Vasari

Life is Strange: Tween Peaks

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This has been coming up on the podcast lately so I figure we should have a thread to talk about it. Also I really like this game. I think it got passed over because the first episode didn't really stand out, but I'm really enjoying the story and as much as people complain about the dialogue being silly none of it has bothered me so far.

 

 

 

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This is almost an excellent thread title, and that's the only reason I'm posting in this thread. (I forgot that tweens are 9-13 year olds, which is younger than the teen protagonist.)

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This is almost an excellent thread title, and that's the only reason I'm posting in this thread. (I forgot that tweens are 9-13 year olds, which is younger than the teen protagonist.)

 

It's not entirely accurate, but I couldn't help myself with the pun. If it helps, think of it as a portmanteau of "teen" and "twee".

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I finished episode 2 and a very bad thing happened. I thought that I'd taken all the steps to see that it didn't because I'd listened to the spoilers in the most recent Thumbs episode. But I botched it and felt awful. I thought that the bad thing must be unavoidable, but the stats screen at the end revealed that I was in the minority of people (40%) who had the bad thing happen. :(

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I finished episode 2 and a very bad thing happened. I thought that I'd taken all the steps to see that it didn't because I'd listened to the spoilers in the most recent Thumbs episode. But I botched it and felt awful. I thought that the bad thing must be unavoidable, but the stats screen at the end revealed that I was in the minority of people (40%) who had the bad thing happen. :(

 

So, same thing happened to me, up to the point where I botched it, and as soon as I saw that I'd botched it I paused my game looking for a way out. The reload last checkpoint option took me back to the beginning of the scene and I did it all over again, correctly, triumphantly declaring "Screw you, I can rewind time all I want!"

 

This was a big thing for me because normally I'm very strongly in the camp of never reloading in similar games. Not only do I think that doing so would cheapen the experience of a Telltale or Quantic Dream game, I also think it's very much a barometer of the true quality of a choice-driven narrative game to live with your mistakes and hope that even an imperfect ending feels properly and personally cathartic to you because of them. However, I reloaded this time because the series of questions that led to

 included one or two correct answers that I considered too arbitrary. Specifically, the one relating to scripture (and interestingly, this one doesn't even necessarily appear, depending on previous answers) - I knew exactly what the meaning of the question was and what previous piece of (for lack of a better word) evidence it was invoking, but couldn't decipher the developer's thoughts and close the deal.

 

This is why I ended up disliking LA Noire - as much as I absolutely love dialogue as a gameplay mechanic and want people to explore every crevice of it, forever, I seemingly find it endlessly frustrating when it's turned into a right or wrong answer puzzle game where you're not talking to the NPC, you're trying to out-think what the game writer.

 

Anyway, I bet the only reason the majority of people avoided being angry tomatoes is by "cheating," like me.

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I actually stopped the Bad Thing first time around.

 

I had to answer the scripture question because I told Kate to wait for more proof before going to the police. I think I remembered which book to quote because my name is Matthew, so it stuck out when I read it. Looking back I guess it's easy to miss some critical steps in that chain. You have to intervene when David is harassing Kate, tell Kate to go to the police, answer the phone call from her, and remember which family member supported her. You have to remember the right piece of scripture if you miss one of those steps.

 

It's easy to miss one of those if you don't know you should be doing them, and it's especially easy to gloss over that final part. Like I said, I only remembered it because of my name.

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I played the first episode yesterday and this seems to be one of those games that I can point out a hundred different things I don't like about it but still come away having enjoyed it.

 

Rewinding time to undo a story-changing choice is dumb and undermines every decision I make, half of things people say are from the nineties and the other half will be dated within a year, there is far too much talking going on inside the main character's head (the visual cues are well done, the character doesn't need to explain everything I am seeing), every time I make a critical decision the main character comments on it and guilts me into changing my mind, the list just keeps on going... 

 

..But its still kind of compelling, the characters feel like actual human beings despite everything that comes out of their mouths, the off to the sides conversations can be really sweet even if all of the main story is really dumb and because of this I am still keen to hop into the second chapter.

 

Strange...

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There was an earlier topic on this game that stalled out.  I complained in there that the second episode was terrible (and it really, really is), but I've played the third and it might have won me back with more interesting character stuff.

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Just finished episode 2, and I can't shake the feeling that I'm not so much playing Max as the angel on Max's shoulder. There's little things, like the adventure-gamey way she'll say "No, I don't want to go that way" when you hit an area boundary and you're not supposed to leave, or the fact that it's labeled "Max's room" not "My room", but there's also the basic principle that unlike, say, a Bioware game, your choices aren't shaping the character's personality, you're just influencing events for her to react to. 

 

There's a lot of times that I'll want to say something quite reasonable and relevant (often telling people information gained from rewinds) and Max just doesn't give me the option to. Finally, the camera. In a game that's so much about photography, we're not allowed to take our own photos, all we can do is press X to capture nature's beauty at the few places where Max's whims permit it.

