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Topic: Detroit: Become Human

Posts 81 to 100 of 121

Ralizah

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy In fairness, I did say almost every chapter has something interesting in it. Although I thought it was quite clever how graffiti was used as an out-in-the-open clue to lead stray androids to that hiding place.

I did wonder why nobody was paying any attention to this giant abandoned boat in the middle of the city, but, in fairness, the real Detroit is filled to overflowing with run-down and abandoned structures.

Markus' story might not be very compelling in terms of character growth (there's precious little narratively to justify his transition from caretaker of the elderly to leader of a revolutionary movement), but I do quite like how I have to constantly choose to behave ruthlessly or with some level of compassion, with team members trying to pull me in either direction. It also has a sort of genre fiction appeal to it as characters raid warehouses, broadcast demands, fight with soldiers, etc.

Kara... her story does feel pretty pointless, although I did quite like when she first escaped and was forced to find creative ways to survive. I stole wirecutters and broke into a seemingly abandoned house with a deranged android squatting in it.

Connor's route isn't too bad, although it easily has the most obvious, black-and-white moral choices in the entire game so far. The interrogation scene was pretty cool, though.

Edited on by Ralizah

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

RogerRoger

@Ralizah All I will say is, I'll be interested to see what your outcome with North is. I genuinely hated her character; you'll find my thoughts spoiler-tagged on the previous page when you're done.

Hope you enjoy the ending!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Th3solution

@Ralizah Yeah, fascinating to read your thoughts. It’s a game that is interesting to talk about due to the variety of outcomes. Most everyone who has posted their thoughts all have had different endings. And to have missed entire sequences and character introductions because you had someone die, well that’s just a testament to the complexity that’s built into the divergent paths.
You’ll find some of my thoughts on the earlier page with Rog’s as we compared and contrasted our outcomes. The game does force you to fish or cut bait eventually on the moral dilemmas.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Ralizah

lol I chickened out and ran at the last second during the march. Didn't especially like the sound of "sacrificing" my character for some stupid march, but I also didn't want to go charging in and start some sort of war. Especially after having totally committed to the pacifist route.

@Th3solution I gather this thread will make for fun reading once I'm done with the game.

I'm happy to hear that choices actually apparently do matter in this game. More and more, I'm thinking that this style of game design is sort of what I wanted (but never got) from Telltale's games

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

Ralizah

So, I beat the game. I don't know that I'm done with it (there's a lot of possible alternate routes, extras I unlocked at the end of the game, etc.), but I wanted to briefly discuss the endings I got from the choices in my initial playthrough.

Kara - So, I managed to save Luther a few times and get to the border with him and Alice in tow thanks to some stolen bus tickets. It appears the child was an android all along (I'll take plot twists that make no sense for $1000, Alex!). We managed to pass some soldiers who I almost ended up shooting, but didn't. At a checkpoint set up to ferret out androids, I chose to sacrifice someone named Jerry that Kara apparently knew (sorry, Jerry, but I can't even remember when or where I first met you!) and arrived in Canada with my bf and kid in tow (although, based on the public stats, most people weren't so lucky), ready to live our lives as free canucks.

Connor - So, based on the choices I made up until now (ingratiating myself to Hank by not murdering deviants; not murdering the Chloe to squeeze info out of the tech dude; etc.), I decided Connor would become a deviant. He infiltrated the Cyberlife tower successfully and was met by Hank and another Connor unit. The two tussle, forcing Hank to play the Spot the Imposter game that crops up in so much western media. Well, I remembered the names of his kid and dog, so he killed the impostor. Connor fended off the hacking attempt by Cyberlife near the end of the game and, based on the mid-credits scene, lived happily ever after with Hank. Maybe they'll adopt a robot child together?

