I honestly didn't like Rachel and could never figure out why, but this put it into perspective. I never trusted that her feelings were genuine and she was telling us the whole truth. This is partially because we know in the main game that Rachel lied to Chloe. She was in a relationship with Frank at some point. She may have been in a relationship with the Photography teacher before that went sideways. The main game hammers home that Chloe didn't know the true Rachel, and this game makes it seem like she did. That cognitive dissonance makes it hard to trust anything she says or does.
Jonathan Litwinka and she's pretty much supposed to be like that - a manipulative but extremely attractive person (not attractive for everyone, but for many) They nailed her personality perfectly, and created a very deep, realistic character
Right? And the big problem I have with this element is that Deck Nine seemed very accutely aware of this fact, they strongly raise questions and implications about it in Eps1 and 2, aaaand...then in episode 3 it's like they got cold feet, changed their minds, and wanted to pretend Rachel really WAS this "angel" we know she was not...Sucked so much power out of the narrative, IMO.
txgoldrush Rachel also seemed to genuinely love Frank and maybe even Jefferson and maybe even Nathan, if we’re looking for details. But none of that changes how Rachel kept Chloe in the dark, and it doesn’t change how this game really didn’t do anything to make any sense of this very noticeable fact about this relationship.
Not as much as Chloe, so much so that Frank was jealous of Chloe. And the game does look at Rachel's character flaws, Nevermind the notion that Rachel is going down her mother's path.
this game should have been more about frank, jefferson and nathan, and all of their relationships with rachel, and less about rachel's parents. that whole plotline was just so boring, I didn't care at all because it had nothing to do with the first game. I don't care about damon merrick, I don't care about sera, and I really don't care about elliot
and another thing, how are we supposed to buy that all this crazy shit happened and that chloe doesn't tell max ANYTHING about it in the original life is strange? it's obvious that this story was never intended to be something chloe actually went through, otherwise we would have at least heard of these new characters a few times throughout the first game. that made it even harder to suspend my belief. if you're going to make a PREQUEL you should do it in a way that makes sense.
Baati Nagawo I loved the little side story in Before the Storm that gave a little glimpse as to what Nathan could have been like before, I would have loved for it to be a main story
Exactly. I'd personally love to see the development of the vortex club and Rachel's interaction with its members and how she falls in love with frank. I mean, it was good, but the relationship between Rachel and Chloe was pretty unrealistic as it developed too quickly.. If it only could have been some longer
It actually is... if you think about that, it's not suprising that Rachel "dated" Frank and Jefferson - she was looking for an escape after everything that happened with her father. More than that, her father figure was gone for her, and it's sad to admit but i think Jefferson became that figure for her in that young age.
The dream sequences, specifically the ones that had nothing to do with Rachel, were my FAVORITE parts of this game. They added to Chloe's character, she puts herself in the position of William's final moments multiple times, a clear symbol that she wishes she was there when it happened. But even in her dreams, she's always too late. During the theater nightmare she's in that situation again, but it's all an act. Chloe is trying to lessen her grief with nihilism, thinking that everything is all an act and doesn't really matter. But she doesn't want that, she's tired of acting tough. All of the people in the audience looking at her, laughing while she's wearing a ridiculous outfit showing how vulnerable she really is. And William looks at her, saying that everything will be okay when the time comes for him to exit the stage, saying that it's only lights and sound effects. But Chloe keeps looking off screen in a panic, only for a REAL TRUCK to slam into William, leaving real blood behind. She screams out in anguish and bursts into tears, and then someone in the audience boos her. This likely means that she broke character, HER character, the strong version of herself that she fronts to avoid the bad things in her life. Don't forget that Chloe used to be a well behaved and incredibly smart kid until she was abandoned. THAT is what the whole game should have done! Add to her character! And yet it just keeps telling us things we already know. It's such a shame.
@PuzzlePeace Beautifully said, but at the same time... simping for Rachel *does* tell you the most important thing about Chloe before meeting Max: that shee needs someone to cling to so much, that it doesn’t even matter if that person deserves all that. Which gives a completely new meaning to the first episodes of LiS: before Max shows up, Chloe spends her days putting up “missing person” posters that nobody even cares to read. All for a person who, as we find out in BtS, is underwhelming... we really need to see that to realize how alone Chloe really is, to see that not only “not from the outside”, but from so closely that not even Chloe has that much introspection. On the nihilistic thing... I was just thinking about that word. Chloe tries so hard to *become* nihilistic, hoping that will keep her from harm. But she doesn’t manage to. Because if she really did, she wouldn’t tell Max to sacrifice her at the end of LiS in order to save a town full of people she hates (and who’ve actually let her down when she so needed someone to lean on). Or a town full of people in general. Chloe isn’t able to become a nihilist, because she is, deep down, too strong a person: she isn’t weak enough to think, “fuck everybody, I need to be saved, I don’t know how to get saved, please come and save me no matter who else must pay what price”. I’m convinced there’s that link between her inability to be fully nihilistic and her strength of character. Speaking of which... she’s obviously much stronger than Max. You see that relatively less in LiS, because Chloe’s gone through so much that she’s only the broken shadow of what she could have been without all the trauma and self-destructive rebellion; but you see it way much better in the bonus episode “Farewell” - Chloe is a born leader and consoler, her instinct is actually to suffer in silence if that can spare her friend her grief (finding out Chloe already knew Max would move in three days, for example. But not just that). Max is not that weak herself, but she really is in comparison to Chloe... and her not answering to Chloe from Seattle is the action of a weak character (“I’m so overwhelmed by the challenges of this new life that I need to cut liabilities... ok, I’m gonna cut off my friend who desperately needs me if that keeps me afloat”) as much as Chloe’s much later “sacrifice me!” is the sign of a strong character. Max needs to be kinda “plainer” to help the new player blend into her character, and they do make a beautiful friendship... but after playing the whole thing, and after identifying quite a lot with Max when I played her, I somehow feel like I can’t forgive her for what she did to Chloe. Chloe was the strong one but she really needed someone to stand up for her, and Max chickened out and messed her up for life. Actually, the fact that Chloe drops the resentment for Max the moment she finally meets her again in the very first episode is another sign of such a great, extraordinarily strong personality... later in that episode she gets “surprisingly” bitchy, or maybe antsy, about Max answering Kate in the diner - but, knowing all she went through, it is such a delicate and restrained call for help from Chloe. It’s as if she were saying, “I forgive everything, but please, please don’t leave me alone once again... I wouldn’t be able to survive a second time”.
I was thinking some more about Kate’s call when Max and Chloe are about to leave the diner. Chloe drops all resentment for five years of personal hell and utter loneliness when she meets Max and immediately knows she *has* her friend again. Or is it that she *sees* her friend again? Chloe instinctively thinks she “has” her friend again, she doesn’t need to ponder or rationalize it to know she has Max on her side again, that her betrayal came out of weakness and not out of malice. Kate’s call forces Chloe to double-check her instincts and think rationally: “What if I just *saw* her again, and she’s off to somewhere and I’ll never be able to rely on her again?” Going through all that and not producing the cynicism to protect yourself from that is... very few people have that much strength, it’s almost a myth. Because cynicism, by definition, is a defense mechanism where you overreact to betrayal by someone you trusted, because your psyche understands that you could bear to live with constant frustration but that the pain of going through a similar disappointment a secobd time would breake you. Chloe’s psyche knows that Chloe can go through hell and back... once again, if needed. That moment in the diner looked childish at first (and Chloe has all reasons to be immature... in fact she very much is, when she ruins her life in BtS), instead it’s one of the most subdued and string-willed things I’ve ever seen in my life.
@@deciusx9720 this is absolutely beautiful. definitely gives me a new & convincing perception of chloe, i always thought she was bitchy, or a bad friend to max but never really considered why or how max’s actions really affected her.
@@deciusx9720 EXACTLY!!! I hate when people hate on chloe for the whole kate thing. Chloe clearly had abandonment issues. she just wanted to be someones first choice. And I also relate a LOT to chloe because my mom passed away a few years ago. A death of a parent can change you and I know first hand. I got very angry and lashed out on people who cared about me. Chloe showed me im not alone. And I also developed abandonment issues as well.
I didn't like Rachel because she seemed to be using Chloe to make herself feel better. She wanted to be liked or loved by her, it felt like. And probably she didn't love Chloe, or at least enough to tell her about her relationship with Frank and probably with Jefferson. I don't think she liked Chloe for who she was, but rather for how much she admired Rachel.
@@darksunelli She got to relationship with Frank somewhere between end of Before the Storm and her disappearing. After all Frank saved Chloe, so its somehow giving sense, i guess. In Before the Storm she never shows signs of knowing Frank, plus she was way too young(16 or 17 in BtS). Theres few posible reasons why they got together, but she still wanted to run away with Chloe.
@@cyphi474 also Jefferson stated that in the dark room, but he was probably lying or he was believing that, because it was comfortable for him. He lied about nathan killing rachel, because he did that and wanted to frame him. Nathan explains that in phone message to Max that he didnt wanted to hurt anyone. It is clear to see when jefferson saying that he overdosed her, but quickly cuts and repeats that nathan did it. So obviously he liked rachel and he drugged her in order to use her, which led to her death and framing nathan.
@@adziup Congratulations. Someone was actually paying attention. Its what im saying all the time. Nathan most likely didnt kill Rachel, Jefferson made it look like he did it, so he could keep control over more and more unstable Nathan. As Rachel and Jefferson, he doesnt implying any relationship. He describe theirs relationship as love between photographer and his model, which is obvious psychopat bs. I havent found anything confirming any close relationship betwen those two playing LiS and BtS couple of times. After all, if it was true, he wouldnt need Nathan to drug her.
I could never understand how people fell in love with Rachel. I mean, of course there were moments where I did genuinely like her, but she just felt so...for lack of a better word, fake. The stories she'd tell, the fact that a day after meeting Chloe, she suggested they play Two Truths and a Lie. After I finished the first episode, I was really put off with how Rachel handled the information she got from the park and her reactions with Chloe at the end of the episode. Her lashing out at Chloe like that and it escalating just...ugh. I didn't ever really question her love for Chloe, but I genuinely wonder if the devs forgot about Rachel's experiences with Frank and Jefferson.
hailey gizella I agree with you. When we got the “picture perfect” image of Rachel it seemed too good to be true. It just sucked watching the downward spiral of their “relationship” as the episodes went on.
And she called Chloe selfish for literally no reason. I know Chloe isn't exactly the most selfless person, but based on how Chloe interacted with Rachel in the first episode (since they had just met, plus she wasn't as bad as she was in the original LIS game later on), Rachel has nothing to back up her claim. She skipped class for Rachel, was trying to fix something just so Rachel can play her stupid game where she spies on people, she stole wine because Rachel guilt tripped her, and Chloe was generally nice to her throughout.
I completely agree. This game felt like I was playing someone's fan fiction. The situations these high schoolers got into, the unrealistic dialogue, the romantic relationship between Chloe and Rachel and the one-dimensionality of everyone around them. So much of this felt like fan service and drama for the sake of drama. As far as unrealistic dialogue goes, one thing that made this game feel so off-putting was the dialogue from Damon. It felt like a 13 year old writing for what they THINK a drug dealer would do and say. He spoke like an actual Disney Villian, every sentence made me cringe. He was just pure evil and nothing more. Playing the original LiS, I loved that Rachel was an off-screen character, we could only piece her together from the memories of Chloe and the people of Arcadia Bay. Seeing her true character come to life in this way kind of disparaged this elusive and angelic figure from the first game.
Right like the entire first game everyone is still worshipping Rachel Amber even though shes been missing for months at that point. Everyone goes on about how sweet and charming she was. This game... Shes just a manipulating bitch and i couldnt care less about her. Is her home life shitty? Who cares. And everyone wanted to know how Rachel and Frank get together but why? How is it any less creepy than the other adult men in this game. Rachel isnt likeable and chloe was reduced to being an edgelord. I actually liked chloe in the first game. Shes hurting and grieving and obsessed with finding the girl she loves so dearly and slowly moving on and accepting Rachel is gone. She was multidimensional. Now.. Shes edgy because lol what else would a 13-14 year old girl be
@@arachnesakura9375 I also find that that before the storm ruins the mystery about who rachel really was and all the ambiguity that was in the first game.
@Candice _ I wouldn't call it "fan fiction," when as someone who started writing original stories when he was in high school, I can attest that some of us original authors make the same mistakes you listed. Well at least I did, as I can't speak for others. EDIT:"Alright, I just caught Before The Storm" was developed by a different team, so I see why you say it felt like bad fanfiction. Just shows even professionals can screw up... A reality I dread..."
I'm one of the people who enjoyed Before the Storm, and my feelings about the game (or at least the series) haven't changed. I'm not saying that I wasn't disappointed with this game, as I did find a few flaws prior to seeing this video. I just want to say that I appreciate your stance and honesty about your experience with the game and how you feel that it should have gone. In fact, the reason that I came to this video was because I'm not good at analyzing work to see why it works or doesn't work, and I wanted to educate myself. You showed me some things that I can look for when I play this game again; hopefully, I can ask some of the questions that you asked when seeing shows or playing games and make more intelligent approaches toward different works. Great work on the video! I'll be checking out more of your reviews.
Makes the two (or 277?) of us, Jonathan! In LiS Max is a bit of a “blander” character because the player needs to be able to identify with her as much as possible, and “reverse-engineer” her character from your own choices is a way to do so very deeply. On the other hand, and after the emotional rollercoaster LiS is, if you get to playing BtS is obvious you’re going to get underwhelming gameplay by comparison: if you play BtS, you want to go deeper with the story, to know Chloe better when she’s at her most fragile and self-destructive. It was another developing studio and yes, they could have done better... and the in-game story felt rushed... and yes, as the video says, they were obviously going for some things and missed the mark... but I still got to understand so many more things, details, states of mind, rationales behind choices, bad behaviours and counterproductive choices by Chloe that my view of her became way fuller. This is more than any kickass gameplay could have given me.
Not just you Hamish. I too feel like the characters were underwritten and the game over all felt like it had no purpose. I respect the effort the devs may have put into it. But that doesn't change the fact that the story is poorly written and the game is below average at best.
EXACTLY I really don't like to criticize other people's work (especially knowing that the devs are big fans of the first Life Is Strange game) but Before The Storm beyond being pointless is BAD. A prequel only ruined the mystery around Rachel Amber. That whole mother and Rachel having supernatural relations with the fire plot was good and had potential but DeckNine did a bad job. And the Chloe voice actress I know she tried her best but I do not know why the hell was it necessary to have a pointless prequel PLUS Chloe with a different and not so good voice. Ashly Burch (Chloe original voice actress) is superb no one could top her as Chloe and yet they didn't care.
The voice actor's guild strike just so happened to fall during the time of the game's development. If not for that they would have used Ashly Burch for the role.
no one could expect the ending to anywhere near and emotional as the original because we all know Chloe and Rachel survive 2010 whatever the circumstances, but really who cares about Chloe's hair? I just wasted a dozen hours of my life just to see Chloe dye her hair, it's like the prequel that lead to Chloe a decision to dye her hair, and I had presumed she would of dyed her hair as late as 2012, beginning so perfectly blue in the original, without any original hair growth visible.
I agree but they did mention a lot that Rachel is a manipulative actress who is very much into escapism in a bad way much like her mother who let her escapism get the best of her... so I guess I kind of thought that was the point of Rachel's character. It was ultimately her character's short falling. If she didn't die... she might have ended up losing her reputation of being perfect and kind to a complete mess who unwittingly followed in her mother's footsteps.
Oh my god yes! The reason I liked Rachel in the original Life is strange is because of that Laura Palmer’s vibe. Everyone adores her yet she’s also seen as manipulative but you never know the truth because this girl (both Laura and Rachel) is a mystery and it’s never reveled who she actually was. But Life is strange just killed the mystery and ruined Rachel’s character.
In the first game, we only hear about rachel from other people, mainly chloe, so its either people who really dont know her that much, or chloe, who was still hurt from the fact that max abandoned her and it would make sense that even if chloe knew she wasnt that perfect, would paint her that way, just to kinda show max what she missed. Its like when a friend invites you to an event and you decline, and then exaggerates how the event went, hard to explain. And after we find out that rachel lied to chloe, we start to wonder if she was actually that perfect angellic person that chloe makes her to be, it does work well in the first game.
im gonna make this REAL simple. Elliot, crazy as he was, was 100% correct. Rachel is a user. she uses people. this is all you need to know about her and chloe, her and frank. etc. People are upset because the game makes it seem like Chloe and Rachel are soul mates, but the truth is, not. She is a user.
Close. Rachel is to Chloe in BTS what Chloe is to Max in Lis. She comes across as Toxic and a user, but she does care, she just doesn't know how to show it. Rachel is fake, not a user. She shows people what she wants them to see. It's why Chloe was so shocked she was intimate with Frank. It's also why Rachel doesn't have any 'real' friends, but everyone loved her. Eliot is the self-absorbed idiot who is only trying to get Chloe's attention. Whereas Warren in LiS was kind hearted and often seemed genuinely down when Max turned him down, Eliot seemed more irritated. His toxicity towards Chloe gets worse with every interaction, building to the crescendo in the Home Office.
