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The end choice to Life is Strange is freaking brilliant because it takes the character arcs of the two leads you've come to love by this point and sets their arcs in direct opposition to one another. The lesson learned is the same in either scenario, but whether or not you save Chloe or the Bay depends on whose destiny you choose to fulfill. Originally I chose Bay because I thought I'd get some super secret chance to intervene but having read various analyses about this stupid game for hundreds of hours, I think you gotta go with Bae if you're really thinking about what Max would choose to do in that moment.
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May 9, 2018 19:02
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Larryb posted:(most) of the guilty parties are brought to justice Brief side note on that, this always felt kind of like contrived bullshit to me, too. Not doing anything conveniently also fixes a whole bunch of other problems. Just as likely that Nathan would have bolted and the ensuing investigation would have gone nowhere as he was protected from repercussions by his evil father, Jefferson would have gone on torturing students, Kate would still die and nothing would improve. At least have the honesty to do something like this in the ending and reduce the criticism that the devs really wanted you to pick one ending over the other. Passivity leading to all problems being fixed isn't only dishonest, it's not only bad writing, but it's also terrible moral to serve as the capstone of your story.
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May 9, 2018 19:09
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BobTheJanitor posted:What if Max had no time powers, but just happened to be a bit more assertive and popped out and yelled 'what the gently caress!' as soon as Chloe and Nathan entered the bathroom. Nathan runs off and Chloe lives. Does the town still get sentenced to weather-related doom because Chloe lived? What's the one true timeline now? Of course, if Max were more assertive it would have gone differently. If it were Chloe(a Chloe who didn't know Nathan) or Victoria in the bathroom looking at the butterfly when Nathan came in, they'd have walked around the corner and said "What the hell are you doing in the girl's bathroom?" and the whole scene wouldn't have happened. But there's no time travel involved there, and Chloe not dying would be the natural result of what went on and so no tornado would be necessary. The idea (which you refuse to accept even though the game clearly insists on it) is that it is time travel which causes the tornado. quote:I've got to refer back to that video posted up the page again, because he really lays down the argument pretty succinctly. I've seen his video, and I disagree with his conclusion. I agree that there are two competing stories in the game, but I think the Sacrifice Chloe ending is the proper ending to both stories. He says that the theme of the Lynchian Psychodrama is "learn to accept your mistakes", I believe the theme to this story is "learn to accept your limitations". Halfway through the game, the game completely goes off the rails of the story you thought you were in, at the point where you go back 5 years into the past and change it and restructure reality. This is where Max begins to realize that she's playing God and it is loving everything up. I think the resolution of this story is the realization that none of this is working and she must accept the reality that exists when she doesn't play time lord.
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May 9, 2018 19:21
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It's also a nice little touch that by the end the two main characters have effectively swapped roles, Max is now the one who's scared and acting irrationally while Chloe has finally come to terms with things and is trying to be the voice of reason. As has been mentioned before, it all comes down to whose story you think this game is actually about. If you think it's about Chloe, then Bay makes the most sense as it brings her personal arc full circle. The emotional mask she's worn for years is stripped away and she's once again accepted who she really is, and with that newfound strength is willing to give up her life for the sake of those she loves. Hell, if you bring BtS into this it could even be seen as an act of atonement for having ultimately failed to protect Rachel (she couldn't do anything about Damon, the damage James caused had already been done, and she didn't even know about Jefferson and Nathan until it was too late). She's basically trying to save Max from going down the same road so many others from Arcadia Bay have walked (that is, deciding her own selfish desires were more important than the well being of others) . If you think it's about Max however, then Bae makes the most sense. By that point, it's pretty clear that Max not only loves Chloe but she's also completely obsessed with her. She's given up everything and put her own life and sanity on the line just to be with her again. While she might feel guilty afterwards, she wasn't exactly thinking rationally at that point so obviously her instincts would lead her to choose Chloe in that moment. Larryb fucked around with this message at 20:45 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 19:22
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Orange Sunshine posted:I've seen his video, and I disagree with his conclusion. I agree that there are two competing stories in the game, but I think the Sacrifice Chloe ending is the proper ending to both stories. He says that the theme of the Lynchian Psychodrama is "learn to accept your mistakes", I believe the theme to this story is "learn to accept your limitations". Halfway through the game, the game completely goes off the rails of the story you thought you were in, at the point where you go back 5 years into the past and change it and restructure reality. This is where Max begins to realize that she's playing God and it is loving everything up. I think the resolution of this story is the realization that none of this is working and she must accept the reality that exists when she doesn't play time lord. If this were true then the game would not ask us to do yet another photo jump just this once on the off-chance that everything will just magically work out in the final act. I think if you're seeing the story from Max's point of view, then she's already sacrificed her own health, ambitions and sanity to keep Chloe safe. That's the exchange being made in the Sacrifice Bay ending. She had a world record Any % speedrun going in San Francisco and still didn't hesitate to give all that up to rescue a very much still-dead Chloe in the current timeline. The storm was already set into motion when she intervened to save Chloe's life in the bathroom, letting the town be destroyed five days later is therefore the only reality uncorrupted by further time manipulation. exquisite tea fucked around with this message at 19:30 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 19:27
