Life is Strange - Season One Reviews
Beautiful, touching and messy. Life Is Strange is good—not great—but I'd recommend it to anyone.
Life is Strange makes some odd design choices, but its ability to make your choices feel important to its strong leading protagonists more than makes up for it. Buy it.
Dontnod Entertainment's first effort at cracking the choice-driven episodic format in a video game almost results in a near-perfect experience, which is shocking when you consider how well they've grasped the concept, created a solid structure for each episode, distributed a variety of subplots across five episodes and executed the series at the same — or even higher — level that a veteran developer like Telltale Games has done for many, many years.
Though the later episodes of Life is Strange lacked some of the strength and poignancy of its earlier chapters, its set-up and world grabbed me immediately, which Dontnod deserves immense credit for creating an experience out of elements that, taken on their own terms, seemed like they never would have worked. You can boil down Life is Strange to a time-traveling decision-making teen girl simulator at its basic level, but it also happens to be one of the most compelling stories of the year with great characters and style, even if its story comes at odds sometimes with its gameplay and core ideas. Even though at this point now I know how Maxine and Chloe's story ends with the conclusion of Life is Strange, I'll happily rewind back to the beginning for another chance at seeing their story again for the first time.
With her powers to rejigger events to save people from accidents and themselves, Max seems like an incarnation of Holden's catcher. Though sadly, her power is not immutable.
Despite its obvious flaws the reactive story and compelling characters make this one of the best storytelling experiences of the current generation.
It's the mix of the mundane and the mercurial that makes Life Is Strange worth living.
Life is Strange got off to a so-so start, but strong storytelling and impressive choice and consequence mechanics boost its first season. Soon the world really gets its hooks in, and you'll enjoy it despite yourself.
That having been said, if you are a fan of point-and-click adventures (or those Fighting Fantasy books from yesteryear) and a sucker for an intriguing, atmospheric yarn you'll be right at home here. In fact, it may be just the sort of entertainment you're looking for if you're between TV shows.
A beautiful, heartbreaking, and surprisingly dark Telltale-esque adventure that betters pretty much every Telltale-esque adventure that's come before it and has enough twists to make it unique. Life is Strange has a few flaws, but that shouldn't dissuade you from hopping on this emotional rollercoaster. And it's okay: you're allowed to cry.
Life Is Strange is an impressive mixture of great writing, great voice acting, and interactive storytelling that'll pull on your heart strings like it's going out of style.
If you have the patience to overlook a few pacing issues and dodgy lip syncs, Life is Strange offers up a mature, nuanced story which centres on female friendship (and maybe romance) and the effect our actions have on others.
The game doesn't quite live up to other similar games in the genre, but it's worth the time and energy to check out if you're a fan of these type of games.
From its opening moment until its final scene plays, Life is Strange is a wonderful, beautiful, captivating, touching adventure built upon the undying friendship of two girls trying to find their place in the world.
By cobbling together cliches, Dontnod have somehow created an earnest supernatural teen drama with clunky-ass dialogue but a real sense of love behind it. I actually like the weird distance between the game and reality, likely also due to the writers' disconnect from their subject material. The cliches are played with such heart that I can't get mad. After hitting the episode's Magnolia-esque ending, I'm genuinely excited to see where the story goes from here.
Life Is Strange is an ambitious story that doesn't shy away from difficult and controversial topics, and it allows the player to become attached to its vibrant characters. Due to excellent voice performances, a mysterious, sleepy little town that has plenty of intrigue and secrets, the added benefit of some exploration, and the undeniably appealing rewind feature, the game has a unique and extremely absorbing feel. The characters seem real and interesting, the individual stories tend to be remembered long after experiencing them, and the continual decision-making keeps us thinking.
Life is Strange is an endearing adventure title where time folds naturally around two good friends trying to uncover a dark mystery.
Life Is Strange is an imperfect video game and the actual mechanics of playing it, including the time rewind, can become annoying of frustrating, especially when the development team tries to borrow from another genre. But the game makes it easy to create a connection with Max and to care about her choices and trials, a rare feat, and that means any fan of narrative-driven experiences should try it out to see how he deals with the feelings of the protagonist and the impact they have on Arcadia Bay.
The perfection of the Telltale's Adventure Game formula comes from Dontnod, a company who gives the players permission and the ability to go back and try out multiple different choice paths before deciding which choice they wish to use moving forward.
On the other hand, the game feels like it tried to do more than it could and as a result weighed down and did not focus at its strongest point.
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