After much anticipation, I’ve finished Life is Strange!!
If you haven’t played and want to, don’t read more, because there are spoilers ahead.
The last episode….how can I say this in nice word….well that was a lot of boring talking, that could be summarized into: “I love you Chloe. I left you for no good reason when your father died and decided not to speak with you for years, but you’re in my heart. I am also extremely annoying and want to help everyone, EXCEPT when it endangers you Chloe, the person who I haven’t talked in years.”
ARGH. I excepted so much more. Can I choose to kill Chloe AND Arcadia Bay? We can’t, so I’ve chosen to sacrifice Arcadia bay.
I shed tears for all of the episodes. Shouldn’t this be the one that would make me cry the more!? Comme on! I cry with puppies in commercial ads! It’s not that hard to make me cry! The closest I came to having my eyes watery was when I realized that THIS was actually going to be the long-awaited end of the game.
Life is strange is a good game. I’ve already mentioned previously that I’m not sold on the whole episodic release game. Mostly because of what happened just now. It took me I don’t know how many months for this episode to be released (I think 2 or 3). I built up my expectations, joined discussion groups, and mostly awaited to be rewarded for my patience. And for me it was a flop.
It actually took me a while to get used to playing LIS again. For instance, I totally forgot how to save (you don’t…it saves itself), so I didnt’t know when I could quit the game without having to rewind the whole boring conversation again….Seriourly, does Max have a fast forward gift? It would be great.
So let’s summarize everything in episodes:
Episode 1 – Chrysalis
It was a good slow-paced beginning. We get to know the characters in our own time. The music is one if the first things that called my attention. I’d love to have the soundtrack of the game.
Max struck me as just an annoying teenager and I don’t much appreciate to play a teenage game. I was lucky enough to have only known that this game existed when the 4 episodes were already released. I don’t think I would continue playing if I had only played the first and had to wait 2 more months for the next one. I’d have forgotten all about LIS.
Episode 2 – Out of Time
Great episode. Really relatable with nowadays. It’s on this episode that I understood that this wouldn’t be just a teenager game. Loved the interaction between Chloe and Max,even though Chloe was a bit over the top.Great emotions with Kate MArsh! And I felt such joy when I was able to save her.
Episode 3 – Chaos Theory
It was the episode that we were presented with the consequences of Max’s powers. The investigation part of good. Probably the most adventure game feature in the whole game, on my opinion.
When Max goes back in time to save Chloe’s father and then discovers that she probably did more bad than good, was the highlight of the game. In the end, the bus trip and the music going on in the background and then the revelation of what changing time had meant, was a tear-jerker for me.
Episode 4 – Dark Room
The darkest of the episodes. It seemed that I was reading the Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo (the edited version for teenagers, probably).
The game just took another twisted turn. I still hoped for Rachel Amber to be alive. That hope died in the end of the episode. Mr. Jefferson….WHYYYYY WHYYYY?!
Episode 5 – Polarized
I had to wait long for this episode to be released, so my theories ran wild. Chloe had died so many times, in so many different ways, that I knew already that the Universe wanted Chloe dead. I suspected that it was because she repeated so many times Hella! I also thought that Mr. Jefferson and Nathan would be somehow related. But nope, just two random guys who happen to share the same passion for weird photography. Other people’s theories were more out there: Rachel was a time traveler. Mr. Jefferson was a time traveler. Warren was actually the bad guy.
In the end, my theory wasn’t that far off, which also disappointed me. I wanted to be surprised. Everything in the beginning of the episode was so predictable.
I enjoyed the whole Alice in Horrorland atmosphere from the nightmare . And the changing of the rooms depending on the perspective. That was really nice. Graphically the episode was great. The details were amazing. We still have the absence of emotion on the characters’ faces but hey we can’t have everything. And everything else is so good, so I have to forgive them for that.
And then, there came the choice, Chloe or Arcadia. I chose Chloe. Don’t know why. Just wanted to see if they would kill everyone. They did (if not everyone, at least the most part). Which was disappointing as well. I mean, I kept saving Alyssa’s butt, for her to die?! WTH! So why would it take me the whole episode to just screw Arcadia and all of the people, because I want my best friend with me. Max is going to have a busy life, because in a week, Chloe got killed a lot. Imagine the rest of her life. She’s going to be destroying a lot of cities, since obviously Chloe is very accident prone!
Also, how could Max go back in time with the butterfly picture? She wasn’t in it. I have to go back to the forums to understand this. (Update: I did get back to the forums and now I understood. The picture has Max’s reflection on it. Uff that was really far fetched)
All in all, it was a good game altogether. I so wanted to play LIS again to pick different choices just to see what happens. But the thruth is that nothing would really change. If I chose to Sacrifice Arcadia Bay, all of the choices I’ve made will be destroyed with the tornado. Everyone will die, so what was the point on spending the whole game trying to save people?!
Since I still wanted to believe that this game was great, I went back and chose to sacrifice Chloe. and there I had it. My beautiful and touching game.It all made sense. Comparing to this ending, the other one feels rushed and emotion free. Come on! Who blasts a city with all their family and friends there and speed up into the sunset. Killing Chloe restored my faith in the beauty of this game. It left me heartbroken actually.
It turns out that if I sacrifice Chloe, the choices REALLY don’t matter, because you went up in a reality were they haven’t been made yet! So……..what exactly was the point of choices? I really enjoyed them, but if nothing comes out of them, I feel a little bit stupid…..
I think I will go back to King’s Quest and the Gabriel Knight’s Series, which I am replaying and then I’ll rethink on playing LIS again.
obscurasomnia 