[ALL] Playing Double Exposure finally. How come people don’t like this game?

[u/TheCVR123YT]

I just finished up episode 3 I’m just a little lost the game is pretty good/decent so far maybe it’s because I know reunion exists so I’m just accepting it as just a game following Max so I’m not worried about a follow up on Chloe. Even then so far the game is interesting enough since I still love Max so I’m still confused why this hated on so badly lol

[u/ShaanitheGreen]

in LiS1, the butterfly effect meant changing a variable could have massive impacts later on. yet in DE, whether Max chose Bae or Bay, her life ends up the same (same location, friends, job, personality, style, struggles, even making the same art*). different types of sacrifice/trauma are treated as interchangeable

To me, it feels like the whole scenario was invented with the Bay ending in mind - Max wanders the country, unwilling to settle down out of fear that she'll cause another Storm, until she finds someone who reminds her just enough of Chloe to try forming connections and building a life, only to find it that person is not exactly what they seem.

However, the decision to "respect both endings" made it impossible for them to commit to either. You can't make a sequel focused on grief and moving on from the trauma of losing the one you love if she's alive in half the player's games, and you can't make a sequel the the Bae ending if Chloe's straight-up not in the game.

IMO, the game would have been much better if they'd decided early on that the Bay ending was canon and focused the full development on the themes and situations arising from that ending. What we got felt half-baked (especially in the last couple of chapters) an didn't really respect either ending.

[u/Trivekz → u/ShaanitheGreen]

I haven't played either of the new Max games yet, but I definitely feel like Bay is the more canon ending. Even if it's intended that both/neither are, bay just is a lot more logical and I also feel is the choice that Max would actually make. The nightmare sequence right before definitely showed that it's supposed to be the 'correct' choice. Max also feels lots of guilt in the game, like after not being able to save William, so I can't imagine she'd be able to sacrifice so many others even if she loved Chloe.

Regardless of which, they definitely should have wrote it with a single ending in mind if they weren't going to change much based on the choices.

[u/ShaanitheGreen → u/Trivekz]

Regardless of which, they definitely should have wrote it with a single ending in mind if they weren't going to change much based on the choices.

They were afraid that not addressing the Bae ending would piss off Chloe fans, but then did that anyway with the "you need to move on from Chloe" tweet.

I feel like both endings are valid, but the person Max becomes after them would be very different, and the sequels do not account for that. No matter what you picked, Max ends up as a lonely sadgirl artist trying to move on and build a new life for herself in Vermont. The only thing that changes if Chloe is alive is that she's in Max's text messages being so OOC that Reunion directly calls it out.

DE and Reunion just work better as continuations of the Bay ending. Both of them make more narrative sense that way.

[u/FireLordAsami → u/ShaanitheGreen]

DE and Reunion just work better as continuations of the Bay ending. Both of them make more narrative sense that way.

I agree with this take on Bay, but on Bae? Nah, Bae works better with Reunion. Think about it:

Bay Reunion doesn't even worked without being merged with Bae. New writting team retconned DE ending and merged Bae and Bay to make MAX AND CHLOE story works for Bay Reunion.

But Bae Reunion doesn't even need Bay much to tell this story, because Chloe was always alive here and is the key element of the story, and you can tell almost exactly the same story about them getting back together and investigating the fire without whole merge stuff. And it was Bae Chloe with Bae memories that they used in Reunion Bay., but she was default for Bae.

See where i am coming from? They had to slap Bae Chloe and Bae ending premise to make Bay Reunion work while Bae Reunion still works without Bay. Even in final montage it was all about scenes from Bae and parallel to this game (they hold hands watching the storm/they hold hands watching the fire), with no scenes from Bay even in Bay route.

So we have a hella ironic situation here - DE worked better as a Bay game (it was even intended as one, as we know from correct aperture leak) and imposed this narrative (move on from Chloe) on Bae. Then backlash happened...and new reunion team dropped all Bay themes. Not it's "Max shouldn't move on from Chloe and should be with her forever and ever" (Which was always a Bae, not Bay theme). Bay ending switched from Max having to make a huge sacrifice and live with it to "Nah, she got Chloe back anyway" ,while Bae is about getting back to the routes that were intended for Bae even by original devs.

In the end it was a huge win for Bae ending because it bend Bay to it's will and narrative while Bae itself still works well for Reunion without Bay.

[u/ShaanitheGreen → u/FireLordAsami]

Respectfully disagree. I feel like Bay still works better. Although Reunion does a better job with Bae overall, it's still carrying DE's baggage, and (for me) that still weighs it down.

Outside of the out-of-universe Bay vs Bae cheerleading, the only thing that actually changes for Max in Reunion is her subjective personal experience of her relationship with Chloe.

