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Life Is Strange |OT| Rewinder Me

Ending question

Did Chloe flicker/get blurry for anyone else in the end cutscene or was it just a bug?

Not for me. I noticed multiple flickers in the skybox, many instances of overlapping dialogue, and two rewind bugs in my playthrough though. I feel this ep lacks a bit of polish
 

Khrae

Member
Just finished the episode, everything seemed to be wrapping up nice and neatly an episode early, then wow, they got me good there.
 

Purkake4

Banned
Not for me. I noticed multiple flickers in the skybox, many instances of overlapping dialogue, and two rewind bugs in my playthrough though. I feel this ep lacks a bit of polish
Ok, it was kind of like the doe, so I thought there might be some connection, it's much better as a thematic bug though.
 

Vuze

Member
Episode 3
plays out no different bar a few texts from her
Episode 4
has a unique 5 minute scene where you visit her in hospital if she is alive

Yes you can.
If you save her you'll get a few texts from her in ep3 and can visit her for a very heartwarming scene in ep4. It also changes a lot of the conversations you have with students around the campus. I don't think it makes much of a narrative difference in the story, but it actually changes quite a lot of the small details.
Wow, I see, thanks. Props to dontnod for pulling through.
 

Luigi87

Member
After Episode 4's ending, I will say

I am so glad that it was Mr. Jefferson I threw under the bus in the principal's office back in Episode 2.
 

Steamlord

Member
Interesting theory I found on Tumblr:

Okay, so what if Warren had the same powers as Max?

Warren befriends Max pretty much immediately when she arrives at Blackwell Academy as if making it sure from the start that nothing happens to her. Also, Dana and Brooke point out that he follows her around and he always seems to know where Max is and bumps into her all the time. For example in ep. 2 Warren can be seen from Max’s window halfway behind a building’s corner waiting for Max since they meet on the exact spot when Max walks out of the dorm building.

In episode 1 on the parking lot Warren tells Max about his car being made in 1978 and Max says that he’s ‘in the wrong time’ to which he replies that so is she. In the end of the episode Max gets a message from Warren with him referring himself as Max’s ‘white night’ with a pic of his black eye. Max answers that she’owes him one’ and Warren mentions about Max’s ‘big secret’ which she hasn’t told him yet.

In episode 2 while Max and Chloe are in the junkyard Warren texts Max that she can ‘hit him up anytime’ if she has more questions about time travel as if hinting her to tell him about the powers. Warren also refers himself as her ‘personal superhero’ and mention Chloe saving Max’s ass in ep. 1 seemed to make Max glad to see her appearing out of nowhere ‘like a rockstar’ - which he does himself in ep. 4 in the boy’s dorm’s.

In episode 3 Warren helps Max to built a bomb and later on asks if she blew up with it, but doesn’t really give any hints of the powers.

In episode 4 in the boy’s dorm scene he acts so differently, as if he knew what happens and has seen the result of Nathan’s actions - aka him shooting Max and Chloe. Before he rewinded to save them he heard gunshots outside his dorm room and then rushes there just to see Nathan with a gun and Max and Chloe laying on the ground, both dead. After he rewinds he even says ‘Max, I got this’ confident about what’s going to happen. He’s pissed off and doesn’t react on Nathan having a gun - like he knew all along that Nathan was carrying it plus he isn’t scared of it. Also he can predict Nathans movements and react to them instantly, kicking the gun off his hand without hesitation or surprise on his face and then beating him up furiously. So he might have rewinded again - and again, who knows. His shirt also changes during the scene along with Nathans face from blood stained to not blood stained - he rewinded and changed his possibly bloody shirt to another very similiar one to fool the others.

Before Max and Chloe enter the Vortex club party Warren appears and insist on taking a photo with Max - maybe to get back on that moment through the photo like Max did with Chloe’s dad’s photo. In that way he could save Max later on after he finds out who is behind all of it. He also says that it just might be the ‘end of the world’ and ‘One picture with you, that’s all I need’.

I dunno, the fight part seems like the only real compelling evidence for that theory; the rest is kind of reaching. The fight was weird though, as was the photo. If he does have the same power though, it would be kind of weird for him not to tell her. Regarding the car conversation, Max says herself that she is also in the wrong time, not Warren. She also tells him she has a big secret, so it makes sense he would ask about it.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Max even has the 'choice' of making things look undisturbed in previous episodes. Frank's keys, David's files, etc...

