Life is Strange by Developer Dontnod

SpacePProtean wrote:

As a victim of police brutality, I was pretty patient with Daniel.

I’ve been there as well but that did not influence my stance.
Because, having completed the game, my criticism mainly addresses the wobbly narrative and paper thin characters. The game throws characters at you and expects you to care about them but barely gives you anything to latch onto before you have to move on to the next step. Additionally, you don’t feel like you get to actually make a difference. No matter how much I tried to give Daniel guidance, it never panned out until the final decision (and all of a sudden, his alignment shifted to Lawful). There were long discussion where the player wouldn’t get to interject, taking away any pretense of choice.
And I wasn’t a fan of the gratuitous female nudity in the third episode, it was random and unnecessary.

Was really disappointed by LiS2. Burning through characters fast was certainly part of it. Quite unlike the first game with mostly the same cast throughout.

I finally picked this up now that the bundle is out. My younger brother and I (who were and are really close) are roughly the same difference in age so I have admittedly already gotten a bit weepy and I've barely made it past the opening credits. Looking forward to the ride.

https://twitter.com/LifeIsStrange/st...

New Life is Strange coming. New cast/story.
Actually doesn't say if it is DontNod making it. Could be the LiS:BtS company (Deck Nine)

I still want Deck Nine to get another chance with the first games characters though. They did really well.

I really like the Anthology approach for a lot of reasons, the newest one being that I've been greatly enjoying the comic series that follows the events of the first game.

I really liked Before the Storm, and think Cloud Nine really hit on some great things in a few standout scenes...I also feel like the story got away from them when things escalate (I'd say unnecessarily) into one of the lesser Sons of Anarchy storylines. In part, I think that's because they only had 3 episodes to work with, so if the new one does turn out to be from them, I'd be curious to see what they do with 5.

I'm guessing this will be Xbox and WinPC exclusive?

Why would that be the case? Am I missing something?

Shadout wrote:

Why would that be the case? Am I missing something? :D

They recently did Tell Me Why, a Microsoft exclusive. Twin Mirror is more recent, however, not exclusive.

This has been on my playlist for a very long time but somehow I’ve also managed to stay away from what it’s actually about.

The True Colors announcement inspired me to install it on the PS5 and after 20 minutes or so I’m very intrigued. Would’ve kept playing except the kids wanted to watch.

It is a little chuggy and laggy though when moving the camera and walking. I’m hoping a system reboot sorts that out.

And finished TRUE COLOURS.

LOVED IT. It has flaws. The fact that they released it all in one go meant they removed the intro/outro montages from each episode which means they end and start rather abruptly, sometimes cutting off music cues flat, and I don't think the central mystery is *particulary* interesting (or has much in the way of story twists save for one very tenuous coincidence that I don't think is particularly necessary).

HOWEVER the characters are fantastic. As someone who tends to be affected/stressed out by other peoples emotions myself I don't think I've connected as much with a LiS protagonist as much as I have with Alex, and the new mocap facial animations were EXACTLY what this series needed. I am genuinely excited to go back and replay LiS1 when it's remaster comes out just because of those alone.

It also 100% convinces me that this series is at its best when set in a SINGLE location. The road trip, new characters each week, feel of LiS2 just did not work for me at all. But getting to hang around the same characters throughout TC was a delight .

And of course, Steph is a love interest for Alex so...11/10.

Glad to hear it is good.
Sadly wont play it right now, too many games at once. But it looks great.

pyxistyx wrote:

It also 100% convinces me that this series is at its best when set in a SINGLE location. The road trip, new characters each week, feel of LiS2 just did not work for me at all.

Yeah, strongly agreed there.

pyxistyx wrote:

The fact that they released it all in one go

I didn't know they did this. I figured I'd be waiting until next year so I could play it all at once. Don't think I've have a chance to play before November anyway but that's a welcome change for me. I have come to really dislike episodic releases (in all forms of media).

