Deck Nine Games · Oct 29, 2024
Double Exposure seems to have the odds stacked against itself now that the game is released. There's the people who didn't like it in the first place who call it "woke cringe" and now it seems a portion of the fandom is on a crusade against it ever since a "Last of Us Part II"-esque drama broke out a month prior to the game's release with some apperantly upsetting details about the game's content. I guess I'll drop my hot take and say: it's fine, actually. My history with LIS is that the first game was probably one of the rare games I played during my university days, ignoring Pokemon on the 3DS. I thought it was good in terms of general idea, immersive with a cool ability concept. A solid 8/10, held back a bit by a slightly annoying teenage cast with all it's quirks that I grew to somewhat like. I haven't played every LIS game since, but I did play True Colours day #1 and it was ok. The powers of the main character were bunk and hardly influenced gameplay satisfyingly, but otherwise it was the Life is Strange formula, so alright. Double Exposure I'd probably place as worse than the original - which works perfectly fine as a self-contained story, that technically didn't need a sequel at all (my usual opinion on movie sequels) - , but then again better than True Colors. -It's 10 years since the original game and Max Caulfield is the main character again. Appearently she moved on from Blackwell or so it seems and has not used her powers since. Years later after another traumatic event she discovers to have a new ability she chooses to use to make clarity of the traumatic event. -Gameplay is the usual Life is Strange formula: story-driven exploration with a super power gimmick. I'm happy to say that the double dimension powers work better to influence the game than whatever True Colors did, but as so often with LIS I feel like they get brushed to the side for the sake of story progression and never quite feel gamified satisfyingly. (Tbh, I feel like Life is Strange should consider moving on from the chapter formula and attempt something I guess open-world instead, but that's a different discussion) -the graphics are improved and look good. I have seen gripes with them in the lead up to the release, that they lost the blurry identity of the original and I kinda get it, though the series has moved on from that aesthetic way back already -soundtrack is a lot of indie rock and indie folk. I kinda like it, but I'm not sure if I'll add any of the music to my RYM profile quite yet -I guess the main criticisms that in particular the fans have with this are story-related, but without getting too much into spoilers I think the story is fine to me personally. I have been spoiled on some of them by emotional fans noncensensually on social media and now that I completed the game myself - which some of them didn't - my personal take is: some of those criticisms I have my thoughts about, but others really just feel like hyperbole of someone reacting to leaks that narratively don't stand scrutinx when you actually play the game. Like one not-so-spoilery claim was that they turned Max all horny and it's not really true. The lady just has a healthy interest in romantic interests and that's not the character from the first game anymore. Judging by the end statistics of the chapter there might be some more suggestive scenarios you could do with one character to nudge him into giving you information, I guess, I couldn't tell, but appearently I chose not to f**k with that at all, so Max had a relatively antagonistic relationship with him throughout most of the game. Overall I thought the story was more exciting than True Colors was at any point and I did have an interest into binging the last 2-3 chapters and I am not sure some of the more controversial scenarios people take issue with are that nuance-less. Not to get too spoilery, but it appears they are aiming for a part 3 of the Max story and if the split fan reaction didn't kill that, I would not mind coming back for it personally.
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