< THIS ACTION WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES... >
Narrative games aren’t anything new in video game industry since it was popularized by David Cage’s controversial productions or even the Telltale games.
Those games allows you to follow a thrilling story and make decisions that will change the course of it. Sometimes the QTEs gameplay forces you to take decisions quickly that you will regret later. Naturally, you’ll blame the time itself ‘if only I had the time to think about this I wouldn’t make such stupid decisions’. And here you have Life is Strange a game that will let you have all the time in the world even allowing you to rewind it. Reminding you that no matter what you’ll screw up and make mistakes, you’re just human after all.
STORY
Life is strange uses one of the most popular tropes of its release time due to the stranger things phenomena (and doesn’t hide its inspirations throught various in game references) the so called time travel. As someone who isn’t fond at all of this kind of story I’ve been really pleasantly suprised here. In my opinion, time travel is a risky subject. It can feel either boring and predictable but it can especially make a story real hard to follow.
Here you have the most comprehensive and well explained time travel story ever, I didn’t even felt a bit confused. The time travel isn’t there for nothing or trying to ride the Stranger Thing’s wave, it’s both relevant to the story and the gameplay. The ending makes so much sense with the time travel themes, I think it’s perfect. Talking about story, be ready for an emotional ride here, there’s not one, not two but three extremely mind-blowing plot twist that will leave you speachless.
My only gripes with the game is Max, the character and its voice acting are so melodramatic that it becames irritating or even laughable at some point.
GAMEPLAY / STORYTELLING
Like in narrative game you’ll be running around in envirronnement, inspecting everything and talking to everyone you can. Inspecting thoroughly rewards you by making direct consequences to the main story and having access to sub-story of secondary character you wouldn’t otherwise.
Arcadia Bay is full of interesting characters but it’s a shame that when talking to them you get 90% of the time only the option to chitchat and learn nothing about ‘Rachel’, ‘Nathan Prescott’ or even ‘The strange weather’. The dialogues felt really similar and drowning to me with Max always overtalking.
Time travel is at the core of the gameplay. It is used in lots of various genious way.
As I said before, you can use it to witness the differents outcomes of your choices and choose your best way. I really love this mechanic I felt finally the master of my story in narrative game. I hadn’t to reload the game when the outcome didn’t please me. Time travel is also used in gameplay sequences in really smart ways but I will let you discover that by yourself. Talking about choices I felt like they hadn’t that much effect in the story but after browsing it they do have a bunch of them like allowing you some mor actions, solving problem in different ways, line of dialogues but even the death of certain characters. It’s still the same storyline thought so I don’t know if it’s really replayable as a detroid become human would be. For that purpose it lacks of a choice tree to see of much variant you have seen.
ENVIRONNEMENT
Here I can gush about the biggest highlight of the games : Arcadia Bay. It’s so 2015 coded the outfits, the polaroid, the song... I felt back in time playing the artsy girl I always dreamed of becoming when I was little. I’m convinced that when 2015 will be trending again it will be all over social media for aesthetic purpose. And there’s just so much care put in the envirronement, the little graffitis to read, all the object to interract with, the leaflets and posters that all have an original artwork. It’s a game full of art references going from video game pop culture to arthouse cinema, you can tell the developpers have acquired taste.
ARTISTIC DIRECTION AND GRAPHISM
They choose cell-shaded graphics as in Telltale productions but softer. While I do love the environnement I’m not sure about the characters, they sometimes felt really weird to me.
Technically I think it lacks of polish I’ve encountered huge framerate drops that forced me to reload my data and some scenes felt real weird because of facial expressions. I have watched remaster comparaison and at least the facial issues seems to be fixed so I would advise you to prioritize this version.
SOUNDTRACK
The soundtrack is really matching the 2015 vibes with indie folk/hipster music and a bunch of voice tracks but honestly that’s typically the kind of music I cannot stand. So I won’t be able to judge its overall quality.
CLOSING THOUGHT
Life is Strange is certainly a solid narrative game that brings with its time travel mechanic something new and fresh to the genre. It’s also a game that popularized the ‘indie vibe’ narrative games when most of them were solely shaped for hollywoodian story. Even if the queer content isn’t near perfect and felt a bit like queerbaiting at some point even if I’m a huge fan of platonic and ambiguous friendship. I really loved to see not cliche or ‘funny’ queer representation and not oversexualised women protagonist in video game.
For all this reason and its overall popularity I think Life is Strange has been an influencial game in the industry that shows that male gaze isn’t the only way.
