Yeah it's Decknine Games Handling of the Series because Since they were Hired by Square Enix & then made the Main Developers after Don't Nod had enough of Square Enix. That they decide We make our own Games where they will Self Publish Then Square Enix got mad & said Ok your Releasing this New Game (Lost Records) around Halloween We put Life is Strange Double Exposure there in your Game Place & Push you into Feb Yes we hope you Fail Because we Have the only IP License to Life is Strange & it's in Great hands with Decknine Games. @KyleReaume So you can guess another Reason people are not Happy with this Mess. Like I said why would Don't Nod want Square Enix Life is Strange back when they Have their own Life is Strange Game Coming out in Feb. 18th just under the Name Lost Records Boom & Rage
This is a great recipe on how to destroy a franchise: reintroduce a fan favorite character. Throw past history under the bus. Introduce a new character with powers, create a fascinating mystery...then throw it on the floor and introduce the Avengers initiative.
for me the biggest let down is the art style change lmao, i loved the janky aesthetic that the original game had, for me its what gave the story so much character and why i enjoyed it in the first place
@KyleReaume the game looks like every other game now to me, i feel like I'm just looking at Sims 4 screenshots and not the LIS world I grew up with as a kid, i know not everything can stay the same but the art style was such an integral part of the world
Never had the game myself but watched various playthroughs: I think one fundamental issue with Double Exposure is the environment and setting. In the first one, there was a lot to explore in Arcadia Bay and you got to be somewhat immersed in the world whereas for Double Exposure, you’re kind of trapped in the university and the bar.
@@jarjar7609 I never said the story was not the main issue. I just said the setting was one fundamental issue. But yeah, the story became a mess and rushed and it was hard to take anything seriously
After I played double exposure, I was so disappointed, I bought lis true color, and the plot was basically the same. Episode 1 someone died, episode 4 party episode, episode 5 nightmare sequences. But i like true color more, double exposure ending was so weird.
I appreciated that they experimented with something new with Life is Strange 2. It felt like they had this genuine heart to make something unique even if unpopular. The subsequent games kinda felt like trying to recreate the original Life is Strange, which I get, but it feels less genuine.
After the critism of LiS2 (some of which in my opinion come from not understanding it's themes) they tried to recreate what made the original great, while they archived some things, for example I really like the vibe of Haven and the support cast is lovly. But it fails in so many other ways, like the murder case not being as inteiguing (like we know evil Corp had something to do with it) and the trio is not as entertaining to watch as Chloe and Max, because they were unable to recreate what made Chloe and Max a good duo. A much more intresting MC and support character would have been Alex and Gabriel because they have at least a common past and it would be intresting to go in depth about how they dealt diffrently with their difficult upbringing. But that is just my 5 cents
Deck Nine so clearly doesn’t understand the characters, the plot, it’s like they’re chasing a formula that no longer works for us. Life is strange became popular because of its unique storytelling. But now all I want to see is the end of this franchise
Apparently there were 4 directors in total working at different stages of the development which is insane. And apparently it was written in a linear way of just making stuff up as they go to the point of those 4 directors losing their mind and begging the team to just come up with some finale and let it finally end. I agree that although Hannah is incredible that first episode does feel weird, it's probably believable they were re-recording a lot of dialogues. I'm sure there were a lot of rewrites, especially with Square Enix's interference. I've seen the post of Felice Kuan, the Narrative Director, after being layed off and it did stand out to me how she mentioned Square Enix just looking for scapegoats. They probably fired all these major voices of the employment team to blame them for poor sales, when in reality its Square's fuck up to begin with for choosing this path for the franchise. At the end of the day Deck Nine are just workers and they are following what their publisher tells them to do. So those major decisions of dropping Chloe/Arcadia, not feeling like a direct sequel to LiS but rather some unrelated story that happens to have Max in it, having that superhero expansion were for sure Square's directives and the workers just did their job. I do have to disagree with the whole Chloe thing though. Some Deck Nine members did tease Chloe being in a game and their relationship having a meaningful continuation. A lot of fans weren't dissapointed because they broke up but because there is no meaningful exploration of that event. Truly, we don't know what Max did for those 10 years. We don't know her headspace, how she dealth with the assault, the loss, or even where she travelled to on all those road trips. The game simply drops us 10 years later with a narrative that repeats the plot points of the first game and makes Max do the same thing she did as a teenager, only now as a teacher behaving like a student. Personally I find that both endings don't have a meaningful continuation and Max's character is mischaracterized too often. I was equally upset with the fate they have chosen for an alive Chloe and the fate for Max in the Arcadia ending who has conveniently cut all ties with the town's citizens. And I find a lot of fans share those views. People can't let the Chloe thing go because there _is_ something wrong with the Chloe thing. The leaks from the Deck Nine team do confirm that the Narrative Team doesn't like Chloe and that the decision to remove Chloe as much as possible was pushed by Square. And then there's the weird Rhianna thing of redubbing Ashly's lines. Chloe is a dark cloud hanging over DE that contextualizes the larger mess of why DE is the way it is, I feel it's disingenuous to justify legitimate concerns of players with people liking the couple being silly. I think Don't Nod was right all those years ago that to continue Max's story they would need to first sit down and write a detailed timeline for all the years that have passed. At the end of the day, Life is Strange stands out in its narrative and characters and it should have remained its focus. But Square and Deck Nine wanted to tell some story, with a promotional superficial image of Max, to sell more copies. They failed in their strategy and maybe it's a good thing. Maybe Life is Strange doesn't need continuation and should have remained it's own contained piece of beloved media instead of being stratched out for money every few years. They will probably make another game though. I really feel like they'll restructure the Deck Nine team, push something out, and finish this mess - but we'll see.
I still can't believe that they completely retconned the first game. Save Chloe and promise to be together forever? Too bad! The devs hate Chloe and her voice actor so they cut her from the game under the guise of a breakup. Save Arcadia Bay? Too bad! Despite Max undoing all her time magic shenanigans and never wanting to use time magic again, the game needs time magic to be interesting, so we're just doing it despite it making no sense for her characters. Also, you know how the whole franchise is about telling small, intimate stories, usually about the relationship between two people? Too bad! It's the MCU now. I genuinly cannot overstate how much I hate this game. Oh, and the first one/two weeks of preorder, they asked 120 euros for the complete edition (at least in my country). That's 125 US dollars for some extra outfits and minor cat content. Disgusting, greedy company. I'm glad I didn't fall for the scam.
THIS COMMENT. Took the words right out of my mouth!! Thank you! The whole concept of a LIS game with Max again was doomed from the start. The whole moral of LIS1 is that Max's powers cause more harm than good. Making Max the protagonist of another game meant she had to have powers again, despite the end of LIS1. A sequel to LIS1 was contradictory from the beginning.
what a lot of people didn't realize is that LiS wasn't a love story, it was a story about overcoming grief. what made it so memorable was that they succeeded in writing two characters that made you really feel that gut punch when you had to choose between being selfish and doing what was right. problem was, a lot of people chose to be selfish and have spent the years since trying to justify their decision instead of simply admitting that they missed the point. Life is Strange season one can never be replicated for that reason.
@@mydogsnameisnox I wholeheartedly agree. It's so weird how Safi dies in Double Exposure so you think the entire game is going to be about grief and learning to live with that loss but then they just throw that out around the halfway point
Just tried to copypaste LiS1, make another Rachel Amber, aaaand they failed miserably Before the storm already slightly ruined the character, and even then shes more compelling than Maya
I’m in the camp that life is strange 1 didn’t need a follow up, it’s a beautiful stand alone story about grief and considering the responsibility of wielding a power like max’s. I think lis2 is criminally underrated and serves as a satisfying follow up on some of the characters of the first one. the key difference for me is that dontnod had a story to tell with their games, and decknine simply doesn’t. I played double exposure with an open mind, but ultimately felt my theory rang true. can’t wait to play lost records though!
I honestly feel before the storm was one of the best games they’ve made. It had no supernatural events and I think that’s what put for focus on the story as it was a good story. Makes me almost think if John Hugh’s made a movie out of this. I absolutely loved the game. But in the end, that’s my own opinion.
I also liked it! It's my favorite one in the series followed by the first. Obviously would've been best if original voice actor could've been there but I liked the game a lot.
Before the storm was almost a perfect story to me, and I'm one of those that prefers powers in the game. I even like the Dungeons & Dragons segments a lot actually. Lol
It needed 2 more episodes to make it make sense. As it stands they basically made a My Chemical Romance tinged version of TP Firewalk With Me now featuring lesbians.
What was with them seemingly hinting toward Rachel having some kind of fire/wind ability? They even go so far as the forest fire finally ending the moment Rachel gets hospitalized.
But this was the only game from them that was actually good. Life is strange 3 and now 4 are complete shit. Life is strange 1 and 2 were great because it came from the original creators!!
@koji6745 lis 1 fans can't believe that lis 2 is the best, im telling you, if LIS 2 was the first LIS game, it woulda been more popular and unbias-abused.
as a fan of the first lis game and as someone who loves max as a protagonist, i genuinely believe this game shouldn’t have been made. the first lis game wrapped up perfectly, leaving the rest of max (and Chloe’s) story up to the imagination of the audience. and there was way too much of a focus on romance in my opinion, that was never the point of the first game. this game feels so disconnected from the og game that i think they would’ve been better off just introducing a new protagonist.
This game is strange. The big lead up to exposing Lucas felt very anticlimactic and then it went all downhill from there. The world felt small. Our relationship with Moses could have become much deeper dealing with grief. Still not really sure why Safi wanted to shoot her, didn't feel earned based on what she did. The supernatural storm world seemed underwhelming and rushed. There were no real consequences to anything
the differences between decknine and dontnod and how they handle the life is strange franchise are really interesting to me. dontnod captures what made life is strange so brilliant and put that into their games moving forward, but decknine saw the surface level attributes of life is strange and copied and pasted it. (that's not to say that decknine is all bad: im sure that executive decisions were at fault, not the devs, artists, writers or actors that worked on the games themselves. reading some behind the scenes about the creative process for before the storm was lovely and i think before the storm as a game was really great at expanding chloe's character and giving us her perspective in a way that's empathetic, respectful, and compassionate, especially in a world where neurodivergent women who are in situations like chloe are harshly oversimplified and berated)
double exposure was so buns that the only thing about it i enjoyed was this review. because literally what the fuck even happened in that game i need to go replay life is strange 2 like seven more times to make up for the time i wasted
I just didn’t gave it an opportunity because it doesn’t have the same art style that made the first game special and that Max doesn’t look like Max to me, which I guess the art style change contributed to it (Also Deck Nine dont have a great track record)
they probably didn’t care because it’s not originally their character so in all honesty, they didn’t give a shit about Max no matter how much they said they wanted to do a story with her.
