REVIEW – Life is Strange is back after a month of hiatus continuing Max Caulfield’s adventure. Is it worth to continue this weird tale of time travel and teenage mystery? Or should you just watch Donnie Darko and Twin Peaks instead?

Episode 2 begins with a recap of all the choices you made in the first one, just like with every episodic game. However I felt that the initial episode did not carry that much weight in terms of drastic choices. Most of them felt minor, and the end of the first episode felt like Part 1 of episode 1.
Here however things start to pick up. A lot of new motivations, and a few new characters are introduced in Episode 2.

Also we get to use our powers more in this episode than in the initial premise. As our character finally is provided with more scenes, but to be exact actual reasons to use her powers. There is a training part for Max with her friend Chloe, plus some really neat memory game with the use of her power. Furthermore Max is finally on the trail of trying to find her best friend’s missing friend. While several suspects are at the forefront, neither of them are a 100%. You do have several options in the end to accuse a person, which might lead to some repercussions in future episodes.

The decisions between the choices, and your actions are better than in any of the telltale games at some parts. There’s no cop-out such as: You make a choice, and it results in an “end”, but if you would have made the other choice, it would have still resulted in the same result.

I like this, and hopefully in the third episode similar choices will be available for the player.

Same old look, and same old voices

In terms of visuals or sound design, not much has changed. There are some neat soundtrack embedded into the game, which really fit to the atmosphere, and provides a calm chill tone. However graphically the game is still just above okay, and while the voice acting is great, I noticed that the lip sync is off in a lot of scenes.

Which ends up resulting in the game looking like having a bad English dubbing for a Japanese or foreign movie. At the end of the day it’s a well-acted game that lacks some of the technical backing of a proper visualization of voice acting.

Can’t wait for the next one.

There’s not much to write about, unless we wish to provide some spoilers, but I think it’s best to experience the second episode without any of them. While the first episode felt like a drag to playthrough, and didn’t have much staying power, the second episode shines in storytelling and voice acting. Still I wish the graphics at some parts would be better.

However I must admit that this episode is definetaly better paced, and has more tense scenes, it’s better than the first one.

-Dante-

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: DONTNOD Entertainment

Genres: Adventure,

Publication: 2015 March