Narrative-driven games time and time again have given players some truly emotional and gripping stories over the last console generation or two. The Life is Strange series specifically has been one of the leading forces in sucking players into their immersive worlds.

Life is Strange: True Colors continues the series’ staples and delivers players an engaging, imaginative, and even realistic world with almost every character being relatable in one way or another. The is a game and a series on fire with flames that you won’t want to put out, but walk straight into.

Story

True Colors places payers in the shoes of Alex Chen at a time when she’s making one of the biggest steps in her life. She’s decided to reunite with her estranged older brother in the town for which he resides called, Haven Springs. It’s an eclectic mining town, filled with hipster-type shops, craft-beers, and men walking around with fancy beards while dressed in flannel. It’s just the place any music-driven twenty-something would love to live.

While things seem to be going the right way at first glance, all goes wrong when her brother is mysteriously killed, showing that Haven Springs may be too good to be true. It’s a town filled with conspiracy theories and sub-plots that pull on the detective side of her.

Besides dealing with the death of her brother she’s also been an orphan for most of her life, jumping in and out of foster homes, orphanages, and even group homes. She’s someone who’s spent her whole life depending on herself. Another thing that she has to deal with is the fact that she has superpowers of her own.

These powers allow her to see and feel other people’s feelings. These can oftentimes overcome her own emotions which then cause her to lash out or shut down entirely. It’s a really strong and emotional story on all fronts which instantly made me feel connected to Alex. Because of this, I really wanted her to find happiness and did what I felt she would do throughout the game’s story.

The developers made it extremely easy to feel rooted in the story and characters because every single person has humanity in them and become so relatable. Even the “bad” people in this story have likeability to them which makes their antagonist reveals to be so shocking. You know a villain is good when you can see their point of view.

The story is also very strong throughout its entirety with little to no lulls. I was engaged with Alex and her journey from start to finish, seeing where everything finally led. Some titles in this narrative-driven genre stall out halfway through only to pick back up towards the end, but in the middle is where this game really picks things up.

Gameplay

Gameplay is pretty much what this genre is built on. You walk around, interact with people and things, and get to know your protagonist and their cast as well. I will say that through Alex’s emotional powers, she is able to pull out even more interactability from the world. She can pull memories out of inanimate objects and wander into someone else’s emotions to see if they’re telling her all of the truth.

It adds layers and keeps you investigating even further than what could be done in past games like this. There are various sub-plots to engage in for characters as well which can be done by tapping into others’ emotions and seeing what’s eating them. It mostly boils down to discovering an answer to a puzzle and then solving it. Kind of like a scavenger hunt.

This game will also have you making some serious decisions that truly alter the story. It can be something as little as an answer to a question or as large as choosing one person over another on a split decision. This game had my heart pumping on many occasions and I really needed to stop and think when making these choices. I don’t want to give anything away so just take my word for it.

I think that’s one of the beauties of True Colors because I’ve never really had a game that challenged me this way. In most of these types of games, it’s either really easy to make a decision because the good answer is obvious or it’s difficult because both answers don’t sound right at all. With True Colors, it’s difficult because I personally wouldn’t know which to choose because I would pick either. They’re so realistic and have real weight to them.

True Colors has a lot of cool mini-games setup throughout it that helped to break up the gameplay quite well. There are little arcade cabinets spread throughout Haven Springs which have their own unique game. Chapter 4 itself is mostly dedicated to RPG elements put forth that allow you to actually fight other characters in turn-based combat with spells, attacks, and special items that you acquire over the course of it.

At its core, True Colors while having a serious story, knows how to perfectly balance it with other real-life events. It’s not all grey and dreary. The game shakes things up just when you think that it’s growing stagnant. And if you are feeling overwhelmed, each chapter has various points where you can just take in the scenery and relax.

Audio

The devs show their love for music and it shines brightly over this title’s entirety. Alex herself is a guitarist, so her love for music is one of her main hobbies during the game’s duration. She’ll often pick up her guitar and play a song or even strike up her record player for some indie hits.

Along with the music that Alex interacts with, there’s also the non-diegetic synth-heavy score that really puts those emotions straight into your chest. Whether it’s anger, sadness, sorrow, happiness, or being scared, you will feel it.

The voice cast in True Colors is absolutely incredible. Their delivery of lines and the emotion that they’ve put into even the most subtle reactions are just amazing. Their performances are what really sell these characters and give them life.

Visuals

This title can look absolutely gorgeous at times. Even with its mostly cartoonish art style, this is one of the most beautiful and realistic-looking titles on next-gen hardware. Colors are vibrant, details are abundant, and each and every person is so realistic.

Facial expressions and movements are superb, giving players a true sense of who these characters really are. While most games these days do a great job at making the facial textures look real, they really haven’t nailed real expressions. This game does and does it so freaking well. Even eyes are on-point.

I never had to worry about if I read a character correctly when it came to responding to their statements and questions. This, in turn, made gameplay that much more enjoyable for me.

Replayability

Because of the heavy use of making story-impacted choices, TC has a huge replayability factor. After each chapter, the game will give you statistics on the choices that you’ve made to see how you stack up to other players. It also gives you a chance to see what is possible given the string of choices you make.

The big parts of the endgame may not change but your supporting cast of characters will most definitely look and think about Alex differently. On my playthrough, I had a major character not even see or speak to me again, when in other playthroughs, it ends completely differently.

What It Could Have Done Better

While my love for True Colors is unbreakable, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its flaws. I am a Phantom Menace fan after all… While minor, these discrepancies definitely need to be addressed. The first of which is the fact that I would sometimes get blocked by some of the game’s assets. This would mostly happen when I’d be walking around Haven Springs; walking into benches or curbs when I wasn’t really near them at all.

Then comes the glitches. These also didn’t break gameplay and didn’t impact me negatively overall. One of them was that there’d be a weird color block during some cinematics, though it luckily never happened for more than a split second or caused me to miss something important. The other was just an issue with prompts being finicky, though this only happened twice on a full playthrough.

Verdict

Life is Strange: True Colors is hands-down, my favorite game of 2021. It has a deep and impactful story, loveable characters, and a town that I myself would love to move to. Alex’s journey is so relatable in so many ways that it’s really hard not to become invested. I wanted to be friends with her and pick her up when she was down.

Its gameplay is also inventive and it tries new things to evolve the genre. That being said, it has some minor issues that can most likely be fixed shortly and didn’t negatively impact or break the game at all. This is a title that I think most gamers, especially in their early 20s to mid-30s will definitely feel connected to. If you want a true story-driven experience, this is the one you’ve been waiting for.