When I first heard of Life is Strange, I was reminded of what made me want to try out DONTNOD’s first game, Remember Me. The premise of that game was more than enough to get me interested, but it became slightly disappointing once I started playing. With this game, I was immediately drawn to the premise as well but didn’t really expect a whole lot from it. I actually forgot about it entirely until a few days after episode 1 came out. From the moment I started my 9-month long journey with Life is Strange, there was something that had me hooked. The art style, the soundtrack, and the rather odd dialogue that brings its own charm, it’s hard to place what specifically drew me in. But even from those early moments, I could tell there was something about this game. Something special. What I got was a game that drew me in deeper with each subsequent episode and made me confront who I am and who I want to be. The following paragraphs break down each episode individually and are as spoiler free as possible.
Episode 1: Chrysalis: As expected this episode spends a ton of time on set-up by introducing all the characters, story elements, gameplay mechanics, and the usual stuff an introductory chapter does. This game opens up in a big way as the first moments of the game have you controlling Max Caulfield as she regains consciousness during a particularly bad storm. As you make your way uphill, a massive tornado fills the screen. After a boat is slammed into a nearby lighthouse, Max awakens in her photography class at Blackwell Academy, a prestigious private arts school located in the fictional town of Arcadia Bay, Oregon. After a short sequence that does a surprisingly decent job of introducing most of the characters, given how short it is, Max heads to the restroom to clear her head. While doing so, another character by the name of Nathan Prescott, busts through the door and begins having a breakdown. Another character, who later we find out is Max’s estranged friend Chloe Price, soon follows and is shot by Nathan. Seeing this, Max steps out of hiding and is then transported back into her class. Here she discovers that she has the extraordinary ability to rewind time and proceeds to stop the shooting. After slightly exploring this brilliant mechanic (which will be detailed later on) Max and Chloe reunite and begin reconnecting after five years without contact. The rest of the first episode brings the mysterious disappearance of Chloe’s new best friend, Rachel Amber, to the forefront of the main narrative and develops Max and Chloe who soon become two of the most relatable characters I’ve ever seen in a game. As this episode’s reaches it’s closing moments it is clear that if this game has one thing, it is potential. The unique hook, the vibe, the set-up, the characters, and the sheer amount of possibilities all add up to a debut that shows immense promise. And episode 2 is where Life is Strange truly begins to shine.
Episode 2: Out of Time: There’s a moment at the end of this episode that stands as a turning point where Life is Strange moves from a wistful adventure of two teenage friends reuniting, into something far more. Episode 2 centers around a controversial viral video of religious student Kate Marsh and how the resulting fallout affects her. Throughout the episode, Max will have many opportunities to help, or not if the player chooses, Kate in dealing with her new-found infamy. While carefully tackling many sensitive topics in that narrative thread, this episode also gets a little deeper into Max’s relationships with other characters, most importantly Chloe. This episode does a fantastic job of not only furthering the relationship between the two main characters, but also shedding a little more light on the relationship between Chloe and Rachel Amber. While this episode might have the best moment in the whole game, it also has the absolute worst. When hanging out with Chloe in the junkyard where she and Rachel made their hideout, the game sends the player on an annoying fetch quest. This demonstrates my biggest problem with the game as a whole. For the first three episodes, the engrossing story is continually undercut by poor gameplay puzzles that mostly involve searching an area for objects. After finding all of the objects, there is more bonding time with Chloe before Max must head back to class. It is here that arguably one of the best moments of the year occurs, and without spoilers this moment is a brutally intense, emotional, and all too real moment that brings back some key choices in a major way. What sets this already incredible moment apart is that it is entirely possible to get negative outcome, that looking back I don't think I would have been able to handle. No matter the outcome, this moment is one of the best reminders of what games do better than any other medium by combining the thematic elements of the episode with gameplay. It is truly one of the most incredible things I’ve seen a game pull off. The much darker tone of this episode shows that this game is not afraid of taking on many sensitive subjects and it handles them with commendable tact and grace. While episode 2 hits on most levels, it is episode 3 where Life is Strange comes into its own as one of the most surprising games of the year.