Narrative games aren’t anything new in video game industry since it was popularized by David Cage’s controversial productions or even the Telltale games.
Those games allows you to follow a thrilling story and make decisions that will change the course of it. Sometimes the QTEs gameplay forces you to take decisions quickly that you will regret later. Naturally, you’ll blame the time itself ‘if only I had the time to think about this I wouldn’t make such stupid decisions’. And here you have Life is Strange a game that will let you have all the time in the world even allowing you to rewind it. Reminding you that no matter what you’ll screw up and make mistakes, you’re just human after all.
STORY
Life is strange uses one of the most popular tropes of its release time due to the stranger things phenomena (and doesn’t hide its inspirations throught various in game references) the so called time travel. As someone who isn’t fond at all of this kind of story I’ve been really pleasantly suprised here. In my opinion, time travel is a risky subject. It can feel either boring and predictable but it can especially make a story real hard to follow.
Here you have the most comprehensive and well explained time travel story ever, I didn’t even felt a bit confused. The time travel isn’t there for nothing or trying to ride the Stranger Thing’s wave, it’s both relevant to the story and the gameplay. The ending makes so much sense with the time travel themes, I think it’s perfect. Talking about story, be ready for an emotional ride here, there’s not one, not two but three extremely mind-blowing plot twist that will leave you speachless.
My only gripes with the game is Max, the character and its voice acting are so melodramatic that it becames irritating or even laughable at some point.
GAMEPLAY / STORYTELLING
Like in narrative game you’ll be running around in envirronnement, inspecting everything and talking to everyone you can. Inspecting thoroughly rewards you by making direct consequences to the main story and having access to sub-story of secondary character you wouldn’t otherwise.
Arcadia Bay is full of interesting characters but it’s a shame that when talking to them you get 90% of the time only the option to chitchat and learn nothing about ‘Rachel’, ‘Nathan Prescott’ or even ‘The strange weather’. The dialogues felt really similar and drowning to me with Max always overtalking.
Time travel is at the core of the gameplay. It is used in lots of various genious way.
As I said before, you can use it to witness the differents outcomes of your choices and choose your best way. I really love this mechanic I felt finally the master of my story in narrative game. I hadn’t to reload the game when the outcome didn’t please me. Time travel is also used in gameplay sequences in really smart ways but I will let you discover that by yourself. Talking about choices I felt like they hadn’t that much effect in the story but after browsing it they do have a bunch of them like allowing you some mor actions, solving problem in different ways, line of dialogues but even the death of certain characters. It’s still the same storyline thought so I don’t know if it’s really replayable as a detroid become human would be. For that purpose it lacks of a choice tree to see of much variant you have seen.
ENVIRONNEMENT
Here I can gush about the biggest highlight of the games : Arcadia Bay. It’s so 2015 coded the outfits, the polaroid, the song... I felt back in time playing the artsy girl I always dreamed of becoming when I was little. I’m convinced that when 2015 will be trending again it will be all over social media for aesthetic purpose. And there’s just so much care put in the envirronement, the little graffitis to read, all the object to interract with, the leaflets and posters that all have an original artwork. It’s a game full of art references going from video game pop culture to arthouse cinema, you can tell the developpers have acquired taste.
ARTISTIC DIRECTION AND GRAPHISM
They choose cell-shaded graphics as in Telltale productions but softer. While I do love the environnement I’m not sure about the characters, they sometimes felt really weird to me.
Technically I think it lacks of polish I’ve encountered huge framerate drops that forced me to reload my data and some scenes felt real weird because of facial expressions. I have watched remaster comparaison and at least the facial issues seems to be fixed so I would advise you to prioritize this version.
SOUNDTRACK
The soundtrack is really matching the 2015 vibes with indie folk/hipster music and a bunch of voice tracks but honestly that’s typically the kind of music I cannot stand. So I won’t be able to judge its overall quality.
CLOSING THOUGHT
Life is Strange is certainly a solid narrative game that brings with its time travel mechanic something new and fresh to the genre. It’s also a game that popularized the ‘indie vibe’ narrative games when most of them were solely shaped for hollywoodian story. Even if the queer content isn’t near perfect and felt a bit like queerbaiting at some point even if I’m a huge fan of platonic and ambiguous friendship. I really loved to see not cliche or ‘funny’ queer representation and not oversexualised women protagonist in video game.
For all this reason and its overall popularity I think Life is Strange has been an influencial game in the industry that shows that male gaze isn’t the only way.