Rate top gamesI really wanted it to be good too. At least, I went into into assuming it would be a well-written, highly emotional tale about characters I love. Unfortunately I was mistaken.
The story is fine. It kept me invested enough to keep sluggishly wading through the tepid mess that is the game. I'll admit that I admire the balls the writers had to (SPOILERS) make the ending render everything you do in the game completely pointless. But for a game that is meant to be focused on and is most praised for it's characters, they sure were the most annoying fucking hobgoblins on the face of the Earth. The protagonist is boring and explains everything she does to the player. Worse is her best friend, who everyone seems to love for some reason. She gets some of the worst lines I have ever heard in any game, which is saying something looking at the quality of writing in most games. It is painfully obvious throughout the entire 'experience' that the writers are some guys in their late 30's with no knowledge of how people under 20 speak.
In terms of meaningful choices I rarely gave two shits as I didn't care about what happened to the characters. Any part that could be actually emotional is ruined by one of the characters involved saying something that sounds like a bot wrote it. I at least liked the part where you go into the alternate dimension and have to decide whether you should euthanize your best friend or not. It truly was emotional and showed the makers of the game really do have skill somewhere inside them. Unfortunately it isn't long until we are catapulted back into the shitty assbitch dimension we came from.
The gameplay is standard but a bit more than you'd get in another episodic game like The Walking Dead. I found the puzzles dull and uninspired, which was disappointing considering the possibilities of the player being able to literally rewind time. I had a good time in the short segment in the diner where you can talk to multiple people, discovering small tidbits of information that you can then manipulate them with after rewinding. This was much more exciting then the other times you must find information, which involves tediously going through the speech tree and rewinding for a good 15 minutes.
The final good thing about the game I have to say is that the atmosphere was superb. This obviously goes hand-in-hand with the environments, which I loved. They took very simple places like a school or a dump, and visualized them in wonderfully unique ways, as well as filled them with small details to pour over.
In short, in the 13 hours it took me to complete the game, about 1 hour altogether showed any true potential. Only buy it if you're an edgy fuck, (it's OK, we all had that stage) and/or LOVE meandering, pointless games.
(Also almost forgot to mention that it crashed on launch when I bought it, which took 2 hours of googling to fix)
The story is fine. It kept me invested enough to keep sluggishly wading through the tepid mess that is the game. I'll admit that I admire the balls the writers had to (SPOILERS) make the ending render everything you do in the game completely pointless. But for a game that is meant to be focused on and is most praised for it's characters, they sure were the most annoying fucking hobgoblins on the face of the Earth. The protagonist is boring and explains everything she does to the player. Worse is her best friend, who everyone seems to love for some reason. She gets some of the worst lines I have ever heard in any game, which is saying something looking at the quality of writing in most games. It is painfully obvious throughout the entire 'experience' that the writers are some guys in their late 30's with no knowledge of how people under 20 speak.
In terms of meaningful choices I rarely gave two shits as I didn't care about what happened to the characters. Any part that could be actually emotional is ruined by one of the characters involved saying something that sounds like a bot wrote it. I at least liked the part where you go into the alternate dimension and have to decide whether you should euthanize your best friend or not. It truly was emotional and showed the makers of the game really do have skill somewhere inside them. Unfortunately it isn't long until we are catapulted back into the shitty assbitch dimension we came from.
The gameplay is standard but a bit more than you'd get in another episodic game like The Walking Dead. I found the puzzles dull and uninspired, which was disappointing considering the possibilities of the player being able to literally rewind time. I had a good time in the short segment in the diner where you can talk to multiple people, discovering small tidbits of information that you can then manipulate them with after rewinding. This was much more exciting then the other times you must find information, which involves tediously going through the speech tree and rewinding for a good 15 minutes.
The final good thing about the game I have to say is that the atmosphere was superb. This obviously goes hand-in-hand with the environments, which I loved. They took very simple places like a school or a dump, and visualized them in wonderfully unique ways, as well as filled them with small details to pour over.
In short, in the 13 hours it took me to complete the game, about 1 hour altogether showed any true potential. Only buy it if you're an edgy fuck, (it's OK, we all had that stage) and/or LOVE meandering, pointless games.
(Also almost forgot to mention that it crashed on launch when I bought it, which took 2 hours of googling to fix)
Other reviews32
It's alright.
The story while nicely build up and given time to breathe, completely rushes into the toilet in the last episode. Aside from that there is good character writing here, a relaxing and atmospheric soundtrack and a nice implementation of the movie/game gameplay.
The story while nicely build up and given time to breathe, completely rushes into the toilet in the last episode. Aside from that there is good character writing here, a relaxing and atmospheric soundtrack and a nice implementation of the movie/game gameplay.
«Sit back and relax»
I gave up because games that feel like you must spend a lot of time don't catch me that much. But if you have time, it is worth a chance.
Good story and rich twilight-like west coast small town school atmosphere of first episodes. Great story driven game before mid episode 4. After that story develops weirdly and episode 5 feels overextended.
8 selfies of 10
8 selfies of 10
This game is powerful.
