Ranting about Terrible Games - Life is Strange: True Colors

700 dollars and I cover another trash game from Dontnod: ko-fi.com/mangakamen Edit: Additional note and disclaimer, someone told me about the situation with Bad End Theater - And while that's a murky situation, note my praise is only for the game and not the creator - I'm someone who can separate the art from the artist, and the development of this video was BEFORE any of this happened. I won't get into details, but don't assume that EVERYONE knows about the situation, because not everyone looks into drama on everything. In addition, I made a mistake, Steph does not betray you despite your choices... Which if you ask me just seems rather stupid since the game takes away more options.

Hard to swallow pills: "Life is Strange" and most of Quantic Dream games have the knowledge about social issues of a teenager and the knowledge about ludonarrative of a boomer.

What if Gabe's death was handled differently? She's an empath, that's the whole point. What if Gabe was stabbed with debris or something, dying on the ground and going through all these emotions from anger stemming from his own recklessness to grief and fear. It would seem from the side that he would try and comfort her and stay calm until his last breath, but... Alex would see what he would really feel. How scared he was, how he didn't want to leave her. Just violet fear and then it would only leave his body, when he would collapse - dead. Why didn't they utilize her power and used this opportunity to make the loss hit harder?

2:17 Gabe dies like that because he wasn't born a Redfield and so never got the chance to study in the way of "Boulder Punch".

So, on the “spoiler” that Gabe dies, I don’t really consider it a spoiler. It’s a framing device—Gabe’s death is what the game mystery is going to be about (or rather, that’s intended as such). Lots of stories do this—a loved one is lost and the main character needs to grapple with the loss and do something in relation to the loss. The problem, to me, is the execution. If knowing a spoiler “ruins” the story for someone, then it’s a bad reveal or poorly executed. Bonding with Gabe is intended to make the loss of him hurt, even if you know it’s coming. This is a good idea, especially if the player is supposed to be as invested in finding out who is responsible for his death. However, the first chapter of TC doesn’t really have Gabe and Alex reconnecting that much—we don’t know much about their history until a lore dump in Chapter 5, and it doesn’t have much weight beyond “oh, he seems like a nice big brother.” Alex spends more time wandering the town and then they go on a hunt for an idiot kid (who had fallen in a spot where the landslide wouldn’t have affected him, apparently). Also, Gabe dying like Goofy in KHII ruins so much of the emotional weight. Why not have the rock slide sweep the ground out and Gabe cuts the rope so Alex doesn’t die too (instead of Ryan needing to do it)? Yeah it’s a worn trope, but it still works for dramatic connection between Alex and Gabe seconds before he dies. Or maybe a fallen tree kills Gabe in the commotion, so the characters have to deal with his corpse? A bouncing boulder that knocks him off-screen definitely worsened the impact of shock and sorrow in that moment. Knowing Gabe dies in the trailer didn’t have to be a weakness if DeckNine worked at making the death actually feel upsetting. Barely knowing a guy before he gets Goofy-ed off a cliff wasn’t it.

"You always had a choice" Technically yes but actually no "Your choice matter" should be treated as false advertising

I always felt like steph was just budget Chloe because they can’t write a different type of gay character

The fact games all about choices have no bad endings really pisses me off. Let the player make mistakes. Let the player fail. If you're searching for evidence for a crime, force the player to actually consider how they go about it, because if they go around asking literally everyone in town, you're GOING to tip off the people involved and they're GOING to get rid of any evidence. Have that be a failure state, that they actually cover their tracks because you were too obvious. Something as simple as that, and you can do MUCH more with it too. It's such a waste of potential. These people don't want to make games, they want to tell stories but want visuals to go along with it and chose the laziest way to go about it.

So the powers have gone from: Time travel -> telekinesis -> Quick wit -> Feeling emotions? Okay

To me it would have been interesting to have her give and take emotions and depending what type of emotions a person has they’ll be different and maybe even make it so she has to stockpile emotions and give her heavy depression and making the emotion you mostly where an ending to

You’ve probably heard of it, but I personally think Until Dawn is one of the best ‘choose your own story’ games. While the ending inevitably ends with the night ending to Dawn, the branches you choose and the characters you can save or let die impact the game in a ton of various ways. It’s one of my favorite horror games ever.

