Life is Strange - your thoughts

Neurotic Void Melody

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I enjoyed it a lot. It brought many emotions and the characters all made me care about them in one way or another. The first time I heard the weird words during episode one sounded off initially, but they were sparse and I don't remember any other episodes doing the same. The amount of loss and emotional strain the main character goes through by the finale episodes while still trying to help others and fix things is admirable. And I kinda cheated for the ending because it was difficult to know which would get the happiest outcome for Max and Co, and I was damned if I'd gone through all that for nothing just for a shit ending choice.

Don't know why it got labelled some kind of assayjaydoubkeyew game though, didn't see anything throughout my experience that came even close to that stuff. Was it emotions? It had way more than David Cage's attempts, and most other games too. Regardless of the quirks of the genre... If it makes me feel human again, I think it's worth the time. :)
 

TilMorrow

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Jul 7, 2010
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It was probably the most cringiest game I've ever had to sit through with the writer for dialogue coming up with some of the weirdest phrases used by teenage characters that I've ever seen. Not to mention I found most of the characters unlikable especially the quintessential terrible person of a semi-protagonist and driving force to the "story", Max's Best Friend Chloe. Honestly I don't get why people liked her, she is a terrible person full stop. Constantly doing stupid shit without any regard for others that puts her friends and herself into danger as well as ruins and worsens others lives, is constantly ambivalent and abusive to the person she considers her best friend and did I mention yet that's she's Dodo Bird suicidal? Hell I liked Warren more than her and he's written as some creepy kid who's a bit too attached to Max for their relationship early on. Then of course there's the negligible time travel mechanic mixed with choices will have consequences that ends up being you're forced into certain things in order for the story to progress how the devs want it too and the only major story change you can make is helping someone get over something and that's limited to like one - two conversations with them and a single decision and when the result of that event occurs you strangely enough can't use your time powers at all. But of course nearly everything you do in the game is irrelevant as the A or B choice of the ending invalidates everything you've done for the last 4-5 hours.

Catfood220 said:
I didn't pick up on the early hints that the teacher was the bad guy. I thought the attention he was paying to Max was a bit creepy, but I didn't think it was him. Then at the end of season 4, HOLY CRAP!!! Episode 5 was a long time coming after that
It was because they didn't plan to have the teacher be the bad guy originally, I believe they were going for "your choices influence who the main criminal is" so that whenever someone reached that part they'd be amazed and go yeah I noticed that they were acting strange when so and so happened, etc but then because episodes kept taking so long to make they streamlined it, did a throw a dart at the board choice and chose the photography teacher as the main bad because he fit their Dark Room idea the best. I'm guessing it's also why their ending was just a shitty reach around that thought it was being smart.
 
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I think its pretty great overall. Very different kind of experience from most games (or at least different from the kind of things I tend to play). Its not perfect; some of the dialogue is a bit cringey if you don't buy into the story and the characters, and the final chapter is fairly divisive (some people really dislike it), but its completely worth the 10-12 hours it takes to play it.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
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It's alright. I enjoyed it overall, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone else without a ton of caveats.

The ending is a simple A or B choice between an okay conclusion and a nonsense one. The first episode had a lot of cringy hello-fellow-teenagers dialogue in it. Not really a fan of time travel in general, it's always a convoluted mess of plot holes.

It makes up for a lot of it with charm and sincerity though.
 

not_you

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Mar 16, 2011
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The only thing I didn't like about Life is Strange was the final decision...
I'm sure many people have spoiled it already, but it makes the entire previous 6-10 hours of gameplay completely irrelevant...
Sure, you get to explore cool characters and some interesting choices, but to make the entire game a complete waste of time? Eh, I'd rather not...

Some people complain about your 'best friend' being really hard to get along with, and I get that, kinda... Like one choice where they say "don't you dare come out of hiding" and then in the next scene shouts at you for staying hidden... I was like "You told me to not come out, wtf, just following your orders..."

The only other thing that I wasn't really sold on was how situational the time-rewind ability is... In some moments, you can go back 3 seconds... no problem... can solve that... But other times, you shift back to several years ago, change some things, and then all of a sudden you can't fix it the way you wanted to... It's just... odd... Sure, time is a flimsy thing to play around with, but because it's a game there are only a certain number of things you can do... Because I thought of a few ideas on what to do in the past, but nope... No can do... Stuck with the ideas we could come up with on the fly...

Anyway, point being: I loved the game, but the one final choice makes the entire game a waste of time or totally worth the journey, even if you can pick the reason from a mile away...
8/10, would play again in a few years... If only to get all the goddamn collectables...
 

