Life is Strange is one of my Favourite series. I was a little worried that True Colors would drop beneath a very high bar. I’m so very happy to be wrong.
Life is Strange: True Colors is in many ways a departure from what came before. No more Dontnod on development, instead there’s one time prequel developers Deck Nine Interactive. True Colors then also makes the move from an episodic release. Instead of spreading over many months there’s five episodes all releasing at once.
But there’s continuity here that seems to reinforce that Square Enix knows this series has a fervently committed audience. There’s a direct connection to to the original Life is Strange through the return of Steph, as well as other little touches like band posters etc.
In addition, the return to a single setting for the game rather than the road trip motif of Life is Strange 2 will be something many appreciate.
With all that in mind then, how does True Colors hold up?
Honestly pretty impressively.
This is still Life is Strange at the core.
You’ll be playing a (slightly older this time) young adult in a melodramatic story that will go to some dark places. )rehad
In gameplay terms, it’s the standard LiS adventure game fare. You’ll be presented with various locations in an episode. There’s actually only a few environments in the game this time. Almost the entirety of True Colors takes place inside your apartment, the bar beneath it or the four locations in the town they’re situated in. As you explore, you’ll walk through and take the time to interact with every interactable object for commentary. Or just skip straight to whatever object will clearly advance the narrative. Sometimes there’s minor puzzles where the right sequence of items/conversations will have to be followed to get to the resolution. Every other scene will contain what is now referred to as a Zen Moment. The previously unnamed moments of contemplation paired with music that have become the trademark of the LiS series.
There’s also dialogue choices to be made to define your relationships with the rest of the cast/their actions.
At the end of each episode, you’ll still be offered a breakdown of how the playerbase (and your friends) made decisions for the choices present in the game.
And then there’s the “Strange” element with the powers of the Player Character.
This time around, you’re playing as Alex Chen. A product of the American foster system, she’s been in and out of Group Homes for the last 8 years. But now she’s been found by her Big Brother Gabe. He’s bringing her to the ridiculously idyllic mountain town of Haven, Colorado.
She wants a fresh start. A new life away from her time in the Group Home where she can get away from all her indefinable issues.
In the same way as Before the Storm, the supernatural elements of the series are comparatively played down here. It’s a part of the story, but more a character aspect than a mechanic.
Because Alex is an Empath. She can read emotional auras from people and objects, knowing their innermost thoughts.
Except when other people’s emotions are strong enough, then they start taking over Alex and she starts mirroring their actions.
Someone is sad, Alex is sad. Terrified and Alex will start panicking. But this is first shown in game in a truly brutal sequence where Alex starts mirroring the aggression of an asshole attacking someone.
Alex doesn’t have a fun power like Max’s time travel, nor something that has to be moulded and taught like Telekenesis with Daniel and Sean.
Instead Alex hates her power. It’s ruined her life on multiple occasions. But to other people, they see her as the height of emotional intelligence, able to truly understand anyone.
In game terms, it’s less about puzzles and more about getting a deeper understanding of what’s happening in any given scene. Objects found around an area give additional historic context to the people who’ve been there. Characters reveal their hidden motives or inner monologues.
What this typically ends up doing is meaning True Colors has this situated in a narrative function rather than a mechanical one.
Less a puzzle, more finding the right lever to pull to advance the story the way you want.
So if I find something out from one character’s emotional state early in a sequence, I can then try and use that information to unlock new dialogue options later on.
Where this power comes into its own, and justifies the move away from mechanical complexity is in how these emotional states are presented.
When Alex is absorbed by someone else’s emotions, everything shifts. In these emotional states, the entire game world changes. Text changes on posters and notes, characters models suddenly warp or act strangely. Locations shift to reflect the mood of the person in question.
These are some of the best sequences in the game, ranging either outrageously ambitious and enthusiastic to deeply stressful as the world reflects the inner viewpoint of characters.
The emotions become an overt experience rather than any sort of implied reading. It’s well executed, but does have the side effect of removing nuance from other characters. Instead the nuance has to exist in Alex’s reaction to everything, and at least partly in the responses chosen by the player.
