I love the Life Is Strange series. The first game was my favorite. I found the central gameplay mechanic of going back in time to change the course of events and the fact that you have to see the impact of your own changes on the lives of others was appealing. The second one was very good, dealing with bigotry, homelessness, and once again the impact your actions have on people’s lives.
In fact, choices and consequences are central themes of Life Is Strange games. In every game, you or someone with you has mystical powers and how you use them affects others. In Life Is Strange: True Colors, you are Alex Chen, a young Asian woman with the ability to feel and influence others’ emotions. You start the game by leaving your foster home and meeting his brother, Gabe Chen, in the idyllic town of Haven Springs. It is a mining town with many people employed by a large corporation called Typhon.
I don’t want to say more about the game because it’s all about the story, but the game deals with emotional breakdown, sadness, and decay. It’s a great story, and Alex Chen resonated with me deeply because I’m also a bisexual Asian who feels things too deeply and tends to react strongly as a result. Am I still fed up with her lyrics? Yeah, but we’re all a little shriveled up, really. Will she relate to you for the same reason? Maybe not, but there are many reasons to love this game.
The strength of this series has always been the writing. True Colors sometimes lacks dialogue, but the actual plot is touching and heartfelt. The open world is small but full of life. It looks great, and every character has their own story and a changing relationship with Alex. ‘Choices Matter’ has been said a lot about games and whether or not choices really matter in this medium, but I remember sitting down and thinking very hard before making a particular decision. What impressed me was whether or not it was the right thing to do, rather than solely thinking about these decisions with a mindset of how these choices would affect my gameplay and later outcomes. It made me think in a very non-abstract way about what is morally right to do, and that’s what I like about this series.
Life Is Strange: True Colors has only been out for a year on Xbox Game Pass, but we hope many people will experience its creative gameplay and themes. There’s something to be said here about the constant flux of Xbox Game Pass games and how good games are always taken off the service, but our Eric Switzer has already done that, so we need no explanation. What I’m trying to say is, it’s been a year and a half since True Colors came out, so you don’t have to look at the sales and pay full price for a good game. If you have 12 hours to spare before April 15th and crave a hellish story, you can watch it for free.