I'm really upset that the one person who tried to knock some sense into Chloe and make her realize that Rachel was a bad friend was also one of the worst characters of the whole game. He loses credibility for being a creep, but he really is technically right. Making Elliot be the only one to tell Chloe this almost makes me think that the writers for the game wanted to tell us, "Oh you don't like Rachel? Well then you're no different from Elliot. And you don't want to be like Elliott, right?"
@@mynameisreallycool1 Elliot didn't care whether or not Rachel was good for Chloe. He only saw her as competition for Chloe's interest. He'd say whatever he thought he could get away with to make distance between Chloe and Rachel so he could 'swoop in'. Elliot's assessment of Rachel and Chloe's relationship is complete BS, because he has no clue about it.
@@freakctc That's true. Nonetheless though, even though he was only saying all of this so he could have Chloe for himself, he was technically right to say that Rachel was no good though. All in all, they both suck and both manipulative towards Chloe. Neither one of them deserve Chloe's time and energy.
@@mynameisreallycool1 As much as I hate to defend Rachel, their manipulations of Chloe were for totally different purposes. Rachel lied to protect herself, as she is used to doing. Eliot manipulates her so she'll be HIS girl (emphasis on the ownership) and control her. Rachel isn't openly bad for Chloe, she just doesn't know how to be 100% honest with anyone. As they are in LiS, Chloe and Rachel are a bad couple, but maybe if they reached their mid 20's, and matured a little, they would be great for each other.
It’s such a strange decision to focus the game on Chloe. We already know these things about Chloe, why do we need a game reiterating it? Why not focus the game on Rachel’s point of view? Or maybe even Nathan’s, find out how he got into cahoots with Jefferson. The first game already spent too much time with Chloe, she was essentially the main focus already.
"Or maybe even Nathan’s, find out how he got into cahoots with Jefferson. " How about because I can summarize that entire episode in a sentence shorter than your question and in a way that was already answered by Episode 1. "Nathan is mentally ill." Done.
Because fans love Chloe. The studio and the publisher wanted to make profit based on that. So why not making a game where you can play the beloved Chloe. There would be more sales
@@nehcooahnait7827 Fans DO NOT love Chloe. I played and enjoyed the first game and even this one despite both games having some very real issues. But Chloe was one of the most abrasive, unlikeable, toxic, characters I've ever seen in a video game. The fact that some people like this character and seem to relate to her or view her as some sort of hero or good person is fucking shocking to me. Chloe should be seen as a cautionary tale. But it is a very inaccurate statement to say that all the fans of these games like Chloe. She's the worst.
By far the worst thing for LiS:BtS was that it was a story based game where the conclusion had already been established. Any twist they included could have no impact due to the fact it was a prequel to a game that spent a decent amount of time going on about this period. The argument mechanic was pretty good, just not implemented well.
Yet the twist that that woman was Rachel's mother had a lot of impact on me :thinking. Just because you know where the characters end up, doesn't make the journey what got them there any less interesting.
That's TRUE, and yet BtS does...so very little, ultimately, to justify its own existence in this regard. Rather than diving deep into Chloe's relationship with Rachel, it only gives us a rushed glimpse of their first few days. Rather than digging into Chloe's traumatic issues, it has her running errands for the girl she's "enslaved" to (per the Tempest allegory). Rather than connecting dots to the first game, and building on these pre-established characters in a way that develops them, it just...shows us more of what we already know, and throws in a bunch of made-up stuff that has no ties to the first game. Now, bear in mind, I'm simplifying my statements, here (BtS DOES present some meaningful details and moments here and there, BUT...overall, as a prequel? It...doesn't do much to develop anything we couldn't already figure out in the original)
The argument mechanic could've been like the back and forth between characters in Ace Attorney Investigations, but instead they were a compilation of "burns" that not even a middle schooler would think were "sick".
Cowinspace I think the worst thing is the fact that even though the outcome was already written, there's nothing to lead up to it. Like why would Rachel suddenly abandon Chloe and fall in love with Frank
Someone in another review mentioned that Rachel is always looking for something. A new friend, a new possible lover, her long lost Mother. She constantly latches onto new people when she realizes her current fix isn't filling the void in her. More than likely she just drifted to someone else when she realized Chloe wasn't fixing her.
On the drugging, the worst bit for me is that Before the Storm plays it for laughs. Rachel and Victoria (depending on choices in the original) are both drugged to death with a substance that has a not dissimilar effect. Given the way drugs that induce unconsciousness would be used against Rachel, Victoria and others, playing this for laughs is uncomfortable at best and Before the Storm doesn't seem to see this.
I think the thing about Before the Storm that makes me love it, is that it's basically a short game that gives us Chloe's view of the world. I'm not one to think that it's as great as the original LIS but I can see how it's somewhat just as loved, it's Chloe and her struggle with people in general. Rachael also to me was maybe the biggest fake in the entire game, but the game doesn't try to hide that from you, you know that Rachael is bond to let you down because we know what transpires with Frank, even the developer of the game told me that Elliot's outburst with Chloe about Rachael is actually right in a sense. That's what makes Rachael all the more interesting to me, she's arguably the worst influence in the series and yet we find ourselves liking her in the small ways she shows her fun side. I think large props has to go to Rachael's voice actress Kylie Brown and the soundtrack from this game is just perfect.
A bit too short for the money it costs. Right now it's 17 bucks for 12 hours of gameplay, and that's interacting with every intractable object/person? Sure, let's say 20 if you replay the chapters for different endings. That's really not a fair price.
Just a correction but Chloe doesn't fill in Victoria's place in the play, she's fills in Juliet's who got stuck on her way due to the fires. It even says in the subtitles. Victoria was just Rachel's understudy. What's a bit weird to me is that in version where Chloe isn't kicked out of Blackwell, she and Rachel can straight up drug Victoria in the same way she tried to. It makes them feel really malicious since it's not justifiable, then again, Chloe and Rachel aren't good people. The fact that the drugging is always played for laughs regardless of the version feels really odd to me too, especially given how the original game dealt with the serious nature of the topic. It's probably one of the clearest moments where you can see the differences between the studios. Regardless of differing opinions I can defiantly agree with you on one thing. The booze draw was ridiculous. Who thought that made sense? Why as a designer would you put optional graffiti in the one place where being undetected is paramount?
I made a conscious decision not to tag in a few places - end of episode 2, when you visit the Amber house, there are a couple of tagging opportunities that I just refused to take. I wonder whether the optional graffiti was a deliberate opportunity for the player to further define/play Chloe's character. I did run into a moment in a later chapter where one of the very first tagging opportunities near the start of episode 1 came back and had consequences, so it's possible that the developers were trying something more ambitious than they could manage (which also describes the backtalk mechanic). And, yes, my Chloe absolutely graffitied the booze drawer - sure, there's potential for consequences, but when has Chloe Price considered the long-term? And, let's face it, James Amber has a lot more to lose from Chloe (and Rachel) blowing the lid on his corruption here than Chloe does from him coming after her. And by that point she's no longer trying to make nice...
Sardonicus You can kill the dog, yes, but Max is horrified when that happens. Whereas NOBODY reacts to Victoria just crashing to the floor. That's the difference here. Not even the teacher cared and that makes it feel so out of place. It's one thing to allow Rachel and Chloe to be bad people, but it's another thing to let everyone else in the game gloss over the bad actions they take.
I just wanna preface this by saying I haven't played the game. I watched a couple gameplays and read a couple comments. What's really odd to me is that they didn't have to do any of that at all : convince Victoria to leave the play or drug her. She was literally just Rachel's understudy, and Rachel makes it very clear before the play begins that she intends on leaving Arcadia Bay and wants to go with Chloe (remember that junkyard scene right before the play?) so why give so much of a shit about Victoria taking your place in the play, if you don't even intend to stay any longer in this place?
My main problem with Before the Storm is that it's unnecessary. Let me explain. Life is Strange placed a huge emphasis in Rachel Amber before she even was a character, and the plot of the game could be summarized by saying that "Chloe wants Max to help her find Rachel and some other shenanigans". Alright, then why does the prequel tells us who Rachel is, without telling us how she got kidnapped and killed? It's a missed opportunity, a really big one. We get to know Rachel (and it's just a better version of Chloe with different problems), but for some reason, the writers decided that it would be nice to throw in some shit that doesn't affect the main game in any way. If the game was set a couple of months before the events of Life is Strange, then they could've managed to tell us who Rachel was, how important to Chloe she was, who Jefferson was and how did Rachel die, maybe establish Chloe and Rachel's relationship with characters we already knew and cared about. I appreciate the thought put into Chloe's characterization, at least the good bits of it, but that's all we got (and a lot of melodrama and convoluted events). The game felt really rushed and none of its characters managed to be relatable or entertaining, except for maybe Chloe, but a lot of people hate her for being completely unrelatable and an asshole (even as a protagonist), so it still doesn't count. Basically, the prequel doesn't build upon the main game, but takes its characters and does unrelated things with them.
YES. This is my underlying core problem with it. It has SO many opportunities to connect meaningful dots to the first game...and by Ep2 it actually looked like it was! Aaaaand then Ep3 tossed that all out the window to focus on all of this shit that not only has nothing to do with the original game (in which case, why the fuck is this a prequel?) BUT it also had nothing to do with Chloe and Rachel's relationship with each other (in which case, why the fuck were we led to believe that's what the point of the story was?).
my problem with every game is that they're unnecessary. i could be out in the world being productive, starting a business, learning new skills, or ripping on games online.
That "power" was super lame lol. Literally anyone can just argue or roast people like Chloe did. I thought the game was fine, but they didn't have to bother with the whole "power" thing. They could've just made part of the normal dialogue for the player to choose like the rest of the game is done. They wanted it to be like the original game, but since Chloe isn't supposed to actually have supernatural powers, the way they tried to make it look like her being able to get what she wants through arguing is a "superpower" just came across as dorky.
What really sucks is when you’re led to back talk to David, it actually makes it all worse. If you don’t backtalk he actually shows he cares and feels about this relationship. Sucks
I did like Rachel's character, but I still full heartedly stand by Max much more. Max arguably could have tried to be more in contact with Chloe for the years they were apart, but after everything she did in the first game she made up for it.
She vaulted over a 3 foot fence. It wasn't barbed or anything, it didn't present any sort of challenge. She would have no reason to feel any sort of emotion about jumping the fence. You tend to have emotion when something stubs your toe.
She was giving the finger to The Man, the Authority, the motivation behind writing the no trespassing sign. In other words, being a stereotypical asshole teenager.
Giving the middle finger to a fence? Sounds like something I would do. Like, really. Not joking. I gave the middle finger to pieces cup boards and pieces of paper
THIS so hard. She's a punky edgy teenager who tries too much, of course she would give the middle finger to a "stay away" fence. Because she thinks that's cool and makes her more genuine punk outlaw. Chloe is not a rational adult that thinks through her actions and tries to act like people normally do. Her actions are SUPPOSED to be cringy because she is kid who is trying a bit too hard.
@@peittoburrito how is she TRYING to be cool and edgy when theres nobody around to even see her flip off that fence? Shes just doing that because shes genuinely angry inside at everyone and everything due to her shitty life. Anger and bitterness and maybe even depression is her default base mood
@@Snake-od6ok I was thinking that she is trying to prove that to herself, like "I'm doing this even though nobody is watching, so I'm the real deal". But it could be also because she's angry and just feeling it.
SPOILERS AHEAD! Personally, I don't think the game explored enough. What I mean by this is, for example, in Episode 2: "Brave New World" with the photo of Chloe and Rachel in the car; it gave the impression that we were actually going to be traveling somewhere where Chloe and Rachel could spend a bit of time away from everything. It would have introduced a bit more new scenery into the game and would have made it more interesting. Also, the game could've been spaced out a bit in terms of time. (Instead of taking place over a few days, it could've been a few months.) Finally, I think exploring Rachel's relationship with Frank and how she went missing was only touched upon in Before The Storm. The developers could have delved much deeper into that crucial plotline.
She knew her father was meeting someone there and thats why she was pissed about losing the quarter and not being able to use the other machine that actually worked so she could see what her dad was doing, just pointing it out.
Rachel knew her dad is going to be at the park?? Then why did she act all cheerfull and playfull through the ride and all with Chloe but then did a complete 180 when they saw her dad? I always thought she caught her dad by accident so that's why she was so upset and all
It also should've spanned more than a couple days. No one falls in love and trusts that quickly as Chloe and Rachel. The reason Max and Chloe work in a short amount of time is because they have history and they even show us how much history they do have together.
I really didn't like the stuff with Nathan (and Samantha) as well as the stuff with David and Joyce. I hate that we can choose to help Nathan in the bullying incident and by encouraging Samantha to support him, yet we know it will achieve nothing in the end. The same problem with David, we can choose to make peace with David, knowing full well again that their relationship will turn to shit in the end. Most of the choices in this game seem to have no real meaning. I also can't believe Damon, who was a major antagonist, was killed off screen. Also, the final big choice meant practically nothing, which sucked, although this was arguably inevitable since this is a prequel. I didn't like that Steph was purely there as the token extra lesbian to assist in deciding whether you wanted to be friends or lovers with Rachel. The worst character though is definitely Sera. It made no fucking sense. The big shock of Episode 3 is how Sera has been wronged by James, how she had truly reformed her ways, stopped accepting money etc. and how James had hired Damon to take her out of the picture. Yet, when Chloe finally talks to Sera, suddenly Sera doesn't give a single fuck about meeting Rachel, even though this was the entire reason for her being in Arcadia Bay in the first place. She claims in the scene with Chloe that James is right in saying that she can never truly be her mother. However, just before, when talking to Damon, she very clearly stated that she still wanted to meet her daughter. She defended James purely to set up the moral dilemma (the shocking truth vs the comforting lie) but in my opinion this was an unnatural sequence of events. I also didn't like when, in my playthrough, I tried to support Victoria for the play, but then Rachel just decides to be an absolute conniving evil bitch just so we can get our moment on stage. It also didn't really make sense that Frank sent you on the mission to get the money from Drew if Damon was going to get it himself.
Daniel Turner when Chloe and Sera talked Chloe had blacked out. It was a figment of her imagination and more of a manifestation of her consciousness coming to her in the form of Rachel's mother.
I don't understand Sera at all..she was putting her child in an unsafe environment so Rachel's dad took Rachel away, which was the RIGHT DECISION I'd say. Then, she comes back after all this time and wants to see her daughter, which is understandable- but she claims she hasn't been doing drugs..when in the cut scenes she's seen smoking. So?? I think her dad did the right thing- I mean asking a drug dealer to kill her or something is definitely bad but he made the right call keeping Rachel from Sera like wtf why would Rachel want to meet this woman.
@@pb4705 knowing Rachel's character she probably would want to see her mother and just being a smoker isnt the same as being on drugs plenty of parents smoke not saying its right but as long as she's not doi g it around her
recovering from addiction is not as simple as "hm i think i will stop today so i can recover my relationship with my daughter" or "i did heroin once for the first time in a year but it's okay because i'm not addicted anymore." it can take years and multiple attempts to stop for it to finally stick if ever and falling off the wagon takes 100 steps back--not only are you back on the drug but your morale is shattered too. that's why sera was clearly crying before her talk with chloe because she knew her chance to reunite with rachel and be a mother was ruined when damon injected her. she told damon she wanted to be there for rachel BEFORE he did it and knowing she wouldn't be able to stop again is why she changed her mind afterward.
I agree, before the storm felt rushed, but I honestly kind of liked before the storm even more than the original life is strange. It just had such a nostalgic, realistic, grounded feel. Idk, y'all can disagree, but I saw so much deeper symbolism and relatability within the game.
I also liked the game very much even if it was kinda short. Maybe it could have been better and explained a lot more things . Sometimes secrets are better off as secrets .But I am satisfied with what we've got . I didn't expect a phenomenal but I personally played it twice and I don't regret it one bit. A story doesn't need to to be ideal or phenomenal to be great
also i'm a weird guy but i do on occasion give the middle finger to a box or item that falls off the shelf at my work because i have to pick it up - so yes some people do that because, well people are weird.
I am going to play devil's advocate here for a moment, and explain why I both love and hate the characterization of Rachel. This series biggest strength but also its greatest weakness is that the information we get from other characters about Rachel in the first game, and what we get to witness in the second game is all so vague, and leaves many questions unanswered, not to mention clashes with some of the more shady things we get to find out that she did, that it forces the player to make their own conclusion on whether Rachel is a genuine good person with a bit of a dark edge, a victim of a hereditary self destructive nature like her mom, or a sociopath who's only out for herself. If you sit down for a few minutes and reflect back on both games with those 3 different lenses, you will realize that it works either way. So in the end nobody actually knew who Rachel was, not Chloe, not Frank, Jefferson or any of the other students she interacted with because she has a different mask that she wears depending upon who she's talking to or the the circumstance that she's in. That is what is so brilliant about her but also my biggest frustration
I think that also the fact that the team that developed BTS was different from the first LIS game also may have contributed to that. Maybe they had different visions about who Rachel was and that lead to a bit of a mess in her character. I agreed totally with you, i think the game leaves us with even more questions than we had before and that frustrates me a lot
I agreed with a lot of what you said but you seemed fixated on her flipping off the fence and the idea that that's not something actual people do but when I was a teenage girl and, hell, even now, in my mid-twenties, I flip off inanimate objects with no one around. And it's not cause I think I'm "punk" or "bad-ass" or whatever, I know I'm not, it's a just a thing I do. Because it is a thing that people do.
