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Macaluso posted:Her voice acting as Rachel was the highlight of the episodes for me. If we get another story involving Rachel I hope the strike being over doesn’t result in replacing her with a more “professional” actor. I don’t know how these things work so perhaps that’s not a concern, but I think it’d be really hard to replace her voice. She nailed that role. If you go back and watch a clip of him from the original there is a noticeable difference but they're both equally good in my opinion. Joyce and Nathan sound almost identical to their original actors though (Victoria and William are pretty close as well). If they bring Rachel back one day I agree that Brown should be allowed to reprise her role as she was pretty much the perfect choice to portray her. I'd prefer if Burch stayed on as Chloe from here on but DeVries makes a perfectly good substitute if necessary.
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Dec 21, 2017 16:42
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Woah...I just had an epiphany. You know how Damon gives Drew a savage beating in Episode Two unless Chloe steps in to defuse the situation? What does that remind you all of? That whole deal takes place in the corridor of the Prescott Dormitory which is the same place Warren has his showdown with Nathan in Life Is Strange. Which got me thinking some more about the decision you have to make at that point in the first game. Whether Max stops Warren or lets him beat Nathan to a pulp isn't just about whether you think Nathan deserves it or not...it's also a question of whether you stand by and let Warren become someone who resorts to violence. Someone like Damon. Earlier on, someone made a remark about how Life Is Strange and Before The Storm deal with the ways women are effected by toxic masculinity. The situation of Warren VS Nathan is a superb example of that. It shows us that even a genuinely sweet and caring person like Warren has the capacity to succumb to it and gives you the chance to stop him from going down that terrible road. Which is another reason for me to love Before The Storm. Playing the prequel makes the original game even stronger in so many ways.
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Dec 21, 2017 16:42
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Despite his faults Warren actually seems like a decent guy at heart and you can genuinely believe that he and Max are friends (he also knows when to back off). Eliot, as you said earlier, doesn't actually give a poo poo about Chloe's feelings ("When are you going to stop paying attention to Rachel and start paying attention to me?") he just wants to play the hero and the more she refuses to follow his script the angrier he gets. Which makes me kind of wonder how the two of them stayed friends for as long as they did (I think there's a line from Chloe in Episode 2 where she says they've known each other since kindergarten, which means he was in her life probably before Max even entered the picture).
Larryb fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Dec 21, 2017 |
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Dec 21, 2017 16:56
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Eshettar posted:Earlier on, someone made a remark about how Life Is Strange and Before The Storm deal with the ways women are effected by toxic masculinity. The situation of Warren VS Nathan is a superb example of that. It shows us that even a genuinely sweet and caring person like Warren has the capacity to succumb to it and gives you the chance to stop him from going down that terrible road. On the other hand, it was pretty satisfying to see Warren beat the poo poo out of Nathan cause gently caress Nathan. Related to that, something I felt was interesting about these episodes was having choices like dealing with Nathan. You KNOW ahead of time that: Nathan kills Rachel, Nathan is the one who drugs and kidnaps her in the first place, shoots Chloe (before Max intervenes), and is generally a huge rear end in a top hat the entire game. You ALSO know ahead of time that he has pretty sever mental problems that his dad wants to act like doesn't exist and Jefferson preys upon. And yet you have these choices in the game to defend Nathan from Drew, and encourage the girl who likes him to help him out during the play and general try to help Nathan. All Chloe really knows is that Nathan is kind of a rich dick. I thought those choices were interesting because while they didn't matter like most of the choices, I like how they... I dunno, almost tested you to not consider the meta aspect of you the player knowing what happens with Nathan, cause otherwise you would do everything in your power to keep that poor sweet girl away from him. There are a couple of choices like that in the game and I always found it interesting cause I had to stop myself from going "I'll obviously choose this option because of stuff that happens in the future". But then of course you have choices that are clearly meant to be like "you can pick the canon choice if you want" like calling David a Stepdouche or saying you want to go to California with Rachel (I picked roadtrip cause it sounded more fun though) that feel less like the above and more just like cute details.
