I raved about the original Life Is Strange. Though it wasn't without its flaws, overall Dontnod created a fantastic modern adventure game. It was sort of like the stuff that Telltale had done, but felt very grounded, even when delving into superpowers and so on. The world of Arcadia Bay felt very real, and very special to me. So I felt I owed it to myself to play the prequel, Life Is Strange: Before The Storm.
Now I must say, part of the charm of the original game was that I really liked the character of Max. And though I grew to like Chloe as well, I'd rather be playing as Max. Of course, the Chloe I knew was pretty different from the Chloe in this game. And thus, that might be the perfect hook for me. This is pretty much the story of Chloe's downward spiral. It feels neat to go back to Arcadia Bay, though. I remembered Chloe's house quite well. I remembered the school. It's like diving into the next season of a TV show that you really like. It's a cool feeling. The time period is cool to me, too. This game takes place in 2010, which in 2023 feels like a lifetime ago. It doesn't seem like a long time ago in numbers, but it's weird that I'd be feeling so nostalgic for 2010. The music, the fashion. It's funny to me to think back and remember that whatever wi-fi we had in our little apartment was a little device with three little antennae. It seems quaint in retrospect. The opening scene of the game sets the stage well enough. Chloe has snuck out in the night to see a band play at an underground bar. Having played the original game, I already know that this is after her father's death, and while Max is away and incommunicado. Chloe is meant to be wayward. Getting into the bar involves getting past the bouncer. And it's here that we discover her "power." Unlike Max who can slow down time, Chloe's shtick is basically using snark to get through conversations. It's a bit like the insult-fights in Monkey Island games. It's also less interesting than Max's power. But the scene is cool enough. There's a band performance, and the reintroduction of Frank (the drug-dealer from the original game who's mostly a scumbag but seems protective of Chloe, nevertheless). There's also a run-in with some local punks, and we get to see how Chloe and Rachel start hanging out, which sets up a lot of the unseen drama from the original game. EPISODE I: AWAKE It's cool to be back in Chloe's house. I feel like I know it well from that first game. Glancing at her journal right away we're greeted with a deep-cut mention of Blade Runner that I loved. I mean, it was an important movie in the first game, so I'm glad they kept with that theme. But also, I love Blade Runner so much myself. And Pris is awesome. So there's that. There is one thing that makes a prequel to a narrative-driven game difficult. See, I already know what's supposed to happen after this game. I already know how Chloe is supposed to act. So in some ways, it feels like I'm being pushed in that direction. Like, Chloe hates David. So even though I have a choice to be nice to him, it makes it feel like I'm going against the established story by doing so. But I guess that's a minor complaint. The storytelling in this episode is pretty great, though. There's just a good grounded vibe to the whole thing. The first really wow moment for me was the D&D game. There's a part where you can choose to play a game of Dungeons & Dragons with two other classmates. Instantly, it turned into this whole little game within a game. And I kind of loved it. Like, I felt like I was playing along to a real campaign - as brief as it was. After running into Rachel again, the story takes a turn. Chloe and Rachel skip school together and hop on a train. This whole section is great. It's really banal. Just Chloe and Rachel talking, getting to know each other. But it's almost visual novel territory yet works well. Then things spin out of control. Rachel sees her dad cheating on her mom. The two of you steal some wine, get drunk, get in a huge fight at a junkyard... Rachel storms off and Chloe has a devastating breakdown upon seeing the same car in the junkyard that her dad died in. It's pretty heavy gut-punch stuff. After a brief Twin Peaks-ish dream section, Chloe and Rachel reunite and make up. There's an admission of romantic feelings and then things really ramp up as Rachel burns a picture of her dad, causing a forest fire. In the Pacific Northwest. It's a pretty explosive way to end the episode, but it doesn't really go over my head that the fire is a pretty obvious tangible symbol of Rachel's rage. Fire walk with me. ... Episode 2 starts with Chloe getting expelled. It's a weird scene because it seems to give you every chance to get out of it, and I tried like hell, but she still got expelled. This scene really made me question how much control the player truly has over the story. And then, that was kind of it for me. It's weird. I finished up Episode 1 just as I started summer vacation. My wife, daughter and I went someplace every day - swimming and a zoo and an aquarium and a cat cafe. I figured at night I'd plow right through the remaining episodes. And yet, I just lost all motivation. I don't know if I was just too tired from the heat or whatever. But I just wasn't so captured by the story that I wanted to proceed. Before The Storm has some grounded writing and some excellent voice acting. But it's also a weirdly subdued step back from the first game. This sequel keeps the same tone and writing style and all, but the big difference is the whole Butterfly Effect. To me, that first game was elevated by the time-shifting mechanic. And without that here, Before The Storm feels like a slightly less interesting game. Or rather, it's still an interesting game but feels more like a story. If anything, it feels like an Americanized visual novel rather than a "game" with game-like mechanics. I compared the original Life Is Strange to a cross between Veronica Mars and Donnie Darko. Before The Storm feels more like just a teen drama. And there's nothing wrong with that. We've binged and loved everything from Dawson's Creek to One Tree Hill and The OC and anything similar you can think of. It's just, it's not what I thought I was signing up for with this game. I expected more of the original game. And this feels like a bait-and-switch to me. It's not bad. I didn't have any real complaints about it. It just wasn't enough for me. By the end of the first episode of the original game some crazy stuff had already happened. Here, we ended on finding out a parent was cheating and a student getting expelled. I guess it almost felt too banal to me. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately.
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