I'm considering getting "Life is Strange", but don't know much about it. Enlighten me.

[ninja666]

So, I'm on the fence about getting this game because I don't really know anything about it other than those three things:

- It's about teenage hipsters;
- The protagonist has some sort of time-controlling superpower;
- It reeks of tumblr for miles.

However, since the game's getting so much praise despite all that (especially point 3), it grabbed my attention a bit and I'm actually inclined to "play" it. Is it something I could potentially like, though? That I don't know, and I'm asking you to enlighten me.

To help myself with asking questions and generally describing what I have in mind, I'm going to bring up the closest thing coming to my mind when thinking of this game - "Gone Home".

I've played through "Gone Home" once and found it... pretty bad to be honest. I didn't mind its whole 90s nostalgia theme - I actually found it charming in a way because it gave the game a nice touch of stylization. What I didn't like, though, was how everything revolved around "politically correct" SJW tropes - I mean, the main character was a girl, a teenager, a social outcast, a gamer, and a lesbian... and her girlfriend was a punk-rock chick with her own garage band... and the whole story was just discovering all of these traits, even though the game heavily hinted at being some sort of a murder mystery. To add insult to injury, the creators were entirely serious about all of this stuff and considered their writing to be "deep" and "revolutionary".

Anyways, is "Life is Strange" as stupid and SJW-friendly as "Gone Home", or is its "high school hipster drama" just a cover-up for something much more interesting in terms of story? I'm asking cause from what I've seen, "Life is Strange" seems really similar to "Gone Home" in many regards and I don't want to experience another "Gone Home"...

Please keep your answers as spoiler-free as humanly possible. Also, thanks in advance for replying in general.

 

[Trebort]

It's a bit random. Somebody sent it to me as a gift on Steam.

It's very slow gameplay wise, but the story is decent if you get into it. You just wander through daily life as this girl and change things using your time control ability. A lot of the time I've found it's a case of 'go here, pick that up, do this with it, then change time because it was a bad idea'. I keep getting bored with it and switching it off for a bit, then I come back and play through another scene and switch it off again.

It's definitely something I need to sit down and have a good play through. I'm on the fence with it as well. :/

 

[lechat]

So, I'm on the fence about getting this game because I don't really know anything about it other than those three things:

- It's about teenage hipsters;
- The protagonist has some sort of time-controlling superpower;
- It reeks of tumblr for miles.

you can add bad acting, nearly no game play, plot twists that you can see in the first 5 minuets and horrible writing.

the whole thing plays like someone told a 70 year old how popular MTV unplugged, myspace and telltale games are and told them to make a game.
however...... It's still playable for some stupid reason. If you can look past the badly written dialogue and the time travel gameplay which is basically like cheating at a choose your own adventure book you have a half decent story.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

You won't like it. It's a adventure game (with some puzzles even) about a girl who gets time travel powers and uses it to help solve a mystery. (It even has a good segment where you link up clues on a board, so there is an actual misery in it. No teasing.) But it dose do the things you worry about. Episode 2 comes to mind for example and one of the characters could very well be the girl from gone home, so there is that. I would say all your worries are there and if that would ruin the game for you then... ya.

 

[soren7550]

Going by your attitude, you probably wouldn't like it, but if you like the most recent slew of TellTale games but wish that they'd let you do more than press a button every so often during a cutscene, then you may enjoy it.

Yes, the animation can be off at points (mostly in lip syncing, but that's likely due to being made by a French studio and as such they probably do the animations in French first), but it's a nice looking enough game where you won't notice too much, and the story and mystery are engaging enough to see it through in my opinion. Yes, the dialogue does often come off a bit "how do you do fellow kids?" but I've seen younger people/people who have to deal with younger people attest that teens do say a lot of the things the kids in game say.

I don't know about it being very SJW and/or PC, at the very least it didn't come off that way to me.

Push come to shove, watch a let's play of it.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It's an excellent game and easily the best episodic adventure/story title since the two Walking Deads, but it shares the weaknesses of the genre. Limited interactivity, dialogue heavy, relatively linear.

It's nowhere near as "art game" and experimental as Gone Home, and I wouldn't define it as a "SJW game", but to be honest I have no idea what someone who uses such terms unironically even thinks that is, so I could very easily be way off the mark on that count.

