|
Mo-cop is going to go a long ways to addressing a lot of the complaints about the original games. Stiff animations have always been pretty high on the list of problems.
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2021 19:10
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 19, 2024 21:56 |
|
|
Did anyone else watch the stream? I feel like during the entire "welcome to the world of Life is Strange" there was maybe 2 seconds max of footage from LiS2. They kind of shot themselves in the foot making it set in the same world as LiS using the same title but using almost completely opposite storytelling devices. I am surprised Deck Nine said they've been working on this since 2017. That means the started immediately after finish BtS so Square Enix probably loved their tryout and agreed to let them make a full independent game. Conceivably possible that Dontnod having something in the early stages for a LiS3 which is why the avoided numbering this one, or they realized that numbering them was a bad idea after the backlash to the second one for being so completely different. They've got 6 games in production, and I guess despite Twin Mirror doing pretty bad they made money off the Tell Me Why deal so if they want to try and reclaim the adventure narrative they desperately need a hit. Super No Vacancy posted:i liked lis2 more than tell my why i think. and probably more than some of the telltales I've never played any of the Telltales beyond The Walking Dead S1 but I've never heard good things about any of them beyond the Borderlands and Wolf Among Us. Look at this roster The Walking Dead The Wolf Among Us The Walking Dead: Season Two Tales from the Borderlands Game of Thrones Minecraft: Story Mode The Walking Dead: Michonne Batman: The Telltale Series The Walking Dead: A New Frontier Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series Minecraft: Story Mode – Season Two Batman: The Enemy Within The Walking Dead: The Final Season Everything up until they went under. Some of the biggest IPs in the world and no one ever talks about those Telltale games.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2021 21:02
|
|
|
Any kind of new game with Max and Chloe would probably sell a million copies off that hype alone. The fanbase by and large are entirely obsessed with the series because of the those characters not because they love adventure games.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2021 21:14
|
|
|
Larryb posted:True Colors apparently takes place in 2019: BTS is 2011 LIS is 2013 LIS2 is late 2016 I don't remember what year Steph was in BTS but at most she's 26. Also, the Steph epsiode mentions her reconnecting with "old friends" so it's almost certain to be Mikey. She was pretty close/interested in Rachel too so I'd expect mention of that to come up if you can dig into her past during conversations. pentyne fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Mar 18, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2021 21:39
|
|
|
I'd be 100% cool with Deck Nine's trademark for their adventure games having in game D&D sessions with some of the cast. The entire game is narrative driven choice & consequences and a 1-2 hr casual distraction like that with banter and chat between the cast goes an enormous way to making them feel more real then random conversations about life.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2021 22:53
|
|
|
I finished Tell Me Why episode 1 and felt it was a big step up from Life is Strange 2 so far. It's much more engaging as a mystery/drama where plot is about making sense of a confusing past, and the memory mechanic of picking which twin's memory you decide to believe goes a long way to get you invested in you story your choices are telling. I don't know if there are right/wrong options but the end slate lists the decisions so it's pretty clear there's some long term effect as a result. Honestly the whole mystery angle of it works so much better for the adventure game format. It's like reading a book or watching a drama, the tension is in what will be discovered, how people react, and how it changes the status quo. It makes for a much more compelling narrative. Larryb posted:https://store.steampowered.com/app/1450571/Life_is_Strange_True_Colors__Alex_Outfit_Pack/ They better be using chapters as a reference to the passing of seasons rather then content, because it's usually a 2-3 hour episode play-through even with trying to 100% the optional stuff, and a 8-10 hour $60 adventure game is going to be a hard sell. The bonus prequel is a separate game with a separate price, I'm assuming as part of the $12 deluxe upgrade, so that's not even part of the discussion. pentyne fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Mar 20, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Mar 20, 2021 05:38
|
|
|