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Dec 21, 2017 17:04
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Hmm...if Elliot has been in Chloe's life for that long, there's a chance he may have met Max at some point before she left for Seattle. He does refer to her by name during the confrontation in the study. If he didn't know her personally, wouldn't he probably have called her 'that deadbeat friend of yours' or something? If they did meet, I wonder what Elliot was like around Max. Did he resent her presence just like he quickly comes to despise Rachel for taking Chloe's attention away from him (which is how he perceives the situation)? Or did that sort of thing only begin fairly recently? Eshettar fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Dec 21, 2017 |
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Dec 21, 2017 17:10
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I think Chloe also calls David stepfuck and stepdick(was it?) over the course of the first season too, stepdouche is just way more iconic. Nathan is an rear end in a top hat and I let Warren go ape, but I also never believed Jefferson's story that it was Nathan who overdosed Rachel. In the context of the scene, Jefferson tells this to Max a few moments after saying Nathan shot Chloe in the junkyard to cover up his tracks. When Nathan sees Max in Rachel's clothes in the diner in Episode 3, he seems to genuinely think it's Rachel for a split second. So in my mind it was Jefferson who killed Rachel with Nathan as an accomplice, who was probably also tweaked out of his mind at the time and unaware of the full extent of his culpability.
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Dec 21, 2017 17:17
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Eshettar posted:Hmm...if Elliot has been in Chloe's life for that long, there's a chance he may have met Max at some point before she left for Seattle. He does refer to her by name during the confrontation in the study. If he didn't know her personally, wouldn't he probably have called her 'that deadbeat friend of yours' or something? Who knows, maybe he'll make a cameo in Farewell and we can find out (I got the feeling like he knew Max though as otherwise he probably wouldn't have bothered referring to her by name). Maybe he was better (or at least, better at hiding it) when he was younger as otherwise I don't really see how he and Chloe could have been friends for so long without her picking up on this earlier. Larryb fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Dec 21, 2017 |
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Dec 21, 2017 17:19
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exquisite tea posted:
You know, that's a good point. I must admit it never occurred to me. Nathan doesn't just look surprised, he actually seems over the moon to see 'Rachel' again. Perhaps even relieved by the thought that she's okay despite disappearing after her trip to the Dark Room.
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Dec 21, 2017 17:20
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exquisite tea posted:I think Chloe also calls David stepfuck and stepdick(was it?) over the course of the first season too, stepdouche is just way more iconic. I thought there was some confirmation in game that Nathan was the one who did it, cause he was trying to do the same thing as Jefferson using Rachel but hosed it up somehow and accidentally killed her. There's some note or message where Jefferson is pissed at Nathan for screwing up his usual deal (not killing the victims). Not that this really absolves Jefferson but I'm pretty sure Nathan does do the actual killing of Rachel.
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Dec 21, 2017 17:23
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Macaluso posted:I thought there was some confirmation in game that Nathan was the one who did it, cause he was trying to do the same thing as Jefferson using Rachel but hosed it up somehow and accidentally killed her. There's some note or message where Jefferson is pissed at Nathan for screwing up his usual deal (not killing the victims). Not that this really absolves Jefferson but I'm pretty sure Nathan does do the actual killing of Rachel. Jefferson flat out says that Nathan gave Rachel an overdose but it's possible he wasn't telling the full truth (there is that one photo in the Dark Room of both of them passed out together after all). There's also a photo Max and Chloe find of him burying her in the junkyard. Interestingly enough there's a bit of cut dialogue in that episode implying that Nathan is still alive, which could mean that originally there might have been a way for Max to save him earlier in the game. Larryb fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Dec 21, 2017 |
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Dec 21, 2017 17:27
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Macaluso posted:I thought there was some confirmation in game that Nathan was the one who did it, cause he was trying to do the same thing as Jefferson using Rachel but hosed it up somehow and accidentally killed her. There's some note or message where Jefferson is pissed at Nathan for screwing up his usual deal (not killing the victims). Not that this really absolves Jefferson but I'm pretty sure Nathan does do the actual killing of Rachel. The only direct message I recall from Jefferson to Nathan was criticizing him for using his name in public and not calling over disposable phones.
