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Wow, that was a great theory video Panzer Skank! I think you really pulled meaning connections between the various animals and spirits and tied it really well to the events of the story. Especially with the whales beaching themselves, and the doe leading Max to the lighthouse and relative safety from the storm. Those connections would have been so beyond me so it's great that we have the video so that people like me could digest the endings better. GlyphGryph, I also really like your interpretation of the moral choice at hand! Letting the storm destroy Arcadia bay really is a bit of a selfish choice but it could also mean taking responsibility for the actions that you've taken up until that point, accepting Max's time travelling powers are loving things up and choosing to stop playing around with time poorly. Plus yeah, Max really is leaving a lot up to chance not setting up Mr. Jefferson to be caught, or leaving a warning for the storm just in case it actually had nothing to do with her. In addition how could Max really know if going back in time would really fix anything if all this weird "karma" or whatever is building up anyways due to time powers being abused? Thats like throwing gas on a fire to put it out. Its pretty risky. Ya know? Anyways the real final choice imo is the one with more girls alive and in love with each other. Love beats all.
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May 22, 2016 05:24
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Thank you, Panzer. This has been a really good LP, and I appreciate the effort you've put into it. I can't wait to see what you'll do next.
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May 22, 2016 06:21
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I feel somewhat fooled. I was promised a life that was strange. This life was... weird. please dontnod I'm a sucker for title drops
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May 22, 2016 09:06
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Okay, god, I fell behind on the videos at the beginning of episode 4 because I was in no mental place to go through that poo poo again and also because I realized that a whole bunch of my complaints with the beginning of episode 4 tie in with my complaints about the endings and about episode 5 in general, and trust me I have a lot of complaints and mixed feelings about the end of this game that I love to death and which loving destroyed me so hard that now I'm dead and have been reincarnated as some sort of anime. But I've mostly caught up now, so now I've got just, like, a whole bunch of loving words that I want to say about Chloe and Max and their relationship and the ways the writing faltered and made that relationship sort of not work or not be as strong as it could have been, and also other places where the writing faltered and was clumsier than it could have been and had the game suffer because of it. I'll probably also be talking about some things that the game did really well, but those won't be the focus, and I hope that I don't come across as too negative because I really, really love this game (if you're my steam friend you could see my playtime of 131 hours and probably tell this!) and I love these gay teens and their cute friends and god why can't games just go on forever so I can continue observing the lives of all these characters. So without further ado, let's talk about relationships. Life is Strange is, almost undeniably, a piece of fiction which is character driven instead of being story driven. Yes, there's the plot with Rachel and finding out what happened to her, and yes it's there from the beginning, but, really, it's not what the story is about. A lot of the people in this thread have talked about how the story is about Max's development as a person and coming to terms, like basically all teens have to, with the fact that her choices and actions have consequences, and sometimes you have to just accept them and be able to move on. The game is definitely about that, but saying that that is all the game is about, or hell even saying that Max is the main character, is doing a disservice to the actual focus of the story. Yes, Max is the person you control, the person through whom's eyes you see the story, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she's the main character. The first Sherlock Holmes stories were told through Watson's perspective. Chloe is, at the very least, the co-lead in this story, if not the actual main character herself, and discounting Chloe's importance and her own development in the story, especially when you're trying to talk about what this game is about, is, well, it's just plain wrong. This entire game is about the relationship between Max and Chloe, in the same way that it seems like your entire life is about the person that you're in a relationship with when you're in those early stages of infatuation, and especially when you're both infatuated and A Teen. Though, actually, that's sort of wrong, because the very beginning of the game and a little bit after that sort of aren't about that relationship at all, but that's also important. At the beginning of the game, Max is anxious and nervous and