Life is Strange

That does make sense :P

I, however, like to believe that Max's powers didn't cause the tornado, that there was some other factor we don't know about that caused the tornado, Max's powers, and all the other weirdness. Doesn't matter that we don't know what it is, because the story isn't about that.

edit - fkin pagetopper, I'll add a quote in later maybe

Edited by artfulscruff on Sep 6th 2020 at 9:52:03 AM

It's established by the ending that when you sacrifice Chloe, the tornado doesn't come. At least that closing scene is supposed to show that. The nature of the tornado is pretty much unexplained, and in general Max's power along with its side effects work as it does because plot.

Chloe even lampoons the fact that you never really find out why Max has powers, where they came from, or what they do. That said, I'm not against leaving that as an unknown either.

There's a book called The Metamorphosis I read not too long after playing Life is Strange. Man turns into a giant cockroach with no explanation whatsoever. The entire story is one Big Lipped Alligator moment that ends up reuniting a family and dooming the guy going through the transformation. You never know why he transformed, but that's not really the point of the story... apparently cockroaches bring families together, I don't know.

What I'm saying is Max's powers are the cockroach-ification and that's just dandy.

Okay, back to watching that Tell Me Why playthrough.

Edited by FOFD on Sep 6th 2020 at 8:00:12 AM

That's the one written by Franz Kafka, right?

Yep! Had to read it for an English II class. Strangest book I've ever read. Like it starts with him just waking up realizing he's become a bug, tries to hide it from his family, starts going nuts (because, you know, extra legs and lack of depth perception or something like that) and then his family locks him up.

Gregor Samsa was the guy who turned into a bug.

Edited by FOFD on Sep 6th 2020 at 10:42:20 AM

Yeah, there's certainly a kinda rule in fiction on what you do explain vs what you don't. Max's powers do not need to be explained. She has them because it's the story. Why her powers lead to a Tornado, yeah, that kinda needs to be explained but since no one understands them (there's no Professor X character), I can kinda infer that editing time is the problem; same as the dead animals or the double moon issues. I think that's explicit enough.

The issues then are... 1, Max has these powers and CANNOT use them. "Do not do this cool thing" is MAYBE an issue but debatable in the context of the point probably more being that she has the powers to give her a week with Chloe before having to reset time and character journey and all that. 2, Max gets the tornado warning BEFORE she's ever done anything which muddies the relationship between the two and the warning SHOULD come after and be only at the end of the episode rather than book ending.

I do think that asking if there's an ethical way to use the powers (Can Max save chloe and never use her powers again?) or trying to shunt responsibility for the tornado and deaths caused onto other things (I can pick and choose who dies when the game is pretty explicit short of showing corpses that the cast WILL die) are missing the forest for the trees. There isn't a Professor X to shout exposition since the narrative runs on emotions and characters of the story; It doesn't quite matter what the rules down to the minute details are so much as it does matter what the characters do within those experiences.

But, again, it's a problem that I don't think the game is quite that well written. As said, they made a mistake or two with the first scene and Episode 5's resource issues REALLY didn't help things. And I do also get the impression that the writers didn't quite grasp a lot of the themes and ideas they were building to until the final episode which aren't quite so consistent with the earlier ones. The final choice FEELS like a choice between maturity and growing up vs. youth and carefree or a choice of the masses vs the individual or a dozen other different themes and ideas. And I think they're fine. But they don't tie in with and kinda clash with how other aspects of the story were told like the murder mystery narrative or Chloe's relationship with David which... has nowhere to go by Episode 5.

I think that's why Tell Me Why is having this One-Per-Week release schedule; the entire story has been planned out beginning to end and those kind of inconsistent or clashing issues got the development time they needed where Life is Strange kinda produced by the seat of their pants until the end.

I really hope Tell Me Why comes to other platforms. I've played every DONTNOD game they've made so far, it'd be a shame to miss one.

When is Twin Mirror out, anyway?

The Tornado comes because Chloe isn't dead and sacrificed to Rachel, who ascended to become Goddess of the Storm.

Rachel desires Chloe as her consort in the Photo Room Dimension.

...

What's scary is that is not an entirely implausible theory.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 7th 2020 at 4:43:28 AM

As far as I can find, it's still stated for 2020 but who knows with COVID and November being a clusterfuck of games.

If I had to put bets, I would guess we'll find out something more in October once Tell Me Why has completed. I would guess December or January for release if it hasn't been hit too hard by Covid.

The Doylian answer is that the tornado comes because we need to have a moral dilemma at the end. There is no Watsonian answer that would entirely be without contradictions. The universe not wanting Chloe to live is one of the more plausible ones, but probably not a one that the authors thought about.

