Life is Strange swirls its plot threads together for one final push to stop doomsday, rediscovering what made the first three episodes feel so special.
One of the major themes from this tale of time travel and personal relationships has been cause and effect. Your action will have an impact through ripples and percussion through the lives of others, landing you often into a lesser-or-two-evils situation. Max and players have felt that throughout the series with the ability to jump back through time as a makeshift rudder allowing both parties to minimize the damage their choices have made. In Polarized, the sum of those damages doesn’t necessarily come full force, but all parties involved are shown the power that cause and effect can have on the world and those you love most.
“The ending episode of Life is Strange is the cause and effect logic of the series gloriously and bitterly displayed.”
Entertainment
Dark Room felt like a decidedly lesser experience because Max and Chloe had their friendship pushed aside to make room for a secondary story’s unneeded promotion. Polarized doesn’t repeat that mistake; even though this is a Max-centric experience, her and her best friend are still the pumping heart that makes this episode go. Their cringe-inducing teen dialogue doesn’t feel as corny because you can feel how much one cares for the other, and that love and their experiences together come out immaculately crafted here. There’s one moment in particular between the two that embodies the heart-wrenching panic this series has reached as a reality is caving in about them, and it’s from here on that the emotional reactions (through the voices, not faces) land at every pass. This is and has been Max and Chloe’s story, as Polarized demonstrates in both brutal and artistically aware ways.
Breaking it down to the core, Max as a character seems to be the essential cog that makes this entire experience click. Chloe is stubborn and filled with rage for most of their travels while Max has been calm and accommodating—depending on your choices—through their tumultuous week together. It would’ve been so easy for Dontnod to leave Max as an empty shell for players to insert themselves into for some pivotal dialogue exchanges, and that restraint and demand that Max is a character first, not just the player’s avatar, is commendable and necessary to their story.
The finale to Life is Strange also opens up a bit to allow for closure to be had amongst most of the game’s side cast. This is where some scenes may feel a bit too awkward or the seams a bit too visible: when a new plot thread is wrapping in every conversation you have. These are mostly optional conversations though as Dontnod leaves almost every character an opportunity to confront Max and her decisions in regards to them throughout the series, which is fine for the core group and people you’ve connected with in that process. But when a huge, dangerous scene has just gone down and you see a note just laying on wet pavement in the middle of howling winds, the illusion wipes away until you move on. Spots like this feel like unneeded nods to episodes-old decisions in the end, especially when you have a clear goal not far off that you’re supposed to care about quite a bit.
Environment
As the passion for Max and Chloe’s story thread seems to have re-emerged, so too has the graphical inspiration for the areas featured in this episode. The character models and lip-syncing remain as dated and visually unimpressive as ever while the backgrounds and environments seem to pop with life in a way Dontnod used to reserve for a scant few seconds in other entries. One good 45-minute area is a lovably created horror show of internal strife and realization, highlighting another strength of this episode in its approach to what could be crippling indecision. If Max hadn’t had her powers, could she have lived with some of her decisions? Is she simply lying to herself this whole time? These are the kinds of questions that seemed to have inspired the design layout of entire scenes, creating a much more deliberate, satisfying flow between design and story.
Gameplay
Gameplay feels to be on that swell of inspiration as well with new segments and puzzles giving the story an adequate bridge. Time based puzzles are nothing new to Life is Strange but their execution in Polarized feels very much like a more-refined version of the memory scenes in Remember Me, making out like the best in the series thanks to their construction. There’s drama in the puzzles and a sense of fear when Max observes the destruction and does what she can to steer the situation back into something she can live with. A stealth section is present unobtrusively while even one-off sections from earlier entries are poked for fun while not breaking the tone of the scene. This may be the most interactive entry of the 5, which highlights the importance of these new segments and the change of pace each offers.
Replayability
Replayability is a different kind of animal for this title when compared to, say, Telltale properties. You can already rewind time in most cases here and see which outcomes you favor which basically eliminates the other-side-of-the-coin curiosity, and having the hindsight of the completed adventure will certainly take away some of the mystique of choices. Alas, that’s the price paid for this story that comes complete with many branches and a do-over button. That being said, this story is certainly one worth coming back to for those affected by any of the characters, or to see the few variations you’re not allowed to rewind your way through.
The ending episode of Life is Strange is the cause and effect logic of the series gloriously and bitterly displayed. Throughout this storm, Max is determined to find the right choice and follow that through to its conclusion. The problem is that the right choice never becomes available to her. Even at the end, neither of the choices available is right; she has dug so deeply into a world she doesn’t understand that a price must be paid. Dontnod displays this constant murk and grey so well in Max’s choices and consequences, making this a highlighted destination for episodic game lovers everywhere and a lovely comeback, and sendoff, for a series that could’ve gone spinning out of control.
Final Thoughts
Life is Strange went out with its emotional core beating strongly despite some of the same old gripes of the series lingering.
