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Twin Mirror: The Worst Dontnod Game Ever?


Terra

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I recently played Twin Mirror and was shocked to see how low the reviews were for it. In my opinion, the game was better than what reviewers made it out to be. I was disappointed to see how most of the characters introduced were not given bigger backstories (citizens of Basswood). Also, for the majority, the dialogue and voice acting were atrocious, with a few exceptions (Anna, Sam, Joan).  Additionally, the unskippable dialogue made parts of the story drag. However, despite all the negatives (as the reviewers pointed it out), the visuals were breathtaking, Basswood looked incredible and the amount of details that went into several of the buildings were wonderful. Additionally, the Mind Palace sequences were well designed and honestly, the most entertaining and interesting part of the game.  Also, while the story was short, it was at the least, entertaining. 

 

The game does have a lot of negatives against it, especially in terms of the dialogue and voice acting. However, most of the hate seems to come from Sam being selfish, which I 100% disagree with. He may not be as likable as the previous Dontnod protagonists (Max & Chloe) but he doesn't try to let his own issues affect the people he cares about (depending on the choices you make in the game).

Spoiler

I was happy he ended up with Anna, a happiness he did deserve. 

 

So, what are your guys opinions? Did you like it? Hate it? 

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2 hours ago, MarcusPunisher said:

Somehow I don't believe it can be worse than Life is Strange 2, which was so awful on so many levels, but I haven't played Twin Mirrors so I can't really comment on that games quality.

 

I haven't played Twin Mirrors too, but Life is Strange 2 was AWFUL and I don't believe it's possible to make something worse. 

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The best Dotnnod game yet imo.

 

Sure its not the biggest and longest game but that's not a bad thing (the events happen over a few days anyway.)

I liked the mind palace stuff, deducing what happened by using logic and recreating crimes like in some Batman games.

Also liked that it was not a teen angst high school character but a protagonist who has some experience in life. Maybe that was the problem, ppl comparing it to life is strange while its something totally different.

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I don't think it is a bad game - I think there are a lot of good aspects of it, but I would agree that it is the least good DotNod game I have played. (I haven't played Vampyr, or Tell Me Why.)

 

As compared to Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2, The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, and Remember Me, I think Twin Mirror suffers a bit for lack of focus, and lack of really memorable characters, and I do think they mishandle a lot of the mental health aspects that the game tries to address.

It does look great though, it's story is not bad, and its heart is in the right place.

 

This was my write up of it at the time - for the "Trophies for Mental Health" Event, if anyone's interested:

 

______________________________________________________

 

L233a30.png
Twin Mirror 


Twin Mirror dabbles in quite a few aspects that are ripe for an event like this one, and attempts to explore quite a few aspects of Mental Health, and Mental Self-Care, but it's a curious thing - having finished it, I think most of the aspects in which it is specifically trying to address mental health issues, it fails, but in some of the lesser areas where is brushes on them in a more background way, it is actually quite successful and nuanced.

 

Plot

The protagonist, Sam Higgs, is a reporter. Or, at least, he was, until two years prior to the events of the game, when an an article he wrote exposed poor safety practices of the mining corporation that was the life-blood and primary industry of his Appalachian home town of Basswood, setting off a chain of events leading to the mine's closure, and the economic depression of the town.
The local economy collapsed, Sam became a social pariah, what we are told was an underlying mental health issue with Sam became more acute, his relationship with long-term girlfriend Anna broke down after an ill-advised proposal from Sam, and he left town in shame.


At the outset of the game, Sam is returning to the town for, ostensibly, a brief visit, to pay his respects to his old best-friend and co-worker at the local paper, Nick, who has died in a car crash.

At the insistence of Nick's daughter 'Bug', he begins investigating Nick's death, which she is convinced can't have been the accident it has been reported as, and throughout the game, uncovers a plot involving a drug ring, an opioid crisis enveloping the town beneath its parochial veneer, and corruption in the police and local business owners.

 

It's a decent, if predictable and short mystery. On the visual front it is nicely done (if this is the visual and lighting quality we can expect from future, DotNod fare, the Life is Strange 3 is something to look forward to,) but in the gameplay side, it is pretty lacking, and there are some significant issues I took with the actual game mechanics.

