Review for Life is Strange 2. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 27/09/2018
"Life is wonderful," said Frank Capra. "Life is beautiful" retorted fifty years later Roberto Benigni. “Life is strange” finally taught us Dontnod, demonstrating once again how even the video game could rise in the form of psychological introspection capable of rivaling the profound and touching beauty of the aforementioned films. Today, with a new story and new characters - but with the experience of Before the Storm and the free spin-off Captain Spirit behind us - we are preparing to get excited again with the first episode of Life is Strange 2, entitled Roads.
Life is Strange 2 teaches us that life is strange, we said. And when we say weird, we mean weird for real: half an hour of gameplay is enough to settle into Sean's life, a Seattle high school student whose only concern is to get some beer for Halloween and think about how to declare himself to the girl he is secretly in love with. Sean carries the label of an average American boy that allows him to be interesting just enough, but at the same time anonymous enough to easily allow the identification of the player, a fundamental factor for what will be the real experience proposed by Life is Strange 2.
Sean's life, school and falling in love aside, is that of a sixteen-year-old nerd who likes music and fantasy. The boy lives with his father and nine-year-old brother Daniel, with whom he has a love / hate typical of a teenager who is approaching adulthood and who has to look after his little brother in the absence of his mother.
So far everything is regular, but Dontnod has many other plans in store for the two boys, plans that will overwhelm us with the same force as the storm that threatened the destruction of Arcadia Bay in the first Life is Strange. Just when everything seems to be going well and preparations for the Halloween party come to an end, the game slams the first moral choice in our face and catapults us into a sequence of events that can make the heart beat even to the most impassive of players: the situation precipitates, and when we think we have made it really big, another blow comes, even stronger if possible. Sean and Daniel find themselves so fugitive, with a few dollars in their pockets and without a roof over their heads.
We do not go further into details so as not to spoil the surprise and excitement of the discovery, but the plot of Life is Strange 2 promises to be already interesting and, most importantly, really well written. The pace of the narrative of this first episode is fluctuating, with some decidedly slow and thoughtful moments, but the plot has the advantage of turning towards unexpected twists just when you think that the title is starting to bore, demonstrating a clever balance of adrenaline and introspection, certainly the result of the experience made by the developers with the previous titles. In the same way, the game manages to touch very strong themes such as racial hatred, trust in one's neighbor and brotherly love with apparent simplicity, all of which often leave us stunned in front of the depth of the protagonists' reflections. After all, it's "just a game", isn't it? No, maybe not in this case, and it is no coincidence that we started by citing Oscar-winning films.
The gameplay of Life is Strange 2 is substantially identical to that of its predecessors, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage based on your attitude towards this type of adventures: you watch some scenes helplessly and then, in the role of Sean, yes explores the surrounding environment, objects useful for the continuation of the adventure are collected and choices are made (relating to actions or dialogues) that divert the course of history and reshape subsequent events based on our behavior.
Life is Strange 2 is a bit like the titles of Quantic Dream or the now defunct Telltale: you only have to face it once. Or rather, this is our advice, because replaying the various chapters and making different choices, we realize how, in the end, the plot cannot vary so significantly based on the choices. At the same time, the inability to rewind time as Max could in the original Life is Strange makes the experience a lot more interesting (kind of like it was for Before the Storm): a choice is made, there is no going back. In crucial moments, you really get the feeling that what was decided earlier gave rise to the incredible events to follow, and in the player there is always that feeling of "oh my God, what have I done ?!" that makes us love this work by Dontnod so much.
Even graphically, there are no really noteworthy news, if not certainly a greater depth of field and attention to small details. The style chosen is the same as in the previous episodes, with that mix of cartoon and realistic environments that give the feeling of being inside a comic or a TV series. The colors and the level of detail are close to what we had already seen in Captain Spirit and, even if there is no miracle to scream for the result achieved, certainly the visual impact in general favors immersion and gameplay, above all. when there is to explore places full of things to do.
As for the audio, the game offers an excellent English dubbing with Spanish subtitles, a choice that we appreciate in any case compared to an integral localization, which if not taken care of to perfection would have risked ruining the experience rather than elevating it.
Life is Strange 2 starts in the best way: Roads is a first chapter with the right amount of thought and twists. The protagonists are well characterized and the feeling that the choices made influence the story in a heavy way is stronger than ever. Well aware that we are facing only the tip of the iceberg, we hope that the following chapters will present some novelties in terms of gameplay (the supernatural skit after the credits lets us foresee that something will surely be there) and that the story continues to be as compelling as it has been so far. Precisely for this reason we reserve the right to adjust the vote up or down once the whole adventure is over. For the moment we give you an appointment to review the next episode.
► Life is Strange 2 is an Adventure-type game developed by Dontnod and published by Square Enix for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 27/09/2018
