Life is Strange is an episodic adventure game in the vein of Telltale's recent output, focusing on Max Caulfield, a high school senior at a prestigious school in rural Oregon as she navigates the often messy relationships and life searching that typically pervade this time in a young adults life. Life is Strange purports to tell a high school coming of age story with a sci-fi twist, as Max soon discovers after witnessing the terrifying accidental shooting of her former best friend, that she can rewind time. What's interesting is that the developers, Dontnod Entertainment, use this ability not simply as a gameplay mechanic and puzzle solving device but as a way for Max to become more introspective. The game exudes a shockingly accurate depiction of an indie film, between the characterizations, the music, and the general tone of the writing, which unfortunately feels out of touch at times, Life is Strange clearly takes inspiration from films such as Juno and The Perks of Being a Wallflower to name a couple.
Life is Strange follows the formula most, if not all, adventure games use these days, focused on choices and consequences over traditional puzzle solving. Every response and action you take will have repercussions, some within that same episode and others over the entire season. What makes Life is Strange unique in this regard is the ability to rewind and alter your choices or simply retry interactions for better results. The game smartly allows you to abuse this mechanic quite a bit, allowing for experimentation and exploration of both the games mechanics and the stories characters. It's fun to redo a conversation after learning a key piece of information and having that interaction go more smoothly and exactly the way you wanted. Which is another reason why this mechanic is more than just that; the setting and tone of the story allow for this very 'game-y' mechanic to integrate with the story. Max reacts the way anyone would upon discovering this unbelievably useful ability. Think about how amazing it would have been to have this ability when you were in high school, thankfully the writers thought the same thing and sufficiently explore both the advantages and consequences to being able to literally redo any moment.
This is the first episode of five so story wise there it's a lot of set up and only minor characterizations, there are a few characters who are clearly important but are severely underdeveloped as well as a darker underlying mystery that is just barely teased. The story and characters are, thus far, well crafted if slightly cliched but filled with potential, the darker themes and more serious aspects of the story can be jarring at first but as the full story slowly reveals itself it's clear this is a world grounded in reality and that our time with Max and her best friend Chloe is going to be far more serious than the initial introduction seems to imply. Overall Life is Strange seems like an exciting new adventure game from a fairly untested developer; Dontnod's only other game is the retrospectively ironically titled Remember Me. The wholly original setting and tone as well as the promise of a highly introspective character driven story is a highly appealing prospect to me and I can't wait for episode two.
(4 out of 5)
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