Life is Strange - The Worst Best Friend

don't ever tell me what to do i'm so sick of people trying to control me you are going to get in hella more trouble for this than drugs nobody would ever even miss your punk ass would they get that gun away from me psycho bafta for story goes too life is strange during the resurgence of the points and click adventure game genre life is strange by don't nod seems to be one that managed to make a name for itself even after five years of its release their success went as far as producing a prequel sequel and even rumors of a third game especially noteworthy since it was the second game ever by the company which then essentially launched them into relevancy and the game's community is proof of that and it's most notable for touching subject matters in a high school setting that spoke to a lot of people unfortunately a game that should appeal to me in a lot of ways and even more so today is greatly held back by the story's reliance on a friendship between an idiot and the worst best friend character that i can't bring myself to loving anyway here's the intro [Music] i'm a huge fan of the two protagonists dynamic specifically best friend characters in fact some of my favorite stories revolve around this sort of relationship and while more often than not these characters aren't the best people together their imperfections that complement one another should lend itself to compelling narratives or fun scenarios and to see that in a story may shed some light on how you treat your friends as you try to draw parallels with what you find relatable in the relationship and in a story where it hinges on you liking your best friend life is strange failed miserably in having me care for this character named chloe but before we continue here's the story moving back to her hometown maxine caufield is a photography student excited to pursue her studies in blackwell academy whilst under the supervision of the well-renowned mark jefferson but during a visit in the girls bathrooms max stumbles upon two people in a feud as she hides in the corner she witnesses a gunshot and instinctively reaches her hand out and cries in distress suddenly time rewinds and max is back where she was just several minutes ago before the confrontation turns out she has time powers she later finds out that the person who got shot was her childhood best friend chloe price they haven't interacted with each other since they were 13. now reunited the two characters catch up on each other's lives sort some personal stuff out and uncover the dark truths that lay hidden in arcadia bay all the wild visions of our tornado haunt maxine so who are these characters anyway as we established max is a photographer but also a self-proclaimed nerd interested in her craft and all sorts of media she's quiet reserved and the embodiment of a shy dork chloe by contrast is a punk rebellious hot-headed and generally a snarky person who gets into trouble due to her loud mouth in the absence of max's presence chloe's latest best friend rachel is currently missing and subsequently becomes the macguffin that becomes this narrative's catalyst so it's the archetypal contrast between two very opposing personalities that somehow gel together and it usually goes like this establish characters put them in unlikely circumstances both learn something from each other and grow as characters and then they come out of their relationship as changed people for better or for worse you can't keep getting away with it this is of course simplifying things but this is generally how these sorts of stories end up and in the special case of chloe she doesn't really change if anything as the story goes along chloe becomes the worst person and this isn't a mark in jeremy dynamic where it's done with intent this is a narrative that forces max to care about chloe because of the power of friendship which wouldn't really warrant a video from me if that were just it but due to how awful chloe is it elevates the narrative from bad to an award-winning mess and since the game is episodic in nature allow me to be your tour guide as we descend into madness as each episode progresses by the way here's a bingo card keep an eye on it okay cool so let's go before we hone in on chloe let's establish the foundation of what this relationship rests upon the narrative's focus is more directed at the character's emotions instead of the specifics of how max's powers work so if you're here to find out exactly why max has your powers beyond thematic narrative reasons you're not going to get that here and since the summary is basically the first episode let's discuss what you'll witness first the visuals they're impressionistic and mostly warm its environmental design is filled with references of other media and the ui has a bit of character specifically max's diary and once you look at that she has even watched scott pilgrim a million times cool there is a lot of attention to detail so it's a neat touch and the first episode itself is fairly standard nothing to write home about but it establishes its tone pretty well a young adult drama with a supernatural twist now accompanied with some indie music a genre i associate with high school and then yeah i'm starting to feel the nostalgia from this game but the game's visuals start stumbling when it gets into the facial animations they're stiff and unemotive a studio of this size can only do so much i guess and by looking at a plague tale a game created by studio with a similar number of employees it's not much better face tracking is pretty expensive you know but that doesn't mean we're unable to criticize it considering telltale's walking dead during its release had an employee number similar to these studios and is a lot more expressive despite being years older the lack of strong facial expressions put these characters in an emotive uncanny valley that is even more detrimental in a narrative focused game at least tanatel and ashley burch do a good job selling a soft-spoken introvert and a hothead respectively so where does it start genuinely falling apart the dialogue i hope you