Life Is Strange: = kek

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King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

So I finished my playthrough of this last night, and after talking to my friend a bit, I more or less came to the following conclusion: The ending is bad for a number of reasons, most notably that it makes your choices meaningless. Even if it didn't make your choices meaningless, though, it's such an extreme choice that I could only select Sacrifice Arcadia Bay and laugh when it came up. I mostly think that the ending would be more appropriate if there was some way to prevent the storm without killing Chloe; in fact, during the entire buildup to the end, it felt like that's where it was going to go. The fact that it didn't was really surprising, and probably not in the way they intended. I get that a lot of the game was about how there are no good choices, but it just felt wrong to have it come to that. Honestly, while I generally liked the party scene a lot, I feel like the game started to go off the rails the second you open the door to the Dark Room.

I don't know. I liked the game a lot, and the ending was just really disappointing considering how strong most of the content was.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2015 23:28

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 00:54

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

I opened a text document to really dive into the implications of the ending, and the more I think about it the more I dislike it. The ending is incredibly hosed up, it really does go beyond the fact that your choices don't matter, even if that's the obvious consequence.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2015 18:14

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

BobTheJanitor posted:

Something about the ending really does seem to encourage endless over-analyzing, but not really of the good kind. God knows I've spilled enough text all over the thread about it. It's just hard to drop it, somehow.

Like, I was kind of disappointed after finishing and thought that I would just forget it and move on, but I keep thinking back on it and getting ticked off all over again. So all the wall-of-text diatribes are some sort of vague attempt to exorcise the demons.

An entirely bad story is easily forgettable, and a good story is satisfying enough that you can put it down when you're done and be content. But an almost good story that faceplants at the finish line is the worst. All build up, no release. It's opening your presents and getting a box of gravel. What do you do with all the leftover anticipation? In my case, I guess you funnel it into endless nerdy posts about the game.

Apparently, in my case it's about 600 words in a word document, going into too much detail about how much the ending treats Max and Chloe like poo poo.

There's a subsection dedicated to a more positive take, and the whole text vomit is basically bullshit, but it's there and I'm probably going to keep tweaking it.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2015 23:14

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Accordion Man posted:

Yeah, I usually don't get real disappointed with games, for example I played through Mass Effect 1 and 2 some time before 3 came out, so I was looking forward to it, but when I heard it was a mess I was just like "Oh well" and moved on and didn't buy it. But Life is Strange really let me down because it was really good up until Episode 5, it was unique and nicely written with characters and story that got me invested in it. I'm one of those loser nerds that actually enjoy a game that's well-written, especially if they can tie it in with the gameplay. So I really loved the game up until they screwed the pooch at the very end and I honestly felt like I got trolled. I know its a bit silly, but I still felt a bit betrayed, that I thought DONTNOD knew what they were doing, (And there was enough quality to think that) when it turns out they kind of didn't.

I think the biggest problem with Episode 5 is DONTNOD stopped respecting their characters and just forced them into cheap drama and wallowed in angst just to try and look deep. Just look at Nathan and Victoria, they were both built up as deeply troubled kids and the game made them sympathetic and in the case of Victoria had them start to change for the better but neither of them get any resolution for their arcs in either ending. Hell the reward for Victoria rejecting her pettiness and envy is several hours of terror before getting unceremoniously murdered. It feels cheap as hell to have players get invested into their characters and just throw it all away like that.

At least Undertale ended up being pretty much what I wanted when it come to characters and player empathy.

I think that there was a sudden, dramatic shift in DONTNOD's plans for the game's story at some point either during episode 4's development or in the very early stages of episode 5's. There's just such a dramatic shift in tone and writing quality that I can't imagine a scenario where this was planned from the beginning.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2015 23:45

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

LoseHound posted:

Isn't that the game's own implication?