Here though, what we are most interested in is the handling of the mental-health related aspects, so I'll focus on those from now on.


The stuff that doesn't really work

The majority of where the game fails to represent the conditions it invokes, are almost all around the protagonist, Sam.

 

As far a Sam goes, if feels like DotNod is desperate to show he has some sort of mental health condition, but throws so many different aspects of different conditions into the mix, without ever really focussing on, or really exploring any single one, that it becomes a bit of a wash in terms of learning anything.

 

Depression

Yes, Sam seems to have at least a mild depressive condition, but it is never really represented terribly well, as the player has choice. They can choose to say the depressed sounding response or not, and so really, it gives little insight into how crippling depression can be, and how overwhelming it can be.

Also, Sam's depression has a very specific and clear reason. He is depressed about specific incidents. That is, of course, perfectly valid - a lot of people who suffer from depression have catalyst events that begin, or massively exacerbate the issue - but I can't help but feel it would be more impactful if his depression was more clearly shown to have been an underlying issue all along, prior to the events of two years ago. That would show it for what it is - a condition - rather than what it is sometimes misunderstood to be - a reaction.  

Here, flashbacks from before the publication of Sam's article and abortive proposal of marriage, tend to mostly show him as happy and relatively well adjusted - a little socially awkward, but not markedly so, and so it feels more like he is just very sad and guilty than actually depressed. we have to rely on being told depression is an issue, rather than actually seeing it.

 

You

No, not you - "You". 

 

"You" is Sam's alter ego - a clean cut, bespectacled, polite version of himself, who appears in-scene during many parts of the game, offering council to Sam as he makes decisions. The game presents "You" as a kind of 'voice of social reason' and primarily his advice is what would steer him towards more pleasant, if less factually revealing, social interactions.

 

It's worth noting that, while it might be tempting to view "You" as some kind of attempt at evidence of a very serious mental condition such as Schizophrenia or Multiple Personality Disorder - "You" is, after all, a sort of 'Anti-Tyler Durdan', appearing to Sam and conversing with him, invisible to everyone else - but I don't think that it should be. 
For starters, if it were an attempt at showing a serious mental condition like those ones, it fails ludicrously, but also because - I don't believe that is DotNod's intention

 

"You" is more of a gameplay and narrative device than a visual representation of a disorder, allowing Sam to vocalise his thoughts to us, the players, with a bit bore animation and life, and it's a device that works fine in that context. 


Sam is fully aware that "You" is not real - he is aware of what he is, when he himself created him (in reaction to an overheard conversation by his parents, discussing sending him to special classes to help his lacking social skills,) and crucially, what "You"'s role in his own life is and has been.

 

Sam seems perfectly capable of heeding, or ignoring, "You"'s advice, so frankly, "You" is not really evidence of anything more than Sam's inner equivocations in difficult situations - something that everyone, neuro-typical and neuro-atypical alike, experience daily.


The Mind Palace

Then there is the 'Mind Palace'. 

 

When in difficult situations, Sam can regress into his 'Mind Palace' - a kind of mental fugue-state, in which aspects of the real world are represented, bound in jagged crystalline forms floating in a void, and in which time stands still. Sam has time to analyse different aspects of his thoughts and make decisions about what to do.

 

The idea that he can be overwhelmed by situations, and 'shut-down' for a moment, regressing into a mental safe-space and planning his actions with careful though before acting is interesting, but it is used in a muddled way. 

 

Sometimes, entering it seems voluntary, and is used for Sam to analyse factual data, and becomes a sort of Arkham Batman 'detective vision'.

Sometimes it is when he is recalling some significant memory of his past, and when he wants to order such memories in his mind, and make sense of current events through them.

 

In these instances the 'Mind Palace' mechanic is presented as as sort of 'super-power' - or, at least, as a visual representation of his sharp mind and ability to rationalise things.

 

At other times though, entry to the 'Mind Palace' is shown as involuntary, and resulting from high-stress situations.For example, when Sam discovers a body, and is panicking.

 

Here, it is no longer a safe space, but a nightmare, are represented by some of the game's worst, least fun, and most ludicrous moments, such as running through an endless hallway full of mirrors branded with 'negative' words, which you need to avoid smashing, and find the 'positive' ones, which you are supposed to smash through, or one in which multiple versions of "You" are walking, and you need to identify the one waving at you, in an attempt to represent...
...I don't know what. 


