Dontnod, I am disappoint... *Life is Strange spoilers inside*

[happyninja42]

I mostly noticed that the ending seemed to force odd things not only that were against your choices (If you didn't have Max show any interest in Chloe, it still pushes forward with them being in love, the nightmare jealousy stuff, and kissing at the Arcadia Ending) and things that were just outright illogical (Warren is at Chloe's funeral with Max, but why are Kate and Victoria there?).

Well for Kate, I would assume she's there either because 1) She's just a nice person who would go to the funeral for a girl murdered at her school. 2) She went there to help support Max, as it's not too much of a stretch that Max would be close to her going forward.

As for Victoria, I would say that it's probably 1) Because someone she was close to (Nathan), murdered her, and she felt it was right to pay her respects. 2) She also became friends with Max, because after things reset, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to see Max reach out to her as well, to stop her being an Alpha *****. I mean, depending on how you pan out the interactions with Victoria, they do end up becoming friends, realizing that they have a lot more in common then they thought. And so, as a sign of support of her new friend, (a girl she always did think was cool, her own words I might add), she goes to be there for her if she needs her.

 

[Schadrach]

But at least in those movies the effects of tampering with time made sense. It wasn't just "teen girl doesn't get shot in the bathroom and creates an F6 tornado". That's such a leap in logic that it's nearly impossible to pin such a simple cause for that great of an effect, butterflies or not.

I took all the abnormal weather/wildlife behavior to be a result of Max fiddling with time, not of Chloe not getting shot (except so far as Max fiddling with time so much is a direct consequence of saving Chloe). Sort of the universe stroking off for a moment and forgetting how many moons there are because fate and causality has already been fucked up *so* much by Max, all of which directly descends from saving Chloe that first time (saving her several more times, doing things like "teleporting" around locked doors or "teleporting" items into her possession [imagine what the timeline looks like from the point of view of the principal's office or Frank's keys, for example], going back and changing past events).

Think along the lines of "For Want of a Nail", the entire chain of causality isn't evident from looking at the beginning and the end -- no one would see the nail as the cause of the fall of the kingdom without all the steps in between.

Chloe not dying in that bathroom leads directly to Max making her not die all those other times, and leads to her investigating the Rachel Amber disappearance, which in turn leads to her violating causality repeatedly. Cumulatively, this damages reality enough to cause all the weird natural phenomena. That's my take at least.

Also, she says flat out to Chloe at one point "You need to tell me this stuff when you see me again, because I won't remember it." Implying that her ability to maintain mental consistency was going out the window as things got worse.

Any of the other times she used a photo to go back, did that version of Max behave in a manner between the changed event and present which required knowledge from present Max? Because I had just assumed it was operating on Butterfly Effect rules, wherein the traveller didn't remember the stuff future them knew after future them stopped operating the controls (in the Butterfly Effect, this was the whole reason he had blackouts and kept journals in the first place -- the memories went with future him when future him went back).

Or to put it another way, do you think that if Max hadn't sent the text to David Madson in the one jump back would the resulting version of Max have even been *able* to turn in Jefferson afterwards, or would she not remember the stuff future her knew?

 

[Schadrach]

I suppose that makes sense. But now it just raises the question to why Max couldn't just save Chloe from Nathan and be like "HI IM MAX YOURE CHLOE IM SORRY FOR NOT VISITING YOU SOONER RACHAEL'S BURIED IN THE JUNKYARD MR JEFFERSON IS A SERIAL KILLER OKAY BYE"

eh *shrugs* theres no reason to worry about the ending now since its out.

You left out the "hanging out at the junkyard tomorrow is a bad idea, and I'm not going to remember any of that after this conversation, so I apologize for the upcoming amnesia." bit. =p

Also, in that case wouldn't reality go all Final Destination and try to kill her again, leading to Max continuing to manipulate time, leading inevitably to disaster (though maybe not quite so quickly)?

 

[pookie101]

for all the issues its my favourite game ever and for me ever is 30+ years of gaming

although i would of liked a 3rd ending where max at the end steps in front of the bullet and saves chloe and arcadia bay. sort of makes sense to me she sacrificed everything to save chloe and one more sort of fits for me.

ah well both are still alive in my sims 3 arcadia bay

 

[Redryhno]

It's incredibly annoying that I made the prediction back in Episode 1(anyone that didn't at least have an inkling of professor pretentious being a villain, forget the rest of it, if you didn't get that gigantic hint thrown through your head, you need to read more)...but there's just still so many problems with the narrative, the least of which being how apparently important Chloe is. And apparently how completely unimportant all of Jefferson's victims are, or how incredibly important it is for him to be killing people.

