Life is Strange

It's not so much I don't think people were upset the game had male leads so much as the fact that the fans really wanted more Chloe, Max, and maybe even Rachel. If you get a sequel, you really are probably invested in the cast and characters.

The choice to go with new cast, new location, and so on was always going to be controversial. The female-ness heavy narrative of the first game (and I mean that in literally it deals with a lot of girls issues) is part of the storyline' appeal.

I think for a lot of people we also get similar things when there's a dramatic change to any game's leader.

Look at Solid Snake and Raiden.

Yeah, that's a reasonable point. I forget what the temperature of this place was regarding the new protagonists, but I felt, and still feel, that Max and Chloe's story was done, there was nothing more to tell. We got more Chloe and Rachel in Before the Storm, and there's a sequel comic which I have no interest in because, as I said, I don't think we need more of them.

But yeah, I think having new protagonists is fine, and preferable to me in this case.

While true, I still would have bought more.

Both a sequel (investigating the dad and storms) and a prequel (chronicling how Rachel and Chloe broke up)

A new cast is better since it would allow whatever coin flip ending you picked last season to stand without invalidation. That's the reason there's a comic of the "Save Chloe" ending instead of a game. Before the Storm, also wasn't very good so I'm happy the prequel idea was scratched and gotten out of the way.

I do agree with the length between new episodes and the lack of an actual plot being problems. I stopped paying any real attention to new releases because there wasn't anything to entice me.

My problem with LiS 2 is there's a lack of mystery, which LiS 1 and even Before the Storm had in spades.

I've talked about this before, and again it depends on how you played Before the Storm, but I don't recall it ever being specifically said in Life Is Strange that Chloe and Rachel were together. Chloe loved Rachel, for sure, but I got the sense that Rachel didn't know and didn't feel the same.

Yeah, having one ending become canon would have been problematic, especially since some people were mad enough about the endings anyway. That said, and despite what I said earlier, a sequel where Max flips between the alternate timelines might have been worth exploring (though likely would have ended with the same choice again, or with one or the other becoming canon).

I didn't know the comic only followed one outcome though, I'd only seen the cover art, and it referenced both.

Yeah, you're right there, I hadn't considered that.

The comic notably makes it clear that there's a multiverse so there's a save Arcadia Bay and save Chloe ending. Also, neither Max nor Chloe turn out to be the game ones. Max comes from a universe where Rachel Amber is alive and Chloe comes from one where the Storm hit—but Max never came or developed time travel powers.

Presumably in any sequel you'd have to somehow have Max cheat so:

• Arcadia Bay is alive
• Chloe is alive
• Max can and will use her powers

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 15th 2019 at 12:02:47 PM

The comic sounds interesting. How good is it?

Honestly, it wasn't my bag because the above is the twist ending. There's a huge build-up to the "surprise" that Max isn't actually changing anything but has the power of leaping through the Multiverse and there's infinite Chloes, Maxes, and Rachels. The Storm isn't her doing either. However, the multiverse twist was telegrapghed early. Some fans were also disappointed this wasn't "our" Max and Chloe.

I'm pretty sure there was a canon ending . . . Episode one of Li S 2 directly shows a storm wrecked Arcadia Bay with a plaque commemorating the event. The kids and their journalist friend stop there during their road trip before hitting a hotel for the night.

Well that's a lame twist. Glad I don't have to care about the comic books.

x2

Nah. The status of Arcadia Bay in LiS 2 is variable depending on which ending you chose for the first game.

I was gonna say, I assumed that changed depending on what you did in season one.

I wonder what it does for people who didn't play season one.

You can pick at the beginning of the game if you don't have a save to load.

The level of details on the character models are great. I'm watching a let's play of episode 3 season 2 right now, and I'm just so happy at dontnod upgrading engines.

Yeah, AAA-material they are not, but they do look better than season one. It's one of those cases where it was a smart decision by the devs; by not pouring too many resources into creating high-end graphics, they can focus on what actually matters (for this game at least), and they went for a stylised look that means they don't have to have all that much detail, really, rather than a half-arsed attempt at 'realistic' graphics.

Don't get me wrong though, DONTNOD can make pretty games. I still think Remember Me is one of the best-looking games I've seen ^note case in point though, the actual game was pretty mediocre.

Cartoon games are much more likely to avoid the Uncanny Valley.

That too. It has been remarked, not wrongly, that Li S' animations are not the best, particularly facial animations, and it would probably look much weirder if the characters were realistic.

It's pretty much a given that stylised graphics age better.

Just compare the graphics for Zone of the Enders and its sequel. The first has impressive graphics for the hardware, but the second looks timeless.

Max and Chloe are also realistic enough characters to be avoid Generic Cuteness but not quite super realistic.

Wow, I just finished the first volume of the comics (I hope the second arc gets a paperback soon; I can't deal with individual comics).

I also found out about the official art book and ordered a second hand copy (it takes the form of an in-universe guide to Blackwell, with Max & Chloe's graffiti). =3

Also, is anyone up for helping get the comic and episodes 2-3 of LiS2's synopsises written up? I keep neglecting to buy the new episodes.

I fucked up, I told Daniel to go for the gun because I thought if he let a murder happen it would set a bad precedent.

Man, Sean got really worked over this episode.

Fits the same pattern as the first season, too.

One episode setting up the premise and powers, a second episode to establish the setting, episode 3 ends up on a cliffhanger which completely changes the Status Quo which 4 resolves and ties up a few of the main driving questions before introducing a twist which sets up the conflict of the final episode.