 

Did anyone else have this feeling? Do you think it's supposed to be intentional, or just a result of the limits of a narrative adventure game?

 

This is unrelated, but what the hell was up with the way Max took a photo of the deer, it didn't show up on film because it's a ghooooost, and then Max just didn't even notice?

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I played the first episode yesterday and this seems to be one of those games that I can point out a hundred different things I don't like about it but still come away having enjoyed it.

 

Rewinding time to undo a story-changing choice is dumb and undermines every decision I make, half of things people say are from the nineties and the other half will be dated within a year, there is far too much talking going on inside the main character's head (the visual cues are well done, the character doesn't need to explain everything I am seeing), every time I make a critical decision the main character comments on it and guilts me into changing my mind, the list just keeps on going... 

 

..But its still kind of compelling, the characters feel like actual human beings despite everything that comes out of their mouths, the off to the sides conversations can be really sweet even if all of the main story is really dumb and because of this I am still keen to hop into the second chapter.

 

Strange...

 

Picked it up on sale and had very similar feelings (though I don't mind the inner dialogue). Do ya'll remember in L.A. Noire how sometimes there were wild tonal shifts in Cole's interrogations? I've had a couple of moments where I feel that happened with Dana and Chloe conversations. Tangent: why did the butterfly picture mean anything to Chloe? She didn't peek around that corner, so I'm baffled as to why that was a revelation to her.

 

So far the time rewind isn't that interesting and sometimes confusing

for instance even though I stepped into Chloe's parents room, apparently I didn't leave evidence just b/c I let the bird die even though I still would've been on camera?

. Towards the end of the first episode, I kind of stepped away from using it and I might stick with using it only when the game makes me. A story about a young woman maneuvering through the social space between child and adult is a story worth telling, and I think the time stuff takes away from it.

 

All that said, excited to play the next episode.

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I wanted to write about my time with Life is Strange in the coop thread originally because I find it interesting how a friend and I play the game together, but I guess it fits in here as well.

We started out playing very competitively. We would fight over the controls and more often than not I would wrangle them away from him, which resulted in me choosing decisions he seemed disappointed by. So then we (well, probably mostly I) learned to talk out every decision before sticking to one. We like the choices we deem unpopular! And we hatched a plan to be the absolute worst to Chloe. Though, what that actually means, still necessitated a lot of discussion at times. :D

Playing Life is Strange together is surprisingly different than doing the same with Broken Age.

If I were to play the game alone, I don't think I would use the rewind mechanic much more than necessary. It has to be said, though, that it doesn't allow merely taking back choices, but also learning something that could have been useful if you knew it beforehand. Still, I learned to live with the choices I make over the years (and in the game), so I was kinda annoyed at first at all the times my friend wanted to rewind.

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There's a lot of times that I'll want to say something quite reasonable and relevant (often telling people information gained from rewinds) and Max just doesn't give me the option to. Finally, the camera. In a game that's so much about photography, we're not allowed to take our own photos, all we can do is press X to capture nature's beauty at the few places where Max's whims permit it.

 

Did anyone else have this feeling? Do you think it's supposed to be intentional, or just a result of the limits of a narrative adventure game?

 

I've noticed that in a couple of places. Most recently in Episode 4 there's a long conversation that you can rewind and do over again to try and get a better outcome, but I couldn't see how to have it end up the way I wanted to. Every path I took ended up the wrong way. Although it might be because of a choice I made earlier; I hate when the choices you make never have meaningful outcomes so maybe I'm finally getting what I wanted. And you're right, it's crazy that this of all games doesn't have a selfie function.

 

I got through Episode 4 last night and man, the tone really takes a turn. I mean there was already some dark stuff going on but they really get into it here, especially with the little Episode 5 tease. The one thing that's bothering me about the series is that the puzzle solving is getting pretty bare. The reason Dontnod made this game is because of how people responded to the memory sequences in Remember Me, so I was hoping they'd do more intricate puzzle environments like that. All that stuff has taken a back seat to the narrative, which to be fair I love and I already can't wait to see how it wraps up.

 

Also I took this screenshot of Daniel because his t-shirt is amazing.

 

post-34045-0-91935200-1438120553_thumb.jpg

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I loved Daniel's shirt! I was waiting for a close-up of it to take a screenshot of it but every time the camera got further in his knee blocked the "M'LADY."

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So Rachel Amber.

She vanished abruptly, left no note, didn't tell anyone including her best friend, and she's been gone for months with no leads.

Why does anyone think she's still alive? There is a bunch of dialogue in which characters speculate or wonder about her, but it seems to me that as a long-term-missing girl, she is 99% likely to be dead (at least based on the evidence and reasonable odds, this being a fictional story her chances are much better). I can't tell if the characters are unreasonably optimistic, or I'm unreasonably pessimistic, so Idle Forums: does it seem that way to you? 

