I saved everyone because I didn't know if things would play out perfectly with the photos and had no idea where I'd end up. Might as well help where I can along the way. I couldn't imagine trudging through seeing everyone dying and then have the game be like "haha it didn't happen" or something.
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Life is Strange | Spoiler Thread
- Thread starter Dr. Buni
- Start date
I saved everyone because I didn't know if things would play out perfectly with the photos and had no idea where I'd end up. Might as well help where I can along the way. I couldn't imagine trudging through seeing everyone dying and then have the game be like "haha it didn't happen" or something.
Though I kept things purely platonic outside of the "go ape" crap (which I perceived to just be Max accepting a fun outing and not an actual "date"), and I still got that option. Those who didn't get it probably missed stuff like helping Warren on his science project, giving him an A+ instead of an A-, not letting him beat the crap out of Nathan... that kind of stuff.
Or just play the last scene in collectible mode.
Vampire On Titus
Member
Pointless in what sense? The choices clearly weren't pointless for Max's character development.
Yup, just Arcadia Bay.
Only Arcadia Bay? lol. your friends, family and pretty much everyone you love or care about lives there.
Not my point.
Max's family all live outside of Arcadia Bay, don't they?
Then what is your point?
Do they? honestly i can't remember anymore thanks to this episodic bullshit.
Deserted Maniac Island
Member
I feel the "Sacrifice Chloe" ending is powerful, because it negates everything you've done. In a lot of time travel movies, the time travel is the solution to the problem, but in this ending the solution is letting things happen like they were supposed to. To me, the whole game is based on the mechanic of time travel, and to negate that, when the solution is not time travel (Although you use time travel to undo all the time traveling that you've done...), it's very risky, and it payed off. In story telling, I feel, taking something away is a very great device.
Dombrowski
is responsible for the well-being of this island.
I mean, if they didn't, don't you think we would have had a scene where Max meets up with a relative? Arcadia Bay is a very small town.
That I thought the entire world was going to be destroyed by time and space being screwed up? I mean, an eclipse out of nowhere is a cataclysmic solar system event. I never thought for a second that the only consequences would be a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Every instinct I had told me the world was at stake.
Until 5, when it was just Arcadia Bay.
Huh. Well, there you go.
The eclipse might as well have been an illusion, considering we also got two moons in the sky at one point. Just because you see something happen doesn't mean it happened when time fuckery is concerned. Especially after Episode 5.
Vampire On Titus
Member
Man I'm listening to Obstacles for like the 10th time since I finished the game.
No lies detected.
fluffydelusions
Member
Seattle right?
yea, they all live in Seattle.
Except there were people from NASA commenting on it, saying "we have no idea what happened to cause this." It wasn't localized.
But everyone saw it happening and the newspaper (or something else) I looked at with Max had a news report on how everyone was talking about it, but no footage or picture of it surfaced. That was real weird to me. You'd think someone would have immediately taken a picture of it. Wasn't too into that being handwaved.
Huh, I forgot. Good point.
Well, there was also the Rush Limbaugh guy talking about the "apocalyptic weather" in Episode 5. Maybe everyone can see the cosmic shit happening, but the weather is only affecting Arcadia Bay?
Well this was easily the worst episode for me. I enjoyed psycho Jefferson and the ruined city, but the nightmare dragged on and became annoying to play through. And in the end you just choose one of two unsatisfactory endings, so much for your previous choices. We never even learn why Max received her power, since evidently the only way to save the town is to never fucking use it in the first place!
The San Francisco bit felt like sloppy writing - why does Max suddenly decide to submit her photo after escaping the Dark Room the first time?
Overall still a good game, but this was disappointing.
The San Francisco bit felt like sloppy writing - why does Max suddenly decide to submit her photo after escaping the Dark Room the first time?
Overall still a good game, but this was disappointing.
Are you confused or am I? I'm pretty sure she ends up in San Francisco in the timeline where she jumps back to the classroom and acts like a total asshole towards Jefferson, and gives him her contest photo immediately when he asks for it.
Unless you just mean why she gave her photo during that scene? I dunno, just seemed like another standoffish move against him to me.
Finished it today. I don't think that the ending made any sense for several reasons, though.
So yeah, the ending is kinda disappointing IMO. I think they would've been better off to keep the story on a smaller scale.
Oh well. It was still a good game, all in all, and I hope to see more from Dontnod. They should just hire better writers in the future.
I mean, if we choose Arcadia Bay over Chloe, we go back in time, let Chloe die and everything unravels the way that it "should have" and the result is that there's no storm. However, this implies that the storm was caused not by the action of time travelling itself but by something that one of the characters did as a result of Chloe not dying which is just completely illogical. The only semi-possible explanation for what caused the storms would be that the action of travelling through and rewinding time itself somehow caused a disruption of the space-time continuum or whatever. And going back int time to let Chloe die would not change that at all. Max would've still gone through time and created all those alternate realities.