Tell Me Why Episode 2 is a bit of a let down. It doesn't really do much to move the story forward, and the reveals are all pretty obvious things. The focus seems more on the mentality and community of small towns and their approach to tragedy. It feels short, like barely anything of interest happens before it hits the end scene and dumps the big news stuff. It really wants to have it's LiS moments too, like suddenly dropping a playful back and forth with some banter for Tyler to show romantic interest in someone he's spoken to for maybe 10 seconds overall. There's just no time to develop a connection with any of the side cast as the major focus is on the twins, and they're always together so any one on one stuff is few and far between. The best parts are the 1 on 1 heartfelt conversations with the twins as they both try to struggle with their shared past and the challenge of trying to seek closure. It does leave a strong impression that you can go real hard in different directions for how you frame the story. The choices it measures are usually hitting a pretty big split, 70% or higher for the "good" choice. Going pretty hard into raging at the world and the people around you would probably come off as a very different narrative experience. I think on of the options to tell someone to "gently caress off" in so many words had a selection rate of less then 10%.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2021 08:42
|
|
|
I played LiS1 2x and made some different choices but it didn't seem to effect the overall game that much. A lot of the differences seem to happen in the small stuff, casual conversations or little dialogue changes. Maybe going extremely hard in one direction or another is like playing a different game, but I didn't experience it. LiS2 definitely let you go hard in different directions for how you act and treat people, and I only played it once but many of the alternatives seem radically different given how dramatic each episode ends. Everything being viewed from the lens of how Daniel reacts to what he sees made for a more engaging decisions as you weighed both the short term and long term cost relative to Daniel's attitude about powers and law. Growing Sean as a character is a mix between what an almost adult high school-er would be like and having to take a parental role to keep the younger brother safe. Tell Me Why as a whole is big on what kind of person you want to remember the abusive mom as, who you forgive from your past, and how you reconnect with the twin sister. It does the thing where certain choices are only available as a result of building up some invisible counter throughout the course of the game. I really like that because it makes the previous hours have weight and impact as you can't just reload and pick the alternative and be done with it. There's a certain level of interest in playing Tyler as going full on rage against his past and the people who let him down, blaming everyone and not offering an ounce of forgiveness. Similarly if choosing to always side with Allyson and take her side of events it kind of completely changes the underlying narrative of how their mother treated them. There's a really great moment where the twins kind of disagree how it happened, and a third party claims to have witnessed it differently as well, which then leads to the possibility that neither of them are right. In general the memory aspect was probably the best supernatural power they've done yet, and when they incorporated it into more complex game-play interactions it worked way better. A choice based adventure narrative where you also re-write the past at the same time? That has enormous storytelling potential and its kind of a shame it was used in a shorter episode series.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2021 03:20
|
|
|
I've been playing a lot of Yakuza games lately, and if they went big on a dramatic open world adventure game like that with a ton of exploration and interactions it could really expand the potential of the series. Gonna need to know if they have any minigames first, specifically karaoke.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2021 00:26
|
|
|
- More agency in exploration and interaction with the town - Larger space built out then previous LiS games - Steph picked to emphasize the inter-connectivey of the LiS games, they want to develop the series into more of an linked anthology - Says romance offered is 'more choice' then previous LiS games, and Ryan and Steph are integral to the main story, and romancing them should significantly impact how the story develops (maybe reading too much into that) - Building relationships with the rest of the town also a big factor in how the game plays Sounds good for now, the Steph/Ryan thing has potential for them to sort of take the game narrative in two different directions based on who you get close too, but that's extremely ambitious and I haven't heard of any game trying it since Witcher 2.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2021 08:38
|
|
|
