Life is Strange: Before the Storm Review

Life is Strange was a strange little gem developed by DontNod and published by Square Enix. An episodic game, the story focused on Max Caulfield who had developed a strange ability to rewind time and used this power to solve mysteries in the strange locale of Arcadia Bay.

The game is one of the best games you will ever only play once. It sucks you in with its strong characters and nostalgic feel for the early 2000s and the game stays with you long after you put it down. This was the first game I'd played in a long time that had be excited to rush home and pick it up again. The relationship between the main characters was one of the best developed I've ever seen in a video game.

However, most of the mysteries and questions raised by the game's plot go unanswered and since at the end of the game you very well may end up right back at the beginning of your story, the game can be considered kind of pointless. The game has little replay value since once you know what happens, there's little interest in repeating it since the story line doesn't branch very much. Don't get me wrong, I loved it but like all games it had its flaws.

DontNod followed up on this game by releasing Life is Strange:Before the Storm, a three episode prequel that focuses on Chloe (Max's friend from the original game) and Rachel (Chloe's best friend/possible lover who has disappeared by the time of the first game and whom Max and Chloe spend most of the first game searching for).

I always look askance at prequels. Prequels are usually a bad idea because the more we know about the original story, the less investment your audience has in your plot and your characters. If we know approximately where the characters end up, that reduces the stakes of anything happening in the prequels.

Let's look at everyone's 'favorite' prequels: the Star Wars prequels. Despite numerous battles and lightsaber duels, we never actually worry about Anakin, Padme, or Obi-wan. We know Anakin and Obi-wan must live into episode IV if the narrative is going to make any sense at all, and Padme can't die until she gives birth to Luke and Leia. Because there is no risk to any character, there is no suspense.

When Anakin and Obi-wan are dueling on Mustafar in episode III, we as the audience know exactly what is going to happen: We know Anakin is going to lose, we know Obi-wan is going to live, and we know Anakin will end up in the Vader suit. With all of this known to the audience before we watch it, it's very hard to be invested in the fight. The outcome is already known, what we're viewing is simply detail.

However that it's hard to win the audience's investment in a prequel doesn't mean there can be no investment. After all, the journey is half the fun. The Hobbit movies (although not exactly a cinematic triumph) were enjoyable. We didn't know the outcome of most of our main characters which kept suspense high and even though we knew Bilbo and Gandalf would come out of the adventure intact, we had plenty of characters to worry about and Bilbo's adventure of personal growth and discovery was enjoyable to sit through. Bilbo has few personally dangerously scenes in the films because the filmmakers know we won't take them seriously. The danger is to the dwarves and other characters for the most part. The Hobbit films work (more or less) because they focus on things that weren't told to the audience as a prelude: Bilbo's growing confidence and courage.

Life is Strange:Before the Storm struggles with some of these prequel issues.

<Spoiler alert>

At the end of 'Life is Strange' we discover that Rachel Amber has been dead for some time. At the end of the original game, Chloe likely to die as well, sacrificed by Max to preserve Arcadia Bay. Because we know going into the prequel that one or both of our main characters die, it's hard to be invested in them.

Don't get me wrong it's not a bad narrative but it might have been much better if the writers had taken advantage of Max's time powers to somehow give Chloe and Rachel a second chance. If Max had manipulated this time line somehow, then we could have created different outcomes where there was at least the possibility of Rachel and Chloe living out their lives rather than crashing into the already known dark ending.

That would have gone a long way to creating more interest in the story since the audience wouldn't have known the outcome before starting. It's a really obvious idea and I'm not sure why they didn't do it.

The loss of Max's rewind power is more of a blow to the franchise than you'd think. In addition to adding some mystery and magic to a fairly standard slice of life scenario, Max's power allowed you to see the outcome of what you did was and then change your mind. This is actually important because when you make a dialogue choice, Chloe frequently doesn't do what you expect. Sometimes you think you're telling her to be conciliatory but instead she verbally slaps someone across the face. Without Max's rewind, there's no way to correct the game on what you wanted it to do.

Rachel Amber is a fascinating character in the original game. She's ambiguous and equally parts loved and hated. I thought it was a fantastic story telling technique having us never meet Rachel and only learning about her indirectly by how people describe her.

I was worried that her appearance in the prequels would undermine that fascinating ambiguity, and it does, but the story to its credit, keeps her an interesting character.

Rachel is portrayed as having a magnetic charm as well as being a supremely talented actress. Even in the first game Rachel was described as being manipulative and having a dark side and this story lets us experience it by showing Chloe steadily falling under her spell.

It's not altogether clear how Rachel feels about Chloe, she might be falling in love but she might also simply have a callous and flighty personality, or she could be a manipulative sociopath. I genuinely don't know which because we see she's such a great actress. The ambiguity of this allows you to read anything you want into Rachel's character and their relationship.

The story is pretty flat on the whole since there is no mystery or no overall plot. Chloe is basically just making time until Rachel shows up and drags her into a new plot point. Unlike the first game which had a deepening mystery to explore, this one doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The closest we come to an actual narrative Rachel and Chloe's dream of fleeing Arcadia Bay as well as discussing the encroaching forest fire.

The forest fire concept is one of the best thematic elements in the game. Rachel sees her father kissing a woman (not her mother) and responds by burning a picture of them together in a trash barrel in a rage. She then kicks over the barrel screaming and accidentally starts a forest fire.

No one is aware that Rachel started the fire but it continues to rage out of control and slowly begins to creep toward Arcadia Bay. The game does a lot with fire imagery and uses it to explore Rachel's character. Chloe is being drawn to the fire and is very likely to get burned.

Chloe does better as a side character than a main character. Just like in the first game, Chloe makes a lot of bafflingly stupid decisions but now, rather than simply watching them, we're forced to make them with her when the plot takes the decisions out of our hands.

The game is built around some genuinely well done and emotional cinema scenes between Chloe and Rachel. The romantic angle in particular is extremely well done and both the music and direction are top notch. The game may not make you cry like the first one could but it does a great job nonetheless.

The rest of the game is just simple mini games and wandering around looking at things. One new development is a "back talk" system where by tailoring your retorts to what the other character said you can sometimes get them to do what you want. It's weird.

The game suffers mainly from a lack of plot goals. Where in the original game, Max's stated goal is to stop the storm from destroying Arcadia Bay, Chloe doesn't really have much of a goal in this game aside from keeping Rachel happy. Also the game is much shorter than the first at only three episodes so we have less time than we might like to get invested in Chloe's and Rachel's relationship.

The 3rd and final episode features a lot of plot lines turning in weird directions. We discover that Rachel is surrounded by manipulative and deceitful people who are hiding things from her and have become involved with dangerous criminals.

Chloe gets a stalker, something that comes right out of left field. Chloe then, in the process of investigating something for Rachel, gets caught up in a local drug and murder investigation for basically no reason. Her motivation for doing so is sheer stupidity since she has already acquired the information she wanted for Rachel (though apparently she doesn't realize it) and she doesn't even know for sure if the mob boss she's negotiating with has any further information for her anyway.

Very much like the first game, Life is Strange Before the Storm stands on the beautiful relationship between the two girls. Whether they're girl friends or girlfriends it is a heartfelt connection that we enjoy seeing develop. The game is mainly held back by its lack of focused plot and goals, it's predetermined ending, and the missing sci-fi elements that the first game possessed.

This is not a good jumping off point for the series but if you liked the first game you'll probably like this one too. The characters are three dimensional and fully realized but the series has become much more like an interactive movie than a game.

Final Score:

7/10