Furthermore, after the one situation in which she forced herself not to use her power to save Chloe, Max would've gone back to not remembering any of the stuff that happened in the "future" (It's impossible for her to remember that stuff because when Max went back to the scene before the Vortex party to convince Chloe that they shouldn't go after Nathan, she tells Chloe that she won't remember anything later and that Chloe will have to explain it to her, implying that Max does not permanently keep her "future"/alternate memories when travelling far back. Also, if Max did remember that stuff then she'd act completely differently (even with Chloe dying) which would, again change the course of events which beats the entire purpose of going back and letting Chloe die in the first place .) so if she didn't remember any of that stuff she would not have remembered that she's not supposed to use her power but she would've probably still had her power - she would've just discovered it at a different point and then used it. Also, it's heavily implied that Max did remember the stuff from the alternate reality at Chloe's funeral which doesn't make any sense.
Furthermore, after the one situation in which she forced herself not to use her power to save Chloe, Max would've gone back to not remembering any of the stuff that happened in the "future" (It's impossible for her to remember that stuff because when Max went back to the scene before the Vortex party to convince Chloe that they shouldn't go after Nathan, she tells Chloe that she won't remember anything later and that Chloe will have to explain it to her, implying that Max does not permanently keep her "future"/alternate memories when travelling far back. Also, if Max did remember that stuff then she'd act completely differently (even with Chloe dying) which would, again change the course of events which beats the entire purpose of going back and letting Chloe die in the first place .) so if she didn't remember any of that stuff she would not have remembered that she's not supposed to use her power but she would've probably still had her power - she would've just discovered it at a different point and then used it. Also, it's heavily implied that Max did remember the stuff from the alternate reality at Chloe's funeral which doesn't make any sense.
Just the murder mystery around Rachel would've been interesting enough without any of the tornado stuff which, ultimately, felt a little forced and overdramatic.
She ends up there because she immediately outs Jefferson to the authorities day one, and then takes part in the contest and wins.
Double Donut
Member
...did anyone ever think the storm was the end of the whole world..? You're the only person I've ever seen say this.
I thought it was pretty clear that Arcadia Bay was the sole victim of the storm and all the time travel.
...but now that you mention it, why would Arcadia Bay be the only victim of all the time travel? Did every other city in the world just not see two moons? Was the second only visible through Arcadia Bay?
So many questions.
Huh? I'm looking at the playthrough again and what I said seems to be accurate: https://youtu.be/iMp4CgdBmEo?t=31m20s
Unless you were addressing a point I wasn't.
But now, with the knowledge that she loses her memories after these jumps, I'm confused why she remembered everything about Jefferson after that time bubble.
Yeah it just seemed a bit sloppy that in the timeline where she outs Jefferson on day one, she randomly decides to take part in the competition after all (to spite Jefferson), which sets up the next twist. Would have been more plausible if she had just submitted the photo in Episode 1.
JEFFERSON KILLED CHLOE
Manny Calavera
Member
Just watched my wife play the episode today and she also took sacrifice Chloe ending after thinking for a while. It was just as hard to watch and heartbreaking as the first time. After that I took the collectible mode and decided to save Chloe. It does make my happy, but the ending itself is not as well made starting with the song selection (Obstacles is great, but the Spanish Sahara just fits perfectly) or effective. Well anyway I needed to see that after seeing the sad ending twice. I'll probably soon play the episode again myself and save Chloe again.
I think the last episode is great but I kinda wish it would have more of those quieter moments that make the game special. I especially missed all those moments with Chloe.Well it did have enough strong moments to make up for it and this is one experience that will stay with me for a very long time.
I think the last episode is great but I kinda wish it would have more of those quieter moments that make the game special. I especially missed all those moments with Chloe.Well it did have enough strong moments to make up for it and this is one experience that will stay with me for a very long time.
I thought it was a storm generated by some kind of rift in time, and that the tornado wasn't like anything we'd seen, that it'd possibly keep growing and growing, or that other catastrophes would be occurring elsewhere.
And birds dropping out of the sky everywhere? Sudden cosmic events that defy the laws of physics on a solar scale?
I dunno. Maybe I'm just too used to other stories where extremely ominous spacetime crises end the world.
Yes, this is what the game implies. And it doesn't need to be any more logical since it's time travel. If you can accept time travel as a thing, then you should be able to accept time travel irreversibly altering the world.
Or not. The tornado seems to have been created by letting Chloe live beyond the time she was supposed to die in the original timeline. Going back to it and letting Chloe die stops it from happening.
