Life is Strange: True Colors takes everything that makes Life is Strange great, and turns it up to eleven. With the third mainline installment, the developers at Don’t Nod have perfected their unique way of storytelling, and produced the best Life is Strange game that has come out.
This time, the story follows Alex Chen, who travels out to visit her brother Gabe. In addition, she gets to know the local town very well, getting to know the colorful cast (heh) of characters. Speaking of colors, the gimmick behind this title is being able to see people’s emotions, read their thoughts, and basically become an empath. Of course, using said powers, you must guide Alex through the game making the correct decisions and try to get the best ending possible.
About the powers of this game, I think this is the best power of all of them. It has similar vibes to Life is Strange 1. With Life is Strange 1, there are a lot of thoughts that plays in Max’s head, and you hear them from the player’s perspective. Here in True Colors, you can go out of your way to hear everyone’s thoughts. True Colors focuses more on the story of the town, rather than the story of the protagonist, similarly to how previous Life is Strange games handle it. The story is still focused around Alex of course, but the story is much more invested in the town as well.
Other than that, everything is just what you would expect, except it goes above and beyond. The atmosphere of the mountainside small town vibes, the new music being incorporated in new ways that is so clever, the memorable cast, the art direction. Everything about this game is so wonderful, and is perfect for anytime of the year.
One last thing I’ll point out, the devs did something new this time, and didn’t release the game in segments. All 5 episodes where released Day 1. I never was in the initial Life is Strange hype, so I don’t know how long episodes took to release, but I think this is a positive change. I understand wanting to release them in chunks to evenly disperse development time and keep hype going from episode to episode like how shows handle things, but times do change, and everyone wants things now, so I think it was the right move on their part.
But yeah, I do think this is the best Life is Strange game in the series. It acts as a good start for those who want to play the series, and also is great for those who are veterans. It’s just so good all around.