[seagul]

hello harald,
sorry, i didn't answer your statement before.
i hope that tomorrow i have enough time to answer your question and to bring this playthrough to an end - till then.

[seagul]

Finally here it comes: my last synopsis and interpretation of a Sanitarium chapter (and I hope it will answer the questions you asked in your last statement, harald).

The last chapter ended, as told in my last synopsis, with Morgan becoming the black oily plaque. He extracts the three “personalities” of Max (Sarah, Grimwall and Olmec), by saying, that Max don’t need them any more. Max has always been his own worst enemy because of them. By saying this Morgan creates a dark version of Max who represents in his oily appearance more the attitude of Morgan (and his black soul).
Morgan wants Max to fight against himself. As a real villain he is sure that feelings, like love, compassion, helpfulness and the fight for moral principles weakens a person and distract him from his important goals in life. – Which in Morgan’s case are making money and coming to fame.
Being ripped of his noble personalities the black Max should, in Morgan’s logic, be the winner. The three personalities are symbolized by the three orbs, Max has to get and destroy. Every broken orb frees one of the personalities.
But before the endgame starts, there is the voice of the angel saying: “Seek the truth” out of nowhere. And what is this “truth”? The truth will free Max.
The first truth is what Olmec says after he is freed from his orb: “You are truly a great warrior.”
The second truth is said by Grimwall: “You have the strength.”
And the last and most important truth is said by Sarah: “You are my hero. I love you.”
These are the three truths that build Max’s nature. Every truth reveals a bit more of the reality behind his dream (the real Max appears under the collapsing cemetery).
By knowing himself and his nature Max finds the power to cross the columns, fight Morgan and wake up in one move. While the real world Morgan’s thinks he has won, Max can finally embrace Jennifer.

I want to make a comment about the time in Max’s dreams and how this time is associated with the events in the real world. A dream can last a few seconds but while dreaming we have the impression it is very long. And sometimes events that occur in the real world are woven into the dreams.
I believe that this happened with Max’s dreams. The whole game happened after Max’s accident. The part after Morgan’s injection into Max’s IV, the following fight in Max’s dream world (the two last chapter of the game) must happened in fractions of a second. This explains, why Max can save himself from being killed by the poison Morgan injects him: the poison hasn’t reach Max’s arm, it was still in the IV.

I had a hard time to understand why Jennifer is shown as a skeleton in the wedding scene in chapter two and why the relationship between her and Max seems so … odd in the way it is shown throughout the whole game. Morgan is the first to mention the solution in this last chapter. Jennifer is pregnant. In Max eyes this means she is bearing the death within her.
I imagine that Jennifer’s pregnancy increased in Max the memory of his sister Sarah and his “failure” and made it more urgent for him to solve the riddle of the disease. He fought for the children before, but now he has the strongest personal reason to win the fight for the right cure.
This urgency leads me to a remark harald made about Max being too permissive towards Morgan and his tampering.
Max liked his friend and wanted to trust him. Here we see what Morgan meant, when he said, Max was his own worst enemy. Max could not see the real Morgan because of his affection for his friend. We all have this behaviour toward loved ones: we see them through the eyes of love and affection. It makes us weak – as Morgan said.
But it makes us strong, too. Max had the courage to open his eyes to unwanted behaviour of a loved one and recognize the real Morgan because of his love for Sarah and his unborn child. His love made him see what his affection wanted to hide. This gave him the guts to openly attack Morgan in a meeting. While Morgan wanted to calm down the situation (so he can plan his murder, I’m sure) Max saw it as a signal to fight alone to find the formula to save the children.
And this is the last truth: Max won for all ill children because he had to save his own child, too.

I’m sure I didn’t mention all unanswered questions. If there are any unsolved pieces or you have other perception of the game, please post them here.
The discussion should never be closed. A game lives on through our minds. If we think about it, discuss about it and see correspondences in our life/ the real life, it never ends at all. That’s the way art is.

I love this game before. And this playthrough made me appraise it even more. The story, stripped to its base, may not be the most surprisingly and complicated, but the way it is revealed during the game makes it special. I love the dream world and how parts of the real world are woven into it, I love the transitions between the different dreamworld and how the cut scene are made a integral part of it. I stop now, before I tell you how I love every detail.
I bow down in appreciation before the artists who made this game. Thank you!

At last, I like to thank everyone who followed this playthrough for your patience with my bad English skills and my sometimes odd ideas. It was fun and very interesting to do this playthrough – I loved every minute! Hope you did it, too.
Thanks.
A special thanks to AFGNCAAP who had the courage to start this playthrough. I hope all is well with you.
And a Happy New Year, everybody!!!!

[Sughly]

Sorry seagul, I lied about making a better response! But it was great to read through your thoughts, as was the link you gave me earlier.

I have to say for me, the ending was a little too neat. I suppose it was somewhat innevitable, and succeeded in tieing up all the loose ends, but the news broadcast bit over the credits just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. It felt a bit too obvious, and would've have been better to leave some of it up to the imagination of the player.

That being said though, it was a great game! It really is a shame I played it in such a broken way, it deserved betteer attention. I'll probably end up going back and following this playthrough a little more carefully some time in the future!

Thanks for taking charge of the playthrough until the end seagul!

[seagul]

Sughly!
The news keep telling, half of Australia is inundated, so I'm happy to hear you are ok (and have still a computer).

I love the ending, because it ties up every loose end - when did you the last time have such a rare event in an adventure game?
I liked the news broadcast at the end: the first time i played the game i really needed it!

I hope to see you at the next playthrough (which will hopefully start soon).

[Luna Sevithiainen]

Seagul thanks for your elaborate postings, up until the end. You really have some very interesting ideas, lots of which I hand't even considered until you mentioned them. That really made the game even more elaborate and interesting than it initially seemed to me

I'm sorry I didn't post anymore after the break in the middle, but having (rather selfishly) finished the game during the break, and being busy with other things, I just didn't get to more than to reading what was posted here.

Remains to say that I loved the game, from the beginning, in which we had no clue what direction the story would take, to the very end, in which indeed all was wrapped up neatly.

Next playthrough I'll try to participate again, and I hope that one won't be without a large break, so I can stick to the pacing.

[seagul]

Luna, thanks for you feedback.

I hope we meet at the next playthrough.

[fvell]

Originally Posted by ozzie

You get accustomed to the controls. It took some time for me to figure out how to open the inventory, since it's rather unusual how you do it, and I still walk a lot against walls or other obstacles, which is annoying.

I intalled the game today and haven't figured it out yet either! help me out!

[aimless]

fvell, it's been a long time since I've played it but as I recall, you click and hold on the main character (to name no names) to bring up the inventory. You use the right mouse button to walk him around. Swing wide.