After completing episode 5 I decided to review the game as a whole and not per episode as I did before.
If you don't wish to read it all:
+Generally an amazing game!
+Good story
+Loveable characters
+Pleasent soundtrack
+Pleasent graphics
+Story paces slow and steady, let's you chill down and has emphasis on exploration and observation
+Time Traveling!
+Choices and consequences, if that's your cup of tea
-At some specific points, the game is TOO slow. Nothing you can't get over though
-Many choices, some has major consequences, and some just felt like they were practically thrown out of the window
-Ending is not as strong as you'd expect
Bottom line: Go play! Worth it even for a full price, even with it's slight downfalls.
Full review:
I will start by stating that Life is Strange is a great game, and while there are many BUTs to be said, I would definitely recommend it, it is truly a great work of art and it seems that much thought and soul were put into this product, I believe that many adventure lovers out there would greatly enjoy and appreciate the game.
Life is Strange takes one step forward the somewhat trendy tendency of adventures from the last years to make us feel that our choice matters. There are choices, the choices have consequences, of course, but here DONTNOT added the time reversal mechanics, where in almost every decision and choice you have to make, you can see the immediate outcome, reverse time and choose differently.
The time altering concept is used in more ways in the game, of course, and it is integrated perfectly into the gameplay most of the time.
As in every other game of the genre, story is a main feature here, and it didn't let me down. While the plot has its weak and slow points, it evolves well from a standard teenagers drama into a more complex, more mature, more interesting and twisted story.
The characters turn out to be loveable and admirable, each with his or her own unique personality and story.
The game offers a nice combination of dialogues, puzzles, and merely exploration as you progress. There's a large emphasis on the exploration part, on just chilling out and ansorb the environment. On many of the scenes in the game you have the opportuinity to just sit and look around, calm down, observe, and listen to the game's great soundtrack.
Which leads me to the next point - the soundtrack is very calm-indie stuff, which fits great to the game's spirit, and is really used perfectly in-game as a great addition to the atmosphere, without taking too much of your attention off the story and the world.
The graphics are also very nice and special, they present a perfect blend between the regular 3D graphics you're used to see in video games to a seemingly hand-drawn graphics, which I really enjoyed to observe.
Life is Strange is one of the only games I bought for a full price (I'm usually into sales, yo) and I really am happy about that and feel the money was worth it, and am hoping that DONTNOT's next products would be as good as their currently only two games, which I enjoyed greatly.
As I mentioned earlier, though, there are some downsides, noone's perfect, right?
I still believe the game totally worth it, but would just mention some things that disappointed me a bit.
Life is Strange's major problem, to me, was the excessive use of slang.
I don't have problem with slang,cursing, swearing and even much more "impolite" concepts in video games, when they come to serve some purpose or just fit the game's "spirit".
Here, it mainly feels like "Yo yo look at us, we're making cool teenagers game with cool teenagers in it, U see that bro? no? U CEREAL??" Are you cereal? really?
The amount of slang used by the characters felt unnatural, artificial, and forced, most of the time. I don't know how the american teenagers sound nowadays, but I really think and hope they don't sound like this.
Luckily, the good story and characters' evolution covers up the annoying language.
There were also various technical bugs I encountered, at first with the echoed speech (was fixed rapidly, though) and also with the time travelling, where at times I found myself simply stuck at time reversal with no option to get out of it. And no, it wasn't meant to happen.
These issues weren't major, though, and mainly the gameplay experience went fluid, technically speaking.
One last disappointment, the choices.
I LOVE the choices and consequences concept. I really do. But at times it felt as if the writers didn't exactly know what to do with the big amount of desicions the player gets to make throughout the game.
I am yet to replay the game from the beginning and see how making different decisions would change the game and story, but from what I can tell, many of the choices really don't have the much effect, except from a different line said by some character here and there.
The problem is that Life is Strange does have a great plot and great twists, it gets to surprise you, and that made me expect some bigger surprises regarding my OWN choices in the game, some greater impact of the things I chose to say and do. But those unexpected events are usually the ones which were pre-scripted and are not up to the player's choice.
That's not valid to ALL of the choices you make and the ENTIRE game, though, but it is felt strongly when the only 2 (or 3, if you're oh so pedantic) endings of Life is Strange are narrowd down to only ONE decision in the end of the game.
Oh yeah, we've seen it happening before, to other great games, but unfortunately Life is Strange made me raise my expectations too high.
All the things you did earlier, all the people you befriended\estranged, none of this has any impact in the end.
Moreover, only one ending is a worthy one, and not in a sense of "good" or "bad" ending, "strong" or "weak" ending, but in terms of details you get, in terms of satisfactory sense of conclusion.
Not to spoil anything, but the other ending it not as much more bland, and feels sorta flat and forced.
As if the devs just wanted to get this over with.
Luckily, the bad landing of Life is Strange after taking off to such heights, isn't enough to make me call this a bad game.
It is absolutely not.
Go and play!