Life Is Strange Review

Life Is Strange is a monumental achievement of gaming. The game has unique mechanics, and an outstanding and memorable story that will stick with you for days after finishing it. In recent years, the choice-based format has risen in popularity thanks to Telltale Studio’s hits The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and Tales from the Borderlands. With Life Is Strange, DontNod has constructed a game vastly superior to anything Telltale has produced. Life Is Strange is the flagship of the choice-based genre.

The story in Life Is Strange is immensely compelling. It follows Max Caulfield, a shy, insecure girl at a prestigious art school who discovers she has the power to rewind time. Using her newfound power, she strives to save her childhood friend, Chloe, as well as the town of Arcadia Bay from impending doom. The story is a beautiful coming-of-age tale rife with emotion and power. The sci-fi elements of the narrative are actually downplayed, as the focus of the game is on the characters and their relationships, especially that of Max and Chloe. The pacing and writing are impeccable, and the game greatly benefits from the episodic format.

The game is not afraid to tackle dark, complex themes. Depression, attempted suicide, drug use, mental illness, and domestic abuse all play roles in Life Is Strange. And rather than sensationalizing these issues, the game approaches them with an earnestness and realism that is refreshing in a fictional narrative. The writers and developers are to be commended for not shying away from the difficult subjects.

Every single character is an absolute joy to behold. Early on in the beginning of the game, some characters seem like generic clichés, but then we’re delightfully proven wrong when all those characters are given complexity and depth. All of the characters go through fantastic development and growth. Few casts, if any, are as powerful as Life Is Strange’s.

Chloe in particular is an absolute joy of a character. In an interview, Michel Koch, one of the developers of the game, stressed how important it was for Chloe to be represented well.

“Since, at the end of the game, the final choice centers on Chloe, it was really important for the player to grow to love Chloe for the moment to work,” Koch said.

Boy, did they succeed. Chloe is an absolute blast. Over the course of the game, she grows from being selfish to being incredibly selfless. The pain and loss she’s experienced is absolutely gut wrenching. DontNod succeeded because, by the end of the game, I loved Chloe just as much, if not more, than Max did.

Of course, all these fabulous characters would be nothing if there weren’t good voice actors to give them life. And the voice acting is phenomenal. Hannah Telle plays Max, and does a perfect job of encapsulating the character. She is able to flawlessly display Max’s growth from shy and unsure to confident and assured.

Ashly Burch absolutely steals the show as Chloe. Since Chloe is such an important character to the story (in a way, more important than Max), it was imperative that her voice be perfect. And quite simply, it was. Burch runs the whole gamut of emotions: from elated, to enraged, to heartbroken. And she does it all beautifully.

What’s especially impressive is that many of the voice actors played multiple roles. Telle, Burch, Nik Shriner, Dani Knights, Carlos Luna, Dayeanne Hutton, Don McManus, and Derek Phillips all played multiple characters, and they did each one well. There seriously isn’t a bad performance in the entire game.

The world of Arcadia Bay is absolutely brimming with atmosphere. The design of the town, Blackwell Academy, and all its inhabitants perfectly evokes the mood of the setting. The developers have stated that they were heavily influenced by David Lynch’s television show Twin Peaks, and it shows. Arcadia Bay possesses the same subtle surrealism as Twin Peaks, informing the gamer that there is something slightly fantastical about this place. This comes through in numerous ways: the design of the buildings, the unique characters, the hazy lighting, the somewhat mystical animals, and so much more all contribute to a subtly bizarre town that is clearly inspired by David Lynch’s classic show.

The implementation of time travel is a very unique mechanic, and it could have been easy to mess it up. Fortunately, the time travel works splendidly. It’s an easy-to-use mechanic that wasn’t dumbed down to the point of being overly restricted in its application. In a really interesting way, my attitudes as the player mirrored that of Max. Early on in the game, Max was unsure of herself and constantly wanted to make everyone happy. My feelings mirrored hers, and I was constantly going back in time to make sure nobody’s feelings got hurt, even a little. Over time, Max becomes more confident in her decision-making, and I felt myself caring less and less about what others think of me.

Despite the power to rewind time, I still spent many minutes deliberating over some of the more consequential decisions. That the writers were able to instill a sense of gravity to situations, even with Max’s powers, is truly a feat of writing.

Life Is Strange also possesses a very unique art style. The textures are soft, which almost gives the impression that the game is painted. Numerous effects, such as sunlight streaming in through windows, and water being splashed in a pool, only add to this quality.

The lip-syncing of dialogue is very inconsistent, and I’m not sure why the animators didn’t care much for detail here. Often, characters’ mouths will simply open and close roughly in time with the dialogue, without shaping their mouths to realistically depict how mouths move when we speak. On more than one occasion, a character’s mouth wouldn’t move at all. I remember a conversation between Max and her friend, Warren, where her mouth remained completely closed throughout the entire encounter. It’s puzzling why something as basic as lip-syncing was largely ignored.

The use of colors and lighting is very intentional. Light, warm colors, or cold, dark colors perfectly complement whatever the mood is.

The cinematography is gorgeous. Several shots are breath taking and movie-like in their quality. The animators really knew how to use the camera to perfectly evoke emotion from the player. At many moments, I felt like I really was watching an animated movie rather than playing a video game, and the reason is in large part because of the brilliant camera work.

To top it all off, Life Is Strange has one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard. The music is so intrinsically linked to the experience that, days after finishing the game, merely listening to the soundtrack is enough to make me emotional. The soundtrack is a wonderful blend of licensed tunes, and a gorgeous original score by Jonathan Morali. Koch and Raoul Barbet, the other game developer, both attest to how important music was in creating the game. The band Syd Matters was one of their biggest influences in the overall tone of the game.

Life Is Strange is one of those rarest of achievements in video games. It touches at the core of humanity and emotion. It is one of the most powerful narratives I’ve ever experienced over any medium, and joins a very small list of stories that I can honestly say have left a truly lasting impact on me. To those who say video games aren’t a legitimate form of art: look no further than Life Is Strange, and you will be proven wonderfully, gloriously, wrong.

As Max Caulfield would say, “Wowsers.”





Score: 9.75/10