Markus - Decided to go full pacifist with him until the end, marching peacefully and swearing off all violent choices. Near the end, when my core group of people were surrounded, Markus decides to defuse the situation by... singing. Yes, you can sing. I couldn't not pick that option, and it's every bit as hilarious and cheesy as it sounds. It's a pity the people at Waco didn't save themselves from the soldiers by singing a soulful tune. Anyway, this apparently moved President Hillary Clinton, who decided to tell the military to back off. So Markus got the city of Detroit and became North's lover.

Seems like reasonably happy endings all around, with almost all the principle cast coming out alive and well (sorry Simon, and... er... Jerry). It was all incredibly tropey and cheese and ham-fisted, but I think the game does a good job of making you feel like you're in the middle of a fun sci-fi movie, and I found the entire experience to be consistently engaging.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have the characters do crazy stuff to see what happens. Do I still get trophies if I choose not to overwrite my current flowchart progress?

Edited on by Ralizah

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

Th3solution

@Ralizah Lol, that’s a wonderful summary of your results. I may need to replay the game just to see the cheesy Kumbaya handholding sing-a-long
You may have seen my previous posts about how I was trying to go pacifist but in a moment of frustration at how unfair my Markus and co. were being treated I made a snap decision to decimate the city of Detroit with the dirty bomb.
Oh and Jerry is(are) the android(s) at the amusement park. You must have saved one of them when you saved Luther at gunpoint while you were making it to the border, whether you realized it or not. You save the Jerry too and he shows up later to be an option as a sacrificial lamb so you can get through the border. If you don’t save him and Luther, then obviously it’s different, but I did what you did there, including stealing the family’s tickets. (Which is I recall, @RogerRoger couldn’t bring himself to do) And as for Alice, the android twist took me by surprise (as strange as it was) but Rog actually saw it coming and had predicted it. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who was taken aback

As for the trophy question, my guess would be you probably don’t need to overwrite your current progress, but I’m not sure. I didn’t go back for the platinum. I can’t remember who it was but someone on here who platinum’d it said it’s not that difficult, and unlike other games of this ilk, you don’t have to see and do every inch of the flowchart to get the platinum. It seems to be just a few select major moments you have to probably clean up.

Oh and I agree — Detroit is really more the bill of goods that Telltale sold to us. I still like Telltale games for their story and chill factor, but the illusion of choice there is dwarfed by what Quantic Dream has done.
And on that — don’t expect Heavy Rain to be nearly as intricate and solid as Detroit. It’s still fun and has variable outcomes, but it’s not quite up to this level in narrative choice, or in the quality of presentation. I still liked it though. I haven’t played Beyond Two Souls yet.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

RogerRoger

@Ralizah Many of the trophies you'll have left to unlock are the antitheses of the ones you'd have already earned; they'll require you to replay most chapters and make the big, cliffhanger 50/50 decisions again. You should be able to pick and choose, but it might be easier just doing another playthrough.

I won't ever be able to get the platinum because I don't think I'll ever be able to bring myself to keep North alive and so I'll miss out on the "keep everybody alive" golden gong.

Sounds like you had a bit more of a positive ending than I did, at least for Kara because yeah, as noted above, I refused to steal the family's tickets and that's a key trigger moment for everything onwards being different, apparently. Your ending with Connor is identical to mine (because I adore Clancy Brown and just wanted to make him happy), whereas your ending with Markus sounds great right up until you mention North.

Glad you enjoyed yourself overall, despite your honest assessment of several elements!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Ralizah

Th3solution wrote:

You may have seen my previous posts about how I was trying to go pacifist but in a moment of frustration at how unfair my Markus and co. were being treated I made a snap decision to decimate the city of Detroit with the dirty bomb.

I didn't see any posts. I tend not to look at posts for games I've not extensively played, which is why I completely ignored this thread until now. It'll make for good reading now that I've got a full playthrough under my belt, though.

That's one heck of a "moment of frustration." I didn't even have that option, because I refused to even consider taking the detonator. I like keeping my options open, but pretty much nothing good could come of detonating a dirty bomb.