I definitely prefer it that way, but the execution feels a *little* off. It abruptly cuts between chapters & the choices screens and feels poorly paced. Even just a more gradual fade-out would have been better.

Not a massive downside compared to having to wait months between episodes, but definitely noticeable.

pyxistyx, did you get the version of the game that includes "Wavelengths," some additional thing where you play as Steph? It's only in the Deluxe or Ultimate version of the game, so as I am thinking about buying this I am torn about whether I need to pay extra to get the "complete" version of the game, or if this extra content is minor enough I shouldn't worry about. I'm probably going to wait for a price drop on this, but we'll see...

I did but the wavelength stuff isn't out until the end of the month so...no idea. It still just says "Buy" on the main menu but i assume that'll unlock once its released.

My gut feeling is that it's unlikely to be essential if they snipped it out as extra bonus DLC. Except to maybe flesh out Stephs character/background a bit more, but i don't think that was particularly lacking from the rest of the game.

I'm excited for the Steph content. She was one of my favorite side characters from the first LiS.

I’m into Ch 3. So far, everything I have seen/read about the game is true. But it fries like I’m bringing a bad mini series that would’ve lived on ABC Family if that still existed. (If it still lives somewhere, let me know). Or maybe the CW, I don’t know. But I am enjoying it.

It’s weird though, I’m coming at it s as someone who is mildly autistic (Asperger’s) and I have trouble reading social and emotional cues. I am still processing how I feel about playing a character who is so emotionally aware that she can mind read.

Its almost like I’m role playing a character where instead of my character having zero in a emotional sense, the GM misread and gave me 100.

And finished. I won't post much but I agree with Pyx, and it is definitely worth your time.

Spoiler:

Pyx, did you stay or go. I made a choice and I am conflicted...

On to Wavelengths.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

And finished. I won't post much but I agree with Pyx, and it is definitely worth your time.

Spoiler:

Pyx, did you stay or go. I made a choice and I am conflicted...

On to Wavelengths.

Spoiler:

I stayed! I feel pretty happy with that decision for the most part - perhaps with a little guilt that Steph kinda wanted to get back on the road, but I think the "flash forward" you get shows they have a pretty good life together so I was a-ok with that.

I stil need to get around to wavelengths, it's installed and I just need to get enough time to sit down and absorb it properly!

Finally got the game on sale yesterday. Cant wait.

pyxistyx wrote:
UpToIsomorphism wrote:

And finished. I won't post much but I agree with Pyx, and it is definitely worth your time.

Spoiler:

Pyx, did you stay or go. I made a choice and I am conflicted...

On to Wavelengths.

Spoiler:

I stayed! I feel pretty happy with that decision for the most part - perhaps with a little guilt that Steph kinda wanted to get back on the road, but I think the "flash forward" you get shows they have a pretty good life together so I was a-ok with that.

I stil need to get around to wavelengths, it's installed and I just need to get enough time to sit down and absorb it properly!

I did the same...

Spoiler:

I kinda felt like the character Alex would want to stay, but I can't imagine why Alex would want to live in the town where her (asshole) dad died, where her brother died, in the apartment above the restaurant both owned by the guy who shot her and left her for dead in an abandoned mine. The only reason I stayed was because Ethan, and because I had strong parental vibes for that kid. But other than that I can't imagine Alex saying anything other than f*ck you to this town she has been in for like a month filled with so much trauma for her. I may replay the last section and see how I feel about Alex and Steph gtfo-ing.

Finished Wavelengths. It was nice to play as Steph, and to see her grow into being a record store manager/local dj/fake psychic.

Spoiler:

Rolling D20 to determine fortunes is great.

I finally remembered True Colors came out, picked it up, I'm quite enjoying it despite some issues and probably unfair comparisons, but goddamn could Max and Chloe show these chuckleheads how an investigation is done.

And, completed. I've got a lot of thoughts I need to stew over, but I'll say I'm pleased to see that I feel Deck Nine are fine stewards of this, one of my most treasured series, though not kings.