Arcadia Bay is dying and corrupt. The economy is in the toilet. A secret sexual assault bunker is chugging along. Blackwell is run by a money-driven alcoholic and owned by the most corrupt family in town. The Prescotts are even ripping up the forest to build...somethingsomething estates. Nature omens and prophecies all give the storm a mythic quality, as if it's some purifying force/divine punishment. I think there's even a letter from Sean Prescott that implies he's aware that something is coming. Man versus nature is a thing in the story, what with the spirit animals, climate change references, and other small bits of dialogue. The characters constantly mention destiny and fate. There are implications of nonhuman forces at work in Arcadia Bay.

To suggest that the storm was just a freak coincidence, the result of a selfless act just feels silly. To suggest it actually was punishment is worse. Max can use her powers to deceive and manipulate others in a town full of shady assholes, but no, see, the REAL sin is being a teenager who hasn't learned a very important lesson about *chorus of fart noises*.

Yeah, see, when I was playing the game, I saw a lot of this. The storm and Max's powers were fairly obviously connected in some way, but I felt given the way the first storm vision appears before Max learns of her powers, that Max's powers were a response to the storm, in a sense. She was given these abilities so she can learn the truth of what's going on, find Rachel, stop the Prescotts, and through doing so prevent the storm. Having the storm happen because of Max's use of her powers doesn't really fit as cleanly as it should. Granted, I think that would work if Max started having her storm visions after she saved Chloe in the bathroom, but as it is that doesn't work for me. Plus, having the storm more or less happen because Max did a thing on Monday is pretty bullshit. I guess you could say that the storm happened because Max continued to use her powers either at Chloe's behest or to save Chloe, but it's still not as clean as I'd like.

As I said earlier, I think that - party scene aside - the story started going in a radically different direction after the scene in the Dark Room than it was previously.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 16:37

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Gato posted:

Nurse, get this thread some positivity stat

I just played through all 5 episodes in a row, and really enjoyed it. It probably helps that I wasn't waiting for each episode so I didn't have time to build up expectations or assumptions about what was going to happen next. Some random things I liked:

Yeah, I played through the entire game in a very short period of time myself, running through episodes 3-5 on the same day. I feel like that, if nothing else, put me in the right place to really dislike the ending. I was saturated in content that I felt was incredibly effective, and then the ending felt like the most hamfisted bullshit. I chose the same thing you did and, when I came to the decision itself, my immediate reaction was incredulity. I laughed really hard for a couple minutes when I realized it actually let me make that choice.

There was no way that was the intended response, and my reflection on the game and the ending after the fact only made the ending seem worse. I loved the rest of the game, though!

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 18:30

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Mr. Belding posted:

But that's just the game being Lynchian. It's true to its influences. Perhaps you don't care for those influences, and I get that, especially when it really leaned hard into the Lynch stuff in the final episodes when the previous ones went a lot lighter, but it was always there bubbling under the surface.

Plus I think that ambiguity creates intriguing ways to consider the endings. You could argue that Max should save Chloe because letting her die wouldn't change anything. There's every reason to believe that a rich and powerful family funding a "Vortex Club" that is throwing an end of the world party the very night this tornado appears is probably the root cause. Especially coupled with the creepy emails between Nathan and his father. Then there's the fact that alt-Chloe word still had all of the strange phenomena, which could imply that Max isn't the root cause.

I think it's likely that letting Chloe die doesn't resolve anything.

I actually disagree. Given how the ending goes if you sacrifice Chloe, it becomes apparent that Max's use of her powers is the source of the phenomenon. If you look at it from that perspective, then the odd phenomenon happened in the alternate world because Max saved William, not because it was going to happen regardless. You stop the storm by going back to the first change Max made using her powers and undoing it. Following that choice, because Max (presumably) didn't use her powers at all, the unusual phenomenon - including the storm - do not occur.

I really don't think this was the original plan, and feel like it's really messy, but that's my interpretation of the ending choice. Basically: Max has to decide whether she's willing to deal with the consequences of her actions. By sacrificing Chloe, you've decided that the consequences are too severe and that Max should do nothing. By sacrificing the town, you decide that you are willing to accept those consequences. I can kinda see what they were going for there, but I really strongly think there needs to be a third option that basically says this is a false choice.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 19:36

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Mr. Belding posted:

Yes, but in the ending where you save Chloe there is no evidence that allowing her to die would have stopped the storm. I get that its natural to treat both endings as part of the same coherent universe, but I don't think it's necessary and it's certainly not as interesting. Although they certainly break the potential ambiguity by naming the choices as they did.

