Life is Strange 2 is that kind of game that let you decide how your character will interact in some dialogs and situations. Every choice you make will change the end of the story. There are really good games that are perfect on it like Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain.

The fisrt Life is Strange and Before the Storm are masterpieces. They teach us how to conect with the characters, something really important in this type of game. Life is Strange 2 does not do that. To be honest, I didn't like the brothers and thought the small one really annoying. This is really bad and the game fails in something really important.

That makes you don't care about some parts of the story that the developers tried to make you shocked. To be honest, threre are just two scenes that made me fell some emotion.

If you don't know how this game works, I can tell you is pretty simple. Like I said before, the game focus in how you will interact with world arround you. There's no action segments that let you control the character. You'll only decide how to answer some questions or how to react in a situation. Everything you decide will make the following events change. That's another problem here.

You won't have a different story if you play the game multiple times. Only the end will change. For me, it's pretty bad. If you compare with games like Detroit: Become Human and As Dusk Falls, almost everything changes with your decisions. That's a problem for me here.

It's not a bad game but it's not as good as the first two. Life is Strange 2 is the most forgettable game of the franchise and I'm saying this after True Colors that it's a just a cool game, nothing more than that.

why this is so much better than the first one:
- you will not want to gouge your eyes out after every line of dialogue
- choices actually matter (even little tiny things, relationships are very important to the ending), tangible sacrifices are made
- not nearly as predictable
- it just... looks better (mouth mapping still sucks though)
- script is SO MUCH BETTER, characters actually make sense and talk like human beings, voice acting is really good
- characters were much easier to empathize with while having flaws, threats in the story much more tangible than time travel being able to fix every possible issue
- lovely relationships, family/love/friendships all feel very real
- the aspect of moving all over the place brought lots of new environments, beautiful scenes in nature

my main gripe:
- most villains very one-sided, face value (except Lisbeth and her group were more interesting)

if this is propaganda what is COD doing with reagan's penis in their mouth?

Confesso que superou minhas expectativas. Depois de life is strange 1 eu não achei que outros jogos da serie seriam grandes jogos, o before the storm ja me fez mudar de idéia... Agora sei que a Dontnod tem grande potencial em contar historias.

No geral eu gostei, o grafico é bem melhor que o 1, mas as expressões faciais não tiveram grande mudança, poderia ser melhor pra um jogo de 2018*. A parte das escolhas continua igual(ou pior),em certas partes vc sente falta de uma ou outra escolha, vc não tem tanta liberdade como poderia ter, outras partes a escolha não muda nada, vc escolhe diferente mas acontece umas coisas forçadas pra seguir o roteiro.
Outra coisa que não gostei é o fato de não controlarmos a pessoa que tem o poder dessa vez, Sean é um bom personagem mas algumas vezes é frustante ver ele só apanhando e não poder fazer nada. O personagem do Daniel tem muitos problemas,não é pq ele é criança que precisava ser tão irritante em certos momentos, ou tomar decisões totalmente estúpidas. Com as minhas escolhas até foi ''ok'', mas vi em outras escolhas que ele toma umas decisões horriveis, e faz algo que não deveria acontecer naquela situação.

O laço entre os 2 irmãos é bonito e forte. Tem alguns personagens secundarios bons, outros dispensáveis. Boas referencias ao 1. Toca em alguns temas delicados e assuntos politicos,religião,etc...

Light spoilers ahead...

Well here I am at the border wall, the final destination of a long journey that has had its ups and downs, but over the last two episodes, mostly downs.

Life is Strange 2 is not a good game. It's well produced, well acted, it looks nice, it has a great soundtrack. A lot of heart evidently went into it. But the results speak for themselves. The game suffers from poor writing and planning, and a lack a coherent vision.

I got the sense that the creators of the series poured everything they had into the first game, which is not only a testament to the possibilities of telling stories through games, but also a homage to many coming-of-age works that came before it, stuff like Donnie Dark and Twin Peaks being so fundamental to Max and Chloe's story. But not only that, Life is Strange has a mechanic - time travel - that plays well into the photography theme. One thing that made the original so compelling is just how often we were taken back to the same places, left to explore the drastic changes in perspective and evolution occurring differences in time as great as years or a minuscule as thirty seconds.

