at all, so it didn't concern me much.
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Jan 28, 2016 13:41
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Glagha posted:I guess the lack of choices in the ending never bothered me because I played The Walking Dead which has a similar situation of your choices not really effecting the plot at all, so it didn't concern me much. In The Walking Dead your choices are at least acknowledged. In LIS nothing ever mattered, especially if you save the town.
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Jan 28, 2016 13:56
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Found the Simpsons quote. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwVNuyfhF0Q
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Jan 28, 2016 14:47
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Quest For Glory II posted:why didn't they scoop people up from the diner, throw them in the shelter, and then hit the fuckin road before it even hit If we're playing that game, why didn't Max send out a five-day apocalypse forecast via time magic? She can also teleport, so it's not like it's impossible for her to show off her powers in an easily perceptible way. It's YA fiction rules, where we can't tell the grownups Also, brief rundown of things people didn't like about the ending because maybe you can dislike an ending without being a big nerdchild: -hoaky dialogue (but that's just Life is Strange) -weird tensionless wandering with few choices -dropped plot threads and themes (the Prescott's eeeevil ways, the apocalypse imagery, man vs. nature/corruption in Arcadia Bay) -Max's arc: her big defining flaws are her passiveness and insecurity. She lets her friendship with Chloe wilt, she doesn't enter the contest (whose theme is about how everyday people can make an impact) out of fear of rejection, and multiple times in the game characters accuse her of not giving a poo poo and just being a busybody because she never does anything. Yet suddenly her arc is accepting that bad things happen in life...? Well that was Chloe's arc, but okay whatever we can do it again. -Max's powers benefit literally nobody but herself. The game calls you out for using them selfishly, despite the selfless things you do with them backfiring horribly and the selfish ones having no consequence. -Everything that Max did in the game is undone, and resolved happily without her intervention. Kate's suicidal ideation evaporates because the bad guy was caught and the body was found. Does Chloe's death affect the others? Who cares, only Max matters.
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Jan 28, 2016 15:18
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The final lesson is that you shouldn't just keep going back in time changing things when you can't fully understand the consequences. That's why the canon ending is refusing to go back again and riding off with the person you love most. Get wrecked Arcadia Bay.
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Jan 28, 2016 15:28
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I remember there being a theory I liked when the game first came out that someone earlier in the thread made. Basically the Prescotts were building poo poo and disturbing old native American sites, which leads to weird supernatural poo poo happening. The goal of the game was for Max to investigate the weird poo poo and try to fix it and restore balance or whatever to stop the tornado from destroying Arcadia Bay. If this was a different sort of game, I would have preferred something like this, where you try to fix something, use your time travel to undo a fuckup, and then try something different. It would have given you the opportunity to be clever and provide a nice wrap up of all of your choices with various endings and whatever. But it's not - it's about empathizing with people and experiencing what they go through. Doing it in a video game makes it much more powerful than other forms of media because you're active in that process. I feel the ultimatum that the developers give you at the end is part of that, where it's unfair to be given such a binary choice. That choice is going to be based from what you want your Max character to be. I dunno...I do love the ending but I also do have mixed thoughts about it. Would the game be better without the stupid tornado? Probably, mostly because you don't actually do anything about it throughout the entire game and it's purpose is to serve that ultimatum at the end, which I think the devs planned from the start. LoseHound posted:-weird tensionless wandering with few choices It is actually refreshing (for me at least) to have a super power you try to use "for good" and it only continually fucks things up and the only way to do good things is to stop using it. As to Max's character development if Chloe dies during that week...I like to think that she doesn't need her power to develop self confidence with others. Chloe was able to bring that out in her when she's alive, maybe her death affecting everyone else will do something similar. Victoria was at the funeral...maybe Nathan killing Chloe brought Max and Victoria together. Maybe Max and Kate connect with each other better. Now that I think about it, it'd be interesting to have that contrast of playing the game with and without the time travel to see how much Max was able to develop. As to weird tensionless wandering and dropped plot threads...yeah, they should have given more thought to the tornado or something more concrete I guess.
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Jan 28, 2016 16:55
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Flattened Spoon posted:I remember there being a theory I liked when the game first came out that someone earlier in the thread made. Basically the Prescotts were building poo poo and disturbing old native American sites Spooky Native American Burying Ground is a stupid overused cliche, imo. I'm glad they decided to pass at least on that one.
