Yo~ I finally experienced the whole process of Life is Strange: Before the Storm(BTS). Compared to Life is Stange, BTS still keeps the features of the narration: ups and downs, strong metaphors, tragedy, and last but not least: choices.
Actually, IMHO, BTS itself is not a good game, but an excellent sequel indeed. Even though the development team was changed (from Dontnod to Deck Nine), there's no conflict about art style or storyline. Every detail in this game is well connected with the former one. Since every Life is Strange's player knows how this couple will end up with, they would play BTS with ample expectation of what Chloe has gone through before remeeting with Max. As opposed to many mainstream games whose sequels tend to follow the timeline, Life is Stange's series chose a totally contrary direction, which I think is more suitable for this game.
Unlike the original work, BTS doesn't have the time reversing mechanism, which left a huge challenge for the game designers as we know that simply making choices is meaningless. Given this scenario, how to enhancing players' engagement, AKA agency, is very crucial. So when playing the game we can see that there are many kinds of choices:
Short-term decisions don't influence the story.
Players are given enough time to think about long-term decisions, which will influence the final outcome, and thenfeedback is much longer than the short-term ones.
"Argument" mechanism makes the choices of conversation much more intense and exciting, which also involves strategic consideration.
Insertion of other word games: Two Truths and a Lie, DnD.
An open environment with a massive amount of objects/people which are waited to be explored and interacted with.
The final decision is the most difficult one because we know neither sides of it is perfect.
The complexity of the characters' personalities blurs the boundary between right and wrong decisions.
Players are given enough choices to build Chloe's personality.
However, there are indeed some elements which were not good enough or too old-school... Personally, I really hate the puzzling parts such as repairing the car and the DnD game in the hospital. It takes the player so many steps to do something which is not important at all for the game. Thanks for the trophy system, or many players would be mad at the gameplay experience.
All in all, I really love the game's story design, which did a wonderful job to intrigue the players' interest in the truth. Moreover, I really like the way of displaying a character's dark and bright sides, because from Chloe's perspective, she can't see as much as a mature player can at the beginning, and she refused to accept the ambiguity of humanity. But the fact is that there's no perfect person living on the earth, including Chloe's father. After experiencing so many "strange" things and people, Chloe finally grew up in the end, because she no longer needs to be manipulated by William and rely on him to the psychological extent.
I'm glad to see Chloe go out of her bubble and let the past go, then embrace her love and the new world bravely. Even though without Max's "salvation", the period would be transit, but it's still worthy enough. Life is strange for the reason that we often fail to see it clearly, we feel more comfortable with our small community and view of the world. Each change of life makes us feel scared, become uneasy and even break down. Fortunately, each change also brings us new opportunities to grow, learn, and become better.
Related game Recommendation:
Life is Strange
Other Recommendation:
To Kill a Mockingbird
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