Revisitar a obra-prima que se firmou como o jogo favorito da minha vida já era uma vontade de tempos, e finalmente saiu do papel, mas talvez eu tenha escolhido a pior maneira possível de fazer isso.

Naturalmente, já era possível enxergar essa remasterização como questionável, visto que a versão original de 2015 segue visualmente linda para os dias atuais e apresenta uma direção artística maravilhosa, mas o problema é maior.

Mesmo que de fato apresente algumas melhorias, principalmente no que se diz respeito a iluminação de cenários e objetos, além de sutis melhorias na expressão facial de alguns dos personagens, a versão remasterizada traz consigo inúmeros problemas técnicos que chegam a ser imperdoáveis.

Não existe nada mais aconchegante e imersivo do que uma cena de encerramento de episódio de Life is Strange. E ora, que grande tópico para se estragar, não é mesmo?

A grande maioria das cenas mais importantes e impactantes, após a transição, passam a ficar pixeladas, como se a qualidade da imagem estivesse a 360p, ou pior.
Não fosse isso o bastante, a trilha sonora por vezes é simplesmente cortada, com cenas completamente mudas.

Sim, isso também acontece na cena final do jogo.

Não me arrependo de ter tido a iniciativa de testar essa versão, muito menos de rejogar o jogo que moldou muito do que eu consumo nos dias atuais, mas se eu fosse recomendar Life is Strange para alguém, eu definitivamente recomendaria que dessem preferência para a versão original.

Man, I remember playing this game way back in 2017 and thinking to myself "I don't see what all the hype is about, this is a girly girl game, I can't play this". I did stick with it though and discovered a heartwrenching story that had me hooked and made me tear up. Now I played the remastered version of it six years later and here's what I think:

1. The remastered version improves almost nothing, in fact I had more issues with glitches and what not than the original game.

2. Obviously if you've played these games before some scenes don't hit as hard as they used to. None of the plot twists have any effect anymore but that's not the game's fault.

So while I would have rated the orginal game higher(probs like a nine) I still really enjoyed it cuz fu*k man I still teared up. If you haven't played the first Life is Strange you missing out.

I liked that they greatly improved the lip syncing and the facial animations, but in trade we lost the dynamic title screen (unless you specifically futz with the menus inefficiently) and the between-episodes credit rolls, which I sorely missed. Also the credits music is absent.

With all that said, it's an interesting glimpse into the kind of person so devoted to this series as to have picked up the remaster to see how the player choice percentages differ between this and the original game. In that regard, all that I will say is that The Sapphics Stay Winning.

The graphical improvements are nice but not really worth dropping the money for a whole new SKU.

óbvio que quis odiar quando joguei próximo do lançamento como qualquer pessoa que se achava pós-normie em 2015, alguém que estava muito além de carinhas memes e que não percebia que o resto da humanidade, principalmente os mais jovens que eu, ainda tinham o direito de falar que as coisas são "épicas". na época achava que era um esforço dos escritores para apelar pra esse público e não uma representação desse público - não ridicularizando, mas afirmando uma existência que conforme se explicita mais tem que ser forçada a lidar com Coisas Do Mundo Real (violência, perigo, exposição) e menos com fofoquinhas e maconha.

e a cidade também vai se desdobrando em espaços levemente surreais (pássaros mortos, baleias encalhadas, duas luas aparecendo em uma noite só, neve) conforme você vai descobrindo que os problemas dela, como os problemas de qualquer cidade, são muito mais acobertados e sérios do que o padrasto chato que não te deixa ouvir música em casa. o jogo te engana nesse começo idílico e com problemas jovens porque todo mundo tem problemas jovens quando é jovem, mas parte desses jovens tem problemas adultos enquanto ainda é jovem também, e não dá tempo de crescer sem perder uns fios de cabelo com a arrancada. me lembrou crepúsculo e filmes similares que são facilmente descartados como "coisa de menininha chata" e acaba perdendo um público grande que apreciaria a estranheza inerente de fãs de twin peaks tentando fazer uma história mais acessível: até a lição de que o maior vilão da cidade é aquele que organiza a festa mais badalada.

This game has changed my life and will never fail to ball my eyes out. One of the best games I've played before, and now. I guess I could say that I've made better choices now than my first gameplay.

I love the additional changes they've made in this remastered, the facial expressions, the model haul and some, even the environment (I prefer the old Max and Kate model, the rest were fine).
I am just quite annoyed with the lighting throughout the game cause at some point the gameplay was unneccesarily dark. The soundtrack on this game is goated!

And yeah, just to let you know they didn't patch the Barn scene soft-lock-glitch. I had to redo that scene several times until it worked.

My main problem with the game is the story, it started of being pretty generic, and screwed up by placing quite a climatic moment right near the beginning. Then it got really good and I thought "hey this might actually be a good game" but then it decided to fuck it all up with the last 15 ish minutes.

I don't like writing spoilers in reviews so I won't go into any specifics, I'll instead focus on my problems with the game itself in the rest of this log.

I'll start with a minor issue, the graphics. It's a minor issue because I can play games with bad graphics, and maybe we're focusing too much on photo-realism lately, but life is strange, the original, came out in 2015. The same year everyone was shitting on fallout 4 for having disappointing graphics. Like what??? The remastered edition I played in 2022 has comparable graphics to what rockstar and naughty dog were making back in 2008.

