Recent reviews by leadenmoth

Short, sweet and beautiful. Oh, so beautiful.
Made want to build a neon sign and call my grandma.

A beautiful and atmospheric way to pass an hour. Despite being a platformer, the game is quite gentle with platformer-haters like me.

Upside. Life is Strange is a beautiful story — awkward and naïve, but that’s to be expected of what is essentially a Donnie Darko/Veronica Mars lovechild, and it really pays off. The visuals earn back in nuance what they miss in raw graphical quality, and the soundtrack… Oh, that soundtrack.

Downside. Lipsync is notoriously bad and the dialogues initially rub most people the wrong way — as I’ve said, the latter pays off, but it might be hard to stick around long enough. Storywise, it really depends on your impressionability. A good test, while a fundamentally different experience, is Spec Ops: The Line — if you felt that that game played a cheap trick on you, Life is Strange might also feel too basic and straightforward.

Notes. While forcing you to roleplay with choices, the game actually expects you to behave like a normal adventure gamer while exploring. You are rarely on a clock, even when it seems like you are. Therefore take your time to look around, talk to everyone and try everything. Sounds obvious, but some early sequences will hint in the opposite direction, needlessly rushing you from point A to point B, and you might miss a lot of character building. As a result, the final dream sequence will come a bit out of the blue. Journal is rarely essential, but initial entries will help you sink into the necessary mindset.
If the game annoys you, try to get to the end of episode 2 before giving up, the story starts really slow.
Avoid using USB headsets: cutscenes might play some sounds through headsets while others — through speakers.
Try washing down the ending with Gone Home or some of the more uplifting Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Veronica Mars episodes (not kidding, might help)