except for a few surface-level relationships she doesn't really have anyone that's important to her in her life, the person she's actually closest to seems to be Kate and even then it seems like more of a "we hang out sometimes and I care about her" closeness than a "best friends" closeness. There's also Warren, of course, but, well, he's Warren. The second scene in the game (well, third if you count the dream), where you are introduced to every single side-character, is entirely and explicitly about how Max shuts herself out from the rest of the world, how she prevents herself from making real, natural connections with people. She puts her headphones in, listens to music, and that's all we can hear. We can see all of these characters, and see what Max thinks of them, but we can't talk to them or see what they really are like. From the point that she leaves the classroom to the point Chloe is introduced, we don't hear a single voice other than Max's (except the music, but you know what I mean). I actually went back to check, and Nathan does come in first and says a few things during the bathroom scene, which muddles things a bit, but it's only a few lines and works to establish that something is wrong and to catch Max's attention since he's obviously a guy going into the girl's room. Regardless, until Chloe is introduced into the story, Max has, just, no idea of what she's doing or what she should do or whatever. From the very beginning, Max's relationship with Chloe is what's driving us, the player, forward and with intentionality, rather than just wandering around in a classroom or a hallway. After Max pulls the fire alarm and Chloe exits scene, guess what, it's right back to sort of aimless wandering around except for the times when an authority figure calls our attention specifically. Except this time, after the introduction of Chloe into the story, we can talk to people, we can interact with them and we (the audience this time) can form opinions on these characters that are more than just Max's opinions, and we can influence Max's opinions on these characters. The introduction of Chloe is what allows the player the ability to begin shaping Max's life and decisions, and more decisions in the story are about how you are going to treat Chloe and what Chloe and Max's relationships are going to be than anything else. From hanging out with Chloe and experiencing Chloe's affection for and admiration towards her, Max starts to gain the confidence to stand up for herself, come out of her shell and make new friends. It's not the only factor--the time powers definitely helped--but it's one of, if not the primary factor. Like I said earlier, though, Max isn't the only character who develops throughout this story, and Chloe develops as much as, if not more than Max does. Chloe is a deeply, deeply flawed character. Almost everything about her is meant to scream "hey, look at me!" from the blue hair to the big truck to the punk clothes to the way that she talks. Chloe desperately craves attention, and for good reason too. Her dad died and her best friend abandoned her, and then the person who she was able to find who made her feel good and secure after those lovely things happened to her went missing. Under the punk aesthetic, Chloe is deeply insecure and afraid, unable to accept the good things in her life and afraid to make new attachments, hell she might not even feel like she deserves to make new attachments. When lovely things happen to you as a teen, no matter how much you try to blame the world around you, some part of you blames yourself and makes you think that you're the one responsible, because you're growing up and all the people around you are telling you how you're going to start getting all of these responsibilities and maybe this is what they meant? Chloe acts out and acts up because of this, but with Max around she is able to start getting over her insecurities and start channeling her energy productively, start getting along a little better with her dad and start believing in herself a little bit again. Max and Chloe knowing each other is makes both of them better people, is what I'm saying, and whether you see their relationship as romantic or not this is one of the most important things in the game. I do see their relationship as romantic, though, so now I'm gonna start talking about Gay Teens, so if you're not super into that then I guess here's your warning??? But, like, Chloe and Max are obviously super, super into each other, and they're super cute together! Because of that stuff earlier that I just talked about, their relationship is super compelling! It's also super compelling because it has flaws, realistic ones even! Chloe and Max are both super insecure, for one. Chloe gets jealous when she perceives Max as "abandoning her" to talk to Kate, Max has some inferiority issues because of Chloe's idolizing of Rachel. Max is super awkward and that makes it hard for her to recognize people's feelings and to voice her own feelings. They have to deal with the whole "Max abandoned her for five years" thing because, duh, of course that's a thing that they have to deal with. But, despite these flaws, Chloe and Max being together makes them better. When they're together they