Also, in the latest volume of the comic series, it is confirmed that despite

Spoiler:

being separated in different realities

Spoiler:

Max and Chloe

Spoiler:

do indeed see each other in their dreams

and I started bawling.

I picked this up as part of the Black Friday sales and am really loving it. I just completed Chapter 4. I'm so curious to read more about what everyone thinks when I've finished.

One overall point of confusion for me is where exactly Alex is coming from, how old she is, and what her plans were on coming to Haven. Some details of her background suggest to me she would be 18 (her seemingly coming to Haven straight out of foster care/a group home) while other aspects suggest to me that she's more like 23-24-25 (the fact that it's just sort of assumed she's going to get a job and stay in town rather than some further schooling, the apparent age of her possible love interests). Maybe this is just my own limited perspective on expectations of 18-22 year olds, I know not everyone goes to college and some people get real adult jobs right out of high school, and I definitely don't know what it's like to be a teenager in the foster care system, so maybe all of this would make sense if I had more context. But I suspect the answer is "don't worry about it too much," that all the 'young' characters are generally young enough that they're still finding their way in the world and all that, but old enough that we don't need to be concerned about the appropriateness of any of them hooking up with others of them or weirded out by them having full time jobs. And I am able to do that even if

Spoiler:

I was surprised when Ryan began to be painted as a potential love interest for Alex, as he read to me like early 30s while Alex definitely seems early 20s at oldest, definitely not criminal or anything but the kind of age gap I'd raise an eyebrow at a bit.

Re end of Chapter 4

Spoiler:

Boy, I *hate* how stupid Alex's plan was. She's not only got the goods on the evil company, she knows that the cop she's bringing this to has a crush on the person most responsible for her brother's death, and she knows that the cops and the town are at least somewhat compromised by this big business interest, so her plan is to...walk in the door with her only (??) copy of the damning evidence, admit she stole it, and just assume that it'll all work out? She should at least be smart enough to a)make backups (not 100% clear to me at this stage that she didn't, but she hasn't mentioned it, and strangely neither the cop nor the corporate demand asked about it, which seems like a screwup by everyone) and b)send the info to someone else. It seems to me that the obvious play is to anonymously send this to multiple reporters, make multiple backups, and if you're found as the source, say "yeah, I guess Diane must've dropped it, I just found an unlabeled USB drive on the floor and when I put it in my computer to figure out who it belong to, I was shocked to see the information contained on it. And weird, it wasn't password protected at all!" Also, as a lawyer, I signed that affidavit (that wasn't really an affidavit anyway) because it would never stand up in court in a million years for a ton of reasons, though I have concerns about whether the developers understand that that is true.

Re Jed's heel turn at the end of the chapter, I'll be curious to see how it ultimately carries through... It felt nicely done in the moment--as she was talking to him at the bar and Jed was saying "I need to bring you somewhere to show you something" I was like "gee, that sure sounds very murder-y...but we know Jed's a good dude, right?" So it was an effective surprise. And I think I can see some of the groundwork for it so that it will end up making sense. We'll see. (I am surprised the dossier on the board members seemed not especially confident of Jed's support, I suppose it's possible whoever put that together doesn't know about whatever Jed's secret history is though).

Anyway, like most of the games in this series(/genre?) I see a million nits to pick, but I think it's very effective on creating the kinds of emotions it wants me to feel. I'm really excited to finish it, but sad at the prospect of having to wait for whatever's next. I hope this has been successful enough that we'll see more!

Their age seemed quite off to me too, Alex seemed younger, and especially Ryan seemed a fair bit older . Supposedly Alex is 21, and the other three are 25.
I have no idea about US foster care system, but here the foster care support can be extended up to age 22, if it makes sense in a given situation. The person would have to agree to it, after they turn 18, of course.

SpacePProtean wrote:

I finally remembered True Colors came out, picked it up, I'm quite enjoying it despite some issues and probably unfair comparisons, but goddamn could Max and Chloe show these chuckleheads how an investigation is done.