Yeah, it's like shouting on the table when you hit your little toe. It comes naturally. Same for the graffiti, it just feels good to go around and leave your mark there. Breaking the law by small means can be fun, even more if you are in your teen years. Maybe staying in front of the moving train is just a bit much tho, both for the current and the teen me. I guess it may give some thrill like some extreme sports do.
It's just they way she goes about it. Like yeah iv flipped off inadament objects before but it was because it pissed me off. Like if stubbed my toe or if my phone drops a call. But she just does it...to do it? It's the game trying to remind you that she is super "edgy" but it just comes off cringey. Like if you there and witnessed that it would be weird.....I dont know tho. I'm doing a horrible job of explaining it but there's something off about it to me. It feels unnatural to me
What got me thinking was why did they make the fire seem like a plot device but eventually turned into a useless and missed opportunity for Rachel and Chloe to help and deal with it as danger could've been a better climax
Honestly the best part for the was at the end of the game after you check out your choices and Chloe is calling Rachel whilst she’s in the dark room That’s what I wanted, I wanted more about Rachel so it would connect to the first game seamlessly. I know it was in Chloe’s point of view and all but it was so rushed and it was like they wanted you to care for the characters without giving you enough time for any character development
Just finished the game, as much as I liked it, I agree with most of your points. The third act especially baffled me with those questionable decisions... but the second had some really fantastic parts. Glad I played it, enjoyed it a lot, but expecting more from the future
I don't think a character needs to be a good person in order to be a good character...Chloe isn't a good person, either, not always, but I think she is a good character. The problem is that BtS simultaneously REMINDS us and SHOWS us how Rachel really WASN'T an angel, and...yet also doesn't follow through on that, ultimately trying to convince us to pretend everything was fine and she really WAS this perfect ray of happiness for everyone... It's confusing.
Destiny-Smasher i know, I loved Chloe in the first LiS, but a lot of people act like Rachel is a perfect character and get mad at others who point out that she's actually a shitty person
Life is strange isn't unrealistic because of Max's time travel powers. It's unrealistic, because not a single one of these high school girls are wearing leggings!
Patricia Schlabendorff It's confirmed that Rachel was 15 when before the storm took place and she when to Arcadia Bay. It's a college prep. I know it's confusing.
I mean.... Why do you think that Rachel was supposed to be a good character? Just because everyone liked her doesn't mean she was a good person. She was just a good actor, on stage and off. She was highly manipulative which is shown in the principals office. I think one of the things as Chloe that you're thinking towards the end of the game is actually "is Rachel using me" but on the same token, isn't Chloe using Rachel too. Every day she writes letters that she wants to send to max and keeps them as a dairy. She often mentions how great Rachel is. Honestly Chloe not only wanted a friend but was planning on using her as a weapon to hurt max. In the end she ends up loving her as a lover or close friend, at which point she isnt using her (as shown by her care for Rachel in the first game), but that doesn't completely absolve Chloe either. If you hate Rachel so much, maybe you should hate Chloe too... But if you hate Chloe too, isnt Rachel the perfect character for Chloe? You also have to realize that the first game sets Rachel up to be a bad person. She makes Chloe fall in love with her, sleeps with frank while they're still together, then after all the talk about leaving town together, she meets Mark Jefferson and thinks "this is the guy that will help me leave town, he is a visionary" (the note in the shed garbage can tells you this from the first game). You're not supposed to think she is a great person. I think deck nine did a good job portraying her.
I want to know what happened to Rachel, how she died, even though we all know it’s pretty morbid, accidentally killed by Nathan. But I wanna know the whole story of what happened to her or even how Jefferson began his weird fetishes.
and not just like he was more interesting (even tho his was) like i actually cared about his mental illness and him overall while i literally didn’t give two shites about Rachel.
I'm really surprised BTS has as many positive reviews as it does. It's just not a very engaging story afaic. Good for those people who do like it, but I don't get it. And I liked the first game very much, btw.
Same here, I have to say I was disappointed by Before the Storm. I really look forward to the bonus-episode though, because the original voice actor for Chloe is back, and especially the fact that Max as a character, that we get to play is back. Hope it doesn't disappoint, but I have my hopes up for this one.
Even if Life is Strange is not for everyone, it has his fucking upsides. While for Before the storm... I don't think Deck Nine should have ever tried to immitate Dontnod..
A non stalker Eliot would have been a better romantic interest...if Chloe actually cared about him and didnt have such a boner for Rachael. Not that i dont mind rachael being in this series but i think it needed another 2 episodes to pace itself.
Peta Parka i always liked max and chloe as a friendship, particularly an abusive one, since chloe was literally using her the whole time because she could reverse time. here i don't like it at all, rachel is a wack ass character who's a bitch and chloe's an edgy bitch. there's nothing interesting about rachel and there's no interesting dynamic between the two. it just ruins the image we had of rachel in our minds from what all the clues and shit we could pull from the original, that was interesting. here, it just shows you she's a boring teen with a fucked up life.
Eliot wasn't a stalker. He was right about everything he said about Rachel (it took Chloe around 3 years to find out the truth about Rachel). He was well meaning person who was screwed up in his thinking. He cared about and loved Chloe and, just like guys do these days, he paid the price for having feelings for a female.
@Peta Parka I think part of the relationship between Chloe and Max goes further back into their childhood than just what happens in the first game and that, to me, dictates a relationship between the two that I think seems right.
"he cared about and loved chloe and, just like guys do these days, he paid the price for having feelings for a female" i don't think you got the real point here. you're excusing/confusing men abusive behavior with "care" and "love". he was extremely agressive with chloe in the office, that's not love and care, it's called violence.
Okay, honestly- I've got a bit of a unique perspective. I really relate to Chloes abandonment issues, and when I first saw Rachel- I absolutely adored her. Honestly I think that's the brilliance of Rachel's character. She's so...there, all the sudden. She goes from never having met Chloe to that scene in the street within just a few days...my heart melts. I adore it because it made me realize how easily I would manipulated, and Rachel to me still kinda feels...fun. But still, I think the game struggles. It struggles in the way I think every prequel does. It's trying to jam its players into starting positions instead of being able to have a natural story flow. Characters like Chloe and Nathan couldn't really, develop and have satisfying ends because, well, that's not where they were in the first game. It's a fun game with some good characters and heartfelt moments but, It's not quite a good game, or nearly as good as the og LiS.
i don't know why the writers didn't take this opportunity to focus on mr. jefferson and how that came to be, his involvement with nathan, and how rachel got wrapped up in it and eventually was murdered. that storyline was one of the most interesting and fascinating aspects of the first game but it left me with so many questions that still were not answered in this game either
Haven't seen the entire thing yet, but your summary of episode 3 is so spot on, it hurts. Edit: Now that I've watched the whole thing I want to actually make a good comment. I'm not going to pretend I understood these games as deeply as you did, as you clearly saw writing intentions and hidden meanings behind certain things in these games that I missed. I did play these games and something I couldn't miss is the lack of a plot for most of BTS. Throughout the original Life is Strange, you were lead to believe that everything was connected and that you would eventually unravel it all. If you told someone playing through the original Life is Strange about all the plot twists and turns, they could probably see how it all happened and wouldn't be that confused. In BTS though, the entire plot is flipped upside down for the worse in the final episode. If you told someone "oh yeah the lady is her biological mother, and her dad is still the bad guy and he's working with Damon, and for some reason you have to get to the center of this giant thing you have no stake in", the person playing the game would be so damn confused. tldr; You're right.
While I agree that there are some characters which are criminally underdeveloped (cf. Elliot), and that Rachel does come across more as a plot device (even though I would still argue she is not *that* unbelievably pushed to the limits as such), I cannot say that Rachel and Chloe's relationship does not work. They do connect on multiple levels, and for once, Chloe is seen with someone who can relate to her losing her father. In this way, the game actually fixed something in the original - when Chloe broke down upon seeing Rachel's body in Life Is Strange, I couldn't really connect to (or believe) that she was so traumatized by her loss (seeing as how I quite literally knew next to nothing about Rachel's character). Additionally, I think it is true that the game's 'star' mechanic could be used to for something like Max's time travel abilities on a narrative level; but is it also not the case that, regardless of what you (don't) achieve with the (non-)use of that mechanic, the final outcome in the game is the same, just like with Max's story? Chloe's character growing or learning about the futility of her actions would have been inappropriate, for her coming of age story is indeed in Life is Strange and not in Before the Storm.
Telos honestly I felt sadness when they found Rachel's body purely because of how hard they had looked for her, and how she was talked about as almost an otherworldly being
Excellent Video and I 100% agree. I loved life is Strange but was very disappointed with Before the Storm and I'm getting pretty sick of the endless praises it gets that it doesn't deserve. It feels more like am amateur fan faction than a legitimate canonical prequel.
This is why so many people, including me, consider BtS a fanfiction. It was developed by Deck9, not the original team (aka Dontnod). Dontnod never intend to make a prequel. Honestly, I'll never consider BtS canon.
The last episode left me with enough questions. How did Rachel's dad react to Chloe breaking into his office, destroying some evidence (damn, Chloe has some geek friends that could've photoshopped this glove into being burnt)? Did Chloe even said anything to him? What's a consequence for picking who's a rat? P.S. Also it really bugged me that when Chloe made those stars lights they were moving, although it was just a flashlight. The rotating part is in that night light, not in the flashlight.
I wish someone would take "Pretty Little Liars" apart the way you just did with this game. I hate how inconsistent that show was and how it tried to make you actively root for the bad guys and believe they were good guys and endlessly punished the actual good guys. Like how it tried to romanticise these toxic -and at times even abusive- relationships such as Alison's manipulation of Emily. That bitch only used her when she was out of options and we're meant to believe them ending up together is a 'HAPPY' ending?
I'm pretty sure we heard the only take Hamish did before he passed out when describing that crazy set of events. Fantastic video, man. I enjoyed Life is Strange, despite the obvious dialogue and "aren't we clever" references but was real hesitant on this one. Good thing I didn't.
I liked it because it engages the emotions by the end/at certain key moments and that is not easy for a game to do on this level. But there were some things that they could have developed more/done better or differently, I agree. It is the series of events leading up to the death of Chloe's dad and the leaving of Max from the bay to Washington. It makes sense as a prequel story but these folks were not dontnod so they may have done the best they could have but not the best that could be done.
I finished the game yesterday, and really liked it, still do. but i see you point. im that kinda person, that like a game or a movie, if it hits my feelings in the moment, and Before the storm did that for me. Chloes grief and the hold story with her and David problem, i really connected with that! and the way you can be spelled bount by another person, like Rachel spell bount Chloe, i can again really relate and connected, cuz, in that grief and when the world really feels like its fighting you, you meet the person that tell you how amyzing you are, you fall in love. even though that person acturly isn't doing any good for you, again like rachel. i connected with Chloe so so so much, and that made the game a good game for me. i hated Rachel, to be honest, but i could see what Chloe feld for.. because i have been there. the game mecanik, was dumb! and its slowed it down, the Eliot thing was unnessacery, and the overall plot twist in the end, was not for me, but i still realy loved the game, cuz i could realy connect with what Chloe was going through. i see before the storm as a game that missed alot, but Chloes story they did good, and i understanded it,, feeled it. thanks for making this video, it made me see why i liked the game! :)
I feel like this game is one of those examples of why you should leave stories where they're at and not literalise certain things. Looking at the new Star Wars movie coming out that's gonna give us Han Solo's backstory. Rachel would've been better off remaining as a plot device, turning her into a character will inevitably be worse than the imaginary character the previous game cooked up in the player's mind, especially if the writers fuck up the character to begin with. I think the only way to succeed here would have been to subvert the player's expectations by having Rachel be a horrible and manipulative person who has a quasi abusive stockholm syndromesque relationship with most people, especially Chloe.
I get your point but I’ve always taken Before the Storm’s genre as magical realism. You can overhear some firefighters in the hospital say the fire mysteriously dies down right as Rachel was stabbed. It’s was symbolically tied to Rachel in a way.
In regards to Chloe's character in this one, I interpreted that (and I supposes played as if) she was still dealing heavily with the grief of losing her father and best friend. She has this self image of herself at this point of an edgy brash loner. But in reality she's still wildly insecure. She's playing the role of this self image of herself as a shield to the world around her and her unresolved emotions. I think you see her character soften throughout the series as she reconciles who she sees herself as through the lens of this confusing new relationship with Rachel.
Despite not liking the original game, mostly for cringy, unrelatable characters and plotholes, I could understand people liking it. This new one is embarrassingly bad, Chloe was angry and edgy in the first, typical childish teen. In Before the Storm however, she's whiny and bland. She was a somewhat entertaining if annoying character in 1, but here she's just a pain and feels totally unrealistic. And like you said, Rachel is just an awful person, and not in an interesting way.
Also I'd like to add that I personally didn't like the new voice actor for Chloe. She was one of the best in the game but she still was only passable and inoffensive at best. Still great video 👍
I agree with you about this game and chloe being "hella" annoying throughout the first game AND rachel not being a good person,,, but im genuinely curious why you even bothered playing this game if you didnt like the first one? (Im not tryna be one of those "dont play it then!!1#1" fans im just curious lol)
Kiana Peters I'm interested in games design and just like in film theory, it's always recommended to play games you like/consider good as well as ones you don't/think are bad. These gameplay lacking story focused games almost always have issues personally, so I like playing them and working out what I think they did wrong. And yeah I don't like seeming like I'm telling people what to enjoy, games need to be a space providing creative freedom to allow games for all kinds of people!
Even though I don't agree with your assessment of LiS, I wish more people on the Internet were like you, that can acknowledge that other people can have different opinions and tastes on games and doesn't put them down; it's conducive to having a non-toxic gaming community.
Great analysis imo. I did enjoy the game quite a bit, but not as much as the original. Listening to your analysis actually was quite eye opening, I didn't really think of many things you talked about, I just kinda took them at face value (except for tagging the DA office, that was just moronic, I was utterly flabbergasted that it was treated as a collectable rather than some highly consequential thing). On a side note, you MUST give a link to the music, it's fantastic.
I agree with a lot of the things you said. One of my favorite points that you brought up was that Chloe's backtalk actually gets her into trouble in the principal's office. That would be a been a very interesting statement to make if it had been used more consistently. Yeah overall this game feels cheap in comparison to the original, though I had a very good time playing it for the most part. Especially episode 2--that episode was a total blast. The second half of episode 3 was the only bit I found to be not even fun. Whereas the first game felt like a carefully crated story throughout, this one felt much more uneven... like a thrown-together story with some carefully crafted moments. There was a lot to like, but too much wrong with it to feel satisfied in the end. I also liked how you pointed out that the supernatural stuff in LiS actually gave it more leeway to be a grounded, human story. It required us to suspend our disbelief about time-travel, but in contrast you're right--BtS required us to suspend our disbelief that "people would really act like that," which doesn't allow for us to feel grounded in the human aspects of the story. And I don't think your opinion is all that unpopular, really. Maybe with game critics? I was kind of surprised how good the reviews for this game were--especially after episode 3 came out.
Getting into trouble is kinda the point in the principal's office - the scene isn't about Chloe wanting to avoid getting in trouble for skipping school the previous day; it's about Chloe and Rachel competing to take the blame to protect each other - the backtalk means you win that contest, and successfully throw yourself on that grenade...
Maybe game lacks some suggestion here: displayed in a previous talk, in a level of connection between girls, or maybe printed right on the button "DEFEND HER AT ANY COST".
While I do like “Before the Storm”, I agree with a lot of the criticism. I understand why it needs to have its own plot and some new characters, since that is kind of the nature of a prequel. But I think that “Before the Storm” should have been a little bit more connected to the first game. I thought the entire point of making a prequel was to answer some questions that the audience asked during the first game. I would use “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad” as an example here. The prequel “Better Call Saul” has its own plot and introduces a lot of new characters. But it also has a clear connection to “Breaking Bad” by also including some answers to questions asked during “Breaking Bad”.
But “Before the Storm” isn’t really doing that. There are still many big questions about Rachel that remain unanswered. Also, Rachel in “Before the Storm” seems like a very different person compared to how she is described by people in the first game. Which ironically results in more questions.
I agree a 100% percent. I genuinely didn't like the game. Rachel Amber was indeed an awful character who I hated throughout the game, the puzzles were terribly dull and that couple in the mountains, holy shit that was the least convincing human performance I have ever witnessed. The plot is all over the place and most of the game felt GENUINELY awkward. The only thing that I was really interested in (sadly) is Chloe and Joyce's relationship, although there was not much going on there, and David's character was constantly contradicting himself betweem wanting to be accepted and being an asshole. A good highlight is the end of episode 1. It was abysmal. Rachel just starts a forest fire for no fu*king reason and proceeds not to give a shit. But yeah, you've pretty much summed it up in your video. I'm just so mad, they could've done so much more with this game.
Iirc in episode 2 the "bad guys" are talking about how the fire burned the mill and that they lost a lot of money and how they're gonna burn the one who started the fire, i was like "oh shit, this is gonna get good!"...but nop, in ep3 the firemen in the hospital let us know that the fire just ended...
