Life Is Strange (2015)

Pretty charming graphics with a nice style, though the character models can be a bit awkward/plastic-y in appearance and stilted in movement. Everything has a sort of sepia-toned air to it, which fits with the atmosphere of the game.

The characters are all pretty stereotypical. Side characters are one-note, but the main characters were likeable enough to me, though I know a couple of them are a little divisive among players (read: Chloe). My personal favourites were Kate and Nathan; I think they're interesting depictions of two very different responses to mental illness and trauma, one who directs their hatred inward towards themselves and one who directs it outward towards others.

I generally hate to use the term "cringe-worthy", but the writing in this game is so bad it's sometimes painful. "Ready for the moshpit, shaka brah" and "Go fuck your-selfie" are two immediate examples that come to mind. It's very clearly a script written by grown men trying to emulate how they think teenage girls talk and falling very, very short. It's bearable if you don't take it too seriously.

The gameplay is pretty Telltale-esque. Walk around, point at and click on objects, some very light puzzles. Dialogue options as per usual, though with the pretty neat twist that you can go through a conversation, rewind time, and use information you gained from that future to unlock new dialogue choices.

It's a fine game, though definitely overrated IMO. Telltale does everything it does better and with an interface I like better, and the ending pretty much disregards all of your choices even moreso than Telltale games are often criticised for doing. However, it fills a niche, it has a lovely atmosphere and a gorgeous and fitting soundtrack, and the characters fit the setting well. Again, if you don't take things too seriously, this is good for what it is -- and, if you're a teenager, particularly a teenage girl, I think you'll find a lot to like and relate to in parts of it.

First off the bat: if you are depressed and/or suicidal, I HIGHLY DO NOT recommend playing this game. Wait until you are in a better head space. Trust me.

Now on to the game: This game is...its incredible. It hits me right in my soul and I was playing this at a time where I didn't need something this deep to hit me in my soul, but it did. The characters are all multidimensional, even the ones you think will never be. There isn't really game play, its similar to Until Dawn where you get bits of game play where you make decisions that affect the rest of the game, but it really is a lot of cut scenes. I don't have an issue with this because the story is riveting. I really love the art style of the game as well. Even though this game is fantastical in it's story, the complexity of the characters and some of the decisions you make are very real. There are many times where I made a choice that I would have made in real life and it ended up having huge consequences later in the game. I also recommend playing the game this way because there really are no hints as to what will follow in the game based on the decision you're trying to make in that moment. Don't search for the "right" choice, because you'll end up being disappointed or frustrated. The game is emotionally exhausting - I wanted to replay this game but found I couldn't.

The game tells a decent story, but its core mechanic (manipulating time) is buggy as hell and it doesn't seem like the devs have done much to try to fix it. I've had to replay large chunks of boring repeated dialogue because the thing that is supposed to make this an innovative game broke the game and forced me to reload to the checkpoint.

Given how easy it is for the game to lock up in a rewind like that. I eventually started wincing my way through dialogue heavy sections, hoping every rewind or skip wouldn't suddenly force me to restart what I was doing.

Outside of that, well, the story is really well done, except this rather nagging undertone of misandry. Now, don't get me wrong, turnabout is fair play, and if it were just a matter of having male characters relegated to the background while female characters played a more complex role in the storytelling, I'd be all for it. It's not like women haven't played second stringers in well-made games for long enough.

[Potential Spoilers Below: Nothing story ruining, but spoiler territory nonetheless]

Hell, most of the male characters were even given complex reasons for what they did (except maybe the primary villain, which is fine, villainous villains are good). I honestly wouldn't have been quite that bothered except for a nightmare sequence at the end in which pretty much the entire male cast is turned into a evil caricature, hunting down Max (in a rather annoying stealth segment at that). This might have been fine, except not even the bitchy, prep girl is included as one of these taunting, villainous threateners, eschewed instead for male characters who were not nearly as antagonistic (and in fact, some of whom were her friends/allies). This whole section just seems to solidify this message that ultimately, no matter how redeemable, women should embrace their trust issues because all men are potential threats. That's just not conducive to the message that much of the rest of the game seems to want to send, which is that even truly horrible people probably have a reason for being that way, and communication and empathy are the way to deal with them. Outside of the poorly done nightmare sequence, there's even redemptive moments for two of the main (male) antagonists, showcasing that they are damaged individuals, not just villains.