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BobTheJanitor posted:Brief side note on that, this always felt kind of like contrived bullshit to me, too. Not doing anything conveniently also fixes a whole bunch of other problems. Just as likely that Nathan would have bolted and the ensuing investigation would have gone nowhere as he was protected from repercussions by his evil father, Jefferson would have gone on torturing students, Kate would still die and nothing would improve. At least have the honesty to do something like this in the ending and reduce the criticism that the devs really wanted you to pick one ending over the other. Passivity leading to all problems being fixed isn't only dishonest, it's not only bad writing, but it's also terrible moral to serve as the capstone of your story. It's a bit contrived, but it makes sense. Nathan shot Chloe in the bathroom with a hallway crowded with students outside. There's no way he gets away with that. Whether he stands there and freaks out until David Madsen comes in, or takes off running, he's caught either way. No amount of family connections would protect him from that. Once he's arrested, due to his nature, of course he rolls over on Mr. Jefferson. That is exactly what I would expect of him. All of this happening would distract Kate from killing herself long enough for it to come out that she was drugged and photographed, and now she's getting huge amounts of attention and nobody's bullying her and she doesn't kill herself. It all works logically.
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May 9, 2018 19:30
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exquisite tea posted:If this were true then the game would not ask us to do yet another photo jump just this once on the off-chance that everything will just magically work out in the final act. I think if you're seeing the story from Max's point of view, then she's already sacrificed her own health, ambitions and sanity to keep Chloe safe. That's the exchange being made in the Sacrifice Bay ending. She had a world record Any % speedrun going in San Francisco and still didn't hesitate to give all that up to rescue a very much still-dead Chloe in the current timeline. The storm was already set into motion when she intervened to save Chloe's life in the bathroom, letting the town be destroyed five days later is therefore the only reality uncorrupted by further time manipulation. The game is clearly telling you in every possible way that the storm was caused by Max's time travel. However, I'm going to guess that it was not time travel itself that wreaked havoc with the universe, but changing the past. So perhaps there is a proper timeline, a proper way that things were meant to be, and using time travel to change that causes all sorts of trouble. It might be that if Max traveled around in time but left everything the way it was, she could get away with that. In the Sacrifice Chloe ending, max travels back one last time, but simply uses this to return things to the way they were meant to be. So it's not time travel that is the problem, it's the use of time travel to play God and manipulate the universe. Think about it: would you want there to be time travelers living in this world going about loving with everything by changing reality to get what they wanted, or even what they thought was best? Nobody would have any idea what they were doing or had done or what sort of damage was being produced. You might wonder if all the major problems in the world were caused by them. A world with some real Spiderman or Batman or something you might want, as everyone could see what they were doing and whether they were using their abilities for good or bad. Using time travel to change the past by its nature is never anything but manipulative and unpredictable. But a time traveler who merely had some window into the past and looked and never changed anything would be harmless. All of this is getting way too far into speculation about how time travel works in the game's universe, but if people want to argue with the idea that it's acceptable for Max to travel back in time one last time to undo all of her time travel, this speaks to that.
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May 9, 2018 19:54
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I don't think about Life is Strange as some abstract moral thought experiment or what I would personally choose to do in that situation. I'm thinking about what Max as a character would do, and in that moment I believe there's no way she would abandon Chloe once again given all the trauma she's experienced just to get her back alive at the lighthouse in the final, climactic minutes of the story. Saving Chloe has been Max's heroic arc from the beginning, her childhood regret she's returned to absolve, what she was granted these extraordinary powers to do, and in order for her to complete this quest of self-actualization, she has to follow through on this mission -- even when the game itself offers you the chance to back out, even when the person you're trying to save is telling you they don't want it anymore. The central question of Life is Strange from the very beginning is "how far will Max go to save the life of someone she loves?" and for her to get 99% of the way there and then say, "naaaaaah" prevents her arc from being fulfilled. Saving Arcadia Bay only, only makes sense from a character perspective if you believe the real lead of the series is Chloe.