I dislike how screwed over Warren got constantly, how many times did he save Max or at least know what to do when she was in one of her slight meltdown phases? And all he gets is something like 30% of the people that played the game saying he didn't even deserve a hug for all of the crap he put up with and how shut out he was of pretty much everything despite being the lynch pin of so many of the things that happen...

Hell, there's still the ex-military guy that has kept himself in somewhat good shape CONSTANTLY getting his ass handed to him by a guy that uses drugs, ropes, and cameras. But at least it gave us the single greatest game sequence ever:
"Kick the table!"
"YES SIR" *hits the table with all of his strength, moves it a couple inches, immediately shot*

Also, I did like the Chloe ending, to a point, anything beyond imagery is just stupid to a gigantic degree. Hundreds of people dead, friends and family, classmates and buildings destroyed. All to save a girl that Max barely remembers when they meet again after ten years...And considering they established that Chloe needs to die for the town to not be demolished, it's going to keep happening, so them running away together makes no fucking sense beyond wanting to be a traveling death show.(Also part of it is me really not liking Chloe, neon haired "rebel", very loose descriptor being used, is not something there needs to be more of in teen casts)

And this is all ignoring the technical and graphical problems that LiS had. Facial animations that make me really question whether they actually ahd anything to do with Remember Me(another flawed game, but at least it looked alright). Plastic hair that bordered on claymation without the charm or the aesthetic to excuse it away. People in general just looked awful in the game. Inanimate objects and some buildings looked alright though. And the art inside the game(not the game itself) had a charm to it. But then again, as an adventure walking simulator, that's honestly par for the course.

 

[happyninja42]

It's incredibly annoying that I made the prediction back in Episode 1(anyone that didn't at least have an inkling of professor pretentious being a villain, forget the rest of it, if you didn't get that gigantic hint thrown through your head, you need to read more)...but there's just still so many problems with the narrative, the least of which being how apparently important Chloe is. And apparently how completely unimportant all of Jefferson's victims are, or how incredibly important it is for him to be killing people.

I wouldn't say it was important for him to be killing people, more that it was important for him to be caught at that moment in time, so that Nathan was also caught, and no further victims (Specifically Max and Victoria) wouldn't also know the Dark Room. Yeah, you could say "So why weren't the dozens of previous girls important enough?" And I can't give you any answer other than "they needed to establish a dark history of terror from this man, that it was serial, not something spontaneous".

I dislike how screwed over Warren got constantly, how many times did he save Max or at least know what to do when she was in one of her slight meltdown phases? And all he gets is something like 30% of the people that played the game saying he didn't even deserve a hug for all of the crap he put up with and how shut out he was of pretty much everything despite being the lynch pin of so many of the things that happen...

Well, to be fair, the percentage of choices had nothing to do with the game developers. They gave the players the choice of how they wanted to treat Warren, and the majority of players were hardcore shipping the Max/Chloe relationship. There is nothing stopping you the player from totally hooking up with Warren, and not doing so with Chloe.

Hell, there's still the ex-military guy that has kept himself in somewhat good shape CONSTANTLY getting his ass handed to him by a guy that uses drugs, ropes, and cameras. But at least it gave us the single greatest game sequence ever:
"Kick the table!"
"YES SIR" *hits the table with all of his strength, moves it a couple inches, immediately shot*

....yeaaaah, I can't really defend this bit at all. It really was terrible. xD

Also, I did like the Chloe ending, to a point, anything beyond imagery is just stupid to a gigantic degree. Hundreds of people dead, friends and family, classmates and buildings destroyed. All to save a girl that Max barely remembers when they meet again after ten years...And considering they established that Chloe needs to die for the town to not be demolished, it's going to keep happening, so them running away together makes no fucking sense beyond wanting to be a traveling death show.(Also part of it is me really not liking Chloe, neon haired "rebel", very loose descriptor being used, is not something there needs to be more of in teen casts)

Eh, this I think is just personal preference. I didn't have much issue with the ending. To me it seemed like the Universe was balancing the cost of Chloe's life with the death of the town. And after those lives were taken, the debt would be paid. This is the implied ending given how the storm ends, and everything is neutral, with animals acting normally again. My only issue was why was Chloe's life worth hundreds of others? The amount of cost/reward there seems extreme. So unless Chloe's going to like cure cancer, or end world hunger, or bring about true world peace or something, I don't really see why it's an even trade to let her live, but hundreds must die for it to happen.

