Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Deck Nine Games

Release Date: 09/10/2021

MSRP: $59.99

Rating: Mature

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Life is Strange is one of my favorite games of all time. It just captured the small-town teenage adventure that a lot of us can reminisce about. It was one of the few games that I played that were so emotional and really made you feel for the world and characters you were in. The series keeps trying to capture that lightning in a bottle and doesn’t quite do it as the first game did. That magic is hard to reproduce, but True Colors is still quite an emotional game with great characters.

You play as Alex Chen, a young woman who is leaving foster care life for a small town in Colorado called Haven. Not only is there a town mystery to solve, but you are also trying to find a purpose and reason to stay. You end up living with your brother, Gabe and slowly start unlocking your past and the mystery of the town. That’s as far as I want to go with the story, anything else will literally spoil the game as there are quite a few big twists and turns and even just revealing certain things that happen are a surprise and are unexpected. What I will say is that the story focuses a bit too much on this town mystery and less on your personal feelings with those around you despite Alex’s “power” involving raw emotion. When I first started the game I will admit that Deck Nine have a great way to get to the point of how the main character feels about the world around them. When you open your phone you can read text messages and bulletin posts that help explain what’s going on outside of Alex’s life. I recommend reading these texts at the very beginning of the game because she ends up blocking some people and after reading this long thread it kind of helps you see more of what Alex is feeling in her life.

The first chapter is slow to build, much slower than in previous games and the story doesn’t really pick up until right at the end of Chapter 1. The game also doesn’t have much gameplay. You do get to control Alex in certain areas to “explore” which only consists of hearing her internal dialog and commenting on things you can look at. I don’t feel this really adds to anything and just feels like an excuse to make this a game and not an interactive movie. This is a serious issue with adventure games these days. There are no puzzles, no real exploration, just lame gameplay excuses to make you feel like you’re controlling anything. I understand this is so it doesn’t scare off casual gamers, but adventure games are known for their puzzles. The only gameplay in here is a certain scene where you are doing a LARP (live-action role play) that the town takes part in and the game kind of has a light make-believe RPG thing going on. There are things to “collect” like looking at certain objects and interacting with things that can be missed and listening to people’s internal dialog with Alex’s powers.

There are major choices to be made in the game and that’s the true core of Life is Strange. These choices are pretty tough and really change the outcome of the story, but there aren’t as many in True Colors as in previous entries. There only are a few major choices where the game pauses and lets you chose. Other things are dialog options, but I never could really tell if these made a change or not and that’s a real weakness with this game. You could argue it’s so organic that you don’t notice, and maybe that’s better? I’m not quite sure, but I know only the major choices I made were obvious in their effect. I also found there may be too many characters in this game and we aren’t given enough time with any of them. Even Alex’s love interest, while touching and emotional, feels shallow and one-note. There isn’t enough time spent with this person to establish this connection. It’s more in line with just a few actions that took place and suddenly they love each other? It doesn’t feel super organic, and Alex’s other friends aren’t allowed any insight into their past like with Cloe or Max in the first game. I cared a lot about Alex, but not too much about anyone else because of these factors.

The game isn’t impressive to look at on a technical level, there are some last-gen textures here and there, but the lighting is great, and the facial animations are fantastic. The characters’ emotions really come across thanks to the details put into the facial animations. While the game looks miles better than previous entries it still feels like parts are older than others. The music is fantastic as always and carries the Life is Strange atmosphere from previous entries. It’s good enough to listen to outside of the game and I still listen to the first game’s OST all the time. The music plays in just the right moments and really helps carry the emotional scenes through to the end and adds an extra punch to the gut.

With that said, True Colors does what previous games did well in, but doesn’t quite capture the magic of the first game. There are too many characters and this brings the focus away from the core characters, and we don’t get insight into their past to care about them much. Alex’s love interest feels shallow and underdeveloped, and the mystery of the town itself also brings the focus away from helping the characters grow. I feel there are just too many distractions in the story to make it feel as wholesome as the first game. The visuals, while looking great in spots, feel dated, but the facial animations are fantastic. The music is amazing and helps Life is Strange to establish an atmosphere all on its own, but I also feel the choices aren’t as obvious in this game. What’s here is a great game with some seriously emotional scenes that are well done, but don’t come in expecting out of this world storytelling like the first game.

Publisher: Bandai Namco Games

Developer: Tarsier Studios

Release Date: 02/10/2021

Rating: Teen

MSRP: $29.99

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Little Nightmares was a creepy platformer with a minimal story and narrative. The game was mostly all about atmosphere and puzzle-solving. These games cropped up after Limbo was a smash-hit and games like Inside also followed. The only downside to these games is that they tend to not shape any kind of narrative or world-building. There’s a lot of interesting things to look at, and clearly, the setting you are in is a curious thing to want to know about. Little Nightmares II puts you in the shoes of a paper bag-wearing kid who is running from something, but you never know what. Throughout the entire game, you go from location to location not knowing what your end goal is, and even after finishing the game, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of everything.

The game starts out giving you simple controls such as jumping and picking up objects using the physics engine. You won’t be doing this very often except to use weapons occasionally and throw an object at a button to open a door. The atmosphere sets in right away with your character running through a forest and trying to avoid bear traps and traverse fallen bridges. Once you get to a certain area you meet your first main monster and then you are introduced to combat. I really don’t want to call it that as all you do is pick up an ax and swing it, but it’s completely based on physics. Usually, you will use an ax to break down walls, but you will use it to fight enemies at the school level and it’s all about timing. The ax is very heavy and your character can’t move it very fast, but it works.

The first area is rather short but pretty cinematic, and things will slow down greatly as the game goes on. After a few areas, you will notice the game adds a lot of puzzle-solving, most of which don’t require much thinking, there are a few physics-based puzzles, and halfway through you meet a companion that requires some puzzle solving with two people, but the ease of the puzzles is to keep the pace going. You don’t want to spend too long in any one area. I felt the chase from enemies and puzzle-solving was well balanced. Several screens will go by of just platforming, maybe just empty screens of scene-setting, but I do want to talk about these monsters. The game is very creepy and the main monsters basically chase you throughout the entire area you are in. The school has a teacher that can stretch her neck out and chase you through vents and under tables. The hospital has a doctor that can walk on ceilings. They show up in some scenes, but not every area has you killing this main villain, the most important part for you is escape.

There is some frustration with the game and that’s a lot of trial and error. Some scenes wanted to get across the screen via a certain path, but I got caught by the villain numerous times before figuring out how to do it. There were also control issues climbing things in which my character got stuck or I didn’t understand that jumping across a ravine to hang on to my character’s hand was going to be an issue. In several areas, I had to restart the screen over and over until I walked across that beam just right, or didn’t get caught. Thankfully you just restart that screen and it helps keep the pace going. I just wish there was more story to be told or something else to hold on to rather than the next creepy monster or setting.

The game looks great visually with a lot of nice art, but technically it’s not super impressive. Textures look muddy up close and some objects aren’t the highest poly count. The animations are great, however, and the controls are good, there’s just that annoyance with the game’s physics. It’s also pretty short as it can be finished in about 5 hours, and I honestly wanted more. The creature designs are so fantastically creepy and unique, and the game skims the line between gory and just plain dark and creepy. It’s never a gorefest, but it feels like it could be. There are animal guts, but not human, there are body parts everywhere, but they’re mannequins. It’s a fun line to walk down and it’s done just right here.