Below_Average

See bottom for tl;dr and positivity! Life is Strange has, unfortunately, not gone out with the bang alluded to in the opening scene of the episode. Rather, it was more akin to the sad, slow sputtering let out by a slightly underfilled balloon when released. Being a bonus episode, it is short and very bare-boned. I assume the team working on it did put in effort, but it simply didn't have the manpower or budget put behind a normal, full-release episode. It was nice to have Ashly Burch and Hannah Telle back, though both seemed a bit unsure exactly how to voice their younger selves, with several takes having them slip fully back into their adult Max and Chloe voices. It was almost as if no two lines sounded quite the same, especially early in the episode. On top of that, these two make up two thirds of the voice acting ensemble for the entire episode, and account for about 90% of the dialogue, with the rest coming from a tape recorder. I am quite impressed with Burch's writing, however. Given the limited budget and scope of the episode, she did a commendable job. That said, this episode is short and has minimal payoff for fans of the series, and if you're just a casual fan then I'd give this one a skip, as to really get anything out of it you will need to have played the original Life is Strange. (Though if you haven't, what are you doing here?! Go play it right this instant!) I explored every nook and cranny of each scene and got through it in about an hour and a half. If you did a casual playthrough you might get 45 minutes to an hour out of it. The plot is worth a few laughs if you are a fan of Max and Chloe's (Pricefield) relationship, and it does have some heartwarming moments, but there are no real stakes, the entire episode is just two teenagers reminiscing about the past and Max worrying about her move to Seattle. The "twist" will be spoiled for any fans of the series at about the midway point, and also poses some continuity issues, which I won't get into so I don't spoil the ending for anyone who somehow doesn't see it coming. One thing that I myself didn't see coming is that the music is extremely sparse. There are perhaps 4-5 tracks in the entire episode, including ambiental music. Given that Life is Strange has always been centered around its music, walking around in complete silence for half of its swan song was a bit off-putting. However, I do have to mention that the overly-dramatic attic music did get a chuckle out of me. Another not so pleasant surprise is that some of the voice lines were not very well edited. I usually don't notice these things, but there was a very distinct echo on some lines, as well as others having odd muffling effects that seemed very out of place. The one saving grace for this episode is the characters. Burch gave a strong showing under difficult circumstances with a tiny budget here. I believe she was the sole credited writer, and she did a great job with what she had. While the story itself was honestly not interesting, she did a wonderful job expressing Max and Chloe's characters in the writing. I was a bit befuddled that the episode ended when it did, but I would assume it was a budgetary issue. It would have been very interesting to have a real conversation in the epilogue. Though perhaps this is Deck Nine's plot calling card, as the ending to Before the Storm was the same, there was no dialogue. All in all, as a bonus episode, it is passable. However, I'm reviewing this while putting a mirror up to the series (plural) that came before it, and it just doesn't quite live up. While I respect the love that the cast and crew obviously have for the series, the budgetary constraints clearly caused some problems here. Between the sparse audio, middle of the road graphics, and meandering plot, I can only recommend this episode to superfans who need one last shot of Pricefield in their veins, because it will fulfill that need. To everyone else, you won't be missing anything by not playing this. It was obviously designed with longtime superfans in mind, and it does a decent job catering to them, but it won't offer anything to newer fans, or even those who have only played Before the Storm. P.S.- Life is Strange honestly felt like a once in a generation game. It had its issues of course, but between the developers' community relations and willingness to go where no developer has before in terms of subject matter, it was great to experience. These have been the best narrative based games I have played, and while I may always seem critical, I simply want to give constructive criticism to see the series improve. I wish the DONTNOD and Deck Nine teams all the best going forward, and I look forward to reviewing Season 2. P.P.S.- Dear DONTNOD, If this was a tryout to bring Burch on as a writer for Season 2, I would definitely say she passed. Ratings: Story: 3/5 Audio: 2/5 Graphics: 3/5 Replayability: 1/5 Pirate induced smiles: 5/5 Overall: 5/10

