This post from reddit describes the game perfectly:

Life is Strange 1 is an interesting experience. It's very messy and poorly thought out in a lot of places, but it's forgivable as a stepping stone for future games. However, I don't think the developers learned as much as they could from the shortcomings of the original. Particularly, LiS 1 suffered from poor writing which resulted in cringe inducing dialogue, inconsistent rules, plotholes galore, etc. However, even if the writers didn't improve in any way, LiS 2 could still have a much better story and characters than the original game if the devs and writers focused on the simple parts and what they got right in the original game. So, what did the developers decide to do? Well, they decided to make a game that heavily comments on modern day USA politics. What?! Yes, middle aged French developers try to write a story about teenage Mexican immigrants and American politics.

Like, try to guess when this game came out based on this clip, just try to guess: https://youtu.be/nv5zvpQggXY?list=PLjk2J8_j79MwBGz8_UeNfiQckMxlBGo3M&t=322. Yep, we're providing "commentary" about America after Donald Trump became president. I say "commentary" because LiS 2 doesn't seem to be able to provide any thought provoking questions or messages aside from Racism is bad. Which is alright, but you need more than that if you want to say something meaningful. But I don't think the game is capable of saying anything more as the developers seem to have the most basic understanding of politics.

For example, the main character Sean runs into a hyper conservative Christian church that indoctrinates his brother Daniel and the female preacher uses him because of his telekinetic powers to spread the religion. However, the developers seem to have missed the fact such churches wouldn't allow female preachers, it's written in their scripture that they can't. It just seems that the developers at Dontnod weren't willing to do any meaningful research before making the game. This wouldn't be that bad if nearly every episode felt the need to have some right wing stereotype harass the main characters because they aren't white. And good characters potentially saving isn't happening as each episode has a new cast that you meet, interact with for a bit and then never see again once the episode is over. The game is so heavy handed that in the first 40 minutes you run into a racist kid that gets into a fight with Sean, which results in a racist policeman shooting Sean and Daniel's father. So, Daniel accidentally activates his powers, kills the cop and now the bothers need to run away to Mexico And in the final episode Daniel uses his power to break down the wall that separates Mexico from the USA. But, the best part is that the only way that Daniel can go into Mexico is if you make the wrong choices and he becomes evil. Yep, Daniel can only go to Mexico is he becomes evil. Which is kinda hilarious considering how left leaning the game is.

And the worst part is that LiS is an improvement in many ways from Lis 1. The playable character doesn't have powers, but instead it's their younger brother, so no more powers shutting off when there needs to be a dramatic scene like in LiS 1. The choices you make affect Daniels personality and there's even 4 different endings instead of just 2 that make your previous choices irrelevant. The character all around feel a lot more grounded and there are some well written conversations between them. While, episode 3 does kinda feel like it's mostly filler the characters you meet are fairly fun to hang out with. This is what really bothers me about LiS 2, the game could be good, even great, but it decides to ruin it every so often by focusing on it's poorly written political commentary. I can't really think of many games that have done good modern day political commentary. Deus Ex kinda does it, but it's also a bit of a parody as every single conspiracy theory is correct in the world of Deus Ex, it's fantastic, but political commentary isn't the main focus. Bioshock and Disco Elysium focus on the politics of their fictional worlds, which are very well explored and obviously parallel the real world in many ways, but aren't made to comment on the real world directly. MGS 2 is the only one I can really think of that did predict how politics would change with the age of the internet, along with things like safe spaces, censoring opinions, etc. However, the games I mentioned are a rare few, this is because to provide good commentary on something you need to understand the topic you're covering and that takes a lot of time and effort to do properly.

However, the devs seem to have some weird view of reality. Like, in episode 4 we meet Sean and Daniel's mother that left them after Daniel was born. Yep, she just left. And why? Because she felt like she was trapped by life and wanted to have more excitement in her life and thus left her husband with a young boy and an infant to take care of both without ever telling him about her plans, nor did she seriously contact her husband or the rest of her family again. And the game expects you to feel sorry for her as even picking the clearly hostile dialogue choice just results in you teaming up with her anyway. You cannot be angry at her, no matter what you pick. And that's not the worst part. The evil religious fanatics that kidnapped Daniel gave him a list of chores, which Sean comments and I quote: "Wow, this place is worse than army camp!", 100% seriously without any sarcasm and is proven to be right in the end. Wanna know what those chores were?

Daniel Household duties:

Make bed every morning

Clean dishes after every meal

Vacuum hall & room weekly

Take out the trash on Monday

Wash hair every two days

Help with Sunday laundry

Count your blessings daily

Yep, those are all the chores. I had almost exactly the same chores back when I was a kid, does that mean that I also went through army camp Sean? I haven't been to France in a while, but I'm pretty sure they haven't started throwing out the dishes out the window or stopped washing their hair.

Again, the game isn't completely bad. It has some good parts, like how Daniel starts using his powers for boring things like opening the door of a car of carrying his groceries and most of the characters are likable and compelling. However, the poor writing combined with technical issues, half of the final episode feeling like filler and poorly thought out road trip story, just makes me unable to recommend the game to anyone.