To be clear, I chose the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending, and have only seen the other ending based on that goofy youtube video posted earlier and my friend's description. I agree that based on the information from Sacrifice Arcadia Bay alone, there's no indication that the other choice would solve anything, but given the lack of a third option, it's the natural conclusion to make.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 19:48

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

BobTheJanitor posted:

The argument that saving William caused weird environment stuff to start happening in the alternate time stream just doesn't fly, for me at least. The huge time gap from the change to the week-of-weird is the problem. I guess it's possible to write the story that way, but it would be pretty nonsensical, bad writing. Why does it wait around for years before showing up, whereas in the 'main' timeline it happens that week? Presumably after photojumping Max should have come back to the blank crater where Arcadia Bay used to be, long since overgrown and retaken by wildlife.

For these presumably uncaring mindless forces to wait around for years until the 'right' Max quantum leaps back into her body and only then start reacting (although not really, since the previous day's events had apparently already happened in the form of dead wildlife and such being there before you jump in) is just something I can't think of any reason to justify. Unless you want to say that there is some kind of consciousness behind the forces that are supposedly punishing us for time-fuckery, and that it made an active choice to wait until we got back to start screwing with us. Which is writing an awful lot of assumptions into the story, and would open up way too many questions. Not least of which is: how do we find this entity and kick its rear end?

Or maybe we want to argue that anything stemming from time travel usage is going to result in this particular week being the focus of dead whales and tornadoes and whatever, no matter which version of the timeline you go to (since this is the 'when' in which we started time wizarding). But then, of course, going back to the beginning and sitting on your hands wouldn't undo anything, because you're still using time travel to get there and this theory basically only works if you assume that time has a 'memory' and no matter how many times you overwrite it, the tornado of doom is still coming.

I come back to the only real reason for the ending being that the devs wanted to do it this way and didn't care about how nonsensical it was.

I think the ending is pretty bad writing anyway, so saying that it reflects strangely onto previous events in the story or that they didn't fully think through the implications isn't much of a stretch. I think the right perspective is in your third paragraph, that the "when" you start your time wizardry is the important thing. However, I think that since the implication is using time wizardry to make changes is what causes the storm, by jumping back to the beginning and sitting on your hands, you're basically returning to the natural timeline, and in the natural timeline there is no storm.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 20:12

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

BobTheJanitor posted:

I know that's clearly the perspective they wanted us to take, I'm just saying it doesn't scan. Even if you go back and relive a timeline in which you didn't screw with stuff, that doesn't actually erase the existence of the other one (apparently, since in alternate world the tornado is still coming) so it's pointless. If it does, then there should have been no tornado in alternate world. It's just not possible to have it both ways. But I'm basically repeating my argument here.

It feels like this wasn't so much a mistake as a last minute change in the plot, and they originally intended the eco-weirdness and tornado to be related to but not caused by the time travel, which obviously leads to crucial differences in how the ending would play out.

I guess it's better to look at this from a different perspective. In any timeline where you make a change from what would happen naturally - that is, without time wizardry - you get the storm, and it happens approximately when the decision to make the change takes place, not when the changed event takes place. By jumping back to the timeline where Max did nothing, there was no change from the natural events, so there is no storm. Given the way the narrative was structured from episodes 1-4 (particularly given Max gets her first storm vision before unlocking her powers), I don't think this was the original plan.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 20:44

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Mr. Belding posted:

I think it's perfectly fine say that it's bad or lazy writing, but only in the same way that people call happy ever after romance novels bad or lazy writing. They are adhering to the tropes of their genre, and in this genre symbolism is specifically allowed to break the laws of reality and doesn't necessarily have to follow a coherent set of in-world rules. If the only purpose of the vortex is to force a specific choice on the player then it can do that. If time travel is a plot device it can exist without explanation. Basically being interesting, thematic, atmospheric, or symbolic is enough justification for anything. This sort of thing has a literary history including everything from Kurt Vonnegut to Tom Robbins and in television from things like Twin Peaks, Lost, and Carnivale, and in films like Jacob's Ladder and Lost Highway. It doesn't mean there can't be explanations but if you think those are what the works are about then you're bound to find the work disappointing.