Does it just kill everyone, or what?

Th3solution wrote:

Oh and Jerry is(are) the android(s) at the amusement park. You must have saved one of them when you saved Luther at gunpoint while you were making it to the border, whether you realized it or not. You save the Jerry too and he shows up later to be an option as a sacrificial lamb so you can get through the border. If you don’t save him and Luther, then obviously it’s different, but I did what you did there, including stealing the family’s tickets. (Which is I recall, RogerRoger couldn’t bring himself to do) And as for Alice, the android twist took me by surprise (as strange as it was) but Rog actually saw it coming and had predicted it. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who was taken aback

Oh, so all the creepy robots at the amusement park are called "Jerry?" I feel even better about my decision, then. I wish I had a Jerry meatshield for every difficult moment in this game. Connor wouldn't have had to die if he could have just tossed a Jerry at the violent deviant.

I don't feel too bad about stealing the family's tickets. They're human, so they'll probably be fine. They don't have a military actively trying to exterminate them.

RE Alice being an android, I wouldn't say it surprised me in a "shocking twist" sort of way. I can actually see, looking back, the ways in which the game attempted to foreshadow this development. I just think it's a borderline nonsensical plot twist, and one that, hilariously, makes large swaths of Kara's story completely pointless (most of the time you're hunting for shelter and protection for this ostensibly human child).

Th3solution wrote:

As for the trophy question, my guess would be you probably don’t need to overwrite your current progress, but I’m not sure. I didn’t go back for the platinum. I can’t remember who it was but someone on here who platinum’d it said it’s not that difficult, and unlike other games of this ilk, you don’t have to see and do every inch of the flowchart to get the platinum. It seems to be just a few select major moments you have to probably clean up.

I looked into it. It's going to require MULTIPLE playthroughs to get the plat at minimum. I need a playthrough where everyone survives. I also need a playthrough where Connor dies at every available opportunity, so that's two playthroughs right there. There are also a number of other trophies I'll have to change my save file to get, because they depend on certain events happening in-game (such as Markus becoming a violent revolutionary, or Connor choosing to remain an android).

Thankfully, I can at least find a bunch of magazines without having to actively change my playthrough (although I will in order to find them all, because some magazines appear in mutually conflicting story routes).

@RogerRoger Wow, you REALLY hate North! She's a bit misguided, but considering her history and experiences of oppression by humans, I understand the tendency to think the worst of them and desire to behave accordingly.

Clancy Brown... is that the name of the voice actor for Hank? I have no complaints. Most of the acting in this game was pretty decent, all things being equal.

I enjoyed the game — am enjoying the game — a lot, often because of the elements that make it more like a B movie. It avoids the Until Dawn trap of being aggressively obnoxious in spots, and feels like someone genuinely believed in the value and worth of the script, which is what, I think, makes something like this feel worthwhile.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

RogerRoger

@Ralizah How dare you try and defend North to me!

And yeah, Clancy Brown plays Hank. He's a prolific videogame voice actor, and pops up in a lot of American sci-fi television. I agree that all the acting was pretty top-notch, but seeing a familiar, nearly photo-realistic face drew me to his character a little more than I was expecting.

That's a good way of describing some of the cheesy moments in the game, I agree; it's genuine. It delivers them with enough conviction that they work. I said pretty much the same about the whole "RISE!" skyscraper-scaling sequence a couple pages back; it's scary how alike our thoughts have been, as I figured you'd go in several different directions!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Th3solution

@Ralizah Yeah, I won’t reiterate the extensive detail as I put before, but check out my comments #64 and #67 (and even the discussion in between from Rog) in this thread for my rationalization of my actions. It gets pretty philosophical toward the end of my comments, so apologies for that. But at the time I felt like if my uprising is all slaughtered right here, and I and all my companions die, this will all be for naught. So I went for it. As I recall, a large portion of the city is destroyed but the android revolution survives and becomes a haven for androids with the humans gone. I think I’m remembering that correctly. Honestly it’s all a blur after I pulled the trigger

