Release Date: 29 August 2017
Date Played: 15 June 2022
Life Is Strange: Before The Storm is the prequal to the bizarrely amazing Life Is Strange that was released a couple of years before. It's an adventure game developed by Deck Nine and Don't Not and (oddly) published by Square Enix. It received generally favorable reviews upon its release and while it's considered a great addition to the story of the first game, fails to match its ambition and exciting storytelling.
Story/Gameplay:
Before The Storm tells the story of how Chloe Price, the misfit and loose canon from the first game, came to develop her relationship with Rachel Amber, another important character from the first game.
Chloe, who has recently lost her father, has become a sort of pariah in the town's local private school. She's transformed from honor student status with a bright and sunny disposition into a edgy, snarky, substance using burn-out who is walking a fine line with every authority figure in her life. She's no stranger to vandalizing property, owing money to drug dealers, and antagonizing her mother's new boyfriend. She's a teenage miscreant, and the developers really want you to be very aware of that.
One night, she sneaks out of her house to go see one of her favorite bands perform an underground show at a local abandoned lumber mill. After bullying the security to let her inside, meeting with her drug dealer, possibly stealing some money and/or alcohol, and climbing up to a rotten and dangerous loft, she picks a fight with a local hood. Right before he's about to attack, Rachel Amber, who is basically the school's prom queen, intervenes and saves the day. They escape back down to the crowd and proceed to have an awesome time watching the show. The next morning, Chloe awakens to find out that Rachel Amber has posted pictures of them hanging out all over social media and the school rumor mill becomes ablaze. "What is the school loser doing hanging out with the most popular girl in school?!?"
After this point, the game's three chapters tell a magical story of a whirlwind romance that develops between Chloe and Rachel. It feels real to watch it happen and the developers really captured that chemistry and electricity you experience when you meet someone special. It's difficult to pull this off in a movie, let alone a video game, and watching how well the two of them grow together over several days is nothing short of wonderful.
Of course, this being a Life Is Strange game, you can't just leave it as a basic love story. The game has a title it has to live up to, after all. There are crazy twists and turns, conspiracies, rebellion, danger, and all sorts of other shocking and enthralling events that take place as Chloe and Rachel decide to carve out their place in the world. It isn't long until Chloe and Rachel's actions come back to bite them in a big way. You'll have to make decisions for Chloe by selecting lines of dialog when encountering the game's vibrant cast of characters. Like most adventure games, this will alter the game's story in some pretty significant ways and you'll have to live with your choices (at least until you do another playthrough). Things get more and more crazy and intense during each of the game's 3 episodes before finally coming to a strong and satisfying climax. Just like any great TV show, Before the Storm will have you glued to your seat waiting to see how every cliffhanger resolves.
But, that can be the downfall of the game for some people. The Life Is Strange games often feel like more of a TV show than a game. You mainly just walk around and interact with various objects while the characters bust out clever quips about them. There is some very, very light puzzle elements where you might have to look around a room for some clues, or locate a missing part to something, or look a journal to get some dialog to trigger. It's all very simple and is clearly influenced by the Tell Tale games that were so prevalent for so long.
You may also have to do some verbal jousting with some of the characters to get them to do what you want. This mainly involves selecting various insults from a word tree to get them to bend to your will. It's pretty basic and all of the choices seem extremely obvious. I don't think I selecting a single wrong choice in both of my playthroughs of the game. In addition to this, you'll also have opportunities to vandalize various objects and walls with graffiti to earn the vast majority of the game's trophies.
It's your basic modern adventure game. You're here for the story... not the gameplay.
Presentation:
The game is starting to show its age a little bit from when it was released 5 years ago. However, it still looks very good. It has a sort of washed out and soft appearance that really helps to hide a lot of the lower quality textures and helps it stand up a little bit better than games that go for a hyper-realistic look. There a tons of little details tucked around the environments for you to see that really serve to fill out the game's world and make it feel real... which it does. All of the character models are unique and nice to look at. They mostly feel like real people, but not the sort of people you'd meet in real life. They feel like the people you see on a TV drama, which is what the developers were going for.
The voice acting is pretty decent all the way around with two exceptions. Rhianna DeVries (Chloe) and Kylie Brown (Rachel) do an absolutely fantastic job of bringing their characters to life. The whole game hinges on the relationship between these two characters, and it wouldn't work at all without the incredible performances of these two. The further you get into the game, the more you can feel the chemistry develop between the Chloe and Rachel. It goes from stilted and awkward flirting (we've all been there) to touching, reassuring, and loving comments that bolster the relationship between these two teenagers. I can't give these two actors any more praise and I think they did a perfect job of representing two challenging characters.
On top of this, the game is accompanied by a fantastic indie soundtrack. It ranges from calm and atmospheric, to hard-rocking and energetic; and every scene in the game has a great track to go with. This was the case with the first game as well and whoever curated the music for the series really knows what they're doing.
Conclusion:
If you like good stories in video games, then the Life Is Strange series is one of the best ones out there. It really does a good job of creating likeable and realistic characters and then shoves them into these peculiar and often extreme situations. While I agree with the general consensus that Before the Storm isn't quite as good as the original game, it really does serve as a fantastic prequal for it. If you've already played the first game, you should play this for sure as it will make the events that unfold much more intense and impactful. While Chloe's over-the-top rebelliousness was a bit much for me (I have two daughters) and caused me to wince a few times, seeing her soften as she developed feelings for Rachel really warmed my heart. I loved not only seeing them become close but also was spellbound by all of the crazy stuff that unfolded around them.
While it's short on gameplay, it's overflowing with charm and narrative. I would recommend playing this game first, and then the original Life Is Strange right afterwards. That's going to give you the biggest impact... and I hope your heart can take it.
Pros:
- Great characters
- Intriguing and charming story
- Nice presentation with fantastic soundtrack
- Gameplay is light and mostly involves walking
- Puzzle elements are too easy
- Need to play it along with the first game to get full impact
Final Status: Completed
Final Score: 8/10 (Great)
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