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Dec 21, 2017 17:31
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Kind of a pity that James kind of gets away with things though (he helped mold Rachel into the person she became, created the prison she'd been trapped in for the majority of her life as as such had an indirect hand in her ultimate demise). But then again, if Chloe told her the truth back at the hospital (or if she didn't and Rachel found out later anyway) his family falls apart and he possibly might have gotten voted out of office by the time LiS rolls around (based on what Chloe said there was barely any investigation into Rachel's disappearance and her parents were in denial about the whole thing, so either James wasn't the DA anymore or he was just past the point of caring) so I guess he's already suffered plenty. It's funny, I had Sera pegged as a villain early on in the game and James' explanation about her at the beginning of Episode 3 actually made him seem somewhat reasonable. But nope, turns out he's a piece of poo poo who almost got his ex-wife killed just so he could preserve what he convinced himself was a perfect family. I do kind of feel sorry for Rose but still, gently caress that guy. If you think about it, Arcadia Bay is a lot like Silent Hill in some aspects, only the monsters are a lot less obvious. Larryb fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Dec 21, 2017 |
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Dec 21, 2017 18:09
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While on the subject, I've noticed that each of the main girls has a direct mirror of sorts among the antagonists of their respective games. Like Max, Jefferson is a gifted photographer who tends to use his talents to manipulate others (they're also both obsessed with the idea of preserving innocence. Jefferson wants to capture it forever in his photographs while Max uses her powers to try and prevent it from ever being lost in the first place) but on the other hand he has no conscience to ground him and deliberately abuses said talents in order to get ahead. Like Rachel, James uses lies and manipulation to maintain his perfect image which winds up hurting those around him but the difference is that for Rachel, I don't think she really means to hurt anyone (the optional scene where she drugs Victoria notwithstanding) but she's been so used to getting what she wants that it's legitimately hard for her to act any other way (and I think deep down there was a part of her that truly loved Chloe, which is probably why she was so hesitant to send that letter regarding her and Frank). Out of all of them, Rachel probably wound up falling the furthest. This one might be stretching it a little but I think Chloe's mirror is Damon. Both of them play by their own rules and don't really seem to give a gently caress about anything. The difference is that for Chloe, like I said earlier, it's all a mask. When put in a situation where someone she cares about is in trouble her better nature usually always shines through. Damon, meanwhile is a beast that will turn on anyone at the slightest provocation (even people he's friendly with like Frank), there are only two instances I can think of where Chloe even comes close to that level (during the conversation with Sera she is absolutely furious with James and vows to make him pay and when she finds out Nathan killed Rachel she was literally going to flat out murder him in cold blood). However, Chloe is still sane enough that she can be talked out of stuff like that while reasoning with Damon is basically impossible. It might not be as strong a case as the others but I think Damon is an example of the kind of person Chloe could become if she'd ever completely lost sight of herself. Ironically, the strongest of the three in the end was Chloe herself (which is why I believe that she's the "greater beauty yet to come" her father mentioned in BtS Episode 2). I'm not sure whether Rachel was already broken beyond repair by that point but she died before anyone could really try to save her, Max was already at the edge by the end of LiS but Chloe (with a little help from others) managed to more or less hold on throughout and save Max from going down the same road she and Rachel did Larryb fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Dec 21, 2017 |
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Dec 21, 2017 19:35
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People acting like Warren was some kind of sexual predator are really hilarious to me, dude is just a goon who wants to poke.
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Dec 21, 2017 19:51
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Warren's grievances are a lot more sympathetic than Eliot's because he never even got any action and was made incel by dead girls and literal acts of God.
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Dec 21, 2017 19:55
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Paul Zuvella posted:People acting like Warren was some kind of sexual predator are really hilarious to me, dude is just a goon who wants to poke. I didn't like Warren for the sake of being just kind of a "nice guy" and I was also trying to do the Max/Chloe route. So he was just a constant kind of annoying roadblock so I blew him off as much as I could. I very much didn't like during the end of episode 2 or 3 where Warren put his arms around Max to keep her warm even though I had been pushing him away the whole time. Then Eliot happened and I'm like "drat. I want to apologize to Warren now"
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Dec 21, 2017 20:04
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Warren is a great character, whether you like or hate him. I can understand where either side is coming from, so he feels nuanced and interesting. I generally like him, but want him to take it down a notch and get a little more self awareness, but I also acknowledge that's asking a lot from an 18 year old nerd. Eliot is just some background character who suddenly gets really weird and is easily forgotten about forever. Shame.
