Thirith on 23/12/2015 at 10:29
Yeah, I've been thinking about that word, 'realistic', and that's not what it is for me. Something can be stylised and believable, yet I don't really, or at least not consistently, believe in these characters. I don't care about Max or Chloe (yet), and it usually doesn't take all that much for me to care about characters in fiction. I like and even love a bunch of teen stories with stylised dialogue, from The Breakfast Club via Buffy to things like Easy A and Veronica Mars, but this one isn't clicking. I wish it was.
PigLick on 23/12/2015 at 10:33
Ep 3 + 4 are definitely the best, narrative wise, but if you arent feeling it by ep 2, I doubt you will change your mind.
Yakoob on 24/12/2015 at 05:59
Quote Posted by Thirith
To my ears, the characters in
Life is Strange don't sound like teenagers, they sound like they were written by adults with a sketchy grasp of what teenagers sound like.
This was my biggest beef, especially in the written parts like the diary or notes. Just felt like they were trying to hamfist as many LOLcats and memes in as possible.
Sulphur on 24/12/2015 at 09:33
I doubt any of us would be able to tell if the 'teenspeak' is accurate or not, because I don't believe any of us apart from PigLick actually have or hang around teenage kids. Whether you actually like it or not is up to individual preference, but I must say that apart from jamming 'hella' into awkward places, it didn't really bother me. I prefer parsing the narrative on an emotional level, and it functions well enough from that perspective.
Sulphur on 24/12/2015 at 16:43
Heh, the more you know. It does sound hella awkward the way it's written and voiced, but maybe that is the new normal. None of us speak Caulfield any more, after all.
Thirith on 26/12/2015 at 10:54
I finished Ep3 this morning and definitely liked it better, though I don't think I'll ever quite see why some people *love* Life is Strange. I see the potential and appreciate the earnestness (mostly), but the writing just keeps me from getting into it. There are moments that work well, but others... And it's not just the teenagers; I find characters like the Principal, the step-dad or Chloe's mother just as uneven and clunky in how they're written. I'm also getting tired of sequences where you have to rewind repeatedly if you don't guess correctly from the first.
What I do like a lot, though, is that we don't often see characters like these in games, and I greatly like what they do with the engine in terms of creating spaces and moods using colours and lighting. I see the potential in the game; I just wish they'd got someone else to rewrite the dialogues who's better at it.
Thirith on 30/12/2015 at 15:12
Further update from My Life As A Teenager With Special Powers: So far I'm enjoying episode 4 the best. For one thing, the writing and performances have improved (IMO), for another, a lot of the character and story setup is paying off. I get a sense of the story knowing where it is going. I still don't think it's as good as some reviewers make it out to be (I have no issues with them, or anyone, loving the game, but I do think they gave its weaknesses short shrift), but at this point I'm glad I'm playing it.
Thirith on 10/1/2016 at 08:55
Hat trick! Though this triple post is only to say I finished the game. I came to like it better than my first impression suggested, but I still don't quite understand the uncritical love it gets. Max especially didn't particularly work for me as a person, though she works better in relationship with others. All in all, I'd say that the game had many good to great scenes, but its whole is less than the sum of its parts for me. I'm glad I played it, I will remember some moments fondly, but it's not near the top of my list even of choose-your-own-characterisation adventure games.
Now, if someone took what's best about this, what works best in Telltale's games and added some actually good facial animations...
Sulphur on 10/1/2016 at 10:23
...we'd get Until Dawn? I kid, I kid, but I think why LIS strikes a chord in people is because it deals with the messy emotional minefield of being a teenager, which we've all been through at some point in our lives.* The relatability aspect is hard to overlook. I agree Max's character doesn't quite work, because she's written like a cipher: a casualty, I suppose, of player-led choice 'n conversation.
*Excusing the ones still living it for various weird reasons besides actually being a teenager.
