Figured that it was finally time that the original game got its own topic, since the prequel already has one, and both it and the sequel are already seeing so much hype.
So yeah, feel free to talk about the choices you made, complain about those stupid bottles (I’ve honestly had almost no trouble finding those things, personally), or help each other out with nabbing those pesky optional photos. Oh, and be prepared to see some SPOILERS on the off-chance that you actually haven’t gotten around to completing the first season in its entirety.
Obligatory warning over. Last chance to bail out if you so desire.
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Still here? Cool.
So I guess I’ll start things off with how I ended both my first and most recent playthroughs of the game; by saving Chloe. I know, I know. “Tim, what were you thinking? How could you let all those people die?” Blah, blah, blah. Just calm down and hear me out first before readying your pitchforks and torches.
To be fair, I actually did try to be nice to mostly everyone on both runs, though admittedly, some of them did fall through the cracks the first time around, and the second did have its own share of difficulties as well. I pretty much jumped at the opportunity to take Victoria down a peg, spent even less time deciding on whether or not to rat out Nathan (Spoiler Alert; I did), and had almost zero tolerance for David’s BS, despite his military background and fairly obvious PTSD. When Frank went after Chloe in Episode 2, I definitely tried to cap his ### (which I still sort of feel bad about after getting to know him a bit better, but hey, that’s what happens when you go around trying to threaten people you already know are armed), but I did try to get back on his good side later, once I heard the story about how he saved Pompidou and saw how much he actually cared about Rachel. And yeah, I took the Prescott’s bribe money from the principal’s desk on the second run (if it was really the Handicapped Fund, you would think it’d be relatively safe in a bank somewhere and not lazily stuffed in a drawer), but other than the stuff listed above, I was basically as close as you could get to making all the “right” decisions. I stopped Kate from jumping, was Alyssa’s guardian angel, gave Daniel a much-needed confidence boost, and tried to stay on good terms with pretty much everyone else (though I still got David to shoot Jefferson, but hey, that ##### definitely had it coming).
So why, then, did I let the timenado roll into town and wipe it and everyone else off of the face of the map? Simple; Max (and myself, by extension) loves Chloe.
Aside from Joyce, she’s the character you’ve “known” the longest, due to her and Max growing up together. Yeah, it sucks that she kind of lost her way a bit after her dad died and you moved, but the fact that the two of you are able to immediately jump back into things without even skipping a beat after reuniting just goes to show how strong of a bond they possess, and unfortunately, that’s oftentimes rare as ####. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t sense Max’s relationships with any of the other characters to even come close to that.
Granted, this reasoning didn’t make the decision any easier in the slightest, but the world’s a pretty cruel place as is. By its logic, if you aren’t willing to fight tooth and nail to defend those you care about, then you simply don’t deserve to have them. Survival of the fittest, and all that jazz. It’s sad that no matter what you do, you’re still breaking up Joyce’s family in the end, but to be perfectly honest, Nathan made that choice long before Max intervened with her powers. And if she and David were the ones making the decision for you, they probably would’ve done the exact same thing and put Chloe first. That’s just what being a good parent is simply all about.
So the way I see it, if the universe wants to put you in a situation where you have to decide whether or not to euthanize your best friend, then it can summon up all the apocalyptic ########## it can and kill off as many people as it wants, just as long as I get to enjoy my momentary victory and ride off into the horizon, knowing that the character I care about the most is safely by my side where she belongs. I did what I could for everyone else, but in the end, they could’ve just as easily stepped up and looked out for themselves a bit more instead of waiting for someone else to fix their problems for them, and after spending pretty much the entirety of the game being that certain someone, I really don’t owe them anything further.
Given that I just went five rounds with time and managed to come out on top by saving Chloe, I’m not going to lose any sleep over those who lacked the necessary fortitude to prevent themselves from being caught up in the crossfire. Is it selfish? Probably, but so is expecting somebody else to stick up for you when you aren’t even willing to do it yourself, and trading 20+ lives for a loved one? That’s just ####### cold, man, even if it is technically the “right” thing to do.
TBH I know very little about the game, as most of what I’ve seen from it were from a stupid JoJo video and a playthrough I watched for maybe five minutes. Looks like an interesting game, maybe I’ll check it out.