Life Is Strange’ Video Game Review

Liz Robinson
Oct 21, 2015
3 min read

The final chapter is here…

“Life Is Strange” is an indie game written by Jean-Luc Cano and Christian Divine, developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square Enix. The game has an interesting plotline and amazing characters. It’s a graphic adventure game, so the gameplay is not unlike that of Telltale’s “The Walking Dead” video game. The player can make various choices in the game that can completely change the storyline.

“Life Is Strange” comes out episodically. The first episode is a bit rough when it comes to dialogue. It successfully tells the story, yes, but it just seems unnatural and almost a bit whiney. By the time they released the second episode, however, the creators seemed to up their game and the dialogue became much more bearable. The fifth and final episode, “Polarized,” came out just yesterday, on October 20th.

Fans of the game can’t wait to find out what happens to Maxine Caulfield next. Is she going to survive the Dark room? How is Max going to save Arcadia Bay now? What is going to happen to the small town if she can’t?

A big reason this game has a mass following of over 113k followers on Twitter is due to its unique point of view. It has hit the hipster vein full on with its art school backdrop accompanied by an awkward and nerdy lead character. Max is a sensitive yet strong female lead who discovers that she has the power to reverse and change time. Through out the game she quickly realizes the responsibility, the negative and positive effects that come with her powers.

Spoilers past this point…

Max is such a powerful character because she represents compassion and friendship. She also is a good representation for the LGBT community (finally, a well done bi-sexual character). The player can either make choices leading to Max being with Chloe or Warren.

Have no fear, however, because her romantic relationships aren’t in any way a big focus in the story. They are mostly just small side notes. All of her personality traits do affect the kind of choices the player can make, but that only adds to the experience of the game.

When Max gets kidnaped by Rachel’s killer (Mr. Jefferson) at the end of Episode 4, “The Dark Room,” the anticipation for the next episode exploded all over the place. The worry the player is left with is bound to bring them back for the next and final episode.

Episode Five “Polarized”:

The Mr. Jefferson facade has been unveiled flawlessly. From a sweet art teacher to a creepy murdering rapist. That’s quite the jump, but they brought a new light or rather darkness to the character. His voice temperament and body language was changed just enough. The way they used photos to give the player flashbacks to the trauma was a good idea in prospect, but it was just unneeded fluff in the end.

The episode was full of long speeches, that kind of just dragged on and on. The quote “meaningful” message from Nathan fell short. It just didn’t have as much impact as the writers had hoped. Some of the voice acting was disappointing and some was great. The backwards time loop/nightmare was pretty interesting. The puzzles aspect of this sequence was extremely well done, just like in previous episodes.

Once the player finally makes it out of the nightmare cluster, they get to the ending moments, where they are forced to make a profound decision to ether save Chloe or Arcadia Bay. If the player decides to save Chloe, Arcadia Bay is swept away by a massive tornado and most everyone dies. Yet somehow, the writers make this seem like a happy ending where Max and Chloe drive away in to the sunset together. If the player decides to save Arcadia Bay, Max travels back to the beginning when she took the butterfly photo and lets Chloe get shot by Nathan. The tone is instantly shifted to tragic and all of the photos of Max and Chloe change to photos of a funeral. The writers voted too much for Chloe. Both endings should have been equally tragic, just in different ways, but instead, they favored saving Chloe.

“Polarized” – Episode 5 Rating: 6/10

“Life Is Strange” The Complete Series: 7/10