Paul Zuvella posted:Very bold of them to move from dead dad to dead brother, lets see how it plays out. I would just prefer they stop with the art hipster mom who either dies or is a lovely parent. Someone at dontnod really, really wanted to say something about that home environment dynamic. Decknine seems a bit more grounded and able to get out of their own way to make a good story and a good game without sacrificing playability. If comparing the two BTS did seem to have a better understanding of how to make the experience more of a 'game' with things to do and interact with. Thinking back on it with some more distance, Tell Me Why is kind of a massive red flag for Dontnod as it's them copying all the beats from LiS without any of the character development, like they can't really figure out how to improve or expand the formula for a shorter narrative. I can't tell for sure from all the speculation, but it seems like Dontnod was in the running to make LiS3 but they wanted all new cast & characters, and once they secured funding from somewhere else they told SquareEnix they weren't interested.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2021 23:02
|
|
|
exquisite tea posted:I imagine they're gonna have to take your LiS1 ending into account since that's the difference between Steph saying "oh yeah my old hometown" and "oh yeah my old hometown that was loving DESTROYED in a freak twister." There's a bit of a disconnect with how they said they want to link the games into an kind of anthology when all the endings are so divergent. Bae/Bay is easy enough as a binary outcome for an single in universe choice. Anything for LiS2 actually doesn't seem like it would matter unless you cross paths with anyone the brothers encountered. The living off the grid for ~6 months while going through a rotating cast of characters also means none of them really had an impact worth bringing them into a new game. The endings all have wildly different timeline outcomes going as far as 15 years later means there's nothing they can really build up from that with any significance. If True Colors gets any momentum I have a feeling they might just pretend like LiS2 never happened. The fans clearly just want any connection to the Arcadia Bay saga and if that moves units might as well go all in.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2021 02:03
|
|
|
If they do make LiS a regular franchise with games every ~2 years or so I'd expect that LiS2 is just kind of memory holed and the series direction shifts to intimate settings with the focus on a small cast, and references to the other games are just easter eggs you end up finding along the way. Telltale was kind of a roller coaster in terms of overall game quality, but the most impactful part of The Walking Dead was you only got 1 ending. The end of episode 5 could play out in a variety of ways, but regardless of any of that the game wraps up to definitive point, there's no "choose the outcome" for TWD season 2.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2021 02:32
|
|
|
SimonChris posted:My main issue with LiS 2 was the complete lack of any interesting goals. The only thing you are trying to achieve is escaping to Mexico. You are not even attempting to clear your name, or figure out what's up with your borther's powers, or anything. The fact that your reason for running away made no sense, as the police has no reason to suspect the main character of having caused the explosion at the beginning, didn't exactly help. Well, the cops just murdered his father, who was unarmed and had his hands up, plus I'm pretty sure that the other teen was also dead as well, and he died from Sean pushing him. I wouldn't put any faith in the cops to actually investigate the case much less not shoot the older brother in the head on sight to get justice for a 'cop-killer' plus there's a whole problem of something supernatural just happened right in front of you. As far as the video, all they know is there's a dead cop and a flipped cop car. Sure maybe forensics can't find the bomb casing but within 5 minutes of that getting out the story would be some kind of high pressure explosion was responsible and everyone would assume bomb. Where it actually starts falling apart is when Daniel force throws a speeding cop car and the wall bending in ep 5. The slack jawed rednecks running up on them would've made a ton more sense if they had just shot at them while the wall was shaking and creaking rather then after it was peeled open like tinfoil. They had a chance to show off their writing when they introduced the FBI agent who should've been less condescending and more like Agent Mulder, saying they saw the tapes and they know something strange happened, something beyond explanation but there's a dead cop, and a trail of crime following the brothers from Seattle, so they need to know the truth. Instead it was written pretty poorly as "this stupid guilty murderer just won't cooperate"
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2021 00:25
|
|
|
quote:This is an adventure game in which players follow the story of a young adult (Alex) trying to manage her empathic powers while solving a mystery in a Colorado town. Something about censoring the actual profanity in a message about the profanity is just hilarious. and an absolute lol that "town contains an marijuana dispensary" is something that has to be added to warning labels. Interesting examples of content too.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 5, 2021 01:35
|
|
|
SlothBear posted:Yeah, the fact that she's getting her own episode means something absolutely godawful is gonna happen to her. That's the comics. I could see the comics getting a game adaptation depending on how well True Colors does. During the entire S-E stream the entire chat was LiS1 references.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2021 05:05