exquisite tea fucked around with this message at 20:08 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 20:05
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exquisite tea posted:If this were true then the game would not ask us to do yet another photo jump just this once on the off-chance that everything will just magically work out in the final act. Yes. Even if we stipulate that there is a direct causal link between time travel and tornadic destruction, how does that lead to the conclusion 'ergo I must time travel again in order to fix this'? In the Bay ending, you're not undoing all the time travel. Once you're standing by the lighthouse with the storm coming, there is no way to undo the time travel without first doing more time travel. And then you have the very obvious question of 'why is it going to work this time'? Again it comes down to some sort of predestined one true timeline thing, which I can't help but find distasteful. And on that basis you can't argue that time travel leads to a tornado (because there is no way to not have at least some time travel by this point in the story, since Bay rescue is time travel), only that deviating from the timeline that was ordained by some omnipotent rear end in a top hat god leads to punishment. Which leads me back to: what if Max in a moment of madness decided to hop out of the stall, pants Nathan, toss Chloe over her shoulder and run off? It's not the pre-ordained one true path, so is the vindictive god still going to smite us? And if the response is 'but no time travel so it's ok' then we come back to saving the Bay requiring time travel and I feel like we're at an impasse. Edit: To be a little more fair here, I 'get' the argument for time travel and playing god leading to smiting. Like, I'm playing kind of dumb for the sake of argument. I am perfectly capable of comprehending the narrative trope that they're leaning on to try and make the end work. I just feel like said trope is far too flimsy to support the weight they're trying to balance on it, and they didn't do the necessary work to shore it up in order to make it a viable option. I'd be willing to overlook moderately lazy writing like that in the service of a smaller plot point, but this is the crux of the narrative and it's asking you as the character to undertake an incredibly painful sacrifice. They should have put in the effort. BobTheJanitor fucked around with this message at 20:28 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 20:18
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BobTheJanitor posted:Yes. Even if we stipulate that there is a direct causal link between time travel and tornadic destruction, how does that lead to the conclusion 'ergo I must time travel again in order to fix this'? In the Bay ending, you're not undoing all the time travel. Once you're standing by the lighthouse with the storm coming, there is no way to undo the time travel without first doing more time travel. And then you have the very obvious question of 'why is it going to work this time'? Again it comes down to some sort of predestined one true timeline thing, which I can't help but find distasteful. And on that basis you can't argue that time travel leads to a tornado (because there is no way to not have at least some time travel by this point in the story, since Bay rescue is time travel), only that deviating from the timeline that was ordained by some omnipotent rear end in a top hat god leads to punishment. But there is only one true timeline in real life. That is reality, there appear to be potential futures, but only one of them ever happens, and there's certainly only one past. The ingame idea that time travel is wrong because it messes with the one true timeline goes right along with the fact that this is how it works in real life. A time traveler accepting that they weren't meant to change the timeline is like a real person realizing that they must accept reality as it is and not as they wish it to be.
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May 9, 2018 20:37
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exquisite tea posted:Saving Arcadia Bay only, only makes sense from a character perspective if you believe the real lead of the series is Chloe. It can be seen both ways but this is my personal opinion regarding the series. Chloe is the character we seem to go the most in depth with while Max is more of a proxy used to tell her story. Taking both games as a whole you have a 9 part saga detailing 3 of the most important years of her life (when her dad died and Max left, when she met Rachel, and finally when she lost Rachel but Max returned to her) and even just taking the first game by itself you can't deny that most of the plot explicitly revolves around Chloe (and there's no way to remove her from the equation either no matter how much of an rear end your Max is to her). It's important to note that the young Chloe we see in the past never really fully died. She just got buried deep down as more and more poo poo got piled on top of her in succession. As the series goes on we see that Chloe start to bubble up to the surface more and more. By the end (and arguably in the William Lives timeline as well), she stands before Max as a responsible adult willing to take matters into her own hands in an attempt to atone for the trouble she's caused. While some of it is genuine, the punk persona she puts on is mostly just an act to keep herself from completely falling apart (she's bad at lying though so the mask is kind of paper thin). The real Chloe Price is actually a pretty admirable person if you think about it. Larryb fucked around with this message at 21:15 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 21:07
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Orange Sunshine posted:But there is only one true timeline in real life. That is reality, there appear to be potential futures, but only one of them ever happens, and there's certainly only one past. The ingame idea that time travel is wrong because it messes with the one true timeline goes right along with the fact that this is how it works in real life. A time traveler accepting that they weren't meant to change the timeline is like a real person realizing that they must accept reality as it is and not as they wish it to be. I find your premise hella unfalsifiable. At best, you could attempt to prove that we only observe one timeline in real life, but not that said timeline is the only one that exists. I could just as easily assert that there are an infinite number of alternate timelines all running parallel to each other but with no way for one to observe another, and that would be a similarly unfalsifiable theory that doesn't help us get anywhere. And besides, the game's narrative is already telling us that changing time is a thing you can do. In this gameworld we're accepting that idea in order to move the story forwards. So arguing about what may or may not be true in real life doesn't really help us when we're trying to count the number of unicorns living in fantasy land.