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Dec 21, 2017 20:06
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exquisite tea posted:Warren's grievances are a lot more sympathetic than Eliot's because he never even got any action and was made incel by dead girls and literal acts of God. Yeah, I think Warren only ever really got lucky in dead timelines (he was with Stella in the William lives reality and either hooked up with Brooke or Max in the main one before the latter undid it all by jumping back in time and/or getting him killed by a tornado). He's still better than Eliot though. Larryb fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Dec 21, 2017 |
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Dec 21, 2017 20:10
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Wasn't there that theory that Warren was actually a bit of a fuccboi, like not only negging Brooke while chasing Max, but there was "Alyssa <3 Warren" carved into a table in the classroom or something?
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Dec 21, 2017 20:12
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You can even get Brooke to hang out with Daniel instead if Max convinces him to go to the End of the World Party. Like, for as much as the universe wants to kill Chloe Price, it does not want Warren Graham to have sex.
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Dec 21, 2017 20:12
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VagueRant posted:Wasn't there that theory that Warren was actually a bit of a fuccboi, like not only negging Brooke while chasing Max, but there was "Alyssa <3 Warren" carved into a table in the classroom or something? Also during the Kate scene in Episode 2 if you pay attention to the crowd while Max is making her way to the roof you can see Warren standing there with his arm around Alyssa. Back to BtS, out of curiosity how many different ending variations are there? As far as I'm aware the only scenes that really get altered depending on your choices are: the initial scene at the hospital after making your final choice, the scene at the Amber house right afterwards, David's proposal, Eliot's expulsion, Nathan & Samantha, and the scene with Chloe and Rachel at the lighthouse (probably the part where Steph, Drew and Mikey are playing D&D as well depending on which of them you got sent to the hospital). Larryb fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Dec 22, 2017 |
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Dec 21, 2017 20:28
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Larryb posted:Interestingly enough there's a bit of cut dialogue in that episode implying that Nathan is still alive, which could mean that originally there might have been a way for Max to save him earlier in the game. I'm curious about this one, haven't heard about it before.
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Dec 22, 2017 03:07
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Pththya-lyi posted:I'm curious about this one, haven't heard about it before. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCTAyF5UrEQ Relevant part happens about 5 minutes in. There's actually a whole bunch of cut content in episode 5 that you can find on the same channel such as dialogue, William (and Samuel for some reason) appearing in the stealth section of the the nightmare, the real Chloe calling out to Max throughout the nightmare rather than just appearing at the very end and apparently even Rachel was originally going to have a line during it. The only thing I can see that got cut from BtS was a Backtalk with Taylor in Episode 1 (she was also supposed to send you a few texts throughout the game) but for some reason her entire character was scrubbed from the game but is still listed in the ending credits. Also, according to the in-game files someone dug up Sera was originally going to be called "Ruth". Here's the cut Taylor conversation if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxYT45OgSVE Finally, if anyone's still wondering here's a step by step guide to get Rachel reunited with her mom in the end: 1. Have Rachel give you her bracelet in Episode 2 (this might not be necessary, but it helps) 2. During the conversation with Sera (which you can pretty much think of as a stealth Backtalk Challenge without the timer), choose the following dialogue options: "Where is Frank?" "You need help" "I don't understand" "She deserves to meet you" "You're strong" "I lost my father" "Rachel needs you" "They are far from perfect" "Don't you want to see her?" 3. If you followed step 1, when Sera goes to leave you'll have the option to give her the bracelet. Do so (again, I think it's possible to still get the scene with just the dialogue choices and the final choice at the end, but the bracelet pretty much ensures that it happens). 4. Tell Rachel the truth at the end. Larryb fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Dec 22, 2017 |
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Dec 22, 2017 03:25
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So a few months back, someone made a Reddit post that spread like wildfire. I'm reminded of it in this context because it really does have the feel of something that Elliot would write about Chloe. https://imgur.com/a/1Kn7i
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Dec 22, 2017 15:30
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Wow. That guy is not very self aware. Or it was a troll, its the internet who even knows anymore.
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Dec 22, 2017 15:45
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Eshettar posted:So a few months back, someone made a Reddit post that spread like wildfire. I'm reminded of it in this context because it really does have the feel of something that Elliot would write about Chloe. I loved how even the REDDIT posters were replying to that guy like “what the gently caress is wrong with you”
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Dec 22, 2017 15:48
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If he's a troll then he's a drat dedicated one. He made follow-up posts about his crusade to rescue 'Jennifer' from the clutches of her abusive shorts-wearing lobbyist boyfriend over the course of the following months. And as with Elliot, his concern turned pitch-black as she refused to indulge his fantasy.