|
|
|
Speaking of comics Vol 4 just released. I don't know much about the indie comic market but it's the #1 new release on Amazon for LGBTQ+ graphic novels, so there must be some solid sales figures behind it. I think the original contract for the series was a short run, but sales were shockingly good so it grew into an ongoing series. If I had to describe it I'd say it's like a sequel made by someone who wanted to get away from the original games as much as possible and is better for it. It avoids being too much of a 'fanfic' in that it's established characters but in entirely new settings acting as you'd expect while still having growth and development in their journey. There's appearances from some LiS 1&2 side cast but nothing more distracting then some conversations or small parts. I like the art style too, it's sort of how I imagined the games would like drawn in 2D if it wasn't all renders. Some of the variant cover arts are also done really well.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2021 00:28
|
|
|
I think the last year and the sense of tension between dontnod and Squeenix have shifted the landscape for where the franchise is headed. Dontnod really gives off the vibe of "we do it our way or not at all" and has a history of their creative genius getting in the way of making good games. Like, True Colors better move some units, because the episodic nature seems like it was a big word of mouth selling point and adventure games in general aren't huge sellers like any of the big AAA titles. The queer romance angle is probably going to be a big part of its sales potential. I'd be surprised if the stats for the game have the guy romance option as more the 10% of players.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2021 02:23
|
|
|
I would hope that the story progression is significantly different based on who you side with romantically, like they have their own unique main plot relevant quest to follow and its very much changes the overall dynamic. I can't imagine LiS1 would've had remotely the same impact if it was a matter of picking between Chloe or Warren as your investigation partner if all the major plot beats are the same.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2021 04:18
|
|
|
The guy looks like every generic white male actor they try to turn into the next Brad Pitt. The whole rustic flannel vibe with the slight beard and the gel styled hair....yeah that's a hard pass for me.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2021 04:43
|
|
|
Larryb posted:I thought I heard somewhere they were doing new facial mocap work for the remakes but I could be wrong. Those mocap studios are pretty expensive to get set up initially, I bet it was a big investment for DeckNine and means they're pretty much expecting to headline the LiS franchise.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2021 00:51
|
|
|
One of the interesting things is they talk about how the whole mocap&facerig aspect of it allowed them to direct it kind of like a stage play at parts to get the right sense of emotion from movement and facial expressions.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2021 04:09
|
|
|
SirKibbles posted:That a good call honestly The enitre history of Dontnod aside from Life is Strange is basically weird art games that aren't very fun to play aside from a small handful of really great moments. Good on them for starting a franchise, but they dont really have a good grasp as a studio for what makes enjoyable games.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2021 20:37
|
|
|
Larryb posted:There’s a new game coming out and as a licensed comic they’re likely obligated to promote it (there will also be a Free Comic Book Day exclusive issue that features Alex and Steph), nothing more to it than that. Comic number/naming schemes are the weirdest poo poo ever. This is basically issue 16 in the ongoing LiS comic, titled #3.1:Coming Home, which will be collected in volume 5, titled Coming Home. A Life is Strange universe is not something I'm going to concern myself with until a bit after True Colors is out. That has to do a lot of work to recapture the magic of the Arcadia Bay adventures, in addition to reaching decent sales goals. Plus, setting the games all forward in an ongoing timeline limits the flexibility of reintroducing old cast in a plausible way.
|
|
#
¿
May 7, 2021 00:30
|
|
|
Larryb posted:And another video, this time about our token male sidekick/potential love interest Ryan: Warren in 2013 would be an incel/"nice guy" in 2020. I don't mean they'd write him any differently it's just that playbook of "being best friend, get nowhere, make drunken advance, get rejected" is like the first page of the that playbook. A modern version of that game would only have to change by adding some text messages from him after it accusing you of using his friendship. I kind of blank on everything he does in ep 5, because the world is falling apart and the only priority is Chloe, but I seem to recall he still tries to flirt in the diner as people are dying around him.