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May 9, 2018 21:47
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Orange Sunshine posted:The game is clearly telling you in every possible way that the storm was caused by Max's time travel. Except Max first sees the storm before she changes the past. Unless you want to say that it just defies causality entirely or something.
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May 10, 2018 00:18
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Milky Moor posted:Except Max first sees the storm before she changes the past. Yeah, that is the one sticking point in all this. I suppose you could theorize that Max had nothing to do with the storm and the whole thing was subconsciously orchestrated by Rachel during her last moments (though that doesn't work all that well considering there were 6 months in between her death and the beginning of LiS). Alternatively, that wasn't a dream but rather the last moments of a Max from a previous timeline before her powers reset everything (her reaction when she wakes up in class at the beginning is very similar to how she reacts when she comes out of a photo jump later on). Or it could have just been a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, Max dreams about a storm and then accidentally creates said storm while trying to stop it.
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May 10, 2018 00:42
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Milky Moor posted:Except Max first sees the storm before she changes the past. Maybe the storm caused the time travel powers. The reason it stops when you go back in time and undo everything isn't directly related to your actions, it's just that the storm realized that this Max was a weak-willed baby who couldn't hack it as a time lord and left this reality for the next Max one dimension over. Makes u think.
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May 10, 2018 01:04
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Milky Moor posted:Except Max first sees the storm before she changes the past. We don't know what causes Max's visions. The first one may have been a warning to her of what would be coming if she used her time travel powers. It may be that the storm wasn't coming for sure as of the time of the first vision. It may be that whatever sent the vision knew Max was going to use time travel before Max ever did it. Or who knows what, you could speculate endlessly as to why Max got visions or got time travel in the first place. About all we can say for sure in terms of the cause of the storm is that going back and restoring the original timeline removed the storm, and nothing else did. Any speculation you want to make on the cause of the storm has to start with this.
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May 10, 2018 01:31
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Orange Sunshine posted:About all we can say for sure in terms of the cause of the storm is that going back and restoring the original timeline removed the storm, and nothing else did. Any speculation you want to make on the cause of the storm has to start with this. I mean, that's starting from out-of-game meta knowledge. If that's the way the question is being framed, the answer is obvious: because someone somewhere wrote it that way. But that doesn't really tell us anything useful about it from within the narrative.
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May 10, 2018 01:57
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This is my one problem with the time travel powers. They existed too much as a storytelling device and not enough as an actual thing in universe. It made things weird and by the end took me out of it a little. I think that's part of why I didn't buy the ending originally. I hope in the sequel they can figure out how to make whatever weird supernatural thing be more intertwined with the story without taking over too much of it.
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May 10, 2018 02:09
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Yeah, it would be nice if they integrated things a little better in the next game because, as has been mentioned, there is very little in game evidence that Max caused the storm besides Warren's theory. Also, it's good to remember that at that point in the story Max was already close to the breaking point and not exactly in the best state of mind. She probably would have believed anything at that point. The butterfly photo at the end was a gamble that wound up paying off, from a character perspective Max would have no way of knowing this wouldn't just blow up in her face like saving William and exposing Jefferson/entering her photo in the contest did. Speaking of the powers, the first episode actually breaks two of the rules the game sets up regarding time travel. First of all, normally when rewinding Max remains in the same location but the first time she does it she's suddenly warped back to Jefferson's class right after she woke up from her dream. Secondly, she normally retains any items or photos she has on hand when rewinding but if you snap a photo of David hassling Kate and then rewind back she suddenly doesn't have it anymore. It's just kind of weird as the rest of the game stays fairly consistent with those rules. Larryb fucked around with this message at 02:30 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 02:20
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The story/world/time travel stuff was obviously setting up for something very different at some point in development.
