What do you think they could've done? Everyone rushing to your help depending on who you saved/pissed off? That would've been 10 times worse even if it made my choices "matter".
I'd rather have thematically appropriate endings that "override" my choices than a forced an ending which doesn't make sense.
The little continuity nods were about as much as they could do, given the framework.
I mean, I don't necessarily disagree, but there was this continuous weird interplay of the narrative stressing (to varying levels depending on how hard you looked) of being able to 'save Chloe', or heck, even other people.
And nosebleeds/near-death screen-jam from rewinding too far aside, there was, to me, always the possibility that you could keep saving everyone barring already-dead characters prior to max getting her power, such as Rachel or William.
It feels weird to me, to have that thematic element of Max as the 'Savior' keep coming up, only to get subverted/turned back at the end to a binary ending selection where zero choices you've made have any relevance, one way or the other.
Even if you sacrifice Chloe, all of your work, your relationships, etc....undone.
On some level, it's possibly a budget/limitation of the genre as it stands (Telltale has had this issue before as well) and just how far we can stretch a 'choice-based' narrative when having the players be 'in the driver's seat', even if it's more limited in scope compared to something like Mass Effect, due to the 'time travel' aspect.
Not saying I wanted the cavalry to come rushing in and overpower the time-storm with the power of friendship, but if you made an effort, and continuously tried, having the endings differ from the current binary either/or in its entirety.
