Life is Strange: Before the Storm - Episode 1: Awake Reviews
Life is Strange: Before the Storm Episode 1 fails to live up to the promise of the original. While providing a great soundtrack, updated visuals, and better animations it struggles to realise just what made Life is Strange special.
Episode One: Awake of Before the Storm is a surprisingly promising entry for the short three-episode series. There's the right amount of callbacks to the series that made so many fans fall in love with Chloe and Max in the first place. While I still wish the dialogue wasn't as teenager cringe-y in a not-realistic way, there's far more of it this time around that plain isn't. Hell, even Chloe's eventual over-usage of "hella" is explained in a tongue-in-cheek nod to the future. For everyone who was worried about Before the Storm's authenticity under the reigns of a new developer: don't be.
Overall, Before the Storm starts on a great note with its writing, characters and soundtrack. It took me 4 hours to complete Episode 1, which is a good sign given the fact that some people had a problem with the game only being 3 episodes long. For newcomers, I strongly suggest that you play the original Life is Strange before playing this one as you might not catch the importance and significance of certain characters as quickly as previous players will. I cannot wait for the rest of the episodes to be released and I am definitely interested to see what happens next.
The good doesn’t stop there. The new entry into the series wouldn’t be anything without a legitimate sense of place. Luckily, the game’s soundtrack provides that, and so much more.
Before the Storm – Episode 1: Awake is off to a bumby start but it defintely leaves some potential open for the upcoming episodes. The new Backtalk-Feature doesn't really make any impact on the story so far and also the course of the episode feels to forced but besides that Life is Strange Fans will see some familiar faces and funny side activities.
Review in German | Read full review