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May 10, 2018 02:53
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Milky Moor posted:The story/world/time travel stuff was obviously setting up for something very different at some point in development. Oh I have no doubt that the story went through a rewrite at some point and there's also some cut dialogue that supports this like Nathan screaming about the storm in the Episode 4 trailer and an unused line from Jefferson in Episode 5 that suggests that Nathan is still alive. There's also what fans refer to as the "Hospital" ending, which would have either involved Max jumping in and taking the bullet for Chloe or Chloe still getting shot by Nathan but managing to pull through in the end. Even BtS shows some signs of this such as how the scene presented in the preview for Episode 2 and the scene that actually happens in said episode are almost completely different aside from the dialogue. Also the fact that the fire was built up so much during the first episode but basically amounts to little more than a background detail that gets mentioned occasionally during the remainder of the game. There was also apparently going to be an option to actually help Frank at the mill in Episode 3 as well as a bit more dialogue during the conversation with Sera at the end where she explains her side of the story James told at the beginning. Speaking of cut content there was also smaller stuff like an unused Backtalk with and set of text messages from Taylor (who was ultimately just scrubbed from the game entirely though her actress is still credited), some kind of drug selling mechanic in Episode 2, and a few alternate names for Sera (the in-game files for Episode 1 refer to her as "Ruth" while some other bits of the game's code call her "Vanessa"). Hell, the first game itself was originally going to be called "What If?" (not that I mind the final title but out of curiosity, why did they change it in the first place?) and the town's name was initially Aurora Creek. Larryb fucked around with this message at 03:47 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 03:29
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Milky Moor posted:The story/world/time travel stuff was obviously setting up for something very different at some point in development. My feeling on finishing the game for the first time was that there must have been some kind of big change in the dev team between episodes 4 and 5. When I later learned that nothing like that really happened, I was pretty surprised. I still remain convinced that there was some kind of meddling in the process, whether intentionally through the publisher or some other outside person with pull to make changes, or just through unforeseen time/budget circumstances that ended up rushing the last episode. Episodes 1 through 4 may waver in quality a bit, but they are all mostly well paced, emotionally charged, consistently written (outside of nitpicks) -- all around good products. Episode 5 is a mess with an atrocious video-gamey time-filling stealth nightmare section, a bunch of people to save who either (are implied to) die or are temporally erased by your final choice, and an abrupt climactic choice that fails entirely to justify its reasoning and becomes more and more nonsensical the longer you think about it. I'm still wondering if one day we'll get a vindictive former dontnod employee pulling a Marc Laidlaw and posting a blog somewhere with the original ending plans.
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May 10, 2018 03:53
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BobTheJanitor posted:My feeling on finishing the game for the first time was that there must have been some kind of big change in the dev team between episodes 4 and 5. When I later learned that nothing like that really happened, I was pretty surprised. I still remain convinced that there was some kind of meddling in the process, whether intentionally through the publisher or some other outside person with pull to make changes, or just through unforeseen time/budget circumstances that ended up rushing the last episode. Episodes 1 through 4 may waver in quality a bit, but they are all mostly well paced, emotionally charged, consistently written (outside of nitpicks) -- all around good products. Episode 5 is a mess with an atrocious video-gamey time-filling stealth nightmare section, a bunch of people to save who either (are implied to) die or are temporally erased by your final choice, and an abrupt climactic choice that fails entirely to justify its reasoning and becomes more and more nonsensical the longer you think about it. The developers have repeatedly said that the script for the entire game was there from the time the first episode came out, and that only minor changes were made along the way. The biggest change they always bring up was the addition of the hospital scene with Kate, which wasn't originally in the game but was added when they realized that players needed to see Kate again. It was easy to add since the hospital set had already been created, as it was originally going to be used for a scene at the end of the game which they decided against. Originally, after David rescues Max from the dark room, he takes her to a hospital to get checked out, and then from there she goes to the diner to find warren. The hospital scene in episode 5 was taken out (and clearly was decided to be taken out long before episode 5 came out) because it just didn't add much to the game. There's an interview with the developers I've seen on youtube where they say that the binary end game choice was planned from the very beginning, and that the whole game was designed to lead to that. On the other hand, there's a popular fan theory which says that the developers were running out of money by chapter 5 and had to cut corners. We don't really have much evidence for this, but it would explain things like Nathan dying off camera and just not appearing in chapter 5, and the unnecessarily long nightmare sequence which might have been extended to replace other more costly scenes. If the fan theory is right, we might have seen Nathan in chapter 5 and a much shorter nightmare sequence, but I think the ending choice was always going to be what it is. Perhaps the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending wouldn't have been so short and crappy, and players would indeed get to see Max and Chloe driving around to look at all the dead bodies.
