It`s rare that a prequel truly works, where a story can captivate despite the audience knowing what`s coming and where the path will lead. Life Is Strange: Before The Storm is one of those exceptional stories because it draws you in on its own terms. The only problem: You know it`s building you up just to break your heart.As we know, the original Life Is Strange is steeped in tragedy. Maxine Caulfield`s estranged friend Chloe Price comes riding back into her hometown, hoping to find her missing friend, Rachel Amber. The search brings Chloe and Max close again after years apart, but it also illustrates a vast gulf in their life experience, which never fully closes. Max`s life is defined by good fortune and privilege. Chloe, as seen through Before The Storm, is defined by loss.When Episode 1 starts, Chloe is forced to finagle her way into an underground metal concert with nothing but street smarts and her own awkward sense of sass. She`s not yet as sharp and hardened as the girl we meet in the original game, but she has it in her to become stronger as life gets tough. That girl`s outlook on life is everywhere in Before The Storm: the greyer, evocative, post-rock soundtrack compared to the sunny lilt of the original game, the sneering commentary of the information in the menus. The Backtalk system-a stand-in for Life Is Strange`s time travel mechanic-gives you even more control over the flow of a conversation to get what you want. It`s a way to portray Chloe`s very human strengths that sadly doesn`t get implemented often enough in the latter two episodes.Whoever you choose to make Chloe become, meeting Rachel shifts her focus. In the original game, Rachel is to Arcadia Bay what Laura Palmer is to Twin Peaks: a bonafide popular girl whose absence seems to mean everything to everyone, but who no one seems to really know on a personal level. Chloe Price, however, did know her, and Before The Storm gives you the chance to find out what was so special about Rachel in Ch ...
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