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Life is Strange: Before the Storm (Prequel)

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,487
Location
Nottingham
I'm not hyped for the sequel simply because cash-in syndrome looms ominously on the horizon, but I can't deny that I'd love to see a great sequel.

The original definitely had it's lows - Christ that bottle-searching sequence :argh: and the ridiculously predictable killer - but on the whole the experience was just fucking magic. Real classic craftmanship always focusing on the emotive angle & delivery, and that just made it a fucking lush experience.

What also surprised me was how it managed to wear it's influences on it's sleeve so much, yet still feel fairly original & fresh in the process.

Not expecting anything from this, but will keep my fingers crossed the sequel gives us more of that. Some are worrying about game mechanics not including time travel, but if they include the option to piss on the teenagers faces as you slowly slice their throats that'll make up for it. :)
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,151
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I'm not hyped for the sequel simply because cash-in syndrome looms ominously on the horizon, but I can't deny that I'd love to see a great sequel.

The original definitely had it's lows - Christ that bottle-searching sequence :argh: and the ridiculously predictable killer - but on the whole the experience was just fucking magic. Real classic craftmanship always focusing on the emotive angle & delivery, and that just made it a fucking lush experience.

What also surprised me was how it managed to wear it's influences on it's sleeve so much, yet still feel fairly original & fresh in the process.

Not expecting anything from this, but will keep my fingers crossed the sequel gives us more of that. Some are worrying about game mechanics not including time travel, but if they include the option to piss on the teenagers faces as you slowly slice their throats that'll make up for it. :)
some dialogue were cringy and some of the plots are predictable, that ending friggin sucks.

It was okay to me. The first 3 eps were decently strong, but the last 2 was pretty bad
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,487
Location
Nottingham
I'm not hyped for the sequel simply because cash-in syndrome looms ominously on the horizon, but I can't deny that I'd love to see a great sequel.

The original definitely had it's lows - Christ that bottle-searching sequence :argh: and the ridiculously predictable killer - but on the whole the experience was just fucking magic. Real classic craftmanship always focusing on the emotive angle & delivery, and that just made it a fucking lush experience.

What also surprised me was how it managed to wear it's influences on it's sleeve so much, yet still feel fairly original & fresh in the process.

Not expecting anything from this, but will keep my fingers crossed the sequel gives us more of that. Some are worrying about game mechanics not including time travel, but if they include the option to piss on the teenagers faces as you slowly slice their throats that'll make up for it. :)
some dialogue were cringy and some of the plots are predictable, that ending friggin sucks.

It was okay to me. The first 3 eps were decently strong, but the last 2 was pretty bad

Agreed with some of the dialogue, and yep predictability made it a bit irksome at times, but I loved both endings mate. To be fair I played it during a turbulant time in my life when I was kinda wishing that I myself could go back in time and change some of the choices I made, so it proper rammed home the fact that sometimes it's just better to accept things, because what you think you want can have disasterous concequences all by itself. At the same time it highlighted that sometimes it's worth sacrificing shit loads for something you truly loce or connect with.

I buzzed off that and, as a bloke who grew up playing Pacman games, it was also a really stand out moment as to how far games had come to reflect life so well. Fired me up big time.

As a game it's definitely a bit "meh", as a story I even think it's a bit "meh", but when it hits the right emotional buttons it hits them sweet as fuck IMO, and that's just summat I thrive on personally in games, and which very few manage to do anymore to me.
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
9,879
Have you played the recent telltale games? :M

...better than anything Telltale produced...
What part of that sentence implies it's only limited to recent games? :M
I was saying an obvious cash grab by a different studio would most likely not be anywhere near the original game or even telltale's The Wolf Among Us. I mean hell they can't even land the same main voice actor.
 

Venser

Erudite
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,761
Location
dm6
zyD2gZs.png


111GB SSD problems. Already deleted everything that isn't essential to me. :negative:
 

Antigoon

Augur
Joined
Dec 18, 2013
Messages
366
Bit surprised about the high steam ratings. But at least the first 2 hours are pretty much a tutorial walking around old locations, meeting chars from lis who all wont change within the next 3 years. Still could be worse I guess
 

Bliblablubb

Arcane
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Messages
2,925
Location
Copium Den
I am getting too old for this type of game. I have exceeded my allowed EMO dosage for this year. :(

If you can even call it a game. It's an "interactive" emo diary that occasionally pauses to have you click on something, or do some fake choices whos consquences will be worth half a sentence later. Telltale style.
You can bet your ass that the t-shirt guy will accuse Chloe of stealing the money even if you didn't, and the weed she bought with it will be taken from her, so the "branches" can be combined again.