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2021 02:33
|
|
|
Sharkitten posted:Warren is nowhere near incel level There's a venn diagram of incel/niceguy and he's definitely in the nice guy circle not the overlap, it just two terms so closely linked in general. There's a spectrum for the whole thing to get specific if you want but the dopey nerd guy friend who keeps trying and getting shut down is usually just one straw away from screaming "whore" at the girl he's in love with.
|
|
#
¿
May 17, 2021 00:09
|
|
|
MonsieurChoc posted:Maybe the legendary third ending. Is that a reddit thing? I'd be happy if the ending was somehow more then the original binary yes/no. LiS2 had problems but the final ending choice was drastically impacted by the decisions you made through the entire game and felt more meaningful by far. Tell Me Why was kind of the same, as it focused on the same sense of building the family relationship (or not) in order to effect how the twins respond to each other and what decisions they make for themselves. I'd hope True Colors kind of strikes the same note. A ending where your general playstyle and treatment of people builds up to more then one potential outcome beyond just the final dramatic choice.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 4, 2021 01:10
|
|
|
Lol looks like LiS2 has been well and fully erased from any LiS franchise mentions.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2021 20:59
|
|
|
Found these on reddit. Most of the remaster comparisons during the trailer were a bit lacking in impact but these two side by side look massively different. The lighting and shadow effects are a big improvement and it looks like they are adding hair physics. I know they talked up the mo-cap for character animations, but I'd be surprised if they did too much to improve facial animations besides making the lips sync up better. 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2021 02:43
|
|
|
exquisite tea posted:Everyone can stop asking: Life is Strange, Before the Storm AND True Colors are all coming to Switch. I wonder who financed that video. With the recent trend for trying to turn video games into anime series, especially on Netflix, Life is Strange has a pretty good recipe for success. Small town mystery, queer characters, the two main VAs are big animation industry names, a massive fanbase. With Netflix experimenting with CYOA episodes for live action they might even be able to pull off a "choose your outcome" in a short run series.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2021 19:05
|
|
|
General Dog posted:I hope it’s not terrible. I don’t have any reason to think it will be, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. Of all the companies who could completely botch a Life is Strange game DeckNine is lower on the list then Dontnod, the original creators. LIS2 was good, great in some parts but such a radically different game you could see where they forced things for plot reasons because of working in the 5 episode, staggered release format and changing major design decisions mid stride (the use of money, the dog, etc.) It just felt like the goal was to be as different as possible with new cast every episode, also go hard on politics in the US. Tell Me Why was a big improvement but still had a weird vibe where they wrote like it was 5 episodes of story then had to compress it into 3, leading to some weirdly forced moments where they wanted that gym pool scene feeling from LiS for two characters who shared like 2 lines of conversation.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2021 07:07
|
|
|
Larryb posted:Especially given the trailer we got (though to be fair the screenshots on the Steam page for the game look much better so I’m assuming said trailer was from an early build) The text descriptions also implied another connection to Arcadia Bay besides Steph, so probably another BtS original character showing up either in a VA or quick appearance. The D&D references would strongly imply that it'll be Mikey. The timeline for the series as a whole, since it's all connected, is going to be weird if they have to keep asking bay or bae as it's now chronically 9 years since that ending and 6 years since game release. They need some kind of finality on that tale and move onto in-universe but not Arcadia Bay linked stories. The remasters go a long way to introducing new fans to the original magic, especially the new console releases, but mining the remnants of Arcadia Bay is not a viable long term strategy. The one sided conversation in LiS2 with David talking to Chloe and Max in the Bae ending was probably the only way to handle it well, and that's not even getting into how there were different VAs for the same characters in the LiS1 games.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2021 21:57
|
|
|
LiS2 improved significantly on making the game feel more like the culmination of many choices and not just 1 at the end, but that also makes it way harder to really give any connection or specific follow up beyond "that craziness down by the border"
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2021 00:40
|
|
|