See how the beached whales and shit were happening even during the timeline where Chloe was crippled. Maybe when you put her out of her misery the tornado stopped there too (if you mercy killed her.) Who knows? We didn't stay there much longer.
Max can remember anything she sees firsthand. When she tells Chloe to fill her out in the future, is because she won't remember anything between leaving Chloe and returning to the present. She does remember everything she did in the flashback though.
. Of course, it makes sense to "use" spoilers in spoiler threads There is actually two Maxes per timeline. The one that does things according to whatever Max does, the other who is a Max that's visiting the timeline (as time traveler)
When she jumps into the alternate reality, she isn't Max from that reality, she is Max from the beginning of the game. This is why she doesn't suddenly "update" with that reality's Max's memories. Every time she winds up in an alternate time line due to photo jumping, she needs to reorient, and while they never show it, I'm sure there are actually gaps in her knowledge.
I wonder if any of the other Max's even have time traveling powers. It's perfectly possible that there is only ever one Max in all of spacetime who's capable of it, and she's the only one hopping around timelines messing them up.
Or perhaps instead of the many-worlds theory there is only one timeline Max is manipulating over and over again, leading to the disaster. There's also a Max who runs on "auto pilot".
When she jumps into the alternate reality, she isn't Max from that reality, she is Max from the beginning of the game. This is why she doesn't suddenly "update" with that reality's Max's memories. Every time she winds up in an alternate time line due to photo jumping, she needs to reorient, and while they never show it, I'm sure there are actually gaps in her knowledge.
I wonder if any of the other Max's even have time traveling powers. It's perfectly possible that there is only ever one Max in all of spacetime who's capable of it, and she's the only one hopping around timelines messing them up.
Or perhaps instead of the many-worlds theory there is only one timeline Max is manipulating over and over again, leading to the disaster. There's also a Max who runs on "auto pilot".
Also, those nosebleeds ultimately never amounted to anything. I was expecting Max to sacrifice herself (well probably not outright die, but suffer some kind of permanent damage) due to performing some really advanced time manipulation to stop the storm. Come to think of it, she never learnt any new tricks after episode 3.
And she never really lost her powers again, either. Except when the plot absolutely required it for episode 4's ending. But it wasn't for the sake of gameplay, you know?
She did learn that she can destroy any location she wants to in the period of a week presumably by just reversing time a few times, creating a giant crazy storm.
That's a pretty cool power.
Hyrule Warrior
Member
Well even though I said fuck Arcadia, and saved Chloe, I guess the storm happened because Chloe was meant to die in that moment with Nathan, and that was the real cause of the storm. Not the actual act of time manipulation. Which...yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about that. I think it's an aspect of the story I actually would want removed.
I mean, there was no tornado that happened within a week of saving William's life in episode 3. Wouldn't he too have been "meant to die" in that point in time, yet it didn't cause any catastrophic event in the week after his destiny was change. Yet saving Chloe in that one instant seemed to cause everything to go to shit in a week?
Yeah...that's probably one part of the story I would've been happy without.
I can totally accept the storm happening because someone used time travel but that's obviously not the case in the game, as I've pointed out. As you say yourself, somehow, Chloe not dying is what causes the storms, regardless of whether Max travels through time or not.
Exactly and that simply doesn't make any sense. I know, it's just a game and it's a game with time travel but when you include something like time travel in your story there at least needs to be some sort of consistent logic behind it in order to stay believable and I'm not seeing that here.
You're right, that at least solves the funeral conundrum. However, it still does not solve the problem that Max would not have known not to use her power in between Chloe dying and Max returning to the "present"/"future". Which again leads us back to the storm not being caused by Max using her powers which, again, doesn't make any sense. At least to me it doesn't. Why would Chloe's survival somehow cause a tornado? Why not the death/survival of any of the other people which Max can cause/prevent using her time travel power? Kate, Frank, Jefferson, Nathan, Victoria,...
Yeah, exactly.
fluffydelusions
Member
I feel sad. Help me post game depression.
I want a full open world game set in Arcadia Bay. I want to play as Max again but a different game with no time travels, just a mystery adventure game.
I mean you could travel to real life location it was inspired by? Tillamook Bay, Oregon
Who knows. Maybe Max was right and that the time travel isn't her power at all, but a power impressed upon her by Chloe.
Yeah, not too happy about it myself from a making sense standpoint. I understand it emotionally.
Yeah, there was a debate about this earlier in the thread and I'm on the side that the storm is due to Chloe surviving, and not necessarily the act of time manipulation itself.
But that means, by my interpretation, that shit will continue to get fucked around Chloe and Max while she continues to live, so Max will have to perpetually protect Chloe by manipulating time, and Chloe will always be put in circumstances of grave danger that Max needs to stop. I prefer to think about it like that for the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" ending.
It is in that part yes... didn't know the kiss choice was optional.