Life is Strange: A Beautiful Mess

ah the wonderful world of life is strange I just love sitting on these menu screens listening to the wonderfully calming music of acoustic guitars and Whispering Winds honestly it's kind of stress relieving and a great precursor to the many very stressful life-or-death situations concerning very real issues of depression anxiety and grief that you will be thrown into throughout the game Oh life is strange is probably one of the more popular franchises within the choice-based adventure game genre otherwise known as Kappa Giga it has a very cemented identity in gaming culture for its great facial animations an amazing dialogue now you're totally stuck into my trans own sad face now let's talk bidness you hella save my life let's go wait okay it's rather infamous for those things actually but it managed to capture the hearts of many players around the world people were touched by the meaningful story of max Caulfield in fact it won all the awards listen on the back of this box here most of which are narrative based which just gives me all sorts of tingles narratives my bread and butter and life is strange still stands as one of the most emotionally impactful games I've ever played it's also one of the messiest games I've ever played as you can see I'm in a bit of a conundrum it can be such a frustrating story to get through especially once you get to the end I think episode 5 is where a lot of people decided to jump ship on life is strange if the surplus of hellas didn't force you to rethink your entire life up to that point then this episodes time hopping shenanigans sure did but of course by episode 5 they already had your money I'm sorry that was kind of aggressive episode 5 is just a mess it's all over the place completely unfocused and you're trying so hard to figure out what's going on most of the time you can't focus on the emotional conclusions that are being dumped into your lap and then they just throw a stealth section in there just for funsies because why not there are certainly good things about episode 5 Nathan's last voicemail to Max is surprisingly heartbreaking especially for a character that's been such a dick the entire game for a moment even if only that one moment he was vulnerable and scared you were able to see a character that wasn't just an [ __ ] but a victim the obvious mental problems he wasn't getting help for and other [ __ ] that were taking advantage of that very fact there's a little wonderful Redemption moment of David where he comes in and beats Jefferson's ass whoa kick him in the shins and tear of its fingernails I want to see blood but again those great moments of human emotion are buried underneath confusing multi-layered time-travel antics of course episode 5 wasn't the first time life too strange started showing its cracks remember in Episode four when he had to choose whether or not to pull the plug on your best friend and the alternate reality only freed he almost immediately go back to your original timeline and have it ultimately mean nothing remember that I remember oh no it's fine don't mind me just experiencing emotional trauma for no good reason I'm having a great time that's actually indicative of just how good this game is and making you care it wasn't the simple action of having to pull the plug on Chloe that distressed me it was the fact that I max had put her there by messing with time is because I saw just how much pain and suffering would result from either option I chose is because I had grown to love these characters despite the game's most earnest attempts to get me not to and that's commendable the characters are one of the most genuine aspects of the game max was a shied to work an anxious young adult terrified of how others perceived her she was a Wallflower stuck in the most tumultuous period of her life without any guides at road maps she signed her texts as Max oxo I love her to death she's adorable also I take personal offense when people call my ex boring because Max is basically me then there's Chloe I don't like Chloe I never liked Chloe the only reason I ever cared about Chloe's because max cared about Chloe but that doesn't mean she isn't an interesting and complex character well I kind of hated her inability to look at things from other perspectives as well as her insistence that she was always the victim in every situation I still find her to be a decently developed character from the perspective of Chloe everything seems to hate her including the universe itself it kills off her dad since her best friend away immediately after the fact gives her a polar opposite for a stepdad and then takes away the one good thing she felt she had in life Rachel as much as I disliked her character that scene in episode 4 where she breaks down at Rachel's grave is still one of the hardest scenes I've ever had to watch in a videogame it's pretty rough I think that just because Chloe is unlikable doesn't necessarily mean she isn't a good character and I know that there are many people mostly the people who call max boring who love Chloe to death and would sacrificed an entire town in order to save her 47% of people to be exact and I think that's commendable as well off the top of my head I can't think of another character quite like that she isn't like a love to hate her kind of character like most purposefully unlikable characters are she simply is she's as likable or unlikable as you perceive her to be she's a person who's been