checked the perimeter as my step ass would say now let's talk bidness speaking of hip and fast we should cruise out in my car to an actual movie this week he's no match for you and me now that was an epic win i'm just a girl alone in my room by the way don't nod is a french company so things probably got lost in translation and despite an american with a ba in english being a lead writer christian divine's book smarts fails to capture how young people speak i think they were trying to go for a charming and quirky vibe but it ends up sounding kind of forced mordecai and rigby calling each other planks and holes sounded a lot more natural than this but to get into the meat of the first episode we find out not only is chloe's best friend missing but her dad who she adored died thanks to a car accident this happened soon after max's departure which is the reason for chloe's angstrom rebellious phase despite all this chloe's mother is trying to do her best to support her daughter alongside her new boyfriend david he's an ex-vet who's now a security guard in blackwell academy a bit more rough and stern than chloe's biological father he's often suspicious of chloe and when he can't find one of his guns he goes as far to accuse her of stealing it which leads into an argument and depending on your choices chloe's stepdad will hit her which alludes to domestic abuse which makes chloe's hatred of him justified so if it never occurs though you're kinda left wondering why chloe hates her stepdad so much besides the usual bratty rebel hates their conservative stepparents but you could argue that we can blame the player for not exploring the different options through max's rewind powers so take that as you will despite only spending a day together after five years apart max is happy to state that chloe is once again her best friend after chloe gives max her late dad's polaroid so far it's an okay albeit flawed game maybe we'll just get used to these issues and we'll just fall in love with these characters once their actions dictated their arc so from this point on we're going to be focusing specifically on max's and chloe's relationship everything else i'll touch upon lightly but we've got to stay on course alright let's keep on moving chloe starts becoming more involved with max and my contempt for chloe starts growing here what chloe and max did in the first episode was essentially catch up on each other's lives so development hasn't really begun with this in mind a story like this would lead into a relationship where these characters start to reconnect on a deeper level and despite one of the characters being vastly different years later they can still touch base on something they shared back then or have a common thread that progresses to the next logical step of the narrative and the game's first step into doing this is for max to convince chloe she has time travel powers in the most roundabout way but whatever we need to have a game with puzzle elements what comes after however is my first big gripe with chloe once you're done proving your powers to her she wants to do more shenanigans with you at a junkyard fair enough on your way out of the diner you're given the choice to answer a phone call from somebody who's been a victim of severe online bullying and the mere act of answering this quick phone call has chloe pissed off at you okay i'm sorry that i can't give you my undivided attention for a few minutes chloe but whatever the scene later ensues to collecting bottles and shooting them in different sorts of ways in the junkyard jesus i shot myself ah i shot myself back up gun hold on chloe as the duo experiments with max's powers things progress to a point where she blacks out and has a nosebleed so this is a pretty big deal right and anyone would steer clear into caution if their best friend blacked out doing something intense despite max saying that she shouldn't be used like a toy chloe just guilt trips max to do more dumb things and this happens twice hey chloe didn't you just see what just happened also chloe did steal david's gun so not only is chloe careless but also david's suspicions of her were right never mind the fact that she lacks the intellect to take off her own boot when it's stuck in a train track they're not even laced also max why don't you just reverse time before she got stuck in the train track this comes after the scene where chloe's drug dealer confronts her for owing him five thousand dollars so she's also undependable and prior to this episode chloe just comes off as needy how can you expect a friend to keep in contact with you when you were separated at the age of 13 of 2008 when you yourself didn't make an effort to contact max there's no mention of chloe trying to contact max in her diary and with how guilt-ridden she's been from chloe berating her you'd think she'd bring it up at some point the prequel retcons this but that game has its own host of problems so by the ending of this episode what have we learned chloe is inconsiderate impulsive and generally reckless according to max's diary she's just kind of bothered by the fact that chloe just wanted to see those rewind powers but later on she states she felt awesome when chloe said this was the best week of her life so you know that's something i guess by the way max if your friend wants to hang out with you just because you have that one thing you're not friends you're a tool for their enjoyment but maybe chloe learns the error of her ways later on so let's keep an eye out for that too bad this series couldn't be focused on kate marsh but i digress let's keep on moving so there's a scene in this episode where chloe berates david david has a lot of surveillance cameras everywhere and i agree with chloe here david's paranoia is a bit much but ultimately chloe and david have the same goal which is investigate the disappearance of rachel so things get out of hand and max is able to divert the conversation by attempting to unite the two against a common enemy and chloe gets mad at max for being open-minded and trying to understand somebody else's position you know you can disagree