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Dec 22, 2017 16:05
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Off the subject, but the more I think about it the more it seems that sacrificing the Bay at the end of the first game didn't really accomplish anything. Assuming Jefferson was in the bunker at the time he most likely survived (also, unless he was caught red handed it seems like it'd be pretty easy for him to just blame the whole Dark Room thing on Nathan since he was already dead and buried at the time) and Sean Prescott probably saw the writing on the wall and left town. At best, maybe James and Eliot wound up getting flattened but otherwise Max basically just indirectly murdered a whole bunch of (fairly) innocent people because she couldn't let go of her obsession (though it's possible that at least Kate and David survived given where they were at the time). Though to be fair, if you subscribe to the theory that the storm was somehow Rachel's revenge on Arcadia Bay then going after the people who hurt her (and Chloe) the most seems like it would be a top priority, everything else is just collateral damage. However, the other ending (aside from the fallacy of trying to fix a mistake (allegedly) caused by time travel with more time travel) ties things up fairly nicely. Rachel's spirit is pacified, the storm never happened and Jefferson and Nathan are brought to justice (presumably creating a ripple effect that winds up causing trouble for his dad as well) and I think it's the way Chloe would want to go out (doing something important but with nobody making a big deal out of it). As alluded to in the play, Chloe even finally gains her freedom by (presumably) being reborn as a butterfly (much like how William became a raven and Rachel a doe). There are still pros and cons to both but thanks to BtS I actually sort of like (or at least understand) the Sacrifice Chloe ending better than I did before. Larryb fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Dec 22, 2017 |
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Dec 22, 2017 16:35
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The murder of Eliot Hampden by the Chad Rachel Amber.
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Dec 22, 2017 16:47
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Is it wrong I want young Elliot to show up in Farewell so he can get dunked on further? I feel Max should get a turn.
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Dec 22, 2017 19:32
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Yvonmukluk posted:Is it wrong I want young Elliot to show up in Farewell so he can get dunked on further? I feel Max should get a turn. The Max of that time would probably be too timid to really do much but an interaction between the two could be interesting none the less. Speaking of which it's kind of a pity now that Max never got a chance to meet any of the BtS-era characters (that we know of anyway), she'd probably have gotten along great with Steph. Though speaking of which, while we know DontNod is switching gears for Season 2 you probably could do a direct sequel to the original if you wanted to. While Sacrifice the Bay might have more story potential you could possibly do something with the Sacrifice Chloe ending as well (maybe even have Chloe pop up in Max's dreams occasionally to give her advice much like William did for her in BtS). Max would most likely need a new partner though (such as Kate, Victoria, Warren if you must, or even a new character entirely). You could even combine the two and make the gimmick more about dimension-hopping than time travel (like Max loses control of her powers and starts getting randomly shuffled across realities, maybe even revisiting the William Lives timeline as well). As the game goes on, Max could start to develop new relationships across those realities and learn their ups and downs, eventually leading up to the final choice of "Which world do you want to live in?" Larryb fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Dec 23, 2017 |
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Dec 22, 2017 19:47
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Macaluso posted:
Yeah, Chloe pissed me off with that. If you're going to break and enter and look for crap, you don't leave poo poo strewn everywhere and tag the desk. Leave everything exactly how you found it within a millimeter's precision and take only photographs. A lot of stuff in this episode was a bit contrived. Rachel hits the drug lord and just stops with one blow...he isn't Victoria Chase, he's not gonna stay down because you hit once, follow through. Chloe, you're awesome but the time to strike with the knife was when his back was turned, not when he knows you're there and is facing you. I didn't even bother to use the knife then, the moment was gone. Why is Mikey in a hospital room still? He has a broken arm, he has his cast, discharge him already. Eliot was kind of out of left field, but I never did trust the motherfucker. He was an annoyance the whole time and I just tuned him out the whole game. On to what I liked. I think it was good wrap to a good story. I chose to keep the truth from Rachel, Sera was talking sense. That ending was the best part. That scene with Rachel running out to Chloe's truck oh my God. Rachel and Eliot: 
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Dec 23, 2017 05:14
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That particular scene would’ve been WAY better if Rachel had been a part of it (like most of the episode) and also would’ve been a good parallel to the first game’s investigation segment with Max and Chloe.
