Life Is Strange

Largely inconsistent, but its beating heart never stops. The game puts a brilliant spin in the adventure game formula by steering the focus away from snap decision making, puzzle solving and inventory management (which were all pretty boring aspects of those games to me) towards atmosphere and immersion. Leaning back on the chair, setting up a compatible controller and putting on some good headphones allows the laid back and lowkey direction to completely engulf the player, with the cozy aesthetics and soundtrack that channel that very specific cultural moment in the early 2010s, when teenagers were obsessed with hipster culture, that makes me very nostalgic. The first 3 chapters feel like being inside a young-adult book, with very relatable and suitably annoying teenage characters and an incentive for exploration to immerse the player in the role of Max, an archetypal everyday hero on a coming of age journey in a small town, with every interaction further developing her character and the environment around her. It's biggest strength comes from pacing, in lesser hands it would have added unneeded urgency, action and speed in a lot of given moments, but by maintaining its slow pace it becomes much easier to digest and get lost in, not to mention look past its shortcomings. Hell, it's probably the only game i've ever played that allows the player to just sit down and ponder over recent events, how many narrative driven games could afford to bring everything to a halt like that? With the time travel mechanic there is a slight gameplay edge that makes it a bit more than an interactive movie, but, apart from that, the game defines itself by its world, characters and story.

While, for me, the execution in all those fronts is excellent, with well directed cutscenes, coherent narrative, great voice acting for the main characters, at their core they're less than stellar, with some dreadful dialog that range from campy to just cringe-worthy, the writing walking in circles and feeling aimless and kind of pointless, and admittedly not great graphics. Those problems are even more apparent in the later chapters, with some hilarious plot points and twists, specially a villain reveal that's super cheesy and ridiculous, totally breaking the tone of the game, and, of course, the final act. I have many mixed feelings about the ending(s) and the few moments leading towards it, as while i think it was very lazy and badly executed, with a ME3ish final choice that doesn't regard any of the previous choices, and also presenting itself like any other major choice in the game, i also kinda love the surreal road it goes in the last few moments, with a lot of self-referential points and character studies, with even some ridiculous bits that made me laugh out loud, and the binary choice in the finale, let's face it, could be way worse.

Returning to the Mass Effect 3 comparison, in that game the last choice was a big illusion, since the player is choosing what's essentially different flavors to the same ending, which is awful in whichever way you look at it. Life is Strange, however, manages to be poignant and emotional even at its worst, with two suitably cynical endings, that, despite feeling very underwhelming and unfair, bring a sense of closure to the story, maintaining a thematic and tonal consistency in a way that ME3 failed. The journey is not about the end, though, and even though i wish it had a better final third and was more consistent, i'm definitely glad i played it without knowing (almost) anything about the plot, what a really pleasant surprise. People look past bigger issues in more acclaimed games, and some of those aren't half as special and unique as this one. Despite its major flaws, i'm just glad a game like this exists, and even more glad that it's popular.

PROS:
-Magically immersive
-Masterful pacing
-Beautiful aesthetics and soundtrack
-Poignant and emotional moments
-Highly accessible and simple gameplay
-Lots of clever ideas in the narrative

CONS:
-Lazy underdeveloped ending
-Some bad twists and characters
-Spotty dialog
-Inconsistent writing
-Less than stellar graphics