Episode 3: Chaos Theory: Episode 3 has the duty of following one of the best moments of the year and does so in a great way. This episode starts hours after the ending of the last and takes a closer look at the relationships between Max and Chloe, and Chloe and Rachel. These relationships are examined while Max and Chloe resort to some rather tame teenage shenanigans such as breaking into the school pool. The moment when the two characters are swimming and reminiscing on their past is one of the most poignant scenes in the game and sets the tone for the rest of the episode. This whole episode is built around a wistful remembrance of days gone by and doubles down on some of the most resonant messages in the game. The game serves as a reminder to appreciate the good times as they happen because they will one day become memories to be shared and looked back upon with fondness. This episode also continues to use the photography motif to further drive the intense nostalgia trip that fuels the entire game. After spending the morning hanging out at Chloe’s house, the search for information regarding Rachel Amber’s disappearance continues. In these moments, the character of Chloe Price gets some incredible moments of development that turn her into one of the most human and real characters of the year. Up to this point, she has been a faithful companion to Max but has some moments of extreme immaturity and petulance. It isn’t a stretch to say that she becomes a bit insufferable at many times throughout the first two episodes, but some information revealed here paints her in a far more sympathetic light. As episode 3 comes to a close, this game pulls another trick out of its sleeve. Max discovers that her power extends far beyond the present. The sequence that follows blows the doors wide open for what could be possible in this game. While the ending of this chapter may be lifted straight out of a certain well known movie, the way it is presented is a fantastic cliffhanger. As far as complaints go, this episode is riddled with some segments of gameplay that are thinly disguised fetch quests that really detract from what makes this game special. There are some incredibly clever uses of Max’s powers as a gameplay mechanic here, but the parts leading up to those moments are a drag to say the least. Despite this, Life is Strange’s third episode stands as a fantastic, tonally lighter bridge between the intense end of Episode 2, and the drastically darker episode 4.
Episode 4: Dark Room: The penultimate episode opens in the aftermath of the cliffhanger of the third chapter and this whole scene features some touching moments between Max and Chloe. Not only that but there are also some incredible moments where Max is alone with her thoughts. Some of the most poignant moments of the whole game happen when Max is simply sitting in a chair. While this episode features many of the best moments in the entire game, it also has some disappointing things from a writing standpoint. This early segment blows the door wide open for what is possible, but then almost immediately goes back on all of it in an emotionally manipulative way. Following this sequence, Max and Chloe are still hot on the trail of Rachel Amber’s whereabouts and must gather the final pieces in the puzzle. One moment sees Max stealing files from Chloe’s step-dad, while the next sees her breaking into Nathan’s room which brings up another lapse in writing as she inexplicably never uses her powers to prevent completely avoidable situations (although they at least make the attempt to justify these moments of less than stellar writing, so I can't rail them too hard on it). As with the rest of the episode, immediately after a moment of bad writing, there is a moment of brilliance. The last task is for the duo to meet up with another character, Frank Bowers who has shown up a few times up to this point, in order to gain the last bit of information to launch a full blown investigation. This moment is one of the most incredibly well designed moments in any game based around player choice. Detailed in this SPOILER FILLED flowchart, this moment brings in so many small elements from past episodes and can go quite a few different ways depending on your choices throughout the game. In fact there are a few moments in this episode that bring back many choices from past episodes and those are some of the most satisfying parts in any game this year because for once, it feels like your choices actually pay off. Now that Max and Chloe have a ton of information, this game breaks its own mold of fetch quests with a rather well done gameplay sequence that has the player piecing together clues to find where Nathan was at the time of the events that created the scenario in episode 2. Now that the two know the details, they head out to a seemingly abandoned farmhouse. Inside, they find the titular dark room and the sinister conspiracy surrounding Rachel Amber and the other events of the game begin to unravel. What comes next is one of the most emotional, sobering, and personally affecting moments I’ve ever seen in a game. This moment as well as everything that follows are driven home by a top notch performance by the insanely talented Ashly Burch. Her performance as Chloe puts every moment on a completely different level than any Chloe-less scene. The closing moments of this episode answer quite a few of the questions that had been lingering up to this point and furthers the much darker tone that will carry over into the finale. There are many things that episode 4 does extremely well, but some writing problems and the complete abandonment of the ending of episode 3 do leave a noticeable mark on an otherwise fantastic episode. I would go as far as saying the from the end sequence of episode 2 to the ending of episode 4 and everything in between amount to one of the most incredible stretches of a game that I have seen in a long time.
