Developer: DONTNOD Entertainment
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Tested on: PC
Life is Strange 2: Episode 3 – Review
Life is Strange 2 Episode 3 is here! After waiting a few months after finishing Episode 2, we can finally see where Sean and Daniel continued their journey to. After saying goodbye to Captain Spirit aka Chris, Daniel was quite upset. The brothers their hope of living safely with their grandparents is also gone. Living outside with only a few supplies is also quite hard for a 9-year old kid. It seems however that luck is on their side as they run into Cassidy and Finn from the Christmas market in Beaver Creek. We already reviewed Life is Strange Episode 1 and Episode 2 and we were excited to jump into Episode 3.
Story
After an awful event, Sean and Daniel Diaz are on the run from their old town. The cops are after them since there has been a misunderstanding. So, Sean as the big brother decides that the best course of action is to just leave everything behind and go to a little land that their father owns in Mexico. To him, this is the best plan, so that he won’t get separated from his little brother Daniel. On their journey, they will come across many people and make new friends and enemies.
Spoiler
After having to run away from their grandparents’ home since the cops found them, they ended up traveling further by jumping on trains. After a while, they ran into Cassidy and Finn, who they saw on the Christmas market in Beaver Creek. Sean decides to stay with them and their group. Finn managed to arrange it, so that Sean and Daniel could help out on the farm the group also works on. This farm is actually an illegal farm that grows cannabis. Both Sean and Daniel work there to earn money for their trip to Mexico. When they aren’t working, they stay at a makeshift campsite not too far off.
Sean is enjoying spending time with people around his age, but it seems Daniel feels abandoned by his brother. Daniel starts acting out more and throwing fits. Before we start the episode we actually see that Daniel has done this before when he was back home. Therefore, it’s nothing new, however, Sean will have to handle this somehow.
Your choices will influence the story, the small choices which are just the ones you scroll through, will not influence much. However, the big choices which break the screen in two are the ones that will largely influence in which way your story goes. It will influence Daniel and other characters largely. The story still goes on in a nice tempo and you start to see more personality from both Daniel and Sean. Daniel looks up to Sean but in the same way, also wants to be treated as an adult and not a kid. Sean loves being with people that he can just “chill” with but at the same time he still has this feeling of being responsible for his little brother. It’s up to the player how they let Sean handle Daniel and how “chill” they let Sean get.
Graphics
The Graphics of Life is Strange 2 still look good in Episode 3. It seems they were able to fix most of the lighting issues, however, another problem stepped up in this episode. The models of both objects and people were quite buggy in this episode; with random floating beer cans, glitchy objects and even characters that started shaking. At one point it even seems like one character got all jiggled up and then snapped back together. These problems are quite bad, so hopefully, they get updated soon with the result that the nicely made characters can be admired again.
Sound
The music in Life is Strange 2 Episode 3 is great, the developers picked the right tracks to fit the mood that the game presents. There are a few tracks that are way more upbeat and stray a little bit of the style that the previous episodes used. However, it didn’t stray too far that it didn’t fit at the moment that it was played. The voice acting in Episode 3 was good just like in the other episodes. You can hear Cassidy sing a few times, which always sounded pretty awesome.
Gameplay
Life is Strange 2 is an adventure game where you will follow the story of the two brothers; Sean and Daniel Diaz. The mechanics of Episode 3 are still the same as the other episodes. It seems that this episode they implemented more elements where you as the player will have to do something. This was actually a nice change of pace from only choosing objects or answering questions. The mechanics that they used to make you help Sean with something speak mostly for themselves.
You will have to throw a knife at the bullseye of a target which uses the same aiming system as the snowball from Episode 2 except that it moves. You’ll also have to help Sean cut something by using two buttons and timing them to the circle. While cutting, your scissors will get dirty and you will have to clean them, or you will actually make it harder to cut decently. Even though this feels a bit repetitive, this is actually what it should feel like for Sean, so it gives an immersive effect. You can actually choose how many buds you cut and how good you do since there is no real timer.
In this episode, it also seems like there are a lot of bigger choices that you have to make. This might be because the relationship between Sean and Daniel was at a sort of make and break point. So, your decisions have more influence on both of them. The little decisions also feel like they matter a little bit more even though this could just be a thought. It seems like that the timed decisions have a little bit of a problem and that is, if you are hovering above an object that you can do something with, and try to answer one of the timed messages, you have a chance to select the object instead. Which could be quite annoying if the object has an influence on how the story plays out.
Conclusion
In Episode 3 you really start to really feel the importance of that brotherly bond between the two main characters. The other characters from this episode are also incredibly interesting and give the story a little bit of a different look. It’s kind of sad that there seems to be a bit of a problem with the 3D models and their animations in this episode, hopefully, this quickly gets fixed so that the nicely made models can come to their right. Overall this episode is great and even though not much really seems to happen, a lot happens relation wise.
No Comments