Now onto the gameplay.
A lot of annoyances that only served to cost me a lot of time. I'll start with the saving, which is only done automatically. This was likely done to stop players from save scumming with save files but each chapter is 3-5 hours long and I'm not doing that in a single sitting. which means whenever I leave and come back I have to go through about 2 minutes of gameplay I already played. And this is only compounded by my next gripe, there's no way to fast forward or skip a cutscene you haven't seen before. which would save a lot of time whenever I get back to the game, but also in case if there's a crash which did happen to me in one of longest cutscenes in the game. There should also be a way to fast forward dialogue just a single line even if it's your first time seeing it, I swear half of my playtime is waiting for the characters speech to catch up after I already finished reading the subtitles. still on the topic of saving time you can't rewind time in the middle of a conversation or cutscene, you have to wait for the game to give you control of that. This is really annoying because sometimes you'll make a decision that has pretty immediate effects and instead of being able to rewind immediately because you didn't like that decision you have to wait another minute before the game hands control back to you. This all just makes for a really frustrating experience. Game devs need to learn to give the players more control and stop restricting us to whatever their intentions are, we bought the game, it's our product, we'll take responsibility if we fuck our own experience of it up, so stop fucking it up for us.

Reviewing only the "remastered" part :

Unless most facial animations, there is simply no work at all.

Some lights shades are even missing from the original game that "demaster" it in a way. Best example I got in mind is the small pieces of glass from Max's Polaroid in the first minutes that are simply pieces of paper in the Remastered.

7/10

On a surface level, a supernatural teen drama revolving around time travels. A thrilling investigation, an alleged apocalypse approaching, bullies all over, loss and addiction, parent issues, and implied love stories are the very core of the game's narrative (with perhaps too evident Donnie Darko vibes).

On a deeper level, it's about a bunch of hipsters that cannot accept that time passes for many reasons. Chloe can't accept that Rachel is gone as her own father; photography is seen as a tool to freeze (and turn back) time (and Blackwell students therefore are incapable of letting time pass - Kate cannot accept having being photographed during a party; Nathan and Victoria bully her and others through photos); Max cannot accept letting things (and most importantly, people) go. The gameplay (except for dozens of tedious environmental puzzles) revolves around this: you can unmake and remake your choices over and over but there is no ultimately good or bad choice - you increasingly get attached to past moments and past choices and yet this doesn't allow you to better face the present (see how powerless Max - and players - feel after Kate's sequence).

In the end, the game also reflects on destiny and free will. Spoilers ahead.

The final choice is great in this sense. There, players find themselves in the position of many protagonists in determinism-vs-free-will fictions. As Lily in Devs, as Miles in Across the Spider-Verse, as Donnie Darko, you must choose whether or not to accept that Chloe dies (as it should be, preventing the apocalyptic consequences of your defying time to save her). It's empowering and disempowering at the same time, as you basically have to accept having killed the only one you wanted to save or thousands of innocents. At the same time it's brilliant as you find yourself in the position of making a choice that's more than philosophical: accepting the world as it is (or should be?) or going against it. It's political, existential, and quite moving at the same time.

Eu já joguei o Lis normal e ele é tão incrível que não precisava de uma remasterização. Já que acabaram fazendo, eu como fã comprei e joguei, mas agora tomando escolhas diferentes da minha primeira gameplay. (ou não)
E Lis é incrível pessoas, facilmente um dos jogos favs, é tão lindo, tão bem feito... a versão original claro! A remasterização é bem simples e fraca, só achei os cenários bonitos e só. Os cabelos e alguns personagens estão tenebrosos. Recomendo a versão original mesmo. Dei 5 estrelas porque ainda é Life is Strange.

Lis original: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Lis Remasterizado: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Life is Strange is a truly moving experience. The storyline is incredibly touching, and the characters feel so real. I can give you a solid opinion on every character I've met in this game, whether they be a main character or a complete side character that you barely get to interact with. Truly one of the best of the genre. Trying to keep it spoiler-free, I wish we had gotten more closure on the after-story, and known what happens to said side characters after the final scene, but i guess that's what fanfiction is for, uh.

It hurts me to give this game such a "low" rating, because back when I first played it, Life is Strange shook me to the core with its heartwarming and heartbreaking coming of age story, its dramatic characters, and the emotional rollercoaster that is this journey.

Unfortunately though, this "remaster", at least its PS4 version (played on PS5), is so bad that it really did a disservice to the original game. While Deck Nine apparently recreated the character models and animations, the adventure is plagued by animation glitches, weird lighting issues and outright crashes, which prevent any proper immersion for a longer period of time. Even the sound sometimes glitches out, which is just a real shame.

I would urge anyone to play Life is Strange and sit through this emotional rollercoaster, but I can't recommend the remaster in good faith. Better play the original game, even if the characters look dated.

This is a unique experience from SquareEnix, I personally enjoyed Max as a protagonist alot, the time rewind and time travel theme was really cool. The story is amazing I was shocked at the villain twist. There are a lot of mature themes that some people might find disturbing but it is what it is. This game is not meant for those who played the walking dead and are accustomed to the action. This game is more story based, it is like watching a movie where your choices shape the story. Overall the script was spectacular and this game really had me emotionally invested, an amazing unique experience.