Despite being sort of an epic journey, Life is Strange 2 never lets us take in anything of the world's sites and sounds with near the amount of detail. The brothers move from one location to the next, conversing with one character or another, and we never do get to form our own opinions on much that is going on. The game is always chiefly concerned with delivering one heavy-handed edict and forced epiphany after another, in social-media level doses that are concentrated for maximum effect but always feel hollow. There is no gameplay mechanic (occasionally having Daniel float stuff around does not count), there are no choices (real or perceived), there is just heavy handed scenarios that may be coming from the right place, but miss far more often than they hit. It is a shame, because I thought the first episode was really great, and the third episode was a high point for all three series, LiS2 is a pivot from the immersive, mysterious, open-ended world of the first game to a more topical one where choices are obvious and people are predictable.

o que dizer de lis2... esse jogo definitivamente não teve a mesma recepção que o seu antecessor e foi responsável por uma boa parte das pessoas abandonarem a franquia, por não contar mais a história da max/chloe/rachel. confesso que eu também me afastei por conta disso, porém, fico muito feliz de ter dado uma chance a essa aventura.

esse provavelmente é o life is strange mais complexo e impactante, dessa vez, todas as escolhas impactam de verdade no futuro dos irmãos, que estão vivendo na pele a xenofobia extrema resultante do governo do Trump nos EUA, o que acredito ser um tópico muito sensível a todos os latinos, assim como eu.

além de ter DIVERSOS momentos chocantes/de cortar o coração durante todos os episódios, acredito fielmente que ele possui o melhor final da franquia e independente de qual o jogador escolher, porque você finalmente sente que todas as decisões que tomou moldaram a personalidade de ambos os personagens e fizeram diferença DE FATO, diferentemente de life is strange 1 (que um final anula todo o seu progresso no jogo), before the storm (que já conhecemos o final e não tem como mudar, infelizmente) e true colors (que não é nada dramático/importante).

por conta de todos esses fatores, recomendo que todos os admiradores de life is strange deem uma chance a esse jogo! mesmo com todos os bugs, jogabilidade travada e partes monótonas (cá entre nós, coisas normais de life is strange), as emoções que esse jogo irá proporcionar são únicas.

por mais jogos assim, até a próxima, life is strange/dontnod! <3

Full Review + Trophy Review and Tips Below

A View From The Heitz: Life is Strange 2 is a new story by the team at DONTNOD that follows two brothers through a journey full of extraordinary situations. The relationship building and acting in this game is a huge step up from the original Life is Strange. Thankfully Life is Strange 2 never hits the lows of the original but also struggles to hit the highs.
******
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Life is Strange 2 doesn't stray far from the formula that made the first game such a darling in peoples eyes. You will follow the main protagonists through 5 chapters, making dialogue choices a long the way, some of which have long lasting implications on how the story plays out. There continues to be a supernatural element to the story that does not directly impact the game-play like the rewind power did, but is central to the development of the characters and their relationships.

Small tangent, It's interesting to play this game that deals with timely issues about race and equality in the US during this Trump filled era, especially as seen from an outsiders eyes. It makes you almost realize, just how much of a joke we are right now to the rest of the world.

Outside of pacing issues, this is definitely a sequel I can recommend especially if you enjoy well written, narrative, choice driven stories.

Trophies
Difficulty: 1/10
Time: 10-15 Hours
Trophy Guide: Recommended for collectibles
Trophy List Score: 8/10

As you would expect with similar type games, this trophy guide is very easy. The game rewards you trophies for completing each chapter and for finding every collectible. None of the trophies can be missed as there is a chapter/scene select that will tell you how many collectibles are missing. You can immediately find and exit to save your progress. Happy Trophy Hunting!

I enjoyed this game more so than the others, as I felt that I could connect with it on a much deeper level. It’s themes of identity, regarding sexuality if you make the choice, and brotherhood.

I felt many of the choices were impactful on me as a player and definitely left me thinking for a bit.
I also connected with the single parent element and how this effects kids, and in a way, it was therapeutic. I’ve revisited this game a few times now, and it’s never gotten old.

Love it!

Nosso protagonista existe apenas para sofrer e cuidar do irmão que vive tratando ele mal.
História previsível e exaustiva (não gostei de nenhum final).
Personagens secundários bem genéricos.
(O primeiro LiS sempre levantou temas políticos, mas de forma bem trabalhada. Aqui começa bem em tópicos como controle de armas, imigração, sexualidade, etc. Mas chega no 5º episódio você não aguenta mais... É como se todos os personagens secundários pudessem ser definidos no hipster bonzinho que te oferece uma carona ou o portador de arma irresponsável, xenofóbico e fanático religioso).