See, that's not really why I think it's bad writing. The rest of the game messed around with the rules in a lot of weird ways; for example, Max's ability to stop time outright only popped up the one time at the end of episode 2. My problem is that the ending doesn't fit with the rest of the game either narratively or with respect to game mechanics. Like people - myself included - have mentioned many times over, the only decision that matters in the game is the last one. In a game that's filled with choices that build on each other and change based on your previous actions, with varying consequences, here you have a choice that does none of that. It's just a Sophie's Choice that's slapped on to the end and more or less explicitly says that by doing anything at all you've created catastrophe.

There's a reason I've said that I feel like they made a serious swerve in their plans when they worked on episode 5. In a lot of ways it just doesn't fit neatly with the type of story or the type of game that took place in episodes 1-4.

TheCoon posted:

Dontnod's CEO gave an interview at Paris Games Week

E: It's a shame there doesn't seem to be a translated transcript of that interview in this link, I'd love to see what he has to say.

King of Solomon fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Oct 28, 2015

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 23:28

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Mr. Flunchy posted:

Eh, it's not about the destination, it's about how you get there.

Now this I agree with wholeheartedly. I may have problems with this game's ending, but the rest of the game was very, very good, and I'm glad I played it.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2015 01:28

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Axelgear posted:

I can definitely agree to this, but there's something to be said for retroactive tainting of an experience. If your enjoyment in LiS, for example, was in making choices and seeing the consequences, something that retroactively undoes/invalidates both is going to widdle on your chips somewhat. That sort of ending not only messes with your enjoyment of the finale, but your memory of the product as a whole.

Still one of the best narratives I've enjoyed in a long time, though.

Mhm, I don't disagree. Hell, most of my time thinking about the game since I beat it has been about the ending and how much I dislike it. Still, this is all really fresh in my mind, so it's hard to say how I'll look back on the game in a few months, or whenever they get around to announcing a second season. It'll be interesting to think about, that's for sure.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2015 18:22

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Moriatti posted:

Hey guys, remember when we posted joke videos and discussed the themes of the game?

So what do you guys think the butterfly and bird came to ultimately represent? Both have a pretty strong tie to Chloe, I would argue that the butterfly is a physical manifestation of her and Max's relationship, but I didn't see it in their end, so I could be wrong here.

I think the butterfly was just a fairly literal representation of the butterfly effect. It was colored blue to make it stand out and directly tie in to Chloe, probably, but the main thing is that the first change Max makes - saving Chloe - leads to large changes. With that in mind, I don't think showing the butterfly again at the end would make much sense. I don't think the bird is especially important in the grand scheme of things, just another of those small changes that you can make early on that show up later (like the dirty RV window.)

E: vvvv This is a really good point. Good catch! vvvv

King of Solomon fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Nov 1, 2015

# ¿ Nov 1, 2015 19:04

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

I definitely considered hugging Warren to be a friendly rather than romantic option, which is why I chose that. I had no interest in hooking up Max and Warren.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 16:23

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Fina posted:

Third, I felt like the "Max causes the tornado" explanation came out of loving nowhere. There were all sorts of weird signs and apocalyptic omens throughout the game, but it never felt like it was a direct result of your time fuckery. Then suddenly in the last hour of the game both Warren and Chloe are convinced of this fact, one of which literally just discovered you have time abilities and instantly knows the truth?

They actually did bring up the possibility with that conversation about Chaos Theory in episode 2, which they reference at least one more time later. I don't think it's sufficient, and I've posted that it felt like it came out of nowhere myself, but it wasn't completely unforeshadowed. Just mostly!

quote:

Also: I expected way more of a supernatural element out of the game after seeing the ghost deer. I was starting to feel like that ghost deer was Rachel Amber, since it literally leads you to her grave in Episode 2. The entire game was is full of deer and it really felt like they were leading to something, and then the last time you see the ghost deer it is leading you through the only open door in backwards school. Did I miss something or is this just a thread that went nowhere?