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Jan 28, 2016 17:05
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Yeah, if you want that and have a PS4 play Until Dawn
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Jan 28, 2016 17:10
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Flattened Spoon posted:But it's not - it's about empathizing with people and experiencing what they go through. But that's exactly my point. Max's arc is about how she needs to step up and be a good person without powers. Kate's suicide attempt is Max learning that she shouldn't use her powers as a substitute for caring. Chloe's car accident is her learning her powers aren't a cure-all. They're a shortcut, a crutch for helping Max grow as person. But why? So she can go back to save Chloe and confront Nathan without magic? So she can expose corruption? So she can help the people around her? Nope. There's no reason Max needs to learn the lesson in such an immediate way. Or at all. She was better off doing nothing. Things happen because stuff. I would've preferred spooky Native American Tobanga magic. Sakurazuka posted:have a PS4 play Until Dawn Good opinion, I agree.
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Jan 28, 2016 17:48
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If you want a spooky
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Jan 28, 2016 18:03
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LoseHound posted:They're a shortcut, a crutch for helping Max grow as person. But why? Honestly I thought it was a lesson more for the benefit of the player (people who are like Max) than Max. Edit: Now that I think about it, I think you're right. That lesson to the player would have been better with better ending options and seeing the various consequences. I just finished the game and I'm still processing it. Flattened Spoon fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 18:16
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Flattened Spoon posted:Honestly I thought it was a lesson more for the benefit of the player (people who are like Max) than Max. People who are emotionally distant and afraid to reach out and connect with other humans? And the lesson was 'don't break out of your shell, it will only lead to more pain'? This game is pretty mean, wow.
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Jan 28, 2016 18:23
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BobTheJanitor posted:People who are emotionally distant and afraid to reach out and connect with other humans? And the lesson was 'don't break out of your shell, it will only lead to more pain'? This game is pretty mean, wow. Where did I say "don't break out of your shell?" I said "You don't need time travel powers to talk with people".
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Jan 28, 2016 18:25
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Flattened Spoon posted:Where did I say "don't break out of your shell?" I said "You don't need time travel powers to talk with people". You didn't say it, the game did.
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Jan 28, 2016 18:26
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I don't know what any of you are talking about, clearly the moral of the story is "Hey, remember all those fantasies you had about moving heaven and earth to protect your crush? Time to put your money where your mouth is, sport".
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Jan 28, 2016 18:27
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BobTheJanitor posted:People who are emotionally distant and afraid to reach out and connect with other humans? And the lesson was 'don't break out of your shell, it will only lead to more pain'? This game is pretty mean, wow. If I wanted that I'd just watch Evangelion again
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Jan 28, 2016 18:40
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Flattened Spoon posted:It is actually refreshing (for me at least) to have a super power you try to use "for good" and it only continually fucks things up and the only way to do good things is to stop using it. This is basically every time travel story ever Edit: I'm gonna walk that back a bit, but it is really really common
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Jan 28, 2016 20:06
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RentACop posted:This is basically every time travel story ever Don't read much sci fy and the only time travel story I remember is Back to the future. But I guess "don't gently caress with time" shouldn't be that surprising.
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Jan 28, 2016 20:43
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Max wouldn't have even been a good person if she didn't use her powers, she gamed the system by learning poo poo about people and then rewinding and asking them to drop their guard If you take that away, all you have is, Max learns about people by breaking into their dorms and rifling through their poo poo. the only way Max could save Kate without powers is to invade her personal space I don't think that's a plus point for the game's story, I just think it's more muddled message If she keeps her memories of all her time-travelling powers after letting Chloe die, then wouldn't a tornado still eventually happen? Because she still has all this information and knowledge that she only got through time travelling. She knows about someone's mom being sick or she knows about Kate's family or she knows about David's security cameras etc etc. Unless she moves away immediately she'll end up exposing that wisdom at some point and then what happens? tornado 2? (plus I still think the more realistic ending is that Chloe is found dead but Nathan's dad is rich and powerful enough to get his son off the hook (AFFLUENZA!!) so he never has to rat out Mr Jefferson so Mr Jefferson goes on torturing and killing people and Max ends up dead. LIFE IS WEIRD) The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 21:15
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Quest For Glory II posted:Max wouldn't have even been a good person if she didn't use her powers, she gamed the system by learning poo poo about people and then rewinding and asking them to drop their guard I'm willing to give the game a bit of a pass on that, because that's just standard for adventure games. Everything in the game was literally designed, crafted, and placed there so that you, the player, can poke at it and see whatever story hints it uncovers, or hear the voice actor's dialogue on what they think about it, on which good money was spent specifically so that you could listen to it. There's inevitably going to be some cognitive dissonance in scenes where the narrative is implying that you need to hurry up (while you really have infinite time to look at/listen to/eat/take every object in the room), or that you shouldn't be touching people's stuff (when really that's the only reason why the stuff exists). And at least in the Kate scenes, you aren't breaking in and going through her things, you're actually there to talk to her and return a book, if I recall right. Sure, there's still a little dissonance in that she just sits silently willing to wait for an eternity for you to look at all her pictures and check out her computer or whatever. But at least you didn't have to bust open the lock to get in.