 

[Raggedstar]

"It reeks of tumblr" is a bit of a misnomer. Tumblr is a good connection in a way because of it's type of quirks, setting, and dialogue, but not because it's some kind of PC or SJW soup. In fact, I've heard of people accusing it of demonizing BDSM culture because the main character is horrified of seeing associated equipment in someone's room (and therefore ignoring the context within the story, as it's kept by someone who is obviously disturbed. We also get more context later, and no way is this an example of a healthy BDSM relationship). Also heard people accuse the main character of being prejudiced against the wealthy, but that doesn't seem to be 100% right either (as she does act friendly to many of the wealthier students. Just the wealthiest of them happen to be douchebags). But euhh, that's Tumblr. It's about a quirky teenager, and that's as far as it goes regarding SJW business (and no, Max and Chloe are not lesbians, as some have thought on first impressions. I found out the hard way in-game lol).

It doesn't go as far as Gone Home, if that's what you're concerned with (it's certainly not playing the "This is art!" card at all). Definitely more Telltale than that, but adding a gimmick to the gameplay. The level of interactivity seems greater than Telltale's recent bouts, but also less. Greater in respect to the use and opportunities of choice, consequence and puzzles, as well as more optional dialogue to mine. However, there are also longer gaps between intractable bits. Walking Dead seems to ask you for input every few lines, but LIS tends to ask for fewer inputs when the story is moving. "Teen Hipster Drama" (they're technically not in high school. Max and Chloe are in their late teens and in some post-secondary academy) is a close description of the plot, but there is some mild supernatural elements in the background and there is some nice moments of chemistry between characters. It's not 100% clear what the supernatural elements are leading to, but it seems like it's trying to connect those facets of the story. It's also getting a lot darker than I thought it would. Wowsers.

Not sure if you'll enjoy it, but if you don't, it won't be because of what you feared in this post. Not an SJW piece or for a grand artistic statement. I'm finding it very engaging with a lot of great moments, but I can see someone hating it. The dialogue can be awkward and cringe-worthy, pacing is a bit slow, a lot of people complain about the blatant foreshadowing to twists (I'm a bit thick, so I don't notice as much), and the animation and lip-sync are dreadful.

 

[sXeth]

The story's probably a hit or miss (though yeah, with your opening point, I'd say probably a miss for oyu)

The gameplay is terrible, with almost every "puzzle" just being "Do this, see bad thing happen, rewind, avoid bad thing" with the option to prevent whatever not even appearing until after, even if visually obvious to the player.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

As someone who loves the game, I say get the free demo and decide if you want to try the first episode after you're done with that.

As for SJW stuff, can't really tell what people mean by that as I've seen put on all sorts of stuff from "Gone Home" to "Mad Max: Fury Road".
So yeah, just try the demo and if you want more buy the first episode. If ya don't, move on.

 

[StormShaun]

As a person who really likes the game.
I'd frankly call it "teenage bullshit" the episodic game.
Still, I mean "teenage bullshit" in a good way... If you can see that kind of phrase in a good way.

Of course like in most episodic games, it focuses on the characters, story, and plot rather than gameplay.
I don't mind this, because I'm a writer, and I really love when a game focuses on the story and such.

So basically.
If you don't mind dealing with not much gameplay and teenage bullshit, then you'll like it.
Although some parts are a hit and miss. STILL, the choices in the game are good, unlike some TT games.

 

[Fox12]

It's good, if you like telltale style games.

I'm sure it's gotten mixed reviews, but apart from some eye-rollingly hipster dialogue, it's actually pretty decent. Not a masterpiece, but good. I do feel like you have way more agency over things then in telltale, where your choices don't matter at all. I appreciate that.

Edit:
"I mean, the main character was a girl, a teenager, a social outcast, a gamer, and a lesbian... and her girlfriend was a punk-rock chick with her own garage band."

I take it back, you'll hate Life is Strange.

 

[fenrizz]

Life is Strange is not similar to Gone Home at all.

I loved it so far, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next episode.

So, I'm on the fence about getting this game because I don't really know anything about it other than those three things:

- It's about teenage hipsters;
- The protagonist has some sort of time-controlling superpower;
- It reeks of tumblr for miles.

1. Well, there are hipsters but the characters are not that one dimensional.
2. Yes.
3. I don't know what that implies.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It depends how high your tolerance for hipsters is.