with somebody's methods while still understanding their reasons for doing so right how is david's investigations any different to what we are doing anyway we literally broke into a school and read papers not meant for our eyes why are you being so hypocritical it's okay if we do it is not exactly the best message something like this also happened in the first episode from gun control to reckless toying around cuz men which is understandable but it seems like chloe is greater threat to herself than anyone else at least david is making the attempt to investigate rachel's disappearance you know your missing best friend last seen with your drug dealer which you owe 5 000 which you were willing to steal from a handicap fund just to pay off your debt and if heaven forbid max takes the moral high ground she doesn't shrug it off as a joke but is visibly bummed out because max has morals higher than chloe's mound of dirt what an amazing person for a protagonist to fall in love with accusing max and her mom gossiping about her during a casual conversation so not only is she needlessly judgmental but she also thinks that she's the center of the universe also why does chloe say max bailed on her as if max made the deliberate decision to move away she's willing to show her blatant ungratefulness by putting max down despite saving her life twice chloe your current friendship is centered around these two events at least show a bit of compassion oh by the way before i get too far ahead of myself the reason why they broke into the school is because they're essentially trying to find where rachel went and how the school and nathan the boy who shot chloe in the beginning ties into all this they hang in the pool and have a sleepover later on i felt nothing from either scene and later on in the episode they break into chloe's drug dealer's rv his name is frank by the way they do this to get info on rachel's disappearance and they find out that rachel and frank had something going on chloe gets rightfully pissed off but she takes her anger out on max so then max says to chloe that she should stop blaming everyone for her problems and then chloe says and i quote gotta blame somebody otherwise it's all my fault i think her rant is supposed to be relatable and we're supposed to feel sorry for her because she's an ultra victim of some sort but all this scene does is further cement chloe into being a more awful friend then the game out of nowhere gives max new powers by looking through a photo she's taken it allows her to time travel to that specific spot of that photo this ability could have been established a bit earlier you know but whatever realizing that she can alter the present by traveling into vignettes of the past max stops chloe's dad from driving on the day of his lethal car crash thus making the angst ridden chloe non-existent but thanks to the butterfly effect chloe instead gets into a car crash making her a quadriplegic no i am not joking they had to [ __ ] chloe in order for you to feel bad for her honestly this twist would be great if my feelings weren't contrived thanks to chloe's lack of development cause i'm feeling nothing from these scenes except for fabricated sentimentality the game is more obsessed with forcing a feeling upon you in the moment without thinking about the actions these characters have done in the past and when you look at the past three episodes chloe is a reckless self-important person willing to commit grand theft as a band-aid fix for her poor decisions that she's unwilling to improve upon aren't we supposed to like chloe max how can you be best friends with such a b [Music] [Music] oh uh by the way nothing really happens in episode so now we're with chloe in a different timeline while ultimately pointless since max reverses her decision i think what the game is trying to do is show what length max would do for chloe which sucks since i feel like you can make a whole story dedicated to this exact scenario two best friends reconnecting after years apart only to find out that one of them had a severely life-altering accident and i honestly would have loved to explore these situations in which we attempt to juggle an average high school life while the guilt of abandoning our childhood best friend weighs on our mind and the first few moments of chloe and max reconnecting seems like a start for the first episode of a five episode long series but it's cut short with chloe wanting to be euthanized this is to ease the burden on her and her parents finances at least it's better than being stuck on train tracks it's a difficult scene for sure and i sympathize with this chloe and i want to be clear here i sympathize with this chloe not blue haired chloe they are drastically different people once the timeline splits so whatever sliver of feeling i have for [ __ ] chloe isn't going to be transferred to current chloe the one where max admits that she's tired about having to walk eggshells around anyway so the story continues as the duos still keep on looking for rachel and max and chloe attempt to get info by talking to frank she ends up killing him and his dog so max has to yet again set things right by using her rewind powers fantastic the game forces chloe to kill these two by the way so that their spared lives are the solution to this puzzle you can't get it right on the first go holy [ __ ] the duo get whatever info they need and connect the dots that lead them to an abandoned farm it's got an underground bunker filled with expensive photography equipment on a shelf there were binders labelled with familiar names it had photos of girls in disturbing positions one of whom was rachel her photos showcased pictures of her pose in all matter of ways in the junkyard with nathan they returned to that location and after a bit of digging chloe and max uncover rachel's dead body and episode 4 ends yo psych not really chloe wanting revenge drives to a party where nathan is supposed to be attending they couldn't find him at the party but they get an ominous text from him essentially saying that nobody will find rachel's dead body again which brings the