Crow Country spoiler thoughts

I thought the origins of the Guests being people who time traveled from the year 2106 in an attempt to warn Crow that what he was doing would doom the future was a really cool origin for them. There’s so much that hints at this too, in particular, the fact that the digits 2106 are hauntingly painted in blood by the Guests everywhere, despite the fact that none of the game's NUMEROUS keypad locks have a 0 on them. There was a part of me that wondered if the digits were in reference to a year and not a code, and I was really happy to find that my suspicions were correct. I also find it completely believable that a business tycoon like Crow would listen to what the first Guest had to say and then totally ignore him, while continuing to mine the gold. In fact, I find that a bit more believable than his attempts to redeem himself to tell you the truth. In all seriousness, I did really like Crow as a character, and I found his fate to be a fitting end. He accepted himself for what he truly was: a monster, and Mara was the one to put him down.

On the other hand, the twist I don’t think I really care for is the reveal that Mara is actually Elaine, the girl that was attacked behind the scenes of the park by a Guest in 1988. This reveal just poses so many questions. For starters, she was fifteen when she was attacked, which feels a little too old for someone to even be going to an amusement park with just her parents, much less someone who would wander into employees-only areas without their supervision. I could maybe see it if she found her parents annoying and was trying to get away from them, but it feels like a stretch. But that’s not the biggest problem I have with this reveal. If Elaine was infected and became so sick that she had to spend two years in a hospital, how does she have the strength to be able to run around the park while shooting monsters? Hell, when did she even learn how to shoot guns in the first place? If she had to escape the hospital in order to make her way over, when and how would she have found the time and resources to fake her Police ID and steal Harrison’s car? When would she have learned to DRIVE?  At fifteen years old in 1988, I could at most, see her getting a learners permit, but not a full on license, and if she was in the hospital for two years, it would be impossible for her to have kept up driving practice during that time.

I feel like this would’ve made more sense if Elaine had died, and she had an identical, rebellious twin named Mara that came to Crow Country to avenge her sister, or something of that nature. Crow would be shocked to see her, thinking he was either finally going mad, or that Elaine’s ghost had come back to haunt him. There would also be a tinge of tragedy added to the story as well. Maybe Elaine ran off from her family because she and her sister had a fight, and after becoming infected and dying, Mara blamed herself for her sister’s death. I dunno, I feel like that would’ve not only been a lot more interesting of a twist, it would’ve made a lot more sense and added a bit more mystery to the narrative as a whole. The twist used in the game just really requires you to stretch your suspension of disbelief, and while I normally have a very flexible one, I feel like there’s just way too many obvious oversights with this twist.