This continues my previous aside about how to make a compelling story. You can’t just show us bad shit time and time again. We need moments where things are good. Like stated in the video, give us a chapter of Jodie just hanging out and having fun with Nathan and Cole. Heck show us going on a shopping trip to decorate Jodie’s room. Because at least there’s enough detail to show that it has changed since she was younger.
Instead all we’re given is “and then Jodie’s life is shit,” “and then Jodie’s life sucks,” “and then she ends up maybe killing people,” “and then she saves the day but sees how so many innocent people die and nearly dies herself,” “and then Jodie’s life is shit some more.”
If you want us to feel bad for Jodie we need to see the good times that she’s being taken from. Make it feel like this is the worst thing that could happen. Because so far, all it’s been is bad after bad after bad after bad. Why does it matter? It’s just more bad stuff. Nothing new.
And I realize that this isn’t in the order the game intended. But if there are scenes where things seem pretty alright, which I’m highly doubtful of at this point, it doesn’t change whats going on when we jump back to her being young. It’s still just bad bad bad bad bad. That’s not interesting storytelling. Heck, I don’t even think you can call it story telling. Stories have highs and lows. And so far this story has been nothing but lows. Unless you REALLY like seeing children cry, David Cage.
David Cage doesn’t exactly understand darkness induced apathy i think. Aside from that when was training guy that jodie looks up to introduced? He seemed to come out of nowhere along with jodie’s desire of approval from him.
So far in this game, a lot of stuff has happened to Jodie. In just a few chapters, that’s going to change and it’s going to be bad. Real bad. In a way that we haven’t seen from this game before, because once this game goes beyond the scope of what we’ve seen, it so sloppily handles its own story that it’s fucking jarring.
I’m being as vague as I can here so as to not spoil anything, but I will say this: David Cage doesn’t believe the CIA to be the good guys. That much will be clear.
I want to, this time, step out in “defense” of David Cage. It’s clear by this point that literally nothing nice will happen to Jodie ever (I mean I could be wrong, but I don’t think so). The game was, I guess, intended to chronicle these horrible things that happened to her and focus on them rather than following her entire charter arc. (IE. She seems to have warmed up to that CIA guy by the time they start martial arts training, but we won’t see that part). Part of the reason us in the thread think this is a character arc story is because of the chronological playthrough which is probably not the intended way to play the game. That being said, I doubt the story gets significantly better in the other order, but I can see why they went for that initially. Also, on the note of why we saw the CIA training. As much as Cage is a creep, the reason we have this CIA section is for action sequences which Cage likes A LOT and usually they are very well choreographed as seen in the video.
Anyway, now onto some stuff that doesn’t work. The whole part where Jodie was taken from the lab… we don’t exactly know how happy she was there since we never see her happy moments or how her relationship with the staff there developed, so that entire sappy scene where she is begging Nathan to stay falls super flat.
There’s just a day left to affect some outcomes in the next update!
In the meantime, I meant to post this little screencap, but kept forgetting. I just thought it was funny how this shot looked as the game transitioned to black with Jodie making a very weird face.
This is the last double update for a while, as the following chapters get significantly longer.
13 - The Embassy
It’s time to put literally nothing we learned from the CIA to the test in Jodie’s first real test of tactical espionage action. It sure is… something? Anything?
14 -The Dinner
Sounds like Jodie met a cute boy and is nervous about her first real date in… ever? Unfortunately, a lack of player agency isn’t the only thing on the table for this chapter.
If you want to read up about Ellen Page nearly suing Quantic Dream, you can read more about it here.
And here’s something as an after-dinner discussion:
On the subject of Jodie trying to date Ryan, we didn’t use Aiden to interfere with the date, and although we kind of sabotaged it anyway, do you think we should have given Jodie a chance to impress and potentially even date Ryan? I tried to be somewhat neutral in this latest chapter about Ryan, but I sort of skewed negative in our previous encounters, so feel free to disagree if you see him differently.
