Life is Strange Review

                                    A Journalistic Review by DefiantParrot

                                         Originally Written: 11/20/2017

                                               *Spoilers May Be Ahead*

                          (Please: There is an important message at the end of this review)

Certainly out of my comfort zone here

Developer: Dontnod Entertainment

Publisher: Square Enix

Platform: Xbox One

Genre: Graphic/Point-and-Click Adventure

Release: October 20, 2015

                Episodic games. We all know about them particularly from Telltale, it wasn’t that long ago I dabbled in these games with Telltale’s The Walking Dead. And to my utter surprise I loved it, absolutely fell in love with everything about that game. Ever since then I always got excited when Telltale announced a new one, however these days that excitement is almost nonexistent. However I heard things about this new episodic point-and-click adventure game published by the Final Fantasy guys of all people so I decided to give it a try, one physical copy purchased later and I was playing Life is Strange.

The very first thing I noticed about Life is Strange is that this game looks…. well bad. The game just doesn’t look right, they try to make these characters and environments look realistic but the uncanny valley is in full effect from beginning to end. Telltale games always used a cel shaded effect making their games look almost like cartoons so you didn’t expect realism from them, whatever they were using here doesn’t work it looks ugly as hell in my opinion.

I mean I can see the effort, but...

The second thing I noticed was the music, this game loves its soundtrack. Every new episode there’s a moment of just seeing events happen, or looking out the window of a bus as the soundtrack plays. I wouldn’t mind this if it didn’t seem to happen every thirty minutes. Seriously, I get it you’re proud of it but don’t be so fucking pretentious about it.

What a nice man

The third thing that immediately jumped out at me and stayed consistent all the way through was the voice acting. If there’s one thing I can praise Life is Strange for it’s this. Several of these characters stand out with their voice particularly Ashley Burch as Chloe, and Derek Phillips as Mark Jefferson. There was never a moment where I was taken out of the game by the performances.

What did take me out was about a half an hour in and I noticed that the lip synching was fucking atrocious! The dialogue did not match up to anything being said, and towards the end of the game I had almost an entire conversation without ever opening my mouth, apparently Max picked up telekinesis along the way as well as time manipulation.

Right, right guess I haven’t mentioned that okay Life is Strange stars young Maxine Caulfield, or just Max never Maxine, as she attends Blackwell Academy in Arcadia Bay, Oregon. Max’s dream is to become a famous photographer however she sort of loses track of this when she wakes up one day from a disturbing nightmare

What I find unbelievable about this isn’t the dream, or the powers she notices shortly after that are never explained, but how Max is asleep at her desk Directly In Front of The Teacher!!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve been in school, but my teachers would have literally thrown the book at me if I’d tried that.

Anyway confused and a little frightened Max ends up in the women’s bathroom where she sees another student accidentally kill a young woman Max uses her new powers to rewind time Prince of Persia style and saves her life.

What a jerk

From here is where Life is Strange truly begins, Max can decide to report this to the principal who I swear is Laurence Fishburne in between films, or hide it and this decision will play a part in the rest of the game. Because that’s what all these episodic games do now, they try to convince you that your choices matter.

I choose the blue pill

And it is true that many of your decisions will carry a lot of weight throughout the rest of the game, and many others won’t mean a thing. The weight of this is hampered by knowing that you can rewind time to change what happened. In Walking Dead, or Wolf Among Us if you made a bad call you had to live with it. In Life is Strange if you make a bad call one rewind will fix it.

The time manipulation mechanic is well done and well utilized don’t get me wrong, but it’s hard for me to really worry about my choices knowing I can fix them right then and there.

So the gameplay to Life is Strange, it’s a point-and-click adventure where the gameplay is, you walk around interacting with people and objects, having conversations, and occasionally rewinding time.

A good mystery this

Now many will argue that games like these are not ‘real games’ as you don’t play them as much as you watch them and wherever you fall in that debate is up to you, I’m not here to try and persuade you one way or another but for me in my opinion I don’t mind it if the game’s story and characters makes up for it.

So all in all did I enjoy the story of Life is Strange? Well for the most part, yes the game has a couple mysteries in it like the disappearance of a fellow student Rachel Amber, what exactly is the extent of Max’s new powers, and just who will win the “Everyday Heroes” contest? Okay that last one doesn’t really matter until the end, but the mysteries and storytelling here is done pretty well with a couple moments catching me off guard.

As for the characters I enjoyed most of them. Our protagonist Max is in my opinion a relatable young woman. In a weird way she reminded me of myself in high school, this young 18 year old artist reminded me, a 26 year old man of myself in high school. I’m not going to say I didn’t get a little uncomfortable playing this, but that’s just me being an idiot so no points against the game there.

Other characters stood out as well, Kate Marsh another student who is mercilessly bullied and harassed I felt so sorry for every time I saw her reminding me of  some of my own peers who were treated poorly. David Madsen the security guard for Blackwell and possible contender for biggest douche award.