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Tjuz

@Ralizah Wow, you got ridiculously lucky with your endings! Good job. If those are what are considered the good endings, I got the bad endings all around. Kara and Alice are both killed at the border because Luther and Jerry have died and Marcus decided to do a violent demonstration. I was very pacifist with Markus up to the point where the police were going to shoot the androids in the MLK-style protest. At that point, I was over it and just attacked. Add the attack on Jericho afterwards and I was absolutely done with humanity and let my deviant emotions take over, haha. I think I kept the entire Markus gang alive, but I did start a war between androjds and humanity so maybe not quite a happy ending. Connor died like, 3 times in my playthrough (and was even shot to death by Hank during the bridge chapter). I think my Connor ending was him also helping Markus, but having to get Hank to sacrifice himself in the whole Connor vs. Connor situation. Not quite a happy ending on that front either.

I think I had a lot less of the B-movie complaints while playing that everyone else seems to have, because I was just so invested in my characters and immersed into this world. None of it really bothered me personally, but I can understand the criticism for sure. But as you said, it's still very entertaining and really that's all that matters. I would have to say I actually enjoyed the Alice plot twist though, and would defend that. It was quite shocking in the moment to me, but I'd have to disagree with you saying it renders most of Kara's storyline pointless. They let you bond with Alice thinking she's a human, and then pull the rug from out of you when she isn't. I think the question that plot twist poses, with whether or not it affects your relationship to this character was very clever and meaningful. I definitely found myself thinking about her differently afterwards and trying to analyse what makes the difference to me. The message the game delivered with that twist was, I think, actually quite powerful. None of that would work if they didn't initially let you get to know Alice as a human. As for the logistics of the twist, I'll concede that, haha.

Tjuz

Ralizah

Gods, trophy hunting is going to be annoying in this game. You know that thing VNs do where they help you skip past previously seen dialogue and events so you can get to choices you didn't make more quickly? Yeah, this game doesn't do that. It doesn't even let you go though scenes without player input more quickly. Also, there only being one save means I'm going to have to pull some cloud save antics if I don't want to replay this game three or four more times trying to get all the trophies.

@Tjuz I had to make a deliberate choice to not behave violently in my playthrough. Which was hard, naturally. When people don't listen to you and want to shoot and oppress you for daring to speak up, one's first inclination is to react violently. On the other hand, I had faith in the shallow liberalism and Gandhi-fetishism of the game's writers, so I figured everything would turn out alright if I kept answering violence with love.

Anyway, the player is used to seeing and treating androids as 'real people,' so the revelation that Alice wasn't human did nothing for me. Especially as the game itself never really does much to address the implications of this twist outside of Kara briefly dealing with her own feelings about it. We don't really get Alice's view on things as an android terrified of revealing her android nature to another android. No discussion of the implications this had for her family life (if we're to conclude that Todd's violent behavior against her was motivated by his animus against androids, then why make him a substance abuser who would be the sort of person presumed to harm young girls in the first place?) Good twists recontextualize entire sections of the game for the player in a way that is thought-provoking. The only recontextualizing that happened here is that I now regard several parts of the game as both annoying AND pointless, because it was motivated by a needless false belief.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

Tjuz

@Ralizah I agree that staying pacifist is absolutely the better and more logical way to go. That's how I'd usually think with these choice/consequence games as well. I think that only speaks to the quality of the game, that they managed to immerse me into the game so deeply that I started acting emotionally rather than rationally. Not many games have had that effect on me.