I’ll reveal which chapter would normally come just before The Dinner, but we’re not quite ready yet, so I’d like to get everyone’s impression of Ryan. Does he genuinely seem like a nice guy behind that stoic veneer and not-so-great writing? Or do you feel that Jodie should cut her losses and not worry about him in the future?
That CIA chapter could of been real cool! In…any other world where the writing was good. She goes through all this training to become a badass…and here she is very scared on her first CIA mission. A mission she should not be scared of at all because her powers are all entirely reliant on Aiden ghosting around doing ghost things. What could possibly bad happen to her, exactly?
So…that date night chapter sure was a thing huh. Also David Cage sure does love him so studio ass apartments. At least in this case she probably gets paid enough to afford it. And…the sexy outfit is WAY less bad than I expected. It’s…a blouse. God Cage has some weird fetishes. Cool outfit is of course the best and the only true option, though.
Ryan dating Jodie is not only a huge rules violation in the CIA, not to mention the fact that it’s basically grooming. Fuck that guy. He’s also WAY WAY WAAAAY too forward. Who fucking volunteer’s “DAD BEAT ME WHILE DRUNK” like that out of nowhere.
I do feel bad about our unhappy ending, but honestly no. Fuck that guy. He’s clearly a creep.
I guess it’s a matter of whether or not this LP should show off the majority of the content. Given how this game has gone so far for Jodie (everything is sad or painful), I don’t think pursuing Ryan would actually do her any favors. Especially considering his general personality and some of the odd things he said in this part. At the very least, unless you intend to show off additional scenes that could have happened later in the LP, maybe just summarizing what could happen if she and Ryan were a thing would be enough.
I can and will definitely go over what changes in future chapters if you decide to pursue Ryan, but be prepared for the weirdest implementation of a romance you have ever seen.
So that sure was an awkward scene for the date. Not to mention the extremely bad idea of dating your CIA trainer/handler.
Overall that gif kind of sums up expectations of Beyond Two Souls, along with the picture of Wilem Dafoe and Ellen page sitting traumatized next to David Cage.
Maybe she was directed to take a second “bite” out of the slice, but whoever made the decision to use cardboard thought they’d only take one bite, leading to awkwardness?
Either way, you’d think the mocap people would have given them something actually edible to use (anything in the shape of a pizza slice would do) so they don’t have to reopen their mouths to take the cardboard out. And chew for real. I guess you could fix the mouth thing in post though…
Are these mocap shots in the final game? I’m curious to see how the game render compares to that clip.
Ugh. Ryan is so gross. Jodie has a very nice apartment though.
As has been pointted out before, aside from the obvious abuse of power from Ryan being Jodie’s handler, there’s also the issue of Ryan having known Jodie since she was a child (and again, being in a position of authority over her since the moment they met). And of course, he’s a giant douche, so unless he comes off better in the non-chronological order, it’s hard to figure out what Jodie sees in him. I can’t believe that a studio as famous for being a friendly working environment for women as Quantic Dream would write such a creepy abusive relationship.
That’s actually a good idea! I’ll play through again and do what the game wants to see if I can get it to line up if those shots are in the making-of video.
I tried to get the mocap scenes to appear by doing stuff “correctly,” and this is the result.
Bonus - Dinner Shenanigans
And well, as it turns out, it’s impossible to replicate the scene we saw from the mocap footage, because whether or not you put the plates out, Jodie will put them out automatically as she goes to answer the door for Ryan. And then they always “eat” the pizza with a knife and fork. (Also, look out for the glitch where one of the plates teleports and ends up inside the other!)
And in my repeated playthroughs, I found this. After Jodie takes a shower, Aiden leaves her this message in the mirror thanks to all the steam.
Aww, I guess they realized that eating cardboard wasn’t working for them. Maybe it’d be very obvious that they couldn’t put in the time to model slices in various stages of being eaten, so using a fork and knife would draw less attention to that. Or they decided in second take that directly eating cardboard was weird and switched things up.
