Life Is Strange: Before The Storm – Episode 1 Review: Starting Over

The original Life Is Strange is one of those games that feels like a strike of lightning. Its emotional depth is complemented by its superb voice acting, stellar writing and mostly fun game play. It’s a riff on visual adventure games, one that somehow makes every choice matter more, despite your ability to go back and change the outcome. You don’t find that too often.

And that’s why its hard to come back, two years later, to a new chapter in the story, Before the Storm, which centers on the first game’s Chloe Price in the year’s between the first game’s protagonist (Max) moving to Seattle and her subsequent return five years later. It was a murky period of time for Chloe, one categorized by the death of her father and the absence of her best friend.

From a story standpoint, it makes sense to come back here for the prequel, develop the relationship between Chloe and the mysterious, missing Rachel Amber and Chloe’s descent into punk madness. From a game play standpoint, it’s pretty confusing, considering the original Life Is Strange focused on Max’s power to turn back time and travel through photographs, creating a ripple effect through time, ultimately resulting in the titular “storm.” But new series developer Deck Nine does its best to keep the first game’s fans on deck.

In this episode, “Awake,” Chloe has “backtalk” powers, which allow the player to control conversations via quips and insults. This results in conversation duels, where you’ll have to quickly reply with a snarky dig to win over the other player. And while more supernatural elements (given this episode’s ending) might follow in the episodes to follow, this new ability keeps dialogue interesting, though it doesn’t go far for exploration.

While the first game had you talking to everyone and looking at everything, I found myself speeding through areas in “Awake” trying to get to main character conversations, mostly held between Chloe and her friend Rachel, her drug dealer Frank and her mother and stepfather. One exemption to this was a moment between Chloe and a group of Blackwell students, where the three played a quick game of Dungeons & Dragons. A simple touch, but one that makes sticking around in the world that much more interesting.

The episode as a whole was a fine reintroduction to the world of Life Is Strange and its characters. Rachel Amber, who never made a physical appearance in the first game, is center stage here, and the relationship between her and Chloe is dynamic, layered and feels real, despite the game’s lack of powerful voice acting — a keystone to the original game. The biggest negative of which is Chloe’s voice, which had been replaced due to the voice actor’s strike. The original portrayal of Chloe was strong in identity, so hearing this new voice (especially after a replay of the game just hours before playing Before The Storm) was more than jarring.

And that goes for a lot of what Before The Storm seems to be offering, which is a different take on the world of the first game, one that tries to fill in its missing pieces and plot holes. In that sense, players would be keen to play through the first game before tackling its prequel. You’ll have an advantage with regard to plot points and dialogue and it will enhance a lot of the more murky events of the first game.

Overall, this first episode left us just a bit more wanting, especially since its been a couple of years since we’d seen or heard from these characters. Trading Max’s photography for Chloe’s graffiti feels a tad forced, but it’s one of the few issues that this prequel has. Consider us excited to see where things go next episode, despite us knowing the total endgame. After all, the Life Is Strange universe is no, well, stranger to alternate realities.

Rating so far: Three and a half out of five stars.

A season pass for Life Is Strange: Before The Storm was provided by Square Enix.