this game made me more emotional then any i ever played. The characters had such amazing chemitry and i would get pulled in to playing for hours for how intriguing everything was especially how atmospheric the autumn weather feels in a small oregon town. Currently replaying this classic during the rainy autumn lol def play this game if you want characters who feel like actual real people you can relate with.

Earlier this year I picked up Life is Strange Remastered on a whim. It quickly became one of my favourite games, which was reflected in my review for it. Since then, I have played all of the other games in the series, and while all were good, none lived up to the original. Since I’ve heard that the original is better than the remaster, I did something I’m not sure I’ve ever done before. I re bought the game. The truth is, both this and the remaster have pros and cons, and both are just slightly different versions of the same masterpiece. This version of the game looks much better thanks to its better art style, but playing this after the remaster, it was quite noticeable how much worse the facial animations were, not that the remaster has fantastic animations. It doesn’t matter too much which version you play, just play at least one of them.

In this version, the first episode is free, so if you’re not sure about the game, there is no harm in starting here and trying the first episode. The first episode of the game does a great job of introducing you to the world and characters as well as the events that start the story, all while having some of the best music I’ve seen in a game. While intriguing, the story does start off a bit slow and the game has a feel that reminds me of some indie movies I have watched. This is not at all a bad thing, but it does mean that people who need lots of action may find the game boring. Then again, you can try it for free, so why not? Later chapters do pick up quite a bit and the game does get fairly dark with an absolutely phenomenally enthralling ending sequence, but most of the game feels quite calm and cozy, even though there are intense moments and bad things do happen throughout the game.

The game feels small in a good way. There are a small handful of locations and characters that you keep coming back to, seeing how they change over the course of the story. It makes it all feel alive in a way that many other games do not. Not counting the remaster, it has been a long time since I have played game with this strong a sense of atmosphere. From the world design, to the music, the sense of atmosphere is immaculate.

The gameplay is quite simple. You play as 18 year old Max, who learns she can rewind time. You use this power to go about high school life. There is some dark stuff too, but for much of the game it feels more like background elements. I am completely fine with this more minimal gameplay because the story, characters, and world, are more than enough to carry the game.

As far as bugs go, I did have a handful of minor graphical bugs, and some small issues with the subtitles, and I did get soft locked a few times in chapter 3, but I did play the game with a small tweak to remove the black bars on my 21:9 monitor, so it is entirely possible that at least some of these issue were due to that and not the games fault.

Overall, Life is Strange is a masterpiece that I cannot recommend highly enough, as long as you are fine playing a game that is carried by story, characters, atmosphere, and setting, rather than gameplay. You cannot go wrong with either this or the remaster, just buy whichever is cheapest or looks better to you.

Finally got around to playing this game after a thousand years. I don't know what to say, really. The music, the story, everything... was all really well done. It was an emotionally charged experience. Glad I gave it my time.