Life Is Strange Episode 5 Polarized. Contains massive spoilers.

Life Is Strange. And it sure does suck sometimes.

After 9 months since Life Is Strange gave us our first dose of episodic treatment the final episode is upon us. 3 months in real time has passed since the events of the excellent fourth episode, but no time at all in game, Max captured in the dark room with Chloe shot dead, and the introduction to this episode wastes no time in showing us what we was all thinking; we would be able to rewind time, save Chloe, and deal with Jefferson in some way. A thrilling start. Unfortunately the meat of the story becomes a badly-paced, ill-thought out attempt to tie up loose ends.

I hate to criticise this game, I really do. I was lauding Remember Me as a hidden gem a long time ago, and Dontnod became one of my most anticipated developers, and they have done a fine job with Life Is Strange upto now. I just can’t help but think some of the decisions they made with the final episode were ill made. If I asked you what type of story Life Is Strange is you may say a drama, thriller, adventure, but it has never been horror. Why the majority of the episode has a psychological plot twist is beyond me. Nightmares like the one in Life Is Strange aren’t new, they’ve been done in video games such as Silent Hill and Alan Wake, and in film they’ve been used extensively also and it just doesn’t fit with Life Is Strange. Maybe the writers thought it would act as a metaphor for Max growing up and showing she is strong, like has happened with Lara Croft recently, and evidently they wanted to tie up loose ends. I was waiting for a twist that never came, a rewind to change something, an omnipotent insight that changed the game, and it never came. We did find out after much waiting why the storm was coming and I can believe that part of the story, and I did very much like one of the endings, (the sadder one), I just feel a bit cheated that after setting us up for a big climax it fell a bit short. Lessons hopefully learnt.

Overall I can’t knock the game in its entirety, and it’s still worthy of GOTY awards because of the storytelling. This last episode was a bit of a let-down though. The game still has lip-syncing issues and this episode the over-acting of the people who voice Max and Chloe annoyed me a little bit although that might be me being annoyed at the game itself because it’s never bothered me before. Dontnod are still right up there as one of my favourite developers and I may play through the game again in the future. It has been a great journey with likeable, (and unlikeable), characters and the storytelling, for the main part, (which is what makes this game after all), has been fantastic.

3.5 for this episode but I still can’t give it less than 5/5 overall. Unmissable stuff, for better or for worse.