A “Life is Strange” Review

Spoiler Free

Age Restriction: 16

Trigger Warnings: Substance abuse, violence, suicide

Genre: adventure, interactive storytelling, drama

Platforms: Console, computer, mobile

One December evening of 2021, I stumbled onto a story-rich game called “Life is Strange”. The trailer peaked my interest and I played the first episode for free and shortly purchased the rest. Cut to seven months later (which was is the equivalent of 49.1 hours), I have finally finished the game and here are my thoughts.

“Life is Strange” is an interactive storytelling game, created by Dontnod Entertainment in 2015. The game has a total of 5 episodes and has received many acclaims. It has also become a franchise with a prequel game called Life is Strange: Before the Storm and a sequel game called Life is Strange 2.

As players we follow the protagonist Max Caulfield, an aspiring photographer attending Blackwell Academy in Arcadia Bay. She soon discovers that she has the ability to manipulate time and throughout the game we follow her as she unravels the story. My summary is short because the plot is all over the place and I quite frankly I don’t know how else to describe it without major spoilers.

The main feature of this game is your decisions because every choice you make will effect how you get to the ending (note that it won’t impact the ending). This was hard for me as I am indecisive, so when you give me the option to go back in time to change my mind, I’m a mess. This, however, is not the game’s fault but rather my own. Despite my inability to make decisions, I enjoyed the concept of this and I enjoyed the game.

I spent 49.1 hours playing it and I really liked it despite having few problems with it. Now the problems I have with the game is hard to describe in a review without fully going into the plot and even then my gameplay is going to differ from yours because of our choices. However, I do recommend it specially if you are more of a casual gamer or a gamer simply interested in story rich games. I recommend playing the first episode for free and see if it is your thing before purchasing the whole game.

Please take note of the trigger warnings, I do not recommend playing this game if you are sensitive to themes of mental health.

So initially this post was going to be a retrospect which would of dived into my problems with the game but also the parts I really liked. Although things took a turn and I made this into a review but I do plan on making a retrospect for those who have played it, so stay tuned.

~Stay Curious~