characters back to rachel's spot once they return they get ambushed max gets drugged and chloe gets shot in the head [Music] no matter what happens chloe just kicks the bucket and here comes the reveal the real culprit was the teacher all along what his motivations are so stupid i can't really believe this is the guy so the first half of this episode is spent on max trying to course correct while witnessing the destruction that's been happening in arcadia bay things are getting pretty bad and max is clearly distraught by all this so max time travels to the spot right before entering the party what led to chloe's death was her rash thinking and letting her emotions get the better of her so what max tries to do is convince chloe to not do whatever she's gonna do so she's essentially being like chloe stop being chloe for a bit but despite knowing that max is a time traveler and knowing the ramifications of their actions chloe goes ahead and does her own thing anyway so this is the best thing the game has right after a character's lowest point of the story chloe being an idiot and max once again has to convince this [ __ ] despite the numerous instances where max has saved her in under a week to not be an idiot this whole conversation can be summed up as max reminding chloe that she has time powers and that you should trust someone with the time powers is this what having a best friend is like is your relationship with your best friend like this because if it is i suggest reevaluating a few things so through the power of common sense max convinces chloe and because of how bad the tornado is getting they decide to go to the lighthouse because they deem it's the safest place to be during this whole thing is going down yeah i don't know why not the why not the bunker in in in the farm you know i'm sure she i'm pretty sure you can lock it somewhere i don't know but max blacks out and goes through an interesting trippy sequence abstract imagery of her potential regrets and fears and all that sort of stuff i like it a lot it's then bookended by a scene where the game finally calls out on max's hypocrisy and chloe's awful influence through a shadow max of some sort it's kind of like that scene from the disappearance of haruhi suzumiya but it fails to be as impactful this scene portrays the protagonist confronting the personification of the lie that he tells himself that despite all the wacky antics that he's been through when given the choice to stay or revert back to his original reality he reverts while his other self insists on kion wanting a normal life in this new timeline a belief he's held for the longest time he finally admits to himself that he enjoyed the time he had in the original even with the danger and stress that it caused him the normal high school life even with its benefits just doesn't compare to what he originally had this personification is made for the protagonist to disagree with which is done to fulfill this character's arc and while you may ultimately agree with the final decision you can't help but feel torn knowing he's leaving a reality where he had to break someone's heart the quiet shy girl who finally gains the courage to ask him to join the club only to be rejected because keon has to be honest with himself you can't just let somebody's hopes up and then just leave them forever this is how you do a scene like this this is how you do good high school drama with a supernatural twist yo why did the disappearance of nagato yuki-chan have to suck so how does life is strange tackle a scene similar to this well the other max is quite odd she is the personification of ideas that we're supposed to be disagreeing with right but for the most part almost everything she's saying are things i agree with you know like calling max a hypocrite how she's wasting her time powers and how chloe is a bad friend but imaginary chloe barges in to save real max from other macs and she says something to the effect of both of us have been through a lot this past week you cannot break us apart so the game takes even less time than y2k with the protagonists battling their inner demons cool soon after we are literally transported to a trip down memory lane as the game reminds us about all the good times max has had with chloe but it's hard to reminisce about those times when your memories of them lack any emotional weight and happen prior or right after chloe doing something stupid getting a camera from chloe or shooting bottles might have been a good time but the fact that she uses a gun she stole recklessly all the wild disregarding max's well-being is in the forefront of my mind and i'm not even saying chloe has to be the most likable person ever awful people can be interesting it's just when the story tries to convince us that this friendship is great despite how awful chloe treats max if you don't agree with her even with the most asinine things it becomes frustrating max isolated from chloe is fine but her willingness to keep up with chloe's shenanigans brings her down dramatically she literally writes down in her diary that despite being opposites we're so alike in what way max that you're both idiots i'm having a complete disconnect with max because of her continued insistence to keep the shallow friendship afloat oh what a great time i had swimming in the pool shooting bottles and taking that selfie together time for our steampunk chloe to thrash to some indie music oh what a memory can't wait to replay that in my head over and over again okay so but once that sequence ends we are transported back to the presents and the two conclude that the reason why any of this is happening is because of chloe's continued existence destiny wants chloe to die but max keeps preventing it from happening and then you're given one of two choices either let chloe die by getting shot at the beginning of episode 1 or sacrifice arcadia bay for your best friend even though we have no idea if the trail of destruction will continue to persist with chloe's existence but whatever and given what i've said you probably know which one i've picked but seriously this game sucks