2/5 ★ – TheCriticalPandaBoi's review of Life is Strange: Before the Storm.

So, Life is Strange: Before the Storm is the prequel to the first Life is Strange game, only this time, instead of being focused on Max Caulfield, it’s focused more on Chloe Price and her relationship with Rachel Amber, and if you couldn’t automatically tell by my rating, I think this game is bad, but that’s honestly threading very lightly on it. I do wanna mention that the game did switch studios for this one, instead of being developed by Dontnod Entertainment, it was made by Deck Nine which A LOT of people in the Life is Strange fanbase hate and think they ruin the whole Life is Strange IP, but if I’m honest, Dontnod has made questionable decisions with the series too so I don’t really see much of a difference between the games besides an improvement in the writing. You might be curious about why I’m bringing this up, well, it’s because all the criticism the Life is Strange fandom give Deck Nine is absolutely valid when talking about Before the Storm. There are genuinely a few things I find acceptable and enjoyable in this game though, so it’s not all terrible or anything. For starters, I actually think the facial animations are improved from how they were in the original game, it feels a lot more emotive and you can actually tell when a character feels something, it’s still rough around the edges but overall, it’s an improvement over the first game. Alongside the art design of the game, it’s still very much Life is Strange, it still has that distinct style that sticks out that makes you think about Life is Strange. Once again, the score and music is really damn good, the music is always gonna be a highlight across these games, it’s honestly the one consistent positive that every single one of these games contain. When it comes to the characters, there’s actually some that I actually like here that for some reason isn’t in the first game, like I need more of Steph please!! Steph Gingrich is one of the most likeable characters in these games, especially at this point, even though I liked characters like Kate Marsh in the first game, I can’t deny that Steph is without a doubt, substantially more likeable. There’s some actual characterisation they gave to Nathan Prescott that I thought was pretty decent, no it doesn’t make me find him anymore interesting or layered, i still think he’s more of a cartoony villain than the wicked witch of the west from The Wizard of Oz, but at least I can say it’s understandable why he’s the way he is in the first game. I also feel like this game offers a lot more about Rachel Amber than I feel people don’t tend to admit, it’s very clear that she’s not one note and she’s actually got a rebellious personality that Chloe is easily able to bounce off of and connect with. This isn’t really a positive about the main game, I tend to separate add on DLC’s from my overall thoughts on the main game, not because I don’t think it deserves recognition but because i personally don’t feel like it’s apart of the final product, it’s just an extra optional addition to a game, but the Farewell bonus episode is fantastic, in my opinion, it’s the best episode in the whole game, and it’s literally extra content. But that’s really where my compliments end, this game just feels like a chore to get through, it’s not really essential to play so if you were to ask me if you could skip it, I’d say yes but because it’s a prequel and doesn’t really add enough to make it essential, but if you want the full lore and explanations then I guess play it? A massive issue I have with the game is because it’s a prequel, you already know what’s going to happen to these characters in the future, it’s already talked about and seen where their fate meets and good writer is able to do the whole prequel strategy very well, but unfortunately, this isn’t one of those examples at all. The amount of nods there are to the original game and references mostly feel lifeless and kinda makes you wanna play a different game because you just keep getting reminded by better game. I feel like the whole massive deal with Rachel Amber feels really underplayed in the game too, in the first game, it’s clear she was beloved by almost everybody you could have conversations with, but this game makes her feel a lot more underwhelming. You’d think the way everyone talked about Rachel Amber that she’d end up being Blackwell Academy’s version of fucking Regina George from Mean Girls due to how highly everyone thought of her. Even some characters we knew from the first game feel more like caricatures of themselves, and that example couldn’t become any less apparent than with Chloe Price herself. Chloe is the biggest wasted potential protagonist in this game because she just feels like the kind of character that the writers in the first game could’ve messed up but now she just kinda feels