One thing I did enjoy was trying to figure how Alex survived being shot and falling into a mine without even breaking her glasses. 1. Jed is a lousy shot and Alex can bubble hearth. 2. A passing Hogwarts wizard casted Expeliarmus and Winguardian Leviosa. 3. There was a stack of mattresses in the mine. 4. She had a can of Red Bull. 5. She was an Android/ Hologram. 6. It's just a game.

“Sure, you could choose a different door, but it’ll just lead you back in the same hallway.” Honestly, this’s the very same thing The Stanley Parable made fun of, where whenever you go against the arbitrary path the game has you forced on, it just reverts you back to it to show how little “player choice” actually matters in most if not all videogames. And for a narrative-focused, choice-driven adventure series like Life is Strange, having your choices not matter is definitely a large mark against the game itself. As much as I enjoyed the OG Life is Strange, faults and all, my main issue with the future games is that they seemed to just repeat the same formula instead of actually improving upon it. The same awkward, stilted dialogue, bland characters with little to no development, plot contrivances and/or plotholes and messages that are either hypocritical or are so unsubtle that they might as well be branded in neon lights. True Colors seems to combine all these mistakes in a game that should’ve been by all means great due to ditching the episodic structure of the previous game to just have one single, focused narrative…but for some reason sadly didn’t. I guess that’s what happens when your game gets a bunch of awards and praise, since at that point, what incentive would you need to actually improve? So tl;dr, even as someone who likes the OG Life is Strange, the reason the sequels never landed for me is sadly due to repeating its flaws while never really improving on it in remarkable ways.

I usually feel guilty for laughing about a characters death but something about your reaction made me laugh 4:58

The problem with Mac’s confession is even if she got it on tape? It’s hearsay. It wouldn’t be admissible anyway. The company would just say “NUH UH, we totally didn’t get a call like that, it’s your word against ours”. Without an a recording of the call there’s no way to back his claim up. It mostly just exists here to put us on the right track. And also to show that he’s not just some cardboard villain who let people die, even if he didn’t like our brother. But there IS physical evidence on that flash drive later. That’s something the cops can use. That, COMBINED with witness testimony from Mac and others who can argue “Yeah we saw Gabe call and tell them to stop the explosion “, would be enough in court. Especially if you get Jed to break down and confess…

What I will say about trailers that spoil plot points: I love it when they mislead you about plot points. When trailers are put together in a way to make you think one way, but then throw you a curve ball about the context... My favorite shit.

I have a feeling that a bunch of people are going to force feed you that cash in a couple months, but yeah, Life is Strange constantly has its head up its ass. It feels like it wants to have your choices matter and yet wants to tell a linear story at the same time. Except that's a line that's pretty much impossible to walk without falling one way or the other. Even Deltarune, try as it may, shows some indications of leaning towards your choices actually mattering in the Snowgrave route. Granted, the ending is still the same, but there are still little things that could possibly build up over time. If there is a Life is Strange 4, they need to finally make the decision to either tell a linear story like any other game or have your choices change anything like in Dying Light 2, Undertale, and The Stanley Parable.

I like watching videos disagreeing with things that i like. I didn’t really experience or feel a lot of the issues that you felt, but one thing i do agree on is the flashbacks. Those definitely should have been spread through the game. Maybe 1 after each chapter. Instead, they throw like 30 minutes of flashbacks at you right at the climax. I really like the story and the lessons that i learned but those damn flashbacks really slowed things down

I always hated the weirdly pasty art direction for the characters. And when I say pasty I don't pale, I mean like everyone's face was sculpted out of wet marshmallows paste. And facial animations look like they're out of skyrim.

Every time a character tposed during an 'emotional scene' i was laughing hysterically