You know, this was the biggest offender.

In the garage, I took care to
rewind time so that the lockers remain undisturbed after I crowbarred them open. Not seeing the butterfly after I did that was just such a disappointment. I feel like Ep 1-3 taught us all these things and then Ep 4 decided not to use any of it.

If I had any say in this, I would
put real limitations on how often you could rewind. I actually thought this is what Frank's dialogue chain was supposed to be about, Max reaching the limits of her ability, but nope. I eventually brute forced it with copious amounts of rewinding.

I would've liked it if they showed the unreliability of her power by putting a cap on how often she could do it in each encounter proportional to how many paths it could take. Then we'd actually understand her reluctance to rely on it.

Another complaint is how
unaffected her "Look" narration was by her experiences. Right after I/she euthanized Chloe in the alternate timeline and returned to the real one, as I was examining things she sounded like she always did. I had the same complaint about the party. Max just sounded like her usual sardonic hipster self there as well.
 
I think Max's powers fritzing out
when Kate was going to commit suicide is enough reason for her to be hesitant about using it too much.

Additionally I don't like the idea of having a frequent limit on the time travel power. Kate's scene was made more powerful because it was a tool you relied on being taken away and the entire episode built to that point making sure that if you prepared properly, you had the tools necessary to navigate the dialogue trees to talk her back from the edge.

I don't think adding the anxiety of potential fail states to normal puzzle solving and conversation trees is how I'd want to play this game.
 

JonnyKong

Member
I can't wait to get this episode finished so I can finally reveal all these black boxes!

The scene where you're talking to
Frank
outside his trailer, took me so freaking long. I had to do that scene about three times before I picked the right dialogue. It always took me right to the start of the conversation everytime I picked the wrong choice and it took ages skipping through it all.

That niggle aside, I'm still loving it. Will hopefully finish it tomorrow night after work.
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
You know, this was the biggest offender.

In the garage, I took care to
rewind time so that the lockers remain undisturbed after I crowbarred them open. Not seeing the butterfly after I did that was just such a disappointment. I feel like Ep 1-3 taught us all these things and then Ep 4 decided not to use any of it.

If I had any say in this, I would
put real limitations on how often you could rewind. I actually thought this is what Frank's dialogue chain was supposed to be about, Max reaching the limits of her ability, but nope. I eventually brute forced it with copious amounts of rewinding.

This was super weird to me too, especially after the situation with Kate in episode 2. I mean, yeah, the situation isn't as 'urgent', but why is that one choice the only one that 'matters', when theoretically, what happens with
Frank
should be potentially equally important?

Obviously it isn't, given that how the Rachel situation turns out, but you don't know that ahead of time.

But it runs the risk of just blowing through responses, and being allowed to save-scum once you realize there's no consequence therein. It makes Kate feel like a weird outlier, or that Dontnod got some blowback for it.

I would've liked it if they showed the unreliability of her power by putting a cap on how often she could do it in each encounter proportional to how many paths it could take. Then we'd actually understand her reluctance to rely on it.[/SPOILER]

Another complaint is how
unaffected her "Look" narration was by her experiences. Right after I/she euthanized Chloe in the alternate timeline and returned to the real one, as I was examining things she sounded like she always did. I had the same complaint about the party. Max just sounded like her usual sardonic hipster self there as well.

Yeah, the former could work, but that divide has been there since day 1. Introducing it now would have been super weird. Plus, there's too much information given in side conversations and rewinds with new 'bits' of info that I don't think they'd be able to pull that off re: the intersection between urgency and frustration.

As for the latter, Max
returning to Chloe seemingly nonchalant, as well as apparently having made up with Chloe off-screen via text, which we saw none of, coming in after the emotional car scene, feels like it cheapens that scene a lot. It also introduces the question of how the paradoxes work with young Max Paradoxing herself out of existence via burning the picture of her and Chloe, yet Max still retaining memory of it?
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I don't think adding the anxiety of potential fail states to normal puzzle solving and conversation trees is how I'd want to play this game.

I get the feeling a lot of people don't and DONTNOD respects that, but I have to say if it isn't the right thing thing to do for the sake of the story.

For the most part, the time travel mechanic isn't really a puzzle at all. You are, in practice, brute forcing dialogues so you get the exact result you want. This game isn't about puzzles per se; it's actually you imposing your omniscient will on reality like you would a Bioware game using "save scumming".

