IMO, that 'then' scene was a reminder of better times and that Julie was part of those better times (OC, MC still had his wife Lori as well).
You should try watching all of them eventually indeed.
No; he didn't adopt (or even meet) Carol until after Lori was gone, and Carol was at that party (which was why MC was concerned about setting a good example for her). But definitely "better times" in that the world hadn't gone to shit.
Agreed, though at this point (i.e., by the end of Ch. 22) this is something more "told" than "shown." That's why--though I don't know that I like her so very much (I certainly don't dislike her, but we really don't have much time with her yet, as far as I've played)--I think she's Carol's strongest competition.
Objectively speaking, this is by and large the MC and Carol story. Anyone else is just an addenda to the plot. Following a "normal" playthough, any measurable logic will always result in Carol being the main lover no matter what.
It is nice to hear that from someone else; sometimes I wonder if I'm just the crazy one. I do think an ending with Julie makes sense (or Alice to a lesser degree), as I mentioned above, but I don't think any of the other girls do--and that isn't for lack of liking them.
I know this is not the place for this, so I will keep it short. But for me, in TID, Selene went from being the worst LI in the game to the best epilogue BY FAR.
I liked Selene a lot better as a LI going into the Cycle than I'd expected to. My frustration with her in her ending was that she wasn't being rational about her feelings (which is itself not an entirely rational objection)--she knows MC picked her over everyone else, she knows that was some tough competition (no matter how you ranked the LIs, there were several really good ones), she knows MC knows about her past life (which truly is a past life, not merely her past in this life as we often use "past life"), she even says "a girl might feel special if she knew that someone picked her over anything." And then she pushes him away, over and over again. MC gets to play the Archon again, I guess, but it was frustrating. All's well that ends well, and it wasn't my least-favorite ending, but it definitely wasn't my favorite.
Mira's beats out Polly's for me for one reason: when Mira learns of the death of her foster parent, she gets a sense of MC's loss in sending everyone on.
But Polly's ending has Mira watching over them <3
When I tested the game, I just used the console to allocate points, and get all the scenes. Same as with URM if you know how to use it. I think I played like the 25 endings, not the 160+ combinations.
Julie was hard core and dependable.
Yeah, Julie was great. It sucked a bit that she had so little screen time, i would have loved her as a main LI.
That was a lot of trauma for her to unpack, losing her husband. Just saying that it would have slowed the game down, as they just met for one chapter in a hotel, and after that, it was a few chapters on the meetup. Not much to build the "world class" relationship. Friends With Benefits, is a good thing for now with her.
But MC's known her longer than anyone else in the game, even Carol--Julie even (indirectly) connected MC with Carol. I'd even wondered/suspected, early on, if they'd get together.* That was mostly off-screen, but we know that they know each other well and trust each other. Maybe it was the ETOH talking, but it sounds like there was some long-standing mutual attraction, even if never acted on because she was married. Her growing feelings seemed to happen pretty quickly, but maybe they were already there (if unrecognized). The relationship was mostly built off-screen, but it was definitely there.
Having said that, here's my counterargument for Alice. First, in terms of the game, she has a lot more screen time than Julie. I'm not particularly a fan of big tits, but those who are would likely favor Alice. But the much bigger point in her favor, if MC decides he wants a peer/partner/wife, is that she's pretty much been Carol's mother for as long as MC's been her father. MC's known Julie longer than he's known Carol, but Alice has known Carol longer than either of them has known MC.