because of chloe so chloe what have we learned let's do a quick rundown of who you are you're immature you resent everybody ever since your dad died but you put in no effort to do anything to help yourself you disrespect your mother you owe your drug dealer a lot of money you stole a gun and use it immaturely you're pissed off if we don't steal from the handicap and the only fun you guys have is when you tell max to do things shoot bottles hanging the pool gets the amount of change in your pocket how riveting good thing max lacks a hint of initiative in this relationship because you might get pissed off if she decided to do anything unrelated to you i can't think of a genuine moment between these two that made me enjoy watching their friendship all that springs to mind is how much they talk about the past and how much they are best friends and how much chloe misses rachel what has changed between episode 1 and five chloe is the exact same person throughout this entire series i mean she does spill her guts in the final scene of the game but it just kinda comes out of nowhere because the scene calls for it not necessarily because we see chloe develop over time to a more empathetic person waka the grand wizard has his faith and ignorance tested through a number of scenes as he unknowingly befriends someone he's racist against while his religion turns out to be a sham it takes time and meaningful events to shake off these bad habits and chloe lacks these scenes of development and i am struggling to remember redeemable qualities that she has learned throughout her journey i re-watch those scenes featured in memory lane because i assume they're considered the highlights of their relationship and guess what none of it was compelling at all and it's not like i can't enjoy the themes or ideas the game is trying to explore it's just that the core relationship of this game is nowhere near as compelling as everyone makes it seem to be this sets the bar so low for stories and games if this is what we're praising and these list of problems reinforce this point and i'm not saying there's nothing to like here characters like kate and david have decent likeable arcs and are infinitely more interesting when compared to chloe but i guess we're all too focused on a relationship that may fall apart at any moment if max didn't have her time powers so you might be wondering euric why'd you even play this game well mainly it's because i've been revisiting some games to see if my experiences with them have remained the same and with the case of life is strange i just ended up disliking it more than i initially did but i will say this though what i commend on don't nod more than anything is their willingness to tackle these sorts of topics in a video game format with characters that square enix was willing to take a risk on while not the most compelling story i appreciate the effort and attempt and the great thing is that there's only going up from here since life is strange is far from perfect because here's the thing i can excuse stilted animation and awkward dialogue i can excuse powers with plot convenience but i can't excuse an awful relationship between two characters that are meant to be best friends and lovers if the romance is the largest highlight in this game i am so sorry that the bar of romance and games is this low life is strange is okay at best and painful at worst and it's at its worst a lot and for the sake of comparison let's take a quick look at another game with similar ideas and see if it's any better night in the woods is a game i've yet to complete and it has a similar instance of a protagonist coming back to her hometown and meeting up with someone they were best friends with back in the day and the contrast between the two is clear b hates the fact that mae is back stating that mae is wasting her opportunity in getting a higher education despite may's irresponsibility she brings back some excitement into bay's mature but mundane life by causing a bit of harmless fun and the amount of time it took to finish the first episode of life is strange i found these young adults more relatable than these idiots and yes even with the slightly forced hashtag deep and screw the world attitude and don't get me wrong the writing is far from amazing but at least there's a likable relatable chemistry between mei and bee at least when compared to these other idiots their moments of friendship and romance lack impact since the only thing that stands out in this relationship to me is chloe getting pissed off at max for not giving her undivided attention but whatever they kiss and are willing to destroy an entire town that has treated max much kinder than chloe ever has so yeah i don't think it's a good game at all in fact i think it's really bad and listen if you enjoyed this game and it means a lot to you cool me critiquing this game isn't a critique on you as a person i like a lot of things that are associated with generally stupid stuff but i am someone who is made up of more than the media i consume i'm not here to diminish people's positive feelings on this game i just wanted to express my thoughts and i know as people we may have different definitions for certain words different perspectives experiences and upbringings drive us to particular conclusions and what i got out of this story was that don't nod was trying to establish this friendship where we do fall for chloe and wish that max still kept in contact with her when she moved away and this is done by having chloe's attitude fade away when max re-enters her life thus fulfilling the whole what-if fantasy where we could travel back in time to change things where are unkindled friendships in the present and didn't have to burn out but she doesn't return to her old self she gets worse and every moment of her makes me wish i never reached out because i can't for the life of me find an angle where chloe is a good friend let alone a best friend and given what i've said i hope he can understand now why i considered chloe as the worst best friend what about big vampire from nba 2k16 oh oh [ __ ] [Music] ringo i know