And this is fine for the first two episodes because they were about Max coming to terms with her newfound power to change the world. Her tampering of time is also your tampering her time. Her experiments are your experiments, her discovery also yours. However, Episode 3 showed that her ability isn't perfect or omnipotent. Afterwards, she was no longer willing to toy with time to the same extent as she used to and the story reflected that.

But the mechanics didn't; the story and the mechanics diverged instead. I am a big proponent of storytelling through mechanics and all I can see is wasted potential here. They elected to separate the "game" from the "story" when they could've easily done both and achieved far greater heights than before. I'm sure it would've carried a real cost with their playerbase, but I don't know. I feel like it would've been worth it.

I like to think that in time, people would've come to appreciate how a game is able to convey negative emotions like anxiety and reluctance more viscerally than any other medium; to make the player experience the characters' own state of mind in a way that's impossible in other passive storytelling forms.
 

deoee

Member
Damn I can't stop thinking of the game after that episode.

It's really rare something lefts such an impact on me ._.
 

Nuke Soda

Member
5 hour download of the game saved for later, too hot for me to risk burning out my PS4 downloading anymore. Hopefully around midnight I will be playing this or at worst sometime tomorrow.
 
HA
I TOLD YOU ALL WARREN WAS A GODDAMN HERO

11822950_438275009688902_6356839828940485327_o.jpg
 

Sober

Member
I get the feeling a lot of people don't and DONTNOD respects that, but I have to say if it isn't the right thing thing to do for the sake of the story.

For the most part, the time travel mechanic isn't really a puzzle at all. You are, in practice, brute forcing dialogues so you get the exact result you want. This game isn't about puzzles per se; it's actually you imposing your omniscient will on reality like you would a Bioware game using "save scumming".

And this is fine for the first two episodes because they were about Max coming to terms with her newfound power to change the world. Her tampering of time is also your tampering her time. Her experiments are your experiments, her discovery also yours. However, Episode 3 showed that her ability isn't perfect or omnipotent. Afterwards, she was no longer willing to toy with time to the same extent as she used to and the story reflected that.

But the mechanics didn't; the story and the mechanics diverged instead. I am a big proponent of storytelling through mechanics and all I can see is wasted potential here. They elected to separate the "game" from the "story" when they could've easily done both and achieved far greater heights than before. I'm sure it would've carried a real cost with their playerbase, but I don't know. I feel like it would've been worth it.

I like to think that in time, people would've come to appreciate how a game is able to convey negative emotions like anxiety and reluctance more viscerally than any other medium; to make the player experience the characters' own state of mind in a way that's impossible in other passive storytelling forms.
Yeah, I agree. Like I posted earlier
it would've been straight up more interesting if Max just refused to reverse time short of imminent danger through this episode.
 

NoPiece

Member
One thing that bugged me is that
Max went along with Chloe's plan to hunt down Nathan at the party so readily. She suggested going to the police once, then seemed to be totally on board with Chloe. We had evidence, if we had gone to the police we could have avoided all that shit even if Nathan wasn't the main guy we were looking for after all. Shit still might have gone sideways, but it would make a lot more sense. I'm used to Chloe being irresponsible, but it seemed out of character for Max.

That's a good point.
They've been pretty good at keeping characters consistent, and not cheating to force plot. But given Max is highly motivated to protect Chloe, there is no way Max goes along with Chloe's plan (esp. since Chloe has a gun). How does that end well for anyone? The best case is Max murders Nathan?
 

Macadinho

Banned
I never knew how big this game's fandom is, especially on Tumblr, most of the cute/artsy things have 1000's of reposts/likes. Seems to really have gathered a cult following, similar to old 90's shows like Freaks & Geeks and Twin Peaks. Might get my girlfriend to sit down and check out this game, it'd be something I think she'd like.

Anyone else have friends/partners that usually aren't into gaming but tried this experiences?
 

Sober

Member
I never knew how big this game's fandom is, especially on Tumblr, most of the cute/artsy things have 1000's of reposts/likes. Seems to really have gathered a cult following, similar to old 90's shows like Freaks & Geeks and Twin Peaks. Might get my girlfriend to sit down and check out this game, it'd be something I think she'd like.

Anyone else have friends/partners that usually aren't into gaming but tried this experiences?
The playable character is a twee, teenaged adult, fairly shut in nerdy girl. What did you think was going to happen?
 

