The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
Life is Strange: True Colors completely fucked with my head. Not all the plot relevant and intense parts of the game, but the moments where Alex found a new home and community. Especially the end where
spoiler
Gabe’s “ghost” guides you to choose between staying in Haven or leaving.
Watching the scenes of Alex staying really hit me hard because I lived for years in a place I hated, was working in a stressful environment I hated, and was 1000 miles away from my friends. It took a while to get out of that funk, but I haven’t gone back to play it despite being in a better place and it being one of my favorite games of all time.
I am still amazed by how they totally and completely one upped the numbered sequel to Life is Strange with a spin off side game. True Colors had so many tense moments and crazy plot twists, and in true Life is Strange fashion, both endings I feel have positives and negatives for the main character.
Warning! Don’t understand Lemmy spoilers yet. Read at your own risk!!
There’s the ending where you stay, you finally have a home, a family, and peace, but you give up your aspirations of being a musician.
Or there’s the ending where you get to travel the world, no home, but at least you have your partner and your music to share with everyone.
I actually picked the second ending strangely enough. I think most agree the first one is the better one, but I kinda thought that Alex would rather seek out greener pastures with her partner then stay in a place with so much trauma and bad memories. I like how the endings make you think and are more divisive than LiS 2.