Recent gaming: Life is Strange
Jan. 12th, 2026 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bookofdanielvol2I finished the first Life is Strange last night and... man.
This series wasn't even on my radar until recently when one of the games came up in my Amazon recommendations, and after reading a bit about it I figured I'd check it out from the beginning, so I picked up the Arcadia Bay Collection release on Switch.
I've always enjoyed classic-style adventure games (though I still have to play some of the classic-era PC adventure titles), so the gameplay was fun, and past knowing a bit of the basic premise I went in largely blind and managed to remain spoiler-free throughout the playthrough, so it definitely went to some unexpected places and caught me by surprise more than once: For instance, talking Kate down from the roof was one of the more tense dialogue-tree moments in gaming I've experienced in recent memory (especially considering that, to my understanding, it is actually possible to fail it, and since your rewind power is disabled I assume you only get one shot); the alternate timeline where Chloe becomes quadriplegic - and her request at the end of the sequence - was absolutely devastating, and I definitely didn't see the reveal of Jefferson as the real villain coming.
The last decision point, "sacrifice Chloe" or "sacrifice Arcadia Bay," knowing that choosing one would result in the loss of the other, actually made me say "oh, Jesus Christ" out loud and then actually spend several real-world minutes thinking about it before making my decision, and I really can't think of another decision in a game that had *that* strong an effect on me.
At any rate, I ultimately decided to sacrifice Chloe to save the town. I liked her, and wanted to save her so she and Max could stay together, but it ultimately came down to sacrificing one to save the many, and I ultimately think it was the right call considering it was even the outcome Chloe herself requested.
The nature Max's powers - and probably the fact that coincidentally (or not?) Life is Strange also began and ended at a lighthouse - also brought to mind the BioShock series, and particularly BioShock: Infinite, and its talk of "constants and variables." As I see it, Chloe's death was one of those constants; it was always going to happen (just as Rachel's disappearance still happened in the alternate timeline), and when Max used her powers to prevent it, the universe tried to correct itself by throwing more variables in the form of the other increasing dangers, up to and including the tornado, to ensure that it occurred, and Max using her powers to prevent it was only delaying the inevitable. If Chloe survives the tornado, who's to say that's the end of it? There could still be something even worse. So, maybe a bit of BioShock: Infinite by way of Final Destination in a sense.
And, of course, there was the parallel between this decision and the previous section of the game where Max goes back in time to prevent Chloe's dad from dying, but in the process inadvertantly creates an even worse situation for Chloe - the idea that attempting to change one thing for the better can lead to even worse results. Never had to worry about that when resurrecting Crono or Garl, heh.
So, ultimately, as bittersweet as it was, I think that was the "correct" course of action - although the player percentages sheet at the end of the episode showed it as the less popular choice at like 46% to 54% for saving her, and of course according to the developers neither outcome is specifically canon anyway.
So, yeah, I thought this was fantastic. I'll probably let the first game marinate a bit, but sometime soon I'll play the prequel (Before the Storm) since that came with the original. After that I may cut ahead in the series to Double Exposure, since that's a direct sequel to the original and follows Max several years later, then go back eventually to Life is Strange 2 and True Colors, which are both new stories with new characters.
This series wasn't even on my radar until recently when one of the games came up in my Amazon recommendations, and after reading a bit about it I figured I'd check it out from the beginning, so I picked up the Arcadia Bay Collection release on Switch.
I've always enjoyed classic-style adventure games (though I still have to play some of the classic-era PC adventure titles), so the gameplay was fun, and past knowing a bit of the basic premise I went in largely blind and managed to remain spoiler-free throughout the playthrough, so it definitely went to some unexpected places and caught me by surprise more than once: For instance, talking Kate down from the roof was one of the more tense dialogue-tree moments in gaming I've experienced in recent memory (especially considering that, to my understanding, it is actually possible to fail it, and since your rewind power is disabled I assume you only get one shot); the alternate timeline where Chloe becomes quadriplegic - and her request at the end of the sequence - was absolutely devastating, and I definitely didn't see the reveal of Jefferson as the real villain coming.
The last decision point, "sacrifice Chloe" or "sacrifice Arcadia Bay," knowing that choosing one would result in the loss of the other, actually made me say "oh, Jesus Christ" out loud and then actually spend several real-world minutes thinking about it before making my decision, and I really can't think of another decision in a game that had *that* strong an effect on me.
At any rate, I ultimately decided to sacrifice Chloe to save the town. I liked her, and wanted to save her so she and Max could stay together, but it ultimately came down to sacrificing one to save the many, and I ultimately think it was the right call considering it was even the outcome Chloe herself requested.
The nature Max's powers - and probably the fact that coincidentally (or not?) Life is Strange also began and ended at a lighthouse - also brought to mind the BioShock series, and particularly BioShock: Infinite, and its talk of "constants and variables." As I see it, Chloe's death was one of those constants; it was always going to happen (just as Rachel's disappearance still happened in the alternate timeline), and when Max used her powers to prevent it, the universe tried to correct itself by throwing more variables in the form of the other increasing dangers, up to and including the tornado, to ensure that it occurred, and Max using her powers to prevent it was only delaying the inevitable. If Chloe survives the tornado, who's to say that's the end of it? There could still be something even worse. So, maybe a bit of BioShock: Infinite by way of Final Destination in a sense.
And, of course, there was the parallel between this decision and the previous section of the game where Max goes back in time to prevent Chloe's dad from dying, but in the process inadvertantly creates an even worse situation for Chloe - the idea that attempting to change one thing for the better can lead to even worse results. Never had to worry about that when resurrecting Crono or Garl, heh.
So, ultimately, as bittersweet as it was, I think that was the "correct" course of action - although the player percentages sheet at the end of the episode showed it as the less popular choice at like 46% to 54% for saving her, and of course according to the developers neither outcome is specifically canon anyway.
So, yeah, I thought this was fantastic. I'll probably let the first game marinate a bit, but sometime soon I'll play the prequel (Before the Storm) since that came with the original. After that I may cut ahead in the series to Double Exposure, since that's a direct sequel to the original and follows Max several years later, then go back eventually to Life is Strange 2 and True Colors, which are both new stories with new characters.