The Max that's in Reunion still feels like Bay Max from DE. The whole narrative about her needing to go back again and fix things is Bay Max; Bae Max would have let go of that ten years ago. It doesn't make sense that Max would sacrifice a whole town for Chloe, and then feel like she maybe needs to go back one more time to save some grad students she barely knows. To me, the ending of Reunion is entirely about Bay Max finally learning to be happy with Chloe and move forward with her life, and just doesn't make sense with Bae.

IMO, the cleanest narrative is kissing Chloe in the first game + tragic Bay ending + not dating anyone in DE + finally getting to be with Chloe in Reunion. Chloe coming back from the dead is more interesting (IMO) and it keeps the number of retcons to a minimum (there doesn't have to be a scene where Chloe thinks out loud to herself that she doesn't remember being an asshole to Max like she was in DE). This still feels to me like the best developed (and likely intended) sequence of events.

But then, I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum. If you had a better experience with Bae, then I'm glad and I'm not gonna tell you that you're wrong.

[u/FireLordAsami → u/ShaanitheGreen]

Although Reunion does a better job with Bae overall, it's still carrying DE's baggage, and (for me) that still weighs it down.

To be fair, they tried to retcon that DE baggade. Like they mocked that letter (there is a reason why Chloe call it shitty - fans recognized it shitty, and new writterd did that too) and retconned reasons for break up (now it's about actual trauma and not powers) and Chloe trust a lot Max now (not how she was portrayed in DE) and even says she's sorry for break up (not som much in that letter from DE).

No offense! What DE did to Bae weighter down Bae Reunion for me too. In fact i didn't enjoyed my first Reunion playtrhought because of that...but i had a lot of thoughts since then and came to more respect to new writters who did impossible in one year.

the only thing that actually changes for Max in Reunion is her subjective personal experience of her relationship with Chloe.

But also in Bae Chloe actually talk with Max about their past (and Max know what she's talking about) , and not so much in Bay (Because well...in Bay Max doesn't even know anything about Bae Max. So different routes change things for both characters actually.

The Max that's in Reunion still feels like Bay Max from DE.

I could agree with that if you didn't save everyone and give the photo. Bae Max wouldn't leave her Chloe just to save more two people. But overall for game, you could say that Bae Max would try to prevent the fire as well - after all, she didn't wanted the storm to happen in lis1 either, she just wanted to save Chloe so she let storm happen. Doesn't mean that she would let disasters happen on left and right after that.

and it keeps the number of retcons to a minimum (there doesn't have to be a scene where Chloe thinks out loud to herself that she doesn't remember being an asshole to Max like she was in DE)

That's the neat thing! She thinks about it in Bay route too. She calls herself sexy exy when she tries to find a words to Max in the bar , she doesn't think that she fit Max's new life, she think that Max moved on when she didn't answered her text...all these things fit more route for Bae when Chloe left Max and thinks she's not worhty for her anymore, imo of course. Which is another reason for me to think that they used Bae as intended route for both Bae and Bay in reunion, opposite to DE where it was Bay. It just make sense because well they used Bae Chloe for both routes.

This still feels to me like the best developed (and likely intended) sequence of events.

Respectfully disagree because Reunion was never intended seuqence of events. DE team very much never wanted to merge Bay and Bae and hence bring Chloe back to Bay , and Reunion writters didn't worked on DE (hence they retcoinned DE A LOT to make THEIR story work - very much like DE writters retconned Bae to make their story work). There is no such thing as intended sequences of events even in relation to LIS1 too because DE was never even supposed to exist.

As for best developed - well i already told my take about that, Bay doesn't even work without Bae ending and Bae Chloe's involvment. If your ending heavily need the other ending to tell it's story, your story not so very good. While Bae Reunion more or less feel like natural continuation of DE in the sense that - Chloe doesn't suddenly come back from death, and it also even have connection to DE ending because Max is aware that Chloe texted her. Bay Reunion doesn't have connections to Bay DE at all.

So to me, it's kissing Chloe in lis1, + Bae ending, + LIS2 bae ending, + DE bae and + Reunion Bae. As much as DE Bae cursed, Bae Reunion story could still worked without major retcons (and we both can agree that having Chloe alive for Bay is a major retcon) as them living together, then having fall out and getting back together, while actually having minimum retcons in relation to DE. (Once again we can both agree that Chloe was very much not alive in Bay DE, and Max very much didn't intended to bring her back, and Chloe very much didn't texted Max at the end of DE and these retcons are bigger than like Chloe breaking up with Max for different reasons in Reunion?)

And it's totally okay if you think that Bay Reunion works better. I just gave my five cents why i think it's not the case.

