Remember the story about a man who went back in time, stepped on a butterfly and when he came back to the present, the whole universe was different. It all goes back to one simple and yet fascinating theory which states the following:
“A single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the course of the universe forever”
This theory is called “The butterfly effect” and the game “Life is Strange” took a risk by embracing this compelling concept and turns the future of these story focused games upside down, but in a good way.
You probably know the Assassin’s Creed-like game “Remember Me” and when you do, you probably have heard of the video game development studio “Dontnod”. You might not know this but “Life is strange” had a difficult start, even before it was being developed. The French developers didn’t see it coming, when different publishers refused to publish this story driven game where the protagonist was female. A lot of publishers wouldn’t publish the game until they saw a male protagonist and when all seemed lost, “DontNod” miraculously bumped into Square Enix that accepted the game for what it was. Square Enix was the only publisher who believed in this “crazy” idea of a female protagonist.
Dontnod co- founder Jean- Maxime said the following:
“Square is basically the only publisher that didn’t want to change a single thing about the game. We had other publishers telling us ‘Make it a male lead character,’ and Square didn’t even question that once.”
I’m glad the developers held their foot down and didn’t change the sex of the leading character. The game would have been different and maybe for the worse. “Life is Strange” was an episodic downloadable kind of game, just like the Telltale series. It’s all about an interesting story where choice matters. The first episode released back in January 2015 while the last one was released on the 20th of October. The retail version (including all episodes) released on the 19th of January 2016. These are the 5 episodes in chronological order: Chrysalis, Out of Time, Chaos Theory, Dark Room and Polarized.
It’s about immersion and the game does it pretty well.
“Life is strange” is set in a seaside town called Arcadia Bay in Oregon that’s experiencing strange weather and other unexplained phenomena which are probably linked to the time controlling ability of the main protagonist Max(ine) Caulfield. Max learns the art of photography and discovers that she has the ability to rewind time. This allows her to control the course of life, by simply adapting “her choice” to the situation at hand. The game starts off with a dream of herself, foreseeing an approaching storm towards her beloved town. She will do all she can to prevent this storm from destroying her town. Each small or big action she’ll take, will have a consequence to her own story. Step by step, you unfold the narrative as you play. These actions can be reshaped if you decide to go back in time and eventually change it. Be warned: you can only go back in time during certain key moments and within an acceptable time interval. There are also “fetch quests” that can make environmental changes which are represented in the form of puzzle solving activities and “conversation choices”.
You probably have a feeling where this game will take you: choice. With her ability, she’s capable of altering her future and the future of her companions but as you might now, some choices aren’t easy to make. Max’s ability lets you see the different “options” of your choice. Most of the time it’s all up to you to cut the knot but there are also moments where your immediate environment can influence your choice. The people around you will often give you a certain look or hint out some things, to what your choice will lead to. In the first episode of “Life is strange”, choice is limited but eventually you will be offered more choice near the end, which concludes in an alternate ending. As a “doubter”, you will always take your time to pick a choice which will impact the game’s ending.
Since the game is formed by 5 different episodes, don’t expect to get all the information you need during your playthrough of the first episode. The first chapters of this masterpiece let you familiarize with your environment, the city, your schoolmates, the relations between people … The story’s plot will be revealed eventually, but don’t expect a direct answer to all of your questions immediately. Take your time and enjoy the ride.
The game is all about exploring and living your character, in other words, “be the character!” These kind of games don’t have a respawn button or an instant kill move… It’s about immersion and the game does it pretty well. Max is mysterious and like every 17-year-old teenager, you’ll have to face “realistic” demons. These inner demons come in different sizes and opportunities. A teenager is constantly on the ride of his life, it’s an emotional roller coaster and the developers hit the nail on the head when it comes to “reliving the life of a teenager”. There were a lot of “I’ve kind of been there”- moments where I felt the same emotions as the protagonist. The only difference is, Max can manipulate time and alter her life decisions. If you didn’t know already, we can’t. So the game does a great job in creating a “good realistic” experience besides the fantasy elements. This helps the player to immerse himself or herself into the lead character.
The game looks beautiful in its own way, the graphic design is more of a “you either hate it or love it” – look, and I’m one of those gamers that loved the look. It suits the game perfectly, it has a bizarre atmosphere with a scent of fantasy elements. The main protagonist often dreams away in her own “created” world and the graphical elements take you by the hand and guide you on the same journey that Max has. It just feels right. Are the graphics mind blowing next- gen graphics? Definitely not but it certainly fits the game well enough. The performance of the game’s engine is great, I haven’t noticed frame rate issues during my gameplay sessions, nor did I encounter a lot of bugs.
The sound design in this game is also a big plus. What a wonderful feeling when the sound matches the game perfectly. The tones this game produce have a “dreamy” atmosphere and Max has this same atmosphere all around her. It really gives you the feeling that you’re dreaming away just like Max. The ambient sound is also exactly how it should be, from the schools environment to the woods. “Remember Me” had a good soundtrack but the music in this game is also top notch! The voice acting is often great, I mean most of the voices suit their character very good but it doesn’t extend to the full cast.
The game is all about exploring and living your character, in other words just “Be the character!”
There are some bits in the presentation that just doesn’t seem to cut it. It’s not a major issue but to a game where presentation and immersion are everything, you better make it as good as it can be. The voice acting of some characters sound bland or even uninteresting and it pulls you out of the game immediately. Even some of the conversations are literally “too standard”. These type of games need the conviction of their own game characters to “shine” and if one of them fails, a tiny bit of the story goes down with them. A lot of the conversations are mostly believable, especially towards the end but the suspension has to build up instead of breaking down. The key conversations are well written but all of the side conversations are uninspired and unbelievable. Another issue, I had with the game was the “lip- syncing”. There were a lot of moments where lips just moved up and down like they were blowing wind out of their mouth instead of producing words. This technical fault kills the immersion down the long hall.
Conclusion:
This adventure game has been a wonderful journey. The story slowly builds up and releases just enough information to answer all of your questions during the game. The key conversations stand out when it comes to the main narration of the story, but be prepared for some dull and standard side talks. The gameplay is fairly easy: running around adventuring, opening closets, making choices and living the character… in other words, it’s an interesting story driven game with a dreamy and bizarre atmosphere. It will definitely appeal to you if you liked games like “Dreamfall”. The sound design of this game is perfect and the voice acting performance for most characters is OK. Even the dreamy music choice in this game suits “Life is strange” perfectly, however, the lip-syncing was a big issue for me. The presentation is a big deal in this kind of games and if it’s done wrong, it takes you out of your gaming world easily and it’s just too bad that the game suffers from this technical issue. The special graphics are well designed and create a unique vision experience that’s keen on the eye. The game is worth the buy, especially since all episodes are included within the retail version of the game.