Channel: uricksaladbar

Views: 420,932

Rating: 4.8997355 out of 5

Keywords: urick, uricksaladbar, life is strange, lis, critique, review, chloe price, max caufield, video essay

Id: UeIZGRHY2dA

Length: 33min 25sec (2005 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/whereyatrulyare]

Too bad this series couldn't be focused on Kate Marsh, but I digress.

Finally, someone gets it. Also, banging LISA music.

[u/alexandrecau]

A mildly annoyed "Jesus I shot myself" is not the line you should give to a character you want people to respect. This is the line that tells you who the escort missin character is

[u/RAClapper]

X - Save the world

Y - Crush puss

[u/EyeMakeMistakes]

We have so many better ways to write " good freind gone bad but still loves you". Dialogue dosn't bother me that much, but the selfishness does.

[u/Huaun]

The biggest insult is the final choice of whether let everyone die or let Chloe die.

They REALLY believe they created a character so good that I'm willing let a bunch of people die for her.

Fuck off, couldn't have let her die sooner.

[u/brak_daniels]

Man, I don't want to hate Chloe, the basics for a flawed but sympathetic character are all there. She's just such a poorly written mess that she comes off as infinitely worse than I believe she was intended to be.

The best I can muster for her is "I like the character that I think they wanted to go for." Which due to bad writing still doesn't make her that character.

[u/obsessivewalrus]

Meanwhile, I'm here wondering how many people like Chloe simply for lesbians

[u/alexandrecau]

Appreciate grand wizard wakka schooling them kids about how overcoming hatred of al bhed

[u/para-mania]

I mean, when the universe itself is actively trying to kill her and it takes a sacrifice of an entire town to appease it, I think that's pretty telling.

You know what would be interesting? If you go the "save Chloe" ending, she's fine for a while, but eventually she starts to get herself killed again and the cycle continues, stopping only for a bit when Max sacrifices another town for more time on the clock.