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Jan 28, 2016 21:33
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BobTheJanitor posted:People who are emotionally distant and afraid to reach out and connect with other humans? And the lesson was 'don't break out of your shell, it will only lead to more pain'? This game is pretty mean, wow. Don't agree with you on that one. Without the game Max would have just been shattered by Chloe being smoked, but because she had the experiences she had she has grown as a person. Sure the week after Chloe got shot was hell for Max, but when she regains her memories she will have all the knowledge again. And also she got to spend a week with her friend/lover which is nice. And for the bad ending its even simpler, she decides she HAS to save Chloe and gently caress everything else. This is a "bad" ending because its "morally" wrong in some ways but also because she refuses to accept that things change or are out of her control. But hey who knows maybe after they leave town they live happily ever after and don't ever bring up the time a tornado killed everyone. Quest For Glory II posted:If she keeps her memories of all her time-travelling powers after letting Chloe die, then wouldn't a tornado still eventually happen? Because she still has all this information and knowledge that she only got through time travelling. She knows about someone's mom being sick or she knows about Kate's family or she knows about David's security cameras etc etc. Unless she moves away immediately she'll end up exposing that wisdom at some point and then what happens? tornado 2? In the fiction the tornado happens because of the Chloe thing, that's pretty clear. Especially if you pick the good ending which shows it being resolved. I mean she has visions about the tornado, she doesn't have visions of other tornadoes or anything like that. And realistic ending? If you want realism Chloe probably would have taken the bullet and been alive. It was only in the gut, she would have been screaming in pain and writhing around on the floor bleeding out while Max and Nathan freaked out. Sure it may have killed her afterwards but Nathan would have been hosed.
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Jan 29, 2016 00:21
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Robiben posted:Don't agree with you on that one. Without the game Max would have just been shattered by Chloe being smoked No, not really. Max has a supportive and loving family and shows no signs of having ever lived through any discomfort. The death of a friend who she ignored for 5 years would be pretty awful, especially for someone as insecure as Max, but it's not like her life would turn to garbage like Chloe's. She'd grieve and maybe learn that ignoring people is not a good way to live, without solving a murder mystery and getting abducted by hipster Buffalo Bill for Trolley Problem Simulator 2013. And we all know that Joyce is the real disaster. Her husband dies, and then her angsty daughter? While David is twenty feet away? drat. But luckily for them, the new and improved Maxine cares really hard now!
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Jan 29, 2016 06:01
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JVNO posted:Ideally your choices throughout the game should have impacted what ending options were available to you, and we'd receive at least a couple additional outcomes that unlocked or were locked out based on those choices. Probably beyond the scope of their budget however. Agreed, Mass Effect 3 sucked
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Jan 29, 2016 07:11
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I honestly don't understand this bizarre claim that "the game" is shaming you, the player, for using Max's power to better her life. You're shown Max's character throughout the game, she's quiet, shy, and doesn't like putting herself out, and she's trying to change this, of course she's going to meet an inner demon that belittles her for her actions, she's already blaming the storm on herself. So way to buy into selfdoubt, I guess.
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Jan 29, 2016 08:44
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If you do everything in your power to help, there's murder and (possible) suicide, and eventually the town gets wiped out. If you sit quiet and meek while your friend gets murdered, everything comes out OK without any action out of you for the rest of week. It's not exactly subtle.
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Jan 29, 2016 15:23
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