Pretty sure it's just a plot thread that went nowhere. The only explanation the game gives to what the deer is comes from Samuel in incidental dialogue: He thinks the deer is Max's spirit animal. If that was the plan, they really dropped the ball giving an explanation in the actual story.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2015 07:13

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Accordion Man posted:

The thing is the concept of butterfly effect is the antithesis of fate, because by definition the slightest action you perform in the past can drastically change the future. Like the game doesn't even follow that idea at all in the end.

Same with chaos theory, because you know, its all about chaos and how you can get totally unpredictable results which is also the antithesis of fate.

Right, but they didn't bring up fate there. The idea is that Max's powers and the storm are related, which can be taken to suggest that Max's powers cause the storm (or that she can use them to stop it). This is why it happens every time Max did anything that deviated from normal. It's there, it's just really inelegant, assuming that was their plan all along.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2015 07:41

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

LoseHound posted:

Except Chloe says on the cliff, "hey maybe I should accept my fate. think of all the times I died and stuff." I get that Chloe doesn't necessarily know poo poo, but why give her that line unless you want the audience to nod along and say "hmm okay". Did Chloe die in that bathroom and Max could've done something had she not been a big shy nerd all the time, or was there nothing she could do?

poo poo sucks for David and Joyce either way. Where's Joyce's time travel adventure to say goodbye to her wayward teen? And I can't help wonder how Max is going to prevent David from doubling down on paranoid surveillance now.

Right, but they didn't discuss fate while talking about Chaos Theory, where they (poorly) seeded the possibility that Max is causing the storm. Fate didn't meaningfully come up until episode 5 (which, incidentally, is another reason I think they might have changed their plans when developing episode 5.)

# ¿ Nov 7, 2015 16:12

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

CottonWolf posted:

The thing that really annoyed me about the ending is that resumably she still has time travel powers in the final timeline after she chooses to save Acadia Bay/run away. It doesn't seem like anything is resolved. At least in "normal" time travel stories, there's a time machine/magical artifact, some exogenous instigator of events. You at least have an idea of the outcome based on what happens to the machine. Here Max just gets them, they cause a local apocalypse then there's no evidence that they've even gone away. It could easily just happen again.

Yep. That being said, I'd imagine given how much of a traumatic experience this week is, Max probably wouldn't deliberately use her powers again. She'll just have them and never use them. It's really stupid.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2015 17:48

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

zer0spunk posted:

I could do with another season of this game with maybe a fluid killer that changes based on your choices. I'd be totally cool with narrowing the scope or amount of branches needed if the 3-4 it had actually led to totally different experiences rather then all roads lead to one final choice that dictates one of two outcomes. Maybe the sheer amount of variations prevent this in this kind of genre or having to not have any kind of game ending fail state to avoid pissing people off.

How'd until dawn do? Same deal?

e: I still really liked it, and was one of those people that did not see the killer reveal coming at all.

That could be interesting, sure. Personally, though, I'd be happy with a tightly executed ending that takes your choices into account. Using this first season as an example, let's say there's an ending where you stop the storm without killing Chloe (more or less the ending I thought they were going for right up until the choice itself happened.) In this case, given my choices, most of the town would probably be cool with my Max, but David would still be in a hotel, Frank would make some serious choices with where his life would go, Warren would go on that date with Brooke, etc., etc. But if you play things differently than I did, maybe Max goes out with Warren, maybe Frank keeps going with the drug business, and David has a happy family life with Joyce and Chloe.

There's a lot of interesting fluidity there that you can get with even just a single ending. Hell, you could even get that same amount of fluidity out of a Sacrifice Arcadia Bay choice; but instead of "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay," you get "Evacuate Arcadia Bay" and you leave the town itself to be destroyed. You get the option to go back slightly and get people to evacuate before the storm strikes, but what happens in that ending changes based on your choices. Because you were a dick to Warren and David, they stick around. Maybe if you fail to save Alyssa every episode she ignores your warning. Maybe Victoria only heeds your warning if you don't warn her about Nathan at the party.