It’s not very good. Unfocused. Disrespectful of the original. Obvious cash grab. Horny #Marvel. All the writers and director have been laid off, so it’s safe to say it didn’t meet Square Enix’s expectations either. The multiverse is canon, there’s no reason to feel trapped in this Deck Nine horrible fan fic.
Honestly I think it's as simple as it usually is. Some suit at Squenix probably found out Life is Strange has people with superpowers, looked at the success of MCU and told D9 to make it happen. The video game industry is way too focused on appeasing investors nowadays. I don't even know how they're going to continue this story if Safi is supposed to be a villain now. If you chose to side with her are they really going to make Max be all evil now? 😂
I'm actually afraid of them, of they're going to take into consideration non-game media. I had a dubious pleasure of reading book sequel to True Colours (Heatwaves?), and it was so awfully bad poece of fan fiction which actually ruined Alex as a character and undermined the influence of part of the choices made through games, that if someone based sequel on it - it would be the disappointment.
this is really interesting to hear. i haven't and don't intend to play DE because, full honesty, i knew from the first time i heard about it that it wouldn’t be satisfying to me as a Chloe fan :/ other things bothered me too like the art style and i think the setting was something that felt off to me back then? and of couse the fact that it's a sequel. which i guess i'm in the minority in that i vehemently did not want a sequel didn’t mean to ramble. great video and my condolences for the disappointment you suffered
We didnt wanna "undo" both versions of the game as well wdym??? In the save Chloe ending they are quite literally together and they drive away together with no indication of there being any bad blood as well as Max grabbing Chloe's hand/kissing her after ripping the butterfly photo and saying "I will always be with you Chloe".....Yeah we totally expected to not see Chloe with Max in any way....
They really could’ve used the alternate universe thing to do alive or dead with Chloe instead of Safi, have it so that you start in the world opposite from your ending in the first game, Max waking up and the game is Max figuring out why it’s happening to her, and we follow her journey understanding the world she never lived, and the final choice leads to Max being alone, either relinquished to world without Chloe, or she tries to stay with Chloe and an alternate Max kills Chloe, to stop the worlds collapsing or something like that, idk I wrote this in like 2 minutes
So allegedly this was the actual real first pitch for this game which was meant to be a remedy towards the sequel having to answer for both endings of the first game, but the game director misunderstood the pitch and we ended up with this instead
i’ve been an avid LIS fan since the original game was releasing in 2015. i was so disheartened by double exposure and left so confused on how i felt, that im only just now at the point where im watching review videos like this, because every time i would think about the game after finishing it, id just make myself sad/upset/annoyed/etc. i didn’t even have it in me to see what other people were saying, which was extra sad because what drew me in to LIS originally, in part, was the theorizing and fan videos/community that emerged. i guess i just haven’t had the heart to let myself think too hard about this game until now. and im so glad i started with this video because you put everything into words perfectly!
I swear... I saw the title of your video and I was like " YES ! 10000% ARGEE WITH THAT !!!" I really wish Dontnod would make LIS-games again... Imagine how epic a sequel from the first LIS developed by DontNod or a complete new LIS-game from them would look like. This franchise is in bad hands, such sad. Now I`m even more hyped for the upcoming Lost Records game by DontNod!
I honestly love LiS 1, 2, and BtS (LiS 2 being my favorite in the series). This is my opinion, but I did not like True Colors and Double Exposure. I didn’t feel a strong emotional impact from those games compared to the three games that came before them. I was crying throughout LiS 1 cause it resonated with me and its realistic characters . Not to mention I was bawling with LiS 2 and the Diaz brothers’ journey and endings. I loved Chloe and Rachel’s relationship in BtS. I didn’t really feel anything for the characters in True Colors and its plot. As much as I loved Max in DE, I didn’t like the scenario of the story and it’s characters also (Safi was a good villain. Other than that, that’s it). The characters in TC and DE just felt like they were just there and didn’t have any depth to them. There’s so much that I could go on and on, but just sharing my opinion on this. I do agree that DontNod did stories and characters better with the first two games. I also love how DontNod put a lot of easter eggs and references from movies and other forms of media in LiS 1 & 2. I kinda think that they did have influence on DeckNine when they made BtS also (compared to TC and DE, BtS had a better narrative imo).
Imo, I don't hate the game... It sure had potential but they screwed up the execution.. Ep1 felt boring as heck but that plot twist with max holding the gun in the photo got me so fucking excited all up until max and sofi exposed Lucas.. After that idek wtf happened.. Flashbacks to LiS 1 were cool.. the ending didn't feel epic in anyway at all.. I do like the graphical improvements and animations.. And sofi.. Is such a confusing character I don't understand why max cares about her so much
Lets be honest, if you went up to Joyce and said "would you rather have your daughter live or you?" Joyce would say let my daughter live. Both endings are canon in their own right, I get annoyed when people say the save Arcadia Bay ending is the "better" or "canon" ending. Everyone's ending is their ending and I dont like when people side eye you when you pick to save Chloe.
@NasTheKing i agree wholeheartedly, and truly I think the "Save Chloe" ending would've been the best path for a sequel, it's a shame they didn't go in that direction.
That's not really an argument considering that's not an option that's given to you and Chloe also basically tells Max she's willing to sacrifice herself. But of course Joyce would feel the same way, they loved each other. Ultimately the choice is the player's and the consequences of that choice should be on the player's conscience including Joyce's death, so let's not try to sugarcoat it.
@@speedymunchlax5733 I didnt try to sugar coat anything, neither choice is easy wtf. Im just saying that he used the argument in the video that "chloe wouldnt want her mom to die" well on the same side joyce wouldnt want chloe to die, it was the video sugar coating the other side of things not me
@@speedymunchlax5733 and yeah of course thats not an option thats given to you because Joyce isnt there, but if she were it'd be the same dilemma, probably not at the same level just making the choice with only the pressure of Chloe. But yeah, because I saved Chloe and because I know how Joyce is as a person, Im glad I saved Chloe for her
I do think that if people want that lis feel, they should just play dontnods games. Lost records is about to come out and it looks stunning so far. Tell me why was very far from perfect, but it still captures the feel of lis, although it's not even in the series. It even has a touch of supernatural powers. Dontnod do it best, while deck nine is just..... sort of uninspired.
Many of the problems with continuity could have been avoided if Max wasn't the protagonist. There's hardly anything connecting it to the first game so why bother?
If Safi went out to search for other people with powers, they better not bring back Daniel in the next game because I feel like they’d screw up his character and story. I imagine they will bring in “Lone Wolf” ending Daniel if they had the chance. In my opinion, Max’s story ended in the first game because it just felt like a perfect and realistic point to end her story, same with LiS 2. Hopefully this series ends and doesn’t get milked like the Assassin’s Creed series after Desmond’s story ended.
33:11 *Decknine You forgot to edit in the Decknine replacement audio here man😅. But in all seriousness, great video and your opinion voiced ours clearly, I am also scared for the future of this franchise, as I had a similar experience to you playing the first game, I played it back when it came out in 2015, episode by episode throughout the year, and it just totally changed me personally and how I view games in general.
I personally loved the first three chapters of the game, but episodes 4 & 5 really fell off for me. Even Safi's shape shifting ability to me was just... too unrealistic. Obviously it's a science fiction-esque game, but that just made it feel silly. I loved True Colors, the scenery and world that was created in Haven Springs was stunning as was the world created in Double Exposure but the problem with TC as well is that the first few episodes are amazing and the final act doesn't conclude it in a satisfying way while feeling rushed at the same time. Loved this video. Subscribed. Also I died at the wheezing after talking about writing a manifesto 😂 great video. I feel the SAME about Pricefield too, you hit the nail on the head perfectly about why their relationship realistically wouldn't and shouldn't work.
I'm coming clean- I'm a total PriceField fan. I have never imagined the two of them being together long-term. Ultimately sparing Chloe is a selfish decision by Max, that hurts Chloe, the game spells it out as much as humanly possible. It's my preferred ending, but not in a way where I'm like 'and then they fall in love.' No, it's 'and then they spend the rest of their lives feeling guilty and sad.' I like stories about the destructive power of love, what can I say?
damn you had some good points until you made shit up about pricefielders. nobody started a hate campaign against the devs. like you, we disliked the game on many aspects beyond just how they handled chloe. pricefield was never a doomed relationship, dontnod always said that they'd stay together forever. undoing that basically invalidates the bae ending completely for what it stood for. what is the point of saving one person if you can't even have her? decknine really tried their hardest to make the bae route as unappealing as possible to push fans towards picking bay instead, so they can successfully soft reboot the franchise, leaving chloe and everything else about her past behind. because yeah, her past hardly matters! they do mention the storm there and there but the whole jefferson thing is only mentioned once in the journal and the ridiculous nightmare sequence with neeb with glowing eyes which tbf felt disrespectful of her trauma. max and chloe can only work together, those were the words of the original creators, so to paint pricefielders as toxic because they want max's most important relationship to be respected and also the original creative vision of dontnod to be followed as it is, is disheartening, really. EDIT: the worst part is, it's not even just about the ship as a romantic bond, decknine tried to sell us the narrative that they don't even WORK as friends. this is the worst part. because yeah, max and chloe's romance in the first game is purely optional, but their friendship isn't. in bae, max not only has to grieve the loss of the town and its people, but she has to live with having lost chloe over (???? constantly using her powers, which btw makes no sense since max herself claims she hasn't used them in 10 years). so not only was the breakup disrespectful of the fans and original canon material, it literally made no sense (canon inconsistencies, plot holes, like many of the other parts in this game), but they had to mischaracterize both characters to make it work. quite frankly, depicting chloe as a 'free spirit' is bullshit. the girl has never craved anything more than stability. the text message at the end was obviously a last minute add, and max still doesn't respond to her. max doesn't show any fucking growth as a character despite the game priding itself as it being a story about max being more mature and more confident and blah blah, but she still makes the same mistakes and still essentially treats people the same.