It was also all talk and no action, The both wanted to run away from home, that didn't happen, Rachel wanted to meet her mother face to face, and that didn't happen, it actually was beginning to get interesting in the last part then it then abruptly quit.
Very interesting video. Funnily enough I agree with all of your criticism. I still enjoyed the game though, with the exception of the third episode, which I was extremely disappointed in. I find it really hard to explain what I liked about it, I think it spoke to me on an emotional level. It's really easy to relate to Chloe, her loneliness, teen edginess, her underperforming at school, her desire to connect with somebody like Rachel, the way she immediately blames herself after Rachel is being a dick to her... I even like her taste in music. She's a character I can really relate to and somehow that carried me through the first two episodes, happily ignoring all the cheesy little plot holes of the game. Combine that with the fact that I didn't go into the game with an expectation of great writing as I remembered the first life is strange to have less that subtle characters and writing. I think it's an old conundrum, a story speaking to a lot of people emotionally while still being obviously bad when critically analyzed (Anime like Sword Art Online comes to my mind immediately), maybe the writers just found a way to tell an emotional story while sacrificing believeability, without many people even noticing.
I generally find there's two responses to Life is Strange from two different kinds of players: ones who can see themselves or a piece of themselves in Max or Chloe (or both), and ones who see the entire thing as silly or unbelievable. For the latter group, the lack of emotional connection makes the little weirdnesses and faulty parts in the plotting or writing are grating to a breaking point. For the former group, the emotional connection over-rides much of those issues, or in some cases turns 'bad' things into good things.
I feel personally attacked by this relatable comment. You were absolutely on point, for some reason I absolutely loved Life is Strange, and I still do, and I enjoyed BtS except for episode 3. It's weird to watch a video like this because it actually shows fair points of criticism that I couldn't even notice due to my love to the series. I only disagree with questioning the Final fantasy spirits within reference, c'mon, that was just Square Enix having fun
They aren't hinting at her having wind powers in Episode 1. It was just you people getting your hopes up over something that was only for effect, rather than showing off her yell.
If they weren't hinting at her having powers, then what about the fire during the dinner at her parents house? The flames rise the angrier Rachel gets, then once she smashes the table they go back to normal.
I just didn't like where the story went. "Oh. Just let me get kicked in the face by a crazy drug dealer that stabbed Rachel, while Frank is about to die - somehow offs him. Now my boothang's mama (that we literally just found out about) tells me to suck it." Like bruh, why did they even tease at Rachel having supernatural powers in ep. 1? Why did they do that huge romantic improv. scene in ep. 2 during a play called THE TEMPEST. Translation - THE STORM. Ep. 3 just didn't make sense to me. Like, ep. 3 basically dropped all focus of "The Storm" into a pity party for Rachel.
Love this video! Hadn’t thought Before the Storm in this way before. I personally loved the game but I’m really happy I got this alternate perspective because some things in it don’t make sense, as you had pointed out.
That Elliott moment is still hilarious no matter how many times I see it. It's just like "WHY ARE YOU HERE!?". He has no reason to be there other than to create some sort of tension as he's barely been featured in the story. He's like all the negatives about Warren turned into a character just to point out that guys are dicks and every girl should become lesbians.
HAY, DID YOU READ CATCHER IN THE RYE?!! WASN'T IT HELLA TIGHT, MY DUDES?!! ALMOST AS GOOD AS Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children™ by Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. JAJAJA ;3 LOL RAWR XD
So I hate this essay because I agree with you completely lol. I loved before the storm far more than the original. It certainly had faults and I think you covered them all. I hated the time travel mechanic and the insult mechanics and eventually I started ignoring them and pretending they didn't exist because I was able to connect with the characters so well. One thing about your video I found interesting is your criticism of Rachel. All the things you point out about her are true, but people like that absolutely exist. People who are clearly using you for their own gains and do so for everyone simply because they can. And as someone who strangely resonated with Chloe and having had a couple Rachel Ambers in my own life, it lead me to being able to care about the things I enjoyed about the game and cast off the things I didn't.
The Major problem with BTS is that it creates a new (and not asked for) plot, instead of delving and exploring the one that had already captivated us in LIS. I don't give a flying fuck about Rachel's mother. I never wanted to know that. I wanted to see Nathan's mental issues leading him to the breaking point. I wanted to see how Mr. Jefferson took advantage of him and and how he manipulated Rachel. And how clueless Chloe was during all that.
I loved the video, but there was something I wanted to point out. The game isn't entirely set without supernatural elements. The Raven comes into play in the beginning with the Native info board saying it's something to be respected and not trusted. When it first showed up in Chloe's dream, it showed her Rachel's location and encouraged her to find her. Without Chloe's lighter, the fire wouldn't have been set. The Raven has its agenda and will accomplish it, so it shouldn't be trusted since it doesn't give Chloe the information for her sake, but for its own. That's all I have about the Raven for now, but it's just something to keep in mind.
Totally agree with you. This game felt different, but I didn't know why. It was the 3rd episode when I felt that something is wrong. I felt that Rachel really is unstable and inconsistent character. I felt that she is just abusing Chloe, because she is always doing something for Rachel. I didn't really think that they have any kind of friendship going on. It was really weird how they illustrated their relationship in that game. And there is one more problem with Rachel giving Chloe different tasks - at least in the 3d episode, the game is more focused on Rachel and her mother (which I didn't really care about). I didn't understand why the hell Chloe is still doing all this shit for Rachel.
A number of great points, even though I enjoyed it more (yes, the gameplay is rushed and all too convenient, but the story mostly makes sense to me and I was playing to get more of Chloe’s thinking, which I did). Just... the two points you found less logical make a lot of sense to me: 1. Flipping the middle finger to the gate is... basically the same thing De Niro does in Taxi Driver with the mirror. It’s a safe space where you can work on your “playing tough” act without people laughing at you. Chloe at this point is still between being a dork and trying to act aloof and “superior” so people (hopefully, in her view) won’t harm her anymore. That’s how it seems to me, and that dorky stupid - but believable - thing she does gave so much more depth to her. Keep in mind that that’s 2 years after Bill and Max disappeared, so she’s been putting up and trying to be a decent student all this while. Now she’s trying to become a “dangerous kid”, she’s not really one, and it shows. 2. Rachel/Victoria spiking each other’s drink: in the bonus episode “Farewell”, you can already see how much the Blackwell environment sucks at 13, Chloe’s classmates are spoiled sociopaths already. Two years later, she’s all too well acquainted with that crap. Rachel is as much of a spoiled kid as Victoria, both people doing something like this doesn’t really feel out of character. If anything, it’s such a sour irony that Rachel would laugh about roofieing Victoria’s drink when that’s (most likely) what will have her killed two years later. Playing with nostalgia/“odd” ironies like this is a relatively cheap trick, but that doesn’t make it any less intense. I read in some comment to another video that the storm in the original LiS might be Rachel’s doing, and those cartoonish “windblow tracks” in BtS when she rages and kicks the burning trashcan (those are obviously out of the game’s “style” and only appear there) actually do look like a hint of sorts. My own theory (and I only half believe it, but it makes sense) is that, in the original LiS, the tornado was Rachel “acting out” in rage, praeternaturally, because Chloe is going to leave with Max. Which is extremely bitchy, and BtS doesn’t give hints that Rachel would be *this* much of a bitch... but it isn’t inconsistent, either. Which to me is the most delicate message from BtS: Chloe becomes so desperately attached to Rachel (the love/friendship thing is also pretty dumb... but 16 year olds *are* dumb, so once again, it’s so perfectly appropriate) *not* because Rachel deserves it, by her behavior or personality... but simply because Chloe needs someone to cling to this much. It is all so much more heartbreaking if this more cynical interpretation makes sense to you... just think of Rachel as another Victoria, basically. Spoiled rotten with no salvation, and broken Chloe is the only one who cares enough to put up “missing person” posters that people barely read before they throw them again.
Agree with everything. It just felt like a fanfiction most of the time, and what mostly let me down was the little to no presence of Frank, who could have been fleshed out a lot more, along with Jefferson and Nathan. I'm not saying the game is total trash, just that I played LiS1 twice and watched 4 gameplays, while after my first BtS gameplay I'd had enough.
I came here to say this. Before the storm makes it clear that whatever feeling 'Writing on Games' liked wasn't intended by the developer and Adam's playthrough makes it clear why.
I just it played yesterday, I really did look forward to it because the press seem to like it and I really enjoy the first one. But this game was just frustrating and it kinda ruined the first on bit for me. And I really can't understand way every one is so positive towards it. Finally someone who shares my frustration with this game, thats somewhat of a relieve that I'm not alone in this
I feel bad trashing on a game that had so much love put into it, but MAN has this game ruined the fandom in a bizarrely unfortunate way. And also, it has...kind of muddied elements of the first game, which is really weird and just a bummer...=_=;;
A lot of people complain that before the storm left unanswered questions about Rachel and Frank but I think it’s pretty realistic. Even when you’re best friends with someone, they’re still going to keep certain things to themselves. As much as we would have loved to figure out more about Rachel’s interactions with Frank I just don’t think it would be realistic and would even cause continuity errors. Since Chloe first figures out about Frank and Rachel’s relationship in the first game, it wouldn’t make sense for her to be surprised by it if she knew about it before?(idk if that’s worded correctly)
Thank you for this. It's vindicating to know I'm not the only one with an axe to grind about the characterization and writing. Most of the game feels like a cheap imitation of the original. With the exception of the William nightmares and a well crafted set piece or two, I find the writing to be atrocious and artificial. For all its cringy dialogue, the original game is very carefully put together; so much so that the cringe talk feels like a trait of the characters more than anything else (most of the original game at least; the art gallery scene was very obviously underwritten and underacted; but thankfully it wasn't crucial to the story). Before the Storm takes away from the severity of drugging people as handled in the original - Victoria and Rachel both are rigged in a way so as to try to drug one another, no matter what you do, and Chloe just goes along without even addressing it. And that's just one example of many, many problematic, creepy, and downright psychotic behaviors that are just swept under the rug, from characters we're supposed to care about.
There were alot of things that bothered me about BTS. Rachel was a pretty good character since I expected something much different playing LiS and she's a teenager who obviously grew up getting everything she wanted so I can understand why she was giving Chloe tasks to accomplish and not thinking much of it. I wish that there were more episodes to give the characters more development and explaining more of Rachel and Chloe's/Frank's relationship as well as Mark Jefferson coming to Arcadia Bay and an explanation of where Steph and Mikey went (I freaking loved them). And depending on your choices in BTS can effect the events of LiS in which Rachel either lives, dies or runs away. The fact that they just give you episode three ending was just a slap in the face. This game could have been much better.
Life is Strange is one of my favorites of all time, and Chloe is a massive part of why. I played the first two episodes of Before the Storm when the whole game was out (as I always do with episodic games) and didn't finish it. I didn't consciously drop it, I just never felt like starting it up and finishing it, then eventually uninstalled it to make space on my hard drive. Episode two ends on a cliffhangerish situation, but I just didn't care. When you've got a character I care about as much as Chloe and you can't hold my attention with your cliffhanger... Something's gone terribly wrong.
Thank you!! I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one disappointed by this unessesary prequel. It felt utterly pointless to me, and it never answered the questions/answers we were looking for in the first game. Such as why Rachel betrayed Chloe and chose to be with Frank, or how she got involved with Nathen/exploration of his patchy, and the backstory with his family/involvement with Mr. Jefferson. Or even how Mr. Jefferson joined the school, and how his twisted desire to capture a moment of innocence originated/manifested from. This prequel was absolutely disappointing for me, and I hated the plot line regarding Rachel’s parents; that wasn’t what I signed up for. :P
Gameplay really sucked a huge step down from cinematic games. it was like walk over here, make this choice or this choice, walk over here, after a while I know my choices had almost no impact, after a while I like wanted to just sit back and watch the entire thing as a movie, it began annoying every time the game paused, waiting for mouse and keyboard input.
While I played BTS,I wondered why Rachel’s parents didn’t show up in LIS? It’s no mention in LIS if they moved away from Arcadia at some point..Not that I recall at least..I didn’t care about the parents very much but their involvement in this game got me wondering..Than again,BTS had a few other very minor characters I wondered about their wear-bouts(Steph,Mikey,and Samantha just to name a few). I think Samantha in particular as she had a crush on Nathan but didn’t appear in LIS..Made me start speculating if she inadvertently would find out about Nathan and Mr. Jefferson’s “occupations” at some point? Mr. Jefferson could’ve killed her at some point out of fear she’d disclose,she fled Arcadia Bay afraid of her safety,or something. Another thing that could’ve possibly been shown in the prequel at some point.
Personally, I think the biggest problem with BtS is having Chloe as the Main Character. Rachel Amber would have been the better choice, as it would keep Chloe's character consistent. Plus, there was really only one or two spots where it HAD to be Chloe in the story. Other times, Rachel could have just 'been present' and it would have still worked. Plus, they could have had a better mechanic than Chloe's 'back talk' ability. Maybe something similar, manipulating people in ways an actress could.
You have to look at it as "Before the storm" The whole thing was before max was in the picture again. So, basically have to look at it as if that prequel was the beginning
Chloe doesn't take Victoria's role in the play. She takes Julietts role (Ariel). Depending on how the conversation with Wells at the beginning of ep 2 goes, Rachel plays Prospera or Victoria does and the drugged tea corrects that to Rachel in any case.
Are you saying the writing is HELLA edgy?
Serathis lmao
Tots hella
fo' cereal
Devin corwin ?
Serathis it's just a prank Han!
I honestly didn't like Rachel and could never figure out why, but this put it into perspective. I never trusted that her feelings were genuine and she was telling us the whole truth. This is partially because we know in the main game that Rachel lied to Chloe. She was in a relationship with Frank at some point. She may have been in a relationship with the Photography teacher before that went sideways. The main game hammers home that Chloe didn't know the true Rachel, and this game makes it seem like she did. That cognitive dissonance makes it hard to trust anything she says or does.
Jonathan Litwinka and she's pretty much supposed to be like that - a manipulative but extremely attractive person (not attractive for everyone, but for many) They nailed her personality perfectly, and created a very deep, realistic character
Right? And the big problem I have with this element is that Deck Nine seemed very accutely aware of this fact, they strongly raise questions and implications about it in Eps1 and 2, aaaand...then in episode 3 it's like they got cold feet, changed their minds, and wanted to pretend Rachel really WAS this "angel" we know she was not...Sucked so much power out of the narrative, IMO.
No, it didn't. And really, Rachel genuinely loved Chloe, as Frank stated in the end of the first game.
txgoldrush Rachel also seemed to genuinely love Frank and maybe even Jefferson and maybe even Nathan, if we’re looking for details. But none of that changes how Rachel kept Chloe in the dark, and it doesn’t change how this game really didn’t do anything to make any sense of this very noticeable fact about this relationship.
Not as much as Chloe, so much so that Frank was jealous of Chloe. And the game does look at Rachel's character flaws, Nevermind the notion that Rachel is going down her mother's path.
this game should have been more about frank, jefferson and nathan, and all of their relationships with rachel, and less about rachel's parents. that whole plotline was just so boring, I didn't care at all because it had nothing to do with the first game. I don't care about damon merrick, I don't care about sera, and I really don't care about elliot
Xurban factual
and another thing, how are we supposed to buy that all this crazy shit happened and that chloe doesn't tell max ANYTHING about it in the original life is strange? it's obvious that this story was never intended to be something chloe actually went through, otherwise we would have at least heard of these new characters a few times throughout the first game. that made it even harder to suspend my belief. if you're going to make a PREQUEL you should do it in a way that makes sense.
Baati Nagawo I loved the little side story in Before the Storm that gave a little glimpse as to what Nathan could have been like before, I would have loved for it to be a main story
Xurban I agree
Exactly. I'd personally love to see the development of the vortex club and Rachel's interaction with its members and how she falls in love with frank. I mean, it was good, but the relationship between Rachel and Chloe was pretty unrealistic as it developed too quickly.. If it only could have been some longer
Before the storm doesn't explain many things: the relationship with Frank, how Chloe and Rachel start to hang out, how Joyce meet David ecc...
And how Rachael met mr jeffereson
Joyce met David at the diner
It actually is... if you think about that, it's not suprising that Rachel "dated" Frank and Jefferson - she was looking for an escape after everything that happened with her father. More than that, her father figure was gone for her, and it's sad to admit but i think Jefferson became that figure for her in that young age.
The game absolutely explains how Chloe and Rachel began to hang out. It's in he first episode
@@asafsh8366 true plus if Chloe lies to protect Rachel I think Rachel will go to frank and he tells her what happened.
The dream sequences, specifically the ones that had nothing to do with Rachel, were my FAVORITE parts of this game.
They added to Chloe's character, she puts herself in the position of William's final moments multiple times, a clear symbol that she wishes she was there when it happened. But even in her dreams, she's always too late.
During the theater nightmare she's in that situation again, but it's all an act. Chloe is trying to lessen her grief with nihilism, thinking that everything is all an act and doesn't really matter. But she doesn't want that, she's tired of acting tough.
All of the people in the audience looking at her, laughing while she's wearing a ridiculous outfit showing how vulnerable she really is.