The story premise would probably better if you didn't know the first game, because you cannot change the future. Would be nice if that would be the big reveal in the end, but... doubtful.
It's like watching a trainwreck in slowmo moments before the impact: you know Chloe and Rachel will be murdered in less than 3 years, Max is an asshole that doesn't respond to texts anymore, Rachel is a fake liar and will boink the drug dealer/teachers behind her back, etc pp. Basically: "Enjoy her last 3 days of minor happniess, before everything goes down the spiral of decline."

Otherwise it's a nice coming of a age story, "Stand by me" with tomboyish girls. Making you think of your own teenage time sometimes. Heh.
Thanks to the episodic format you even have enough time to bring your emo-counter down inbetween, by playing egoshooters or watching reruns of codex movie night.


:3/5: because there is no thing like the "reverse time" mechanic from the first game. Yet? (There hints towards something supernatural in the end)
 

Deflowerer

Arcane
Joined
May 22, 2013
Messages
2,038
a) We know how all pans out, so unless someone secretly identifies as an emo teenage girl and wants to experience something they maybe never couldn't, then see very little point in this. I mean yeah, I do understand why'd people be interested in prequels since they'd like to learn more about the past, but isn't the point of this game that you write your own story, as limited as it may be?

b) Even the original's time travelling trope was underutilized. Of course it went for the same old schtick of Butterfly Effect on how you shouldn't really fuck with changing the past too much and how it's better to accept things. Instead of doing it purely through the narrative, they should've had something like a hidden pool that gets depleted the more you use your abilities. So what if you had abused the time travelling so much that you'd actually end up in the wheelchair world, with no way back? That's C&C.

Instead, you could abuse the time travel as much as you'd like and when you couldn't, it was for dramatic effect.

Not to mention pulling the classic Telltale bullshit and pushing the restart button in the end for a binary finale.

I have nothing against these interactive stories, but when will these devs stop being so lazy and actually make the conversation and choice mechanics as interesting as combat, given that's all they have to focus on?
 

SausageInYourFace

Angelic Reinforcement
Patron
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
3,858
Location
In your face
Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
Loved the first game but will wait before all episodes are out before I get into this. I am gald the reception seems to be really good. I was worried because this was not made by the original devs.
 

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,641
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Loved the first game but will wait before all episodes are out before I get into this. I am gald the reception seems to be really good. I was worried because this was not made by the original devs.
Loved the first game?

Even the ending?

Y do u lie ?
 

SausageInYourFace

Angelic Reinforcement
Patron
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
3,858
Location
In your face
Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
I loved the immersive atmosphere, storytelling, characterization and emotional engagement deriving thereof.

I didn't like the binarity of the ending and that it essentially estinguished your earlier choices but I enjoyed it for its thematic implications.

That its low on puzzles basically goes with the (sub)genre these days, so I consider that somewhat pointless criticism.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,151
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I loved the immersive atmosphere, storytelling, characterization and emotional engagement deriving thereof.

I didn't like the binarity of the ending and that it essentially estinguished your earlier choices but I enjoyed it for its thematic implications.

That its low on puzzles basically goes with the (sub)genre these days, so I consider that somewhat pointless criticism.
truthfully i enjoyed ep 1 to 3, ep 4 is alome good, but it is where you start guessed what they are doing and ep 5 sealed the deal with what they are doing, which is one of the most cliche shit you can do with time travel?

Want a good time travel story with young adults and teenagers? Play god damn steins;gate. The difference in plot, worldbuilding, writing is just so contrasting in the quality.
 

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,641
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I loved the immersive atmosphere, storytelling, characterization and emotional engagement deriving thereof.

I didn't like the binarity of the ending and that it essentially estinguished your earlier choices but I enjoyed it for its thematic implications.

That its low on puzzles basically goes with the (sub)genre these days, so I consider that somewhat pointless criticism.
Yes there were some good things about the game, sure.

But it all got pissed on by the ending, makibg all the choices pointless, all the characters meaningless and all the emotions disengaged.

It's the "How I met Your Mother" ending of vidya games.
 