Maximum Bert

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Happyninja42 said:
The ending though....eh, it wasn't great. Most people will say it sucked, and "ruined the game". I don't agree with the "ruined" bit, but I do agree that the ending was less than spectacular. But, I also try and give writers something of a pass on that, if they are writing a time travel story. I personally feel that time travel stories are literary cancer, in that they are inherently so messy, and create so many plot holes and paradoxes, that there's basically no way to have it conclude without at least 12 alternate options of "but if they just did X, everything would've been fine". If the ability to actually change events is possible (meaning it's not a closed loop story like 12 Monkeys), then it's just never going to end well. Everyone and their grandmother will say "yeah but if X, then Y", and undermine the conclusion.
I dunno I think Steins Gate did a really good job with their true ending and that involved time travel well more like transporting messages back in time and sending your memories back in time to a previous version of you. Tackled a few theories in a really smart way as well imo that sounded plausible but allowed the layman to understand.

Anyhoo have not played Life is Strange yet but I will do at some point I enjoy a good story so if it has that I will enjoy it if not well I wont have lost anything except a bit of time.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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I've finally started this again, and am almost through the first episode, at Chloe's house. One thing I remember being kind of annoyed by is the rewind sequence can seem like too much of a crutch. As in, based on how someone responds to one choice I'll go back and choose the other. It has me switching choices too much. It's helpful for discovering answers to certain correct "trivia-like" questions, but I feel like the game could've put a harder line on certain choices, ie consequential ones and just had them alll available as checkpoints to replay after. Maybe it already does idk, but it seems the whole point would be to replay it regardless because from what people are saying there are only two roads, which is disappointing.

As for Tell Tale comparisons, I remember both Walking Dead and A Wolf Among Us seemed to flow a lot better and didn't leave you with that "you should've really chosen the other option" feeling like this one has several times within just the first chapter. It kinda makes me want to just make all the worst sounding choices just for the hell of it.

GrumbleGrump said:
There's a rather nasty custom in chilean prisons. Since, naturally, you can't consume alcohol inside the facility, prisoners take a rather nasty alternative. They ferment garbage they find, whatever it is, and drink the resulting liquid, which is dubbed "P?jaro Verde" or "Green Bird". It is known to blind its consumers, as it contains a non negligible amount of methanol, Ethanols nastier cousin.
Life is Strange is the gaming equivalent of P?jaro Verde. It's not just garbage, it's distilled, concentrated garbage. It fails on every level except in music choice (which just does the job, the music itself is rather generic and anemic).

Yikes. I was wondering where you were going with that. Nice lead-in!
 

happyninja42

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hanselthecaretaker said:
I've finally started this again, and am almost through the first episode, at Chloe's house. One thing I remember being kind of annoyed by is the rewind sequence can seem like too much of a crutch. As in, based on how someone responds to one choice I'll go back and choose the other. It has me switching choices too much. It's helpful for discovering answers to certain correct "trivia-like" questions, but I feel like the game could've put a harder line on certain choices, ie consequential ones and just had them alll available as checkpoints to replay after. Maybe it already does idk, but it seems the whole point would be to replay it regardless because from what people are saying there are only two roads, which is disappointing.
All I will say, is that the game does address this, in multiple ways. Episode 1 is very bare bones, as it's mostly there to establish the main characters, the plot, and the game mechanics. It's not until Episode 2+ that you start seeing more variation on the mechanics. But, it still frequently boils down to "make a choice, rewind if you want and make different choice". That's kind of the whole point of the game. Max has the power to do this, and the game explores what it allows her to do. Sure it's limited, they couldn't code very possible variable into the game, so you will sometimes only have a binary choice. But later on, you do end up with several options to choose from.

And, while this is a teeny tiny bit of a spoiler, nothing really plot specific, but:
There is one point in the game where you do not have the ability to rewind time, and you have to deal with a situation without the luxury of erasing your screw ups






As for Tell Tale comparisons, I remember both Walking Dead and A Wolf Among Us seemed to flow a lot better and didn't leave you with that "you should've really chosen the other option" feeling like this one has several times within just the first chapter. It kinda makes me want to just make all the worst sounding choices just for the hell of it.
...well, that's on you if you want to. Like I said above, they do give you more options later on how to respond. But you still always (mostly) have the option to rewind and make a different choice. And some of the choices later are far from a clear black/white, good/bad binary. Some of the choices, neither way you go, you feel like you made the wrong choice, because there is no "right" answer really.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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^That last statement is actually encouraging. I like it when choice-based games like this throw unexpected things at you. Imo that's the only thing that really keeps hem interesting, since the good choice/bad choice design has gotten to be a horrible trope.
 

happyninja42

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hanselthecaretaker said:
^That last statement is actually encouraging. I like it when choice-based games like this throw unexpected things at you. Imo that's the only thing that really keeps hem interesting, since the good choice/bad choice design has gotten to be a horrible trope.
Yeah, I mean, the game has it's flaws. Don't get me wrong. It's far from perfect, but I did enjoy the experience of playing it very much.
 