And William looks at her, saying that everything will be okay when the time comes for him to exit the stage, saying that it's only lights and sound effects. But Chloe keeps looking off screen in a panic, only for a REAL TRUCK to slam into William, leaving real blood behind.
She screams out in anguish and bursts into tears, and then someone in the audience boos her. This likely means that she broke character, HER character, the strong version of herself that she fronts to avoid the bad things in her life. Don't forget that Chloe used to be a well behaved and incredibly smart kid until she was abandoned.
THAT is what the whole game should have done! Add to her character! And yet it just keeps telling us things we already know. It's such a shame.
I played before the storm bc I wanted to know more about Chloe. but at some point it just feels like "simping for Rachel: the game"
@PuzzlePeace Beautifully said, but at the same time... simping for Rachel *does* tell you the most important thing about Chloe before meeting Max: that shee needs someone to cling to so much, that it doesn’t even matter if that person deserves all that.
Which gives a completely new meaning to the first episodes of LiS: before Max shows up, Chloe spends her days putting up “missing person” posters that nobody even cares to read. All for a person who, as we find out in BtS, is underwhelming... we really need to see that to realize how alone Chloe really is, to see that not only “not from the outside”, but from so closely that not even Chloe has that much introspection.
On the nihilistic thing... I was just thinking about that word. Chloe tries so hard to *become* nihilistic, hoping that will keep her from harm. But she doesn’t manage to. Because if she really did, she wouldn’t tell Max to sacrifice her at the end of LiS in order to save a town full of people she hates (and who’ve actually let her down when she so needed someone to lean on). Or a town full of people in general. Chloe isn’t able to become a nihilist, because she is, deep down, too strong a person: she isn’t weak enough to think, “fuck everybody, I need to be saved, I don’t know how to get saved, please come and save me no matter who else must pay what price”. I’m convinced there’s that link between her inability to be fully nihilistic and her strength of character.
Speaking of which... she’s obviously much stronger than Max. You see that relatively less in LiS, because Chloe’s gone through so much that she’s only the broken shadow of what she could have been without all the trauma and self-destructive rebellion; but you see it way much better in the bonus episode “Farewell” - Chloe is a born leader and consoler, her instinct is actually to suffer in silence if that can spare her friend her grief (finding out Chloe already knew Max would move in three days, for example. But not just that). Max is not that weak herself, but she really is in comparison to Chloe... and her not answering to Chloe from Seattle is the action of a weak character (“I’m so overwhelmed by the challenges of this new life that I need to cut liabilities... ok, I’m gonna cut off my friend who desperately needs me if that keeps me afloat”) as much as Chloe’s much later “sacrifice me!” is the sign of a strong character.
Max needs to be kinda “plainer” to help the new player blend into her character, and they do make a beautiful friendship... but after playing the whole thing, and after identifying quite a lot with Max when I played her, I somehow feel like I can’t forgive her for what she did to Chloe. Chloe was the strong one but she really needed someone to stand up for her, and Max chickened out and messed her up for life.
Actually, the fact that Chloe drops the resentment for Max the moment she finally meets her again in the very first episode is another sign of such a great, extraordinarily strong personality... later in that episode she gets “surprisingly” bitchy, or maybe antsy, about Max answering Kate in the diner - but, knowing all she went through, it is such a delicate and restrained call for help from Chloe. It’s as if she were saying, “I forgive everything, but please, please don’t leave me alone once again... I wouldn’t be able to survive a second time”.
I was thinking some more about Kate’s call when Max and Chloe are about to leave the diner.
Chloe drops all resentment for five years of personal hell and utter loneliness when she meets Max and immediately knows she *has* her friend again. Or is it that she *sees* her friend again?
Chloe instinctively thinks she “has” her friend again, she doesn’t need to ponder or rationalize it to know she has Max on her side again, that her betrayal came out of weakness and not out of malice. Kate’s call forces Chloe to double-check her instincts and think rationally: “What if I just *saw* her again, and she’s off to somewhere and I’ll never be able to rely on her again?”
Going through all that and not producing the cynicism to protect yourself from that is... very few people have that much strength, it’s almost a myth. Because cynicism, by definition, is a defense mechanism where you overreact to betrayal by someone you trusted, because your psyche understands that you could bear to live with constant frustration but that the pain of going through a similar disappointment a secobd time would breake you. Chloe’s psyche knows that Chloe can go through hell and back... once again, if needed.
That moment in the diner looked childish at first (and Chloe has all reasons to be immature... in fact she very much is, when she ruins her life in BtS), instead it’s one of the most subdued and string-willed things I’ve ever seen in my life.
@@deciusx9720 this is absolutely beautiful. definitely gives me a new & convincing perception of chloe, i always thought she was bitchy, or a bad friend to max but never really considered why or how max’s actions really affected her.
@@deciusx9720 EXACTLY!!! I hate when people hate on chloe for the whole kate thing. Chloe clearly had abandonment issues. she just wanted to be someones first choice. And I also relate a LOT to chloe because my mom passed away a few years ago. A death of a parent can change you and I know first hand. I got very angry and lashed out on people who cared about me. Chloe showed me im not alone. And I also developed abandonment issues as well.
"Makes her as much of a plot device as she was in the first game."
DAMN HAMISH I THOUGHT THAT WAS MY JOB
Lost chance.
Damn as I went into the comment section, the video was still going and I read the quote as he said it in the video. It was super trippy
Shammy u wanna upload I gain thanks
I heard the line as I read it
I want more vids.
I didn't like Rachel because she seemed to be using Chloe to make herself feel better. She wanted to be liked or loved by her, it felt like. And probably she didn't love Chloe, or at least enough to tell her about her relationship with Frank and probably with Jefferson. I don't think she liked Chloe for who she was, but rather for how much she admired Rachel.
Oh god, again? It was only jeallous Victoria who said Rachel had affair with Mark, nobody else. Its obvious lie, i dont know why people believe it.
@@cyphi474 she was still with Frank tho so even if she wasn't with Jefferson, she still kept her relationship to Frank a secret
@@darksunelli She got to relationship with Frank somewhere between end of Before the Storm and her disappearing. After all Frank saved Chloe, so its somehow giving sense, i guess. In Before the Storm she never shows signs of knowing Frank, plus she was way too young(16 or 17 in BtS).
Theres few posible reasons why they got together, but she still wanted to run away with Chloe.
@@cyphi474 also Jefferson stated that in the dark room, but he was probably lying or he was believing that, because it was comfortable for him. He lied about nathan killing rachel, because he did that and wanted to frame him. Nathan explains that in phone message to Max that he didnt wanted to hurt anyone. It is clear to see when jefferson saying that he overdosed her, but quickly cuts and repeats that nathan did it. So obviously he liked rachel and he drugged her in order to use her, which led to her death and framing nathan.
@@adziup Congratulations. Someone was actually paying attention. Its what im saying all the time. Nathan most likely didnt kill Rachel, Jefferson made it look like he did it, so he could keep control over more and more unstable Nathan.
As Rachel and Jefferson, he doesnt implying any relationship. He describe theirs relationship as love between photographer and his model, which is obvious psychopat bs. I havent found anything confirming any close relationship betwen those two playing LiS and BtS couple of times.
After all, if it was true, he wouldnt need Nathan to drug her.
I could never understand how people fell in love with Rachel. I mean, of course there were moments where I did genuinely like her, but she just felt so...for lack of a better word, fake. The stories she'd tell, the fact that a day after meeting Chloe, she suggested they play Two Truths and a Lie. After I finished the first episode, I was really put off with how Rachel handled the information she got from the park and her reactions with Chloe at the end of the episode. Her lashing out at Chloe like that and it escalating just...ugh. I didn't ever really question her love for Chloe, but I genuinely wonder if the devs forgot about Rachel's experiences with Frank and Jefferson.
BTS ruined the original game's vibe to Rachel.
hailey gizella I agree with you. When we got the “picture perfect” image of Rachel it seemed too good to be true. It just sucked watching the downward spiral of their “relationship” as the episodes went on.
And she called Chloe selfish for literally no reason. I know Chloe isn't exactly the most selfless person, but based on how Chloe interacted with Rachel in the first episode (since they had just met, plus she wasn't as bad as she was in the original LIS game later on), Rachel has nothing to back up her claim. She skipped class for Rachel, was trying to fix something just so Rachel can play her stupid game where she spies on people, she stole wine because Rachel guilt tripped her, and Chloe was generally nice to her throughout.
Rachel is supposed to be fake, the problem is that they didn't make her charming enough for her to realistically get away with it.
@@radioactivegum2298This
I completely agree.
This game felt like I was playing someone's fan fiction. The situations these high schoolers got into, the unrealistic dialogue, the romantic relationship between Chloe and Rachel and the one-dimensionality of everyone around them. So much of this felt like fan service and drama for the sake of drama.
As far as unrealistic dialogue goes, one thing that made this game feel so off-putting was the dialogue from Damon. It felt like a 13 year old writing for what they THINK a drug dealer would do and say. He spoke like an actual Disney Villian, every sentence made me cringe. He was just pure evil and nothing more.
Playing the original LiS, I loved that Rachel was an off-screen character, we could only piece her together from the memories of Chloe and the people of Arcadia Bay. Seeing her true character come to life in this way kind of disparaged this elusive and angelic figure from the first game.
AMEN. FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT
Right like the entire first game everyone is still worshipping Rachel Amber even though shes been missing for months at that point. Everyone goes on about how sweet and charming she was. This game... Shes just a manipulating bitch and i couldnt care less about her. Is her home life shitty? Who cares. And everyone wanted to know how Rachel and Frank get together but why? How is it any less creepy than the other adult men in this game. Rachel isnt likeable and chloe was reduced to being an edgelord. I actually liked chloe in the first game. Shes hurting and grieving and obsessed with finding the girl she loves so dearly and slowly moving on and accepting Rachel is gone. She was multidimensional. Now.. Shes edgy because lol what else would a 13-14 year old girl be
@@arachnesakura9375 I also find that that before the storm ruins the mystery about who rachel really was and all the ambiguity that was in the first game.
👏
@Candice _
I wouldn't call it "fan fiction," when as someone who started writing original stories when he was in high school, I can attest that some of us original authors make the same mistakes you listed. Well at least I did, as I can't speak for others.
EDIT:"Alright, I just caught Before The Storm" was developed by a different team, so I see why you say it felt like bad fanfiction. Just shows even professionals can screw up... A reality I dread..."
I'm one of the people who enjoyed Before the Storm, and my feelings about the game (or at least the series) haven't changed. I'm not saying that I wasn't disappointed with this game, as I did find a few flaws prior to seeing this video. I just want to say that I appreciate your stance and honesty about your experience with the game and how you feel that it should have gone.
In fact, the reason that I came to this video was because I'm not good at analyzing work to see why it works or doesn't work, and I wanted to educate myself. You showed me some things that I can look for when I play this game again; hopefully, I can ask some of the questions that you asked when seeing shows or playing games and make more intelligent approaches toward different works.
Great work on the video! I'll be checking out more of your reviews.
I agree i think BTS was awesome and made me appreciate LIS 1 even more
Jonathan Sawyer I freaking loved it! I understand that rachel was quite manipulative but she had such a magnetic personality that you had to love it
(and also, you could choose NOT to graffiti above the booze bottle hahaha)
Makes the two (or 277?) of us, Jonathan! In LiS Max is a bit of a “blander” character because the player needs to be able to identify with her as much as possible, and “reverse-engineer” her character from your own choices is a way to do so very deeply.
On the other hand, and after the emotional rollercoaster LiS is, if you get to playing BtS is obvious you’re going to get underwhelming gameplay by comparison: if you play BtS, you want to go deeper with the story, to know Chloe better when she’s at her most fragile and self-destructive.
It was another developing studio and yes, they could have done better... and the in-game story felt rushed... and yes, as the video says, they were obviously going for some things and missed the mark... but I still got to understand so many more things, details, states of mind, rationales behind choices, bad behaviours and counterproductive choices by Chloe that my view of her became way fuller. This is more than any kickass gameplay could have given me.
I cared more about the girl who Max saved from getting hit with toilet paper then I did about Rachel Amber. And that’s just sad
hahaha true! I would always go back and make sure Alyssa was ok before giving a damn about Rachel
Or the angry fisherman
True!! I made an effort to "save" her every single time.
toriloveSubarukun Same.
That hurts man
Not just you Hamish. I too feel like the characters were underwritten and the game over all felt like it had no purpose.
I respect the effort the devs may have put into it. But that doesn't change the fact that the story is poorly written and the game is below average at best.
EXACTLY
I really don't like to criticize other people's work (especially knowing that the devs are big fans of the first Life Is Strange game) but Before The Storm beyond being pointless is BAD. A prequel only ruined the mystery around Rachel Amber. That whole mother and Rachel having supernatural relations with the fire plot was good and had potential but DeckNine did a bad job. And the Chloe voice actress I know she tried her best but I do not know why the hell was it necessary to have a pointless prequel PLUS Chloe with a different and not so good voice. Ashly Burch (Chloe original voice actress) is superb no one could top her as Chloe and yet they didn't care.
The voice actor's guild strike just so happened to fall during the time of the game's development. If not for that they would have used Ashly Burch for the role.
no one could expect the ending to anywhere near and emotional as the original because we all know Chloe and Rachel survive 2010 whatever the circumstances, but really who cares about Chloe's hair? I just wasted a dozen hours of my life just to see Chloe dye her hair, it's like the prequel that lead to Chloe a decision to dye her hair, and I had presumed she would of dyed her hair as late as 2012, beginning so perfectly blue in the original, without any original hair growth visible.
I agree but they did mention a lot that Rachel is a manipulative actress who is very much into escapism in a bad way much like her mother who let her escapism get the best of her... so I guess I kind of thought that was the point of Rachel's character. It was ultimately her character's short falling. If she didn't die... she might have ended up losing her reputation of being perfect and kind to a complete mess who unwittingly followed in her mother's footsteps.
Oh my god yes! The reason I liked Rachel in the original Life is strange is because of that Laura Palmer’s vibe. Everyone adores her yet she’s also seen as manipulative but you never know the truth because this girl (both Laura and Rachel) is a mystery and it’s never reveled who she actually was. But Life is strange just killed the mystery and ruined Rachel’s character.
In the first game, we only hear about rachel from other people, mainly chloe, so its either people who really dont know her that much, or chloe, who was still hurt from the fact that max abandoned her and it would make sense that even if chloe knew she wasnt that perfect, would paint her that way, just to kinda show max what she missed. Its like when a friend invites you to an event and you decline, and then exaggerates how the event went, hard to explain. And after we find out that rachel lied to chloe, we start to wonder if she was actually that perfect angellic person that chloe makes her to be, it does work well in the first game.
im gonna make this REAL simple. Elliot, crazy as he was, was 100% correct. Rachel is a user. she uses people. this is all you need to know about her and chloe, her and frank. etc. People are upset because the game makes it seem like Chloe and Rachel are soul mates, but the truth is, not. She is a user.
Close. Rachel is to Chloe in BTS what Chloe is to Max in Lis. She comes across as Toxic and a user, but she does care, she just doesn't know how to show it. Rachel is fake, not a user. She shows people what she wants them to see. It's why Chloe was so shocked she was intimate with Frank. It's also why Rachel doesn't have any 'real' friends, but everyone loved her.
Eliot is the self-absorbed idiot who is only trying to get Chloe's attention. Whereas Warren in LiS was kind hearted and often seemed genuinely down when Max turned him down, Eliot seemed more irritated. His toxicity towards Chloe gets worse with every interaction, building to the crescendo in the Home Office.
I'm really upset that the one person who tried to knock some sense into Chloe and make her realize that Rachel was a bad friend was also one of the worst characters of the whole game. He loses credibility for being a creep, but he really is technically right. Making Elliot be the only one to tell Chloe this almost makes me think that the writers for the game wanted to tell us, "Oh you don't like Rachel? Well then you're no different from Elliot. And you don't want to be like Elliott, right?"
@@mynameisreallycool1 Elliot didn't care whether or not Rachel was good for Chloe. He only saw her as competition for Chloe's interest. He'd say whatever he thought he could get away with to make distance between Chloe and Rachel so he could 'swoop in'. Elliot's assessment of Rachel and Chloe's relationship is complete BS, because he has no clue about it.
@@freakctc That's true. Nonetheless though, even though he was only saying all of this so he could have Chloe for himself, he was technically right to say that Rachel was no good though. All in all, they both suck and both manipulative towards Chloe. Neither one of them deserve Chloe's time and energy.
@@mynameisreallycool1 As much as I hate to defend Rachel, their manipulations of Chloe were for totally different purposes. Rachel lied to protect herself, as she is used to doing. Eliot manipulates her so she'll be HIS girl (emphasis on the ownership) and control her. Rachel isn't openly bad for Chloe, she just doesn't know how to be 100% honest with anyone.
As they are in LiS, Chloe and Rachel are a bad couple, but maybe if they reached their mid 20's, and matured a little, they would be great for each other.
It’s such a strange decision to focus the game on Chloe. We already know these things about Chloe, why do we need a game reiterating it? Why not focus the game on Rachel’s point of view? Or maybe even Nathan’s, find out how he got into cahoots with Jefferson. The first game already spent too much time with Chloe, she was essentially the main focus already.
Because everyone loves chloe, so the authors were sure everybody would buy it.
