On the first day, there's a lot of dialogue with him confused as to why everyone's so much nicer than in his first childhood. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but it gave me the opposite impression. It seems like something else shifted in the timelines that made it much easier for him to socialize with everyone.
Fair enough to a point, but even with the alternate timelines and obvious changes like Ms. L's wardrobe/personality shift, I kind of chalked at least some of that up to something of a self-serving memory. He believes that everyone spat on him, but people generally aren't that monolithic. Some people were probably just as vile as he claims (Kate and her posse in particular), maybe the people he most wanted attention from rejected him, but literally everyone but the janitor? More likely he was so busy wallowing in pity and resentment that
he didn't notice the people who did try to reach out. Besides, much is also made of the fact that he never made any effort to study and physical exertion was anathema to him, his own mother and sister are shocked when he's not a complete asshole and pervert, incidental text like inspecting a trophy cabinet has him sour-grapes-dismissing success as being genetic (even when the case is full of his sister's trophies), it took a literal cosmic reboot for him to work on starting over, and he was convinced his life was over in his mid-20s. Hell, when we see a partial shot of him in CGs, he's even not nearly as bad-looking as he claims. All of it comes together to suggest that maybe his prior status wasn't as cut-and-dried, and that a lot of his woes were self-inflicted.
And why the powers that be thought it wise to give him a second chance in an altered timeline.
Let's wait and see on that one. Name of the game aside, I'm still not 100% on what's going on here.
Is it a second chance? There's a lot more going on than a simple reboot, especially with the timeline changes. There are seemingly at least three-four outside entities running around (the person texting you, Ms. L, whoever Ms. L is talking to if they're not the phone person, and Mer if they're neither the phone person nor the person Ms. L is talking to), and maybe more than that depending on what the deal is with the entirely new people. Based on the conversations between Ms. L and her counterpart about Ms. L putting her thumb on the scale, it feels less like a second chance, more like a test or bet, like they're trying to see what you'll do. Easy answer so far seems to be that Ms. L is trying to lead you into temptation, her counterpart is (seemingly) more benevolent, the texting person is benevolent, and Mer... Yeah, fuck Mer. The question is, who's running the game? I might need to go back and do Maxine's route. I doubt her answers will make any sense if she finds them, but at least she's asking questions.
For real. Isabelle is one of the best written characters in the whole WEG sphere, and she only gets better as we see how differently she acts depending on if she has the upper hand in a situation or not. I don't even particularly care for her as a love interest, I'm just invested in her arc.
It's wild how you can look back and see how clear her issues were from the beginning.
In hindsight,
