Life Is Strange was Square Enix's rendition of the episodic point-and-click story-oriented game like Telltale's Walking Dead seasons, distinguishing itself by the player-character's superpower of time-travel (used roughly the same way as loading older save files after making a shitty decision). Henceforth the novelty of time-traveling is almost nonexistent considering the load-a-save-file tactic has always been an option for players to take. Sure, no other "storiented" game has embraced the convenience of save-scumming; but even then, the ease of altering your decisions ultimately lightens the weight of those decisions -- in other words, the big decisions don't feel quite as "big" as they should anymore. There are puzzles of trial-and-error, memory tests, and other filler to make it seem like the time-traveling makes a difference, but really it's just there for its relevance to the plot.
Although that's a lie, the time-traveling provided another function for the developers: to sneak in hours of unneeded dialogue; which is coincidentally the unwelcome majority of the entire game. How they made this work is after you select a branch of dialogue, the interlocutor will mention a potentially persuasive subject for you to bring up after you go back in time to start over the conversation. (The process of dialogue in games is usually talking to a character, get some valuable information, then move on; but Life Is Strange innovates! Now you talk to a character, end a conversation, repeat said conversation once or twice with different subjects, and only then get the valuable information. So basically they made the tedious layout of interactive dialogue in games last even longer!! Yippee!!!)
Yes, this is one of those games you pick up to play with snacks and popcorn at hand -- because you already know there will be a lot of sitting around watching stuff happen instead of making stuff happen.
I won't deny that watching a bunch of talking heads wasn't already prominent in the Walking Dead seasons, but at least Telltale did not make you sit through what is some of the most agonizing dialogue I've heard in a long time. You can tell that Life Is Strange was written by adults who were trying too hard to be "hip" and "with it" on teen lingo. I may have to check with my doctor to see if any serious damage has been done to my gut after lurching so hard at one character's exclamation of "Amazeballs" in one scene... In fact, just acknowledging that expression requires me to stop writing this to take a trip to the restroom.
There are dozens of other examples I should add aside from the juvenile expressions that affirm that the majority of Life Is Strange was written by businessmen, not artists.
Just look at the opening scene of the game and tell me this doesn't sound contrived: Before any supernatural aspects fall upon our protagonist Maxine Caulfield, there is the expected depiction of High school with all the prevailing cliches: there's the clique of bullies, the smart-ass geeks, the pothead skaters, the delinquents, the rich snobby kids, the clueless/abusive faculty, the whiny goths, the dumb and arrogant jocks, etc... All filtered through a sequence of Max listening to some Elliott-Smith-wannabe through her earphones while wandering the school halls. A few implausible coincidences later land Max at the scene of a murder which is when she acquires this power of time-manipulation, and she resolves to use it to prevent crimes from happening. (How she obtained these powers is left unexplained. Which is fine by me because, I mean, I don't care.) So then this one attempted murder leads to an altogether bigger case, which gradually devolves the writing into this pitiful mixture of angst and unrealistic crime-solving as if it were some sci-fi hybrid of My So-Called Life and Nancy Drew.
This is where I can sense that the story was planned in accordance with some map of market research: there is a drastically excessive emphasis on teen drama in the writing instead of emphasizing what makes the story different from any other story. I imagine there could have been a lot of interesting developments relevant to the supernatural aspect, but instead the writing portrays Max as if she were any other kid for players to relate to. But SHE CAN FUCKING CONTROL TIME.
Developers: "Oh, forget all the laws of physics we're breaking, please focus on some forced drama of this wannabe-punk brat arguing with her stepdad about smoking a joint."
This shit actually happens! This could go down as the very definition of writing that panders to a generic, indistinguishable and collective audience -- precisely the opposite of who you are supposed to make art for.
But enough with the bitching.
To my pleasant surprise, some of the game is engaging and exactly what I described somewhere in the mean-spirited ramblings above: an emphasis on the special elements of the story instead of banal High school drama and detective-story cliches. This is approximately the game's last quarter.
To minimize the spoilage, the final episode of Life Is Strange drops the kiddy Nancy Drew influence for something more like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo with scenes of torture, perverted voyeurism, and explicit murders.
But there is also this amazing sequence of surrealist game-design reminiscent of Batman Arkham Asylum's Scarecrow bits and David Lynch's metaphysical horror. The protagonist walks through vague areas and scenes from throughout the game hitherto, with the objective of hiding from every character in the story who is searching for Max with open disdain -- all of them voicing their plots (real or delusional) to make her life miserable, guilt-tripping her for actions made earlier; or just calling her stupid for not realizing how hated she is.
To me this part illustrates a portrait of any troubled teen's psyche. Everybody is treacherous and evil directly towards Max -- and this paranoia, these insecurities, are self-centered. I can clearly envision the thoughts of Max now: "They all hate me... They've been working together to make sure that I'm hurt, because they know that I'm important. They know that I'm special, that I'm a freak, and they're bullying me so they can feel special instead..." Other symbolism hints at Freudian psychology and different anxieties of betrayal and shame that relate to incidents of the story before this final episode.
So yeah, that part was badass; but it still doesn't redeem Life Is Strange for all its flaws that I had to (literally) sit through and watch hitherto.
Other good aspects: The soundtrack (when it's not some Elliott Smith wannabe) is perfectly gloomy, and the nods to other angst-filled writing such as Salinger's Catcher In The Rye makes me second-guess my claims that the teen moodiness was put in soullessly.
Nonetheless, I expected what I got from Life Is Strange, which was a gripping interactive story, albeit the first three quarters made me worry I'd be disappointed. Take that however you will: at first it lowered my expectations, but then it savagely exceeded them at its conclusion to catch me off-guard.