"Or maybe even Nathan’s, find out how he got into cahoots with Jefferson. "
How about because I can summarize that entire episode in a sentence shorter than your question and in a way that was already answered by Episode 1.
"Nathan is mentally ill."
Done.
Maybe that way:
- Original game is about Chloe from Max's pov.
- BtS is about Rachel from Chloe's pov.
Because fans love Chloe. The studio and the publisher wanted to make profit based on that. So why not making a game where you can play the beloved Chloe. There would be more sales
@@nehcooahnait7827 Fans DO NOT love Chloe. I played and enjoyed the first game and even this one despite both games having some very real issues. But Chloe was one of the most abrasive, unlikeable, toxic, characters I've ever seen in a video game.
The fact that some people like this character and seem to relate to her or view her as some sort of hero or good person is fucking shocking to me. Chloe should be seen as a cautionary tale. But it is a very inaccurate statement to say that all the fans of these games like Chloe. She's the worst.
Ready for the mosh pit shaka bra
*cringe*
@@theonefrancis696 ready for the mosh pit shaka bra
@@angelo8304 ready for the mosh pit shaka bra
By far the worst thing for LiS:BtS was that it was a story based game where the conclusion had already been established. Any twist they included could have no impact due to the fact it was a prequel to a game that spent a decent amount of time going on about this period.
The argument mechanic was pretty good, just not implemented well.
Yet the twist that that woman was Rachel's mother had a lot of impact on me :thinking.
Just because you know where the characters end up, doesn't make the journey what got them there any less interesting.
That's TRUE, and yet BtS does...so very little, ultimately, to justify its own existence in this regard. Rather than diving deep into Chloe's relationship with Rachel, it only gives us a rushed glimpse of their first few days. Rather than digging into Chloe's traumatic issues, it has her running errands for the girl she's "enslaved" to (per the Tempest allegory). Rather than connecting dots to the first game, and building on these pre-established characters in a way that develops them, it just...shows us more of what we already know, and throws in a bunch of made-up stuff that has no ties to the first game.
Now, bear in mind, I'm simplifying my statements, here (BtS DOES present some meaningful details and moments here and there, BUT...overall, as a prequel? It...doesn't do much to develop anything we couldn't already figure out in the original)
The argument mechanic could've been like the back and forth between characters in Ace Attorney Investigations, but instead they were a compilation of "burns" that not even a middle schooler would think were "sick".
Cowinspace I think the worst thing is the fact that even though the outcome was already written, there's nothing to lead up to it. Like why would Rachel suddenly abandon Chloe and fall in love with Frank
Someone in another review mentioned that Rachel is always looking for something. A new friend, a new possible lover, her long lost Mother. She constantly latches onto new people when she realizes her current fix isn't filling the void in her.
More than likely she just drifted to someone else when she realized Chloe wasn't fixing her.
On the drugging, the worst bit for me is that Before the Storm plays it for laughs. Rachel and Victoria (depending on choices in the original) are both drugged to death with a substance that has a not dissimilar effect. Given the way drugs that induce unconsciousness would be used against Rachel, Victoria and others, playing this for laughs is uncomfortable at best and Before the Storm doesn't seem to see this.
I think the thing about Before the Storm that makes me love it, is that it's basically a short game that gives us Chloe's view of the world. I'm not one to think that it's as great as the original LIS but I can see how it's somewhat just as loved, it's Chloe and her struggle with people in general.
Rachael also to me was maybe the biggest fake in the entire game, but the game doesn't try to hide that from you, you know that Rachael is bond to let you down because we know what transpires with Frank, even the developer of the game told me that Elliot's outburst with Chloe about Rachael is actually right in a sense. That's what makes Rachael all the more interesting to me, she's arguably the worst influence in the series and yet we find ourselves liking her in the small ways she shows her fun side.
I think large props has to go to Rachael's voice actress Kylie Brown and the soundtrack from this game is just perfect.
A bit too short for the money it costs. Right now it's 17 bucks for 12 hours of gameplay, and that's interacting with every intractable object/person? Sure, let's say 20 if you replay the chapters for different endings. That's really not a fair price.
Just a correction but Chloe doesn't fill in Victoria's place in the play, she's fills in Juliet's who got stuck on her way due to the fires. It even says in the subtitles. Victoria was just Rachel's understudy. What's a bit weird to me is that in version where Chloe isn't kicked out of Blackwell, she and Rachel can straight up drug Victoria in the same way she tried to. It makes them feel really malicious since it's not justifiable, then again, Chloe and Rachel aren't good people. The fact that the drugging is always played for laughs regardless of the version feels really odd to me too, especially given how the original game dealt with the serious nature of the topic. It's probably one of the clearest moments where you can see the differences between the studios.
Regardless of differing opinions I can defiantly agree with you on one thing. The booze draw was ridiculous. Who thought that made sense? Why as a designer would you put optional graffiti in the one place where being undetected is paramount?
MacaroniRascal How do you defiantly agree with someone? Also has RUclips unblocked me yet?
I made a conscious decision not to tag in a few places - end of episode 2, when you visit the Amber house, there are a couple of tagging opportunities that I just refused to take.
I wonder whether the optional graffiti was a deliberate opportunity for the player to further define/play Chloe's character. I did run into a moment in a later chapter where one of the very first tagging opportunities near the start of episode 1 came back and had consequences, so it's possible that the developers were trying something more ambitious than they could manage (which also describes the backtalk mechanic).
And, yes, my Chloe absolutely graffitied the booze drawer - sure, there's potential for consequences, but when has Chloe Price considered the long-term? And, let's face it, James Amber has a lot more to lose from Chloe (and Rachel) blowing the lid on his corruption here than Chloe does from him coming after her. And by that point she's no longer trying to make nice...
Sardonicus That’s not the point. The point isn’t that you have too, the point is that it’s there.
Sardonicus You can kill the dog, yes, but Max is horrified when that happens. Whereas NOBODY reacts to Victoria just crashing to the floor. That's the difference here. Not even the teacher cared and that makes it feel so out of place. It's one thing to allow Rachel and Chloe to be bad people, but it's another thing to let everyone else in the game gloss over the bad actions they take.
I just wanna preface this by saying I haven't played the game. I watched a couple gameplays and read a couple comments.
What's really odd to me is that they didn't have to do any of that at all : convince Victoria to leave the play or drug her. She was literally just Rachel's understudy, and Rachel makes it very clear before the play begins that she intends on leaving Arcadia Bay and wants to go with Chloe (remember that junkyard scene right before the play?) so why give so much of a shit about Victoria taking your place in the play, if you don't even intend to stay any longer in this place?
My main problem with Before the Storm is that it's unnecessary.
Let me explain. Life is Strange placed a huge emphasis in Rachel Amber before she even was a character, and the plot of the game could be summarized by saying that "Chloe wants Max to help her find Rachel and some other shenanigans". Alright, then why does the prequel tells us who Rachel is, without telling us how she got kidnapped and killed? It's a missed opportunity, a really big one. We get to know Rachel (and it's just a better version of Chloe with different problems), but for some reason, the writers decided that it would be nice to throw in some shit that doesn't affect the main game in any way. If the game was set a couple of months before the events of Life is Strange, then they could've managed to tell us who Rachel was, how important to Chloe she was, who Jefferson was and how did Rachel die, maybe establish Chloe and Rachel's relationship with characters we already knew and cared about. I appreciate the thought put into Chloe's characterization, at least the good bits of it, but that's all we got (and a lot of melodrama and convoluted events). The game felt really rushed and none of its characters managed to be relatable or entertaining, except for maybe Chloe, but a lot of people hate her for being completely unrelatable and an asshole (even as a protagonist), so it still doesn't count.
Basically, the prequel doesn't build upon the main game, but takes its characters and does unrelated things with them.
YES. This is my underlying core problem with it. It has SO many opportunities to connect meaningful dots to the first game...and by Ep2 it actually looked like it was! Aaaaand then Ep3 tossed that all out the window to focus on all of this shit that not only has nothing to do with the original game (in which case, why the fuck is this a prequel?) BUT it also had nothing to do with Chloe and Rachel's relationship with each other (in which case, why the fuck were we led to believe that's what the point of the story was?).
Before the storm takes place 3 years before the first game
And it shouldn't.
my problem with every game is that they're unnecessary. i could be out in the world being productive, starting a business, learning new skills, or ripping on games online.
What an argument.
As soon as I found out that Chloe’s “power” was back talking, I was like “Nah...not getting it”.
That "power" was super lame lol. Literally anyone can just argue or roast people like Chloe did. I thought the game was fine, but they didn't have to bother with the whole "power" thing. They could've just made part of the normal dialogue for the player to choose like the rest of the game is done. They wanted it to be like the original game, but since Chloe isn't supposed to actually have supernatural powers, the way they tried to make it look like her being able to get what she wants through arguing is a "superpower" just came across as dorky.
What really sucks is when you’re led to back talk to David, it actually makes it all worse. If you don’t backtalk he actually shows he cares and feels about this relationship. Sucks
The story of Chloe and Rachel should've been kept a mystery and shouldn't exist, that makes it even better.
I mean that's why the Storm is still a mystery.
I did like Rachel's character, but I still full heartedly stand by Max much more. Max arguably could have tried to be more in contact with Chloe for the years they were apart, but after everything she did in the first game she made up for it.
i was eating those beans
Not going to lie, I've given lots of inanimate objects the bird when they've pissed me off, especially things that I've stubbed my toe on.
Yeah, but she just jumped over a fence.
Your life is not very well written then.
She vaulted over a 3 foot fence. It wasn't barbed or anything, it didn't present any sort of challenge. She would have no reason to feel any sort of emotion about jumping the fence. You tend to have emotion when something stubs your toe.
She was giving the finger to The Man, the Authority, the motivation behind writing the no trespassing sign. In other words, being a stereotypical asshole teenager.
Shane Brannon Who fucking does that though?
Giving the middle finger to a fence? Sounds like something I would do. Like, really. Not joking. I gave the middle finger to pieces cup boards and pieces of paper
Lol seriously why is anyone complaining about that? It's such a Chloe thing to do as well.
THIS so hard. She's a punky edgy teenager who tries too much, of course she would give the middle finger to a "stay away" fence. Because she thinks that's cool and makes her more genuine punk outlaw. Chloe is not a rational adult that thinks through her actions and tries to act like people normally do. Her actions are SUPPOSED to be cringy because she is kid who is trying a bit too hard.
@@peittoburrito how is she TRYING to be cool and edgy when theres nobody around to even see her flip off that fence? Shes just doing that because shes genuinely angry inside at everyone and everything due to her shitty life. Anger and bitterness and maybe even depression is her default base mood
@@Snake-od6ok I was thinking that she is trying to prove that to herself, like "I'm doing this even though nobody is watching, so I'm the real deal". But it could be also because she's angry and just feeling it.
When I was a teen, I've also done so many of these things nobody cared about, just to feel better. I don't think it's anything special, to be honest.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Personally, I don't think the game explored enough. What I mean by this is, for example, in Episode 2: "Brave New World" with the photo of Chloe and Rachel in the car; it gave the impression that we were actually going to be traveling somewhere where Chloe and Rachel could spend a bit of time away from everything. It would have introduced a bit more new scenery into the game and would have made it more interesting. Also, the game could've been spaced out a bit in terms of time. (Instead of taking place over a few days, it could've been a few months.)
Finally, I think exploring Rachel's relationship with Frank and how she went missing was only touched upon in Before The Storm. The developers could have delved much deeper into that crucial plotline.
Agreed add an extra 2 episodes then end it off with chloe finding max
She knew her father was meeting someone there and thats why she was pissed about losing the quarter and not being able to use the other machine that actually worked so she could see what her dad was doing, just pointing it out.
Idk how they missed this, Rachel specifically mentioned it.
@@mfc3553 When i did not catch that
I think the point is she gets pissed at Chloe that’s the problem.
Rachel knew her dad is going to be at the park?? Then why did she act all cheerfull and playfull through the ride and all with Chloe but then did a complete 180 when they saw her dad? I always thought she caught her dad by accident so that's why she was so upset and all
it should have slowed down and been 5 chapters
No, they should have killed the episodic nature entirely.
It also should've spanned more than a couple days. No one falls in love and trusts that quickly as Chloe and Rachel. The reason Max and Chloe work in a short amount of time is because they have history and they even show us how much history they do have together.
I really didn't like the stuff with Nathan (and Samantha) as well as the stuff with David and Joyce. I hate that we can choose to help Nathan in the bullying incident and by encouraging Samantha to support him, yet we know it will achieve nothing in the end. The same problem with David, we can choose to make peace with David, knowing full well again that their relationship will turn to shit in the end. Most of the choices in this game seem to have no real meaning. I also can't believe Damon, who was a major antagonist, was killed off screen. Also, the final big choice meant practically nothing, which sucked, although this was arguably inevitable since this is a prequel. I didn't like that Steph was purely there as the token extra lesbian to assist in deciding whether you wanted to be friends or lovers with Rachel. The worst character though is definitely Sera. It made no fucking sense. The big shock of Episode 3 is how Sera has been wronged by James, how she had truly reformed her ways, stopped accepting money etc. and how James had hired Damon to take her out of the picture. Yet, when Chloe finally talks to Sera, suddenly Sera doesn't give a single fuck about meeting Rachel, even though this was the entire reason for her being in Arcadia Bay in the first place. She claims in the scene with Chloe that James is right in saying that she can never truly be her mother. However, just before, when talking to Damon, she very clearly stated that she still wanted to meet her daughter. She defended James purely to set up the moral dilemma (the shocking truth vs the comforting lie) but in my opinion this was an unnatural sequence of events. I also didn't like when, in my playthrough, I tried to support Victoria for the play, but then Rachel just decides to be an absolute conniving evil bitch just so we can get our moment on stage. It also didn't really make sense that Frank sent you on the mission to get the money from Drew if Damon was going to get it himself.
Steph and Mikey are some of the greatest BtS moments though
Daniel Turner when Chloe and Sera talked Chloe had blacked out. It was a figment of her imagination and more of a manifestation of her consciousness coming to her in the form of Rachel's mother.
I don't understand Sera at all..she was putting her child in an unsafe environment so Rachel's dad took Rachel away, which was the RIGHT DECISION I'd say. Then, she comes back after all this time and wants to see her daughter, which is understandable- but she claims she hasn't been doing drugs..when in the cut scenes she's seen smoking. So?? I think her dad did the right thing- I mean asking a drug dealer to kill her or something is definitely bad but he made the right call keeping Rachel from Sera like wtf why would Rachel want to meet this woman.
@@pb4705 knowing Rachel's character she probably would want to see her mother and just being a smoker isnt the same as being on drugs plenty of parents smoke not saying its right but as long as she's not doi g it around her
recovering from addiction is not as simple as "hm i think i will stop today so i can recover my relationship with my daughter" or "i did heroin once for the first time in a year but it's okay because i'm not addicted anymore." it can take years and multiple attempts to stop for it to finally stick if ever and falling off the wagon takes 100 steps back--not only are you back on the drug but your morale is shattered too. that's why sera was clearly crying before her talk with chloe because she knew her chance to reunite with rachel and be a mother was ruined when damon injected her. she told damon she wanted to be there for rachel BEFORE he did it and knowing she wouldn't be able to stop again is why she changed her mind afterward.
I agree, before the storm felt rushed, but I honestly kind of liked before the storm even more than the original life is strange. It just had such a nostalgic, realistic, grounded feel. Idk, y'all can disagree, but I saw so much deeper symbolism and relatability within the game.
I also liked the game very much even if it was kinda short. Maybe it could have been better and explained a lot more things . Sometimes secrets are better off as secrets .But I am satisfied with what we've got .
I didn't expect a phenomenal but I personally played it twice and I don't regret it one bit. A story doesn't need to to be ideal or phenomenal to be great
also i'm a weird guy but i do on occasion give the middle finger to a box or item that falls off the shelf at my work because i have to pick it up - so yes some people do that because, well people are weird.
Yeah it's like how you would "blow a kiss" to an inanimate object sure it's weird but in way it's your own private joke.
I give middle fingers to mosquitoes, so...
@@theonefrancis696 they deserve it
I 100% would flip off a fence when nobody is around lol
I am going to play devil's advocate here for a moment, and explain why I both love and hate the characterization of Rachel. This series biggest strength but also its greatest weakness is that the information we get from other characters about Rachel in the first game, and what we get to witness in the second game is all so vague, and leaves many questions unanswered, not to mention clashes with some of the more shady things we get to find out that she did, that it forces the player to make their own conclusion on whether Rachel is a genuine good person with a bit of a dark edge, a victim of a hereditary self destructive nature like her mom, or a sociopath who's only out for herself. If you sit down for a few minutes and reflect back on both games with those 3 different lenses, you will realize that it works either way. So in the end nobody actually knew who Rachel was, not Chloe, not Frank, Jefferson or any of the other students she interacted with because she has a different mask that she wears depending upon who she's talking to or the the circumstance that she's in. That is what is so brilliant about her but also my biggest frustration
I think that also the fact that the team that developed BTS was different from the first LIS game also may have contributed to that. Maybe they had different visions about who Rachel was and that lead to a bit of a mess in her character. I agreed totally with you, i think the game leaves us with even more questions than we had before and that frustrates me a lot
I agreed with a lot of what you said but you seemed fixated on her flipping off the fence and the idea that that's not something actual people do but when I was a teenage girl and, hell, even now, in my mid-twenties, I flip off inanimate objects with no one around. And it's not cause I think I'm "punk" or "bad-ass" or whatever, I know I'm not, it's a just a thing I do. Because it is a thing that people do.
