izigame.me

GIVE IT BACK TO DONTNOD, NOW.
I am sorry, I am writing this down right after I finished the game and honestly I am f*****g furious rn. Not because of Chloe's absence (even if that was indeed the highest level of lazy-writing I've ever witnessed), but because of that I can clearly see what are the future plans for this franchise and after Deck Nine took over, I am just everything, but not happy about it.
I don't even know, where to start. I am literally in the "Look how they massacred my boy" stage of grief rn.
The whole idea of bringing Max's story back one more time, in the hands of the devs that know what they are doing... could definitely make it an interesting thing to play... And this is what happens, when you are simply told by a corporate to make a sequel of someone else's work of art, just like you tell an armless toddler to paint a van Gogh reproduction. AND SURPRISE, SURPRISE! It p***ed everyone off.

STORY:
Everything until the second half of chapter 5 was completely alright with me. I loved the setup, I loved the performances of the voice actors... Some lines are very well written... I even had fun for a longer while, I honestly even started to think that it's even better than True Colors (the bar ain't set too high tho). I was even ready to forgive them about all the lazy-writing about Chloe. The storytelling was steeper, more attacking on the right emotions and hitting... it went more unhinged with all of the supernatural bs going on, when we as players finally felt again that things are out of control... Even though I felt it's being sometimes too rushed as True Colors were. Then it started with this f*****g Avengers/Stranger Things season 2 (the part of it that the creators have rather decided to abandon afterwards) vibe and that's where I completely lost it. It absolutely does not fit, it's not emotional in any way (every other LiS ending is making you die inside in the most beautiful way possible, and this one does absolutely nothing in this way), plus the only thing I would never want a LiS game to have, is an open ending. Oh yeah, and forget about the meaningful choices, there is only like one or two again and all it changes is the way someone thinks about you. If you are cool or a b***h. Wow. Most of the things were left unanswered, or have decided to take a very weird turn that you just couldn't follow, the evil has left unpunished, sometimes there are no conclusions at all...
The climax of the story kinda reminds me of my first sex. Before you know it, it's already finished, done and refuses to elaborate. And most of all it f*****g sucked and the ending itself has retrospectively ruined even all of the originally nice, enjoyable parts. Now I am just sitting here, being left with this weird aftertaste in my mouth and I have no idea what to do about it.
GAMEPLAY:
Same old, I liked the feature of taking the snapshots while it's actually being me behind the camera. And that is probably it. The new "power" is fun, I guess. Sometimes more like a ball on a chain, than a fun toy to play with, but not too bad over all. And I was the type of a player who has fully dived into it and wanted to explore and interact with everything and everyone. Even so the game feels to be just a little too short. I still have questions about the polaroid collectibles, since the space and time in these pics both seem to be absolutely random, but hey. Add that to the pile of other questions I still have left unanswered. Anyway the gameplay is still basic, but fun.
TECHNICAL STATE:
Just awful. Even if the graphics look really beautiful, when they work as they should... but the textures never have enough time to render completely, when the camera starts capturing them. You can catch yourself or other NPCs t-posing for a frame or two almost every time you load into another scene... The audio design is absolutely messed up, there's probably not a single scene being mixed correctly. I am typing this down in April, so it seems the devs have probably no plans of fixing it anytime soon. It definitely kept ruining the experience and I guess we should get used to it.
MARKETING AND MONETIZATION:
An absolute distasteful greedy disaster. Anyone would care to explain these little things like WHY THE F**K SHOULD I PAY 20 EUROS EXTRA FOR 10 MINUTES OF A CAT? Not to mention that you are forced to buy it, cuz behind this little paywall is an achievement which you need to 100% the game.
And why the even more f**k is there Chloe-inspired outfit with her clothes and blue hair? Do you understand that some of us have killed her in the first one? So now we can pay extra to literally dress as our (possibly)dead (possibly ex-girl)friend? Has no one in the marketing team ever thought that this could be a not-so-good idea? And we are talking about a game that is supposed to be canon... a game, where a girl, who's life you switched for other innocent hundreds, ditches you a few years later only to start chatting online with Victoria Chase who was Chloe's big rival in Before The Storm. This game has no clue about what the f**k is going on in its own precursor and it hurts. I should have waited for even bigger discount than I did.
FINAL PROS AND CONS:
+ Visually a beautiful, almost stunning game, the environment and character designs, acting performances, Max is still the most charismatic main character of LiS. Sometimes a nicely built moments between the characters, nicely picked soundtrack. But I'd rather want an original score to be playing in the main menu. A camera minigame, if you can call it like that. The story has some cool twists on the beginning. Fun to play and to explore.
- The main storyline starts to lead nowhere after chapter 4, and the ending alone has absolutely wrecked it, it's absolutely out of touch, making Double Exposure to be the undoubtedly worst game of the franchise. The technical state has an immersion-breaking flaws. Lack of the original score, surplus of the licensed tracks.... Choices absolutely don't matter to the conclusion of the story, only makes characters to look at you one way or another. And many, many more.

After everything, Life is Strange needs only one thing now - a dignified end. Let Dontnod make a final and proper LiS3, so they can start focusing on other titles such as Lost Records or whatever.
So no. I can't leave a positive rating even though I really wanted to. Even if it was not overall such a bad game, it certainly keeps to have the same (and more) flaws as True Colors had, and keeping the Life is Strange franchise under Deck Nine is just not a good way to go, since they already released two standalone titles since LiS2 and none of them made it to be at least on the same level as that, let alone LiS1. And I highly doubt that "Life is Strange: Infinity War" coming soon is ever going to change it.... wow. What a true downfall.
Congratulations, Deck Nine. You have become the true Storm of this story.
whatever/10