Life is Strange Episode 5: Polarized Review

Right off the bat, you should know that spoilers are impossible to avoid. But if you’re reading this instead of playing it yourself, you must have been following along using reviews for the story. Life is Strange has ended, and I would certainly argue against the developers making a Life is Strange 2, for reasons I will get into, but they are not a reflection on neither this episode nor the overall game.

After the events of Episode 4: The Dark Room, Max finds herself alone as she wakes up. What follows takes you through time, alternate realities, broken psyches and even new locations. One problem that some people have with time travel as a mechanic in TV and movies is how they don’t make sense. Some of them don’t even follow their own established rules. DONTNOD have managed to follow their own rules, and everything makes sense and is easy to follow. For instance, how traveling through photographs, which was established in Episode 3, still works exactly the same way.

Upsettingly, there were a couple of shortcomings to this episode. As the storm, which has been promised since the first trailer for Episode 1, finally hits Arcadia Bay, there is plenty of rain. For some reason, it looks very splotchy when it hits Max and only then, like only the rain that hits her is square instead of drop-shaped.

Click to enlarge and check out her chest and bag strap - that doesn't look right

For some reason, the problem with lip syncing has returned. That was a big problem for me in the first three episodes, but had been mostly fixed in Episode 4. Somehow, despite releasing a patch which literally states that it has improved lip sync, the lip flaps are noticeably worse in this episode.

Finally, for problems; there appear to be a few issues that require you to restart from the latest checkpoint. I encountered one, but I’ve read of some others, where I was rewinding and it froze. I couldn’t rewind more, and I couldn’t cancel the rewind -- though Max kept telling me that she had to decide whether to rewind more, or not...

Now, on to the positives. The cutscenes are a little longer than the previous episodes, which may have helped pad this one out to the three hours it took me to finish, but they are great cutscenes. One thing I disliked about the first episode was how stereotypical it felt -- this was the bitch, there was the nerd, that was the jock… But Episode 5 is anything but stereotypical. It’s well written, tense, hilarious, emotional… The puzzles are tricky, without being hard enough to drive you mad, which I can honestly say I enjoyed.

As well written as it has been, taking me about 15 hours from the start of Episode 1 to the end of Episode 5, I can’t honestly say the ending surprised me. The clues are all there, but if I’d picked up on all of the clues, then Episode 4 wouldn’t have surprised me the way it did. There are probably people who foresaw the ending before they even finished Episode 1! It just goes to show that you can write a game that will surprise people of almost all levels.

Now, as promised, I’ll explain why there shouldn’t be a sequel. If you’ve read this far, you’re not fearing spoilers after all. The game ends with Max learning that her powers have consequences -- the dead whales, the double moon, frequent nose bleeds… Creating another game with a new cast, but keeping the time travel powers in place, would only lead to creating the exact same game again. They want to use their powers for good, they learn it’s actually bad, things end. Although the dialogue hasn’t been amazing, the storyline has been a fantastic ride, and repeating it would be a mistake. There can be too much of a good thing, after all.

"That'll stop you from shaking any bloody Polaroids!"

If you’ve been putting off a purchase to see how the complete package rates, then you should definitely get it. It might suffer a little from “Telltale False Choice” syndrome, but due to how emotionally invested you become with the kids at Blackwell Academy, I found myself actually feeling guilty about some choices that I was reminded about. Even before this episode, your choices were the difference between life and death for some characters. This episode is no different, and I know I’ll be thinking about Life is Strange for weeks to come, because of it.