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May 10, 2018 04:48
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It's probably still too soon but the original Life is Strange could really do with a Remastered Edition. It'd give them a chance to maybe add in some of the cut content (or maybe even some brand new stuff if they felt like putting in the extra effort), do some bug fixes (like how Max suddenly becomes telepathic during the conversation with Warren at the diner) and most importantly, update the models so the characters can actually emote properly. I'm hoping that DontNod takes a good look at what worked and what didn't from the original (and maybe even a little inspiration from Before the Storm as well) and really steps up their game for Season 2 (or whatever it winds up being called). I'm also hoping that the first two games having somewhat disappointing finales is just a coincidence and this isn't going to be a regular thing for this series. Though to be fair, while it had problems of its own the final chapter of BtS was still less of a train wreck than the original's in my opinion. Larryb fucked around with this message at 05:23 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 05:20
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The ending to Life is Strange is 100% married to its central theme, which was always "how far would you go to save the life of someone you loved." The whole Prescott conspiracy thing makes absolutely zero sense because it ties into nothing related to the core relationship between Chloe and Max, what Life is Strange has always been about.
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May 10, 2018 08:38
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That's the thing, though. I'd say during the development process they dropped the Prescott Stuff Plot (because, hoo boy, there's a lot of it) and decided to focus just on Chloe and Max and their relationship. That or the writers had red herrings for dinner one evening. Or, like a lot of media around that time, they just wanted Big Questions that would keep the audience guessing. Wow, is this weird Vortex Club that Mr Prescott wants to keep open related to the giant tornado? Endless speculation for everyone, etc. etc. But my personal feeling is they basically wrote for seven or so episodes when they had five. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 09:00 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 08:54
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I think that Episode 5 has a lot of issues, but those are mostly related to its pacing + obviously running out of money for the later sequences. Just like Episode 3 of BtS it stumbles to the finale in a hacky way, but the end choice perfectly reflects the themes of the story (if you correctly pick Bae) and injecting a whole paranormal thriller subplot wouldn't have made it any better. Very different feel from Mass Effect 3's "lots of speculation for everyone" ending, which was a total thematic whiplash.
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May 10, 2018 09:08
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About the photo which shows Chloe skateboarding when she was younger...it looks like that was taken in Blackwell's parking lot. Someone compared the photo to a screenshot and the trees in the background seem to match up. Hardly a sense-shattering revelation but it's a neat touch that I'd never have noticed without someone to point it out for me.
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May 10, 2018 09:10
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Milky Moor posted:That's the thing, though. I'd say during the development process they dropped the Prescott Stuff Plot (because, hoo boy, there's a lot of it) and decided to focus just on Chloe and Max and their relationship. BtS sort of muddies the waters regarding the storm's origins even further by implying that Rachel may or may not have had some kind of unconscious control over wind and that even Frank was getting visions about the impending storm (that's what I interpreted his cloud dream to mean at any rate). Not to mention the rather blatant analogue with The Tempest (Max in this case playing a slightly more proactive version of Miranda). Larryb fucked around with this message at 14:09 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 12:17
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Milky Moor posted:That's the thing, though. I'd say during the development process they dropped the Prescott Stuff Plot (because, hoo boy, there's a lot of it) and decided to focus just on Chloe and Max and their relationship. The game is full of red herrings, to distract the players and keep them from figuring out Mr. Jefferson's involvement and the ending. The whole Sean Prescott thing is a red herring. David Madsen is a red herring. Samuel's odd speech and girl stuff he keeps in his storeroom is a red herring. All of them make it difficult to predict what happens at the end of the game, and especially serve to throw everyone off the track from suspecting Jefferson. They worked very well, the collective audience didn't just figure everything out ahead of time as the episodes were released. The downside is that players developed all these elaborate theories of what was going to happen next, which turned into conspiracy theories that there is a "real ending" out there which was stolen from them.