I've spent enough time considering those moments, and drawing a blank, that I am comfortable saying that I don't think I'm the issue. I don't think the problem is that I'm not smart enough to understand what DotNod is trying to say. I'm pretty sure the issue is that DotNod doesn't understand what DotNod is trying to say.  

 

The 'Mind Palace' concept is messy in its implementation, and muddled in its use, to the extent that is is hard to read as an accurate representation of anything mental-health related.

Its relationship to "You" is also a bit all over the place. 

"You" seems to be inextricably tied to the Mind Palace, as he is often giving advice within it, suggesting it is his 'domain'.

 Towards the end of the game, however, a major decision is required in which Sam must choose between "You" and the 'Mind Palace', suggesting that they are opposingforces - the 'Mind Palace' being the refuge for Sam's overly analytical, socially-awkward tendencies, and "You" being the socially-aware, emotionally mature counter-balance.

 

Social vs Analytical


That brings us to the game's primary dichotomy - the friction between the 'Social' and the 'Analytical' sides of Sam.

The game essentially posits that in order to solve the mystery, Sam needs to be 'Analytical', but to be happy, he needs to be 'Social'. It's all a bit black and white.

 

Sam - we are told at least - tends to be dogged in his pursuit of the truth, whatever the cost to his personal relationships or the well-being or good feeling of those around him.

That suggests a possible ASC (Autism Spectrum Condition.) This is an interesting avenue - however, his ability to identify what he could be saying that would be socially-acceptable, and simply choosing not to in pursuit of his end goal does not really marry with that.

People with ASC are not electing to be rude, they simply have difficulty identifying when what they are going to say will be, or picking up on emotional or social cues indicating they have been. 

 

Sam is able to make the decision not to be - and simply chose not to, which is more in line with something like Borderline Personality Disorder than a Spectrum Condition, but Borderline personality Disorder is simply not possible to show accurately in a game from the protagonist's point of view, where choices still lie with the player.

 

The idea of showing someone with ASC in a narrative focussed game is an interesting one (and one I have a vested interest in, as the father to an Autistic son,) however, there is still a massive inherent problem with doing so using the protagonist in a choice-based game.

 

If the player is being presented with the choices of what to say, then they are able to decide not to say the socially awkward, inappropriate or unintentionally offensive or hurtful thing. The autistic person in real life is not - and it is borderline offensive to suggest that they are. People with ASC are not choosing to be rude by missing the mark socially, any more than you tripping over a stone is you choosing to fall down. 

 

For the record, I've been wracking my brain, trying to think how such a game could actually represent the difficulties of someone with ASC to a neuro-typical gamer, and I think it might be possible:
If the dialogue choices were presented just as they are here, but sometimes, after choosing one, the text dissolved away, and changed to one of the 'rude' choices the player didn't intend to make, (hence taking the decision they made and altering it to one they tried not to,) it would actually be a better way to show the effects of AS conditions.

The player would be trying to say the 'right' thing, but an outside force (in this case the game, substituting for the condition,) would be twisting what you meant  into something that is offending the character you speak to without you meaning it to, or having your response coming out all wrong. 


Would that be frustrating or difficult for the player?
Yes, of course - but not half as frustrating or difficult as dealing with social interactions can be for someone with an ASC, ad it would stop what is happening in Twin Mirror - us being told there is a mental health issue with Sam, but not really showing or representing it.

 

 

 


Okay, that all seems like I'm really ragging on the game, (which I enjoyed some parts of, but we are dealing with a specific part of it here, and a part I didn't think was well handled,) but lets look at

 

The part that did work:


Loss and Grief

The one area of mental health and mental well-being that I think the game is most successful in exploring is actually the part they do with the lightest, but most nuanced touch, and not with protagonist Sam, but with everyone around him - the widely varying spectrum of ways in which different people react to loss.

 

Loss is the primary running theme of the game, and by showing so many different ways in which it has affected people, and how they handle it - sometimes well, sometimes not - without commenting on them overtly - it actually, almost by accident, gives us some things to learn, or at least to think about.