Life is Strange 2 is an odd one. On one hand, I admire the refusal to pander to fans of the first game, and willingness to try something new. Apart from a few easter eggs and cameos here and there, LiS2 truly could not care less about Max, Chloe, or Arcadia Bay, and I kind of like that energy. On the other hand, LiS2 doesn’t seem very aware of what made the first game compelling, and its attempt to tell a different kind of story ends up sabotaging a lot of what made the original work.

Life Is Strange was not by any metric a great work of art—it was a goofy, cringily written, emotionally manipulative teen melodrama—but it did have some effective hooks. There was a mystery to solve, a layered dynamic between the two leads, a quaint Twin Peaksy atmosphere with lots of archetypal characters, and there was the fun time-manipulation mechanic which let you see the immediate consequences of different narrative decisions before making up your mind.

Life Is Strange 2 lacks most of these, which would be okay, except it doesn’t do much to fill their absence. There’s little mystery this time beyond waiting to see if the brothers can make it to Mexico. The relationship between the brothers is sweet, but lacks the nuance of the Max/Chloe relationship, probably because one is still a kid, so the older one is pretty much just trying to be a good dad the whole time. The small-town vibes are jettisoned in favor of a road trip story with new locales in every chapter, which sounds fun in theory, but in practice ends up a slog, since every chapter opens with a bazillion descriptions to read and new characters to meet, who you already know will be gone soon, so there’s no real reason to care about them. Finally, the time-reversal mechanics are replaced with…the ability to tell your brother to fuck shit up with his brain, which is just not as interesting on a narrative level, since in every situation you basically have two options: tell your brother to fuck shit up, or tell him to not.

What LiS2 does retain from the original is its earnest sincerity and soap opera plot developments, two traits that serve the game less well than its predecessor. Life Is Strange was packed full of ludicrous teen drama, but it knew what kind of story it was telling, and never stepped too far outside the bounds of an edgy CW show. The themes of LiS2 are more overtly political, and as a result the game feels like a weird time capsule preserving a particular flavor of post-Obama mopey liberalism. The main messages seem to be: racism bad, border wall bad, america.....good? But the only way the writers know how to convey these simple ideas is by subjecting the protagonists to an unending parade of harassment and abuse. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with making a game with an anti-racist message, or with portraying racial violence, but the game simply ends up making the same points over and over, without deepening its themes or analysis. It feels awkward in the way that white liberals patting themselves on the back for recognizing racism often does.

I didn’t hate Life Is Strange 2. There are some touching moments along the way. But I really wish I could say its boldness pays off, when sadly the opposite is more often true. Also the soundtrack could have used a whole lot more Sufjan Stevens

teve uma época que eu dizia que esse jogos estilo telltale eram os meus favoritos. Começou lá com The Walking Dead e se arrastou até o primeiro Life is Strange e consequentemente o Before the Storm também. Dito isso, não sei dizer se sou eu ou o jogo por achar incrivelmente arrastado (num nível de chato) os começos de cada episódio. O segundo capítulo eu ficava me perguntando a cada segundo porque eu ainda tava jogando, mas bola pra frente e até que valeu a pena.

Terminei achando o jogo meh, mas que tiro coisas boas desse meio termo. Relação Sean e Daniel é muito boa e apesar de terem vezes que a vontade é de simplesmente abandonar a criança no meio do nada e seguir a minha vida, Daniel é isso, uma criança que tá aprendendo e que no final acabei levando em consideração os sentimentos dele para escolher a decisão final. (e nossa, se for comparar raivas que passei com crianças em jogos, a do TWD season 4 foi muito pior, nível de querer odiar o jogo por isso)

Não sei o que quero dizer com essa review, acho que escrever sobre jogos que acho mais ou menos muito mais difícil do que os outros que estão em algum extremo.

