Back in 2013, Dontnod released their first game,
Remember Me. While that game was not actually good (Its mechanics and story were sub-par compared to its world background, visual and audio design), it did mark Dontnod for me as a developer to watch for; They certainly had a knack for creating interesting stuff, it was just the execution that was lacking.
Now they're back with
Life Is Strange, an episodic adventure series. Gameplay-wise, this game takes a lot of cues from Telltale's adventure series', if you've played some of those, you'll feel at home with this, and unlike Dontnods' attempts at recreating the feel of Rocksteady's Batman games in Remember Me, this time it actually works quite well.
The setting for this game is a High School somewhere in America. You play as Max Caulfield, a young woman who came back to her old hometown to study photography. One day, you discover that you somehow have the ability to rewind time in a limited way. Your first use of this is to save a girl from getting shot over what you presume to be a drug deal in the girl's toilet. You're also haunted by a vision of a hurricane tearing up the town you live in, and there seems to be something going on with a girl that's gone missing recently (and at least a few hints towards a conspiracy going on).
In terms of style, Dontnod tries to go for a sort of indie-movie aesthetic here (Uncharitable souls will decry this as succumbing to the unspeakable horrors of hipsterdom). It certainly looks better than anything Telltale ever pulled off, and they absolutely nail the feeling and theme they were goign for here.
What they don't nail, however, is the writing. The theme's carried over well, as said, but the actual sentence-level writing is not that good. The problem here is that they tried to replicate what teenagers sound like
right now, which ends up sounding like middle-aged parents trying too hard to impress their kids with how "hip" and "with it" they are. Once you get used (or rather, resigned) to how these people speak and get over the acclimatization, it gets acceptable.
Now, obviously this is only the first part of a larger story, and while I happily bought the entire 5-ep package, I cannot very well recommend going for that if you're unsure about Dontnod's ability to pull off the rest of the story. However, if you do like Telltale games, and if you do want to see something really unique, check it out.