Larryb posted:Speaking of, here’s the trailer: It's definitely got more of a weird, experimental vibe where the emphasis is on the music and the soundtrack. It's a good sign they're trying something in a different direction other then dramatic misery simulator (or not...) for a side story. There's a lot of potential for single episode one-offs for main cast when you have a fully completed game like True Colors where all the assets are available for use.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2021 22:23
|
|
|
General Dog posted:They seem to be really going all-in on a character who had, what, 10 or 15 lines in BtS? The DnD content which was completely optional was probably like 30 minutes of content in episode 1 and then another huge chunk of time in episode 3(?) If you didn't engage with that then Steph and Mikey are like set dressing, like Victoria or Nathan just there for a real small amount to make it feel connected to the original.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2021 23:06
|
|
|
Larryb posted:Interesting, is the Tales Of series any good? Tales of Symphonia was anime jrpg crack when I was a teenager, but in retrospect the story is bonkers and super melodramatic. Tales of Berseria is the most recent most highly regarded if you're curious. Tales of Vesteria is also high up there but a decade older. The games have been pretty exclusively console until recently so unless you have a ps2-4 sitting around you're not going to be able to play too many of them.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2021 21:17
|
|
|
How's the game in technical terms? I feel like there was always a some aomunt of jank on first release for these games, some choices/decisions not flagging properly.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2021 23:23
|
|
|
I'm only into episode 2 and I have a lot of opinions about it compared to the previous "series" titles (LiS, BTS, LiS2, Tell Me Why) I will say that the use of the music so far has been exceptional. Way more crunchy hipster soft sung acoustics but it is shaping up to easily exceed the original in use and timing of the songs. It's so good I keep thinking it over and wondering if they designed the story and set up first, then found the songs, or found the songs and then wrote the story and set pieces around making it match perfectly. It really is some incredible effort in game design. Or, maybe they just commissioned a bunch of new songs for it, now that I think harder on it. Still, the biggest gripe I had with LiS2 was the lack of an effective soundtrack to carry emotional weight or impact and this is a huge step in the right direction.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2021 23:30
|
|
|
Larryb posted:Apparently there were a whole bunch of original songs commissioned for TC (unlike LiS2 where the only original music was mostly instrumental tracks): given how closely the lyrics match the story and themes that makes a lot of sense.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2021 23:36
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 19, 2024 21:56 |
|
|
Well, beat the game, and it was a little concerning how close they tried to follow the original LiS concept as well as seemingly to just lack that essential quality the Dontnod games have. I've said a lot of things about LiS2 and Tell Me Why but they were both significantly more memorable in general then what I just finished. Some part of it is the music, which never really connected with me as all the soft spoken acoustic guitar stuff sort of blended together in my memory. Another part was feeling like you barely get to know the people despite spending 5 episodes around the same cast. It felt like a single episode of LiS2 had more character development going on then this entire game. As far as the reactivity, seems like a fair amount but not nearly as much as I expected. It all seems to build to some flags in chapter 5 but otherwise is just there for flavor. I may be wrong and a 2nd playthrough could be completely different, it just gave the impression that not too much would change. My biggest complaint is it seems like they didn't really know how they wanted the game to develop. The whole thing with the falling/rising star on Alex's hand seemed really cool because Act 1/2 it really felt like you could take two very different attitudes to the games choices, hopeful and looking to a better future, or angry and spiteful at the world. Then later it feels like her personality is set by the game and you get no options otherwise. The special power in general sort of gets an 'upgrade' later on, but you only get 2 chances with it which are pretty telegraphed for what it'll do. In general, a pretty good story but a somewhat confusing game. The puzzles were as bare bones as it gets and there was just way less character interactions then I expected. I know there's the whole "choose your romance target" but the game never really made it feel like you got any time to connect with that person 1 on 1 beyond Act 2's scenes. Also, for an open world game they built and designed an huge area that you only get to walk around like 1/4 of it, so.....why? edit: Just want to note that the mo-cap was incredible, and my first thought after seeing it all was drat I hope DeckNine checks out LA Noire and just makes a massively better version of that whole concept. pentyne fucked around with this message at 09:56 on Oct 15, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Oct 15, 2021 09:35
|
|