Life Is Strange (2015, Playstation 4) Review

GAME OF WHAT IF

When you were young, uncertain of your place in the world and nervous about it, wouldn't a time-rewinding ability have been a relief? You could've tried cracking that risky joke, asking that classy girl out on a date or confronting that bully, and then rewind and skip if it failed. Precisely that ability is what Max Caulfield, the 18-year old at the center of Life Is Strange, discovers, although she uses it for more pressing matters.

Since its release 10 years ago, Dontnod's choice-driven graphical adventure has become somewhat of a classic. The opening Hitchcock-quote in the classroom scene calls film "little pieces of time". Max exists in her world not only as a participant but also as a viewer, as if she's simultaneously outside and part of the events around her. At the command of her outstreched hand, time rewinds the same way a videotape rewinds through the story on the TV screen. She can choose different options and retry until she think she gets it right. It's safe to say her life as a freshman at Blackwood Academy, in the town of Archadia Bay, takes a major turn.

She's a well-written character, sensitive and educated, but also socially awkward. She harbors doubts about belonging. Having arrived at adulthoolt with a talent for photography, she constantly second-guesses herself, comparing her work to others and downplaying her abilities. Her powers are all about that; second-guessing oneself, balancing choices, steering the outcome in the right direction and hoping for the best. Life Is Strange perfectly captures that young feeling of uncertainty and life-or-death in every minute detail.

After reuniting with her childhood bestie, Chloe, whom she failed to contact for a long time, things get more dramatic. Ever since Chloe lost her father in a car accident, she has turned rebellious, living dangerously and mixing with the wrong crowd. Her friend, Rachel, has disappeared and much of the game revolves around helping Chloe find out what happened to her. The result feels like a high school drama with weird undercurrents reminiscent of, but not as good as, Twin Peaks.

It takes place around school and its campus, as well as the diner in town and the Archadia Bay outskirts. A lighthouse outside town has a strong metaphorical significance, tied to Max herself. The town is one of those beautiful but suffocating places where nothing happens on the surface, causing all manner of turmoil on the inside. A quiet desperation haunts many of the characters, who are lost in life and eager to prove themselves.

The gameplay revolves around exploration, mundane puzzles and dialogue, all elevated by the intriguing time rewind mechanic. Arrows point out interactable objects and it's impossible not to snoop everywhere. Some puzzles are time-sensitive, and under normal circumstances you would fail, but rewinding lets you try over and over. If a bucket of paint falls, maybe you need to make sure some bully is sitting underneath it. The game lets you rewind that situation over and over, until the victim is in place.

Also fun, but a bit more tedious, are the dialogue situations, where you open up new topics by letting the words flow. You might answer a question wrong and get the correct answer given in the response. Then you can rewind and say the right thing. It's an entertaining idea, but in practice listening to the same dialogue over and over gets a bit tiresome.

One of the strengths of Life is Strange is the broad narrative, painting a picture not only of individuals, but also the pocket of life they inhabit. It's a coming-of-age drama and a detective mystery, where one aspect effortlessly bleeds into the other. Max is a typical introvert; she has few friends, making her value them all the more. Some other, nasty characters pass through the story. I like the way they go beyond the stereotypical to find some nuance. The bully has her reasons, the spoiled and crazy kid has his. It all takes an unexpectedly dark turn, in stark contrast to the colorful and breezy artstyle.

Through Max's time-warping powers we get to see them in alternate realities, like a multiverse, where they change personalities completely. In the most interesting section she travels back to her childhood to prevent the fatal accident from Chloe's past, to see if a happier life changes her outlook in life. The result is shocking, as if fate had a hand in it. It's probably my favorite chapter, since it redeems Chloe as a character, showing a more relatable side to the dangerous, edgy and, admittedly, quite obnoxious rebel.

The portrayal of Chloe has received a lot of scorn over the years, and yeah, she's a bad apple but that's the point. Max wouldn't hang out with her if not for their shared past. She feels a great deal of guilt over how things developed, as if it's her fault Chloe's now living on the edge, hanging around dangerous, trigger-happy drug dealers. She is a bad friend, dangerous by association, but Max takes it upon herself to free her of that.

It's in Max's empathetic character to want the best for everyone, a character trait that paradoxically becomes a risk to everyone including herself. Using the ability visibly hurts Max. Her nose starts bleeding and she feels faint. It soon becomes apparent that an apocalyptic storm is brewing, and that Max, on top of everything else, needs to save the entire town. There's also doubt - is she actually causing of the storm? Are those butterfly effects of fates and choices the source of the hurricane?

I love the ideas, and the storytelling feels grounded in the characters. I won't say it's perfect, as the opening drags and the final chapter (the game was originally released episodically) loses that groundedness and gets too multiversed and trippy for my tastes. The middle three chapters are all pretty great, focusing on the Rachel mystery and character growth. Also, the character models haven't aged well. Their faces are distractingly inanimate.

Life Is Strange has garnered ridicule for its cringeworthy attempts at adolescent dialogue, and that reputation colored my expectations. I noticed it as well, but found the youth slang ("wowser", "hella", etc) kinda amusing. The same critics also failed to mention that the conversations, and monologues, also are perfectly fine most of the time.

Steeped in a low-key atmosphere of emotional indie music, pencil sketchings and small town boredom, this game reaches emotional heights that caught me off-guard. The acoustic soundtrack from artists like Syd Matters and Jose Gonzalez captures the melancholy and nostalgia of still life. It is not a game for the conventional gamer, but an interactive story being told in an unconventional way. It's relaxing to play and invites warm and disturbing thoughts in equal measure.