And this is all ignoring the technical and graphical problems that LiS had. Facial animations that make me really question whether they actually ahd anything to do with Remember Me(another flawed game, but at least it looked alright). Plastic hair that bordered on claymation without the charm or the aesthetic to excuse it away. People in general just looked awful in the game. Inanimate objects and some buildings looked alright though. And the art inside the game(not the game itself) had a charm to it. But then again, as an adventure walking simulator, that's honestly par for the course.

I dunno, I didn't really have a problem with the art direction. I kind of liked it overall. I think they didn't bother trying to go for hyper realism, and thus risk hitting Uncanny Valley territory, and just went for broad strokes of human features, with a watercolor pallette to soften up the textures. *shrugs* It worked for me just fine, but I can appreciate how it's not for everyone.

 

[Redryhno]

I wouldn't say it was important for him to be killing people, more that it was important for him to be caught at that moment in time, so that Nathan was also caught, and no further victims (Specifically Max and Victoria) wouldn't also know the Dark Room. Yeah, you could say "So why weren't the dozens of previous girls important enough?" And I can't give you any answer other than "they needed to establish a dark history of terror from this man, that it was serial, not something spontaneous".

This is also sorta known as inconsistent writing, something I personally think LiS is full of when it comes to much other than their character motivations and relationships. But you've got your beliefs, I've got mine in regards to this. They could've at least not made it so blatant with "LET ME CAPTURE YOU IN A MOMENT OF DESPERATION". And just...so much of the logic surrounding Chloe for the town just...

Well, to be fair, the percentage of choices had nothing to do with the game developers. They gave the players the choice of how they wanted to treat Warren, and the majority of players were hardcore shipping the Max/Chloe relationship. There is nothing stopping you the player from totally hooking up with Warren, and not doing so with Chloe.

Yeah, I know that, it's just...how can so many people not even give the guy a hug? It doesn't require you to be shipping Warren/Max to show SOME amount of compassion to the guy that stuck his face in front of hers that she so gladly took advantage of is all. Really just doesn't sit well with me. But I will have to somewhat disagree with you on not having to hook up with Chloe, there's some things in the last episode that some other people have talked about here that feels they sorta rewrote some things to make the relationship more than just "besties for life". Part of the problem with branching stories at the moment I suppose, there has to be at least be the structure of what the dev wants the canon to be holding up everything else.

Eh, this I think is just personal preference. I didn't have much issue with the ending. To me it seemed like the Universe was balancing the cost of Chloe's life with the death of the town. And after those lives were taken, the debt would be paid. This is the implied ending given how the storm ends, and everything is neutral, with animals acting normally again. My only issue was why was Chloe's life worth hundreds of others? The amount of cost/reward there seems extreme. So unless Chloe's going to like cure cancer, or end world hunger, or bring about true world peace or something, I don't really see why it's an even trade to let her live, but hundreds must die for it to happen.

Maybe, but there seemed to be some signs of imbalance still is all. But I will agree that Chloe's life is not worth that many of everyone else's. Maybe if they'd done some kind of "bullied outsider" story so they could justify it with "Chole's the only one worth saving", but they went out of their way to show Max being incredibly compassionate about everyone around her.

I dunno, I didn't really have a problem with the art direction. I kind of liked it overall. I think they didn't bother trying to go for hyper realism, and thus risk hitting Uncanny Valley territory, and just went for broad strokes of human features, with a watercolor pallette to soften up the textures. *shrugs* It worked for me just fine, but I can appreciate how it's not for everyone.

Eh, I thikn they sorta hit the Valley anyways, sorta hard to take things seriously when a face suddenly spazzes out in front of you or the multitudes of shots where they're looking down and people's hair is parallel with the ground and nothing holding it up that you can see. Then there's the lip sync that's off all over the place(just one of my things, can only watch so many bad dubs before it becomes one of those things you notice and judge quality with, a second or two off here, a mouth not opening enough to get an 'O' sound here with the generic accent there, etc.)

 

[happyninja42]

snip.

This is also sorta known as inconsistent writing, something I personally think LiS is full of when it comes to much other than their character motivations and relationships. But you've got your beliefs, I've got mine in regards to this. They could've at least not made it so blatant with "LET ME CAPTURE YOU IN A MOMENT OF DESPERATION". And just...so much of the logic surrounding Chloe for the town just...

