Life is Strange was developed by Dontnod Entertainment (The team behind Remember Me and Vampyr) and published by Square Enix for all main console and PC platforms in 2015 as an episodic, choice-based narrative game akin to Telltale games. I have very strong opinions on this game, and I feel like my side of opinions hasn’t really seen the light of day anywhere. So in this review, I’d like to share my thoughts on Life is Strange, enjoy.

Premise: Life is Strange tells the tale of Max Caulfield, a student living in Arcadia Bay, Oregon, and going to Blackwell Academy, a private school specializing in science as well as agricultural arts. After getting a premonition of a storm destroying Arcadia Bay and discovering her power to go back in time, Max goes on a mission to prevent that disaster. You as a player must make various decisions

I think the concept of Life is Strange’s story is very interesting, I think that the idea of giving the player choices that will affect different timelines would actually make for one of the best games ever. However, problems start to appear when it comes to the execution of said concept for me.

First off, let’s talk about the plot devices, or rather plot conveniences. Throughout the game, character motivation hardly influences the sequences of events. The earliest example would be how Max just decides, hey, I need a bathroom break, then goes to the bathroom at just the right time, goes to take a picture behind the stalls at the exact same time as Chloe and Nathan have their fight. It also happens that Nathan, despite searching through the bathroom, doesn’t notice Max. Now, this isn’t something that would ruin the story, but this kind of lazy writing happens throughout.

Another problem I have with the story is the inconsistent way they treat time travel. If you use your powers during while standing in a position different than the one you were standing in a few seconds earlier, you’ll stay in the position you used your powers with. But.. You rewinded time… Does time travel not apply to Max? But.. During cutscenes, she actually does change positions. I won’t go too deep into time travel, but it’s definitely inconsistent if you pay attention. The big issue with this is when it comes to the ending. So apparently there’s this tornado that started because Max changed the natural order of things and saved Chloe. However, later in the game, you travel into the past and use your powers earlier than that. But apparently, if you make the decision to kill Chloe, everything is okay? Because that was the first time you use the time travel powers? But, you went back further and used your powers there. This is another minor aspect that doesn’t necessarily ruin the game’s story, but the plot holes are certainly annoying.

Also, can we just talk about certain elements of the story are straight up never explained? Why does Max have time travel powers? Why does time travel cause the storm? Many important fictional aspects of the story are never explained and shoved to the side in favor of focusing on the moral side of things, as well as the characters. Which isn’t inherently a bad decision, but once again the execution could have been better.

For me, the characters of Life is Strange are either outright bad or boring. Max, in particular, had nothing interesting going on in comparison to the other characters, which is fine I guess since she’s the main character in a choice based game in which the player is supposed to project themselves onto the main protagonist. I start to take issue, however when the character the story heavily relies on you liking them to push the storyline and emotion is outright unlikeable. In my opinion, Chloe is one of the worst characters in a video game. She turns her back on you in one crucial cutscene, she can kill a man and his dog, she hates her stepfather simply because he’s different and strict, she insults Max even though she’s just trying to fit in, etc. I understand she’s had some hardships, but through all of that, she constantly shifts the blame off of herself and onto society, when in reality; she’s the cause of most of her own pain. I don’t have any issues with the other characters, but that’s likely because they’re not in the spotlight.

And the dialogue… The dialogue in Life is Strange was written in such a way that I now assume that the writers are grandparents trying to fit in with the younger generation. Since the game takes place in 2013, and I was the same age as the main characters, I can strongly say that quite literally no one talks like any of the people in this game. With such amazing quotes as: “It will be so karmic to see her ass clown face all over the interwebs.” There are other problems throughout, such as the weird editing choices that cause characters to pause at seemingly random moments. But you get the point.

Remember Mass Effect 3’s story? Remember how it completely ignored every single decision you made any of the games? Well, Life is Strange has an ending that either A, kills everyone in Arcadia, or B, negates all of your progress and kills Chloe. The obvious choice is B, and it’s the one the developers clearly expect you to pick since it’s far longer than A. Literally, Max goes back in time and nothing that happened in the game stays. None of the character development, none of your choices, nothing.

My last problem with the story of is how utterly stupid it treats its audience. Like most stories, Life is Strange has a message, but instead of being vague and in turn adding more reward and meaning to the story it constantly shoves it down your throat. The message is: life sucks, but the only to achieve true maturity is to keep going through it and to not dwell on the past but rather the future. Which is a message clearly taken from its inspiration: The Catcher in the Rye which uses comparisons and symbolism to tell its message and lets the reader interpret it on their own. How it differs from The Catcher in the Rye is by making the message so utterly obvious by literally giving the character time travel powers that are useless because changing one thing causes a hurricane that kills everyone.