Tl;dr at end While I am impressed that they were able to tie up the storylines fairly well in this episode, it did leave a bit to be desired. This finale episode felt like watching a daytime soap opera, and not much more. Simply put, it was missing a real hook that I've come to expect from Life is Strange. It also felt as if the episode was rather rushed. While the opening cinematic was an interesting change of pace, there were more and more graphical glitches and shortcuts taken later in the episode. Adding to that that the episode won't download correctly for most people on PS4, and I'm very surprised that they didn't take the extra 24 hours to try and add some polish, rather than releasing the episode a day early. The story in this episode is, as I mentioned earlier, essentially a mixture of a soap opera and teenage drama. If you're at all familiar with those genres, then most of the plot will be easily predictable. Thankfully, however, the angst has been dialed back, and there were even fewer cringe inducing lines, in fact there was only one. This is thanks to the fact that they seemed to give their characters some care, and there were few "this is obviously a 30 year old trying to imitate a teenager" lines. This episode did have one inexplicable plot point, however, and it is a real head scratcher for me. After 2 episodes as a very minor background character, they decided to give Elliot some time in the spotlight, and...well... Suffice it to say, it was an extremely odd choice. It could have been entirely cut from the episode, and nothing would have been lost. Which is usually a pretty good sign that the scene should be left in the writer's notebook. I would have much preferred that we spent more time resolving the main plot threads, rather than randomly introducing a new one for Elliot, and then chopping it off just as abruptly 20 minutes later. That 20 minutes should have been used for the climax/epilogue. For some reason, during what is potentially the most important endgame scene, there are no voices, just music. At first I thought it was a glitch, however, I now believe it was a design choice. I'm not sure if it was artistic, budgetary, or time constraint related; but for me, being unable to hear what's being said during the entire descending action and epilogue didn't sit well. One more thing that really didn't sit well with me was the audio mixing. This really surprised me, as this series has always had masterful audio work. However, there were several times in this episode in which I had to rely upon subtitles, as I simply couldn't hear the voice actors over the background noise or music. Speaking of voice acting, while Rachel's father thankfully gave a much better performance in this episode, her mother gave a performance that was flatter than any I've ever heard in a major release, which is a shame. The graphics are nothing to right home about. The intro to the episode was an interesting change with good camera work and solid visual cues and references to past episodes, with a great art style. But afterwords, things started going downhill. Namely, I experienced numerous small graphical glitches, mostly in the latter parts of the episode. I know in this review I seemed to do nothing but complain, but this episode didn't really live up to its potential, which is a shame. I do believe the studio gave its best, but it really needed some more time to polish and edit this episode. Ratings: Story: 6/10 Graphics: 5/10 Audio: 6/10 Replay Value: 8/10 Angstiness: 5/10 Overall: 6.5/10

TL;DR ratings at bottom. The second episode was, as is often the case, mostly filler leading up to the final episode. Gameplay wise, it is little more than a few search for the item and click X minigames. Luckily the narrative in this episode was much better than the first. I must especially applaud the "theatrical" scene as one of the most creative and effective ways of growing characters that I've ever seen. I was honestly surprised by it, and that is a very rare thing for me nowadays. On the other hand, I kept count of the number of times that a line of dialogue or silly forced choice made me either roll my eyes to the back of my head or cringe, and I came out with three, which for an episode I spent three hours playing isn't too bad, especially considering that I racked up 8 physical reactions in episode one. The "plot twist" at the end wasn't terribly exciting, but fortunately they developed the characters well enough through this episode that it didn't bother me all that much. Though I still don't love the fact that they went with established characters with set storylines, they at least seem to now have a direction and general feel to the plot, which was sorely lacking in episode one. The sound design was again exceptional, with one major asterisk. For the first time the music broke my immersion, rather than deepening it. This is the only time I can remember in the series, outside of an outro, that a song played with no in world source. The strangest thing is that it happened while Chloe sat in a vehicle that had a presumably working radio. It's a small gripe, but with a series that has always paid as much or even more attention to sound design than even narrative, I can't let it slide. Overall this episode was an improvement over the first, but still offered little more than a typical teenage drama, albeit with more believable characters. TL;DR Ratings Gameplay: 2/5 Graphics: 3.5/5 Story: 4/5 Sound: 4.5/5 Teenage Angst: 6/5 Overall: 7/10

In my review I'll be doing my best to avoid comparing this title to the original Life is Strange, they really are in different veins. That said, Before the Storm's first episode feels very flat. I feel a bit of compassion for the writing team, as they're really in a corner here. The whole point of an RPG is usually to give a degree of control over a character and their story. Unfortunately, in this case we already know where the story leads and who the characters are. Thus, it's a bit bewildering to me why they've chosen to both A.) Make this a prequel and B.) Really double down on the narrative side. There are no new gameplay features to be found, other than graffiti, which is just a photo replacement, and the argument system, which doesn't do much. And story wise, this episode is sorely lacking. There's nothing to really drive it along, other than the teenage angst which very few honestly enjoyed in the first outing, and the relationship between Chloe and Rachel; which returning players already know the ending to. Honestly, going forward I'm not sure where the story wants to go, either. So far it has just gone through the motions, and I can't really say that it's worth any monetary or emotional investment. I'm hoping for an upswing in the coming episodes, but as of right now; the free first episode of Life is Strange gave us so much more than the paid episode of Before the Storm. The only really saving grace so far is the once again brilliant soundtrack, both in the original numbers and the real world artists, it shines. I'm hoping that episode two brings something new and exciting to the table. There is potential delving into the loneliness theme, as well as what may have been a slight foreshadowing of another sci-fi element at the very end, though that may have been wishful thinking. Episode One Ratings: Graphics: 2/5 Story: 3/5 Replayability: 1/5 Sound Design: 5/5 Angstiness: 6/5