Life is Strange 2 Review

"Episode 4: Faith"

Campaign (Spoiler Free)

August 23, 2019 at 4:25am
By Jason Stettner

This fourth entry in the series is incredibly long and it feels rather stretched out. It covers some important points, but takes forever to do so. You get to visit a wide range of locations on the continued core quest, and there were some strong emotional points along the way. That being said, some of the narrative elements didn’t quite land, and felt weak.

It seemed to jump ahead to certain points in an almost too over the top style. I just wasn’t too into this one, the discussions felt forced and the parts that should have taken longer were short. I wasn’t sold by the motivations of certain characters and there were a lot of ideas in this one.

Too many, instead of just picking one concept everything was piled in towards a conclusion that seemed too easy going considering the situation at hand. I also faced some situations where the next choice seemed to almost skip ahead with a choppy style, instead of the smooth transition that’s usually present. That was odd. I’m still having a hard time getting behind these characters, and this story.

Instead of cheering them along, I’m just hoping the long boring stretches end quicker. There were just one too many side stops on the way to where we were headed this time, and the kid is basically a Terminator in terms of the damage he suffered along the way. They had a neat premise with the larger group at the end, but that didn’t get the time it should have.

Gameplay

The visuals of Life is Strange 2 are very impressive as the distinct art style has evolved and it's just a treat to take in. They really have improved the quality of the world, yet I'm disappointed not to see Xbox One X enhanced visual choices like in Before the Storm. It plays well, featuring a mix of cinematic segments with open world exploration to the side.

They've built upon the prequel's open world situations allowing you to explore larger areas. That being said, these segments slow the pacing and don't exactly offer a lot of excitement. There's more freedom with this title as well with options to buy items and more dynamic choices. This episode had some choppy cinematics as mentioned, but for the most part it did run smooth. I also really thought the art style shined through in this episode.

The Conclusion

Life is Strange Episode 4: Faith was too long, with brief impactful moments that were so plentiful that they didn’t carry much weight. They made the protagonist too strong, and put him up against various factions that didn’t really have any sense of motivation behind them. It’s as though they’re aiming for certain cultural things present in that area of the United States, and putting them all in at once.

A trickle effect would have been better. I appreciate the push towards these topics as Life is Strange is usually perfect at doing so. It just seemed like they wanted to make this two episodes, and it came across as bloated due to that. I got really just bored of it, lots of walking without meaning and characters randomly hopping in. You’re coming across so many characters in this season and you don’t get any time to really know them.

It’s definitely not a bad episode, but one that I personally found to have some weaker narrative points. It was nice to see more defining choices in this one, but I’m not sure they really carried much weight choice wise. I’m looking forward to the conclusion, as this season has failed to fully grasp my attention like the previous ones had. That church area was such a missed opportunity, they could have done so much more with it.

Read our Life is Strange: Before the Storm Review
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Life is Strange 2 Episode 4: Faith Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Square Enix

Rating Overall: 6.6