(Escrever só um negócio extremamente forte do jogo que gostaria de ver sendo adotado mais vezes: protagonista com caderninho onde anota seus pensamentos e faz desenhos de vez em quando, adoro isso)

I am not a man. For most of my life, approximately the first twenty years of my existence, I identified as one, and it seems likely that unless I radically change who I am to hide behind the aesthetics of androgyny, I will always be externally identified as a man by those around me. To escape a bioessentialist lens of analysis in our society is near impossible -- it is a lens that permeates even my internal self, leads me to question whether I am really non-binary or simply afraid of being labeled as a man, and by such label being condemned as inherently violent, hateful, and dominating. I despise patriarchal masculinity for the ways in which it has defined the world around me, shaping my relationships with my parents, friends, classmates, and partners, continually seeking to shunt me into a role which I have always found repulsive. I am not a man, and yet it seems impossible for me to exist without the baggage of maleness.

All this is to say that my relationship with masculinity and maleness is a strange and complicated one. At once I want to disavow it and reclaim it. To do either, or both, or neither requires that I understand masculinity better, that I understand boyhood better, that I find a means by which to deconstruct the patriarchal and toxic frameworks in which these experiences have been shaped, and that an alternate model -- a positive, feminist masculinity -- must take their place.

Within communities centered around the Life is Strange series of games in the several years following Life is Strange 2's release, a common criticism was often levied of the game that I could not seem to understand. The sentiment was, roughly, that Life is Strange was a series about women -- Max, Chloe, Rachel -- and that to write a new game in the series and center it around male protagonists was a step back. Yet another story about men! How tiring. It took me a long time to figure out why, exactly, this criticism rang so hollow, even though in other contexts I would agree with this same piece of criticism about other pieces of media. As someone who would consider themselves an intersectional feminist, diversity in media is something I value -- to have a series centered around the internal experiences of not just women but specifically sapphic women in a landscape of gaming dominated by stories of men was something that I felt was an achievement by Life is Strange.

In an all-too misogynist media sphere, Life is Strange was a breath of fresh air, a piece of media that aimed to take seriously and capture the internal lives of teenage girls -- one of the most maligned groups in the popular consciousness! -- and for doing such, it received extreme criticism in the public eye. There's much to be said about how Life is Strange breaks down the typical archetypes of teenaged femininity, presenting a cast of young women who at first glance fit easily into typical tropes of the cheerleader, popular girl, nerd, manic pixie dream girl, and then going out of its way to humanize those characters and deconstruct those tropes. This, of course, is a prime reason why so much male hatred was directed at the series -- if you were on the internet at any point during Life is Strange's release, it was impossible to avoid accusations levied at Life is Strange of being an "extremist SJW toxic feminist" game. As teenage girls in real life have been mocked for their patterns of speech, so the same was replicated in the virtual space with an absurd assertion that the regionally accurate slang was "cringe" and stupid. It was one of the games picked up by Gamergate as an icon for how "far-leftism is coming for your vidya." All of this for presenting women as humanized characters in a video game!

But this is exactly why this criticism of Life is Strange 2's protagonists fell short for me -- Life is Strange is not a series about women, but a series written from a strongly feminist lens, and feminism cannot exist as a substantial framework of analysis if it only has room for one of the sexes. Feminism is a radical rejection of the patriarchal norms which shape and define our society. It is an insistence that we do not need the patterns of male domination and violence which have come to be implicitly accepted as natural -- more than that, it insists that these patterns are harmful to every person in our society. An analysis, deconstruction, and positive reconstruction of masculinity is not going above and beyond the bounds of what feminism is supposed to be, but is crucial to any feminist project that would seek to abolish patriarchy once and for all.

This brings us to Life is Strange 2. The core conceit of this game is that two young Hispanic brothers, Sean and Daniel, witness their dad being shot by a police officer. In reaction to this, Daniel suddenly gains powers, and in a moment of overwhelming grief and rage, he kills the police officer, without knowing that he did any such thing. The series begins from this point on, the two brothers weaving their way across the west coast of the United States, traveling from their now-abandoned home in Seattle to Mexico in pursuit of freedom from the ever-looming violent hand of the criminal justice system. There is much to say about the obvious racial politics of this game, which are largely transparent and at times lacking in nuance, but it seems to me that the racial politics of this game are more of a mechanism than anything else. They create an impetus for the brothers to leave their home and define a goal for the brothers to pursue, but the real meat of the game is everything in between those two points. In-between those two points is a story about brotherhood, love, family, and masculinity, one which I believe is often overlooked by people when they engage with this game, and one which I think is an incredibly lacking narrative in much of the medium of gaming to this day. Life is Strange 2 is the rare game that explores feminism by positing what a positive model of masculinity and male connection can and should look like.