That kind of thing is all I think the game needs. I do like your idea though; if they executed it well enough that could be really cool.

E: Hell, you already get the option to warn the homeless woman.

King of Solomon fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Nov 8, 2015

# ¿ Nov 8, 2015 23:33

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

GlyphGryph posted:

Eh, I don't know. They've demonstrated a pretty good attention to detail and leaving subtle hints throughout the entire rest of the game, I don't see why it couldn't be.

It was sunny and warm when the first snow fell, too. That's what made it weird.

It felt to me like you bought some time, but didn't actually prevent the inevitable, only delayed it. It definitely didn't seem like a graphics engine glitch to me, and it goes behind some trees and in front of others so I'm not sure if that makes sense either. And it acts like how I've seen light snow act on windy days?

I dunno, maybe it's not, but I do think it's intentional, and it seems like a weird thing to add if they didn't intend it to mean something

I just checked out the section of the video you're talking about, and that definitely doesn't look like snow. I'm not sure what exactly it's supposed to be - probably tree fluff like someone mentioned before - but it's definitely not snow. Additionally, if it was snow, there would presumably be some reaction from the characters.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2015 16:19

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

GlyphGryph posted:

If the game was set somewhere else I might buy it, but the game itself pointed out it was a weird thing for this region and climate.

Just for kicks I checked out what the weather was like in Portland this year (since the game takes place in Oregon), and the weather that month generally averaged in the 60s. That's definitely not snow weather. Given the way they talked about the snow in episode 1 - I seem to recall someone (maybe Chloe) mentioning that it was around 80 that Monday - it would be very weird if it snowed at all that week.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2015 20:27

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

LoseHound posted:

The nightmare Max callout is pretty empty in hindsight. "how dare you use your powers to cheat at life and make people like you!!!" even though Max's powers achieve nothing but that. Five extra days to say goodbye to the bestie you abandoned and assurance from the universe that "There was nothing you could do, it's d e s t i n y!" All at the price of trauma. It's weird. We can't save Chloe because the universe conspires to kill her one way or another, but the universe doesn't care about wiping a town off the map? Would Max speaking up in the bathroom have ruined everything somehow? The game asks you to just go with it, and it doesn't work for me.

Perhaps the game should've gone full JRPG and revealed that Max was given her powers by God in order to purge the human race. And then we fight God. and Kate Marsh.

Basically, one of the main ideas they expressed through chapter 5 is "time is fragile." If Max uses her rewind power to change anything, time freaks out and crazy things happen. She changed time a ton in episode 5, which is what created the nightmare world. When she only does a little bit here or there, or one big change - as in the rest of the game - you get the storm. If Max does absolutely nothing with her power - that is, you're following the natural timeline - nothing happens.

E: I really strongly dislike this, incidentally.

King of Solomon fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Nov 18, 2015

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 19:38

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

GlyphGryph posted:

Except that's not true - what fixes everything isn't doing "nothing" with your powers, it's changing the past... again. It's going back in time and preventing yourself from learning how to use them or that you have them, which unlike saving Chloe is actually a huge paradox of the sort "time is fragile" usually warns about. Getting your powers IS what happens in the "natural" timeline, and you have to explicitly use your "overwrite the past" powers to prevent the natural timeline from occurring in order to prevent the tornado. It doesn't prevent the tornado-vision or you overwriting alt-Max's memory in that timeline or bringing along a bunch of weird junk.

I also thought the nightmare world was more a commentary on how much her power was damaging herself rather than "time", based on the headaches and disorientation and stuff it had caused in the past. (but I guess it wasn't, since that whole thing was dropped completely for the ending - you'd think going back and removing her ability to go back would be the sort of paradox that would give her a bloody nose at least!)

