Life is Strange is a game I adore for a lot of reasons that are hard to pin down. Part of it is how much Max as a protagonist resonates with me (awkward, timid, a pretty good student who struggles to apply herself, an absolute turbo nerd whose bravado mostly exists in her head). Part of it is that it came out at the last possible moment for it to feel relevant to me, a sort of send-off to my long and often lonely academic career. Part of it is its nature as a late episodic adventure game; DON'T NOD and later Deck Nine were some of the last studios to try their hand at a template that was on its way out. Part of it is of course the high concept of using time travel to freely second-guess your own choices, a great mechanical characterization of insecurity and indecisiveness. All of these are good reasons, but I don't know which among these is the main one, or if it's something else. Chloe Price? Kate Marsh? Syd Matters?

The truth is, it's a game that felt like little else I've played before. I can't quite articulate what the game makes me feel, just that there's such an authenticity and sincerity to it all that, even 8 years from the fact, occasionally makes me stop and wonder.

You can clearly tell that DON'T NOD ran out of money with Episode 5. The ride up to it is great, and Episode 5 has poignant moments amid everything else, but man, it really needed stronger connective tissue to get where it was going. Still worth playing, though.