LIFE IS STRANGE: EPISODE 5 – POLARISED REVIEW

October 21, 2015

After finishing the final episode of Life is Strange, I it feels right to go back on this old ‘ittle blog to write down how amazing a finale that was. I know I haven’t reviewed all of the other episodes, I just haven’t felt obligated to like I do know. Possible spoiler warnings for the previous episodes. It has been a long long while since I wrote one of these….

Picking off from the truly traumatising ending of episode 4, you finally find out who has behind Rachel Amber’s disappearance. The character (really not trying to spoil anything) initially seemed fairly odd to become suddenly a psychopath, however as the episode progresses, you slowly see how twisted and insane that character was from right back in the beginning. They are truly a terrifying character, and apart from the poor lip sync was acted superbly as a crazy psychopath.

This episode uses the time travel element way way way more than it did in all the other episodes combined. It goes back and forth, forth and back…You’ll think you have fixed everything and think that there end of the game is nigh, then everything hits the fan and you’ll be playing for another hour, where you think you solved everything, then once again, you have to change time to save everything…. and it goes on and on. Then time breaks down because even the game has no clue what is going on, and things get crazy. During one of if not the trippiest scenes in anything ever it really explores all of the relationships Max has, especially with Chloe. It was really nice to see where you stand with everyone after all your actions. The trip scene also features a pretty creepy horror stealth sequence, which was pretty nice to change things up and did contribute to the plot.

The ending is truly beautifully brutal. It forces you to decide how it all ends and neither of them are happy endings. Unfortunately there are only two endings and you basically just chose which one you want, which makes all your actions before hand a little pointless, however the two endings do make sense and are both really beautifully sad.

All the cinematography was truly breath taking as always, with beautiful pans and tracking shots. Even when it is showing something horrific on screen, the framing is still truly beautiful. The music in this episode brought new songs to the soundtrack, which all are perfectly used to fit the scene. I just love how both visually and audibly this game is truly unique. This is a one of a kind game which should be played by all. I give major props to the directors, producers and all who worked on this game to make it a truly beautiful game.

This game I think is my game of the year and I hope it gets the recognition it deserves. This episode was truly masterful.