I don't normally ever comment on UA-cam but when you said you're just tired, man I felt that. So here's my thoughts I also came away more confuzzled than anything. This game was such a huge deal to me and my wife, we've both been huge LIS fans for ages. Subscribed to geforce now so we could play it on maximum settings and really get into it. On one hand, the game is absolutely stunning, Max is absolutely stunning. If there's one thing they got right it's Max and I'm thankful for that. At least, controversy aside, Max's character came out of this one unscathed. The new motion capture brought her to life in a way I feel lucky just to have experienced. I also thought the soundtrack was an absolute knockout. As you said, the first half, or 2/3 was strong. Meeting a great cast of characters, exploring beautiful environments, awesome twists and cliffhangers. While I still enjoyed the last two episodes they called for feelings that I just didn't have. Neither me or my wife honestly really cared about Safi at all. She just came off as this bratty rich girl, daughter of the president of the school and I just don't care about her problems lol. That being said, I actually really enjoyed the whole "in the storm" portion of the 5th episode. Especially the trippy motel room part I don't know why. I think that whole part gave me welcomed nostalgia for the final act of the original game, Fighting through the storm and interacting with those within it. When it was over, what I felt most strongly was underwhelmed unfortunately. I thought some of the reflection moments combined with the soundtrack were masterful, but nothing truly registered with me emotionally. I'm a straight white 30 something year old dude who wept like a baby at the OG game. I think there's a lot here worth experiencing, but other than Max reliving to Safi how she let Chloe die, nothing here really got into my heart the same way. Except the soundtrack man, seriously. Bangers. Also, I'm sorry but, does everybody at this school have to be gay? I have a complete live and Let Live mentality but for crying out loud it makes me feel like the school is just one big orgy off screen.
Picked up the game on the -30, and finished it yesterday. I fully agree on your analysis here. The game had terrible writing and the budget cuts / writer layoffs midst development, you can really sense them happening, even if I did or did not know about that while playing. Or do I have special powers?
I agreed with your analysis until you mentioned the supposedly superior morality of the Bay ending. Life is Strange's ending is equivalent to Trolley's dilemma. The whole point of the finale was to demonstrate that no ending is more moral than the other, and this was confirmed by Dontnod: there are no bad choices. When you look at it from a human perspective, who are we to judge who is the most "worthy" of living, and whose death would cause the most suffering? Just know that when you consider the quantity of lives at stake, your thought process is exactly the same as when you consider their quality, which is not measurable. If you choose to pull the lever in the trolley problem, you've usurped the right to judge who is most worthy of living. You've usurped the right to kill the people in the siding. Even if it's an entire town on the main track and just one person on the side track, when you pull the lever and steer the trolley to the side track, you're killing that one person. The fact that you saved the people on the main track doesn't erase this fact. The end doesn't justify the means. From my point of view, the moral response to any trolley problem is to do nothing, because however insignificant the life of the person on the side track may seem, no one has the right to deem them unworthy or less worthy of living and kill them. To stop the storm, Max would have to kill Chloe. Let's call a spade a spade. She would have to tear Chloe away from the safety she enjoys on Friday and push her back in front of the barrel of a gun on Monday. To save the town, Max would have to intentionally provoke Chloe's death. A death that has already been averted at this point and would not happen again without Max's conscious decision. Imagine seeing someone about to be run over by a car, pulling them to safety and shoving them under the next car. Of course, they're being run over by a car that cuts the thread of that person's life. But you're the one who's killing them, since you're the one who chose to push them under the car. And it doesn't matter that you saved their life a few moments ago. That doesn't give you power over their life and death. It doesn't make them your property. While I believe that outcomes that help the greatest number of people should be considered, I again believe that the end never justifies the means. We should examine not only the result, but also the means used to achieve that result. And certain means, if they violate fundamental values, are never justified. Their use is always immoral, even if the result of such an immoral action would bring benefit to others. In any case, you end up taking lives, whether it's one or many doesn't make the choice morally more or less right. For me, the two endings are meant to represent the embodiment of two opposite aspects of love, yet in equal mesure : letting go or fighting to stay. It's not about morality per se but about what you feel through Max in terms of defining what's right for the implications of the relationship you have, and what matters to preserve it in the long term. I personally think that after all the sacrifices Max has had to endure to save Chloe, she wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice Arcadia Bay, she says herself, Chloe is her number one priority, but that's just my opinion.
@@strehlowo Thank you, I'm glad someone was able to get through my paving stone. I sincerely thought that things had evolved over time on this morality issue, but I guess not. But in a way, it's also what makes this game so unique; to this day, people still debate its ending, proving just how much complexity the game possesses that few have managed to achieve.
I absolutely never said either ending of LiS is morally superior to the other. It is the classic trolley problem, it's part of the reason the game is so great. Whereas this game has zero consequences for either ending.
max was 100% written to choose chloe and the many non-determinant dialogue lines prove it. sure, from a player perspective, bay is also a valid choice, it's just not the one max would've made.
@@kenoastralobjectively, given the money and effort put into each ending, the devs absolutely thought bay ending would be the winner. You may believe the bae ending is better, and that’s fine, but looking through a non biased understanding the video explains perfectly how the bay ending was initially treated better.
To me (someone who didn't know about the layoffs), the end felt like they tried to re-create the nightmare sequence from the first game, but then went overkill with it. Also making it canon which is why that sequence even worked in the first game, it wasn't canon.
That's why I was so sad that Deck Nine released it in this way. I was SOOO excited to play Double Exposure, and it was so bland and boring. There were so many times I felt like I was wasting my time. Felt nothing after finishing it too lol. Nothing like LIS 1 :(
honestly, I expected a nod to the first game with the changing timelines. like your choices from the first game change when you change timelines, or even something like actually spending a lot of time with the characters in the alive timelines, falling in love with them while trying to solve the mystery with them, and at mid to end chapter 4, we are shot back to the dead timeline, only to discover that we fucked with things so much, that both bay and bae are still alive (i always assumed that if chloe would break up with max it would be because she blames them both for the death of the town.) the final choice of the game should be choosing one of the universes- bae and bay or alive and happy. if you want to make this choice harder, make the new characters lovable, and make so that if the player chooses to date amanda (and make them want to do so), no matter what max said about chloe, she will date rachel amber or something. and obviously- make a bunch of their lfe miserable in their dead universe. go a step further if you want, and make it a serial killer, that actively hurt or killed a bunch of people. MAKE THE CHOICE HARD. do you move on from arcadia bay for the friends you made along the way, or will it never be replaceable?
I think it's weird how you disregard how bad chloe's implementation into this game was, the only promise we got was she'd be in the game and it just happened to be the most disappointing implementation possible and I find it very very difficult for someone not to see it that way as a LiS enjoyer.
The first game was a cult classic. this game was so bad. no game time. there was no tension. or something fun. bad story no game time. equals just one long boring movie. how could you make the first game so good and totally fail at this. is absolutely incredible.
@@karma5235 aww thank you so much, that's so encouraging to hear! Hmm who knows maybe I should do an entire retrospective going through all five games together!
I'm absolutely devastated at the direction this franchise has gone. I played the original LiS all the way back in high school as the episodes first started coming out and have played every entry since then. This was just such a bad. This is Deck Nine's worst take and it's a huge shame that they're driving things into the ground now.
Hey Kyle, just watched your review. Great video first off! But second, I just want to say that I’m in the camp of loving Double Exposure 😂 I thought it was a really fun game! I am sad about the bad reception, and it’s just sad to see that Deck Nine struggled so much with their game development. Thank you for sharing so much insight and history of the troubled Deck Nine went through as well. It’s just so sad to see how much trouble this game went through. I hope deck Nine survives this. I hope they can learn to work with less and do a good game still. 😅 this just sucks. But great video!
I ended up buying a secondhand physical copy for 42,- euro and it turned out that wasn't worth it. I didn't want to rely on the internet critics beforehand, since it lately seems every new game gets bashed upon and DA: Veilguard turned out to be plenty of fun for me, so I wanted to just take a leap for this one as well. I wasn't too fond of the idea of Max returning, but hey, it got a bit more interesting with some twists until indeed, it all spiraled down 🙃 I'm glad I never pre-ordered it for full price
And you are right about it feeling like x-men, I agree, ridiculous storyline and storytelling! I would have loved that the story of the game started a week after LIS1. And that they found out that Jefferson belonged to a pedophile network or something like that. You could really built up to that, new characters she/they will meet, characters they have to talk to to find out more about this underground network, and of course the relationship between Max and Chloe - even if you chose the ending without Chloe in LIS1, you could have a great story out of that (or something similar). I just hate the new game… EDIT: sorry for my bad English it’s not my mother tongue and I’m angry 😂
Life is strange was ruined when they lost that twin peaks feeling. I get it they wanted to strive away from Arcadia Bay, but thats what made LIS special were the stories in Arcadia Bay, And the aesthetic to the original LIS and Before the storm was something special and Deck Nine can never replicate.
First off sorry for my ramblings. But I can't get over how they messed up this whole LiS thing is. First, there's titles. Why was LiS 2, LiS 2? And why make Double Exposure make it seem like some type of expansion rather than a full blown sequel? Not sure if it was meant to be LiS 3, though. Either way I don't get it. Personally I would go: 1) LiS 1 2) LiS Before the Storm (expansion to LiS 1) 3) LiS 2 => Double Exposure, just running on the exact same engine as True Colors, and much longer (see below) 4) LiS 3 => True Colors, because the story seemed completely unrelated, even if Steph was in Arcadia during the storm. But exactly the latter would've tied LiS 1, 2 and 3 together and would've made even more of a banger than True Colors was (generally speaking, it sure had its flaws don't get me wrong). Kinda like branching off into a new territory like they did with LiS 2. Of course, same length as LiS 2. 5) LiS some-title-about-two-brothers-unrelated-to-lis (expansion to LiS 3) 6) Captain Spirit (expansion to LiS 3 releasing between 5) Episode 1 and 5) Episode 2) Why make it all so complicated? Anyways, about the engines... True Colors runs perfectly fine, much better than LiS 1, its remake or BtS and its remake. Also much better than Double Exposure. I don't even understand why, because True Colors, in my eyes at least, looks better than Double Exposure. So why not use that same exact engine, and maybe even let DontNod do it in the first place, because they obviously understand how to do things in that engine much better than whatever mess Deck Nine produces. Why have two studios at all? I guess the whole world agrees that DontNod does it better, not just how the game looks and runs but also feels. Why didn't Square Enix make a deal with DontNod for this particular last release because of the layoffs Deck Nine was having? I have no idea how DontNod does these days compared to Deck Nine, but come on... That's not the way to treat your customers, Square Enix... The game itself though - honestly I liked it. Yeah it ran like horse crap compared to True Colors, but it somehow still had the essence of LiS, and kept it throughout until the very ending. Speaking of, the ending is the worst in all of LiS in my opinion. Not to say it is the worst they could've come up with, but they did better. Yes, even Deck Nine did better back in the day. I don't get the bad rep. I loved the story, it was refreshing. But, as the title made it seem like, it really felt like an expansion. I'm saying: they can't tell me they didn't have enough money to make a really good game based around Max directly after BtS came out. Imagine the runtime of LiS 2 and Double Exposure combined with the same love and strengths that LiS 1 and 2 both had. Heck, why not make Deck Nine and DontNod work on the same god damn thing, and release one huge banger as LiS 2, getting lots of money in return and also both keep your fanbase and get lots of new fans becase the game was such a banger? But whatever I guess Edit: oh yeah the voice acting / voice quality was horrible........