GrumbleGrump

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hanselthecaretaker said:
Yikes. I was wondering where you were going with that. Nice lead-in!
Thank you.

I still advise you not to continue on this enterprise. It is a very real waste of your time.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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GrumbleGrump said:
hanselthecaretaker said:
Yikes. I was wondering where you were going with that. Nice lead-in!
Thank you.

I still advise you not to continue on this enterprise. It is a very real waste of your time.

Have you played any of the Telltale games? I was fairly entertained by The Walking Dead, but A Wolf Among Us was the clear standout imo. But that has more to do with the storytelling than the gameplay.
 

GrumbleGrump

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hanselthecaretaker said:
Have you played any of the Telltale games? I was fairly entertained by The Walking Dead, but A Wolf Among Us was the clear standout imo. But that has more to do with the storytelling than the gameplay.
I have played the first hour of The Wolf Among Us, after watching the Best Friends LP of the game and finding it quite cool. Sadly, I realized that I already saw everything the game had to offer, since you only influence that game to very limited degree. Watching them on youtube is way better, since that way you don't even have to pirate them. Just sit there and watch everything unfold, with color commentary if you like.
What I have done is play the entirety of Life Is Strange. What awaits you is really nothing much of note. The game itself is very railroady and pretentious, to the point of being cringeworthy. Saying that it ends with a "see ya" and a slap in the bum would be exaggerating.
 

CyanCat47_v1legacy

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The dialouge is a breach of the Geneva conventions. It says somehting about how insufferable every character below the age of 30 is in this game that it made me sympathize with the blue-haired girl's asshole stepfather.
 

Dalisclock

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Generally liked it but I don't feel like playing it again. Some of the dialogue feels like it's trying just a bit too hard to be "edgy" and "cool" and then there's one line where Max says something like how Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is the best movie ever. Seriously? Even die hard Final Fantasy fans wouldn't say that unironically. Hell, even people(All 3 of us) who actually kind of liked the movie wouldn't say that.

Oh...published by Square Enix. Well, that's one mystery solved.

Anyway, the game pretty much works on it's main gimmick(s): The Time rewind function. Unfortunately, it's also a big weakness because how it works or why is never explained, it's not terribly consistently(like that one time Max can freeze time just long enough to get the school roof and it never happens again). And then there's the photo thing which is cool but doesn't make any real narrative sense other then to allow the characters to cheat their way past problems via time travel.

And at this point, if I want to play a character-driven game about young adult relationships with supernatural stuff involved, both Oxenfree and A Night in the Woods are both better in pretty much every way.
 

GrumbleGrump

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CyanCat47 said:
The dialouge is a breach of the Geneva conventions. It says somehting about how insufferable every character below the age of 30 is in this game that it made me sympathize with the blue-haired girl's asshole stepfather.
That's because he's the only one who doesn't enable Chloes garbage.
Ironically he's the one that stops Mr. Jefferson in the end.
 

Kingjackl

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It was a good game but the ending kind of brought it down. I like the characters but I wouldn't replay.

I have no interest in the Chloe-centred prequel since Ashly Burch isn't coming back, plus I preferred Max anyway.
 

Redryhno

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GrumbleGrump said:
CyanCat47 said:
The dialouge is a breach of the Geneva conventions. It says somehting about how insufferable every character below the age of 30 is in this game that it made me sympathize with the blue-haired girl's asshole stepfather.
That's because he's the only one who doesn't enable Chloes garbage.
Ironically he's the one that stops Mr. Jefferson in the end.
To be fair, Warren tries to, but gets the shit beat out of him because of her actions or stood up by Max...The stepdad is the unsung hero of the entire game though yeah, since as much of a hardass as he is, he's also the only adult that gives enough of a shit about the kids and their crap to try and involve himself with it.
 

maninahat

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I struggled to like it at first, because of a terrible Rube Goldberg puzzle built into the first episode, where you have to cause a bucket of paint to splatter a bitchy girl, just so you can get past her and into your dorm room (it is literally impossible to step around her, or use another door).

I tried it again and got engaged with the plot and premise, but a lot of things got in the way, like how no one had any real facial animations, even during what were supposed to be big dramatic, poignant moments. It leans very heavily on the voice actors to convey everything, and whilst they are sometime successful, sometimes they are given terrible lines (Chloe's dad, for instance, is a very crude attempt to depict a former military man turned security guard, who speaks in stereotype army lingo). The plot also has to pull some really stupid stunts to try and force the drama.

I see it the same way I saw LA Noire: it has a ton of interesting new ideas that are absolutely worth seeing, but it is flawed in almost every way, so don't get your hopes too high.