Yeah-eh-eh

You are my fire
The one desire
Believe when I say
I want it that way


But we are two worlds apart
Can't reach to your heart
When you say
That I want it that way


Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain't nothing but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way


Am I your fire?
Your one desire
Yes, I know it's too late
But I want it that way
See Backstreet Boys Live

Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way


Now I can see that we've fallen apart
From the way that it used to be, yeah
No matter the distance, I want you to know
That deep down inside of me


You are my fire
The one desire
You are (You are, you are, you are)
Don't wanna hear you

Ain't nothin' but a heartache (Say, hey, yeah)
Ain't nothin' but a mistake (Don't wanna hear you say)
I never wanna hear you say (Oh, yeah)
I want it that way

Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say (Don't wanna hear you say)
I want it that way
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Ain't nothin' but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say (Never wanna hear you say, yeah)
I want it that way


'Cause I want it that way

ain't nothing but a heartache

Nice graphics
Choices matter
Multiply endings
With puzzles
With achievements

None

I'm probably about to upset an entire fanbase, but I'm going to be honest. Tell me why sucks..
This "game" tells the story of two twins who share memories with a "mysterious" past, that only happened ten years ago, which they seem to be covering up. Yeah who doesn't remember their mom trying to shotgun your brother, only to kill your own mother by stabbing her in the back with a pair of scissors, and then lying to the cops about it. Who wouldn't remember that?

But as players of the game you learn about this in a very unnatural way, especially because you are playing as the two characters. Oh hey we have twin powers and we can communicate without talking to each other "Hey do you remember this?", "Oh I remember it differently", choose which memory we are going to use. Frankly I couldn't give less of a crap because these are very vanilla characters, hiding under a "woke" mystique. "Oh Tyler use to be a little girl, and they transitioned and now they go by Tyler." so it feels like they are just hiding behind this cloak to get good reviews, because it would be wrong and bigoted of you to hate on a game with LGBTQ representation. Because everyone is so scared of saying something that will "offend" the snowflakes of this generation. Well I'm sorry honesty is the best policy and slapping the woke bumper sticker on this just so people won't call your game bad is cheap.

My issue with Tyler is not that he/she/it is a trans character, my issue with Tyler is that there is ZERO charisma and nothing that actually makes for a good character. The same can be said for Alison the other twin. I don't see a "mystery" in a game where the characters have ALL of the pieces, and then pretends to lose them. Not a great excuse for going around town harassing everyone. Your mother who you refer to as "Mary-Ann" which is extremely awkward, chases Tyler with a shotgun and gets stabbed with scissors, ten years ago, I'm afraid I don't need to know anymore about this. I fell asleep more than once over how bland and uninteresting the story is.

At least with Life is Strange you had the "rewind" mechanic, fighting against the clock. "What are we gonna do, the world is falling apart but I have to save my best friend from getting killed." so you rewind time to save your best friend, causing reality to collapse around you. Which is a interesting concept, unlike oh I don't know, NOT REMEMBERING WHEN YOU KILLED YOUR MOTHER TEN YEARS AGO. So now all you basically do is fall asleep and spam interact with the scripted scenes.

So the main reason I completed the game was for achievements, and the plot takes a nosedive from chapter one, not that I thought it could get any worse. The LGBTQ is so apparent and in your face, every building you step into has LGBTQ representation and there are maybe ten characters of importance where half of them fall into this category "Oh Jack that is such an anti-gay thing to say!" to which I say, they are used as PROPS. They are there to tell you that you should be worried about telling everyone around that you are trans because it would take a "lifetime" to "educate" them. It's so dismissive, and it seems to be part of the "liberal agenda" that shines through in Tell Me Why. You have to be out and proud, and tell everybody constantly. Everyone is fighting their own battle, no one cares.

The game also didn't really offer that much variety in terms of gameplay, some mini games like catching fish, or how you are too stressed so use your de-stress app thing. Honestly my favourite part about Tell Me Why is the book of goblins. Its a book Mary-Ann wrote to teach her kids valuable lessons through stories in a cryptic fashion. The stories are interesting and helps with the overall world building, unfortunately this is not why you play a game. The story book would have a much greater use in the story book realm, you use it to figure out puzzles, of which there are just a few. That might be the biggest part that you can actually call a game here.

Oh but wait... The ending is a total poopooshow. So throughout the game Alison and Tyler prove to be unreliable narrators, they remember events differently and its up to the player to decide which memory is going to be your "truth". The final choice is between Alison choosing to believe Tyler when he said their mom was going to kill him or choosing that he is misremembering the event before stabbing her in the back with scissors. This is the final nail in the coffin of Tell Me Why, giving the player this false idea that choosing what to remember and what happened will somehow change the outcome. Given the fact that the twins already figured out that their mother had already confronted a guy at the docks with a threat to shoot him, and they are just conflating the memories. The reality is Mary-Ann wasn't going crazy, news about her homewrecking ways was spreading around town.Mary-Ann was then ostracised by the community. With Mary-Ann dead it's easy for the townspeople to twist the narrative, and thats the good ending. You are supposed to believe what people told you and build a false narrative to protect yourself, so you can live happily in the present. If 1+2=3 but everyone says its 4, then you have to believe its 4 right?

This game goes so far off the woke deep end, it is frightening. If this is what people consider as good storytelling these days I have no hope for the future of gaming. I give tell me why a 3 out of 10. Get it on sale or let someone else waste their money on the game for you if you truly want to experience the game for yourself.
EDIT:For some reason steam finds it offensive if I use the poopoo word, so I edited that part.