[Slightly More Spoiler-y Territory: Though I'll still try to keep it vague here]

On top of that, the game plays all around these progressive themes, but it feels like it just won't commit to letting the main heroines do anything more than play at romantic feelings, even when it's clear there's more there (and the metaphors about how the closet used to be their favourite hiding spot as kids... seems that hasn't really changed...) It feels like they were either afraid to commit or so afraid of fanservice that they allowed the audience's presence dictate whether the heroines could actually have a relationship or not. Ultimately, given it means another piece of media dancing around having openly gay characters, I'd say it was a poor choice on the devs' part.

[End Spoilers]

Still, it does have a great story, and Max's choices really do seem to matter over the course of the series (as much as can be expected while still telling a relatively linear story). The technical issues that still plague the game years after its release, however, definitely bring the game down, but it's definitely still worth watching a let's play or something, if you're not interested in dealing with the bugs.

Gameplay: 4/5 Story: 5/5 Presentation: 3.5/5

Basis:

Story= plot progression, intrigue, characters, world

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

The main negative things that got to me were the unrealistic levels of swearing and the lack of emotion in the animation when the game is a very emotionally driven game. In real life, people don't drop the f-bomb just for saying hi. Well I guess some people might but I felt like half the characters you could talk to would cuss you out for looking at them. As for the animation, I know the company that worked on this game may not have had a big budget. It felt like a very indie game published under square Enix. There were moments though where a bit more emphasis on smiles and frown would have executed some of the most impactful scenes in the game. Also, eye contact doesn't really require more work in animation it actually requires less than when they have to look all over the place.

Late in the fourth chapter, a drug dealer character said to Max and Chloe, the game's main characters, "It's hard to take you characters seriously - but I want to." After playing four chapters of this adventure game, it took a shady drug dealer living in an RV on the beach to encapsulate my problems with this game.

I'm a sucker for adventure games - my favorite game of all time being Maniac Mansion - and I also adore scaled down games that tell more personal stories, so Life is Strange sounded like a perfect fit for my tastes. Yet when your entire game centers around dialogue and characters interacting with each other, you better make your game sound honest and real.

From the very beginning, the dialogue in Life is Strange was rough. Almost every line in the first chapter features some piece of outdated slang or some terrible choice that not only ages this game, but makes these characters seem dumb. Life is Strange felt like it was written by people in their 20s and 30s, and in order to understand how teens really talk, they watched the first fifteen minutes of Juno. This is mostly the case with Chloe, who is trying so hard to be a punk - and called out on how fake she truly is - which means she uses some incredibly terrible slang. Chloe says "hella" so often, that whenever the game allowed her to get hurt, I laughed far harder than I should have. It might not seem like a major aspect of the story, but when it happens consistently over five chapters and makes these characters seem ridiculous, it's a major problem with the story of your game.

Life is Strange also felt like it was attempting to cover far too many ideas. At one point, the game wanted me to worry about a photo contest, finding evidence for a suicidal student, find another missing student, help my best friend with drugs and her stepdad, worry about whether my time traveling was destroying the world and a myriad of other story lines. Like the dialogue, I can't help but think that simpler would've been a better choice. I wanted Life is Strange to refine what it needed to do, rather than trying to impress with far too much. If this had been nothing more than just a story of a girl's week in a new high school, I think it would've been far better in the long run.

Which brings me to the time travel aspect of Life is Strange. As an adventure game fan, I did admire the idea that by rewinding time, I could see multiple paths before I chose which one to stick to. The conceit is nice, and yet, also makes it feel like the actual choice I make doesn't matter in the slightest. This is usually the case with most optional choices in adventure games - The Walking Dead, especially - but I find those games to hide your lack of actual choice better than this one. Actually seeing where the story could go, then continuing the story without seeing any major changes left me not even rewinding to see what the other path might've done.

I admire Life is Strange in its quieter, broader choices. The simple moments of hanging out with friends, or checking how people were doing in a dorm room felt like an atmosphere I wanted to experience. Especially in the last two chapters, I think the game made some nice, daring choices that I would've loved to have seen more of throughout the entire season. In the aforementioned talk with the drug dealer in episode 4, I liked how the conclusion never really changed, but it was how you personally wanted to end this conversation that mattered. It's a choice - yes - but it's one that feels more immediate and important than "SHOULD I LET THIS CHARACTER DIE? YES OR NO?"