Life is Strange 2 was called 2 because originally the series was intended to be an anthology with every new numbered game being set with a new cast and story every time. Life is Strange 1 was never intended to have a sequel, once Drck Nine took over, the anthology thing got dropped and subtitled games became a thing, hence why LiS2 sticks out like a sore thumb now.
hopefully they have to sell the franchise someone new, takes it over scraps double exposure and we get a max story with her friends the actual people we give a shit about Kate if you’re weird Chloe clarify, that one’s a joke Warren, Brooke Victoria and so on and so on.
Some stories are best left to rest when they reach their natural conclusion. And with Max Caulfield's story, I think there is no way to respectfully continue the story after forcing the player to make an extremely emotional decision like the ending of Life is Strange without making standalone stories for both paths. I like both endings of the first game, but I do have an emotional investment in Max and Chloe's relationship. I would say contrary to the fandom's main gripe with how their relationship was handled, it's not them not being together that really upsets me, but that it was written off in the backstory. I think for something that demanded such emotional investment from the player and was such an important part of the lives of both Max and Chloe in the first game, they should have given Max and Chloe time together, even if they ended up apart. I love the concept of older and wiser Max and Chloe and I love the idea of them interacting and seeing what happens, whether as romantic partners or as friends. But we never got there. (Also I despise it when people go harass the folks that worked on the project. Please stop this now.) All that being said, while I don't think more games should have been made without Don'tNod, if they wanted to continue the series, in the spirit of the second game and True Colors, it'd make a pretty sweet anthology series if done right. True Colors and Before the Storm aren't bad games in my opinion, but they didn't feel like Life is Strange games, either. They didn't have... the magic. And I think it's a gamble not necessarily with money but with the love of the people who play the games when you make bad faith sequels. I'm frankly glad that Don'tNod is branching out into other projects. I'm excited to see what happens next.
@QuestTeller people who say "worst" are definitely just haters, but real fans would rather say, "least best", like yall are too much and true colours was awesome by the way
Although I love the game flaws and all I'm upset that I figured out the twist early on. I'm not sure how many other people also figured it out but at least the other games held more suspense and when you re-play is when you see the signs etc. I'm excited that they are bringing Max back again and that there is more power users in one game but I'm unsure what that will actually mean for future games if that will be good or not... Though I am excited that past characters may also come back I just hope it will be good. I want to stay optimistic about a franchise I love even if I didn't enjoy True Colours and Before The Storm.
I think the whole chloe point gets kinda pointed wrong here. u have the option to safe her or safe arcadia bay. it doesnt matter if one has another new song in it, both ends are avalable and equal treated. so if we go back to the first game, after all these horrible things both max and chloe went trough, after them rebuilding their friedship and after max letting arcadia bay getting taken by the storm to safe chloe you tell me they just went "yea no i dont want to be your friend anymore, thanks bye"? after chloe knew about max's power all the time in the first game all of the sudden now its a problem for her? after max being the most honest and true friend to chloe through the whole first game now chloe doesnt believ max anymore that she dont uses her power anymore, when max didnt even want to use them in the first place and chloe was the one pushing her to use them? they absolutly didnt respect everything that happend in the first game, everything both max and chloe said or did in the first game. noone said chloe had to be side by side with her for the whole double exposure game but dude 2-3 sequenzes with her or if you choose you killed her 2-3 sequences with people from arcadia bay isnt really that much to ask for. they disrespected the first game, they disrespected the whole LiS franchise and they disrespected the whole Storytelling Gamindustry by giving us exakly one ending sequence no matter what choices you make in the game, because they wanna cashgrab on the max thing again but arent smart enought to figure out how to handle multiple endings. i am so happy that after episode 3-5 came out, and all the negative feedback came in it actually had consequences for the people who ruined the character max and the franchise LiS. im not happy for people having financial problems because of that but its so refreshing to seen that there is consequences for that giant bullshit.
That's why usually when it comes to video games nowadays, I wait till gameplay comes out, and I do a lot of research before I buy a $60/$80 dollar game. The ONLY ever game I ever pre-ordered was Elden Ring, Silent Hill 2 Remake and RE4 Remake. I'm so glad I didn't buy this game or even pre-order it for real.
I think I could be pretty forgiving if they make a final game that's actually good, but now it sounds like another game probably won't come out after all, and if it does I do not have high hopes at all. D9 just don't make great games, and all the mess isn't helping
Deck Nine always fumble the bag on the final episode(s), I don't know why they insist on making the games episodic either, all of their LiS games would benefit being longer so they wouldn't have to rush or drop content just to fit it all into an episodic limit.
All of you are so in need to be entretained that you don't realize the artist make the art, not the corporation. Follow the artist, not the corporation. The artist knows what they are doing and they will sometimes make the stuff you want to see, the corporation is a parasite that takes credit for the artist and then fire them a week before christmas. I hope the difference is clear now.
I loved the game but i wish we got an appearance from Chloe as well as a more meaningful choice pathing, that said i do understand that if they had more choices for the end it would make it harder to make the next game. I do think episodes 1-3 were better than 4-5 but still i loved it overall.
Unlike you I didnt like True Colours much (literally narrative-wise it's just a LIS 1 copypasta with some small original little things splintered here and there and in terms of the themes it talks about I found it tremendoulsy cowardly specially after LIS 2) and therefore I had low expectations the moment I saw the first trailer of DE and Max back. Turns out I was right in my apprehension and funnily enough it ended up being even worse. Decknine just dont get it. Anyway looking forward to Dontnod's Lost Records. By the way, the problem is not that if you choose the Chloe alive timeline Chloe and Max are separated but the why and the way it's executed. They change her character and basically turn her into BTS Rachel. That's the problem.
Let me help you in deciding to like the game or not. The butterfly did not represent your choice. It'd be perhaps in the Dead version but in the Alive it should be a railroad. What difference does it make if there is no evil version of yourself actually at fault? Nova really spoiled me on it, the story would make more sense with your evil version did the bad things. She could have even spoiled the shapeshifter but no appeaeantly she dies somewhere off screen and the picture of the murder is actually the only reference of the evil one! She must be dead in the ditch behind the picture!
That game could have worked as a direct sequel too but shifting between the Chloe endings. The last episode is rewinding back to the childhood but going with the father ending up missing the truck by being driven into a ditch instead from distraction. Man that'd be a game! You do remember what you did too so leave the Jefferson evidence in the past why not just have it tried and failing so the plot holes don't open! What is a sequel to explain why the first one has intended flaws!
I was flabbergasted when I learned that they brought Max back. Max received sooo much hate back then. Her lines were already read with that "quirky" voice and people really disliked her personality, it was even a meme. Does no one remember ?
I thought it was pretty good. Different from other Lis games and a buggy sure, but not the absolute dumpster fire people are making it out to be. The performances were all outstanding, the characters were interesting, the two-world mechanic was fresh, and on PS5 the facial animations were second to none. I even loved how some of them have fine lines on their face because they're not teens.
33:09 I think this one should also be DeckNine
@@bender24 WOOPS thank you lol
*NECK DINE*
Yeah it's Decknine Games Handling of the Series because Since they were Hired by Square Enix & then made the Main Developers after Don't Nod had enough of Square Enix. That they decide We make our own Games where they will Self Publish Then Square Enix got mad & said Ok your Releasing this New Game (Lost Records) around Halloween We put Life is Strange Double Exposure there in your Game Place & Push you into Feb Yes we hope you Fail Because we Have the only IP License to Life is Strange & it's in Great hands with Decknine Games. @KyleReaume So you can guess another Reason people are not Happy with this Mess. Like I said why would Don't Nod want Square Enix Life is Strange back when they Have their own Life is Strange Game Coming out in Feb. 18th just under the Name Lost Records Boom & Rage
It’s not canon. I refuse to believe it’s canon. To me, it never happened. A fever dream. Never happened, nope
first stage: denial
@DrFydernahh, not the same developers so its nothing more then a fanfiction
@@kylecobra7422 second stage: denial
third stage: truth
its ok this game is a complete pos. visuals are a huge upgrade, but thats where the positives stop 🙃
This is a great recipe on how to destroy a franchise: reintroduce a fan favorite character. Throw past history under the bus. Introduce a new character with powers, create a fascinating mystery...then throw it on the floor and introduce the Avengers initiative.
Yeah it really does feel like they just wanted to make some cash grab and gave no thought to continuity or the fans!
Fascinating mystery is a stretch
@@KyleReaumeQUIT LOOKING AT THE FUCKING BAD PARTS AND ENJOY IT AS IF ITS GOOD!
for me the biggest let down is the art style change lmao, i loved the janky aesthetic that the original game had, for me its what gave the story so much character and why i enjoyed it in the first place
@@Fimpurities I do agree the new stuff especially the way they do the graphics and the on-screen subtitles are really overly neat
@KyleReaume the game looks like every other game now to me, i feel like I'm just looking at Sims 4 screenshots and not the LIS world I grew up with as a kid, i know not everything can stay the same but the art style was such an integral part of the world
Me too! It's what made me fall in love with the game as a kid. I loved the sketchbook style it had. Max's drawings were everything 😿
i feel this way too :/
Never had the game myself but watched various playthroughs: I think one fundamental issue with Double Exposure is the environment and setting. In the first one, there was a lot to explore in Arcadia Bay and you got to be somewhat immersed in the world whereas for Double Exposure, you’re kind of trapped in the university and the bar.
@gizmocat11 Don't even get me started on the bland nothingness of how much time you spend in the alumni hall
True Colors was basically the same, one L shaped street and you couldn’t even explore Steph or Ryan’s pads. Deck Nine just needs to sell the series
No, the story is the number one issue.... 😂
@@jarjar7609 I never said the story was not the main issue. I just said the setting was one fundamental issue. But yeah, the story became a mess and rushed and it was hard to take anything seriously
@@GideonFrost yes, yes they do.
After I played double exposure, I was so disappointed, I bought lis true color, and the plot was basically the same. Episode 1 someone died, episode 4 party episode, episode 5 nightmare sequences. But i like true color more, double exposure ending was so weird.
lmao what that sounds exactly like the original LIS
@@glarcier4398 exactly, they just keep copy and paste the same plot, but somehow they still fked up double exposure.
I appreciated that they experimented with something new with Life is Strange 2. It felt like they had this genuine heart to make something unique even if unpopular. The subsequent games kinda felt like trying to recreate the original Life is Strange, which I get, but it feels less genuine.