Mine is above average, I would think, and I could barely get through the demo. It features a blue-haired punk chick wearing a beanie and using the word 'hella' unironically -She was one pair of geek glasses away from giving me a hipster-induced stroke. It also has a tendency to reference movies by name constantly, which just makes me want to go watch those movies instead. And the main character is an 18-year old girl who looks barely 15, which maybe this plays a part in the whole time altering jig, but it bothered me.

I can't speak for the whole series, maybe it gets better and the dialoge less unbearable, but the beginning is excruciating.

 

[ninja666]

Apart from the usual assholery, from your posts I can generally see that LiS can actually be something I could like. I like Telltale style story-heavy games, so I know what I'm getting into. I'm also especially glad to know that this game doesn't really try to be a political statement by cramming all of those stupid tropes just for the sake of sending a message, but rather uses them solely for world stylization. I think I'll give at least the first episode a go and see how it goes. Thanks a bunch for answering.

 

[DeadProxy]

The first episode is hard to get through, just because of the quality of the writing and Max (main character) just sounding off, but if you can put up with episode 1, then you'll probably enjoy the game.

You can tell that the people making the game get better at the dialogue as the chapters go on, and in general, I think life is strange is way better at making your choices seem to matter compared to recent tell tale stuff.

 

[Mister K]

I haven't played it myself, but I am watching a LP of it (SBFP one). So, from it I could make the following conclussions:
- None of the characters are likable, some are tolerable. The biggest offender (IMO) is Chloe, protagonists friend. She is dumb, agressive, arrogant hipster, who is a rebel without a cause. She is a Kenny of LiS. I'd tell more, but I don't care enough about her.
- Story is relatively nice. Sometimes interesting, sometimes boring. Nothing too special.
- I'd say that mechanically, it is at least a bit better than TellTale games, but that's not what we play those games for.

 

[Amaror]

Depends on how truly allergic you are to politically correct stuff.
I also didn't like Gone Home, because there wasn't much of a story to it and the little bit that was there wasn't that good.
But if you didn't like Gone Home solely because it has a lesbian in it, which it kinda sounds like, then you won't like Life is Strange either, because it has stuff like that in it.
Gameplay wise it's mostly like the Telltale Adventure games, though i enjoy the time-rewinding a lot. A lot of the game is done talking to people, but you can find out stuff about people by talking to them, then rewind and use the information you gained to manipulate them a bit. It's pretty fun in my mind.

 

[ninja666]

But if you didn't like Gone Home solely because it has a lesbian in it, which it kinda sounds like...

Nah, not really. I'm okay with this kind of stuff, unless the game tries to rub it all over my face, which Gone Home did, considering its whole story boiled down to "look how opressed this poor lesbian is! by her stereotypical super-conservative parents no less!", while at the same time hinting that it's just a subplot and the game's actual plot is the story of uncle Oscar.

 

[Amaror]

But if you didn't like Gone Home solely because it has a lesbian in it, which it kinda sounds like...

Nah, not really. I'm okay with this kind of stuff, unless the game tries to rub it all over my face, which Gone Home did, considering its whole story boiled down to "look how opressed this poor lesbian is! by her stereotypical super-conservative parents no less!", while at the same time hinting that it's just a subplot and the game's actual plot is the story of uncle Oscar.

Well in Life is Strange the overall Story is more of a somewhat supernatural mystery story about a missing girl. There might be something about rape and sexual abuse in there, it's not really clear. Though i haven't finished the 4th episode,yet. But as i said there are plenty of subplots about stuff like that. There's one big one about bullying for example. I didn't really feel like the game's been shoving anything into my face, though.
Personally i like it so far. If your not sure, though, you might want to wait for a sale.

What's also pretty cool about the "rewind" mechanic is that you can see the immediate consequences of your decisions. Instead of a single sentence you have a whole situation to make a decision what is right and what is wrong. Though they usually have consequences later, so it's still difficult to decide what to do.

 

[freaper]

I once posed the rhetorical question whether or not a game with a blue haired, coed lesbian would make for a better game than one with Dudebro McGritt. Turns out Life is Strange actually has a blue haired, coed lesbian. Can't tell you if it's good or not, I've only ever seen snippets of it during a stream.