By: Robert Murphy
What do you get when you turn a CW teen drama into a video game? You would probably end up with something similar to Life is Strange. The story follows seemingly average teen Max Caulfield who has just returned to her home state of Oregon and is now attending a prestigious private school. She is a gifted photographer but lacks a certain confidence to strut her stuff and show what she's made of but hey, it is high school and kids are going through all sorts of problems and emotions but Max may have the rest of the kids her age beat. After a horrible nightmare in the middle of her photography class and stumbling upon a scene where a young girl gets shot, Max discovers that she has the power to reverse time. This takes her oddly poetic life in an entirely new direction as she struggles to make the right decisions to all that is going around her but being able to rewind your life in mere seconds to a point where you choose helps out quite a bit. This is a power any teenager would dream of it would seem but never the less it is one that Max is in dire need of for the future to come or yet to be made.
Time travel was the last thing that I thought of when I first laid eyes on Life is Strange, I thought to myself that it would be another choose your own story style of game set through the life of an American teen that would be ripe with classic high school drama issues. That part was still true at least. Max is definitely an outcast member at her new school, she may have grown up in this town but a lot has changed since she left and her shy nature has made everything a bit harder for her. She wanders the halls with headphones on trying not to be noticed or cause anyone to really notice that she is there, Max just wants to quietly move about her day with as little stress as possible. Her strong nature though is revealed quickly after her photography class ends and she ends up in the girls bathroom, she is hidden at the end of the stalls when a boy enters and a girl soon after him. The two begin to argue and the boy in the end pulls a gun out and shoots the poor girl, this is a crucial point for Max as it is her first big time jump. She rewinds time all the way to her photography class, gets revenge on the mean girl in class and then returns to the restroom to pull the fire alarm and save the girl. It's certainly a powerful first chunk to the story and it only gets more intriguing from there.
Every decision Max makes ultimately has a consequence to them and while for the moment Max only worries about the choices she makes, such as turning in the boy with the gun to the principal, there are sure to be bigger problems later because of it. These choices however can be done or undone rather easily, Max can restart time on a whim and players can decide whether or not the decisions they've made were truly the ones they wanted. I stood there for a few moments debating to rewind time and save a girl from getting whacked in the head with a football or not, seeing if it would somehow help me later. It definitely leads you to feeling more relieved with your choice unlike in any Telltale game where I would love to rewind time and make a different choice if I could. The rewind function is a bit of a cheat in a way but one that I certainly love, time travel can always get so messy in movies and shows and I'm sure it will certainly get messy in Life is Strange but for the moment the time manipulation is pretty darn fun.
Now, not every choice in the game leads to some huge life altering future as many of the decisions in the game can be as simple as preventing someone from being bullied or staying off the radar of a particularly mean security guard. Max is definitely a person deserving of the gift of time manipulation as she does whatever she can to help those around her and use her gift for the right reasons. She may not know why she has this gift but she knows she can do some good with and starts to blossom into a truly great character. If only all the characters followed suit with her appealing characteristics. Many of the characters in the game are frankly flat, my conversation with the principal of the school was particularly mind numbing one and I felt like I was back in high school myself trying to dodge the conversation with my own principal. What made matters worse was when I decided to tell him about the boy with the gun and his blank expression really left me with a perplexed feeling, a kid had a gun! Do something other than stand there slack jawed starring at me. It certainly created a lack of tension for me as I played, I already felt invincible with my gift but with the characters around me not giving me any sort of concern I felt like the some of the drama was sucked out of this supposedly dramatic tale.
This isn't to say that all the characters in Life is Strange are bad, no many of the characters introduce look to lead to some potentially interesting stories later on. When I reunite with my long lost best friend Chloe, who is the punky girl in the bathroom that I watched die, I finally found a character with as much appeal as Max. Chloe has gotten into some big issues while Max was away and she has completely changed from the girl she knew, at least on the outside anyway as the two awkwardly stumble back into friendship. Chloe has an interesting story in itself but she also has more going on in the background as she is looking for her missing best friend that sort of replaced Max when she left. We then have her not so friendly step father, you met him earlier, he's our jerk security guard. His character has some screws loose and his massive levels of paranoia certainly made me curious as to what sort of things he will be up to later.
As it goes with most first episodes, Chrysalis does plenty of setup and leaves a lot of intrigue for what is to come in the next chapter of the story and it does it well. Max Caulfield is a sweet and interesting main character who starts off meek but is already changing into a compelling character before the halfway mark of the first episode. The story and world is also a very interesting one and I am certainly ready to see what lies in wake next. What is the lighthouse and what was with Max's bad nightmare in class and how did she get these powers she has? So many questions that I want answered and I can't wait to see what I find.
Good:
- Max is a wonderful main character
- Enjoyable story and world to explore
- Interesting choice to make
Bad:
- Some characters are flat and lack expression
- Not a lot of tension for a supposedly dramatic story
Scully Rating: 7.0 out of 10
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