laugh and they joke around and they feel good about themselves and about each other. Max is too awkward and Chloe is too scared for either of them to make the first move, though, so Chloe dares Max to kiss her and Max does and oh my god that scene is so cute aaaaaaaa After that scene, though, their romantic relationship is handled kind of... poorly, throughout the whole game, and that sucks. Sometimes their relationship in general is also handled kind of poorly, which brings me to the beginning of episode 4. Like I've said before in the thread, when I played through LiS, I played through with my girlfriend, who is disabled, so the situation in general hit really close to home, and also I'm probably more sensitive to it than a lot of other people would be, so that's where I'm coming at this from. The alternate reality segment of episode 4 is just... it's just loving crushing, and not even in the cathartic, watching a sad movie or reading a sad book sort of crushing. The only other piece of media that I've experienced that has left me so downtrodden, depressed, angry and disappointing is The Road, and a big part of the reason for that is how loving hard it fumbles the relationship between Max and Chloe. To put it simply, Max acts way more awkward around alterna-Chloe than she does with basically anyone else in the story, which sort of makes sense. This is someone who is almost, almost the person with whom she is closest in the whole world, but it's not. This Chloe has different experiences, this Chloe had a different Max who wasn't quite so distant, who didn't need Chloe quite as much as Max does. To put it simply, this Chloe isn't Max's Chloe, so it makes sense that she would be awkward around her. Unfortunately, the game doesn't do enough to make this explicit, and double unfortunately the framing of the choice at the end of the segment and Max leaving the alternate reality leaves the whole section open to some super, super lovely interpretations. It leaves the player able to think that Max is being so awkward around alterna-Chloe just because of her disability, it makes it so that Max's decision to leave that reality isn't really a decision at all, because alterna-Chloe is either dead or hates Max for not honoring her wishes. It's super lovely and dumb, and makes the whole section leave such a bad taste in my mouth that just writing about it now is upsetting me. Not to mention how loving cliché and predictable the twist is. Worst of all, though, is that because of the way it's framed, the section offers absolutely no catharsis to any players of the game who might be disabled and, like, guess what? A whole bunch of disabled people play video games, and play a lot of video games, as a way to escape from their lives, so having a section of a video game with no warning that presents a disabled character--a disabled version of a character who the game has been working really hard to make you care about--and giving no chance at all to give them anything even resembling a happy ending is lovely and bad and wrong and gross and ugh, gently caress. If they wanted to keep the stupid, cliché, Chloe wants to die because of her disability bullshit, they could even do that by reframing the refusal. Change it from just "Max refuses to kill Chloe" to "Max accepts alterna-Chloe and wants to work to make the rest of her life as good for her as possible, no matter how long that life is." Alterna-Chloe straight up tells Max that spending time with her made her feel normal again, there is absolutely no reason why that couldn't stick around, and Max could either grant her wish or use that feeling to convince her that life is worth living. I can see the reasons why they wouldn't want to have Max accept alterna-Chloe, or why they wouldn't want to make that a separate ending or whatever, because some people would get that ending and be happy with it and not want to buy episode 5, but they don't even need to go as far as that. In the alternate reality, the storm is still coming. The whales still beached themselves. Have a fade to a "three days later" or whatever with the storm there and Max seeing if she can go back to her reality and fix this. She might even think that finding out what happened with Rachel will fix it, because Rachel was also missing in that reality. Just make it so that when Max travels back from an alternate reality her powers dump her at the time that she left, or have the storm come sooner in the alternate reality because of Max's powers or something. That first one wouldn't really change the context of any of the reality shifts in Episode 5, since they were already sort of inconsistent with Chloe calling Max about the storm at the gallery and then David showing up and Max having time to drive to town before it really hit. Just have Max go to sleep and then do the CSI stuff when she wakes up. That's not what I would do if I could just, like, completely rewrite the game, though, because it still has the stupid cliché and is still dumb and I still hate it. Show, don't tell is normally better than the opposite, but in this case I think that it would be way better if they got rid of everything about Chloe wanting to die, maybe even about Chloe's failing respiratory system because, hey, being