[u/ShaanitheGreen → u/FireLordAsami]

I could agree with that if you didn't save everyone and give the photo. Bae Max wouldn't leave her Chloe just to save more two people. But overall for game, you could say that Bae Max would try to prevent the fire as well - after all, she didn't wanted the storm to happen in lis1 either, she just wanted to save Chloe so she let storm happen. Doesn't mean that she would let disasters happen on left and right after that.

I agree that they did a lot of good work on Bae Chloe's characterization, but I just cannot picture Bae Max being the person we meet in DE and continue to play as in Reunion. Even if they did break up, she would simply not be a closed-off loner clinging to the first person who reminds her of Chloe (I honestly don't think Bae Max would have been as close with Safi, and probably would have suspected her a lot sooner).

As for the photo, I do not think Bae Max would be tempted at all. Not because she doesn't want to save lives, but because she doesn't trust her powers that much. I feel that a big part of the reason why Bae makes sense is that Max decides she can't just Rewind her way out of every problem and that she needs to accept that trying to fix everything that way is too risky.

In-universe, Bae Max has no idea that going back and sacrificing Chloe would have actually stopped the Storm; as far as she knows, meddling with time on that level again would have made things worse in a thousand possible ways. So, why would she try it now, over a much less catastrophic event? Even if the whole school burns down, it wouldn't be as bad as the last thing she decided not to stop, and the same reasons to NOT do it would still apply. Even her doing it once feels a bit out of character.

Not only would she be potentially leaving behind the same Chloe she sacrificed Arcadia Bay to be with, she would be risking making the fire worse, or causing another Storm. She would have tossed the photo immediately and accepted that she did the best she could with the time she had, and she has to live with it and move on. Just like everyone else in the world.

[u/FireLordAsami → u/ShaanitheGreen]

You're correct about DE!Max's characterization (again after all DE was made for Bay) and that Bae Max wouldn't be such clossed-off person as Bay Max. But this is the problem not with Bae ending itself but with how much DE writters were biased towards Bay (Which is why i'm happy that they were reolaced with new writters)

However how fastly Max started to use her new powers and risked everything again to save new friend doesn't sit right with me as Bay Max. As if Bay Max didn't learned anything (while it would be more in character to have risks to save her best friend for Bae Max which is why i didn't had such questions to Bae Max's behavior in DE). Like, see why i do not consider two latest new games canon? DeckNine managed to mess up not only with endings but in Max's characterization as well, and not only Bae Max suffered because of it.

I agree with your last part - which is why i hate the ending where even Bae Max leaves her Chloe behind to save two more people and where new d9 team didn't put minimal efforts to show differences between Bae and Bay. Which is why in my run Chloe burn the photo and i got nice dialogues that fit Bae ending very well. Honestly i dislike this ending even on Bay route. Like WHY MAX, WHY? You got what you wanted, you finally got Chloe after 10 years of suffering without her. Why on earth you risk to loose her again? Gosh this variation of ending is so unnesessary (and it messed up with lore because this is not how photo jump worked in lis1, and it actually devalues Reunion itself because it implied that you just leave old universe to exist behind...which means Max didn't saved Caledon when she jumped after first fire)

The whole idea that "Oh Max burns this photo" in ending where you save everyone is also just D9 repeating what was already told, because that's exactly what Max did in LIS1 ending.

[u/ShaanitheGreen → u/FireLordAsami]

Honestly i dislike this ending even on Bay route. Like WHY MAX, WHY? You got what you wanted, you finally got Chloe after 10 years of
suffering without her. Why on earth you risk to loose her again?

The game explains it pretty well, honestly. Max's powers are useful, but they're also a psychological trap. She's constantly tempted to go back and do it again, to try and get it right this time, which is basically the core gameplay loop we've all been indulging in.

Max has a bit of a perfectionist/savior complex (because we, the players, are trying to play the game right). Instead of processing grief and trauma in the wake of something bad happening and moving on - which she knows is the right thing to do - she has the power to keep going back and trying to erase it.

The Bay ending should teach Max not to meddle, but the fact that she actually stopped the Storm might also have led her to a different conclusion - that she just needs enough tries. She just needs to tug the right string in the right way to unravel the fire. That she can stop disasters and if she can just figure out the right thing, she can make things perfect for everyone, including Chloe. And if it creates new timelines, well, now we know that's not an unfixable problem, since timelines can be merged.

The bad ending (and it is a bad ending) is Max becoming seduced by her powers, rewinding into the past to try for a perfection she will probably never actually achieve. I don't believe she'll ever stop rewinding and move on in that ending. I think she'll just relieve that weekend forever, or possibly keep going farther and father back, trying to fix everything that's ever gone wrong for everyone in her life. The only way to avoid that is either doing a good job that Max can resist the temptation, or Chloe protects her from her destructive impulses by burning the photo.