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Editor's note: We're taking a different approach to reviews of episodic game series like Life is Strange, in which the debut episode will be reviewed without a score, as here, and we'll review the whole season with a score at its conclusion.The title of Dontnod's episodic adventure is something of an understatement. The first chapter opens with Maxine Caulfield fighting through a tornado to reach a lighthouse. As things reach an apocalyptic crescendo, she snaps back to reality and realises she's actually in her college photography class. Not long after that, she discovers she has the power to rewind time and change events for the better - or worse.
All of this is on top of more traditional late teen tribulations. Maxine is newly returned to the town of Arcadia, Oregon, after five years living in Seattle, an absence that reinforces her feelings of dislocation. Her one-time best friend is now an angry outsider, her nerdy male friend can barely disguise his clumsy romantic intentions and there's a whole labyrinth of dorm etiquette to navigate, from bitchy entitled rich kids to prudish campus Christians and shy outcasts. Flyers regarding missing student Rachel Amber papered all over the college suggest even darker problems lie ahead.
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