I have said several times that the Life is Strange series is very important to me. Each game focuses on something that is very important to me, from the energy of the big sibling of 2 to the independence and energy of little siblings of True Colors. This all started with the 2015 original starring Max Caufield, who I am basically in the form of a video game – so much so that these days I cringe a little bit about who I was in high school. Anyway, the series has given me incredible opportunities, most notably interviews with the creator of the original and sequel, Michel Koch, as well as comic book writer Emma Vieceli and artist Claudia Leonardi. Now it’s time for me to return to Arcadia Bay for the remasters of the original game and the prequel Before the Storm on Nintendo Switch.
Before we get to Arcadia Bay, let me give you the overview of Life is Strange. Life is Strange is an adventure game where you explore and interact with characters and environments, making choices that affect the story, solving puzzles and undoing mistakes with Max’s newly discovered time powers. The plot revolves around her relationship with her old best friend, Chloe, as well as the mysterious disappearance of Rachel Amber and strange visions of an approaching storm that will destroy the city. Before the Storm, meanwhile, is a prequel that follows Chloe and Rachel’s friendship. Although Chloe has no time power, she still solves environmental puzzles, makes choices and argues with people to get what she wants. Both are fantastic games and some of my favorites in the genre, so let’s see how the remaster updates things.
The Arcadia Bay Collection packs both remasters together for about $40, you can’t buy them separately on Switch, so it’s all or nothing. However, they come as separate apps and downloads so there is no launcher or anything to go through first. When you start up Life is Strange, you have to go through a solid minute of company logos and legal text to get to the title screen, so that’s not a good start. Picking an episode to play will give you a long loading screen, so let’s dive into the options first.
I wasn’t expecting a PC-level configuration, so what’s on offer here is pretty standard for consoles. You can use up to three storage slots, adjust brightness and volume, and change things about camera controls like sensitivity and inversions. I would like to emphasize that you can change the size of the subtitles from Normal, Groot to Hella Groot, which is very cute and will undoubtedly help some players. There’s also the option to add a semi-opaque background to subtitles, which would be great if it worked beyond the pre-rendered cutscenes. The subtitle text is white with a light black outline and a hand-drawn look. It’s a bit grainy on Switch, but it looks nice when you can read it. Several scenes have bright backgrounds, so if the subtitles get lost in the colors, I think you’re just unlucky.
Moving on to the game itself, it plays exactly the same as it did in 2015, although there’s no need to wait for episode releases anymore; they even play automatically after a few seconds if you finish one. The choice statistics are also there! With both global and friend list comparisons. Purely from a gameplay and feature perspective, this is a great way to relive these incredibly emotional adventure games with heartbreaking choices that really matter. It even runs pretty well, the only dip I noticed was in the geometrically complex junkyard when looking from one end to the other, it’s pretty solid otherwise. The excellent, licensed soundtrack also returns, consisting of some great songs that make for very memorable moments, usually starting and ending with each episode.
Unfortunately, that’s where my positives end. Everything else that has been done to “improve” the games for these remasters makes them look worse in my opinion. At first glance, it is technically improved. Textures and lighting look more realistic, but that’s not what the games were about. Until True Colors, Life is Strange used a kind of watercolor approach to textures, you could almost see the brushstrokes in the environments. The more realistic texture makes characters look almost creepy, with eyes that seem about to pop out of their heads. Before the Storm does a little better in this regard as it originally moved towards realism, but it still suffers from some eerie visuals.
Also, environments are now less like places and more like, well, levels of video games. I’m not a video game bash that seems to bash on video games, but that’s the best way I can think of describing this. It’s something with the lighting and texture that makes it look less natural. I’m sure you can see it for yourself. There are parts where the lighting looks better, like in Chloe’s room, but those scenes are rare.
I will say that the animations are slightly better in Life is Strange. This game has been updated with facial movement capture and looks more expressive than the original. It’s hard for me to see past the texture, but the official comparison shows how facial expressions convey subtler emotions better. For example, when Chole is scolded by her stepshower David, you can see a bit of sadness, anger, and even fear in her eyes, unlike the original where she just looks angry. Mo-cap was already used in Before the Storm so there is no need to update that game and the animations still look great.
Speaking of which, Before the Storm includes all the pre-order and DLC bonuses, such as extra outfits and the bonus episode. While I don’t enjoy the game as much as the other main titles, this was Deck Nine’s first entry in the series and before they really made their way in terms of writing it’s still a great game and fleshes out Rachel Amber , Chloe, and retroactively depresses the central mystery of the first game about what happened to the first. I find Chloe’s Backtalk mechanic to be a lot less engaging than Max’s time-rewinding powers, but it serves as an occasional dialogue puzzle.
Both games occasionally include pre-rendered cutscenes, for more complex animated sequences or to avoid having to load every cut between environments. I remember these looked compressed in 2015, but wow, they look awful now. It appears that no effort has been made to update these, which is a real shame as some of these are highlights of the story. With this and the different approach to textures and lighting, I wonder if the original possession has somehow been lost.
Compare these to Skunkape’s Sam & Max remasters and there’s no contest as to which is the better update. Sam & Max’s original adventures were lovingly updated with incredible light and texture work that really felt like they were just making the games better. Plus, they went back and changed some things about the game, like replacing Bosco’s voice actor with a real black one instead of a white one who made an offensive impression. The Arcadia Bay Collection updates just don’t feel like they’re paying that level of respect to the original, instead making the effort for haphazard updates that detract from the vision of the original game. Before the Storm even crashed on me once, which never happened when playing the PC originals.
The games in the Arcadia Bay Collection are still excellent, but the updates made here make these the objectively worse versions. The motion capture updates for Life is Strange look great, but are difficult to see due to more realistic textures that seem out of place compared to the watercolor style of the original. If you can, stick with the original games on PC, but if you’re a console player, it’s an acceptable way to experience these incredible stories if you can see past the issues.
PROS
- Fantastic games
- Motion capture animation
- Lighting looks nice in certain situations…
CONS
- … but is mainly artistically a downgrade
- Creepy texture work
- Decent, but imperfect performance
- Subtitle backgrounds don’t work
- Pre-rendered cutscenes are compressed
David is the kind of person who wears his heart on his sleeve. He can find positive things in everything, like someone who loved Star Fox Zero until the death. You will see him play all kinds of games: AAAs, India, game jam games, games of all genres and writing about it! Here. On this website. When David is not writing or playing games, he is making music, playing games or enjoying a good book. David’s favorite games are NieR: Automata, Mother 3 and Gravity Rush.
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