Because if you can tell the inner feelings of a character, it’s a lot harder to tell stories where there’s secrecy and intrigue.
But equally, there’s a great pleasure in watching someone’s aura change through your actions. Someone you have one more helpful conversation with goes from afraid to joyful, directly because of your influence. All reflected in a new brightly glowing aura.
What this mostly means is that there’s comparatively little mechanical satisfaction to be found in True Colors. Puzzles don’t feature explicitly. Instead everything comes down to the narrative and the presentation of the cast, through the story.
True Colours is a story about Grief. Alex’s Brother Gabe dies shortly after the game starts. What follows is about deeply personal grief and working out how to move on, and get resolution from this. Not just your grief, but the grief of friends, lovers and everybody in a town.
It does this heartbreakingly well, cutting far too close to the bone on many occasions.
It starts with another Life is Strange staple with the phone/journal system. Texts and online messages fill in gaps in the story. Starting by ensuring Alex Chen has evidence of a life before Haven, and also in helping contextualise the passage of time.
These characters read as fully extant before you got involved and develop naturally afterwards.
Reinforcing this, the Character Animation is filled with tiny details like Alex pushing up her glasses, held breaths and fidgeting. Characters sway as they inhabit a scene. The cast move so fluidly and are filled with so much detail that you can almost take them as full motion capture.
Add to this a voice cast that’s being coached to perfection. The dialogue almost always come across as perfectly naturalistic, filled with the little pauses and quirks that occur in everyday conversation. Especially that conversations between friends are filled with awkward jokes and comforting stops.
Then finally add a scene director that understands how to take all of that and present it in an earnest, impactful way to the player. In a game that’s building itself on presenting emotionality, all three factors are crucially important to the game succeeding. True Colors is exceptional as a result. All of the above grow and develop, till you can truly read a character even without dialogue.
Because unlike Lake, which wears it’s mundanity on its sleeve, True Colors revels in its melodrama and the delightful snowball effect that Alex’s arrival has on the residents of Haven. True Colors is explicitly about how Alex’s presence disrupts and changes this community. She’s not just an avatar for the player. But a fully realised person in her own right, evident through her delightful mannerisms and physical quirks. Despite all of the grief and heartbreak in True Colors, Alex fundamentally makes things better, and helps the people of Haven get past that grief, through her relationships with them.
Because that’s ultimately how Grief is resolved. Through connecting with others, and knowing yourself.
Those connections span a variety of characters, but True Colors also has the distinction of being the first time in a Life is Strange game that the romantic choices were on an even keel. Alex reads as canonically queer. Even before making any romance choices! It helps that options Ryan and Steph end up being equally important in the story, and to Alex. The relationships develop naturally over time in a way that they haven’t always in previous titles in the series.
There are a couple of minor concerns I think could be addressed better. The game has zero content warnings. With a story that, again, goes to some dark places and infers/depicts a lot of things that could probably use a heads up like suicide, domestic abuse, severe mental trauma.
I’m also singularly unqualified in so many ways to describe the suitability of the various representations in the game. Not as an Asian American, as a Woman, from a queer perspective. I don’t think the game shies away from these things. They are definitely a lot less immediately readable to my untrained eye than the explicit political narrative of the Diaz Brothers in LiS2.
Story-wise, I appreciated the somewhat subdued structure with the conspiracy and the town’s citizens being the main thrust of the narrative. But there’s a single element towards the end of the game that feels a little too neat. I don’t think it was necessary to include, and while it doesn’t necessarily hurt the wider story, I don’t think it particularly helps.
There’s one final thing, which is that this feels like a game made by and for fans of Life is Strange. It’s not a bad thing inherently. But there are certain decisions structurally at the end of the game that feel like they’re focussed on the hyper character focussed fanbase, many of whom value character above plot.
At it’s core, I think True Colors might be the most distilled form of Life is Strange. Melodrama and meaningful character interactions, gorgeously presented animations and world design. All wrapped around a story that’s (appropriately) emotionally resonant and thrilling to follow.
Life is Strange: True Colors is available now on Steam, PlayStation , Xbox, Nintendo Switch and Google Stadia