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May 10, 2018 14:29
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In my mind, a red herring is something that seems suspicious, but which is cleared up later. That mysterious shadow at the top of the stairs turns out to have been the housecat walking in front of a dropped flashlight, etc. David Madsen's arc would be a proper red herring. He seems suspicious as hell at first, but it all gets explored and explained by the end. Something that seems weird and is never really resolved is a dropped plot thread (or just shaky writing). A lot of the extraneous details in LiS kind of waver between those two poles. At best, the game leaves it on you to come up with your own reasons for why Samuel's clothing collection makes sense, or why the Prescott/storm connection kept getting dropped into the plot. You can sort of come up with some logical reasoning, but they're never explained away like a proper red herring should be. Orange Sunshine posted:The downside is that players developed all these elaborate theories of what was going to happen next, which turned into conspiracy theories that there is a "real ending" out there which was stolen from them. Just to be clear, I don't think there was a wildly different 'real ending' where Max and Chloe capture the ghost deer to summon the spirit of Rachel back into the physical plane and then lasso the power of the tornado to ride off across the ocean and fight crime on the streets of Tokyo. When I talk about a different ending, I'm thinking of something that put more effort into justifying the 'time fuckery causes tornado' reasoning. Maybe making the nightmare sequence into a scenario where Max is actually bouncing all around time trying to fix things and repeatedly breaking poo poo until the timeline is actually fractured and your only way out is going back to the cliff and accepting the Chloe/bay choice. Whatever you do, show, don't tell. I'm fine with it ending on the same Bae vs. Bay choice, I just wanted an ending that leads the player to that realization more directly.
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May 10, 2018 15:42
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Exactly, I don't mind the concept they were trying to go for but they just needed to do a better job of convincing the player of that fact. While it had it's own flaws, the story of BtS was a lot more clear cut in that regard. The raven probably could have been left out though as it doesn't really do all that much after the first episode (hell, it barely appears at all in the finale), it's also kind of weird that Chloe never once says anything about this strange bird that keeps following her and showing up in her dreams, whenever she talks about them in her journal she just brings up her dad and nothing else. That said, I didn't really mind its inclusion all that much. As I've said, I hope DontNod takes note of what worked and what didn't from the original and uses that to create a better overall story for the next game. I'm not really expecting any direct references to the original aside from a few easter eggs and maybe a Hawt Dawg Man cameo but that's fine, we could use a fresh start at this point. If we do return to the Bay cast at some point though I think one of the following could work pretty well: Max's Seattle Days: This would be a chance to get Max's perspective and feelings on having ghosted on Chloe for years despite promising to remain in touch. It would also be an opportunity to properly get to know Max's parents and maybe even meet some of the friends she mentions making there. Frank: He seems like a complex character and what little information we do find out about him in the other games could be expanded on a little more (he seems to have some issues with his dad for example). Also, maybe find out why someone like him is working as a drug dealer to begin with. Steph: She was kind of underutilized in BtS and it would be nice to learn a little more about her. Her knack for crafting stories seems like it could be useful in real life situations and it would be a good excuse to put in more D&D segments (though I'm not sure how the choice system would work from a DM's perspective). It would also give us our first canonically gay protagonist (Chloe is at least bi with a heavy preference towards girls and Max just seems more confused than anything else). Also, I kind of liked some of the BtS exclusive characters and it'd be a shame to see them just get swept under the rug after this. I could also see Victoria working as a protagonist as it seems like she's got her own issues going on. I imagine her gimmick would be like a slightly bitchier version of Chloe's Backtalk mechanic. Larryb fucked around with this message at 21:16 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 21:03
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I'm willing to give dontnod enough credit to think that they don't need to go back to the Arcadia Bay well once again to recapture the same magic. Even if they wanted to tell a story with one of the other characters, it would probably be better for the franchise and for the new game if they just take that character archetype and transplant it somewhere else. Even if they didn't change it that much, even if we ended up playing as a thinly veiled copy of one of the existing characters living in 'Utopia Fjord', at least it gives them breathing room to develop in a new direction, which the existing Arcadia Bay setting probably has too much established story to allow. I do think that whatever they do, in order to still feel like it belongs under the LiS name, probably needs to have angsty youngsters having lots of feelings about things. That just seems like an unavoidable part of the formula. It probably also needs at least some kind of supernatural elements. Whether that's weird powers that the character has or just weird things happening in the world, it needs something. Also, it needs to have queer themes. I'd appreciate it more if they make it an unavoidable part of the story. LiS just vaguely hinted in that direction and made it all optional, BtS at least had the guts to make it more overt, but still kept it optional. Start LiS2 with two angsty teen queers smooching in the first scene and I'll preorder right now. The only reason I'd like to see them return to Arcadia Bay at this point would be for a remaster. And not to change anything about the story, really. Even with my multitude of complaints about the ending, that story is baked and done by now. I'd just want them to redo it with an updated engine that has some actual facial animation technology. The fact that this game, which is almost entirely about people emoting at each other, is saddled to in-game models with faces made of barely pliable plastic is just terrible. Thankfully the VAs did such a bang-up job that you can look past it. Even if that means in most cases literally looking past it. Like focusing on the background of scenes so that the  faces don't take you out of the moment.Edit: Just realized that by my criteria, Night in the Woods is the perfect Life is Strange game. It's got an angsty coming-of-age story, supernatural stuff, and the best gays. (Gregg rulz ok) 