The game does a really good job I feel of capturing young adulthood. Mainly with all of the insecurities and doubts we all had growing up. That of course includes the bad decisions and some of these I had no option to skip out on.

As good as the story and characters are, watching some of the environment pop in in front of me, takes me out of the scene and story so fast my head spins.

These weren’t one time things either pop in happened all the time and I know between this, the lip synching, and graphics it sounds like I’m nitpicking but these complaints do add up.

Fuck these

What Life is Strange does do best is its story absolutely, however when Life is Strange is at its worst is when it tries to remember that it’s a video game. There will be times where the game stops so you can search for items or clues and won’t proceed until you do. Now when it does this so we can search the principal’s office for clues to solve a murder its fine, when I’m walking around a boring junkyard to collect five bottles so kids can play with a loaded fucking gun it fucking sucks.

And there are several moments of these fetch quests that just break up the pace of the story, look every point-in-click has these moments. But good ones make sure these are interesting and tie into the story.

Helping a blue-haired dumbass shoot a stolen gun does nothing to get me invested. Oh we’ll get to her soon!

Another complaint I have is the game has some inconsistent rules. For instance it is established early on that whenever Max rewinds time she will keep anything she has taken.

For instance if you steal someone’s keys right in front of them and they decide to stand up and introduce your face to the floor, you can rewind time to before you stole the keys, yet you will still have the keys.

There’s a moment early on where Kate Marsh is being harassed by David, your options are take a picture for evidence, or step in and tell David to shove it.

I have no joke here

I chose to take the picture then rewind time, and stop David from harassing her, however the game wouldn’t let me do that. Coughing and pulling up it’s trench coat and telling me that no I did it wrong and I can’t do that here. Even though the game later establishes that Max can do exactly that.

That’s the problem with giving a character powers like these, if you’re not consistent with them or play by the rules you established I won’t be able to take anything you do seriously.

Kids... NEVER DO THIS!!!!!!

Alright that aside of all my complaints so far there is one big annoyance in Life is Strange that drove me up a fucking wall and her name is Chloe.

This blue haired fucking bimbo is probably one of the dumbest fucking characters I have ever had this misfortune of meeting in a video game.

Not just regular teenage stupidity I could live with that, but next level moronic decisions and choice of words I’m convinced this kid was dropped on her head from a fucking skyscraper.

I know there are fans who love this character and would never dream of hurting her. I am not one of them I wanted to watch the train in chapter two splatter her across the fucking screen.

She is a tragic character and I won’t say that I didn’t feel sorry for her at times, but her refusal to listen, or care about anyone else drove me insane.

For instance it is established early on that using her powers too much hurts Max. And even though Max says this over and over and Chloe can see Max in pain, Chloe keeps pressuring her to use her powers all the time. From relying on it when chasing down a murderer, to wasting their time shooting fucking bottles, NO I WILL NOT GET OVER THAT!

IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To breaking into Max’s school after dark and deciding to take a fucking swim… The point is Chloe is a character who is in this game a lot, that I was supposed to care about but I didn’t. And when the ending finally came it wasn’t a difficult choice at all. There was no weight there was no sadness, spoiler alert this bitch is dead!!!!

All in all Life is Strange was compelling I can’t say it wasn’t. The story did make me want to keep playing and unearth the mysteries at Blackwell, helping Kate and the other students did make me want to finish the game. Everything dealing with Chloe made me want to shove a screwdriver up my dick so it doesn’t really balance out.

Life is Strange receives No Seal

Pretty much sums it up

I really wanted to give this game Bronze, but with how unlikeable Chloe is, to the little graphical annoyances that pile up, and the inconsistent story I just can’t.

I know this game received several awards particularly for covering subjects considered taboo, and you know what it does deserve every one of them because it does show those subjects in a respectable light. But the game is not fun to play and at the end of the day that’s what Life is Strange is. A video game.

So this is where I usually have a link to follow my twitter, but instead I want to take a moment to say something. 

This game deals with suicide, and I'm not complaining about that in fact, the game is very respectful to the pain that depression can cause, as someone who has dealt with that myself I did appreciate that.

And with certain things having happened recently, I'd like to try to do something. Now I make very, VERY little money from doing this, so what I'm going to do is donate to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline and if anyone stumbles upon this, please if you are able to in anyway I urge you to donate, a dollar, ten dollars times are tough I know and every little bit helps.

I'm not receiving any payment for this btw I'm just someone who, has felt the effect of depression and attempted suicide myself. I say this as someone who believes that people matter, lives matter, and good people can make a difference. If you are reading this and, you are having problems, times are tough and you feel trapped in your own mind, if your thoughts are beginning to get the better of you, for the love of God please talk to someone. The Lifeline is free, and you yes YOU are worth it. People love you and you deserve so much more than what you may be contemplating. Please, ask for help it is not a weakness and you deserve a life, never forget that. Thank You.