So I’ve had about a week to sit with Life Is Strange, and I am just… not over it whatsoever. I’m still sitting here wondering if my decisions were worth it, or if I was too harsh and didn’t go back to make things better. I didn’t know if the choices I made ended up being the fate of the event, or if I could really change everything.


The one big thing that stuck with me is the full circle factor. In the beginning frames, we see a fearful and petrified Max Caulfield, walking through a forest during a storm, with a tornado the size of the entire island heading for land. We have no other information, no context, just that moment on its own. Then, you end up in a classroom during a lecture about photography, distracted by your own thoughts. The strange thing about these moments comes from the fact at the end of the game, you have to decide your best friend’s fate in that same moment. So my question is… did it ever really happen? If you choose to live life the way it’s supposed to go, then why was Max “the chosen one?”


Max has a gift and a curse. Her power to travel back in time can benefit her in ways she could never imagine, but the turn for the worse is always ahead of her. The decision-based genre is filled with things like this, the protagonist having either a perk that makes them different, or some sort of power that changes the trajectory of the people around them. In the end, they’re almost always alone in their cruel world. What’s great about Life Is Strange is that the decisions you make aren’t timed like most decision-based games. The point is to make you think about what you’re doing, making for a psychological battle between you and yourself. The decisions you choose are deep, even if it means it’ll affect what happens in the future.


To think a bit deeper, there’s a handful of things I want to touch on about the story in particular without simply summarizing what it’s all about. There’s something so important about the bathroom scene. Max hides behind a bathroom stall when Nathan Prescott, a rich and troubled high schooler, shoots Chloe Price, Max’s childhood friend. Between the tearing of the Everyday Hero competition polaroid photo, the significance of the butterfly, and the shooting itself, the scene captivates everything that happens in the entire game into one moment. Was that moment Chloe’s fate? Why did Nathan have a gun, and why was he in the women’s bathroom? Max’s decisions in that moment completely shatter everything, and her memories are an encapsulated hellscape, based on the choices you make of course. It’s a tough pill to swallow at the beginning, and gets worse the more it pops up throughout the story.


No matter what you chose, Kate Marsh’s story is so hard to fathom. The viral video of her that went around Blackwell Academy haunted her every day. The creepy security guard David Madsen would never cut her any slack even though she was just scared. And ofcourse, being a victim of Mr. Jefferson’s horrific “art.” Because of the choices I made, I had to watch Kate jump off of the roof of the girls’ dormitories, as Max was right behind her trying to persuade her that she was there for her. The cutscene was slow, painful, and felt real, because you as the player had to make those choices for the people around you.


Another character I wanted to focus on is Nathan Prescott. His rich, powerful, and naive tendencies lead him to seem crazy, though he ended up being misunderstood in a way. He was still considered an asshole for the person he always was, but with his background, it’s hard to put the blame on him. He was hinted to have had a rough childhood and traumatic family life despite his wealth. That doesn’t exactly explain all of the dark and disturbing photos in his room. Mr. Jefferson seemed like the top candidate right behind Nathan, but the art and aesthetics he seemed to show off in his room was a good argument for him being guilty, even though that of course wasn’t the case.


We as viewers had so many reasons to hate David Madsen at the beginning. He seemed out to get Max right from the start, he was an over paranoid stepfather for Chloe(which we learned later on), and he seemed like a creep towards Kate Marsh with the photos he had of her(which is still strange even after beating the game). Come to realize, David is a good man. He saved Max from a near death experience in Mr. Jefferson’s vault, and he was a war veteran who just wanted to hold a stable job and be part of a family. Joyce seemed to bring the best out of him by the end. He didn’t seem to like Chloe from Max’s perspective, but all he wanted to do is be a good parent for her.


It’s strange that we’re really left in the dark about Max’s past. Outside of a few memories with Chloe, we don’t know much about her childhood, her family, or as I said, anything that doesn’t relate back to Chloe. I wish there was a part where Max was forced to look back at her happier self with the people she used to know when she was younger, but that’s just a missed opportunity in my opinion. Well, it was traumatic enough based on how the events of episode five went.


Chloe is just not a horrible influence on Max. I’ve seen so many retrospectives and videos focused on how awful Chloe is, but we have to cut her some slack. Her father’s death and her stepfather’s negative parenting made it hard for her to keep herself up. Also, her best friend completely vanished, so she put everything she had into Max. Although Max didn’t reach out to her for years, she still welcomed her back with open arms. The biggest part is that she quietly, but surely taught Max how to love. They were friends for the longest time, and up to the final moment it started to become real, and it did.


…At the end of the game, I had to watch Chloe get taken away from Max, as I felt horrible letting an entire island perish, along with Chloe’s mother who I took into account. Chloe wanted Max to be the hero although she was giving up her life in the most heroic way possible. It was definitely the most heart-wrenching moment I’ve ever had to deal with in a video game. When the decision popped up on the screen, I had to pause just to breathe for a moment. The funeral was such a hard watch, especially because they showed Frank and his dog watching the ceremony from afar, which were two souls that Chloe had to kill earlier in the story.


These next questions are probably answered in the prequel, Before The Storm, but because of all the signs and chatter about Rachel Amber, I wonder if she was popular. If Chloe is so alone and has no one until Max comes around, then was Rachel any different? Was there a time where Chloe had more respect? It’s just random but interesting things I definitely want to learn, and I will once I get to the prequel.


Those were my thoughts on the storyline, but as for the gameplay itself, it’s a decision tale, so I didn’t expect a Breath of the Wild or Red Dead Redemption type of open world of course. The linear areas didn’t feel like they had barriers, as everything that was gripping was never on the other side of the tunnel, and I think that’s such an important concept that a lot of games lack. It makes you want to explore what’s around you, not farther than the gates that were built for a reason.


The art direction is gorgeous. The sets do a great job of portraying concepts of childhood, the school system, and the disturbing memories that are jumbled together to mess with Max’s mind. Every place is detailed to the max(no pun intended), with so many little things to click and learn about that could even change what happens later. I was exploring a room one time and knocked something over, and apparently that changed something that happened in the future. Those small details are such huge additions that are so important for the genre.


Overall, this is absolutely one of the best games I’ve ever had the privilege to experience. I think decision games are definitely my style, I just need to play the right ones to get emotionally connected, and this is a fantastic route to get into the genre if you haven’t played yet.