Yeah, they are not exactly being smart in True Colors. Although, in LiS1, going to dig up a corpse, in the middle of the night, also isn't the brightest idea ever.
It is a bit easier to be smart when you can rewind time too.

Yeah, Riley is considering going to college which I would think makes her like 17-18-19, while Mac has a full time job as some sort of security supervisor at the mine, which I would guess makes him mid-20s at youngest, but it also seems like the two of them met in high school? I'm filing all this under "don't think about it too much."

Shadout wrote:

Yeah, they are not exactly being smart in True Colors. Although, in LiS1, going to dig up a corpse, in the middle of the night, also isn't the brightest idea ever.

I'd argue Alex's equivalent scene is waaaaaay less the brightest idea (also they are baited into that trap because they think Nathan is going to destroy the evidence, they actually uncover it in the afternoon).

The thing that stands out to me is that TC is gorgeous, and clearly a whole lot went into its production. That could come off as faint praise, but I mean it, I think it's actually sort of miraculous, because games like this aren't supposed to have that level of production, they're usually visual novels, a format I really struggle to get into. I've actually been having to unhype myself for the remastered versions of the original and BtS, because I'm assuming the redone animations won't be nearly as good as they are here.

But the first two were never far from my mind here. I think, and this is sort of a curious perspective, whatever analytics everyone had that said episodic releases weren't the way to go, it was still a mistake. The episode format obligated that each one be pretty robust, and some of the chapters in TC felt shockingly short (admittedly, I know I missed some stuff in the town party), largely built around a set piece. I wish they'd taken more time to deepen and expand. Like a lot of you, I was really in the dark on Alex's age--I spent most of my 20s working with "at risk youth," so when I hear "leaving a group home" at Alex's level of function, I think "18"--which I think is the result of a lot of smaller story moments not being there. It's a bit blunt when Max gets texts from her parents wishing her a happy 18th, but it works. Also, the interface on the texts was hard to see.

Anyway, just had to get that out, as the Community Game thread isn't the place for that sort of thing, so I wanted to purge some thoughts, as TC will, obviously, be on my list.

mrlogical wrote:

Yeah, Riley is considering going to college which I would think makes her like 17-18-19, while Mac has a full time job as some sort of security supervisor at the mine, which I would guess makes him mid-20s at youngest, but it also seems like the two of them met in high school? I'm filing all this under "don't think about it too much."

Seems like Riley is supposed to be 20, and Mac 23. But dont know if it is stated anywhere in-game.
I assume it isn't that rare to have somewhat older people start in college, even if it isn't the norm? Quite common here anyway.
People who realize they made a "wrong" choice earlier in their life, or considering the cost in US, people who wanted to save up a bit first? (just guessing...).

I think I recall this being mentioned in-game at least:

Riley met Mac in 2014 at a robotics competition. Riley was afraid he was a jock about to make fun of her, but he actually thought she was cool.

Anyway, no, probably shouldn't think too much about it

I just rolled credits a few minutes ago. I loved the experience overall. Really liked the characters and the town, thought it was really well acted, and mostly very well written. I was mostly satisfied with the ultimate outcome, including the way my choices over the course of the game influenced the ending scene. I particularly appreciated the way those results didn't feel game-able: without getting into spoilers, the same types of decisions caused some people to support me and some to not, and some things that in a lot of games I would have expected to come back to bite me just didn't because that's not what happened. I always like when events don't feel determined by video game logic but instead are a little more random because people are a little random. I think it helps that those results, while interesting, didn't feel like "winning" and "losing" so that an unpredictable outcome didn't make me feel like I'd been cheated. I just got a different story because I did a different thing. In spoiler terms

Spoiler:

Charlotte stood up for me, I believe because I didn't use my power to take her anger away. But Pike didn't stand up for me, and I suspect that he would have if I had used my power to remove his fear. And Eleanor stood up for me, too, but I suspect she might not have if I had told Riley about her possible health issues, a decision which I was surprised never led to some terrible consequence. I didn't tell Riley because I didn't think it was my place and wasn't certain Eleanor couldn't figure it out on her own by talking to doctors and relying on friends and all that, but I felt confident the game was going to have to bop me on the nose for that choice at some point, but it never did.