like a stereotypical edge lord that has the gamertag “ProGamer222” or something on fucking CS:GO or League of Legends. I can’t get over the whole flipping off the fence moment in episode one, it’s just so damn stupid, it’s not cool, it’s just trying way too hard attempting to be an edge lord and it ain’t working. The choices you get in the game really don’t seem to matter much at all, every time you get to the end of the game, I’m telling you it’s awful, any solution you pick or any decision you pick, nothing fucking matters, it’s the same outcome, and I wish I was joking, I know that it’s a prequel so you need to have somewhat of an easier conclusion, but then why make this a choice based game??? It feels a lot more bland to me because they took away the main driving point to Life is Strange in this game, the superpowers, instead we get these insult mini games that just essentially had Chloe mouth off against other characters who piss her off. While I don’t think that is by any means the worst mechanic in a game, but if you’re going to add this mini game, make it more challenging, don’t make it piss baby easy, because i thought it was way too simple to when you won, it just felt really shallow to me. The game feels even more hurt because Ashley Burch didn’t return to voice Chloe, I don’t think Rhianna DeVries did a bad job or anything, she’s been attached to Chloe Price before doing the motion capture for her but this is her first time voicing her and she doesn’t bring the charisma that Ashley Burch brought to the character, she just feels way more exaggerated than before. I thought Kylie Brown did a good job with Rachel Amber though, there’s no complaints there, her performance as well as Katy Bentz as Steph Gringrich gave the best performances in the whole game since the majority of the original cast didn’t return for the voices. I’m now gonna talk about each episode individually and give my thoughts and rating in the episodes separately before I close out my review, and yes, I’m going to include the bonus episode because I’ll get told off for not doing it. EPISODE ONE: AWAKE: Once again, what a shit way to open up your game, the episode does have the weight of reintroducting the audience into this world but you just get really uninteresting teen drama that’s not nearly as bad as Riverdale but it’s a notch below it, the ending of the episode saves it for me. I’ll give this a 1.5 out of 5 stars. EPISODE TWO: BRAVE NEW WORLD: Ayy, it’s got the title of the new Captain America movie! Besides that nice fact, this is a marginally better episode than the first, but it’s still kinda bland, it’s definitely an episode where I can see what direction they wanted to go and for the most part I find it to have the most memorable moments of the whole game, definitely improved upon the whole Rachel Amber and Chloe Price relationship and shows what kind of relationship they had with each other, strongest episode of the 3 in my opinion. I’ll give it a 2.5 out of 5 stars. EPISODE THREE: HELL IS EMPTY: Damnnn, this episode started so damn strongly just to quickly take a massive nose dive into the ground about 20 minutes in, there’s literally things inserted in this episode that drags out and fucks up the pacing with the most pointless moments, a lot of the character drama is dogshit and even the ending, the “big decision” that we get to pick to decide our ending feels useless because no matter what you pick, you’re gonna be getting the same results no matter what, it’s the biggest example on how your decisions really don’t matter because they wanna stay true to the continuity of the first game. Worst episode by a mile. I’ll give it a 1 out of 5 stars. BONUS EPISODE: FAREWELL: Not only is this completely optional episode the best in the game but it’s probably the best episode of Life is Strange period, it is essentially the last 24 hours of Chloe and Max together before the accident happened with her dad, and I think it’s easily the best episode, the writing here is very smart with how even though you know what happens, it’s done in a way where you don’t want it to happen so you wanna have the best time with these characters as possible. It’s also a great excuse for the kinda cringe dialogue because Max and Chloe are kids and kids are cringe, you get the point, it’s a fantastic episode. I’ll give it a 4 out of 5 stars. Here’s my rankings of the episodes: 1. Bonus Episode: Farewell 2. Episode Two: Brave New World 3. Episode One: Awake 4. Episode Three: Hell Is Empty Overall, Life is Strange: Before the Storm is a game you can definitely skip in the series, it fails as a prequel in a lot of ways and doesn’t clarify or answer enough questions from the first game to warrant its existence in my opinion, it’s an easy platinum trophy so I guess if you have to then maybe go for it? But the only thing here properly worth playing is the bonus episode.