I would still have to disagree with your elaborated thoughts on the Alice twist, but I think the dispute ultimately comes down to what effect that twist had on us personally. Both of us reacted differently to it, and I don't think we're going to find common ground in our experience with it. I will agree that the effect this twist had on the relationship we saw between Alice and her father is strange, and could've benefited from some in-game clarity rather than us having to fill the gaps ourselves. It's a shame you didn't get out of it what I got out of it, since it was a rather thought-provoking moment for me, but luckily it's not a dealbreaker for the entire game, since you've been talking about double dipping for the platinum. I'll have to as well at some point, but I want to wait for when there's more time between my first and second playthrough. Platinuming this will be hard I'm sure, since you'll be making a lot of what you considered to be the "wrong" choices initially throughout. One hell of a fight against nature!

Tjuz

Ralizah

@Frigate They must collect information on player decisions, because each choice in the game is accompanied by a percentage telling you how many other players chose to do a particular thing.

@Tjuz I might be coming down hard on the game, but, make no mistake, it's a VERY engaging experience. I actually spent a good five or six hours today replaying various chapters to collect trophies. Currently I'm replaying the second half of the game in order to get the "Survivors" trophy. When all is said and done, I'll have probably done the equivalent of three or four full playthroughs, and even more for certain individual chapters (I had to replay four or so chapters in a row earlier in the evening to get the last magazine I need for the bookworm trophy).

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

Ralizah

So, I did 2/3rds of a new playthrough to get the Survivors trophy, and now I'm doing the same thing AGAIN for that trophy where you have to kill Connor off at every available opportunity (thankfully, this one will be shorter because I can just kill Kara and Markus off and skip most of their chapters in the second half of the game). Also, I need Hank to shoot Connor, so it's kind of fun just being a total jerk to him after sucking up to him so much in my first playthrough. Feed me your hatred, Hank!

After that, I have only a few trophies left that I'll mop up with a final playthrough of the last few chapters.

I've played through these chapters so many times at this point chasing trophies, though. I feel like I know the game like the back of my hand at this point. I'm both impressed by the scale of the plot differentiation in this game and honestly kind of sick of hearing the same stuff over and over at this point.

Edited on by Ralizah

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

MightyDemon82

@Ralizah i beat it for the first time yesterday i lost connor but survived with Kara and Markus to have a peaceful solution to the androids being free! Definitely playing through at least one
More time.

MightyDemon82

Ralizah

@MightyDemon82 Lost Connor how? You can't really lose him since replacement units are sent out any time he happens to die.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

MightyDemon82

@Ralizah the end of the game the little evidence i had i messed up trying to trick the android that jumped off the roof after the epic chase earlier in the game so he was decommissioned by cyberlife for not cracking the case.

MightyDemon82

HallowMoonshadow

Ooopphhh! That's some dedication there @Ralizah !

I did the same with Until Dawn bumping everyone off, making sure they survived... But I couldn't be fudged in getting the plat. Too much faffing about in having to replay it again and getting all the clues I missed 😅

Glad you've enjoyed yourself with the title overall though! If I recall correctly this is your first David Cage/Quantic Dream game?

I've heard weird things about the Xbox/PS2/PC title Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in the US) Plus of course Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls are just as weird in places so I've heard

Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"

Ralizah

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Honestly, a second single playthrough wouldn't be bad at all. I've seen the last half of the game, in particular, like three or four times in full now. It is a nuisance, although once I get this current trophy done with the others should be relatively smooth sailing, so I'm kind of invested at this point. I doubt I'll be able to finish before leaving, unfortunately.

Yeah, this is my first QD game. I hear the others aren't nearly so expansive or ambitious in scope and, honestly, after spoiling myself on Heavy Rain thanks to the prominence of certain glitch videos online (apparently you can get the main character to continuously, hysterically scream the name of his son through the entirety of the game's climax, which is as absurd as it sounds), I probably won't even bother with that title. I've heard very mixed things about Beyond: Two Souls as well, so that'll probably be something I play when I have nothing else to dig into (read: probably never).

I can't deny my enjoyment of this game, though. I wouldn't keep playing it over and over otherwise. It'd just be SO much better to replay if certain QoL features were included.

Edited on by Ralizah

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

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