Happy Customers - Rise of the Golden Idol - Finale

[@nidoking042]

I felt like the first game was much easier to follow as it went, because the chronology was obvious and the characters quickly became familiar. You weren't so much asking "What's happening in the continuity?" as you were asking "How will this all come together in the end?" and the big unanswered questions were subtle enough that you might not even think to ask them until the epilogue asks you to put it all together. You're watching people fight over possession of a powerful artifact and rise to power. In this one, seeing a familiar character usually means you've gone back in time, and the timeline is usually part of the puzzle. You don't even really see a thread of the ultimate plot until the final chapter, and even then, I doubt anyone will see the epilogue coming. The grand takeaway from each chapter is minor even in the broader story - the dance and apartment scenes were part of a chapter whose message was "They're using the device to move memories around." And to be honest, I STILL have no idea why Isaac's body got dumped where it did. The best theory I've got makes little sense. I'm hoping the DLC cases will flesh out the story further, but if it's anything like the first game, the connections will be pretty loose.

[@ShmoosPlay]

I think what made it easier to follow too was you were mostly following the idol around so it was a very clear continuity. Even when the characters changed they had some relation to the prior characters. I also didn’t pick up on any hints to suggest Jack wasn’t just following the corporation. DShmoo figured that one out and I’m not even sure how. It seemed like process of elimination at that point. I still enjoyed it but I almost feel I need a recap because the scope of it was so so broad and we met so many characters and factions along the way. I’d love to hear your theory on Novak’s body. I also expected to hear more about Bagman’s son but maybe just missed it. -JShmoo

[@nidoking042]

@@ShmoosPlay Honestly, I blazed through most of the game in a day, but that final story segment utterly baffled me until I'd slept on it. And even then, none of my ideas panned out until I gave up and went to do something else. Then it suddenly hit me: Hunter Wolf is the alias. I was trying to figure out whose body he'd put himself in, and I was convinced it was Marie. There are definitely hints, and replaying the game helped a lot. When we first see Jack, he's assuring Elizabeth that Isaac's legacy will live on. The thing that didn't make sense to me about Isaac Nowak was that Jack dumped his body, red eyes and all, where it could easily be found, and then pressured his cousin Elizabeth to cover it up. But I think that was the point. With all the experiments he'd been doing on the homeless men, the red-eyed bodies were starting to pile up, and Detective Roy was working the case. We know he went looking for Hunter Wolf at least once. So I think Jack intentionally left Isaac's body to be found so that his daughter would be forced to use her money to make the case, and the related "Red Curse" case, disappear so he could escape notice. The Bagmans were incidental to the whole thing - anyone who'd found the body would have been bribed, and they just happened to have a convenient need for a generous benefactor that worked out well.

[@ShmoosPlay]

For what it's worth, my intuition on the true identity of Hunter Wolf was largely predicated on his relationship to Isaac and the eagerness to cover up his death. As the game went on, you can see Jack also has more altruistic ideas for what to do with I.D.O.L and that he wasn't directly involved with the conspiracy to undermine the O-Range campaign. He's the only one with enough access to the I.D.O.L., knowledge of how it works and motive to use it for something other than profit. He also was the one to discover how using the lenses together compounded the effect, something that it's unclear he shared with the others (we know Oriel ended up in an asylum but we don't know how his condition was explained to OPIG folks). I love the insight about using his aunt to facilitate a cover-up, but I think ultimately his motivation comes down to creating a plausible death scenario for his uncle to cover up the theft of his memories. - DShmoo

[@ShmoosPlay]

Incidentally the biggest plot hole for me is how he expected the millions of other Isaacs to view his apology message that he apparently recorded and replayed only for his own body to have access to. - DShmoo