BobTheJanitor fucked around with this message at 22:22 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 22:19
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Night in the Woods does seem to borrow a few story bits from LiS (awkward main character who winds up broken under the weight of their own mistakes, childhood friend of said character whose life went swiftly downhill after the death of a family member, fell out of touch with the protagonist, and is now just trying to stay sane, friend of one of the main characters goes missing before the game begins and it's later revealed they were murdered by the primary antagonists of said game, etc), but in some ways it handles some of those issues a little better in my opinion (also, I choose to believe that Chloe's shirt in Farewell was meant as an intentional nod to that game). I sort of consider it an unofficial entry in the LiS series in a sense and would love to see another game by the same devs even if it isn't a sequel. Don't get me wrong, I think they should at least give the new cast a chance before running back to the Arcadia Bay well again but all I'm saying is there are other roads still available if they (or Deck Nine for that matter) ever choose to do so. That being said, while Chloe may be one of my favorite characters her story has also been pretty well told by now. If she were to show up again I'd hope it'd be more of a minor role if anything so somebody else could get a turn in the spotlight. Besides, we're already getting a direct sequel to the original via the upcoming comic so making LiS 2 more of a spiritual sequel with little if any connection to what came before makes perfect sense. I also agree that the first game could stand for a remaster even if all that really changed were the graphics. I've seen PSX games with better character animation than that so I'm honestly not sure what happened there. The only way any sort of emotion is conveyed at all is through eye movements and the quality of the voice acting. The models in BtS by comparison were a lot more expressive (even if they looked like they were made of rubber at times). Maybe if they're ever desperate for content Square will throw a cameo from Max and/or Chloe into a future Kingdom Hearts game or something (though I'm not really sure how well that would work to be honest) but otherwise I wouldn't expect to ever see them again (at least, not for a while anyway). Larryb fucked around with this message at 00:37 on May 11, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 23:05
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BobTheJanitor posted:Edit: Just realized that by my criteria, Night in the Woods is the perfect Life is Strange game. It's got an angsty coming-of-age story, supernatural stuff, and the best gays. (Gregg rulz ok) It even faceplants right at the finish line just like LiS I love the majority of Night in the Woods but the ending was really unsatisfying
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May 10, 2018 23:17
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internet celebrity posted:It even faceplants right at the finish line just like LiS Ehh maybe. I wouldn't say it did nearly as badly. It does suffer a bit of a pacing issue from packing the supernatural plot all into the last act of the game. But that's kind a required tradeoff to allow the opening acts space for the sort of timeless feeling they had of just interacting with old friends and exploring the crumbling town. I suppose it does kind of depend on which story you took as the primary narrative. If it's 'Mae grows as a person' then that gets kind of wrapped up. If it's the supernatural elements, then the best you can say is that it's probably been put down for now, but not beaten. I'd almost like to put Oxenfree up as another game that would fit under the wider LiS-like umbrella, but sadly it fails entirely on the queer criteria. At best you can jokingly pick one of the other girls' names when playing a game of 'marry/gently caress/kill' around the campfire, which just isn't enough to count. But it does have a fair bit of coming-of-age angst, and it dials the supernatural elements up to 11.
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May 10, 2018 23:45
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Oxenfree is a wild ride.
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May 10, 2018 23:48
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I thought Oxenfree had a weak script and some distractingly poor voice acting, particularly Alex's friend Ren.
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May 10, 2018 23:52
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Oxenfree was not great.
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May 11, 2018 00:31
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I thought Oxenfree also fell completely flat at the end, much more so than NitW and LiS. I thought I knew what was going to happen when I saw "continue timeline" after finishing the first playthrough. I was going to go back in time with full knowledge of the events that unfolded. I was going to enter the triangle and the spirit of Maggie Adler was going to help me free the submarine ghosts once and for all. All kinds of crazy radio and VHS poo poo would happen. The ghosts would make me watch my friends and brother die in horrible ways and it would be creepy and unsettling as gently caress. But I would pull through, free the ghosts somehow, and the curse of the island would be lifted. Everyone would survive and the plot would resolve nicely. But after finishing the second time with only a few new pieces of dialogue, a sense of deja-vu, and some extra VHS tracking errors I was just disappointed. I even collected all the letters and anomalies hoping for a true ending.
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May 11, 2018 00:50
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