Every one of the townsfolk is dealing with loss in some way.

 

There is the obvious loss of Nick - Sam's old friend, who's wake he is attending.

His daughter, Bug, is grieving, and feels unable to accept his death, and her relationship with her mother - Nick's ex-wife, is at rock bottom - also owing to a loss: Her mother is an addict - a victim of the opioid epidemic that has sprung up n the wake of the town's economic collapse - and so Bug feels she has lost her too.

 

The loss of the mine, and with it, the town's economy and identity has crippled many people financially. 

 

Some - the group of ex-miners met in the bar at Nick's wake, for example - remain angry and bitter, still pinning blame wherever they can find it - in this case on Sam for penning the article that brought the situation about - and that bitterness blinds them to the reality that is highlighted by Anna's father (also an ex-miner, who was crippled physically, and is in a wheelchair after the lax safety standards at the mine coast him his legs) - the mine would likely have closed regardless, and Sam was right. The safety standards were being ignored.

Unable to get past their bitterness, they have all turned to drink and violence, and it has rendered them unable to try and move on to other industries. 

Anna's father, on the other hand, while still wistful for the past, is more resigned and accepting of the current state of things, and had come to terms with the town's demise to some extent.

 

Anna, who was dating Nick at the time of his death, is grieving his loss, but seeing Sam is also bringing up a lot of memories, and she is forced to wrestle with the loss of that relationship as well, one destroyed as much by circumstance than by the two people.

 

There is a group of down-and-outs living on a kind of trailer-park commune, run by a woman called Lynette, where a lot of ex-miners and addicts are living, and each of them is trying to deal with their own loss. Lynette deals with the loss of the town's financial safety nets by doing something positive - using her own land to create one for others - while some of the inhabitants are dealing with their lost livelihoods and lives less well, becoming angry, violent or, on some case, addicts.

 

One of the principal characters, who turns out to be behind the drug ring, is dealing with loss too - the loss of the community spirit that the town had in the boom-years has left him cold and uncaring, seeing the town he once loved and fought to protect as a lost cause, and driving him to the conclusion that making a profit off its misery is the only viable solution.

"If someone's gonna profit, might as well be me."


There are many more characters throughout the game, all of whom show some slightly different reaction to their own personal micro and macro losses, and it is in these aspects that I think I can say there is some meat on this bone, and something to learn. 


Summary

While I don't think there is a huge amount to really learn on the subject of mental health in Twin Mirror, there is some.

 

Like other (better) DotNod games before this one - Life is Strange 1 & 2, it is not the big story moments that stick with me the most, but the little ones - the small lines here and there that can have poignancy, and resonate a little more than maybe they were ever even intended to.

 

For all that I ragged (justifiably, I think) on the muddled, sledge-hammer-like approach to Sam Higgs and his relationship with "You", there are a couple of poignant moments.

Taking him as simply the 'better angel' on Sam's shoulder, there is one moment I really liked:

 

When Sam is trying to just get on with his investigation, and get to the 'real' business of fact-finding, "You" is negging him, trying to get him to show more compassion to Anna, this simple exchange did catch me off guard, and, in context, make me genuinely think about the way I sometimes shake off my own internal conscience and better angels when I'm focussed on something too hard:


Sam -  
"You're not helping."

 

You - 
"Yes I am."

 

Sam - 
*pause*
"Yes. You are."

 

(It works better in the game than here)


Is it much?
No...

...but it did something for me, and that's worth a shout out.

 

______________________________________________________

 

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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  • 6 months later...
  • 11 months later...

This game was a chore to finish. The concept was interesting but the dialogue was just groan inducing at points. Perhaps if this game had a bigger budget they could have made something memorable. Thankfully I got this on sale for $5. 

 

I did not like Life is Strange and I really liked Remember Me, so as of now Dontnod is 1 of 3 for me.  I do intend to try Vampyr at some point and the upcoming Banishers game looks very interesting so here's hoping I'll like those more than Twin Mirror. 

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  • 4 months later...

I just finished it for the first time and I liked it: good characters, good plot, a good game overall, even through it is not as emotional as Life is Strange. It just feels a bit tiring that I have to play through it twice more, for the Platinum, but I recommend it. 👍🏻

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