@@gloriafrimpong17That's why life is strange 2 was the best in the franchise it literally carried the other whole franchise
After the critism of LiS2 (some of which in my opinion come from not understanding it's themes) they tried to recreate what made the original great, while they archived some things, for example I really like the vibe of Haven and the support cast is lovly. But it fails in so many other ways, like the murder case not being as inteiguing (like we know evil Corp had something to do with it) and the trio is not as entertaining to watch as Chloe and Max, because they were unable to recreate what made Chloe and Max a good duo. A much more intresting MC and support character would have been Alex and Gabriel because they have at least a common past and it would be intresting to go in depth about how they dealt diffrently with their difficult upbringing. But that is just my 5 cents
Deck Nine so clearly doesn’t understand the characters, the plot, it’s like they’re chasing a formula that no longer works for us. Life is strange became popular because of its unique storytelling. But now all I want to see is the end of this franchise
The Chloe mischaracterization was the most disappointing, and the whole reason I refunded before even playing it. So glad I saved myself $50.
Only LIS 1 and LIS 2 actually felt like life is strange games
Apparently there were 4 directors in total working at different stages of the development which is insane. And apparently it was written in a linear way of just making stuff up as they go to the point of those 4 directors losing their mind and begging the team to just come up with some finale and let it finally end. I agree that although Hannah is incredible that first episode does feel weird, it's probably believable they were re-recording a lot of dialogues. I'm sure there were a lot of rewrites, especially with Square Enix's interference.
I've seen the post of Felice Kuan, the Narrative Director, after being layed off and it did stand out to me how she mentioned Square Enix just looking for scapegoats. They probably fired all these major voices of the employment team to blame them for poor sales, when in reality its Square's fuck up to begin with for choosing this path for the franchise. At the end of the day Deck Nine are just workers and they are following what their publisher tells them to do. So those major decisions of dropping Chloe/Arcadia, not feeling like a direct sequel to LiS but rather some unrelated story that happens to have Max in it, having that superhero expansion were for sure Square's directives and the workers just did their job.
I do have to disagree with the whole Chloe thing though. Some Deck Nine members did tease Chloe being in a game and their relationship having a meaningful continuation. A lot of fans weren't dissapointed because they broke up but because there is no meaningful exploration of that event. Truly, we don't know what Max did for those 10 years. We don't know her headspace, how she dealth with the assault, the loss, or even where she travelled to on all those road trips. The game simply drops us 10 years later with a narrative that repeats the plot points of the first game and makes Max do the same thing she did as a teenager, only now as a teacher behaving like a student.
Personally I find that both endings don't have a meaningful continuation and Max's character is mischaracterized too often. I was equally upset with the fate they have chosen for an alive Chloe and the fate for Max in the Arcadia ending who has conveniently cut all ties with the town's citizens. And I find a lot of fans share those views. People can't let the Chloe thing go because there _is_ something wrong with the Chloe thing. The leaks from the Deck Nine team do confirm that the Narrative Team doesn't like Chloe and that the decision to remove Chloe as much as possible was pushed by Square. And then there's the weird Rhianna thing of redubbing Ashly's lines. Chloe is a dark cloud hanging over DE that contextualizes the larger mess of why DE is the way it is, I feel it's disingenuous to justify legitimate concerns of players with people liking the couple being silly.
I think Don't Nod was right all those years ago that to continue Max's story they would need to first sit down and write a detailed timeline for all the years that have passed. At the end of the day, Life is Strange stands out in its narrative and characters and it should have remained its focus. But Square and Deck Nine wanted to tell some story, with a promotional superficial image of Max, to sell more copies. They failed in their strategy and maybe it's a good thing. Maybe Life is Strange doesn't need continuation and should have remained it's own contained piece of beloved media instead of being stratched out for money every few years.
They will probably make another game though. I really feel like they'll restructure the Deck Nine team, push something out, and finish this mess - but we'll see.
Holy shit this is some BONKERS details to learn. Thank you SO much for sharing, I'd love to hear any more.
I still can't believe that they completely retconned the first game. Save Chloe and promise to be together forever? Too bad! The devs hate Chloe and her voice actor so they cut her from the game under the guise of a breakup. Save Arcadia Bay? Too bad! Despite Max undoing all her time magic shenanigans and never wanting to use time magic again, the game needs time magic to be interesting, so we're just doing it despite it making no sense for her characters. Also, you know how the whole franchise is about telling small, intimate stories, usually about the relationship between two people? Too bad! It's the MCU now. I genuinly cannot overstate how much I hate this game.
Oh, and the first one/two weeks of preorder, they asked 120 euros for the complete edition (at least in my country). That's 125 US dollars for some extra outfits and minor cat content. Disgusting, greedy company. I'm glad I didn't fall for the scam.
@@robinronin scam is damn right
Maxine Caulfield Time ninja warrior!!!
THIS COMMENT. Took the words right out of my mouth!! Thank you! The whole concept of a LIS game with Max again was doomed from the start. The whole moral of LIS1 is that Max's powers cause more harm than good. Making Max the protagonist of another game meant she had to have powers again, despite the end of LIS1. A sequel to LIS1 was contradictory from the beginning.
what a lot of people didn't realize is that LiS wasn't a love story, it was a story about overcoming grief.
what made it so memorable was that they succeeded in writing two characters that made you really feel that gut punch when you had to choose between being selfish and doing what was right.
problem was, a lot of people chose to be selfish and have spent the years since trying to justify their decision instead of simply admitting that they missed the point.
Life is Strange season one can never be replicated for that reason.
@@mydogsnameisnox I wholeheartedly agree. It's so weird how Safi dies in Double Exposure so you think the entire game is going to be about grief and learning to live with that loss but then they just throw that out around the halfway point
This! I feel like this is why a sequel to LIS 1 would never work! It’s too big shoes to fill that clearly Deck 9 isn’t able to handle/treat correctly.
THANK YOUUUUUU
Says you, I summoned my inner Joel when I sacrificed Arcadia Bay. I knew what I was doing, I was the villain all along.
EXACTLY
My main question is that why the game expected me to care that much about Maya Okada
Exactly like in the original we actually had reason to care about Rachel amber and then double exposure bringing up ts about maya this maya that
Because she was Safi's best friend!
We somehow were supposed to care about safi so much that we care about Maya and hate Lucas enough to take him down.
Just tried to copypaste LiS1, make another Rachel Amber, aaaand they failed miserably
Before the storm already slightly ruined the character, and even then shes more compelling than Maya
I’m in the camp that life is strange 1 didn’t need a follow up, it’s a beautiful stand alone story about grief and considering the responsibility of wielding a power like max’s. I think lis2 is criminally underrated and serves as a satisfying follow up on some of the characters of the first one. the key difference for me is that dontnod had a story to tell with their games, and decknine simply doesn’t. I played double exposure with an open mind, but ultimately felt my theory rang true. can’t wait to play lost records though!
U bad as hell shawty 💯💯💯
I honestly feel before the storm was one of the best games they’ve made. It had no supernatural events and I think that’s what put for focus on the story as it was a good story. Makes me almost think if John Hugh’s made a movie out of this. I absolutely loved the game. But in the end, that’s my own opinion.
I also liked it! It's my favorite one in the series followed by the first. Obviously would've been best if original voice actor could've been there but I liked the game a lot.
@ agreed. But I couldn’t tell until I saw the credits. She did a good job.
Before the storm was almost a perfect story to me, and I'm one of those that prefers powers in the game. I even like the Dungeons & Dragons segments a lot actually. Lol
It needed 2 more episodes to make it make sense. As it stands they basically made a My Chemical Romance tinged version of TP Firewalk With Me now featuring lesbians.
What was with them seemingly hinting toward Rachel having some kind of fire/wind ability? They even go so far as the forest fire finally ending the moment Rachel gets hospitalized.
ever since they made BTS i never trusted deck nine with the lis series, Im glad i aint the only one coz for a long long time it certainly felt i was
which Lis, like all games? 😂
BTS is a masterpiece compared to DE
But this was the only game from them that was actually good. Life is strange 3 and now 4 are complete shit.
Life is strange 1 and 2 were great because it came from the original creators!!
Im tired of the games being just huge piles of nothing. Cant believe LiS2 is the best and only worthwile ''sequel''
@koji6745 lis 1 fans can't believe that lis 2 is the best, im telling you, if LIS 2 was the first LIS game, it woulda been more popular and unbias-abused.
as a fan of the first lis game and as someone who loves max as a protagonist, i genuinely believe this game shouldn’t have been made. the first lis game wrapped up perfectly, leaving the rest of max (and Chloe’s) story up to the imagination of the audience. and there was way too much of a focus on romance in my opinion, that was never the point of the first game. this game feels so disconnected from the og game that i think they would’ve been better off just introducing a new protagonist.
Who's excited with Lost Records: Bloom and Rage?
@@sephjy1370Hell yeah. I'll absolutely be covering it when it comes out too!
Life is strange: You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain - Deck Nine Games 2024
This game is strange. The big lead up to exposing Lucas felt very anticlimactic and then it went all downhill from there. The world felt small. Our relationship with Moses could have become much deeper dealing with grief. Still not really sure why Safi wanted to shoot her, didn't feel earned based on what she did. The supernatural storm world seemed underwhelming and rushed. There were no real consequences to anything
the differences between decknine and dontnod and how they handle the life is strange franchise are really interesting to me. dontnod captures what made life is strange so brilliant and put that into their games moving forward, but decknine saw the surface level attributes of life is strange and copied and pasted it.
(that's not to say that decknine is all bad: im sure that executive decisions were at fault, not the devs, artists, writers or actors that worked on the games themselves. reading some behind the scenes about the creative process for before the storm was lovely and i think before the storm as a game was really great at expanding chloe's character and giving us her perspective in a way that's empathetic, respectful, and compassionate, especially in a world where neurodivergent women who are in situations like chloe are harshly oversimplified and berated)
dontnod is amazing, I can’t wait for their new game lost records, will be great!
double exposure was so buns that the only thing about it i enjoyed was this review. because literally what the fuck even happened in that game i need to go replay life is strange 2 like seven more times to make up for the time i wasted
@@horsefuneral27 lmaoooo thank you so much
Maybe I should play LIS 2 again too
Tell me why is a much more thematically interesting successor to life is strange than any official LiS project that deck nine has put out
LIS3 was already bad. I think the original creators are missing, their work was the best!!
I hope LIS will get back to them, my biggest wish.
I just didn’t gave it an opportunity because it doesn’t have the same art style that made the first game special and that Max doesn’t look like Max to me, which I guess the art style change contributed to it (Also Deck Nine dont have a great track record)
Ikr like nowadays games are more about graphics than style and deck nine is choosing to follow the trends than make an original experience
they probably didn’t care because it’s not originally their character so in all honesty, they didn’t give a shit about Max no matter how much they said they wanted to do a story with her.