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Dec 23, 2017 06:06
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Macaluso posted:That particular scene would’ve been WAY better if Rachel had been a part of it (like most of the episode) and also would’ve been a good parallel to the first game’s investigation segment with Max and Chloe. Well they obviously had to keep Rachel out of the investigation because otherwise she'd have already found out all of the terrible crap her dad was up to, so there'd be no final decision point at the end of the game on whether to tell her the truth or not.
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Dec 23, 2017 10:23
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skooma512 posted:Yeah, Chloe pissed me off with that. If you're going to break and enter and look for crap, you don't leave poo poo strewn everywhere and tag the desk. Leave everything exactly how you found it within a millimeter's precision and take only photographs. Despite the somewhat hacky way we arrive at the final decision in this game, after some thought I do think it was a rather good and thematically appropriate one. If you're playing Before the Storm then you probably already know how this story is going to end, Deck Nine knows there is no rewriting the text of the original, so the final choice instead invites the player to imagine how this relationship between Rachel and Chloe could have deteriorated. If you choose to tell Rachel the truth, then that brings Rachel closer to Chloe in the immediate term but also sets her on an increasingly risk-taking path that makes her descent into drugs and partying more believable by the start of Life is Strange. It offers a plausible explanation for why Rachel is living away from her family at the time of her disappearance, why she grows increasingly desperate to leave Arcadia Bay, and why James Amber would quickly give up on looking for her. Chloe will have stayed true to her principles while also proving Sera right despite herself by injecting this whirlwind of instability into Rachel's life. On the other hand, if you choose to protect Rachel from the truth, then that recontextualizes much of the criticism around Rachel's secret relationships with Frank and later Jefferson. A lot of players saw Rachel's actions in the original Life is Strange as harmful or manipulative to Chloe, but making this choice is essentially saying "Chloe shot first" in the convenient lie-by-omission game. People were waiting throughout the entire prequel for the other shoe to drop, for Rachel to finally reveal her evil scheming self, but instead at the last moment they flip the script and invite YOU to throw another lie on top of the pile of lies that have defined this poor girl's life. Rachel is happier for not knowing, but that bedrock of trust in their relationship is already weakened, and so it's harder to blame Rachel for similarly trying to protect Chloe's feelings later on down the line. You're reminded of Rachel's crumpled up letter to Chloe about Jefferson in the junkyard and how things could have gone differently if she felt comfortable sharing it. So I really do like the final choice in this game and have enjoyed ruminating on it.
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Dec 23, 2017 10:33
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I kind of like how they handled the reveal of James' character. At first you're lead to believe he's an rear end in a top hat for cheating on his wife (and he is kind of a douche when you later actually meet him), then when he's explaining about Sera you actually start to second guess things a bit as he makes some good points (as if what he said was true Sera's actions really did put Rachel in serious danger) but towards the end you learn that your intial impression was right all along and just cheating probably would have been preferable to the poo poo he actually did (not sure if he expected Damon to take things as far as he did but I do wonder if James ever intended on actually giving him the money or if he was just content to let Sera die). I chose to tell Rachel the truth at the end, sure her family falls apart as a result and it takes her further down the destructive path that would lead to her fate in Life is Strange but none of that is really Chloe's fault. She was only doing what she felt was right and James brought all of this on himself (plus, if she lied and Rachel later found out the truth anyway wouldn't that just make the whole situation worse?). I do kind of like that if you fulfill certain conditions (which I listed earlier on this page) you can twist the knife even further by letting Rachel and Sera finally reunite at the end (I do kind of wonder what happened to her afterwards though, whether she left Arcadia Bay or stayed and actually made an effort to turn her life around). It's possible that Rachel may have just been doomed from the beginning though (remember that in the William Lives timeline Chloe never met her but she still went missing). Also I just noticed but Damon actually does appear in the first episode (he's one of the two guys that are arguing when Chloe arrives at the mill at the start of the game). Larryb fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Dec 23, 2017 |
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Dec 23, 2017 12:50
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Just replayed Episode One and an interesting detail jumped out at me this time around. In Chloe's room, there's a teddy bear wearing a mask. With that in mind, fast forward to Episode Three when Chloe spends the night in Rachel's room and pay close attention to what's displayed across the wall. Several masks. That strikes me as symbolic. Chloe disguises her pain with one mask, the tough girl attitude which is present throughout both Before The Storm and Life Is Strange. Now Rachel, on the other hand, puts on and takes off many different masks from what we know of her. Remember when Max is asking other students about the type of girl she was and just about everyone describes her as a different person?
