Mediaclature

While I first played LIFE IS STRANGE waaaay back in 2017, I’ve been intensely playing/replaying all of them pretty much non-stop for the last two months.

“I want to look at everything.”

I realize that’s not healthy. Emotionally, they’re absolutely brutal. My wife remarked: “Everytime I see you playing these games, someone is sobbing or you are.”

However, I’ve been going through a lot over the past year — to the point where friends have reached out and asked me: “Are you okay? Because you don’t seem like you’re okay.”

“I thought if you heard my voice, it could be a little bit like I was there.”

And no, no I’m not. Not at all. While I don’t want anyone’s sympathy, I do appreciate the outreach, and that’s exactly what LIFE IS STRANGE encapsulates.

(I will be fine. I have a quality support network. I’m just over-emotional in general.)

LIFE IS STRANGE: BEYOND THE STORM — FAREWELL [REMASTERED] (FAREWELL from here on out) supplies a short and bittersweet closure to the Arcadia Bay series. It’s simply Max and Chloe lounging around as young carefree teens until the end.

That’s all. That’s the entire game.

It’s delightful, and as someone who has lived through too much, to be able to relive the lighter moments of the past brings a smile to my face. Is it sheer nostalgia through another’s eyes? Yeah, but I’ll take it.

Two facets that I haven’t quite touched on with prior LIFE IS STRANGE entries:

1) The goddamn soundtrack. The music programming and the original scoring is absolute perfection. It encapsulates the ennui and conflict and ebulliency of being a youth. No notes.

2) Chloe’s physicality, height, and lankiness. As someone who is taller than most, often thinner than most, and prone to leap up on curbs as if they were a balance beam, I absolutely loved the animation work here.

FAREWELL sees Chloe before she literally feels the weight of the world on her shoulders. She springboards around, leaps around, bounds down stairs and jumps onto tables. She’s still slightly awkward and feeling matters out, but supremely confident in her command of her body in a way I’ve never quite seen in a video game.

I realize that may sound odd given that 90% of video games are all about physical activities, but there’s a personal exuberance here that feels fresh and makes me feel very seen.

“Even when we’re apart. We’re still Max and Chloe.”

To re-iterate: this has been an enormously exhausting but fulfilling journey; one that finally has me exhaling. At least until the next game. If you want to put yourself through the emotional interactive wringer, as opposed to mindlessly shooting dummies, I highly recommend it, but it does come at as cost, as does simply living life. There’s absolutely nothing like these games, and I’ll treasure them always.

“After five years, you’re still Max Caulfield.”

CONTENT WARNING

This post contains mentions of familial death.

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In my prior BEFORE THE STORM write-up I noted how I relate far more to Chloe than I did to Max, which seems to be an unpopular opinion but I am who I am. I didn’t go into details so here are a few additional reasons that dovetail with my youth.

Chloe is a quintessential young punk, whereas I was a quintessential young gothling; she sneaks out of her house to attend illicit live band shows in sketchy places; she feels all alone in the world, at least until she finds a friend in Rachel Amber who presents as a perfect straight-A student but is actually a hedonistic, rebellious queer youth.

Been there, done that (although not necessarily in that order).

“It’s okay not to be okay, Chloe Price.”

BEFORE THE STORM sees Chloe trying to heal after the abandonment of Max and the death of her father, and she finds solace in Rachel’s hands. For three episodes, we get see the joy in her eyes, the wonder of discovery, a whole new queer world opening up in front of her.

Again, if you’ve played the prior games, you know how this ends, and it is not good, but goddamnit, I just love to see Chloe — as angsty as she is in this point in her life — happy, if only momentarily.

Upon replaying, I was surprised at how much foreshadowing and groundwork was laid, although I definitely suggest playing this after the first game.

Also, upon replaying, I had Chloe interact a bit more aggressively and was happy I did so; the call-and-response is far more interesting than the rather milquetoast approach I took the first time.

While the game lacks any supernatural or superpower elements, it does have spectacle with fire. Again, these are not subtle games — it’s subtext to communicate the burning urges of youth — but I can’t help but love it, and visually the billowing smoke ever-present in the background is so very striking.

And while you don’t have Max’s rewind powers, the developers have nicely added a few new features to the dialogue trees to keep matters fresh. Never at any point in time does it feel like you’re simply watching a film — you feel like you are in control, and that your decisions make a difference.

Lastly, I’ll state: this post is concerning the remaster, which … is not great. It is not polished. It has a ton of bugs and crashed several times and honestly? Doesn’t even look good enough to merit the term ‘remaster’. However: I bought it simply so I’d have a physical copy, so I could play it on my Switch on a desert island until the batteries died. That’s how much I love this game.