3.5/5 ★ – ohmightyqueen's review of Life is Strange: Reunion.

Playtime: 9.7 hours Life is Strange: Reunion was something I preordered as soon as I could after loving every other game in the series. I played on Steam on a fairly decent PC, so performance wasn’t an issue, although there were some noticeable graphical problems throughout however, not game breaking. The first hour felt pretty fast paced compared to other entries in the series. Gameplay felt quite similar to Double Exposure. It was slightly strange (pun intended) not playing in an episodic format this time around, but honestly, I didn’t mind once I got used to it. The game still focuses heavily on exploration, dialogue choices, and decision-making. I’ve always struggled a bit with the rewind time mechanic, and that was still the case here, it felt a little clunky at times and tricky to get right. Exploration itself felt good, although more linear than in previous games. I thought I was being thorough, but by the end I realised I’d missed quite a few collectibles. Choices felt meaningful and fairly definitive, although when it came to trying to figure out the “who done it”, I honestly had no idea, even though it felt like I’d put a lot into dialogue and exploration. I’ve always played the original Life is Strange with Max and Chloe as best friends, so in this game I felt almost pushed into making their relationship romantic. The way they spoke to each other didn’t feel like how close friends would normally talk, which made some of the interactions feel a bit off to me. Because of that, I ended up choosing the “kiss” option when prompted, even though it didn’t feel like the right choice for how I saw them. I also found the relationship with Safi really confusing. She often came across as hostile, and no matter what I chose, it never felt like I was able to change how she felt. Seeing at the end that I was in a small percentage of players who didn’t keep her alive made it feel like I’d done something wrong, rather than it being a natural outcome of my choices. The game looks stunning, much like Double Exposure, and it was great to be back on campus with small variations throughout. The environments are detailed and help maintain the atmosphere which LIS is greatly known for. However, I did run into quite a few graphical glitches, which pulled me out of the immersion multiple times. They weren’t constant, but happened often enough to be noticeable and slightly distracting from the overall experience. The music wasn’t as iconic as in previous Life is Strange games, although it still felt appropriate during gameplay. It matched the tone of each scene, but nothing really stood out as particularly memorable. With earlier entries in the series, I found myself adding multiple songs to my Spotify after finishing them, but with this one, none of the tracks stuck with me in the same way. The storyline involving Ren’s father didn’t fully align with how old he appeared at the time of his death, which felt inconsistent. Maybe i just missed clues about it but i came away feeling unsatisfied with that part of the story. I’d give Life is Strange: Reunion a 6.5 out of 10. It’s not the strongest entry in the series, but I still enjoyed my time playing it and being reunited with the original Max and Chloe duo. While some of the story elements and character interactions left me confused, I appreciated revisiting familiar faces and exploring the world again. I think I’ll be checking out how others felt about it, which may help me form a more cohesive opinion on the game as a whole. Disclaimer - I used ChatGPT to help me write this for the first time. I often find it hard to get my thoughts down on paper when writing a review after finishing a game and it helped me with prompts i could answer in bite sized chunks then put it altogether where i edited down to make it feel like something more that i would write naturally.