Life is Strange: True Colors delivers a more down-to-earth and human experience than what one might expect from a game classified as a AAA title. As a graphic adventure game with its gameplay focused on player choices, the most famous of its genre likely Telltale Games’ ‘The Walking Dead’, the bulk of its draw is in its storytelling and narrative and its ability to deliver emotional impact to players. On that front, True Colors delivers, winning Best Storytelling at the Golden Joystick Awards 2021 and Games for Impact at The Game Awards 2021.

As the third installment of the Life is Strange series of games, the series differentiates itself with its thoroughly normal settings, its games are set in representations of the world we live in with a single difference: the protagonist has a superpower. In True Colors we follow the story of its protagonist, Alex, who has the power of empathy, being able to read and feel the emotions of others, as she finds herself adjusting into a new life in the quiet mountain town of Haven Springs.  Perhaps the game’s greatest strength is its ability to address themes and issues that resonate with its players, struggling to fit in, dealing with grief and loss, and mental health issues just to name a few.

Lens 9: The Elemental Tetrad

• Aesthetics
  • As a AAA title, the game is without a doubt visually stunning. The graphics captures the beauty of the game’s setting and masterfully delivers a sense of calm and serenity that can just as quickly evoke anxiety and tension as needed by the story.
  • The aesthetics are further reinforced by the game’s stellar soundtrack with music that perfectly complements the themes and feeling of the game.
• Mechanics
  • The primary points of player interaction arises from making decisions within dialogue and utilizing Alex’s powers of empathy. These core mechanics strengthen the theme of the game in emphasizing emotions
  • The mechanics of the game are kept simple so as to not detract player attention away from its story and aesthetics
• Technology
  • Dealing with human emotion being the game’s biggest theme, motion capture technology was used to fully translate the breadth of emotions that can be captured by facial expression into the character models. This produces characters that look and feel incredibly real, strengthening the empathy players have with them.
• Story
  • As a game with a narrative focus, its story is its strongest and most important element of the four in the elemental tetrad.
  • The story is crafted to showcase the consequences of the player’s decisions (mechanics) while emphasizing its core themes.

Lens 1: Emotion

Emotions are what makes this game so incredibly memorable. As I played through the game, I could empathize with each and every character, their emotional journey being beautifully captured and written in such a believable and relatable manner. Every big decision I had to make heightened my anxiety as I agonized with what was the right choice (sometimes there is no right choice). The game, true to its theme, delivers in making its players feel.

Lens 6: Curiosity

Throughout the game, compulsory cutscenes give us glimpses into the lives and intricacies of the inhabitants of Haven Springs. While not an ‘open world’ game, True Colors encourages exploration within the bounds of the story chapter or scene, with dozens of little interactable objects, some of which you can even utilize Alex’s powers to see a memory associated with these objects. Together all these little details paint Haven Springs as vibrant and full of life and allowed me to discover the intricacies of its characters only hinted at in mandated dialogue.

Furthermore, aside from its main cast of named characters, there are little subplots that we can discover and affect that could easily be missed but are incredibly satisfying for the curious explorer, ranging from bringing together two lovebirds to helping a sad soul find his dog.

Lens 73: Story Machine

As a game whose core mechanic is about making choices, it is clearly important that the choices makes the player feel like they have affected the narrative in some way. As with many games of its kind, True Colors suffers from the ‘Combinatorial Explosion’ problem. In a game of branching choices, it is infeasible to create a truly branching narrative. The game essentially reaches its climax and ends the same way regardless of the choices I made. This was somewhat mitigated by the weaving of the choices not with the plot itself but the way the characters react to you in the game’s climax.

Perhaps a way the game could have strengthened the impact of choices could be to utilize its epilogue cutscene to show the how you had affected the lives of each of the characters.

Lens 89: The Character Web

Frequently, I see games where character interactions are focused between the player character and NPCs. In True Colors, it is easy to see that the effort placed in building the relationships between each of the town’s inhabitants. It strengthens the sense of Alex being an outsider to the town and makes Haven Springs feel real and alive and not just a place in a video game but filled with people who love and hate each other.

Link to Game Website

https://lifeisstrange.square-enix-games.com/en-gb/games/life-is-strange-true-colors/