Venser

Erudite
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,761
Location
dm6
Finished the first episode. I enjoyed it as I played it but upon reflecting on it I realized it's not very good. They fucked up the continuity. At this point in time Chloe's mom and David should be already married but they're not. Oops. Everyone was recast, not just Chloe. Some of the voices are totally on point, so much that I wondered if it's the original actor doing the voice but being credited as someone else. Rhianna DeVries played Chloe pretty well. Sometimes I was annoyed by the tone of her inner voice but she did nail the most important scenes. Kylie Brown was fine as Rachel but due to all the buildup toward her character in first game, I expected someone a bit more charismatic. It was interesting seeing Chloe interacting with familiar characters like Victoria or seeing Nathan get bullied.

The main problem is Deck Nine doesn't know how to marry story with gameplay. They have no idea what would they have players do. So they made the ultimate fetch quest game. After Chloe comes back from a concert these are your main objectives for the whole first half of the game:

1. bring purse to Joyce
2. bring keys to David
3. bring wrench to David
4. take DVD from Steph (only so you can have a conversation, DVD as an item is inconsequential)
5. bring belt to Rachel

This isn't a joke. I swear all of these objectives happen one after another with only a bit of dialogue in between.

This is how I feel about fetch quests:



Rewind mechanic is gone. Instead they introduced "backtalk challenge" where you try to get your way by defeating people with arguments. These are pretty fun (except the first one with the bouncer that is terribly written) but I hate the way it was done. Why? Because it's nothing new, this has been in the game the whole time. Remember the conversation with Kate on the rooftop or asking Frank to give you his notebook. The only difference is now there's a visual indicator of how well you're doing in the conversation and all it does is break immersion. I don't like how it shows that the conversation you're about to enter is different from the others, I like to think all of them are important depending on the context.

I was curious how will they tackle puzzles without rewind mechanic. Well there's only one puzzle in the whole episode and I'm even hesitant to call it that. It's terrible for a couple of reasons:

a) it's insultingly simple
b) in the context of the story it doesn't need to be solved but you have to do it in order to progress
c) you would never solve it that way in real life

Before the Storm is a huge step away from the original game and step toward Telltale style. Except for the schoolyard, all of the levels in the game got smaller and there's very little room for exploration. Locations like the junkyard or school dorm from the original game weren't big in any sense but there's nothing in Before the Storm that comes close to that size. There's always something blocking your path. Even tho the original had small levels they created an illusion that all those places are connected. For example your goal is to get to the drama class. If Dontnod made this game then you'd start in the schoolyard, you'd enter the building, manually walk through hallways while exploring and talking to characters and then you'd enter the class once you find it. Here's how Deck Nine does it: you start at schoolyard then cutscene teleports you right into the class then another cutscene teleports you to next location. It's basically Telltale. You can make an argument that they are focusing on the story and achieving solid flow by skipping and cutting the mundane parts but some of the best moments happened outside of the main plot. I loved the D&D minigame they played before the class and that was completely optional. With all that effort devs put into it I just wish they allowed players to roll for themselves instead of rolls being predetermined. This would be very easy to implement and would make it 100x better.

jfLohWT.png


The game definitely had it's moments. There was one heart breaking scene where Chloe runs into something that reminds her of her dad. Playing 2 truths 1 lie with Rachel was fun and it was cool to see their relationship develop. I liked the story for the most part but I hated the ending.

In the end Rachel starts forest fire. How am I supposed to like a person who burns the fucking forest down just because she's angry and upset? They also strongly suggested that Rachel has some sort of powers and that her rage was fueling the fire. Chloe clearly witnessed it which again breaks the continuity. When Max told her about her power in the first episode of season 1 she reacted with something like "nobody has super powers, this isn't anime or a videogame".

Original was made in Unreal Engine 3 but Deck Nine used Unity for Before the Storm. It looks pretty much the same. Music is nice but there's no track that stood out or one that I would want to play outside of the game. I preordered Deluxe edition so I got mixtape mode and different costumes as a bonus. I imagined mixtape mode would work like a discman or something that Chloe would carry with her and you could arrange tracks and play them inside the game. It's not that. It's just a sequence of Chloe lying on her bed and listening to tracks from the game that you can arrange. You enter mixtape mode through main menu. While it's cool that you can change clothes in the game, all bonus outfits look kinda lame so I stuck with the default one.

I enjoyed playing Before the Storm but I can't overlook it's flaws. The devs were clearly struggling with incorporating gameplay into the story and I hope they will come up with something better for episode 2.

5.5/10
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
781
Is this going to become a superhero/people with powers franchise?
 

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