- Mar 29, 2019
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I think they made it like that to force the game to follow the story they want to tell. I'm going to give you an example with Where the Heart Is. There's a character there named Jenna and you have the option to completely ignore all romance with her. But at one point of the game you get a call from her to go to a cafe because she found a clue about who sent the email at the beginning of the game and you have the option to accept or decline. If you decline, you get a Game Over screen.Hear, hear!
It looked like that would be possible in Chapter 3, if you kept Jaye's Trust points up and her Love points down. Unfortunately Jaye flew off the rails in Chapter 4, brazenly attempting to seduce the MC at every turn regardless of their former feelings. And the options to decline are woefully inadequate; when she insists the MC get into bed naked with her, all we can do is slam the door on her. There's no option to stay dressed and talk it out once and for all, nor is this followed up on in Chapter 5. The otherwise excellent grieving scene happens in a complete vacuum.
Mallory's tone-deaf obsession with seeing the two step-siblings hook up doesn't help, either. You'd think a reporter would notice when an obsession is one sided. But it's even stranger from a meta sense: Mallory is the only alternative to Jaye in the game, yet her arc plays out as if we're expected to be pursuing Jaye first and foremost. We can't even max out Mallory's points if the MC turns down Tara's help getting into Jaye's pants.
Like the game is not limiting your choices, but has to put some borders so that you actually follow the storyline the devs wanted to tell. It's not realistic, but judging by how well the story is written and told, I think things like that can be overlooked.
Besides MC and Jaye's relationship developing for good isn't necessarily a bad thing and even Lisa didn't speak anything against it when she caught them together in the shower.