I mean, the tragedy I thought they were aiming for was "Yes, this *is* the best of all possible worlds: look at how your every attempt to make a better one just makes everything objectively worse, and isn't that fucked up". I hoped better of the team that wrote episode 4 than the episode 5 ending, but given that I'm always ragging on people for changing horses midstream it would be hypocritical of me to criticise them for sticking to their overall plan.
I also think it's fascinating from a storytelling perspective that the story dances back and forth over the line where time travel plots are playing with fire in terms of audience engagement and suspension of disbelief. The principal mechanic, where you can reverse a choice *immediately taken* and it's only locked in when you do something else meaningful, Avoidance Kata style, that's really really good. But the time travel / universe hopping via old photographs ... to me, a lot of that just doesn't work. It retroactively cheapens hard decisions already agonised over.
And for that last reason alone I'd recommend anyone thinking of writing about time manipulation in any genre play Life is Strange first.
I also think it's fascinating from a storytelling perspective that the story dances back and forth over the line where time travel plots are playing with fire in terms of audience engagement and suspension of disbelief. The principal mechanic, where you can reverse a choice *immediately taken* and it's only locked in when you do something else meaningful, Avoidance Kata style, that's really really good. But the time travel / universe hopping via old photographs ... to me, a lot of that just doesn't work. It retroactively cheapens hard decisions already agonised over.
And for that last reason alone I'd recommend anyone thinking of writing about time manipulation in any genre play Life is Strange first.
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