This post from reddit describes the game perfectly: Life is Strange 1 is an interesting experience. It's very messy and poorly thought out in a lot of places, but it's forgivable as a stepping stone for future games. However, I don't think the developers learned as much as they could from the shortcomings of the original. Particularly, LiS 1 suffered from poor writing which resulted in cringe inducing dialogue, inconsistent rules, plotholes galore, etc. However, even if the writers didn't improve in any way, LiS 2 could still have a much better story and characters than the original game if the devs and writers focused on the simple parts and what they got right in the original game. So, what did the developers decide to do? Well, they decided to make a game that heavily comments on modern day USA politics. What?! Yes, middle aged French developers try to write a story about teenage Mexican immigrants and American politics. Like, try to guess when this game came out based on this clip, just try to guess: https://youtu.be/nv5zvpQggXY?list=PLjk2J8_j79MwBGz8_UeNfiQckMxlBGo3M&t=322. Yep, we're providing "commentary" about America after Donald Trump became president. I say "commentary" because LiS 2 doesn't seem to be able to provide any thought provoking questions or messages aside from Racism is bad. Which is alright, but you need more than that if you want to say something meaningful. But I don't think the game is capable of saying anything more as the developers seem to have the most basic understanding of politics. For example, the main character Sean runs into a hyper conservative Christian church that indoctrinates his brother Daniel and the female preacher uses him because of his telekinetic powers to spread the religion. However, the developers seem to have missed the fact such churches wouldn't allow female preachers, it's written in their scripture that they can't. It just seems that the developers at Dontnod weren't willing to do any meaningful research before making the game. This wouldn't be that bad if nearly every episode felt the need to have some right wing stereotype harass the main characters because they aren't white. And good characters potentially saving isn't happening as each episode has a new cast that you meet, interact with for a bit and then never see again once the episode is over. The game is so heavy handed that in the first 40 minutes you run into a racist kid that gets into a fight with Sean, which results in a racist policeman shooting Sean and Daniel's father. So, Daniel accidentally activates his powers, kills the cop and now the bothers need to run away to Mexico And in the final episode Daniel uses his power to break down the wall that separates Mexico from the USA. But, the best part is that the only way that Daniel can go into Mexico is if you make the wrong choices and he becomes evil. Yep, Daniel can only go to Mexico is he becomes evil. Which is kinda hilarious considering how left leaning the game is. And the worst part is that LiS is an improvement in many ways from Lis 1. The playable character doesn't have powers, but instead it's their younger brother, so no more powers shutting off when there needs to be a dramatic scene like in LiS 1. The choices you make affect Daniels personality and there's even 4 different endings instead of just 2 that make your previous choices irrelevant. The character all around feel a lot more grounded and there are some well written conversations between them. While, episode 3 does kinda feel like it's mostly filler the characters you meet are fairly fun to hang out with. This is what really bothers me about LiS 2, the game could be good, even great, but it decides to ruin it every so often by focusing on it's poorly written political commentary. I can't really think of many games that have done good modern day political commentary. Deus Ex kinda does it, but it's also a bit of a parody as every single conspiracy theory is correct in the world of Deus Ex, it's fantastic, but political commentary isn't the main focus. Bioshock and Disco Elysium focus on the politics of their fictional worlds, which are very well explored and obviously parallel the real world in many ways, but aren't made to comment on the real world directly. MGS 2 is the only one I can really think of that did predict how politics would change with the age of the internet, along with things like safe spaces, censoring opinions, etc. However, the games I mentioned are a rare few, this is because to provide good commentary on something you need to understand the topic you're covering and that takes a lot of time and effort to do properly. However, the devs seem to have some weird view of reality. Like, in episode 4 we meet Sean and Daniel's mother that left them after Daniel was born. Yep, she just left. And why? Because she felt like she was trapped by life and wanted to have more excitement in her life and thus left her husband with a young boy and an infant to take care of both without ever telling him about her plans, nor did she seriously contact her husband or the rest of her family again. And the game expects you to feel sorry for her as even picking the clearly hostile dialogue choice just results in you teaming up with her anyway. You cannot be angry at her, no matter what you pick. And that's not the worst part. The evil religious fanatics that kidnapped Daniel gave him a list of chores, which Sean comments and I quote: "Wow, this place is worse than army camp!", 100% seriously without any sarcasm and is proven to be right in the end. Wanna know what those chores were? Daniel Household duties: Make bed every morning Clean dishes after every meal Vacuum hall & room weekly Take out the trash on Monday Wash hair every two days Help with Sunday laundry Count your blessings daily Yep, those are all the chores. I had almost exactly the same chores back when I was a kid, does that mean that I also went through army camp Sean? I haven't been to France in a while, but I'm pretty sure they haven't started throwing out the dishes out the window or stopped washing their hair. Again, the game isn't completely bad. It has some good parts, like how Daniel starts using his powers for boring things like opening the door of a car of carrying his groceries and most of the characters are likable and compelling. However, the poor writing combined with technical issues, half of the final episode feeling like filler and poorly thought out road trip story, just makes me unable to recommend the game to anyone.