It’s not very good. Unfocused. Disrespectful of the original. Obvious cash grab. Horny #Marvel. All the writers and director have been laid off, so it’s safe to say it didn’t meet Square Enix’s expectations either. The multiverse is canon, there’s no reason to feel trapped in this Deck Nine horrible fan fic.
Honestly I think it's as simple as it usually is. Some suit at Squenix probably found out Life is Strange has people with superpowers, looked at the success of MCU and told D9 to make it happen. The video game industry is way too focused on appeasing investors nowadays. I don't even know how they're going to continue this story if Safi is supposed to be a villain now. If you chose to side with her are they really going to make Max be all evil now? 😂
Honestly I think you absolutely hit the nail on the head
If they followed the comics none of this would have happened
@chychy7559 I would LOVE to see them follow any of the LiS comics, sadly I'm starting to think Square Enix doesn't remember them
I'm actually afraid of them, of they're going to take into consideration non-game media. I had a dubious pleasure of reading book sequel to True Colours (Heatwaves?), and it was so awfully bad poece of fan fiction which actually ruined Alex as a character and undermined the influence of part of the choices made through games, that if someone based sequel on it - it would be the disappointment.
i think we all just won't be accepting this game as canon 😭 if i do i don't think i'll be able to live with it 😭
1 is a perfect selfcontained story
Omg imagine if she was a student and not a fellow teacher. I rather that max being a teacher figure then what we got.
I just consider it fanfiction because it’s too bad for me to consider it real..
and its worst sin: its boring as hell
this is really interesting to hear. i haven't and don't intend to play DE because, full honesty, i knew from the first time i heard about it that it wouldn’t be satisfying to me as a Chloe fan :/ other things bothered me too like the art style and i think the setting was something that felt off to me back then? and of couse the fact that it's a sequel. which i guess i'm in the minority in that i vehemently did not want a sequel
didn’t mean to ramble. great video and my condolences for the disappointment you suffered
We didnt wanna "undo" both versions of the game as well wdym??? In the save Chloe ending they are quite literally together and they drive away together with no indication of there being any bad blood as well as Max grabbing Chloe's hand/kissing her after ripping the butterfly photo and saying "I will always be with you Chloe".....Yeah we totally expected to not see Chloe with Max in any way....
They really could’ve used the alternate universe thing to do alive or dead with Chloe instead of Safi, have it so that you start in the world opposite from your ending in the first game, Max waking up and the game is Max figuring out why it’s happening to her, and we follow her journey understanding the world she never lived, and the final choice leads to Max being alone, either relinquished to world without Chloe, or she tries to stay with Chloe and an alternate Max kills Chloe, to stop the worlds collapsing or something like that, idk I wrote this in like 2 minutes
So allegedly this was the actual real first pitch for this game which was meant to be a remedy towards the sequel having to answer for both endings of the first game, but the game director misunderstood the pitch and we ended up with this instead
@@KyleReaume that makes me so sad tbh
1.) Max sounded like Jojo Siwa in episode 1
2.) CROSSTALK NOTIFICATIONS 😤😤😤
3.) This game was boring and didn’t make sense, also LIS2 was peak LIS
facts facts facts
i’ve been an avid LIS fan since the original game was releasing in 2015. i was so disheartened by double exposure and left so confused on how i felt, that im only just now at the point where im watching review videos like this, because every time i would think about the game after finishing it, id just make myself sad/upset/annoyed/etc. i didn’t even have it in me to see what other people were saying, which was extra sad because what drew me in to LIS originally, in part, was the theorizing and fan videos/community that emerged. i guess i just haven’t had the heart to let myself think too hard about this game until now. and im so glad i started with this video because you put everything into words perfectly!
I swear... I saw the title of your video and I was like " YES ! 10000% ARGEE WITH THAT !!!" I really wish Dontnod would make LIS-games again...
Imagine how epic a sequel from the first LIS developed by DontNod or a complete new LIS-game from them would look like.
This franchise is in bad hands, such sad.
Now I`m even more hyped for the upcoming Lost Records game by DontNod!
I avoided this one like the plague on account of SE/D9's treatment of Chloe.
End of a Franchise 😢😢
Shouldn’t have been a franchise honestly 😢
I honestly love LiS 1, 2, and BtS (LiS 2 being my favorite in the series). This is my opinion, but I did not like True Colors and Double Exposure. I didn’t feel a strong emotional impact from those games compared to the three games that came before them. I was crying throughout LiS 1 cause it resonated with me and its realistic characters . Not to mention I was bawling with LiS 2 and the Diaz brothers’ journey and endings. I loved Chloe and Rachel’s relationship in BtS.
I didn’t really feel anything for the characters in True Colors and its plot. As much as I loved Max in DE, I didn’t like the scenario of the story and it’s characters also (Safi was a good villain. Other than that, that’s it). The characters in TC and DE just felt like they were just there and didn’t have any depth to them.
There’s so much that I could go on and on, but just sharing my opinion on this. I do agree that DontNod did stories and characters better with the first two games. I also love how DontNod put a lot of easter eggs and references from movies and other forms of media in LiS 1 & 2. I kinda think that they did have influence on DeckNine when they made BtS also (compared to TC and DE, BtS had a better narrative imo).
Imo, I don't hate the game... It sure had potential but they screwed up the execution.. Ep1 felt boring as heck but that plot twist with max holding the gun in the photo got me so fucking excited all up until max and sofi exposed Lucas.. After that idek wtf happened.. Flashbacks to LiS 1 were cool.. the ending didn't feel epic in anyway at all.. I do like the graphical improvements and animations..
And sofi.. Is such a confusing character I don't understand why max cares about her so much
Lets be honest, if you went up to Joyce and said "would you rather have your daughter live or you?" Joyce would say let my daughter live. Both endings are canon in their own right, I get annoyed when people say the save Arcadia Bay ending is the "better" or "canon" ending. Everyone's ending is their ending and I dont like when people side eye you when you pick to save Chloe.
@NasTheKing i agree wholeheartedly, and truly I think the "Save Chloe" ending would've been the best path for a sequel, it's a shame they didn't go in that direction.
That's not really an argument considering that's not an option that's given to you and Chloe also basically tells Max she's willing to sacrifice herself. But of course Joyce would feel the same way, they loved each other. Ultimately the choice is the player's and the consequences of that choice should be on the player's conscience including Joyce's death, so let's not try to sugarcoat it.
@@speedymunchlax5733 I didnt try to sugar coat anything, neither choice is easy wtf. Im just saying that he used the argument in the video that "chloe wouldnt want her mom to die" well on the same side joyce wouldnt want chloe to die, it was the video sugar coating the other side of things not me
@@speedymunchlax5733 and yeah of course thats not an option thats given to you because Joyce isnt there, but if she were it'd be the same dilemma, probably not at the same level just making the choice with only the pressure of Chloe. But yeah, because I saved Chloe and because I know how Joyce is as a person, Im glad I saved Chloe for her
I do think that if people want that lis feel, they should just play dontnods games. Lost records is about to come out and it looks stunning so far. Tell me why was very far from perfect, but it still captures the feel of lis, although it's not even in the series. It even has a touch of supernatural powers. Dontnod do it best, while deck nine is just..... sort of uninspired.
@@Sophiaaasophiaaa i wish Tell Me Why was on PS5!
Many of the problems with continuity could have been avoided if Max wasn't the protagonist. There's hardly anything connecting it to the first game so why bother?
If Safi went out to search for other people with powers, they better not bring back Daniel in the next game because I feel like they’d screw up his character and story. I imagine they will bring in “Lone Wolf” ending Daniel if they had the chance. In my opinion, Max’s story ended in the first game because it just felt like a perfect and realistic point to end her story, same with LiS 2. Hopefully this series ends and doesn’t get milked like the Assassin’s Creed series after Desmond’s story ended.
33:11 *Decknine
You forgot to edit in the Decknine replacement audio here man😅.
But in all seriousness, great video and your opinion voiced ours clearly, I am also scared for the future of this franchise, as I had a similar experience to you playing the first game, I played it back when it came out in 2015, episode by episode throughout the year, and it just totally changed me personally and how I view games in general.
I feel the opposite. I give no shit about the story. I just want more Chloe
I personally loved the first three chapters of the game, but episodes 4 & 5 really fell off for me. Even Safi's shape shifting ability to me was just... too unrealistic. Obviously it's a science fiction-esque game, but that just made it feel silly.
I loved True Colors, the scenery and world that was created in Haven Springs was stunning as was the world created in Double Exposure but the problem with TC as well is that the first few episodes are amazing and the final act doesn't conclude it in a satisfying way while feeling rushed at the same time.
Loved this video. Subscribed. Also I died at the wheezing after talking about writing a manifesto 😂 great video. I feel the SAME about Pricefield too, you hit the nail on the head perfectly about why their relationship realistically wouldn't and shouldn't work.
I'm coming clean- I'm a total PriceField fan. I have never imagined the two of them being together long-term. Ultimately sparing Chloe is a selfish decision by Max, that hurts Chloe, the game spells it out as much as humanly possible. It's my preferred ending, but not in a way where I'm like 'and then they fall in love.' No, it's 'and then they spend the rest of their lives feeling guilty and sad.' I like stories about the destructive power of love, what can I say?
damn you had some good points until you made shit up about pricefielders. nobody started a hate campaign against the devs. like you, we disliked the game on many aspects beyond just how they handled chloe. pricefield was never a doomed relationship, dontnod always said that they'd stay together forever. undoing that basically invalidates the bae ending completely for what it stood for. what is the point of saving one person if you can't even have her? decknine really tried their hardest to make the bae route as unappealing as possible to push fans towards picking bay instead, so they can successfully soft reboot the franchise, leaving chloe and everything else about her past behind. because yeah, her past hardly matters! they do mention the storm there and there but the whole jefferson thing is only mentioned once in the journal and the ridiculous nightmare sequence with neeb with glowing eyes which tbf felt disrespectful of her trauma.
max and chloe can only work together, those were the words of the original creators, so to paint pricefielders as toxic because they want max's most important relationship to be respected and also the original creative vision of dontnod to be followed as it is, is disheartening, really.
EDIT: the worst part is, it's not even just about the ship as a romantic bond, decknine tried to sell us the narrative that they don't even WORK as friends. this is the worst part. because yeah, max and chloe's romance in the first game is purely optional, but their friendship isn't. in bae, max not only has to grieve the loss of the town and its people, but she has to live with having lost chloe over (???? constantly using her powers, which btw makes no sense since max herself claims she hasn't used them in 10 years). so not only was the breakup disrespectful of the fans and original canon material, it literally made no sense (canon inconsistencies, plot holes, like many of the other parts in this game), but they had to mischaracterize both characters to make it work. quite frankly, depicting chloe as a 'free spirit' is bullshit. the girl has never craved anything more than stability.
the text message at the end was obviously a last minute add, and max still doesn't respond to her. max doesn't show any fucking growth as a character despite the game priding itself as it being a story about max being more mature and more confident and blah blah, but she still makes the same mistakes and still essentially treats people the same.
