Life is Strange is an episodic adventure game, spanning five episodes. Developed by Dontnod Entertainment and all five episodes released in 2015. If you search LiS on the internet, you'll hear endless good things, I'm here to tell a different story.
The story focuses on Max Caulfield, a photography student at Blackwell Academy, in Arcadia Bay. While in the school's bathroom, a boy named Nathan enters, and seems aggravated, Max hiding behind one of the stalls out of sight. Another girl enters and has an argument with Nathan, it all goes badly and the girl is accidentally shot. Out of nowhere and unbeknownst to Max, she's able to (somehow) rewind time and save the girl, who turns out to be her childhood best friend, Chloe. They reunite and become friends again, Max quickly tells Chloe about her new found time powers. She is also experiencing visions of a storm hitting the town, looking to be the destruction of the town.
Characters are really the most important thing in a video game for me, well in story based games that is. After playing all five episodes, I'd say there were three characters I actually liked, none of them were the main two... Max was boring and plain. She was shy and desperately trying to be indie it hurt, then all of a sudden she grows some balls and thinks she can be a tough girl. It's poor development from my eyes. Chloe. OH. MY. GOD. I absolutely, fucking despise Chloe. That's not saying she's a bad character, she's just annoying as being asked "why?" all the time. She's a young adult, who acts like a spoilt five year old. Made a decision that doesn't benefit her? Acts like a bitch. Made a decision that benefits her? Acts like a bitch. Made a decision that helps other people? Acts like a fucking selfish bitch. You can not win. Bear in mind, this is a friend you haven't seen much of in years, and yet it's all your fault. She didn't try and make an effort over the years, it's just constant whining and you're given no reason to care for her, but the game forces you to be her friend.
The side characters are interesting and much easier to like. Even people you think you hate, you start to like later on. The story is good, it's engaging. My problem was, I was only engaged in episode one and five. The middle episodes were just filler to me, I just wanted to see how it all panned out. You'd think that rewinding power would be awesome, but it's a huge annoyance. There's a few times during the story were you having conversations that are about three parts long, you have to get all the segments right to carry on. You're given four choices for each, but if you pick the wrong one, you're in endless cycles of rewinding until you get it right. Even worse, I badly screwed up on a part, and what do you know? No more infinite rewinds. They're only there when you don't want them.
You're made to feel like your choices matter. There's a pretty drastic change, that's literally life changing. I was happy to proceed with the story, but Max wasn't, so she decided to undo everything I chose to do, and everything just went back to normal.... Are you kidding me? The game literally wastes your time and undoes your doing. Thanks, I really felt like I chose how the story played out. People can die in early episodes, who can actually make it to the end. That's cool, although I think it's literally one or two people.
The performances are really good, can't lie there. The music fits really well and the location is beautiful. I really wish I was given more freedom to just explore. You can roam fairly freely, but in a different type of game we could've explored more. I like the style of graphics, quite arty and comic book-like. The story even strongly ties in real life issues, and it can be pretty devastating how easily people's lives can be destroyed. Bullying, depression, drugs and even more heavy shit.
Later on in the episodes, there's a part where you hoping through older photographs of Max, so she can travel to that moment of the picture. That was easily the best part of the whole series. The end bad guy made no sense to me, I thought their motives were dumb and they tried so hard to be intense and scare you, but I just cringed. It's like the threw it out you to try and create a big twist, but it just made it even worse for me. You're also given a choice at the end, it's meant to be difficult and leave you pausing the game while you try and decide. Easiest choice I've ever made in a game, I didn't hesitate at all. Ultimately for me, this games tries a lot and fails most of the time for me.
This is not a bad game. contrary to everything I've said, it's really not. It's just not this masterpiece everyone is saying it is. Now we're getting a pointless prequel to cash in on its success. Great! A prequel full of characters I don't care about and I know how their story goes. Can't wait.
I think Dontnod Entertainment are going to be a big name developer in the near future. although I don't agree with it's acclaim that much, it's an amazing start for them. They also developed Remember Me, a game I can't wait to try and the upcoming Vampyr, which is one of the games I'm most looking forward to. They also have a second season of Life is Strange to come, but they aren't the developers for the prequel story.
I'll play Life is Strange's next season, hopefully it will be the masterpiece everyone said the original was.... but I doubt it!
6.5/10
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