I enjoyed Life is Strange, it is a good game, but not as much as the critical acclaim initially had my expectations at. In fairness, that may be in part due to the game's age, in the sense that some more recent entries (ie Dispatch) have really streamlined the formula. I am a big fan of the Telltale entries in general, so these types of games are definitely up my alley. LiS is an interesting take on the genre by having you play as a character that can manipulate time, ultimately meaning you can mess around and alter your decisions/actions in the game's various decision-making scenes. It’s an interesting power that I felt really added to the narrative overall. However there is one caveat: being able to immediately rewind and choose the opposite decision/action can sometimes highlight just how similar the “outcomes” can be when ultimately the game is trying to present these moments as large, diverging paths. But again, I thought it was a neat idea that really leant itself well to the “gameplay” in these types of games.
You will probably not be shocked to learn that when the main character, Max, starts messing with time, there are some larger unintended consequences. Most of the game is spent trying to unravel the mess that keeps getting made each time time is manipulated. And on top of this there is a sort of missing-girl mystery the various characters are trying to solve. This stuff was [i]really[/i] interesting, but to the games detriment, it also tries to juggle a large amount of college drama which I (unfortunately) did not find as interesting. I have read online that this game was maybe meant to have more episodes/be longer. And I do think this makes sense if true, as the game definitely has pacing issues. There are a TON of characters and a TON of interactable environmental prompts, but a lot of them don’t really…go anywhere. Or at least not anywhere interesting. It’s neat the game included this amount of detail, but at times I think it meant LiS felt unfocused. But overall the bulk of the main characters are interesting. And when LiS embraces its more gripping plotlines, it will likely have you hooked.