For some reason, even though that's my second playthrough, I can stop being emotionally damaged by this game. Actually, knowing some stuff about certain characters made some minor decisions harder. The difference they made objectively was not high, but your perception around it is what really matters. Making someone laugh, feel motivated, or pissed. You feel all of this with them, and I love this. That's only possible because of how sensitive the creators were and how amazingly developed and relatable the characters truly are.
Talking about sensitivity... hands down. That is one of the best soundtracks ever selected. OST included. I could listen to the main theme for hours. This game would not be that good without those tracks.
But it is perfect? no. But that was the dev's fault? Also no. The graphics and other technical elements could be better. Facial expressions feel off sometimes and clearly characters could not express themselves the way they should. Obviously, that's a financial problem, so it's understandable. And, at least, the actors nail it. Amazing performances.
If you still haven't played this masterpiece, what are you waiting for?
For some reason, even though that's my second playthrough, I can stop being emotionally damaged by this game. Actually, knowing some stuff about certain characters made some minor decisions harder. The difference they made objectively was not high, but your perception around it is what really matters. Making someone laugh, feel motivated, or pissed. You feel all of this with them, and I love this. That's only possible because of how sensitive the creators were and how amazingly developed and relatable the characters truly are.
Talking about sensitivity... hands down. That is one of the best soundtracks ever selected. OST included. I could listen to the main theme for hours. This game would not be that good without those tracks.
But it is perfect? no. But that was the dev's fault? Also no. The graphics and other technical elements could be better. Facial expressions feel off sometimes and clearly characters could not express themselves the way they should. Obviously, that's a financial problem, so it's understandable. And, at least, the actors nail it. Amazing performances.
If you still haven't played this masterpiece, what are you waiting for?
«Blew my mind»
«That ending!»
[i]Life Is Strange[/i] is probably a masterpiece full of flaws. It's one of my favorite [i]walking simulator[/i] games and it has one of the most memorable characters and feelings that i had in a game.
[b]Graphically[/b] is great, has a paint filter with pencil drawings on everything with a soft pastel palette which gives the game a dreamy and teen vibe overall. It's not very detailed and a lot of the photographs and graphics on the walls look like hand drawings.
The [b]soundtrack[/b] is amazing, composed by a lot of indie artists, match the hipster vibe of our protagonist [i]Max[/i] and the moody and sad story, it goes incredibly well at all times, really fits every scene in particular and as a whole game scenario.
[b]Voice acting[/b] is decent, the timbre of the voices is good but the speech feels sometimes weak. The bad lip-syncing doesn't help at all sadly. You probably gonna find a lot of people who would say that [i]Max[/i] has a very questionable voice acting, which is an opinion that i also had in the first episode, but the more you know her, the more than that shy and scared voice becomes essential for her as a character.
[b]Gameplay[/b] is very simple, just a point and click mechanic with an interesting time travel feature that makes the game fresher given that u cant take every path the game offers (usually) and unlock some extra dialog. This same feature makes the game impossible to fail, which along with the simplicity of the game as a whole, it becomes one of the most accessibles games out there.
[b]I liked[/b] the mystery plot of the story, and how the game focuses on characters, giving a lot of dialogue, reading journals, SMS, and how the environment itself tells you a story every time. You get to know characters directly (by pure dialog) and very indirectly, like by just looking at the scenario.
The main plot, the power of time travel, makes the game very loose to interpretation which in addition to the overall emotional drama, makes it very personal. Although, you should take into consideration that the game will never resolve this and it is their intention. The real main plot is the relationship between [i]Max and Chloe[/i] and the death of the last one.
Dialogs are very good for the most part, they are very genuine and representative for which character is speaking and the time and scenario of the game.
Characters are the best part of the game, most of them are very likeable and unique. [i]Max and Chloe[/i] are probably two of my favorite characters on a videogame ever, both very different but complementaries. [i]Max[/i] makes a great protagonist for a [i]walking simulator[/i] given her introspective nature, emotional but very introverted mind with a power that forces her to interact with the world, which, she isn't very good at it, making her very genuine and honest at all times. Her power acts as a second chance for every event that she thought of surpassing her comfort in order to do what she really wanted to, a thing that is very connected to her blame for never answering her best friend that now is dead. [i]Chloe[/i] makes the perfect drama character given her tragic nature, loneliness, and rebellious personality, making her very relatable.
[b]The main problem[/b] i can find on this game, that it is on every [i]Life of Strange[/i] game, and in a lot of these [i]walking sim / interactive story [/i]games, is that the end is reduced to a binary choice and that all the choices you choose before that, doesn't matter. In fact, you can play the last chapter and still complete the game. However, i think because of the nature of the main plot and because the choices do matter before the end and are reflected in the world, this game is all about the progress before the ending, and i got a lot of entertainment and emotions during it that i forgot the negativity i felt in the ending.
Overall, i think if you are a person that loves story-driven games, you like emotional dramas and want a very accessible game, Life Is Strange might be the masterpiece that you are looking for, i don't want to spoil anything, but there is at least one episode that makes the game worth it.