I‘m ready to accept the new DONTNOD game with open arms, the only time when LIS was good
I don't normally ever comment on UA-cam but when you said you're just tired, man I felt that. So here's my thoughts
I also came away more confuzzled than anything. This game was such a huge deal to me and my wife, we've both been huge LIS fans for ages. Subscribed to geforce now so we could play it on maximum settings and really get into it.
On one hand, the game is absolutely stunning, Max is absolutely stunning. If there's one thing they got right it's Max and I'm thankful for that. At least, controversy aside, Max's character came out of this one unscathed. The new motion capture brought her to life in a way I feel lucky just to have experienced. I also thought the soundtrack was an absolute knockout.
As you said, the first half, or 2/3 was strong. Meeting a great cast of characters, exploring beautiful environments, awesome twists and cliffhangers. While I still enjoyed the last two episodes they called for feelings that I just didn't have. Neither me or my wife honestly really cared about Safi at all. She just came off as this bratty rich girl, daughter of the president of the school and I just don't care about her problems lol. That being said, I actually really enjoyed the whole "in the storm" portion of the 5th episode. Especially the trippy motel room part I don't know why. I think that whole part gave me welcomed nostalgia for the final act of the original game, Fighting through the storm and interacting with those within it.
When it was over, what I felt most strongly was underwhelmed unfortunately. I thought some of the reflection moments combined with the soundtrack were masterful, but nothing truly registered with me emotionally. I'm a straight white 30 something year old dude who wept like a baby at the OG game. I think there's a lot here worth experiencing, but other than Max reliving to Safi how she let Chloe die, nothing here really got into my heart the same way. Except the soundtrack man, seriously. Bangers.
Also, I'm sorry but, does everybody at this school have to be gay? I have a complete live and Let Live mentality but for crying out loud it makes me feel like the school is just one big orgy off screen.
Picked up the game on the -30, and finished it yesterday. I fully agree on your analysis here. The game had terrible writing and the budget cuts / writer layoffs midst development, you can really sense them happening, even if I did or did not know about that while playing. Or do I have special powers?
I agreed with your analysis until you mentioned the supposedly superior morality of the Bay ending. Life is Strange's ending is equivalent to Trolley's dilemma. The whole point of the finale was to demonstrate that no ending is more moral than the other, and this was confirmed by Dontnod: there are no bad choices. When you look at it from a human perspective, who are we to judge who is the most "worthy" of living, and whose death would cause the most suffering? Just know that when you consider the quantity of lives at stake, your thought process is exactly the same as when you consider their quality, which is not measurable.
If you choose to pull the lever in the trolley problem, you've usurped the right to judge who is most worthy of living. You've usurped the right to kill the people in the siding. Even if it's an entire town on the main track and just one person on the side track, when you pull the lever and steer the trolley to the side track, you're killing that one person. The fact that you saved the people on the main track doesn't erase this fact. The end doesn't justify the means. From my point of view, the moral response to any trolley problem is to do nothing, because however insignificant the life of the person on the side track may seem, no one has the right to deem them unworthy or less worthy of living and kill them.
To stop the storm, Max would have to kill Chloe. Let's call a spade a spade. She would have to tear Chloe away from the safety she enjoys on Friday and push her back in front of the barrel of a gun on Monday. To save the town, Max would have to intentionally provoke Chloe's death. A death that has already been averted at this point and would not happen again without Max's conscious decision. Imagine seeing someone about to be run over by a car, pulling them to safety and shoving them under the next car. Of course, they're being run over by a car that cuts the thread of that person's life. But you're the one who's killing them, since you're the one who chose to push them under the car. And it doesn't matter that you saved their life a few moments ago. That doesn't give you power over their life and death. It doesn't make them your property.
While I believe that outcomes that help the greatest number of people should be considered, I again believe that the end never justifies the means. We should examine not only the result, but also the means used to achieve that result. And certain means, if they violate fundamental values, are never justified. Their use is always immoral, even if the result of such an immoral action would bring benefit to others.
In any case, you end up taking lives, whether it's one or many doesn't make the choice morally more or less right. For me, the two endings are meant to represent the embodiment of two opposite aspects of love, yet in equal mesure : letting go or fighting to stay. It's not about morality per se but about what you feel through Max in terms of defining what's right for the implications of the relationship you have, and what matters to preserve it in the long term. I personally think that after all the sacrifices Max has had to endure to save Chloe, she wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice Arcadia Bay, she says herself, Chloe is her number one priority, but that's just my opinion.
you worded this so well. this is my thoughts exactly on the trolley problem and i totally agree w you on LiS's endings
@@strehlowo Thank you, I'm glad someone was able to get through my paving stone. I sincerely thought that things had evolved over time on this morality issue, but I guess not. But in a way, it's also what makes this game so unique; to this day, people still debate its ending, proving just how much complexity the game possesses that few have managed to achieve.
I absolutely never said either ending of LiS is morally superior to the other. It is the classic trolley problem, it's part of the reason the game is so great. Whereas this game has zero consequences for either ending.
max was 100% written to choose chloe and the many non-determinant dialogue lines prove it. sure, from a player perspective, bay is also a valid choice, it's just not the one max would've made.
@@kenoastralobjectively, given the money and effort put into each ending, the devs absolutely thought bay ending would be the winner. You may believe the bae ending is better, and that’s fine, but looking through a non biased understanding the video explains perfectly how the bay ending was initially treated better.
To me (someone who didn't know about the layoffs), the end felt like they tried to re-create the nightmare sequence from the first game, but then went overkill with it. Also making it canon which is why that sequence even worked in the first game, it wasn't canon.
That's why I was so sad that Deck Nine released it in this way. I was SOOO excited to play Double Exposure, and it was so bland and boring. There were so many times I felt like I was wasting my time. Felt nothing after finishing it too lol. Nothing like LIS 1 :(
It truly is a shame how the game turned out.
honestly, I expected a nod to the first game with the changing timelines. like your choices from the first game change when you change timelines, or even something like actually spending a lot of time with the characters in the alive timelines, falling in love with them while trying to solve the mystery with them, and at mid to end chapter 4, we are shot back to the dead timeline, only to discover that we fucked with things so much, that both bay and bae are still alive (i always assumed that if chloe would break up with max it would be because she blames them both for the death of the town.) the final choice of the game should be choosing one of the universes- bae and bay or alive and happy. if you want to make this choice harder, make the new characters lovable, and make so that if the player chooses to date amanda (and make them want to do so), no matter what max said about chloe, she will date rachel amber or something. and obviously- make a bunch of their lfe miserable in their dead universe. go a step further if you want, and make it a serial killer, that actively hurt or killed a bunch of people. MAKE THE CHOICE HARD. do you move on from arcadia bay for the friends you made along the way, or will it never be replaceable?
I think it's weird how you disregard how bad chloe's implementation into this game was, the only promise we got was she'd be in the game and it just happened to be the most disappointing implementation possible and I find it very very difficult for someone not to see it that way as a LiS enjoyer.
The first game was a cult classic. this game was so bad. no game time. there was no tension. or something fun. bad story no game time. equals just one long boring movie. how could you make the first game so good and totally fail at this. is absolutely incredible.
Please do more life is strnage content mabye go through and break down every episode love your videos
@@karma5235 aww thank you so much, that's so encouraging to hear! Hmm who knows maybe I should do an entire retrospective going through all five games together!
@KyleReaume yessss king
I'm absolutely devastated at the direction this franchise has gone. I played the original LiS all the way back in high school as the episodes first started coming out and have played every entry since then. This was just such a bad. This is Deck Nine's worst take and it's a huge shame that they're driving things into the ground now.
omg thank you, I had to do a double take when hearing Max in ep 1, at times she sounded like a way over the top cartoon character :skull:
Hey Kyle, just watched your review. Great video first off! But second, I just want to say that I’m in the camp of loving Double Exposure 😂 I thought it was a really fun game! I am sad about the bad reception, and it’s just sad to see that Deck Nine struggled so much with their game development. Thank you for sharing so much insight and history of the troubled Deck Nine went through as well. It’s just so sad to see how much trouble this game went through. I hope deck Nine survives this. I hope they can learn to work with less and do a good game still. 😅 this just sucks. But great video!
It's good to hear some love for Double Exposure, the discourse around that game is just... wild.
That’s funny. Before the Storm is the only Deck Nine game I liked. True Colors and Double Exposure all felt like boring LiS1 remakes
I agree!
I ended up buying a secondhand physical copy for 42,- euro and it turned out that wasn't worth it. I didn't want to rely on the internet critics beforehand, since it lately seems every new game gets bashed upon and DA: Veilguard turned out to be plenty of fun for me, so I wanted to just take a leap for this one as well. I wasn't too fond of the idea of Max returning, but hey, it got a bit more interesting with some twists until indeed, it all spiraled down 🙃 I'm glad I never pre-ordered it for full price
i hated the last 2 eps i wish it was another max instead of safi..
Life is strange ended with the orginal game; not the remastered, not Before the Storm, definitely not True Colors, not LiS 2, and not DE.
And you are right about it feeling like x-men, I agree, ridiculous storyline and storytelling!
I would have loved that the story of the game started a week after LIS1. And that they found out that Jefferson belonged to a pedophile network or something like that. You could really built up to that, new characters she/they will meet, characters they have to talk to to find out more about this underground network, and of course the relationship between Max and Chloe - even if you chose the ending without Chloe in LIS1, you could have a great story out of that (or something similar).
I just hate the new game…
EDIT: sorry for my bad English it’s not my mother tongue and I’m angry 😂
Life is strange was ruined when they lost that twin peaks feeling. I get it they wanted to strive away from Arcadia Bay, but thats what made LIS special were the stories in Arcadia Bay, And the aesthetic to the original LIS and Before the storm was something special and Deck Nine can never replicate.
First off sorry for my ramblings. But I can't get over how they messed up this whole LiS thing is. First, there's titles. Why was LiS 2, LiS 2? And why make Double Exposure make it seem like some type of expansion rather than a full blown sequel? Not sure if it was meant to be LiS 3, though. Either way I don't get it. Personally I would go:
1) LiS 1
2) LiS Before the Storm (expansion to LiS 1)
3) LiS 2 => Double Exposure, just running on the exact same engine as True Colors, and much longer (see below)
4) LiS 3 => True Colors, because the story seemed completely unrelated, even if Steph was in Arcadia during the storm. But exactly the latter would've tied LiS 1, 2 and 3 together and would've made even more of a banger than True Colors was (generally speaking, it sure had its flaws don't get me wrong). Kinda like branching off into a new territory like they did with LiS 2. Of course, same length as LiS 2.
