Life is Strange: Complete Season

Not perfect but, especially in contrast to the remasters, you can see that the developers put a lot of love for details into the game - even if it's more an interactive story than a game. Decisions influence what you'll learn about the characters rather than the plot direction. Nevertheless and maybe because of that, the most emotionally impactful piece of media (be it book, movie, or game) I've ever experienced.

I found the story really engaging. I found it difficult to close this game because I kept wanting to find out what happened next. The choices that you are given are difficult to decide, making the game have more of an emotional impact than almost every other game I've played. I didn't mind the interactive story style of gameplay, but it would have been nice to have the option to fast forward cutscenes. I could read the dialogue much faster than the audio and it got a bit tiresome with some very long cutscenes (and there are a LOT). BUT the control system is terrible! I don't know why others haven't mentioned this in reviews! Firstly, it's not easy to see what can be selected until you get close, resulting in something simialr to pixel hunting around rooms. Then, to select an item you have to rotate the character and it seems arbitrary as to whether you will highlight the item you want or another. Then the interactions available hardly ever show up, meaning you just swipe the mouse hoping for the best. There were many optional items I missed because the object didn't show up. Also, there were some quick-time events that I failed at because I couldn't see how to interact with the item. Annoying AF.

An interesting premise, rewinding time to be able to better decide consequences. It has a lot of potential in a Groundhog-Day-esque way. The problem is, the dialog is written to artificially make every decision intentionally vague, and made worse by the terribly contrived angsty teenager trope they drop everyone into. Which means for every decision you rewind and repick you have to put up with the badly written angsty lines twice. The game has a nice "skip dialog" feature which is turned off for any dialog the game thinks you haven't heard before. Believe me, you'll be hitting the skip dialog key furiously (and futilely) many times if you make it through to the end of the game. It's not all bad - I'm on episode two right now, so I made it all the way through one episode. I agree with other reviewers who call it more of a choose-your-own-adventure style playable story than a game. That's not necessarily bad, I like a good light interactive story, but I have to take it in small chunks. By the end of a gaming session I'm ready to quit and anxiously waiting for a save-game point.

Life is Strange is a game for people who enjoy engaging with diverse characters who all have their own lives to deal with. It's a game for people who love character studies. For people who prefer to reload a save just to see what would happen if they chose the other option. For people who prefer bright-colored, dark-themed experiences. It's a game for people who want to hurt. And at the very end of Chapter 4, with 25 hours on record, I realized something: Right now, I just can't. (Oct 28, 2017) The game was later finished that year, and I hurt so much while and after finishing it. Enjoy the experience knowing as little spoilers as possible.

Since I was expecting this to be more like an interactive movie than a game, then I had that mindset from the start which is probably required if you're going to play this game. If you enjoyed Dreamfall Chapters (The third game in The Longest Journey saga), then you will love this game. It's not hard, it's just very very very cozy and exciting. I love the mix of regular high school drama combined with soft guitar music, and influences of the supernatural. That is totally my cup of tea. I would not stand this game if it was just high school drama and nothing else (that's why I don't really dare to play the second game currently). Well, if it wasn't for playing this game together with my GF, it would probably have brought me into tears. I loved it and I kind of want to come back to this game in 5 years again to pick some other dialogue options to see how the history goes. Max rating from my side in its genre!