Tell Me Why excels in narrative depth compared to its peers but lacks a multiplayer option, thus limiting competitiveness and engagement.‍

Tried it for over an hour and it is so boring.

It STINKS. I hate this game's face, I'm glad I picked it up for free though so I could leave an honestly nasty review for it.

Before any accusations arise concerning that, let me just say that I was surprised at several moments along the way. I gave it a chance. However, several of my suspicions were entirely confirmed. Much of it was how I expected, not entirely but enough to come away very securely in this review.

One of the only good things about this game is the graphics. I would say the "atmosphere" also but, not so fast.

The plot sucks and is not introduced in a very elegant manner. I'm not talking about most of the documents and stuff but some of the notes near the end that are somewhat vague and particularly, this book from the the siblings' childhood the game expects you to read through or look at. I didn't and just looked up every puzzle solution immediately.

To be fair, I may have missed some of the plot because I simply didn't care enough about it to be interested enough to pay attention to it at times. I suppose it would be very unfair for me to review this without paying attention to it as thoroughly enough, in my view, as I had. Good enough still, it's difficult and often pointless to be try to be genuinely interested in things that one is not interested in whatsoever. I gave it a chance.

Something else that makes no sense in this is the transsexual (am I not allowed to say that? ridiculous) male character named Tyler wants to get with a dude. Last I checked, pretty much 99/100 times women transition to being men because they are... get this.. gay (lesbian). Sometimes it's a matter of "fitting in" more from a distance in society because of society drilling it into everyone's heads that gay, etc. is an insult. Perhaps for some folks it's easier to appear assimilated from a distance sometimes as opposed to something more natural.

So anyway, yes, I hate the plot. Why? Is the REAL REASON something I'm not willing to acknowledge here? If so, what is it pray tell? Let me go into some more detail then.

This is a story about two schizophrenic siblings with telepathic abilities they acquired from a shady government research lab who grew up and lived in a small and hateful podunk town in Alaska, filled with a bunch of rednecks, transphobic Karens, and perverted fishermen. Their mother died, who was somewhat out of place in this podunk town, and now they're sad. The local police chief was their godfather, he's an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and his name is Eddy. You'll encounter some other randos in this town and most of them are also pretty hateable people. This is clear-cut copaganda like some cookie-cutter copaganda show on TV also, another strike against it.

I thought all along that the real father was who it turned out to be. I also have no idea how the mother lost her [blank]. You'll have to play this piece of ♥♥♥♥ to find out more (read more stuff in it and pay more attention to it than I did I guess, I don't know how something that important can be hidden away and not talked about by the characters much though, but ok). But I think watching a marathon of Maury Povich would be more ideal.

I always thought that there would be a moment where you are tasked with breaking into the armory at the police station for some reason. That'd be a great parody idea for this and would've made the game more interesting. But, in the end, this is an extremely depressing, dreary, god awful damn soap opera piece of ♥♥♥♥. At least soap operas have that calming lighting.

Also, please don't feel like you need to put more than 4 letters in the acronym. It's ridiculous that some individuals actually feel the need to or have some problem with folks who point this out. Well, you can be sure that my motivation is not out of any hatred or bigotry, as that wouldn't even make any sense if you understand who I am as well. With that unpleasantness and "disclaimer" out of the way that I shouldn't feel the need to have to say in the first place: some of those letters are just synoynms of "gay" anyway.

But again, like I said, over generations including even recent ones, it's been drilled into everyone's heads that gay is an insult and therefore the self-label will be avoided more often, and again, in part in order to appear assimilated from a distance. The other excessive letters past the 4 in the acronym are either synonyms or very select groups that have nothing or very little to do with the LGBT civil rights movement.

And no, it doesn't count if for example, an asexual person has been an activist for said cause. That's fine, I'm not dismissing anyone's efforts whatsoever. But, come on folks, that has nothing to do with the rest of us.

When have you heard someone berate people for being asexual? Never? Once by chance, maybe? Ok.

When have you heard someone berate gays, lesbians, transsexuals, etc.? Always, every day, including in your "escapist" game servers that naturally ooze out political views that the bigots won't admit to. Then, mention something about Trump, or whoever or whatever, and "the sky is falling, I'm scared". The escapism myth, very pathetic.

Moving on. Compared to their other titles, I guess this is "moderate". It won't push as many conservative "buttons" as their other titles (if this is even the same dev that I'm thinking of?). Maybe the copaganda balances it all out. Just something to consider for the CHUDs out there.

Another thought about this... if this was advised by, among others, some mental health profressionals (or organization?), like the thing with the annoying "breathing" sequence, etc... big deal. Many of them are quacks.

"Cultural" advisors. I wonder what that entails? Am I supposed to assume that these people speak for everyone and think I'm supposed to believe that their experiences or the ones they possibly envision is all that's there? Let me bow down right now then.

Every. Single. Character. In. This. Is. Stinks. It all reeks of fake-left urban hipster garbage.

Lastly (I think?), to be fair there were a couple times when I was touched. This game touched me a couple times. Out of the dozens of other times that the game expected to touch me, however, I was not. Sorry.

Let me go into more detail about what I mean here.. you could just place the same imagery/whatever into anything else and I would say the same thing. It could have absolutely nothing to do with this plot, this game, etc. or even anything like it whatsoever. Just saying.

♪
Tell me why
Ain't nothing but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain't nothing but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way
♪

took me 5 minutes to realize it's *more* hella gay woke ♥♥♥♥ from dontnod, spare your time guys...

9/10

I love this game so much