One thing this game almost did well, but fell short on was the red tears, I have posted this before in a little rant I had after finishing the game, but ill expand on it here. So the best and worst part of the game for me was the tears, this rip into another world, particularly the red tears, which gave the characters glimpses of songs from the future. I only remember 3 of these tears in the game, two music and one of the streets of Paris, which was familiar to anyone who viewed the E3 footage way back when the game was announced. The tears used in the game most frequently (other than strategic ones in fights) were used to take you into an alternate reality where one or a few variables had changed, and while this was an interesting concept at heart it really did nothing but force you to traverse already covered ground to hit a story arch. I find this to be the worst trope in video games, I am a gamer who loves exploring and finds it incredibly difficult to replay games, which means on my initial run through I make sure to 100% as much as I can. I collect every coin, every vlog, every side mission, search every trash can, bench, you name it, so forcing me to go back from where I came is pretty much wasting my time, even if it is critical to the story. So in this way the tears were an interesting notion, but ultimately flawed.
I remember back in E3 when I first saw the tears of the Paris backdrop my initial reaction was, "holy shit they are going to let me play in different strands of time", my mind raced with gameplay possibilities of going to a different time and place, even for small sections of the game, and yes I did wonder, would i return to rapture? I thought perhaps this was going to be one of those games where the mysteries are only discovered as you go forward and back in time, parcing clues in the future from what potentiall could happen and from the past about how the situation came to be in the first place. Now Infinite did do this in a way, but it did it within the confines of Columbia. I thought from an artistic and gameplay point of view going to the future and past would be a completely unique experience, and it was something I was excited for. Infinite didnt deliver on this, instead it teased the possibility but no more than that, and I find that to be the biggest shame, not only because I was hopeful but because of all the teams to do it I thought Irrational could.