Notably this is not the developer who has done Life is Strange True Colours, Double Exposure or Reunion.
This is the ones that did the amazing first one, the meh second one, and then a bunch of non-LiS games that IMO were of varying and unstable quality. Although I’ll have to make an exception for Bloom&Rage, because that one was absolutely fantastic, for all its flaws.
I really enjoyed the first game, but the rest of them got progressively worse from me. Out of curiosity, what stuck out about Bloom and Rage? I found it to be the worst of all of them; the characters were written in an insanely out-of-touch way, the dialogue was sooo painful to me.
I gotta go through Before the Storm, though!
Before the Storm is also from Deck Nine not Don’t Nod, and I think you can still notice they didn’t truly know how to handle the franchise at that point. It’s a cool DLC though, really enjoyed it, I just don’t think Chloe’s “special mechanic” works well in contrast to Max’s (a problem Reunion shares but since the rewind is essentially on-rails there it’s far less a noteworthy).
About Bloom&Rage, hrm… tricky to say. I think what made it come together for me - because I agree the characters are overwritten extremely, and I gotta assume that’s intentional with the degree to which they are - is the atmosphere of the childhood sequences, in particular the inherently-creepy elements when you’re taping stuff going wonky contrasted with the extremely somber and wistful tone of the adults talking. The children being so overdone I almost see like Varric’s description of the DA2 PC at the start where you’re overly muscular or have a huge rack, because he’s embellishing. They’re remembering, but they’re only remembering some aspects and overfocusing on them.
I’m in just the right age bracket to feel with the women sitting there reminiscing about their youths though. So that worked really well for me. And I loved how I didn’t know how I looked as an adult, that was a cool payoff at the end.
Thank you for your thoughtful perspective! I didn’t mean to be so harsh on the game—it just really didn’t hit for me. I think honestly the “adult versions of characters imagining themselves but younger” wasn’t something I even thought of; I took the dialogue as if it was just coming straight from the writers. That’s an interesting way to frame it, and I should take another look with that in mind.
I’m also about the right age bracket, maybe a tad older? My childhood and teen years generally ranged from boring to “pretty alright” with a little bad sprinkled in though; very little gives me nostalgia for that time of my life. I suppose that’s a good thing? Kinda? I dunno. But thank you again! :3 I have not played any DA games but I do have some, and I’ve heard they’re great. The beginning of DA2 you describe sounds great, hahaha
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
And Before the Storm. Don’t Nod has only made LiS and LiS 2, all the other games were developed by Deck Nine.