There's also a device thrown in at the end of the third episode that opens this story wide open to new possibilities, and while it does sort of confuse how the actual story is being told, I think it has promise in future iterations. I also love how avant garde and weird the final chapter becomes. There are some really good details added to each nook and cranny of this chapter that showed a level of care I often missed in this season.

I like the heart and ideas of Life is Strange. When this game is quietly letting characters just sit and watch their surroundings while listening to music, I found this to be quite a compelling game. But the more things this game tries - and the more it tries to sound youthful with a truly terrible dialogue script - this game falls apart. I'm curious to see how the prequel series and the upcoming Season Two would improve upon what didn't work for me here, but I also don't want the let down that was Season One. I want the premise and spirit of Life is Strange in a game, I just want someone else to write it.

No me mal interpreten, Life is Strange es toda una experiencia, que como solo el videojuego puede darnos.

Una narrativa fantástica con temas complejos: el amor, el bullying, el regreso a casa, el arte, la amistad, la vida misma. Justificado en la idea del tiempo, de lo que es, pudo y puede ser.

Sin embargo, el quinto y último episodio, pareciera que no influye demasiado las decisiones tomadas previamente, lo que te hace sentir algo "estafado". Y digo algo porque aún así el juego es digno de jugar, te atrapa y te cuenta una muy buena historia, una que recordaremos como si hubiésemos vivido en verdad en Arcadia Bay.

This game is an emotional roller-coaster. I found its stories, characters and themes extremely moving, with Episodes 3 and 4 in particular haunting my thoughts. I found several of its twists and turns genuinely surprising.

It has a few flaws that keep me from rewarding it that final star. I found Episode 1 to be a little meandering, and I only continued playing based on a friend's recommendation. The character animation, while overall quite good, does sometimes drift into that strange bobble-head/marionette mo-cap look, which can be distracting. There were two or three sections of gameplay that I probably wouldn't have suffered through without the pull of the narrative. And I have some mixed feelings about the ending.

But overall, I can't help but have mostly positive feelings about a game with such a gripping and unique story to tell... and in my home state, to boot!

I have conflicting feelings about this game. I don't want to take out a lot of time to write, so I'll simply state some thoughts:

• The plot overall is kinda sloppy and odd. The main twist towards the end was jarring though not fascinating.
• The characters in this game were fantastic and all amazingly written. It's beautiful how you can be so torn whether to hate or love certain characters.
• The characters were the main driving force for my enjoyment of this game. I wanted to keep playing to see how the story unraveled though was ultimately a bit disappointed by it. The final choice you must make is very tough, though with the game immediately ending afterwards, it feels as either decision is frivolous.

I feel like I loved this game though having some negative thoughts about it. I don't really care to write about the gameplay or visuals because there's nothing interesting to say except they're both good and unique. I truly had some emotional moments in this game; it really succeeds at that. It is just so unfortunate that the game didn't wrap up perfectly. There is too much for me to like in this game. Character studies are always so enjoyable for me, so I know I will remember this game and cherish it for some time.

Spoiler-free bullet-point review:

What I liked:

• thorough exploration and detailed environments, atmosphere
• slow play, sitting and thinking
• problem-solving with time mechanics
• choosing on gut feeling rather than calculations, not knowing the consequences but being satisfied with my choices anyway
• feeling and believing the characters for the most part, if they had hope, so did I: even if I suspected the worst, I saw them struggle and wanted to see it before being certain
• emotions: fear, awe, relief, pain, sorrow... Great design, artful and beautiful that evoked many thoughts
• great representations of insecurity, self-doubt, selfishness

What I didn't like:

• Chloe. Voice, personality, recklessness, her friendship... I couldn't relate to a bff/bae relationship like that (might be just me and my personal life experience)
• because of above, final choice was a no-brainer and fell somewhat flat for me
• Chaos Theory stuff, the tornado and other disasters: I was expecting another explanation and had nice theories, so I'm disappointed with what was given
• confusing character development at parts
• clunky mechanics and mood-ruining bugs in increasing amounts in the later episodes

Overall: A really great game that made me feel and think more than any game in a very long time. It caught me somewhat off-guard but also gave me what I felt like I needed.