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Dec 23, 2017 19:47
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Eshettar posted:Just replayed Episode One and an interesting detail jumped out at me this time around. Actually, nearly everyone in the series except maybe Max and a few others tends to hide their true selves behind some sort of emotional mask (off the top of my head we have Eliot, James, Jefferson, Frank and Victoria as well). In Chloe's case I think deep down a part of her hates doing it and knows how it's affecting those she cares about, she even kind of says something to that effect in one of her dreams ("I don't want to be an actor, I just want to be myself") but it wasn't until she saw Max nearly destroy herself trying to keep her safe that she finally managed to gain the courage to shatter it completely. If you think about it, Damon is pretty much the person Chloe pretends to be fully realized (and at times she's in danger of becoming, such as when she found out what happened to Rachel and was ready to literally murder Nathan in cold blood). Rachel also seems aware of her behavior to some extent but is so trapped within her own life that she never winds up truly being free (during their little therapy session in BTS episode 2 she even kind of outright says that it's hard for her to know where the mask ends and she begins anymore), so she wears different hats to fit the situation. It's telling that we only really get a glimpse of the true Rachel Amber (which is not always a pretty sight) when she gets angry or she's with Chloe (and even that one could be debatable). But who her parents were she probably could have come out a lot worse all things considered. Hell, Frank is basically a male Chloe in a sense (acts tough but is basically a good person at heart), which could be part of the reason why Rachel was drawn to him in the first place. I'm really going to miss these characters after the bonus episode drops in another month or two and hope we'll run into them again one day. But hopefully the cast of LiS 2 will end up being just as good. Larryb fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Dec 23, 2017 |
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Dec 23, 2017 20:11
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I finally got to finish ep 3 yesterday and I don't have much to add to what's been said. Tea's analysis probably fits my own impressions best, but other people have brought up some really great points and I think it's a real strength of the storytelling in this game that we can even discuss it on this level. One complaint I do have is that the Backtalk mechanic seemed really under-utilized and didn't really carry much in the way of consequence one way or the other. I think it would have been great to have had an actual Backtalk interaction with Sera to get her to at least meet Rachel if she hadn't already (maybe even making this the only way to do that). Eliot was not too surprising, even though I didn't go snoop in his room to find all the stalker-y stuff. That interaction at the hospital was a decent enough setup combined with little cues from the previous episodes to give me a sense that trouble was a-brewin' with that Nice Guy. I really did like the way things escalated with him in the confrontation and his true nature revealed itself. I chose to tell Rachel the truth because I thought it was completely unreasonable for Sera to ask Chloe to live a lie like that with someone she loved. Overall I'm pleased with the series, though I do agree that this episode was the weakest.
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Dec 24, 2017 00:40
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| # ? Nov 14, 2025 03:33 |
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In a way, the final choice sort of mirrors the one in the first game only on a much smaller scale and, like the first game, there are pros and cons to each. If you choose the needs of the many and lie to Rachel, you preserve her family unity (and get a rather sweet line from Chloe) but by doing so you're letting probably the biggest rear end in a top hat in the game get away scot-free (as well as technically becoming an accomplice to his crimes) adding another lie to the pile that's been building up Rachel's whole life and there's still the risk of her discovering the truth later. Plus, if Rachel didn't find out before she dissapeared that means Chloe has to live with that guilt for the rest of her life (which, as has been mentioned earlier, kind of puts a new spin on how she reacted when she found out about Rachel and Frank in the first game). Or you could choose to tell the truth, shattering her family beyond repair and probably increasing her desperation to escape even more. But by doing so (and fulfilling a few other conditions beforehand), you can potentially reunite her with her birth mother and James is appropriately punished for his selfish actions.. Larryb fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Dec 24, 2017 |
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Dec 24, 2017 01:32
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