Overall, I think Life is Strange’s story fails. I think there are some positives though. The game is well paced, for the most part, it handles some taboos and serious topics that other games won’t touch, and if you disregard the time travel it’s one of the most grounded games out there. I stand by my opinion though, the game fails at telling the story it intended to and is a victim of lazy writing.

Gameplay: Life is Strange plays almost identical to your typical Telltale game. Meaning, you walk around the environment looking for clues for half of the time, and the other half of the time it has you making dialogue or plot choices. The one area where LiS differs from the typical Telltale game is by introducing the time travel aspect, which you use for various puzzles.

With the walking/looking for items aspect, LiS is alright, I guess. Most of the time by interacting with the various objects in the environment to look for lore, you’re either given a line of dialogue from Max which just reiterates either information you already knew or it further elaborates on the characters’ various emotions.

Now, the “choices” are where I start to take problem with the gameplay. LiS gives you the illusion of player choice, however, most of the time your actions hardly affect the outcome of things. Despite starting with the message “Life is Strange is a story based game that features player choice,  the consequences of all your in-game actions and decisions will impact the past, present, and future. Choose wisely…” either few of your choices matter or none of them do, depending on the ending you choose. First off, with the dialogue; a majority of the time if the game gives you one or two dialogue options, they’ll both end up with the same result. For example in an early interaction with Warren: he says “Speaking of hip and fast, we should cruise out in my car to an actual movie this week. But you seem distracted.” You can either respond with “I need to talk.” or “Don’t want to speak about it.” both end up with you talking about it. These kinds of half-assed choices are riddled throughout the game. Now there are some genuine choices that you can make, such as choosing to save certain people or be rude to certain characters, but they’re all pretty obvious and not that big of a deal.

The time travel part of the gameplay is a bit of a puzzle aspect of the game. The player has to understand their power and the environment to progress in multiple ways. This aspect of the game is underutilized, and easy when it is implemented but I’ll mention it nonetheless because these sections added some nice variety.

Overall, Life is Strange is pretty much a point and click adventure game. There are hardly any choices that matter so the only gameplay is looking at the environment and some easy puzzles. LiS has barely any gameplay, though since most of the time it’s just dialogue and cutscenes; and the gameplay that is there is non-consequential.

Visuals/Tech:

The animations in Life is Strange are pretty mixed all around. While some movement animations for background characters are pretty life-like and intriguing, the facial animations are outright bad and look robotic most of the time, but since the character models and the general art style isn’t realistic enough as is, it never becomes uncanny valley levels bad like Mass Effect Andromeda.

Speaking of the character models and art style, LiS looks fine based off of the visuals. The textures and environments didn’t really stand out, but the game’s usage of lighting was really strong and I could tell that a lot of time and effort went into the visuals. It certainly looks distinct, nothing Cuphead levels of unique though.

The performance for this game has issues on consoles for some reason, I don’t just mean the PS3 and 360 ports either. The performance issues are things like bad transitions between cutscenes and gameplay, animation glitches (which are also on PC), and the inconsistent frame rate. For the most part, it’s nothing immersion breaking or game ruining.

Audio:  LiS’s soundtrack is nothing special, some indie tracks here and there for extra emotion with no real clear meaning or significance to the story, and the tracks exclusive to this game are forgettable. The sound effects actually are pretty memorable, there’s a little ringing sound when you make choices, etc. The voice acting is..Good, all of the VAs do a decent job at portraying the characters. Ashly Burch has a consistent performance as Chloe, Hannah Telle does a bit of a monotone and emotionless performance for Max but it’s nothing to take you out of the game, Dani Knights captures Victoria’s character perfectly with her performance, etc. Overall, the cast had memorable performances and were consistent.

Cutscenes/Direction:  Life is Strange is directed pretty much exactly how you’d expect. A lot of close-ups on people’s faces while they’re talking, wide shots, etc. There are a few exceptions in which there are panning shots, but rarely does the camera ever move in an interesting manner. It’s nothing to ruin the experience though, it’s just a tad boring.

Overall Thoughts: Life is Strange is a mediocre experience overall. The lack of gameplay really puts an emphasis on a story that just isn’t that good, and nothing else in the game really stands out enough to deemphasize the aforementioned story. I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone, really. I don’t even think I can count it as a game. It’s more of a visual novel with some extra presentation points and a frustrating story, really.

5/10

I understand my opinion on this game isn’t particularly popular, so if you’d like to share your thoughts on the game as well in the comments, feel free.