Well, I think they were trying to be tricky with this, and here's why. I've watched several Let's Plays of this game, and I remember my first playthrough as well. During Jefferson's lecture, you're busy trying to figure out the mechanics. You're not paying attention to what he's actually saying, or at least most people aren't. I know I didn't. I was looking at my journal, looking in my purse, paying attention to what the game was prompting from that input in the form of Max's internal monologue, so I didn't actually hear Jefferson give away the clue. Others, who have put WAAAY more energy into breaking down the details of this game have sat and listened to his lecture just to see what he's saying, and noticed the early hint, but for most players, I would say it's not something they noticed. Personally, I thought this was pretty clever, as many stories will trick the audience by telling you what's happening directly, but presenting it in a way that is deceptive, and then you turn around and are like "Oh shit! It was there from the start!" I actually kind of like this, if it's done well. Personally I think they did it pretty well, as it tricked me, and most people that I've watched play the game. Sure not everyone was tricked by it, and that's fine, but I didn't really see it as a flaw in the storytelling, simply a particular type of storytelling that can be seen through if the audience is paying really close attention.

snip

Yeah, I know that, it's just...how can so many people not even give the guy a hug? It doesn't require you to be shipping Warren/Max to show SOME amount of compassion to the guy that stuck his face in front of hers that she so gladly took advantage of is all. Really just doesn't sit well with me. But I will have to somewhat disagree with you on not having to hook up with Chloe, there's some things in the last episode that some other people have talked about here that feels they sorta rewrote some things to make the relationship more than just "besties for life". Part of the problem with branching stories at the moment I suppose, there has to be at least be the structure of what the dev wants the canon to be holding up everything else.

*shrugs* A lot of people thought Warren was creepy, and way too obsessive of Max. To the point where they were repulsed by him. The "taking a photo of her and putting himself in the photo with her" was particularly creepy to a lot of people. I've literally seen horror movies where they used this plot device to establish to the audience that the person had an unhealthy obsession with the protagonist. And as someone who personally had a girl so infatuated with me that she made a little photo collage of me in highschool, in a kind of creepy way, I can understand this reaction to Warren. If I had to guess, the 30% of people who didn't even hug him, were probably the percentage of players who thought Warren was just as creepy and unstable as Nathan. I personally gave him a hug, but that's just me.

As to the comment about episode 5 rewriting things to have them be more definitively lovers, I can only comment by what others have said too. I personally took them down the lovers route by choice, but I have seen others say that they didn't kiss at the end of the Chloe ending. They specifically were confused why they didn't kiss, and it was basically explained that it was based on some of the choices you make over the course of the game. Not just kissing her in her room, but other things as well. So yes, you can "not hook up with Chloe", just most people probably did the things that would hook them up without realizing it.

snip

Maybe, but there seemed to be some signs of imbalance still is all. But I will agree that Chloe's life is not worth that many of everyone else's. Maybe if they'd done some kind of "bullied outsider" story so they could justify it with "Chole's the only one worth saving", but they went out of their way to show Max being incredibly compassionate about everyone around her.

I think we pretty much agree on this part. I don't have an issue with the idea of a cosmic/karmic tradeoff of lives (plenty of movies have used this story device), I just personally have an issue with the exchange rate presented, based on what we see Chloe do. If Chloe had been Kate, as far as just being a nice person who was shit on by everyone, then it would make more sense, but...still not really. I mean, personally I don't think anyone who isn't presented as being somehow cosmically Significant would be worth hundreds of lives. Of people just as good as, if not better than her in a lot of ways. I mean, KATE was one of the victims, that had to die to balance out the scales. KATE. I just, yeah, doesn't add up to me.

snip

Eh, I thikn they sorta hit the Valley anyways, sorta hard to take things seriously when a face suddenly spazzes out in front of you or the multitudes of shots where they're looking down and people's hair is parallel with the ground and nothing holding it up that you can see. Then there's the lip sync that's off all over the place(just one of my things, can only watch so many bad dubs before it becomes one of those things you notice and judge quality with, a second or two off here, a mouth not opening enough to get an 'O' sound here with the generic accent there, etc.)

That...yeah I never had any graphics issues. What you describe sounds like a straight up graphic glitch, and my game ran just fine, so I can't really comment on that problem, as I never had it. The lip syncing thing, yeah that was a major issue in the earlier episodes, though they did patch that several times to improve it across the entire game. And it is way better. I dunno, that didn't really bother me either.