In the natural timeline - that is, the timeline that happened before Max learned about her powers - Max did nothing. By going back in time again and doing nothing, you're returning things to normal.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 20:09

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

GlyphGryph posted:

Except Max didn't do nothing - she went back in time. There is no timeline where Max does nothing, Max going back in time after Chloe gets shot is in fact the 'natural' sequence of events, until we forcefully create one by overwriting a chunk of history.

If you absolutely have to use time travel to make something happen or prevent something from happening, it's tough to call that thing "the natural timeline", imo.

Let me clarify my terms, then. When I refer to the natural timeline, I'm referring to the series of events that would happen if Max never had her powers. No changes were made because no changes can be made. Before Max had her powers, Max sat in the corner of the bathroom and Chloe got shot. By returning to the bathroom and letting Chloe get shot, Max is returning to the natural state. That's why the tornado doesn't happen.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 20:18

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

GlyphGryph posted:

The vision of the tornado happens before then, implying that the timeline where Chloe gets shot is one where she already has powers doesn't it? We don't erase the vision, after all. I mean, I think I understand what you're trying to say, but it doesn't make any sense to me at all. There is no timeline, none, that extends beyond the Chloe-in-the-bathroom scene where we don't use our powers, including the 'natural one'. It is absolutely just as dependent on us using our powers as the tornado-timeline, but it also involves creating a personal temporal paradox on top of it.

The tornado vision at the very start of the game is one of the reasons I feel like the way they handled episode 5 is different from the original plan. I've posted about it a bunch already, so I won't get too far into it, but yeah, it's not clean. If you look at the original vision as being a really vague warning it kinda works, but it's iffy. And keep in mind, even in the Sacrifice Chloe choice, you don't get rid of your powers to our knowledge, you just undo your changes and stop using it (which is a slight, but important difference.) The epilogue is the closest thing we get to seeing what would naturally happen, and even that's not truly natural because Max has knowledge she shouldn't (notably about the Dark Room.)

The important takeaway from this is that saving Chloe is a change, and changes break the timeline. Undoing your changes - going back and letting Chloe die - will mend the cracks that your actions have created.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 20:53

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

GlyphGryph posted:

I think it makes sense, but it has some disturbing implications. In that case, Chloe dying isn't so much a natural timeline as a stable timeline somehow.

Use whatever phrase you feel comfortable with. Considering the fragile time idea causes things to break when changes are made, either works as well as the other. I just like using "natural timeline" because it emphasizes that changes are the problem.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 21:11

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

LoseHound posted:

The nightmare world was actually visually reminiscent of a Remember Me's brain worlds. That game also had stealth sections and a spinning searchlight setpiece as well. Anyway, the nightmare is extremely personal to Max's psychology, so the idea of several collapsed timelines to conveniently align in such a way that she is confronted with representations of her fears (Is she afraid of Samuel for some reason??) and insecurities is not very convincing to me. Also, the scene's directly called a nightmare.

By the way, anyone have an idea of what's up with the plane ride "Between Realities"? It has weird photo edges, yet it's not the result of a photo leap.

You may be right. I'm not going to pretend that I've put a lot of thought into the exact nature of the nightmare world. I just know that things were really starting to break down shortly before that happened (like the photo edges in the plane ride, or Max's room being barely formed when she goes back to when she took her entry photo.) I'll probably wind up putting some more thought into that element when I get around to it in my replay, but for now all I've really got for the nightmare world is some vaguely-recollected surface level thoughts.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 16:01

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Plom Bar posted:

It IS the result of a photo leap. First she leaps to the one photo taken earlier that day (for the sake of illustration, let's say that photo was taken at 9:00 am on Friday), and from there she leaps again to around 3:00 pm on Monday.

Present --> 9:00 am Friday --> 3:00 pm Monday

Max alerts David and turns in her photo, so her return trip looks like this:

3:00 pm Monday --> 9:00 am Friday --> Present.

The plane ride happens at 9:00 am Friday in the altered timeline.

...Huh, that makes sense. It would also explain why Max's room was so deteriorated when she dived back into it (because it's an even further dive than even Mr. Jefferson's class.) Good catch.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 18:26

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

spudsbuckley posted:

Yeah, i keep listening to the soundtrack on Spotify despite not having heard of any of the artists involved before. it all just fits the atmosphere of the game so well and evokes something in me.

