Thanks For Crying.

[rionaleonhart]

I finished Life Is Strange last night!

The 'finding bottles to shoot' sequence was a bit frustrating, but I was very entertained (whilst also being horrified) afterwards, when I screwed up my aiming instructions so badly that I accidentally made Chloe shoot herself. Sorry, Chloe! Sorry for the trauma, Max.



I was so upset by the scene with Kate on the roof in Chapter Two. I actually cried a bit during it. I screwed up on my first attempt and she jumped and I, er, reloaded the last checkpoint. I know, I know, it was a big dramatic moment because Max's power faltered and she couldn't rewind and THERE WERE NO DO-OVERS, but I really really wanted to save Kate, come on.


reipan came into the room halfway through Episode Two, watched a bit of the interaction between Max and Chloe and immediately declared, 'I'm going to be so pissed off if those two don't make out.'

She continued to watch me play, occasionally exclaiming, 'BE MORE INVESTED IN THIS PAIRING.'

'I'm almost certain Chloe has a crush on Max,' I said. 'I'm just waiting to get a better idea of how Max feels about Chloe.'

I reserved judgement until the pool scene in Episode Three, after which I put down the controller and said, 'Okay, yeah, it'll be a travesty if they don't make out.'


You know what I love? Videogame characters having playable hallucinatory breakdowns. It's something that shows up quite a bit, actually; off the top of my head, I've seen it in Final Fantasy VII, Uncharted 3, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, Assassin's Creed: Unity, and now Life Is Strange. The nightmare sequence delighted me.

Well, all right, there was a terrible stealth segment, but most of the nightmare sequence delighted me. I'd forgotten that Square Enix had a connection to this game and therefore it was doomed to get really weird towards the end.

When the nightmare sequence gave you all the out-of-character options for things to say to Mr Jefferson, I stared for a moment, briefly contemplated 'My selfies are shit' as the thing Max would probably hate saying least, and then decided that I might as well go as big and ridiculous as possible. I chose the 'I love you, Mr Jefferson' option. And it was SO CREEPY.

My first venture into the fandom was, I'm ashamed to admit, a hunt for creepy Jefferson fanart, so perhaps my declaration of love wasn't far off. He's absolutely vile, of course, but he's an oddly compelling character. Maybe a bit too eeeeevil, but I suppose it's difficult to portray a teacher who drugs, ties up and photographs his students without making him pretty eeeeevil.


In the end, I saved Arcadia Bay. It's frustrating that none of my earlier actions ultimately had much impact (besides, you know, inflicting lasting hellish psychological damage on Max), and it would have been nice if there had been some way to cheat the final choice by going back in time to evacuate the town, but I still wept a little at the ending. Also, Chloe and Max made out, which is very important.

I'm surprised that over 70% of players kissed Warren! I didn't even get the option to kiss him, which I suppose is because I'd spent the entire game carefully keeping him at arm's length. Sorry, Warren. I just didn't think Max was into you.



So that was Life Is Strange! It's been an interesting experience. It has its flaws as a piece of interactive fiction, and there are moments when it almost feels a bit too dark and bleak, and there's the uncomfortable sense that the characters might say 'lollerskates' at any moment, but overall I've enjoyed it a lot.

I think Max herself was my favourite character. Her internal observations were good fun, and her relationship with Chloe was fascinating, and I liked her conflict over whether she's nice out of the goodness of her heart or just because she wants people to like her. It was pleasant to inhabit her for a while. Even if she did once say 'wowser' three times within the space of ten minutes.