 

[go-10]

I liked the last episode although I was left with far too many questions.
The whole thing took place over a week and I understood that this story was basically a story about saying good bye to a love one. Max herself says that she'll do anything for Chloe but in doing so she's altering/breaking reality. Because of this reality always finds a way to set things straight. So time after time Max tries to save her friend and time and again she keeps failing, but in the process she gets to spend time and grow as a person with the friend she would otherwise be forced to say good bye to without ever getting a chance to say hello again. In the end. much like in Donnie Darko, Max does was right and let's life happen the way it's intended to happen. She loses her friend but keeps all the pictures (her memories) with her. So she's able to say good bye to Chloe in the end... and in my game make out for whatever reason 0__0

still the episode itself had some cool moments, like the part where you get to go into Max's subconscious (the PT part) a lot of people always explain the subconscious mind as a never ending hall way with doors leading to different sections. I also liked seeing all of Max's fear personified, with Chloe being her biggest fear since... I guess she was in love with Chloe? The stealth section was shit though and finding the bottles again was really stupid.

Still I had some questions in the end like:
how did Max come to have her powers?
did she keep her powers in the end?
and was it just me or did it make more sense for her to sacrifice Arcadia Bay instead of Chloe?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I kept waiting for them to pull the rug out from under my feet. Thinking that MAYBE they would pull some last minute reveal or game changer that would bring some life into the dull, too-obvious ending that everyone saw coming.

Maybe, there would be some episode 1 callback/plot thread that would let Max both stop the storm and save Chloe. I mean obviously, they wouldn't have Max develop time powers only to be instantly punished for using them in any way. That's just bad story telling. Too many plot threads left hanging, the ghost deer/spirit, Nathan's family investing in storm bunkers and buying land for a new development, the fact that Max saw the storm before she saved Chloe.

They wouldn't just leave it at "Max got time powers to stop the storm caused by time powers" would they?

Yes, yes they would.

At least Tales from Borderlands had a good ending.

Maybe you can tell me this:

Spoiler

Was Rhys Handsome Jack?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I didn't like the overall structure of the episode as much as I liked the previous ones, but I have no problem with the ending choices. I never expected this game to have meaningful choices that would all come biting you in the ass in the end or helping you in some way. I knew that it was going to be about stopping the tornado somehow. And all of those interactions with other characters and choices you get to make do make a difference in the end. In the end you either care about them more than you care about Chloe or the other way around. I don't particularly care about one irrational angsty teen over hundreds of people, but some might. Take my sister for example. She didn't want to sacrifice Chloe.

But yeah, far too many questions remained unanswered. I don't know why. Did they even have an end-game plan or were they making it up as they went along? Did something change in the middle of development of one of the other episodes? I don't know. All in all, I'm glad that this game exists and that I played it. It isn't going to change anyone's life, but it is a nice and unique experience, even if it's not perfect. I'd like another season with new setting, new characters and new gameplay mechanics. If this could become something like True Detective of video game industry that would be neat.

 

[happyninja42]

I didn't like the overall structure of the episode as much as I liked the previous ones, but I have no problem with the ending choices. I never expected this game to have meaningful choices that would all come biting you in the ass in the end or helping you in some way. I knew that it was going to be about stopping the tornado somehow. And all of those interactions with other characters and choices you get to make do make a difference in the end. In the end you either care about them more than you care about Chloe or the other way around. I don't particularly care about one irrational angsty teen over hundreds of people, but some might. Take my sister for example. She didn't want to sacrifice Chloe.

But yeah, far too many questions remained unanswered. I don't know why. Did they even have an end-game plan or were they making it up as they went along? Did something change in the middle of development of one of the other episodes? I don't know. All in all, I'm glad that this game exists and that I played it. It isn't going to change anyone's life, but it is a nice and unique experience, even if it's not perfect. I'd like another season with new setting, new characters and new gameplay mechanics. If this could become something like True Detective of video game industry that would be neat.

I think they had it planned from the start. They make tons of references to inspirational source material early on in the game, in the form of personalized license plates for cars. Including Butterfly Effect and Donnie Darko. Along with several others. Because of that, I was already pretty prepared for the idea of either having to kill Chloe to fix time, or possibly die in her place to fix time.

So yeah, it felt like they knew where they were going, it just wasn't anywhere all that mysterious. I think most players figured out that particular plot element early on. But that's ok in my opinion. A game doesn't have to have a deep dark mystery for every element of the game. They had other things being mysterious, like what happened with Rachel, what happened to Kate, etc. So I was fine with it.