5) LiS some-title-about-two-brothers-unrelated-to-lis (expansion to LiS 3)
6) Captain Spirit (expansion to LiS 3 releasing between 5) Episode 1 and 5) Episode 2)
Why make it all so complicated? Anyways, about the engines... True Colors runs perfectly fine, much better than LiS 1, its remake or BtS and its remake. Also much better than Double Exposure. I don't even understand why, because True Colors, in my eyes at least, looks better than Double Exposure. So why not use that same exact engine, and maybe even let DontNod do it in the first place, because they obviously understand how to do things in that engine much better than whatever mess Deck Nine produces. Why have two studios at all? I guess the whole world agrees that DontNod does it better, not just how the game looks and runs but also feels. Why didn't Square Enix make a deal with DontNod for this particular last release because of the layoffs Deck Nine was having? I have no idea how DontNod does these days compared to Deck Nine, but come on... That's not the way to treat your customers, Square Enix...
The game itself though - honestly I liked it. Yeah it ran like horse crap compared to True Colors, but it somehow still had the essence of LiS, and kept it throughout until the very ending. Speaking of, the ending is the worst in all of LiS in my opinion. Not to say it is the worst they could've come up with, but they did better. Yes, even Deck Nine did better back in the day. I don't get the bad rep. I loved the story, it was refreshing. But, as the title made it seem like, it really felt like an expansion. I'm saying: they can't tell me they didn't have enough money to make a really good game based around Max directly after BtS came out. Imagine the runtime of LiS 2 and Double Exposure combined with the same love and strengths that LiS 1 and 2 both had. Heck, why not make Deck Nine and DontNod work on the same god damn thing, and release one huge banger as LiS 2, getting lots of money in return and also both keep your fanbase and get lots of new fans becase the game was such a banger? But whatever I guess
Edit: oh yeah the voice acting / voice quality was horrible........
Life is Strange 2 was called 2 because originally the series was intended to be an anthology with every new numbered game being set with a new cast and story every time. Life is Strange 1 was never intended to have a sequel, once Drck Nine took over, the anthology thing got dropped and subtitled games became a thing, hence why LiS2 sticks out like a sore thumb now.
hopefully they have to sell the franchise someone new, takes it over scraps double exposure and we get a max story with her friends the actual people we give a shit about Kate if you’re weird Chloe clarify, that one’s a joke Warren, Brooke Victoria and so on and so on.
Some stories are best left to rest when they reach their natural conclusion. And with Max Caulfield's story, I think there is no way to respectfully continue the story after forcing the player to make an extremely emotional decision like the ending of Life is Strange without making standalone stories for both paths. I like both endings of the first game, but I do have an emotional investment in Max and Chloe's relationship. I would say contrary to the fandom's main gripe with how their relationship was handled, it's not them not being together that really upsets me, but that it was written off in the backstory.
I think for something that demanded such emotional investment from the player and was such an important part of the lives of both Max and Chloe in the first game, they should have given Max and Chloe time together, even if they ended up apart. I love the concept of older and wiser Max and Chloe and I love the idea of them interacting and seeing what happens, whether as romantic partners or as friends. But we never got there. (Also I despise it when people go harass the folks that worked on the project. Please stop this now.)
All that being said, while I don't think more games should have been made without Don'tNod, if they wanted to continue the series, in the spirit of the second game and True Colors, it'd make a pretty sweet anthology series if done right. True Colors and Before the Storm aren't bad games in my opinion, but they didn't feel like Life is Strange games, either. They didn't have... the magic. And I think it's a gamble not necessarily with money but with the love of the people who play the games when you make bad faith sequels. I'm frankly glad that Don'tNod is branching out into other projects. I'm excited to see what happens next.
I personally can't stand double exposure it's easily the worst game to ever come from life is strange. D9 will be what kills lis.
but i really liked in the begininng!!..didnt you??
True colours was infinitely worst
@QuestTeller people who say "worst" are definitely just haters, but real fans would rather say, "least best", like yall are too much and true colours was awesome by the way
@Caitlyn777-e1x you dont have to like every game of a franchise to be a fan
@kenoastral agreee
Although I love the game flaws and all I'm upset that I figured out the twist early on. I'm not sure how many other people also figured it out but at least the other games held more suspense and when you re-play is when you see the signs etc. I'm excited that they are bringing Max back again and that there is more power users in one game but I'm unsure what that will actually mean for future games if that will be good or not... Though I am excited that past characters may also come back I just hope it will be good. I want to stay optimistic about a franchise I love even if I didn't enjoy True Colours and Before The Storm.
I think the whole chloe point gets kinda pointed wrong here. u have the option to safe her or safe arcadia bay. it doesnt matter if one has another new song in it, both ends are avalable and equal treated. so if we go back to the first game, after all these horrible things both max and chloe went trough, after them rebuilding their friedship and after max letting arcadia bay getting taken by the storm to safe chloe you tell me they just went "yea no i dont want to be your friend anymore, thanks bye"? after chloe knew about max's power all the time in the first game all of the sudden now its a problem for her? after max being the most honest and true friend to chloe through the whole first game now chloe doesnt believ max anymore that she dont uses her power anymore, when max didnt even want to use them in the first place and chloe was the one pushing her to use them? they absolutly didnt respect everything that happend in the first game, everything both max and chloe said or did in the first game. noone said chloe had to be side by side with her for the whole double exposure game but dude 2-3 sequenzes with her or if you choose you killed her 2-3 sequences with people from arcadia bay isnt really that much to ask for. they disrespected the first game, they disrespected the whole LiS franchise and they disrespected the whole Storytelling Gamindustry by giving us exakly one ending sequence no matter what choices you make in the game, because they wanna cashgrab on the max thing again but arent smart enought to figure out how to handle multiple endings. i am so happy that after episode 3-5 came out, and all the negative feedback came in it actually had consequences for the people who ruined the character max and the franchise LiS. im not happy for people having financial problems because of that but its so refreshing to seen that there is consequences for that giant bullshit.
That's why usually when it comes to video games nowadays, I wait till gameplay comes out, and I do a lot of research before I buy a $60/$80 dollar game. The ONLY ever game I ever pre-ordered was Elden Ring, Silent Hill 2 Remake and RE4 Remake. I'm so glad I didn't buy this game or even pre-order it for real.
You're not alone, pre-ordering is always a gamble
I haven't watched this video yet and I haven't bought or played this game yet... I'm tempted to just let my self get spoiled for this one
@DelfyDaun honestly I can't say it's 100% worth playing
How is a game you can fully watch on UA-cam in a few hours for free anyone’s favorite game?
I think I could be pretty forgiving if they make a final game that's actually good, but now it sounds like another game probably won't come out after all, and if it does I do not have high hopes at all. D9 just don't make great games, and all the mess isn't helping
DECK NINE and SQAURE ENIX just wanted to chase the bag 💰🥲
Agreed!
I felt like True Colors was kinda bland, but didn't know it was a part of a bigger issue
Very interesting video 🎉
One game destroyed whole timeline and message of rest of the series.
I agree with everything you said except when you shit on before the storm and pricefield plausibility
lol is anyone really surprised though?
Before the Storm was terrible. Once I saw that DN was part of it I decided not to buy it.
Just finished playing LIS Double Exposure. WTF was that 😤 utterly disappointing
Deck Nine always fumble the bag on the final episode(s), I don't know why they insist on making the games episodic either, all of their LiS games would benefit being longer so they wouldn't have to rush or drop content just to fit it all into an episodic limit.
This game is a piece of trash.
All of you are so in need to be entretained that you don't realize the artist make the art, not the corporation. Follow the artist, not the corporation. The artist knows what they are doing and they will sometimes make the stuff you want to see, the corporation is a parasite that takes credit for the artist and then fire them a week before christmas. I hope the difference is clear now.
Looking at the first trailer when max looked up it had that decknine stench 😭 i just kneww this game was gonna be ass cuz i played true colors
Awful entry into the series, write this game off in an alternate universe!! 😂😂
I loved the game but i wish we got an appearance from Chloe as well as a more meaningful choice pathing, that said i do understand that if they had more choices for the end it would make it harder to make the next game. I do think episodes 1-3 were better than 4-5 but still i loved it overall.
Unlike you I didnt like True Colours much (literally narrative-wise it's just a LIS 1 copypasta with some small original little things splintered here and there and in terms of the themes it talks about I found it tremendoulsy cowardly specially after LIS 2) and therefore I had low expectations the moment I saw the first trailer of DE and Max back. Turns out I was right in my apprehension and funnily enough it ended up being even worse. Decknine just dont get it.
Anyway looking forward to Dontnod's Lost Records.
By the way, the problem is not that if you choose the Chloe alive timeline Chloe and Max are separated but the why and the way it's executed. They change her character and basically turn her into BTS Rachel. That's the problem.
Let me help you in deciding to like the game or not. The butterfly did not represent your choice. It'd be perhaps in the Dead version but in the Alive it should be a railroad. What difference does it make if there is no evil version of yourself actually at fault? Nova really spoiled me on it, the story would make more sense with your evil version did the bad things. She could have even spoiled the shapeshifter but no appeaeantly she dies somewhere off screen and the picture of the murder is actually the only reference of the evil one! She must be dead in the ditch behind the picture!
That game could have worked as a direct sequel too but shifting between the Chloe endings. The last episode is rewinding back to the childhood but going with the father ending up missing the truck by being driven into a ditch instead from distraction. Man that'd be a game! You do remember what you did too so leave the Jefferson evidence in the past why not just have it tried and failing so the plot holes don't open! What is a sequel to explain why the first one has intended flaws!
I was flabbergasted when I learned that they brought Max back. Max received sooo much hate back then. Her lines were already read with that "quirky" voice and people really disliked her personality, it was even a meme. Does no one remember ?
I love new game but last two kinda meh that's true
29:40 WHATTTT!!
No. I loved before the storm.
I thought it was pretty good. Different from other Lis games and a buggy sure, but not the absolute dumpster fire people are making it out to be. The performances were all outstanding, the characters were interesting, the two-world mechanic was fresh, and on PS5 the facial animations were second to none. I even loved how some of them have fine lines on their face because they're not teens.
yeah i loved it too, just not the last 2 episodes 😂
the main mystery of the game isn't even solved at the end btw.
@@kenoastral Huh?? The main mystery of the game is who killed Safi and that's very much figured out by the end, lol
@_Petrichor it isn't though
@@KyleReaume Way to tell everyone you didn't play the game 😂 It was Max in the other timeline via a mercy kill.
there is a lot i could comment on but what i really want to say is how dare you drag before the storm like that? i loved it :D