paralyzed from the neck down is already lovely if you're not dying more on top of it, and frame the big choice of that part of the episode as whether or not you're going to tell this Chloe about her powers. Have Max's inner monologue talk about her feelings toward alterna-Chloe, how she's different from normal Chloe not only because of the disability but just little things about her personality, maybe how she doesn't want to come off as bragging or making stuff up to make Chloe feel bad. If you choose to tell her, have her listen and understand and believe you, and encourage Max to go back to her reality, because she cares about Max and wants Max and Max's Chloe to be happy, and because this Max is not her Max either. If you don't tell her, then have Max overhear William talking about how he would give anything for Chloe to be able to have a "normal" life or something, which combined with Max's misgivings about this reality make her decide to go back to hers, pretty sure that this timeline's Max will still be around. gently caress, I don't know, anything but the stupid poo poo that's there already. Ugh. I have some more misgivings with this whole scenario but I'm ready to move on from it. And from that, let's move on to a sequence that I feel was mishandled way less than that one, but that I still think was mishandled a little bit, especially in regards to Max's relationship with Chloe: the nightmare sequence. Overall, I thought that the nightmare sequence was super cool, and it was reinforcing just how important Chloe is to her without spelling it out explicitly just through the fact that basically everyone in her life except for Chloe was, well, there. I thought that that was super cool, and was really, really proud of it. It was really effective storytelling. The scene where you're inside the snow-doe was also super good, and the diner, oh my god. It was so creepy and unsettling and just, like, neat, except for the part where you're in the dark room and you see Chloe, uhh, let's say "flirting" with all of the antagonists. On the one hand, it did help to establish, or reinforce, or make more explicit, that Max's feelings toward Chloe are in some way sexual, that she is, well, a Gay Teen. But on the other hand it was gross and exploitative and made no loving sense at all. The whole sequence would have worked better if Chloe didn't appear in the nightmare at all until the point where she shows up to reassure Max at the diner (excepting child Chloe in the snowglobe). If they needed to have a scene with Chloe to reinforce how scared Max is about their relationship, how she feels like she might not be good enough, have that scene just be between Chloe and Rachel, who Max has spent the whole game feeling inferior to, being in the shadow of, and don't have Chloe talk. Have Rachel voice Max's fears and feelings of inadequacy, talk about how much better than Max she is. I understand that this would be way harder to do, because they'd have to model Rachel and hire a voice actor for her, which is why I said that they should have just cut it first. The scene in the diner did it well enough on its own, and having that scene there added nothing and basically only served to be, as I said, gross and weirdly exploitative, and maybe even just weird for the people who didn't see Max having a romantic relationship with Chloe/whose Max was not in a romantic relationship with Chloe. And, finally, we get to my misgivings with the endings. I've only got two, really, and the first one is way more gay, so let's start with that! It's super loving bullshit and scummy and stupid and lame that the only time in the game that Max can honestly, genuinely kiss Chloe is as a result of you deciding to loving murder her. Holy poo poo. What kind of loving bullshit is that! Like, I understand why they kiss, and it's super cute and sad and a good payoff if you choose that ending, but the fact that it's only in that ending is such absolute loving garbage. Why? Why not have them kiss in the sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending? I... I just don't loving understand. They already have the animation, they already have you not do it if you've kissed Warren instead. The player is probably more likely to pick that ending if they had Max be in a relationship with Chloe. Why only have the payoff in the ending that those who wanted Max and Chloe to be together aren't going to choose? It's so loving stupid and it makes me so mad and oh my god that fan-ending Panzer posted was so much better (though I feel like it would have worked better if it was just a pan around the apartment and didn't have Max and Chloe hugging at the end.) God, I'm still so mad. I can completely understand if there was some executive meddling that told the people at Dontnod to not make Max and Chloe's relationship too explicit, or not wanting to code a bunch of extra scenes where Max and Chloe are doing girlfriend poo poo before the ending because people who don't have them in a relationship aren't going to see that, but... they already put in the work in the other ending to have it check how you've been treating your relationship with Chloe? Why not have it in both? It doesn't make any loving sense and I am Mad About Gay Teens, Y'all. Sort