I'll be buying the disc version of the game despite already owning it on Steam because i feel like i should support devs who are willing to make games like this this.

It really was an utter surprise for me how much i loved this random, indie-ish adventure game about a teenage girl. It gave me the same feeling that Alan Wake and Deadly Premonition did of a complete world that i was allowed a glimpse into for a brief while that left me wanting more.

I've played pretty much every major release this year and had my eyes glaze over at how loving trite most of them were. Same shite with a slightly different coat of paint and basically the only games i've enjoyed were Fallout 4: The Expansion Pack To Fallout 3 But Still Good and Tales from the Borderlands. MGS 5 was pathetic, repetitive, LOADING SCREENS!, Ubisoft-a-like garbage and everything else was the same game as last year with a different number on it.

LiS was a revelation and ended up easily being my GOTY and one of my favorite games since i started back in the 80's on the C64.

The crazy thing about LiS for me is that it completely caught me off guard with how interesting/good it wound up being. I remember checking out the GiantBomb Quick Look of the game way back when episode 1 was first released and thinking it was kinda boring. Then when the New York branch played the game more recently (and specifically got through the entirety of episode 1), I realized that this game might be pretty good.

Then I played it for myself, and it was shockingly good, even accounting for my distaste for the ending. If it isn't my favorite game of the year, it's a drat close second, and that's not something I expected I'd say about this game when I first heard about it. I'm with you, definitely buying the disc version of the game when it comes out.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2015 01:36

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

BobTheJanitor posted:

We've been around this argument a few times, but if it's Chloe dying that fixes time, then getting shot by Jefferson should have prevented the tornado, but it was still coming. For that matter, if it's anyone being saved who 'should' have died that causes the tornado, then the alt world with quadriplegic Chloe should have been wiped out by a natural disaster years before the 'now' that you visit it in, thanks to saving William years back.

If it's just time travel in general that causes the storm, then going back and undoing all your decisions wouldn't mean jack, because you're using time travel to do it.

For the argument to make any sense, the tornado itself has to have some outside-the-time-stream knowledge and know that you've hosed with time, because from the perspective of anyone except Max herself, time looks perfectly normal. Only something with our outside knowledge would know that time fuckery was afoot, and therefore simply using time travel to go back and undo that doesn't fix anything, because all the things you've already done still exist from the perspective of a timelord like Max or whatever magic force is driving the tornado.

And so we come back to the entire foundation that the ending rests on being 'because it says so in the script'.

It's a little awkward, but my understanding is that the mechanics of the storm are based on two factors: 1) A change is made; and 2) when the rewind takes place. 1 naturally is what spawns the storm, and 2 is what determines when the storm hits. So you travel back in time from October 2013 and make a change; even though the change was made in 2008, the time travel was in 2013, so the storm hits then. Because every change Max makes originates in October 2013, the storm will always hit in October 2013, whether you're saving Chloe or William.

But like I've said probably a million times, this probably wasn't in the original plan.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2015 18:54

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

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.

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.

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.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2015 04:12

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

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.

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.

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

# ¿ Dec 19, 2015 04:54

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

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!

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.

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.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2015 05:12

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

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.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2015 17:48

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

Heroic Yoshimitsu posted:

Huh. I honestly didn't know so many people hated Episode 5 so much. I mean, even if you didn't like the ending I thought the rest of it would have been well-liked.

I think most of episode 5 is varying degrees of okay to good, if only because they are fun in isolation (for example, I don't think the nightmare is great writing, but it's really fun so I like it.)

That is also the second largest problem with episode 5 (following the ending, of course.)

# ¿ Jan 21, 2016 05:35

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 00:54

King of Solomon: Oct 23, 2008; S S

SirKibbles posted:

It really only needs to be a power not time travel specifically then

I don't think a sequel would need to change the power, but even if they did, there's no reason they couldn't just work with a different form of time travel. Max's powers are fairly specific throughout most of the game.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2016 22:39

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