Anyway, I really liked that aspect of the ending!

The one thing I really hated about the ending though was:

Spoiler:

Alex and Gabe's dad was in the mine? AND she found his locket with their pictures basically just sitting out in the open? Seriously? This was just gilding the lily. Jed covered up deaths of miners that were his fault AND tried to kill Alex as a distant part of the cover up. That's enough to say he's a bad guy! Did he really need to be a secret Chen-terminator? Just too much, and unnecessary. And I'm confused about the revelation overall--I thought the town lore was very specifically related to me as "Jed saved everyone's life, didn't lose a single person!" So the idea is that not only was this secretly Jed's fault but he and the company and I guess all the other miners who survived just completely lied about the existence of the dead miners? Not a single one of them had family who knew they were in the town working at the mine and were never found again? And when Jed met Gabe, he was welcome to Gabe and gave him a place to stay instead of doing everything in his power to steer him off the trail? None of that makes sense to me and it was just so unnecessary. Boo. It didn't ruin it for me, but it was a bad misstep IMO.

Also I said I wasn't going to think much about it, but the end further showed some timeline wonkiness:

Spoiler:

Alex's psychiatrist office has a file on her that says she is 21 (true, it's like a hallucinatory psychiatrist office, but it'd be a weird thing to hallucinate wrong). The scene where Gabe and their dad fight and the dad abandons the kids is preceded by Ghost Gabe saying that Alex at this point is 11 and Gabe is 15. So in the present, it's 2019 and Alex is 21, and the day Alex's dad leaves Alex is 11, making it 2009. We're also told that Alex's dad dies in the mine accident, and the big plaque on the tunnel memorializes the mine accident as having happened in 2008. I'd imagine it may be close enough that there's a way to square the circle--maybe the scene with Alex as 11 takes place in 2008 after her 11th birthday, and in 2019 Alex is a month or two shy of turning 22?--but even that does require their dad leaving them and getting killed pretty damn quickly. It's all just a bit too much.

Two decisions I made that I was a little surprised I was in the minority on:

Spoiler:

--I decided Alex should leave town, and I was surprised that was like the ~45% choice. She's only been in Haven a few weeks, and it seems like a nice town, but it's also the town that killed her brother and her father, and her "job" that she'd apparently keep in staying there is an entry level waitress job at the restaurant owned by the man who attempted to murder her and was partly responsible for her father and brother's deaths. Doesn't seem great? There are some nice and supportive people in the town, too, but seriously, explore a bit, especially when your girlfriend already wanted to leave.
--I was even more surprised that I was on the side of less than 30% of people who did concluded their speech to Jed by condemning him rather than forgiving him. Of course "despite you being a huge piece of sh*t, I forgive you," is a noble sentiment, and I like the idea of a person being able to say that, but, I think a prerequisite for offering forgiveness is for someone to a)not currently be in the middle of trying to lie to everyone that they didn't do the thing and b)actually say they are sorry! "In spite of all this, I forgive you" is a nice thought, but it really did not fit the situation here. Maybe the problem was "I condemn you" was kind of a weird alternative. "Oooooh, no, don't condemn me!" I would've preferred another choice, but I could not choose to forgive the guy who killed my dad, covered up the death of my brother, tried to murder me, and was in the middle of nearly succeeding in convincing everyone that I was lying about all of it.

I'm excited to play Steph's story soon. Despite a bunch of quibbles, I really loved this. It's right up there with LIS1 for me. I hope they make another one of these. I would be totally up for another Alex game if they want to go there, though I suppose it creates the trouble of figuring out a canon ending.