of related to that, I don't feel like the endings are balanced. Like, at all. I know Panzer talked about how, to her, both endings seemed balanced and invoked the same bittersweet feelings, but for me (and a couple people I've talked too) they really... weren't. Even though the sacrifice Chloe ending was sad because we had come to like (or love) Chloe and understood how much that decision would affect Max, like, we saved the whole town. We saved all of these other characters we had come to like. Jefferson and Nathan were arrested. Except for Chloe dying, literally nothing bad happened. I know that that's sort of the point, but, like, I feel like it's too much?? The desolation in the sacrifice Chloe ending is just so... complete. They needed something else, some small reminder that even if the town was destroyed there is still something left. A light on in the Two Whales. Something small to help balance things out. I dunno. This one I feel is way more a matter of opinion, it's just something that wouldn't sit right with me. Like, I thought that the Save ending was the right one for my Max, that Chloe was important enough to her that she would sacrifice the town, but afterwars I was like "wow. That was... not enough." I know also it's because they ran out of money/time or whatever, but still. I've gotten a little more okay with it over time as I've realized that at least, like, Kate and David would have survived because of where they were at, and hopefully all of the people that you saved as well, but something just didn't sit right with me. Also I couldn't figure out how to save the fisherman on my playthrough  Despite all of this (and some other, smaller issues I have with the game), Life is Strange is the most affective game I have ever played, and I don't regret any of my time with it, I just wish it didn't drop the ball there at the end in regards to the part that was most compelling for me. Its characters seemed so real to me, and I ended up liking all of them except for Nathan and Mr. Jefferson as people, and I even like Nathan as a character. The twist with Jefferson was whatever, but I never hated it. In all honesty, Chloe is probably the character with whom I can relate to the most out of all media I've ever experienced, not just video games. Yes, that may sound weird considering my username. Thanks once again, Panzer, for this fantastic LP which tipped me over on buying this wonderful game. It was a hell of a ride. Jolyne Cujoh fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jul 8, 2016 |
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May 22, 2016 23:22
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It would be really funny if you could just skip out on learning about your time travel powers way back in the beginning of the game. Just a dead Chloe and a funeral and The End. I think it has been established that you can't, but it would be an interesting touch, like Far Cry Himalayan Edition (4?) and waiting around like 20 minutes giving you an ending.
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May 23, 2016 02:28
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Jolyne Cujoh posted:And, finally, we get to my misgivings with the endings. I've only got two, really, and the first one is way more gay, so let's start with that! It's super loving bullshit and scummy and stupid and lame that the only time in the game that Max can honestly, genuinely kiss Chloe is as a result of you deciding to loving murder her. Holy poo poo. What kind of loving bullshit is that! Like, I understand why they kiss, and it's super cute and sad and a good payoff if you choose that ending, but the fact that it's only in that ending is such absolute loving garbage. Why? Why not have them kiss in the sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending? I... I just don't loving understand. They already have the animation, they already have you not do it if you've kissed Warren instead. The player is probably more likely to pick that ending if they had Max be in a relationship with Chloe. Why only have the payoff in the ending that those who wanted Max and Chloe to be together aren't going to choose? It's so loving stupid and it makes me so mad and oh my god that fan-ending Panzer posted was so much better (though I feel like it would have worked better if it was just a pan around the apartment and didn't have Max and Chloe hugging at the end.) God, I'm still so mad. I can completely understand if there was some executive meddling that told the people at Dontnod to not make Max and Chloe's relationship too explicit, or not wanting to code a bunch of extra scenes where Max and Chloe are doing girlfriend poo poo before the ending because people who don't have them in a relationship aren't going to see that, but... they already put in the work in the other ending to have it check how you've been treating your relationship with Chloe? Why not have it in both? It doesn't make any loving sense and I am Mad About Gay Teens, Y'all. If they had kissed immediately after Murdering A Town it would have felt callous and weird. I agree with you that the fan ending was super good - because it allows an appropriate amount of time to pass before showing them together & happy.