Episode 5: Polarized: And then there’s episode 5. In many ways this episode would be the only justification I would need to place this game in truly rarefied company, but saying that this chapter goes completely off the rails would be an understatement. It is hard to talk about the finale of an episodic game without spoiling anything, so the rest of this breakdown will be purposefully nebulous throughout. The finale opens after the events of episode 4, and takes the tone of the game into some of the darkest places I’ve seen in the medium. Max wakes up in an incredibly vulnerable position and must find a way out. At the end of episode 3, Max discovers a new ability and this whole episode comes close to driving it into the ground. The game uses this ability to explore the far reaching consequences of her time travel, but uses it about seven times in the episode and about half take place in the first segment, causing it to lose impact rather quickly. In fact the entire episode feels like the writers throwing all of the incredible restraint shown up to this point right out the window. Following these segments, Max’s coming of age story shines through as she becomes far more confident in herself than she was at the beginning of the game, to the point where she never questions the decisions she makes like she does throughout the past episodes. This is a very subtle change that goes a long way in fully developing Max as a character. After finally escaping her predicament, Max then heads into the heart of the massive storm that has been teased in each episode. This sequence leads to Max confronting the storm hitting Arcadia Bay, as well as the storm inside her mind, in a display of heavy handed symbolism. What follows is where the game resumes falling apart at the seams. This sequence sees Max entering a nightmare that does feature some clever uses of the dialog tree and the rewind powers, but also features a way too long puzzle and stealth section that is absolutely not fun to play at all. This is yet another case of this game undercutting itself in some downright bad ways. The parts that don’t have gameplay shoehorned in are a recap of past events and are done rather well for what they are. After literally confronting her own self conscious, Max awakens at the lighthouse that has been prevalent throughout the game. Here the player must make a choice and depending on the choice, they get one of two endings. However there is an imbalance between the endings that leads to my biggest disappointment of the game. One ending is given plenty of care and is presented in an incredible way, despite the fact that people were predicting it in January when episode 1 first came out. This ending also stays true to the coming of age themes of the game as Max begins to take responsibility for her actions. The ending may not be original or really all that great, but as I said, it is presented in a fantastic way. The other ending is a different story. This ending is given minimal time with basic presentation and it quite honestly feels at odds with the events that lead up to it. The disparity between the endings paints one as the true ending despite both being equally valid. The great disappointment here is that none of your previous choices come into play in either ending, but this has pretty much become par for the course in choice based adventure games. From The Walking Dead Season One to Life is Strange, and everything in between, the majority of choices merely change how certain characters act toward the protagonist. One thing Life is Strange does well in this regard is the sheer amount of variation in scenes as a direct result of previous choices. Some choices change dialogue, some change aesthetics in certain areas, a few can change who is present for certain scenes, and one event can even change whether or not one of the best scenes in the game even happens. These variables are where this game stands out from other games in this genre. Despite none of the choices mattering in the very end, Life is Strange comes to a dramatic, emotionally resonant close that hit me harder than any game I’ve ever played, any book I’ve ever read, and any movie I’ve ever seen. I have heard many people talk about games that stuck with them days, or even weeks, after ending and now I can add to that conversation with my experience in Life is Strange.
Beyond the story, there are some incredibly unique things that this game does with Max’s rewind powers. What the time rewinding allows from a gameplay perspective is that in any conversation, the player can rewind and use anything they may have learned to accomplish many things. Even when making a major choice, time can be rewound if the result isn’t satisfactory. This flies directly in the face of how choice based games usually work. In order to change choices in other games, the player must “save scum” (i.e. how I spent my entire time with Fallout 4). Building this normally frowned upon tactic as a game mechanic is not only one of the most unique gameplay twists pulled in quite some time but the way it connects into some of the major themes is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen in a game. Even early on, it is quite clear that this is going to be a coming of age story, as Max spends most of the time doubting herself and struggling with her identity. Rewinding as a mechanic manifests itself in ways such as hearing another character answer a question then rewinding to answer it and reaping the praise, or getting to know a character better in an effort to befriend them. It is a petty way to use time manipulation powers, but it exactly what a person like Max, and other insecure and lacking in confidence people such as myself, would most likely use them for. Despite the game blatantly calling attention to this in episode 5, it is still one of the most subtle combinations of mechanics and storytelling that I’ve seen all year. Throughout the game there are also many stealth and puzzle sections throughout the game. While these segments range from minor annoyance to downright bad, they do use the rules of the rewind in some clever ways. There are multiple times where Max picks up an object, moves to a different part of the area, rewinds, then uses the object to complete a task. Even the stealth segments feature the mechanic because Max can ostensibly “teleport” by moving, rewinding, and the moving again. Even the worst parts of the gameplay still feature the mechanic in interesting ways.
Another thing this game does incredibly well is characters. Almost every character starts out as a walking cliche, but quickly become some of the most real characters in gaming. Every major character gets ample amounts of development even when screen time is at a premium. Almost every one of the side characters get quite a bit of development, to the point where there were a few in particular that I wish played a bigger role. As in most stories, the main character obviously gets the vast majority of the development and Max’s arc is one of the most relatable I’ve seen in awhile. She starts as a relatively insecure and reserved person, but as events begin to unfold she becomes a far more confident and self-assured person. When making any major decision, Max’s conscious will question it no matter what choice was made. Over the course of the game, these moments become less pronounced, until they cease completely in episode 5. Small touches like this go a long way in making Max not only an incredibly relatable character, but also serve to complete her coming of age story. The character of Max Caulfield is a character that struck a chord with me as someone dealing with many of the same personal identity issues as her and every moment is fantastically voiced by Hannah Telle. However there is another character who I would count outright as one of the best characters I’ve ever seen in a game.