Yeah I mean I didn't get why people were complaining about her flipping off the fence. That's something I would do as a "haha take that fence."
Yeah, but he just seemed to keep going back to that like "people don't do that" and I'm wondering "since when ?"
Yeah, it's like shouting on the table when you hit your little toe. It comes naturally.
Same for the graffiti, it just feels good to go around and leave your mark there.
Breaking the law by small means can be fun, even more if you are in your teen years.
Maybe staying in front of the moving train is just a bit much tho, both for the current and the teen me. I guess it may give some thrill like some extreme sports do.
Yeah, but its very of-fence-ive.
It's just they way she goes about it. Like yeah iv flipped off inadament objects before but it was because it pissed me off. Like if stubbed my toe or if my phone drops a call. But she just does it...to do it? It's the game trying to remind you that she is super "edgy" but it just comes off cringey. Like if you there and witnessed that it would be weird.....I dont know tho. I'm doing a horrible job of explaining it but there's something off about it to me. It feels unnatural to me
What got me thinking was why did they make the fire seem like a plot device but eventually turned into a useless and missed opportunity for Rachel and Chloe to help and deal with it as danger could've been a better climax
Going straight for the throat I see XD
Why do I see you everywhere you filthy commie?
DL DD I blame the economy
i blame the addictive nature of the internet
PlotProgressor B That too
PlotProgressor B This creator is also one of my favs
Honestly the best part for the was at the end of the game after you check out your choices and Chloe is calling Rachel whilst she’s in the dark room
That’s what I wanted, I wanted more about Rachel so it would connect to the first game seamlessly. I know it was in Chloe’s point of view and all but it was so rushed and it was like they wanted you to care for the characters without giving you enough time for any character development
Just finished the game, as much as I liked it, I agree with most of your points. The third act especially baffled me with those questionable decisions... but the second had some really fantastic parts.
Glad I played it, enjoyed it a lot, but expecting more from the future
I was really disappointed by BtS, and I never got why a lot of players loved Rachel, since she's clearly not a good person
I don't think a character needs to be a good person in order to be a good character...Chloe isn't a good person, either, not always, but I think she is a good character. The problem is that BtS simultaneously REMINDS us and SHOWS us how Rachel really WASN'T an angel, and...yet also doesn't follow through on that, ultimately trying to convince us to pretend everything was fine and she really WAS this perfect ray of happiness for everyone...
It's confusing.
Destiny-Smasher i know, I loved Chloe in the first LiS, but a lot of people act like Rachel is a perfect character and get mad at others who point out that she's actually a shitty person
Life is strange isn't unrealistic because of Max's time travel powers. It's unrealistic, because not a single one of these high school girls are wearing leggings!
Larissa Tiberi Or ripped jeans and Starbucks coffee.
I thought they were in college, Victoria is 18
Patricia Schlabendorff It's confirmed that Rachel was 15 when before the storm took place and she when to Arcadia Bay. It's a college prep. I know it's confusing.
Larissa Tiberi thank you!
*cough* Dana *cough*
Rachel is such a thoroughly awful, overly entitled human being, that it was impossible to stand her.
Yeah fuck Rachel. Deck Nine really didn't help to develop her into a good character.. She's fake af
I mean.... Why do you think that Rachel was supposed to be a good character? Just because everyone liked her doesn't mean she was a good person. She was just a good actor, on stage and off. She was highly manipulative which is shown in the principals office. I think one of the things as Chloe that you're thinking towards the end of the game is actually "is Rachel using me" but on the same token, isn't Chloe using Rachel too. Every day she writes letters that she wants to send to max and keeps them as a dairy. She often mentions how great Rachel is. Honestly Chloe not only wanted a friend but was planning on using her as a weapon to hurt max. In the end she ends up loving her as a lover or close friend, at which point she isnt using her (as shown by her care for Rachel in the first game), but that doesn't completely absolve Chloe either. If you hate Rachel so much, maybe you should hate Chloe too... But if you hate Chloe too, isnt Rachel the perfect character for Chloe?
You also have to realize that the first game sets Rachel up to be a bad person. She makes Chloe fall in love with her, sleeps with frank while they're still together, then after all the talk about leaving town together, she meets Mark Jefferson and thinks "this is the guy that will help me leave town, he is a visionary" (the note in the shed garbage can tells you this from the first game). You're not supposed to think she is a great person. I think deck nine did a good job portraying her.
@@naylik2562 that's the point
@@naylik2562 Yeah, she's supposed to be that way. That was basically the point in the first game
I want to know what happened to Rachel, how she died, even though we all know it’s pretty morbid, accidentally killed by Nathan. But I wanna know the whole story of what happened to her or even how Jefferson began his weird fetishes.
The Devs know they made a mistake when i ended up caring more about Nathan wayy more than Rachel in this game
and not just like he was more interesting (even tho his was) like i actually cared about his mental illness and him overall while i literally didn’t give two shites about Rachel.
I'm really surprised BTS has as many positive reviews as it does. It's just not a very engaging story afaic. Good for those people who do like it, but I don't get it. And I liked the first game very much, btw.
Same here, I have to say I was disappointed by Before the Storm. I really look forward to the bonus-episode though, because the original voice actor for Chloe is back, and especially the fact that Max as a character, that we get to play is back. Hope it doesn't disappoint, but I have my hopes up for this one.
thought u were talking about kpop
Oh before the storm. Thought you were talking about beyond two souls.
Even if Life is Strange is not for everyone, it has his fucking upsides. While for Before the storm... I don't think Deck Nine should have ever tried to immitate Dontnod..
Not an engaging story? LiS: BTS has one of the best stories I've ever played.
Should've been 5 episodes.
A non stalker Eliot would have been a better romantic interest...if Chloe actually cared about him and didnt have such a boner for Rachael. Not that i dont mind rachael being in this series but i think it needed another 2 episodes to pace itself.
Peta Parka i always liked max and chloe as a friendship, particularly an abusive one, since chloe was literally using her the whole time because she could reverse time. here i don't like it at all, rachel is a wack ass character who's a bitch and chloe's an edgy bitch. there's nothing interesting about rachel and there's no interesting dynamic between the two. it just ruins the image we had of rachel in our minds from what all the clues and shit we could pull from the original, that was interesting. here, it just shows you she's a boring teen with a fucked up life.
Eliot wasn't a stalker. He was right about everything he said about Rachel (it took Chloe around 3 years to find out the truth about Rachel). He was well meaning person who was screwed up in his thinking. He cared about and loved Chloe and, just like guys do these days, he paid the price for having feelings for a female.
@Peta Parka I think part of the relationship between Chloe and Max goes further back into their childhood than just what happens in the first game and that, to me, dictates a relationship between the two that I think seems right.
"he cared about and loved chloe and, just like guys do these days, he paid the price for having feelings for a female" i don't think you got the real point here. you're excusing/confusing men abusive behavior with "care" and "love". he was extremely agressive with chloe in the office, that's not love and care, it's called violence.
He is just a copy of Warren ( not the Psycho part of Eliot)
Okay, honestly- I've got a bit of a unique perspective. I really relate to Chloes abandonment issues, and when I first saw Rachel- I absolutely adored her. Honestly I think that's the brilliance of Rachel's character. She's so...there, all the sudden. She goes from never having met Chloe to that scene in the street within just a few days...my heart melts. I adore it because it made me realize how easily I would manipulated, and Rachel to me still kinda feels...fun. But still, I think the game struggles. It struggles in the way I think every prequel does. It's trying to jam its players into starting positions instead of being able to have a natural story flow. Characters like Chloe and Nathan couldn't really, develop and have satisfying ends because, well, that's not where they were in the first game. It's a fun game with some good characters and heartfelt moments but, It's not quite a good game, or nearly as good as the og LiS.
i don't know why the writers didn't take this opportunity to focus on mr. jefferson and how that came to be, his involvement with nathan, and how rachel got wrapped up in it and eventually was murdered. that storyline was one of the most interesting and fascinating aspects of the first game but it left me with so many questions that still were not answered in this game either
Haven't seen the entire thing yet, but your summary of episode 3 is so spot on, it hurts.
Edit: Now that I've watched the whole thing I want to actually make a good comment. I'm not going to pretend I understood these games as deeply as you did, as you clearly saw writing intentions and hidden meanings behind certain things in these games that I missed. I did play these games and something I couldn't miss is the lack of a plot for most of BTS. Throughout the original Life is Strange, you were lead to believe that everything was connected and that you would eventually unravel it all. If you told someone playing through the original Life is Strange about all the plot twists and turns, they could probably see how it all happened and wouldn't be that confused. In BTS though, the entire plot is flipped upside down for the worse in the final episode. If you told someone "oh yeah the lady is her biological mother, and her dad is still the bad guy and he's working with Damon, and for some reason you have to get to the center of this giant thing you have no stake in", the person playing the game would be so damn confused.
tldr; You're right.
While I agree that there are some characters which are criminally underdeveloped (cf. Elliot), and that Rachel does come across more as a plot device (even though I would still argue she is not *that* unbelievably pushed to the limits as such), I cannot say that Rachel and Chloe's relationship does not work. They do connect on multiple levels, and for once, Chloe is seen with someone who can relate to her losing her father. In this way, the game actually fixed something in the original - when Chloe broke down upon seeing Rachel's body in Life Is Strange, I couldn't really connect to (or believe) that she was so traumatized by her loss (seeing as how I quite literally knew next to nothing about Rachel's character).
Additionally, I think it is true that the game's 'star' mechanic could be used to for something like Max's time travel abilities on a narrative level; but is it also not the case that, regardless of what you (don't) achieve with the (non-)use of that mechanic, the final outcome in the game is the same, just like with Max's story? Chloe's character growing or learning about the futility of her actions would have been inappropriate, for her coming of age story is indeed in Life is Strange and not in Before the Storm.
Telos honestly I felt sadness when they found Rachel's body purely because of how hard they had looked for her, and how she was talked about as almost an otherworldly being
Excellent Video and I 100% agree. I loved life is Strange but was very disappointed with Before the Storm and I'm getting pretty sick of the endless praises it gets that it doesn't deserve. It feels more like am amateur fan faction than a legitimate canonical prequel.
To be fair, Star Wars episodes I-II-III also feel the same way, lol.
This is why so many people, including me, consider BtS a fanfiction. It was developed by Deck9, not the original team (aka Dontnod). Dontnod never intend to make a prequel. Honestly, I'll never consider BtS canon.
The last episode left me with enough questions. How did Rachel's dad react to Chloe breaking into his office, destroying some evidence (damn, Chloe has some geek friends that could've photoshopped this glove into being burnt)? Did Chloe even said anything to him? What's a consequence for picking who's a rat?
P.S. Also it really bugged me that when Chloe made those stars lights they were moving, although it was just a flashlight. The rotating part is in that night light, not in the flashlight.
I wish someone would take "Pretty Little Liars" apart the way you just did with this game. I hate how inconsistent that show was and how it tried to make you actively root for the bad guys and believe they were good guys and endlessly punished the actual good guys. Like how it tried to romanticise these toxic -and at times even abusive- relationships such as Alison's manipulation of Emily. That bitch only used her when she was out of options and we're meant to believe them ending up together is a 'HAPPY' ending?
PLL was based on some books, not sure if it followed them 100%, but still.
I'm pretty sure we heard the only take Hamish did before he passed out when describing that crazy set of events.
Fantastic video, man. I enjoyed Life is Strange, despite the obvious dialogue and "aren't we clever" references but was real hesitant on this one. Good thing I didn't.
I liked it because it engages the emotions by the end/at certain key moments and that is not easy for a game to do on this level. But there were some things that they could have developed more/done better or differently, I agree. It is the series of events leading up to the death of Chloe's dad and the leaving of Max from the bay to Washington. It makes sense as a prequel story but these folks were not dontnod so they may have done the best they could have but not the best that could be done.
I finished the game yesterday, and really liked it, still do. but i see you point. im that kinda person, that like a game or a movie, if it hits my feelings in the moment, and Before the storm did that for me. Chloes grief and the hold story with her and David problem, i really connected with that! and the way you can be spelled bount by another person, like Rachel spell bount Chloe, i can again really relate and connected, cuz, in that grief and when the world really feels like its fighting you, you meet the person that tell you how amyzing you are, you fall in love. even though that person acturly isn't doing any good for you, again like rachel. i connected with Chloe so so so much, and that made the game a good game for me. i hated Rachel, to be honest, but i could see what Chloe feld for.. because i have been there. the game mecanik, was dumb! and its slowed it down, the Eliot thing was unnessacery, and the overall plot twist in the end, was not for me, but i still realy loved the game, cuz i could realy connect with what Chloe was going through. i see before the storm as a game that missed alot, but Chloes story they did good, and i understanded it,, feeled it. thanks for making this video, it made me see why i liked the game! :)
I feel like this game is one of those examples of why you should leave stories where they're at and not literalise certain things. Looking at the new Star Wars movie coming out that's gonna give us Han Solo's backstory. Rachel would've been better off remaining as a plot device, turning her into a character will inevitably be worse than the imaginary character the previous game cooked up in the player's mind, especially if the writers fuck up the character to begin with. I think the only way to succeed here would have been to subvert the player's expectations by having Rachel be a horrible and manipulative person who has a quasi abusive stockholm syndromesque relationship with most people, especially Chloe.
I get your point but I’ve always taken Before the Storm’s genre as magical realism. You can overhear some firefighters in the hospital say the fire mysteriously dies down right as Rachel was stabbed. It’s was symbolically tied to Rachel in a way.
In regards to Chloe's character in this one, I interpreted that (and I supposes played as if) she was still dealing heavily with the grief of losing her father and best friend. She has this self image of herself at this point of an edgy brash loner. But in reality she's still wildly insecure. She's playing the role of this self image of herself as a shield to the world around her and her unresolved emotions. I think you see her character soften throughout the series as she reconciles who she sees herself as through the lens of this confusing new relationship with Rachel.
Despite not liking the original game, mostly for cringy, unrelatable characters and plotholes, I could understand people liking it.
This new one is embarrassingly bad, Chloe was angry and edgy in the first, typical childish teen. In Before the Storm however, she's whiny and bland. She was a somewhat entertaining if annoying character in 1, but here she's just a pain and feels totally unrealistic. And like you said, Rachel is just an awful person, and not in an interesting way.
Also I'd like to add that I personally didn't like the new voice actor for Chloe. She was one of the best in the game but she still was only passable and inoffensive at best.
Still great video 👍
I agree with you about this game and chloe being "hella" annoying throughout the first game AND rachel not being a good person,,, but im genuinely curious why you even bothered playing this game if you didnt like the first one? (Im not tryna be one of those "dont play it then!!1#1" fans im just curious lol)
Kiana Peters I'm interested in games design and just like in film theory, it's always recommended to play games you like/consider good as well as ones you don't/think are bad. These gameplay lacking story focused games almost always have issues personally, so I like playing them and working out what I think they did wrong.
And yeah I don't like seeming like I'm telling people what to enjoy, games need to be a space providing creative freedom to allow games for all kinds of people!
Even though I don't agree with your assessment of LiS, I wish more people on the Internet were like you, that can acknowledge that other people can have different opinions and tastes on games and doesn't put them down; it's conducive to having a non-toxic gaming community.
MagnumEagle yeah life's to short to shit on tastes!
Great analysis imo. I did enjoy the game quite a bit, but not as much as the original. Listening to your analysis actually was quite eye opening, I didn't really think of many things you talked about, I just kinda took them at face value (except for tagging the DA office, that was just moronic, I was utterly flabbergasted that it was treated as a collectable rather than some highly consequential thing).
On a side note, you MUST give a link to the music, it's fantastic.
In my eyes, BTS is a string of poorly connected phenomenal moments with some notable missteps.
Have you play the bonus episode? I think it is the best from that game
Treat it as a fanfic. That was the only way I could stomach it.
I agree with a lot of the things you said. One of my favorite points that you brought up was that Chloe's backtalk actually gets her into trouble in the principal's office. That would be a been a very interesting statement to make if it had been used more consistently. Yeah overall this game feels cheap in comparison to the original, though I had a very good time playing it for the most part. Especially episode 2--that episode was a total blast. The second half of episode 3 was the only bit I found to be not even fun. Whereas the first game felt like a carefully crated story throughout, this one felt much more uneven... like a thrown-together story with some carefully crafted moments. There was a lot to like, but too much wrong with it to feel satisfied in the end.
I also liked how you pointed out that the supernatural stuff in LiS actually gave it more leeway to be a grounded, human story. It required us to suspend our disbelief about time-travel, but in contrast you're right--BtS required us to suspend our disbelief that "people would really act like that," which doesn't allow for us to feel grounded in the human aspects of the story.
And I don't think your opinion is all that unpopular, really. Maybe with game critics? I was kind of surprised how good the reviews for this game were--especially after episode 3 came out.