It would, perhaps, be too trite to step event by event, or even episode by episode through this game and notate the precise ways in which this analysis is done. It is easy to point to the traumas that the Diaz brothers experience and how those make them shut out their emotions, how they (especially Daniel, but both of them at times) seek control over their life with violence and domination, and how Sean's initial instinct towards patriarchal masculinity alienates his brother. It is easy to note that from the very first episode, we see a complex mix of positive and toxic masculinites expressed in the people that Sean and Daniel meet on the road who help them and hurt them, connect with them and steal them away from one another. I think once you're aware that the game is using this lens of analysis in its writing, much of this falls into place naturally, and I believe there's significant value in revisiting the game to see what ideas about masculinity it presents for yourself. For me to prime others to see the exact same messages that I see would be a mistake, as it is not often that we have the chance to critically engage with pieces of media that recognize the toxic nature of patriarchal masculinity and are interested in showing us a image of what positive masculinity can be. To steal that chance away from you, the reader, would be a legitimate shame.

And yet, I cannot help but express the absolute beauty that I find in Episode 3 when this lens of analysis clicks into place and everything suddenly becomes more clear than it has ever been! In the midst of a journey full of pain and hatred and violence and rage, where the brothers fight not only with the world around them, not only between one another, but with their own internal selves, the third episode is a sudden break away from the patterns that have dominated the lives of Sean and Daniel, the structures that have defined our own lives. For a brief moment, Sean sees what life could be like free of the baggage of the patriarchal scars that he's been burdened with for his own life! It is a vision of community and family and love, where he yields his need to control and dominate his life and allows himself to open to the people around him. He sits quietly next to Cassidy and watches her play guitar. He talks earnestly and emotionally with Finn. At some point Sean and I blur into one. I walk around the camp with Daniel and do chores together and finally, at long last, two states away from his home, Sean treats his brother like someone he loves and respects rather than an annoyance to be cast away. We stop being afraid of our brother's potential to hurt. We kiss Finn. We go on night swims and help Daniel train his powers and it seems like finally we're free of all the suffering, that we've broken the cycle of the violence and estrangement innate to our lives under patriarchy!

But it is a brief moment, and no longer. All too easily the outside world and the norms and power structures rush back in and the episode ends again in violence and loss and rage, a patriarchal norm forced back onto its unwilling victims, and as Sean loses an eye and his brother runs off alone, I weep.

I am not a man. But over time I have come to think that it is impossible for me to extricate myself from the relationship to masculinity which has been foisted upon me by the world. The best I can hope for is to shape that relationship into something positive, something not corrupted by the sexism that eats at every aspect of our relationships to others and ourselves alike. Episode 3 is a snapshot of what that might look like, a haven from the world. It is written with a love of men and masculinity, it embraces of all the positive potential that they have, and it denies the insidious idea that the standards of patriarchy we live under are innate and biologically determined. It is wonderfully feminist, and in its quiet but firm commitment to a better masculinity, it is even a little bit radical.

I am not a man. I do not think I will ever be a man. But if this was what it meant to be a man -- perhaps I wouldn't be so terrified of being seen as one.

You know how kids are gross? Not like, playing with dirt and bugs gross, just an inherent background grossness. You share your game controller for 5 minutes and they hand it back sticky, why is it sticky, do your hands secrete slime?

Daniel looks gross. Visually, I can tell he'll make my controller sticky. He's so real. It's an awesome accomplishment of animation and writing.

Daniel has psychic powers which go unexplained (it's a metaphor!). He has to learn how and when to use them. You... are not Daniel. You're his older brother. You can't control Daniel, only influence him through your words and actions. It's terrifying. I don't have children so maybe this is naive, but I feel like I've gotten a taste of how scary it is to realize someone you've raised their whole life is indeed a person independent from you. Making Daniel a separate entity is a brilliant choice that makes story branches natural and meaningful. Gone is the "choose your ending" ending of LIS1.

The story is about anger, and sometimes you can feel that anger directing the story instead of the other way around. The animation I praised earlier also starts to look more budget as the game goes on. Apparently there were lengthy delays between episodes when it was coming out, but that was the only seam I could spot. As a single package I loved this, and I want to replay it with different choices as soon as possible.

It's unfair even to say "It's unfair to compare this to LIS1." It is, deliberately, the exact opposite of that game. I appreciate that.