This was a game I always heard so much about, praised and beloved by so many people that I told myself I would check it out someday. I was intrigued and interested to see what all the fuss was about, so I really wanted to enjoy this game, but as is the tradition with hyped up games, I was disappointed... or maybe this game just isn't all it's coked up to be.
Aside from the attempt to capitalize on the success of Telltale and fall short as an imitation that doesn't really add too much aside from a cool mechanic that gets old within the first 30 minutes of it's debut episode, I actually ended up having to make a list of things that really irked me with this game.
I'll start with the most painful... the gameplay. These episodic choice narrative type games are not big or famous for their gameplay mechanics, but it's very clear that is what was trying to be achieved here. Both introductions just being extremely painful, and I mean every free-controllable section was just dreadful for me to power through. Always having to find things and spending half of the playtime walking around in circles is not fun, not to mention practically every dialogue choice being wrong... even though at the end the reason for this does become quite apparent, it was very annoying earlier on.
I'm almost tempted to brand some episodes "break your analog stick simulator" because focusing on photos was THE most dreadful mechanic. I've always hated the use of forcing down on your analog sticks while holding them in place because it makes them extremely prone to destruction (GTA V yoga mission point in case) and here it was just too much that I almost felt like giving up then and there. As aforementioned, the rewind mechanic was cool but it's too repetitive and it doesn't help most of the game is centered around using it, after a certain point I stopped caring about undoing certain actions cause it really just pads out the runtime.
Narratively, it was incredibly predictable. The only good, honest teacher in a school of seemingly everyone being a piece of shit totally isn't suspicious at all, right? Aside from the fact I figured out the twist 2 episodes in? It was painfully generic. A lot of things were, but when the game starts shoving in your face "you should have seen this coming" multiple times in the final 2 episodes as if I didn't already was pretty insulting lmfao. It didn't help that every other character (except for the GOAT Warren) was either a piece of shit/selfish person or an idiot, making most of them (yes, even Max and Chloe) extremely hard to like. What took me out of it a lot was the endless pop culture references. I swear there were at least three mentions of The Beatles and way too many film references to count that felt more like it was trying to be relatable like "Hey! Look, it's that cool thing! We mentioned it, aren't we so hip like real teens?" Just fucking unbearable, sorry.
Yet, amidst all this negativity, I still have to give credit where it's due. There were some good moments, the finale wasn't too bad, objectively the best episode. I liked Warren, Max and Chloe were good at the start but started getting way too selfish for me to like them. Kate was a good character for what it was worth, I think the attempt and preventing her death was a good scene, one of the very few.
This is most likely my hottest take when it comes to gaming and believe me, I very much wish I could enjoy this game as much as others... but there's just too many glaring issues for me to look past and just forget about. I don't think I'll be playing the spin-offs or sequels any time soon. It's not like any good things have been said about them anyways.
Aside from the attempt to capitalize on the success of Telltale and fall short as an imitation that doesn't really add too much aside from a cool mechanic that gets old within the first 30 minutes of it's debut episode, I actually ended up having to make a list of things that really irked me with this game.
I'll start with the most painful... the gameplay. These episodic choice narrative type games are not big or famous for their gameplay mechanics, but it's very clear that is what was trying to be achieved here. Both introductions just being extremely painful, and I mean every free-controllable section was just dreadful for me to power through. Always having to find things and spending half of the playtime walking around in circles is not fun, not to mention practically every dialogue choice being wrong... even though at the end the reason for this does become quite apparent, it was very annoying earlier on.
I'm almost tempted to brand some episodes "break your analog stick simulator" because focusing on photos was THE most dreadful mechanic. I've always hated the use of forcing down on your analog sticks while holding them in place because it makes them extremely prone to destruction (GTA V yoga mission point in case) and here it was just too much that I almost felt like giving up then and there. As aforementioned, the rewind mechanic was cool but it's too repetitive and it doesn't help most of the game is centered around using it, after a certain point I stopped caring about undoing certain actions cause it really just pads out the runtime.
Narratively, it was incredibly predictable. The only good, honest teacher in a school of seemingly everyone being a piece of shit totally isn't suspicious at all, right? Aside from the fact I figured out the twist 2 episodes in? It was painfully generic. A lot of things were, but when the game starts shoving in your face "you should have seen this coming" multiple times in the final 2 episodes as if I didn't already was pretty insulting lmfao. It didn't help that every other character (except for the GOAT Warren) was either a piece of shit/selfish person or an idiot, making most of them (yes, even Max and Chloe) extremely hard to like. What took me out of it a lot was the endless pop culture references. I swear there were at least three mentions of The Beatles and way too many film references to count that felt more like it was trying to be relatable like "Hey! Look, it's that cool thing! We mentioned it, aren't we so hip like real teens?" Just fucking unbearable, sorry.
Yet, amidst all this negativity, I still have to give credit where it's due. There were some good moments, the finale wasn't too bad, objectively the best episode. I liked Warren, Max and Chloe were good at the start but started getting way too selfish for me to like them. Kate was a good character for what it was worth, I think the attempt and preventing her death was a good scene, one of the very few.
This is most likely my hottest take when it comes to gaming and believe me, I very much wish I could enjoy this game as much as others... but there's just too many glaring issues for me to look past and just forget about. I don't think I'll be playing the spin-offs or sequels any time soon. It's not like any good things have been said about them anyways.
2 Comments
yeah, I'm actually jealous people like this game more than anything because even after playing I still want to like it so I'm glad that at least some people do
CCarney
1 year ago
I really agree with a lot of points that you've made here. I don't hate the gameplay and I didn't have any problems with it but yeah it's pretty flat. Focusing on photos is one of the most stupid mechanics I've ever seen in games and even on my 4th playthrough few months ago I wasn't sure how to do it properly.
I won't say that the story itself is one of the best I've seen because it's not but I love it anyway. There are plot holes here and there and some of the "bigger" things were pretty predictable but there wasn't anything that took me out of the experience. I don't know, I think it just hit me on a personal level years ago in my school years so I have a huge nostalgic feeling for it. It was one of the first typical story-driven games for me and it changed my view on games completely. I loved the characters even if most of them could be pretty annoying. I absolutely adore the whole vibe of Life is Strange and to this day I haven't played anything quite like that. The setting is perfect and it really reminds me of Twin Peaks in that regard. There are a lot of TP references in the game so that's not coincidence.
I think that the game won't work for anyone if they can't connect with the characters and the plot on emotional level so I totally understand that you didn't find it interesting. I don't even know If I would love LiS if I'd play it for the first time today. But I can't help and keep coming back to this game every once and a while because it means the world to me.
I'm glad that there is a huge LiS community and a lot of love for this game but I totally understand why it gets so much hate too. Idk what was the point of all of this so sorry for writing that much but I just love this game and wanted to write anything especially because I agree with many of your takes and we share love for some of my favourite things ever made so that was the biggest difference I've seen so far. At the end of the day it's good to see different opinions because it can often help to understand what's flawed in the things that I can't look at without some level of bias.
Have a good day/good night wherever you're reading this!