Sera O

Banned
Seeing the crazy reaction to the new episode makes me want to wait another month to play the latest episode so I don't have to wait the full 2 months or more for the follow-up... damn. It's great to know it's so well received, though!
 

Macadinho

Banned
I actually agree with this.

Alt Chloe still seemed like Chloe and not some massively different person, but grown up. I really liked that version of her.

I dunno,
like if you're involved in such a life changing accident you're kind of forced to grow up, I know Reg Chloe is probably a bit too much of an anarchist, but she's a teenager. I can kinda relate when I went through that stage after a family member died. It's probably just her natural progression on the way for her growing up. Alt Chloe basically misses out on all that.
 
I get the feeling a lot of people don't and DONTNOD respects that, but I have to say if it isn't the right thing thing to do for the sake of the story.

For the most part, the time travel mechanic isn't really a puzzle at all. You are, in practice, brute forcing dialogues so you get the exact result you want. This game isn't about puzzles per se; it's actually you imposing your omniscient will on reality like you would a Bioware game using "save scumming".

And this is fine for the first two episodes because they were about Max coming to terms with her newfound power to change the world. Her tampering of time is also your tampering her time. Her experiments are your experiments, her discovery also yours. However, Episode 3 showed that her ability isn't perfect or omnipotent. Afterwards, she was no longer willing to toy with time to the same extent as she used to and the story reflected that.

But the mechanics didn't; the story and the mechanics diverged instead. I am a big proponent of storytelling through mechanics and all I can see is wasted potential here. They elected to separate the "game" from the "story" when they could've easily done both and achieved far greater heights than before. I'm sure it would've carried a real cost with their playerbase, but I don't know. I feel like it would've been worth it.

I like to think that in time, people would've come to appreciate how a game is able to convey negative emotions like anxiety and reluctance more viscerally than any other medium; to make the player experience the characters' own state of mind in a way that's impossible in other passive storytelling forms.
I don't think we know enough about the limitations of Max's powers to assume that she should be limited normally. If her time travel powers were more well defined and the game continually violated them, then I'd agree for the most part it would break my immersion. As it stands though, I don't think we can assume her powers are limited in such a way and her protestations that she's not going to use them so much are reflected within the narrative by her not using it for frivolous things like target practice.
 
Um I think I hit a bug. I
stole David's keys but he caught me. Then I rewound time but I can't go back any farther and I'm still stuck in caught mode. What do I do?
edit: I just reset the checkpoint. That's dumb.
 
The Vortex Party was amazing. The atmosphere, the music, lightning, sound direction, the voice acting trying to cover the loud music... Everyone getting on Max's side, Max being " intense "
 
Was not expecting anything that happened this episode. Wow.

The reveal of the dark room in the barn along with all of the pictures was really disturbing. I didn't really think Rachael was going to be dead either. I let Warren beat the crap out Nathan. Anyway, I think that picture he took with Max is the key to rewind and try to stop the hipster teacher from doing any harm to anyone.

Man, Chloe can't seem to stay alive :(
 

danm999

Member
The Vortex Party was amazing. The atmosphere, the music, lightning, sound direction, the voice acting trying to cover the loud music... Everyone getting on Max's side, Max being " intense "

Yeah the voice acting was a nice touch where characters are just sort of shouting at each other to communicate. A lot of games just dull the background music and play normal voices.
 
That was a really scary episode. I did not expect them to go this route. Really dark.

Also the first choice in the ep is probably the most interesting moral choice a game has ever asked me to make. I've always thought
patients like that should have the right to ask someone to "pull the plug", but when faced with a real situation like that I just couldn't do it. I kept thinking about Joyce and William.

However it looks like the choice won't matter anyway.
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
Mid episode 4 spoilers, involves (not really a spoiler to mention a character but I'll put it here anyway)
Frank

Is there anyway I can get his list without hurting him? Best I can do is a knife wound or gunshot to the leg
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
Mid episode 4 spoilers, involves (not really a spoiler to mention a character but I'll put it here anyway)
Frank

Is there anyway I can get his list without hurting him? Best I can do is a knife wound or gunshot to the leg

Don't
Let on that you went into his RV. If you talked to him about his dog-saving tendencies in episode 3, bring that up, as well as being interested in helping find Rachel.

Giving him the money helps, though supposedly not necessary

Dunno how much harder it is if you let on you were in the RV, killed the dog, or actually shot at him
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
Don't
Let on that you went into his RV. If you talked to him about his dog-saving tendencies in episode 3, bring that up, as well as being interested in helping find Rachel.