It is unpopular, the game has a 94% rating on Steam
Getting into trouble is kinda the point in the principal's office - the scene isn't about Chloe wanting to avoid getting in trouble for skipping school the previous day; it's about Chloe and Rachel competing to take the blame to protect each other - the backtalk means you win that contest, and successfully throw yourself on that grenade...
Maybe game lacks some suggestion here: displayed in a previous talk, in a level of connection between girls, or maybe printed right on the button "DEFEND HER AT ANY COST".
"But is also a maverick" damn that was great
They took the fun part of this game and they killed it
While I do like “Before the Storm”, I agree with a lot of the criticism.
I understand why it needs to have its own plot and some new characters, since that is kind of the nature of a prequel. But I think that “Before the Storm” should have been a little bit more connected to the first game. I thought the entire point of making a prequel was to answer some questions that the audience asked during the first game.
I would use “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad” as an example here. The prequel “Better Call Saul” has its own plot and introduces a lot of new characters. But it also has a clear connection to “Breaking Bad” by also including some answers to questions asked during “Breaking Bad”.
But “Before the Storm” isn’t really doing that. There are still many big questions about Rachel that remain unanswered. Also, Rachel in “Before the Storm” seems like a very different person compared to how she is described by people in the first game. Which ironically results in more questions.
I agree a 100% percent. I genuinely didn't like the game. Rachel Amber was indeed an awful character who I hated throughout the game, the puzzles were terribly dull and that couple in the mountains, holy shit that was the least convincing human performance I have ever witnessed. The plot is all over the place and most of the game felt GENUINELY awkward. The only thing that I was really interested in (sadly) is Chloe and Joyce's relationship, although there was not much going on there, and David's character was constantly contradicting himself betweem wanting to be accepted and being an asshole. A good highlight is the end of episode 1. It was abysmal. Rachel just starts a forest fire for no fu*king reason and proceeds not to give a shit.
But yeah, you've pretty much summed it up in your video. I'm just so mad, they could've done so much more with this game.
Iirc in episode 2 the "bad guys" are talking about how the fire burned the mill and that they lost a lot of money and how they're gonna burn the one who started the fire, i was like "oh shit, this is gonna get good!"...but nop, in ep3 the firemen in the hospital let us know that the fire just ended...
It was also all talk and no action, The both wanted to run away from home, that didn't happen, Rachel wanted to meet her mother face to face, and that didn't happen, it actually was beginning to get interesting in the last part then it then abruptly quit.
Very interesting video. Funnily enough I agree with all of your criticism. I still enjoyed the game though, with the exception of the third episode, which I was extremely disappointed in.
I find it really hard to explain what I liked about it, I think it spoke to me on an emotional level. It's really easy to relate to Chloe, her loneliness, teen edginess, her underperforming at school, her desire to connect with somebody like Rachel, the way she immediately blames herself after Rachel is being a dick to her... I even like her taste in music. She's a character I can really relate to and somehow that carried me through the first two episodes, happily ignoring all the cheesy little plot holes of the game. Combine that with the fact that I didn't go into the game with an expectation of great writing as I remembered the first life is strange to have less that subtle characters and writing.
I think it's an old conundrum, a story speaking to a lot of people emotionally while still being obviously bad when critically analyzed (Anime like Sword Art Online comes to my mind immediately), maybe the writers just found a way to tell an emotional story while sacrificing believeability, without many people even noticing.
I generally find there's two responses to Life is Strange from two different kinds of players: ones who can see themselves or a piece of themselves in Max or Chloe (or both), and ones who see the entire thing as silly or unbelievable. For the latter group, the lack of emotional connection makes the little weirdnesses and faulty parts in the plotting or writing are grating to a breaking point. For the former group, the emotional connection over-rides much of those issues, or in some cases turns 'bad' things into good things.
I feel personally attacked by this relatable comment. You were absolutely on point, for some reason I absolutely loved Life is Strange, and I still do, and I enjoyed BtS except for episode 3. It's weird to watch a video like this because it actually shows fair points of criticism that I couldn't even notice due to my love to the series.
I only disagree with questioning the Final fantasy spirits within reference, c'mon, that was just Square Enix having fun
You have just described what most good writing is about.
They aren't hinting at her having wind powers in Episode 1. It was just you people getting your hopes up over something that was only for effect, rather than showing off her yell.
If they weren't hinting at her having powers, then what about the fire during the dinner at her parents house? The flames rise the angrier Rachel gets, then once she smashes the table they go back to normal.
If you listen to the firefighters in the hospital, the fire just died out completely, as if by magic, right around when Rachel got stabbed.
@@aramchek Just when you thought BTS couldn't get any stupider, it turns out Rachel was one of the x-men. LOL
I just didn't like where the story went.
"Oh. Just let me get kicked in the face by a crazy drug dealer that stabbed Rachel, while Frank is about to die - somehow offs him. Now my boothang's mama (that we literally just found out about) tells me to suck it."
Like bruh, why did they even tease at Rachel having supernatural powers in ep. 1? Why did they do that huge romantic improv. scene in ep. 2 during a play called THE TEMPEST. Translation - THE STORM. Ep. 3 just didn't make sense to me. Like, ep. 3 basically dropped all focus of "The Storm" into a pity party for Rachel.
Love this video! Hadn’t thought Before the Storm in this way before. I personally loved the game but I’m really happy I got this alternate perspective because some things in it don’t make sense, as you had pointed out.
That Elliott moment is still hilarious no matter how many times I see it. It's just like "WHY ARE YOU HERE!?". He has no reason to be there other than to create some sort of tension as he's barely been featured in the story. He's like all the negatives about Warren turned into a character just to point out that guys are dicks and every girl should become lesbians.
HAY, DID YOU READ CATCHER IN THE RYE?!! WASN'T IT HELLA TIGHT, MY DUDES?!! ALMOST AS GOOD AS Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children™ by Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.
JAJAJA ;3 LOL RAWR XD
*dabs*
You can make fun of the writing however you want, but you don’t shit on my AC! :(
No emoji!
🤣™🤣™🤣™🤣™🤣™🤣™
I agree on most that was said. I would like to say that I have hoped a fence turned around i flipped it off.
That is a weird thing to do.
Writing on Games I agree, but I was 15. Chloe is 18 or 19 when she does this. Let's just say I wasn't doing that kind of thing at that age.
I think it's fairly normal, like you also might call your PC something bad if it is annoying xD
So I hate this essay because I agree with you completely lol. I loved before the storm far more than the original. It certainly had faults and I think you covered them all.
I hated the time travel mechanic and the insult mechanics and eventually I started ignoring them and pretending they didn't exist because I was able to connect with the characters so well.
One thing about your video I found interesting is your criticism of Rachel. All the things you point out about her are true, but people like that absolutely exist. People who are clearly using you for their own gains and do so for everyone simply because they can. And as someone who strangely resonated with Chloe and having had a couple Rachel Ambers in my own life, it lead me to being able to care about the things I enjoyed about the game and cast off the things I didn't.
The Major problem with BTS is that it creates a new (and not asked for) plot, instead of delving and exploring the one that had already captivated us in LIS.
I don't give a flying fuck about Rachel's mother. I never wanted to know that. I wanted to see Nathan's mental issues leading him to the breaking point. I wanted to see how Mr. Jefferson took advantage of him and and how he manipulated Rachel. And how clueless Chloe was during all that.
The game should've been about Nathan and Mark Jefferson
As someone who liked LIS despite is many flaws I'm disappointed that the prequel missed the mark. This video was a pleasant surprise.
I loved the video, but there was something I wanted to point out. The game isn't entirely set without supernatural elements. The Raven comes into play in the beginning with the Native info board saying it's something to be respected and not trusted. When it first showed up in Chloe's dream, it showed her Rachel's location and encouraged her to find her. Without Chloe's lighter, the fire wouldn't have been set. The Raven has its agenda and will accomplish it, so it shouldn't be trusted since it doesn't give Chloe the information for her sake, but for its own. That's all I have about the Raven for now, but it's just something to keep in mind.
And the game's pretty unambiguous about Rachel having some sort of magic, probably fire-based, power.
@@rmsgrey Rachel is the dovahkiin daaah
Totally agree with you. This game felt different, but I didn't know why.
It was the 3rd episode when I felt that something is wrong. I felt that Rachel really is unstable and inconsistent character. I felt that she is just abusing Chloe, because she is always doing something for Rachel. I didn't really think that they have any kind of friendship going on. It was really weird how they illustrated their relationship in that game.
And there is one more problem with Rachel giving Chloe different tasks - at least in the 3d episode, the game is more focused on Rachel and her mother (which I didn't really care about). I didn't understand why the hell Chloe is still doing all this shit for Rachel.
A number of great points, even though I enjoyed it more (yes, the gameplay is rushed and all too convenient, but the story mostly makes sense to me and I was playing to get more of Chloe’s thinking, which I did). Just... the two points you found less logical make a lot of sense to me:
1. Flipping the middle finger to the gate is... basically the same thing De Niro does in Taxi Driver with the mirror. It’s a safe space where you can work on your “playing tough” act without people laughing at you. Chloe at this point is still between being a dork and trying to act aloof and “superior” so people (hopefully, in her view) won’t harm her anymore. That’s how it seems to me, and that dorky stupid - but believable - thing she does gave so much more depth to her. Keep in mind that that’s 2 years after Bill and Max disappeared, so she’s been putting up and trying to be a decent student all this while. Now she’s trying to become a “dangerous kid”, she’s not really one, and it shows.
2. Rachel/Victoria spiking each other’s drink: in the bonus episode “Farewell”, you can already see how much the Blackwell environment sucks at 13, Chloe’s classmates are spoiled sociopaths already. Two years later, she’s all too well acquainted with that crap. Rachel is as much of a spoiled kid as Victoria, both people doing something like this doesn’t really feel out of character.
If anything, it’s such a sour irony that Rachel would laugh about roofieing Victoria’s drink when that’s (most likely) what will have her killed two years later. Playing with nostalgia/“odd” ironies like this is a relatively cheap trick, but that doesn’t make it any less intense.
I read in some comment to another video that the storm in the original LiS might be Rachel’s doing, and those cartoonish “windblow tracks” in BtS when she rages and kicks the burning trashcan (those are obviously out of the game’s “style” and only appear there) actually do look like a hint of sorts.
My own theory (and I only half believe it, but it makes sense) is that, in the original LiS, the tornado was Rachel “acting out” in rage, praeternaturally, because Chloe is going to leave with Max. Which is extremely bitchy, and BtS doesn’t give hints that Rachel would be *this* much of a bitch... but it isn’t inconsistent, either.
Which to me is the most delicate message from BtS: Chloe becomes so desperately attached to Rachel (the love/friendship thing is also pretty dumb... but 16 year olds *are* dumb, so once again, it’s so perfectly appropriate) *not* because Rachel deserves it, by her behavior or personality... but simply because Chloe needs someone to cling to this much. It is all so much more heartbreaking if this more cynical interpretation makes sense to you... just think of Rachel as another Victoria, basically. Spoiled rotten with no salvation, and broken Chloe is the only one who cares enough to put up “missing person” posters that people barely read before they throw them again.
Agree with everything. It just felt like a fanfiction most of the time, and what mostly let me down was the little to no presence of Frank, who could have been fleshed out a lot more, along with Jefferson and Nathan. I'm not saying the game is total trash, just that I played LiS1 twice and watched 4 gameplays, while after my first BtS gameplay I'd had enough.
I've been watching Adam from YMS play this game and YIKES somehow they made the writing even worse in the prequel compared to the first game.
I came here to say this. Before the storm makes it clear that whatever feeling 'Writing on Games' liked wasn't intended by the developer and Adam's playthrough makes it clear why.
I just it played yesterday, I really did look forward to it because the press seem to like it and I really enjoy the first one. But this game was just frustrating and it kinda ruined the first on bit for me. And I really can't understand way every one is so positive towards it. Finally someone who shares my frustration with this game, thats somewhat of a relieve that I'm not alone in this
I feel bad trashing on a game that had so much love put into it, but MAN has this game ruined the fandom in a bizarrely unfortunate way. And also, it has...kind of muddied elements of the first game, which is really weird and just a bummer...=_=;;
I hate how Chloe would always do the exact opposite of the command you selected.
I know right, you try to be so tame but she just goes off anyways, it's just a lose lose situation for the player
fr!!!! @@JP-se5kf
A lot of people complain that before the storm left unanswered questions about Rachel and Frank but I think it’s pretty realistic. Even when you’re best friends with someone, they’re still going to keep certain things to themselves. As much as we would have loved to figure out more about Rachel’s interactions with Frank I just don’t think it would be realistic and would even cause continuity errors. Since Chloe first figures out about Frank and Rachel’s relationship in the first game, it wouldn’t make sense for her to be surprised by it if she knew about it before?(idk if that’s worded correctly)
I love this video, this is exactly how I feel about Before the Storm and Rachel Amber.
i have been feeling exactly like this about LiS Before the storm. Thanks for putting it into words. great video
I'm Glad someone is finally saying this
Thank you for this. It's vindicating to know I'm not the only one with an axe to grind about the characterization and writing. Most of the game feels like a cheap imitation of the original. With the exception of the William nightmares and a well crafted set piece or two, I find the writing to be atrocious and artificial. For all its cringy dialogue, the original game is very carefully put together; so much so that the cringe talk feels like a trait of the characters more than anything else (most of the original game at least; the art gallery scene was very obviously underwritten and underacted; but thankfully it wasn't crucial to the story). Before the Storm takes away from the severity of drugging people as handled in the original - Victoria and Rachel both are rigged in a way so as to try to drug one another, no matter what you do, and Chloe just goes along without even addressing it. And that's just one example of many, many problematic, creepy, and downright psychotic behaviors that are just swept under the rug, from characters we're supposed to care about.
There were alot of things that bothered me about BTS. Rachel was a pretty good character since I expected something much different playing LiS and she's a teenager who obviously grew up getting everything she wanted so I can understand why she was giving Chloe tasks to accomplish and not thinking much of it. I wish that there were more episodes to give the characters more development and explaining more of Rachel and Chloe's/Frank's relationship as well as Mark Jefferson coming to Arcadia Bay and an explanation of where Steph and Mikey went (I freaking loved them). And depending on your choices in BTS can effect the events of LiS in which Rachel either lives, dies or runs away. The fact that they just give you episode three ending was just a slap in the face. This game could have been much better.
Life is Strange is one of my favorites of all time, and Chloe is a massive part of why. I played the first two episodes of Before the Storm when the whole game was out (as I always do with episodic games) and didn't finish it. I didn't consciously drop it, I just never felt like starting it up and finishing it, then eventually uninstalled it to make space on my hard drive. Episode two ends on a cliffhangerish situation, but I just didn't care. When you've got a character I care about as much as Chloe and you can't hold my attention with your cliffhanger... Something's gone terribly wrong.
Thank you!! I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one disappointed by this unessesary prequel. It felt utterly pointless to me, and it never answered the questions/answers we were looking for in the first game. Such as why Rachel betrayed Chloe and chose to be with Frank, or how she got involved with Nathen/exploration of his patchy, and the backstory with his family/involvement with Mr. Jefferson. Or even how Mr. Jefferson joined the school, and how his twisted desire to capture a moment of innocence originated/manifested from. This prequel was absolutely disappointing for me, and I hated the plot line regarding Rachel’s parents; that wasn’t what I signed up for. :P
Gameplay really sucked a huge step down from cinematic games. it was like walk over here, make this choice or this choice, walk over here, after a while I know my choices had almost no impact, after a while I like wanted to just sit back and watch the entire thing as a movie, it began annoying every time the game paused, waiting for mouse and keyboard input.
While I played BTS,I wondered why Rachel’s parents didn’t show up in LIS? It’s no mention in LIS if they moved away from Arcadia at some point..Not that I recall at least..I didn’t care about the parents very much but their involvement in this game got me wondering..Than again,BTS had a few other very minor characters I wondered about their wear-bouts(Steph,Mikey,and Samantha just to name a few).
I think Samantha in particular as she had a crush on Nathan but didn’t appear in LIS..Made me start speculating if she inadvertently would find out about Nathan and Mr. Jefferson’s “occupations” at some point? Mr. Jefferson could’ve killed her at some point out of fear she’d disclose,she fled Arcadia Bay afraid of her safety,or something. Another thing that could’ve possibly been shown in the prequel at some point.
@@-trinity-8059 a little late but samantha has a binder in the dark room indicating that she might have been a victim
Personally, I think the biggest problem with BtS is having Chloe as the Main Character. Rachel Amber would have been the better choice, as it would keep Chloe's character consistent. Plus, there was really only one or two spots where it HAD to be Chloe in the story. Other times, Rachel could have just 'been present' and it would have still worked.
Plus, they could have had a better mechanic than Chloe's 'back talk' ability. Maybe something similar, manipulating people in ways an actress could.
I don't think your in the minority.
Romulus Numa youre*
He is, actually, the majority of the fandom embraced BTS, thankfully.
saro510 you're
u'r*
/facepalm
You have to look at it as "Before the storm" The whole thing was before max was in the picture again. So, basically have to look at it as if that prequel was the beginning
Chloe doesn't take Victoria's role in the play.
She takes Julietts role (Ariel).
Depending on how the conversation with Wells at the beginning of ep 2 goes, Rachel plays Prospera or Victoria does and the drugged tea corrects that to Rachel in any case.