#oh i had a lottttt of fun with this. just letting the brainrot out

[memryse]

Mem! Do you have any thoughts on 3rd life compared to last life?

ooh very interesting question, there's definitely i have a lot to say on this subject

i will say, i enjoyed both of them a lot. like a Lot. stares at my blog. but i am definitely more critical of last life - while i appreciate wanting to change things up and make them more exciting, which worked for the most part, i do think that in making some of those changes, you lose some of the magic of the simplicity of 3rd life.

3rd life is, essentially, a vanilla series with a limit of 3 lives and a world border. the rules are easy to grasp, and so... unobtrusive? that the series ended up being extremely story driven. the rules don't really impact anything other than the length of the series and the point at which people are allowed to kill each other. the reason for them killing each other was entirely their own choice. last life, on the other hand, had mechanics actively designed to force kills every episode: the boogeyman and the red lives alliance rule. this forces getting kills into the spotlight, often (though definitely not always) at the cost of natural story progression. in particular, the final couple of sessions felt very stilted to me, because all alliances had effectively been broken long ago; there was no real investment left in any faction other than grian and joel staying together until the end. it was just a battle royale. as much as i liked the whole "zombie apocalypse" vibes of sessions 7 and 8 in particular, session 9 fell a little flat for me. it was just fighting for the sake of fighting. and while i thought scott's victory was very poetic, the buildup to it? not so much.

however. last life was still a fantastic series. its main charm point to me was how these new mechanics gave focus to everyone. i still have not seen every 3rd life pov, or even half of them. and though i definitely do intend to watch them all, a lot of them are quite far down my priority list compared to other series rn, because i think you can safely say that 3rd life objectively does have main characters: namely, its four sets of duos. the others are great, but you do not need to watch very many povs at all to understand the main conflict. last life, on the other hand, doesn't have a main conflict. which made watching every pov every week so much more entertaining. there was a new thing in every video, a new reason to care about all seventeen videos each week. it was a lot, but it was SO worth it. every faction had equal importance in last life, and it was so much fun to watch them all and put together a true picture of what was going on in all corners of the server. which, again, all 3rd life povs are certainly good, but it ended in two distinct sides. last life was messy. in a good way.

i think some of the mechanics changes in last life may have detracted from what i initially liked about 3rd life, but they still made for an excellent series. the boogeyman mechanic? complex and forced kills for no reason, sure, but it also provided an excuse to put lesser known members in the spotlight. even if a player wasn't involved in a boogey kill, they'd often include their reaction to seeing the death in chat, which then incentivises people to go check out the players involved in it. and, again, it added to each faction's storyline to make them all equally important. the "red lives must break alliances" rule made alliances feel more fruitless sometimes especially at the end, but largely made for some really well-done goodbyes (or lack thereof, in bdubs' case). like, i have written essays before on session four of last life being my favourite episode of any mcyt series ever, and i fully stand by this. THAT is how you execute this sort of rule.

the life exchange feature made for some great moments: scar taking advantage of it to do Soul Capitalism, tango the life dispenser, etc. but the life exchange feature could never have worked so effectively without adding the extra lives, it'd effectively be one time use if you only had three lives maximum. extra lives also offset the change in pace that so many boogey kills would have caused. so even though i felt it went against the whole concept of 3rd life, and i wasn't too keen on seeing some players start on two lives, i do appreciate what these mechanics brought to the series and why they were all necessary to balance each other out.

so to conclude!!! i love both series! maybe i'm just a grumpy mentally-old lady who doesn't like change, but i don't think criticism of a thing you love is bad. it might not be what i originally fell in love with the series for, but i suppose as the name change suggests, last life is not 3rd life. it wasn't supposed to be, and maybe that's a good thing, because even before last life started i said i was apprehensive about trying to recreate 3rd life. it was magical in a very unique way. so i think ultimately i'm glad they went in a new direction for last life - it's not its predecessor, it doesn't pretend to be, and it very firmly cements itself as a fantastic but entirely different series. even if it's not perfect.