beaten down by life in every way imaginable before she even moved out of her parents house and she's still standing whether or not you like Chloe as a character you got to give her credit for just how little she cares about how others think of her something that stands in direct opposition to Max's low self-worth Chloe manages to be what max needs regardless of her own lack of introspection and for those people that think life is strange is actually Chloe's story no of course your interpretation is just as valid as mine but I can't agree that this is anything but Max's story Chloe's a side character with a story of her own an example for max to see what it looks like when you let your insecurities go for a second of course Chloe has to learn the worth of those insecurities for herself realizing that shame and humility you do have a place in one's identity but it's mostly about max learning that she is whoever she wants herself to be putting on the clothes of Rachel doesn't make her Rachel and that's not what she should be or has to be she doesn't have to be like Rachel she doesn't have to be like Chloe she just needs to be max herself she has to be okay with who she is no matter what anyone else says I don't know what she tells herself when max goes to the top of that roof to talk down Kate she has no time power to help her succeed that thing that made her special that thing that made her interesting it isn't what's going to help her she has to just believe in her own ability to convince Kate the life is worth living but sometimes you still fail sometimes you lose and you don't get to go back in time and fix it there's a lot of failure in life is strange and not just in the obvious way sure you can fail to save Kate or fail to talk down Frank successfully or fail to take care of your plants but you also have characters like Chloe who failed to recognize their own flaws you have a character like David who fails to change despite his recognition of his faults you have a character like Nathan who fails to realize that his failures are failures by those who are supposed to be there to help him and for as many failures you can fix by way of extremely limited time powers TM there are just as many things you can't fix just as many failures you or others have to live with you can't go back and fix Nathan's relationship with his parents and the neglectful attitude towards his mental health you can't go back and fix the obviously disturbed mark Jefferson you can't go back and save Chloe's dad because if you do it only creates an equally terrible reality in its stead there is the idea that there is failure in these abilities max feels like she has failed when she can't save William exes feels like she has failed when she can't save Kate she feels like she has failed when she can't save a random trucker from the storm but the thing is max has to fail the game is constantly pitting you against somebody forcing you to take one side over another you're either on David's good side or Chloe's good side at any one point you're always against Nathan unable to help him in any real way to somebody you're failing them and you can't do anything about it I hear about how one of life has Strange's greatest faults is how it all comes down to one choice in the end how your choices didn't matter them and it all ends up the same way no matter what you do but what they don't realize is that's the point sometimes you're helpless to save people sometimes no matter how hard you try to make things happy no matter how hard you try to escape tragedy or find a happy ending no matter how hard you try to leave behind any pain and suffering it always finds its way back pain is inevitable failure is inevitable you can't save everybody and sometimes saving one person means hurting another all you can really do is keep moving forward for as much as you might want to turn back time fix things fix your failures fix yourself you can't people get hurt people die but you can't get snagged on the pains of the past life happens and it sucks and it hurts but you have to keep going because what else are you going to do I love life is strange in spite of the mess of the game that it is because within an icy pain I see failure and I see hope you see life itself because life is a messy sucky thing sometimes if you chose to let Chloe die in the end she dies a sad angry girl who never even knew the fate of the person she cared about the most while you cry behind a bathroom stall in fact it's the thing many people cite as being the reason they chose to sacrifice the town instead it wasn't fair to Chloe but it's not fair to Arcadia Bay either no matter what you do someone dies no matter what you do it isn't fair life sucks like that but all we can do is dry our tears stand back up and keep moving forward we can't blame ourselves for the pain of others we can't beat ourselves up because we are always going to be what someone doesn't want us to be I have to be okay with who we are be okay with our failures be okay with our pain because it's just another part of life and life certainly is strange [Music] did I really just say that who the hell wrote this schlock oh wait that's me [Music]

Channel: StoryStreet

Views: 4,619

Rating: 4.9656653 out of 5

Keywords: Life is Strange, Video Essay, Failure, Emotional, StoryStreet, Messy, Max, Chloe, Beautiful, Analysis, Analytical

Id: PF76ryY6AUg

Length: 10min 38sec (638 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 01 2019