Knocked off another quick one from the backlog today. If I'm lucky, I'll clear this out before the year is over. BACKGROUND:
Life is Strange was the talk of the town at one point, so I had heard plenty about it. That said, I never watched any Let's Plays of the game, so I didn't actually know anything about the story. In retrospect, I'm glad I never bothered, because I get to see everything for the first time. Since I do not own the full game right now, this blog entry will focus entirely on the first chapter, which is free to play. I attempted to play this the first time they made Episode 1 free, but something about the game made it completely unplayable on Mac. Now that I'm on another machine, I actually get to play the game this time. PLOT: Life is Strange focuses on Max Caulfield, an aspiring photographer studying at the prestigious Blackwell Academy. The academy is located in her hometown of Arcadia Bay, Oregon, and she moved back after spending five years living in Seattle. The events of the game start around a month after she moved back, in the middle of her photography class. During it, she sees strange visions of a storm coming to Arcadia Bay. Later on, after a particularly harrowing event, she discovers that she can actually rewind time, allowing her to alter the outcomes of her decisions. After using her newfound abilities to make rather pivotal actions, she eventually reunites with Chloe Price, her childhood friend with whom she's drifted apart. The story in the first episode is mostly teen drama (which I generally don't care for), but early on, there are clear hints that there's something much more sinister afoot in the town. There are big moments and you do get to make some significant decisions, but for the most part, Episode 1 is about establishing characters and setting up the pieces. There are also hints that the story could go in a darker direction and take on more serious themes, but very little actually comes to pass in the first episode. There are a good number of characters in the story, and while most of them have strong personalities, they tend to fall into common tropes. That said, this is only based on what I saw of them in this first episode; it is entirely possible there's more depth to them in later chapters. Max and Chloe get the most screen time, and thus have the most opportunity to be fleshed out in Episode 1. I found the dialogue to be a bit weird at times, but nothing really stuck out to me as particularly cringeworthy. Perhaps other players may feel more strongly about that. PRESENTATION: In terms of style, Life is Strange has a sort of painterly look to it. It looks really nice, but the age is showing a bit when it comes to model and texture quality. Other than that, I think it looks decent, especially during moments with nice lighting (like during sunsets). The effects when rewinding time look pretty cool, too. The music is more on the ambient side, but there are tracks that are more melodic in nature. Some licensed songs do play during certain moments to help set the mood of a scene. The voice acting is decent, but is a bit hampered by the fact that the models don't quite have the best lip syncing in the world. I didn't really mind, but I could see this taking someone out of the story if they noticed. GAMEPLAY: I would describe Life is Strange as a mix of visual novel and point-and-click adventures. There's a lot of dialogue, and story is very much the main focus of the game, but there are still elements of a game that make Life is Strange a bit more involved than a typical visual novel. For one, the game has a third-person perspective where you control Max in a 3D environment. You can interact with highlighted objects in the environment; doing so triggers dialogue from Max, and for specific objects, Max can perform certain actions. The point-and-click elements come in here, as you'll have to pick things up, move things around, or alter objects in order to solve puzzles and progress the story. None of the puzzles are particularly hard, and none of the important objects are hard to miss, so I don't think this game will be a problem for casual players who just want to experience the story. Since this is a story-driven game, dialogue is important, and that means multiple options. Some of these decisions are pretty innocuous, while others feel significant. Like many games of this kind, your choices matter down the line; something that was good for the short term may not necessarily be the best choice in retrospect. However, since this is the first episode, there really isn't a chance to see the butterfly effect cause a chain reaction. I'm sure the later chapters address that issue just fine. Actions or dialogue that have major consequences are noted by the game, which keeps you aware of the potential ramifications (and paranoid when the prompt comes up for something as seemingly inconsequential as watering a plant). In the event that you second guess your choice, you can rewind time to a certain point with a press of a button. Doing so allows you to explore the other dialogue options, reverse potentially dangerous decisions, and even be the key to solving puzzles. I like this mechanic a lot; it gives you the freedom to weigh which decision you wanna stick with without being afraid of having to restart. Of course, once you've passed a certain point in the story, you can't rewind time to change earlier decisions, so you still have to make a choice in the end. VERDICT: Even with not much to go on in terms of the full narrative or the extent of the consequences of my decisions, I still really enjoyed the first episode of Life is Strange. I think they laid the groundwork for a potentially interesting and emotional story, and I'm quite interested to see where it goes. The rewind feature is a brilliant feature as well, and it's both a clever puzzle-solving tool and a means to explore all the different outcomes and craft a story that speaks to you. Hopefully I get a chance to play the other chapters in the future, because I wanna see how this shit ends. If you're curious about the game, the entirety of Episode 1 is free to play. Here it is on Steam: Life is Strange - Episode 1 on Steam (steampowered.com) If you're of the mobile persuasion, here are some alternatives: - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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