Giving him the money helps, though supposedly not necessary

Dunno how much harder it is if you let on you were in the RV, killed the dog, or actually shot at him

Aha, just got it
 

Khrae

Member
What do you do to get the padlock in the barn open? Been stuck on this for a while.

Have a look around for a bit 1st, and if you're still stuck, well...

Tie the rope on the nearby pillar to the lock, climb up the platform nearby, pull down the engine, climb up, reverse time to bring the engine back up, attach the 2nd rope to the engine - push off platform
 

Steamlord

Member
That was a really scary episode. I did not expect them to go this route. Really dark.

Also the first choice in the ep is probably the most interesting moral choice a game has ever asked me to make. I've always thought
patients like that should have the right to ask someone to "pull the plug", but when faced with a real situation like that I just couldn't do it. I kept thinking about Joyce and William.

However it looks like the choice won't matter anyway.

Yeah, it was tough. I sympathized with her request, but I was also thinking of the consequences for Max, even though I knew she was going to return to the original timeline at that point. For one thing, she has to live with directly causing her best friend's death, even if it is inevitable, and second, there's no way Joyce and William wouldn't take some kind of action against her if they found out. Yes, Chloe is an adult, but she's still living with and being cared for by her parents, and it really didn't feel right to make that decision under those circumstances. And, as I said before, I try to avoid causing any deaths if I can help it. Seems like a reasonable policy to me.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I don't think we know enough about the limitations of Max's powers to assume that she should be limited normally. If her time travel powers were more well defined and the game continually violated them, then I'd agree for the most part it would break my immersion. As it stands though, I don't think we can assume her powers are limited in such a way and her protestations that she's not going to use them so much are reflected within the narrative by her not using it for frivolous things like target practice.
I don't care if her powers are limited in actuality or not. The logic and mechanics of the power don 't interest me at all.

The problem is that
they didn't properly convey her fear of relying on her power. A fear that should be very real given the events of Ep 3, and was repeatedly brought up again in Ep 4. I never actually felt like her power was unreliable, even if DONTNOD was trying to convince me other wise. This is one of the issues. The other is that her power disappeared at weird places.

1) You cannot avoid the confrontation with Nathan. No matter how much time you rewind, Nathan magically teleports to confront you the moment you meet up with Chloe. No explanation is given for why this is, no acknowledgement by the game. It's like DONTNOD just assumed that no one would possibly want to avoid Nathan entirely so they just didn't bother exploring this option. The other explanation is that they wanted this to happen under any circumstance, but that still shouldn't stop them from letting you try.

2) You cannot teleport the notebook out of Frank's pocket. Chloe always runs away with it. I can forgive this because they wanted to explore such and such scenes but, once again, they don't even acknowledge that you might want to actually use your teleport power.

3) You cannot cover your tracks in the barn. This is the biggest offender. I even figured out a way to both acknowledge your time power as well as force you to leave a trail. All they had to do was make it so that the moment Max shares the information on Rachel with Chloe, she flips out and forces Max to open the celler again. This would open up a lot of avenues for character development, allow the player to express their agency, and let them take the story exactly the way they want it to.

Where does she use her powers instead?

To talk to Victoria (if you needed it, I didn't so I never rewound). To teleport past some obstacle. To save Alyssa some embarrassment, again. To tell Daniel to go to a party. To put that green thing back on the topmost platform.

I mean, her priorities clearly are not in order here, right? She uses the time travel powers for mundane things like talking to people, but its strangely absent whenever she's putting herself at risk while investigating a serial assault/murder conspiracy.

Mid episode 4 spoilers, involves (not really a spoiler to mention a character but I'll put it here anyway)
Frank

Is there anyway I can get his list without hurting him? Best I can do is a knife wound or gunshot to the leg

Yes.

You'll need to say the right things to him like you did Kate.
Can someone spoiler tag the first choice of ep4 that everyone's talking about?

The euthanasia.
 

KingBroly

Banned
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTT!!!!!!!!???????

Chloe ;_;

Can I has episode 5 now?
 
Had to go for a run with the soundtrack after that episode.
To Xbox One players, are your achievements unlocking? I have been going back to collect all the photographs from multiple episodes but nothing is popping and I got nada for completing Episode 4. I'm not sure if this is due to the recent patch or not, I have been playing since January and up until now I have had no issues.
 
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