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Chloe in particular just really wants her to be alive, I think. Most of the other people seem to be assuming she flaked and left town. But yeah, it's been pretty clear to me since episode 1 what the odds were of finding her alive and well.

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Aren't we sort of trained to expect that a character who's missing and presumed dead, and around which a mystery plot revolves, has pretty high odds of appearing in an unexpected twist ending?

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I finished playing Chapter 4, and I have a bunch of things to say. Some of them are complaining about the game's flaws, some are (I like to think) interesting analysis, and almost all are spoilery.
 
The party scene felt very stressful to me, and I find that surprising, because I know intellectually that between the combination of rewind and a linear narrative, I can't fuck up. If I failed, it wasn't going to be my fault, it would be a scripted unavoidable event, and yet I was still stressed out by the narrative stakes. I suppose if a linear narrative movie can make you feel stressed about its stakes, then there's no reason a linear narrative game can't, it's just never happened to me before (I generally think "games as movies" is garbage). Good job Dontnod.
 

I continue to observe the problem that you're playing an angel on Max's shoulder, not Max herself. When Alternate Chloe asked Max to let her die, I refused with the reasoning of "Forget the ethical dilemma, that would make Max legally a murderer and I don't want that". But you can't explain your reasoning, all you can do is tell Max yes or no, then Max fills in her motivation and reactions.
 
Fuck getting knocked out in cutscenes. That whole time I was saying to myself "You know he's coming here, stop staring at the ground like you're trying to get snuck up on!" I tried to rewind the instant we saw Rachel was still there, but of course, no rewinding in cutscenes.
 
The characters seem to selectively forget that Max can rewind. Remember in the junkyard in Chapter 1 or 2 when Chloe accidentally shoots herself and shouts "Rewind, rewind!"? In Chapter 4 Chloe can accidentally kill someone and then there's no mention of rewinding. I fully expected her to yell for Max to rewind, and then the game to put me into that automatic rewind state.
 
Rewind not working in cutscenes is really clumsy. When Chloe accidentally killed that dude, I immediately hit rewind, but it didn't work because there was another minute of cutscene to watch before I was allowed to go back. The fact that the game won't let you immediately rewind, and will in fact allow you to choose not to rewind at all, really doesn't fit with the way the game forces you to insta-rewind when it decides you've screwed up in a much less severe way (getting caught knocking over the sound system, waiting around for 20 seconds after setting off the alarm).
 
Only 5% of people chose not to warn Victoria about Nathan (and some of those players were ones whose warning she would refuse to listen to anyway), and I find that fascinating. Way more people will make the evil choice in a Bioshock or a KOTOR than in Life is Strange. I think that's because in most games, the evil choice amounts to burning down a puppy orphanage for no reason, it's so cartoonihsly evil that it's hard to take it seriously. In Life is Strange, you're actually doing a plausible evil deed with consequences that feel real, and 95% of people aren't comfortable with that.
 
Victoria didn't believe my warning about Nathan (15% of players weren't believed, 80% were), even though I was as friendly as possible in the conversation with her. I can only attribute this to the fact that I took a photo of her covered in paint way back in Act 1. That's great, I was a jerk to her, and now she won't believe me, I love my actions having actual consequences.
 
Extra double super spoilery thoughts in which I confidently make a prediction about a major plot detail of Act 5:

We're going to use Max's photo-travel power to rewind to the selfie Warren took with Max right before the party. While the scene was happening, I thought to myself "This scene seems pointless, I bet it exists to create that photo which will be relevant later". Technically the scene does serve to split up Chloe and Max, but that could have been done much more concisely if that was all the devs wanted.
 
I can't believe that they'd introduce the photo travel power and then never use it again, so going from the assumption that we're going to use it again, we're obviously going to use it to save Chloe, so we need to travel to a photo that was taken in chapter 4 or earlier, and I think the only photos we're guaranteed to have are the Warren photo, and the blue butterfly from the start of the game. The Warren photo seems like the obvious choice between the two.

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Finished ep 4 and the quality of the writing still wavers from bad to decent. I've tried not to use my rewind powers for little things because that makes narrative sense to me (I imagine if I suddenly gained a time-altering ability that coincided with sudden nose-bleeds, I'd probably stop using it all together). While I'm less averse to the time mechanic in the game at all, I still think it's not being utilized great. I'd like to see more focus on how everyday people are interested in using time travel for (confronting regret, redoing moments that make you cringe at yourself in hindsight, winning the lottery). Some of that stuff has been in the game for sure, but that all feels incidental to The Mystery.

 

light spoilers for one scene in ep 4.

 

I loved the scene in Chloe's bedroom where you have to put the clues together  on the board. It was refreshing as a mechanic because it felt so different from anything else in the series, and I liked the atmosphere of the scene. I'm not sure how many people found this, but you can turn on the radio and choose one of three songs. When it stops, you can get up from the board and choose a song again. It created a similar experience to when I'm working and listening to music that I enjoyed.

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