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May 23, 2016 11:01
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I would've preferred the fanfiction ending of Max time-fighting Dread Warlock Prescott who is doing an evil magic ritual to kill Arcadia Bay, and Max accidentally got powers because of it. As it is, when I first played, I picked to save Chloe because if the game want to skip out on giving any explanation (magical or not) for the apocalyptic stuff, then I'm just gonna pick the "no, I'm keeping my powers" option out of spite.  No really come on. bewilderment fucked around with this message at 11:46 on May 23, 2016 |
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May 23, 2016 11:42
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bewilderment posted:I would've preferred the fanfiction ending of Max time-fighting Dread Warlock Prescott who is doing an evil magic ritual to kill Arcadia Bay, and Max accidentally got powers because of it. I'm usually not the type to say "you missed the point," but you missed the point.
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May 23, 2016 13:28
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You don't always gotta start the wiki
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May 23, 2016 15:13
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I still feel like the ending is that old Homer Simpson advice "The Lesson is To Never Try." It's also the most boring cliché ending that anyone could see could coming after the first episode. I mean, all these lengthy explanations of the ending make sense, but they don't change how I emotionally feel about it, you know.
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May 23, 2016 18:30
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Skelicopter posted:If they had kissed immediately after Murdering A Town it would have felt callous and weird. If you think about it too hard, yeah, I guess, maybe, but the way I was trying to frame it was them kissing right after Max tears the photograph up. Basically just do everything the same way, but have Max kiss Chloe before she hugs her and buries her face in her side. That sequence of actions leads to a flow like "Chloe tells you to sacrifice her>Max refuses>Max kisses Chloe as an explanation for why she refused>They watch the town get destroyed together>bittersweet scene where they're still together among the ruins of the town." I agree that, like, if they kissed in the truck that would be weird, but "kissing/embracing your romantic interest as the world crumbles around you" is a super common ending in films and other media, so I don't see why it would feel out of place here.
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May 23, 2016 18:55
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That ending was fine for a movie, but I'm pretty sure that this was a game. The player is given the agency to fight fate for 99% of the game only to have it ripped out from under them in the final choice. In the ending, all your choices were meaningless, aren't we clever for using removal of agency as the hammer to drive home the climax of the game, certainly our players will never have played the dozens of games that have used the exact same trick, often to much better effect (*cough* Bioshock *cough*). I'm not suggesting that the game should have had a happy ending, but forcing Max concede the fight against fate when the plot required it instead of when the player was ready is a cop out. Honestly, what percent of players do you think would have been ready to throw in the towel at that point? Games have dealt with this before, in Steins;Gate they have a dead end where a character relives a sequence of days for millennium and Higurashi When They Cry also deals with the theme of fighting fate through repetition. Budgets being what they are, it would probably be a stretch, but it would have been nice to have seen an unlockable 3rd option if the player manipulated every event for the optimal outcome (even using using knowledge from other playthroughs as needed) where Max refuses to succumb to fate but is unable to overcome it despite spending her entire life and sanity attempting to optimize ever moment of that one week period.
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May 24, 2016 02:19
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I'm not a fan of the "all choices were meaningless" arguments since they do heavily change the path the game takes while you do these choices. Just because you don't have 50 different endings doesn't mean that they were meaningless.
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May 24, 2016 10:22
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That ending is a gutpunch, but it seems to me it sets up the vision and the time powers as almost opposing forces somehow. To not get a storm, don't use time travel powers. Use time travel powers, we'll punish you with disasters. This seems almost re-enforced by the game mechanics as well: whenever you make a significant choice, you see a butterfly flap it's wings and whenever you rewind time to alter things you see a spiral representing more than just the passage of time. The final choice wasn't meaningless either. All the previous choices in the game were meant to get the player emotionally invested in the stakes of the characters around you, but I think it was a miscalculation on the devs part to think that players would prefer to salvage broad relationships over a single deep one. Although this isn't re-enforced by the player choice statistics at the end, I find it difficult not to throw the town under the bus. It's just that the hall of memories sequence with Chloe is just a wonderful reveal just how much Max has to her powers to bail out Chloe over the course of the game, straight from the jump. All the game choices were used in a practical way, instead of blowing the budget on a tailored ending for every player, everything was used to make the Sophie's Choice work.