Edited by petersohn on Sep 7th 2020 at 7:41:33 PM

No, the writers clearly consider it because it comes up so often; Chloe Dead = No Tornado. The problem is that the game leaves open the issue of if it's Chloe's death explicitly or Max's Time Travel Powers which are intrinsically tied to Chloe's survival.

Because they kinda leave open if Max could have time traveled to the bathroom and stopped Chloe's death just like the first time... and then just never used the powers at all. If they had instead dropped us off at Max looking at Nathan and Chloe already dead, I wouldn't really have that question... except that the time travel rules also dictate that we jump straight to the moment of the photo so...

This series really needed better and more careful construction to fix these problems. But, at the same time, it runs so much on emotion that I'm not sure I'm really bothered or care. The end result would be the same.

It's both.

Saving Chloe means the tornado hitting the town. Chloe dying seems to mean Max not having powers or, in the context of Episode 5, not having the will to use them.

If she had saved her and not used the powers - the tornado still hits. In at least 1 timeline IIRC she got Jefferson arrested and didn't muck up the timeline (as much), and the tornado still showed up.

Edited by FOFD on Sep 9th 2020 at 9:43:50 AM

I finally have Life is Strange 2.

All is right with the world.

• My experience with Daniel has been "Look at something/run around the woods with too much free space/miss a path here or there/look at something and then realize Daniel has an interaction with it/climb down a cliff and realize I should have helped Daniel down first." It's disorienting.
• Sean's decision to leave was not the brightest. I get what they're evoking given this game takes place in 2016, and Sean and Lyla both make reference to the election, I know what they were evoking but god darn Sean didn't know about Daniel's powers yet. It seems a leap to panic and abduct your little brother. He had friends contacting him, Lyla even promising to keep him safe. I've never been on the run before, so maybe he was just too scared/traumatized to think clearly.
• I knew the premise but seeing how fast things went sideways for these boys, and Sean's inability to tell Daniel the truth, breaks my heart.
• Sean's dad is pretty cool... was pretty cool.
• That family at the gas station... Sean didn't send Daniel to beg for food but man the moment he walked away...

I'm in the gas station and... I can't decide whether to pay up front, settle with mac and cheese and sleeping bag, or steal the tent...

My god. This is my life now.

Episode 1: Roads done.

The Reveal for Daniel felt... sudden, but Sean's been a decent sibling (stole a few things but the guy deserved it).

I already know that:

Time to see how we get from Point A to Point Z. I'm going to play back through Episode 1 again and make Sean be an utter dick just to make the experience last longer, though.

PS: Come on Dontnod, why on earth would Sean not call Lyla. That's like having Max not kiss Chloe in Ep 3.

Edited by FOFD on Sep 11th 2020 at 1:55:55 AM

I'm in "Rules" now.

for a moment I was curious if the dog was optional but I guess it wasn't

Daniel is slowly becoming Andrew Detmer after killing the... wolverine? Wildcat? Whatever that thing was.

I'm honestly just waiting for Captain Spirit to show up. Going to try to finish this episode by tonight after work. This game's not hitting as hard as Season 1 did, and "Wolves" is oscillating between hypnotic and agitating. I like the lead characters enough, although sometimes it feels like there's too much to do and yet not enough to do. The entire forest section got on my nerves.

I think I'm just starting to feel the weaknesses of LIS's gameplay - it's fun to watch, not so much to play - which is weird because I fought to play the first game on a computer with a poor GPU and found the gameplay addicting granted, I also haven't replayed it or BTS.

Wolverine, heh. That's just a bobcat.

Ep 2 still.

Captain Spirit is a little disappointing.

Purple chick's song made me tear up.

Haven't picked up LIS 2 in a bit. A thought came to mind while listening to Before the Storm's tracks.

If Rachel Amber had to have a defined power, what would you have given her?

I thought it was pretty obvious: pyrokinesis.

Yeah, there's that obvious scene that suggests she may have control over wind or fire, but I always thought it was possible that she had time control powers like Max. It's one explanation for how she manages to be so popular with everyone at Blackwell.

Edited by artfulscruff on Nov 12th 2020 at 10:41:40 AM

I actually thought that was the original commentary that the game would go for; Rachel was a proto-max, made everyone adore her, but through technically manipulating them via the time control powers. I had thought they might be examining the nature of save scumming to take a Golden Path, but it never really came up.

Rachel could be charming without time travel powers because, unlike Max or even Chloe, she had good social skills. People like this do exist in real life. Also, if she had time travel powers, she would have rewound when she was stabbed. She didn't pass out immediately like Max at the end of Episode 4.

Didn't Rachel die of a drug overdose from Nathan though? Even if she had time travel powers they wouldn't have saved her.

1) Yes, she did, but as we've seen the Rewind power can be bypassed via continued use/drugs.

2) (2) Before the Storm wasn't out when people made those predictions.