Life Is Strange 2 — Episode 3 (PS4 Pro) review

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First impression

It’s been, what, almost four months when the Episode 2 was released on Life Is Strange 2. With Episode 3 I had the exact same issue that I had before; I almost completely forgot what kind of playthrough I did, meaning what kind of choices I’ve made previously. As I started to play this I was thankful for a little recap the game showed me, but still it was little difficult to jump into the game fully. Also, after the previous episode there had been happenings that changed the story quite a bit and tells the reason why everything is in this particular situation right now. It was little confusing as I thought the Episode 3 would continue almost immediately after the Episode 2 ended. It would’ve been nice to play these interesting parts, too. But, little by little I started to remember my choices and opinions that I had in previous episodes and began follow the same path.

Story

Episode 3 revolves around two brothers (Sean and Daniel) and them being in a secret camp in middle of the woods, living with pothead-hippies and working on illegal marijuana farm. Brothers have to collect money to get to their ultimate destination Puerto Lobos, Mexico. For little recap; the borthers had to run away police after their father got accidentally shot dead and the little brother Daniel revealed his superpower of telekinesis and accidentally killing the police officer who shot their dad.

I like the plot on this particular episode and how dangerous and free it is at the same time. They are free in the camp and under strict surveillance in the potfarm. Sean also have to keep Daniel under controls which seems to be very difficult task to do, as Daniel is only 9 years old, having temper tantrums, missing his father, living on streets (woods), working with drugs and simply having very hard life for a child. Daniel seems to disobey all the rules Sean have made, the most important of them being not to tell anyone about the superpower. Daniel have tendencies to ruin up everything and getting, not just himself, but everyone else in life threatening situations. He’s almost like a villain, while his powers growing stronger, he’s becoming even more scarier and dark.

All the other characters are typical hippies with worldpeace, but also them having their own personalities and characteristics. I must say how the Episode 3 ended (with my choices) it really left me cliffhanging for the next episode.

Gameplay & Controls

Life Is Strange 2 has simple gameplay and controls, being a game for anyone to play, since it doesn’t need any special gaming skills. You play only with Sean, walking him around the camp and potfarm, talking to people, choosing answers (sometimes they were QTE), doing little tasks and collecting things. The controls work fine and I don’t have much to whine about them, nor the gameplay, since this is story-driven game and not about how well you can perform with the controller.

Graphics

Everything looks cartoonish, cut-out and painted, but from distance all looks more realistic and not that harsh and rough around the edges, as it does closely. This same style have been in all other Life Is Strange games and it’s very peculiar style. Surprisingly I had many little bugs, mostly with the characters suddenly smushing or doing weird stuff or objects floating in the air, but those were just cosmetical little issues.

Sound

What I immediately noticed in Life Is Strange 2: Episode 3 was the soundtracks and very rarely I like them in video games. But, this has very good tracks and I went online to listen them again, here’s the list.
Voice acting was OK, but sometimes it felt badly acted or little cringy. I must say the little brother is annoying even to listen at, but knowing it being intentional, they really hit on the mark (nerve) with that.

Difficulty

I think the difficulty is making the ultimate choices because everything player chooses will affect on Daniel and his opinions and behaviour. I made some choices in a belief I could teach him a lesson, but the outcome was completely different, that being little disappointing, but at least I tried. This is hard on these kind of games when player tries to create certain kind of situation, but it’ll never eventually come to that. It felt like no matter what I did the little brother still hated me and wanted to angst all the time, making everything from bad to worse.

Last impression

Why they won’t make a whole game at once and not with these episodes every 4 months? I play so many games that after 4 months I honestly have forgot many details of a game I played and with Life Is Strange 2 this might be very critical. Of course I can check the choices, but I won’t necessarily remember why I did it and in what situation. The episodes are relatively short, maybe 2-3 hours and I don’t understand why it takes so long to make one. All the episodes can be played again without affecting your first playthrough (i.e. your choices) to see other outcomes, hunting trophies and collectables. I personally don’t replay these episodes right after finishing them, I rather play the whole game through, when all the episodes are done. There are still two episodes to play and they come out August 22nd and December 3rd, making the whole gameplay 1 year and 3 months long :/

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