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May 24, 2016 12:39
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Great job with the LP panzer! You have great presentation skills. I bought the game due to this LP so I cant give out a bigger complement!
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May 25, 2016 18:17
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In celebration of how awesome this thread was I have created.. ...LiS CLUE!!! I'm still working on the cards and pieces and if I can figure it out I am going to try to make a module for VASSAL, which is an open source board game engine. I figured for the pieces I'd use Max, Chloe, Warren, Kate, Victoria, and Nathan with Jefferson and Rachel as extra pieces. For weapons I figured: Camera, Gun, Drugs, Tornado, Pompidou, and Lisa with Train and Knife as extras. As for places you can see I went with Blackwell, the Dorm, Two Whales, the Junkyard, Chloe's house, Frank's RV, the Beach, the Lighthouse, and the Dark Room. If anyone has any suggestions I'm totally open to them!
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Jun 6, 2016 00:09
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Not to be morbid about it, but I would figure Rachel is the Boddy in that game. I think David should be a player piece too. I really like the look of the board!
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Jun 6, 2016 18:10
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So, the results of my little poll: Overall, 61% of respondents liked episode 5. For those who played the game episodically, it was a 50/50 split - however, there were only 8 of them, so hard to draw too firm a conclusion from that. "Whole game" players were 66% in favour of episode 5, and LP readers were 60/40 in favour. Considering the backlash episode 5 received on release, those numbers are fairly surprising, but the fact that people who played the game as a whole preferred it to those who played it episodically is what I expected (assuming those 8 people are representative!). I can think of a few general reasons to be disappointed, and a few of them could be reduced without a gap between episodes 4 and 5: 1) Episode 5 plays quite a bit differently to previous episodes - You're trapped in the Dark Room for a lot of it, trying to jump between photos to find a way out. Then there's the nightmare with it's stealth section. Spending a big chunk of your 3-ish hour episode doing those may not be what you were expecting from it, whereas as part of a 15-hour game it can feel like a nice change of pace. 2) Similarly, not a lot of actual plot happens during the episode. You kind of spend a lot of time spinning your wheels until David rescues you, and the whole nightmare sequence, while giving a window into Max's insecurities, also doesn't advance the plot at all. 3) If you've had a couple of months to speculate about what's going to happen, you may be disappointed when a lot of things turn out to be red herrings or symbolism.
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Jun 6, 2016 22:04
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This damned LP made me buy Life is Strange. I don't know if there's an entire genre of games like this that are better than Life is Strange that I manage to ignore but this game is a breath of fresh air for me. Thanks.
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Jun 18, 2016 05:23
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p4vl posted:This damned LP made me buy Life is Strange. I don't know if there's an entire genre of games like this that are better than Life is Strange that I manage to ignore but this game is a breath of fresh air for me. It's basically a Telltale game, and there's a few other episodic games out there in the same style. That said, I'd say Life is Strange is one of the better ones out there. Also, I watched through all of this LP around the time it ended, and I'm sorry I didn't get to comment on it while it was ongoing. This game is great (though with some definite issues in execution at times) and I'm glad it got such a good LP.
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Jun 18, 2016 07:37
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So here's something I don't exactly get. In the video where Max and Chloe find The Dark Room, one of the things Chloe reads through is a headline saying "The Prescotts bring bomb-shelter boom to town". Now, does that mean they originally made their fortune exporting bomb shelters? Somehow? Or does that mean there are a poo poo-ton of bomb shelters all over Arcadia Bay? Because if that's the case I don't think the hurricane would have had quite such a death toll. I mean, people would have still lost pretty much their entire livelihoods. Just not their lives. ...assuming the Prescotts could actually build bomb shelters for poo poo. Okay, never mind all that, then.
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Jun 28, 2016 04:47
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 03:08 |
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More evidence the Prescotts knew the storm was coming and Max had nothing to do with it
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Jun 29, 2016 08:42
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