I have a deep personal connection with Chloe. More than I care to admit. At first she seemed like a rebellious punk teenager that merely reminded me of my best friend in high school, who helped me bring out the best parts of my personality much like she does with Max. But very soon she became more. Far more. When I was six years old, my best and at the time only friend suddenly disappeared. Even though it was almost 16 years ago, this time in my life has tainted me and to this day I can’t recall one person I have been able to fully trust. Exactly like Chloe. Over the course of the game it was impossible for me not to root for her to find her friend. Even in times where she was being a selfish, petulant, perpetually miserable person, I couldn’t not be drawn to her as I have been all of those things for very much the same reasons. With each reveal my adoration and connection with this character became stronger than it should have. The entire sequence where Max and Chloe launch their own investigation into what happened to Rachel was one of the most fulfilling moments I’ve experienced in a game because it is something I wish I had the power to do when I was six. It is hard to pull back and analyse this character from a less subjective viewpoint, but even in that regard this character stands as one of the best written characters of the year. Her development is one of the most believable and complete character arcs that I can recall. And what would a video game character be without a voice. A one of a kind performance by the amazingly talented Ashly Burch is what truly brings this character to life. Every scene featuring Chloe is completely and utterly stolen by this performance, and every line is delivered to near perfection. Even this game’s sometimes eye rolling dialogue is nailed by the acting. As this game reaches its closing moments Ashly’s performance reaches an apex that guarantees that she wins, at the very least, my award for best female performance at the end of the year. Looking back on this character, it is hard not to be biased. I have never seen a character that I could so thoroughly relate to in so many ways portrayed in a piece of fiction before. The strong writing, the even stronger personal connection, and “Smash Your Game Machines’s 2015 Best Female Performance” from Ashly Burch make Chloe one of the most human and real characters I’ve ever seen in a story.
Life is Strange is a fascinating game. The way DONTNOD took the well known practice of save scumming and built the entire game around it is one of the most unique and refreshing things I’ve seen a game do this year. Those two words describe every element of this game. Unique and refreshing. The pacific northwest setting, the fantastic cast of characters, the unusual dialogue, the gameplay twists, and one of the best soundtracks in recent memory all add up to what can only be described as one of the most inexplicably charming games of the year. That charm only makes the negatives of this game all the more apparent. There are writing problems in bounds, that unusual dialogue might put many people off, almost all of the gameplay elements outside of the investigation board are pretty bad, the choices don't matter in the end, quite a few plot threads get dropped completely, and there is a ton of missed potential in this game. At the end of the day it is impossible to not ponder what this game could have pulled off with a bigger budget. There are many moments in this game that seem like they will lead to some truly revolutionary things, but everything comes back to the critical path. In the moments following each of the first four episodes, I was theorizing the possibilities of the endings; one depending on how often the rewind was used, one depending on a choice in episode 4 that you don’t actually get to make in the game, one where the plant in Max’s room becomes a Poison Ivy-esque villain if you gave it either too much or too little water, one where they didn’t go with a binary choice that can be predicted in the first 10 minutes of episode 1, but none of those came to fruition. Then again, this is a game where the developer’s couldn’t afford to sync lip movement with the audio, so it is still rather impressive what they were able to pull off. Despite all of the flaws, DONTNOD was able to create one of the most innovative, unique, endearing, and important games of the year. It might be a bit pretentious, but I feel that this game is far more than a game. What started as a Twin Peaks inspired story of friendship became one of the most delightfully sentimental, thought provoking, and personally affecting pieces of fiction that I have ever experienced. I could go on and on about how much I fully enjoyed this game but it will suffice to say that this game is a brilliant atypical power fantasy that I will not soon forget. Wowsers, Life is Strange is a hella-va game. Thanks for reading.
Likes: Max and Chloe are two of the most relatable characters in all of gaming, game brilliantly uses mechanics to exhibit thematic elements, Ashly Burch is a show stealer, exquisite soundtrack adds an immeasurably to each moment, Game shines brightest in its quietest moments
Dislikes: Some bad gameplay decisions undercut the riveting story at the worst times, The finale leaves MUCH to be desired,
REFERENCES
Flowchart picture: Killham, Evan. "The Ridiculous Design behind a Key Scene in Life Is Strange." VentureBeat. 4 Aug. 2015. Web. <http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/04/the-ridiculous-design-behind-a-key-scene-in-life-is-strange/>.
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