Life is Strange: True Colors (Xbox Series X)
For many, the ability to clearly tell what someone was feeling and even outright read some of their thoughts would sound like a gift. For Alex Chen though, this supernatural empathy has only lead to a more complicated life. In a world otherwise fairly realistic beyond this “superpower”, she would have already found herself bouncing between different homes in the foster care system as she struggles with lingering personal issues, but this power has exacerbated things further as it presses in on her teen angst and trauma. Luckily for her though, things seem on the rise as she ages out of the system and heads to a town called Haven that promises to be a calmer and comfortable life. Tragedy quickly strikes though, her chance to find stability threatened as emotions run high once more and her powers once again lead to many tense situations.
Life is Strange: True Colors is a narrative adventure game where the player will be controlling Alex and deciding the course of her story. This will mostly manifest as picking what she says or does during certain situations, but rather than merely trying to pick what the player believes is right, Alex’s empathy gives you a more revealing window into the minds of the characters she engages with. When people are experiencing strong emotions like fear, anger, or sadness, Alex can see a colorful aura around them that gives her the opportunity to peer in on their thoughts. Sometimes this is just used for fun effect like how you can find a pair of friends in the small Colorado town of Haven who are desperately trying to broach the topic of getting in a relationship that you can possibly give a little nudge. At other times though, these emotions can be truly overwhelming, someone fearing for their life in a desperate situation or grappling with intense feelings of loss or fury not just picking up on Alex’s radar but yanking her in to a sympathetic situation. Alex will feel the incredible fear and struggle as she tries to save the person in peril or she’ll have to push through the anger to try and calm down who she’s speaking with, and the player is the one in charge of navigating how she deals with these intense moments that can fundamentally change her interpersonal relationships.
Some of these will just involve Alex experiencing heightened emotions, but that supernatural empathy can sometimes have a fairly creative visual representation. When a child fears a monster that isn’t really there, feeling his anxiety will cause Alex to see a monstrous visage as well and feel that same unfounded terror. At another point, an older woman’s struggles with dementia lead to the flower shop the two find themselves in twisting in a hazy world where words are scrambled and images make less sense. A good deal of the experience will be playing amateur therapist to the people Alex meets in Haven, trying to work them through their issues and influencing their later behavior in the plot based on how that went. Some choices do admittedly only have the illusion of importance, such as early on in the plot there is a tragedy involving the mining company Typhon that forms the backbone of the rest of the adventure. You can try to make some choices to prevent it, but just like in real life, some events come to pass no matter what you do, and since a lot of Alex’s life in Haven is underscored by her trying to investigate why Typhon allowed such a tragedy to occur, the game would be a little aimless without that element.
Already a lot of Life is Strange: True Colors focuses on Alex’s attempts to settle into Haven though. The beautiful mining town seems pretty accommodating to her right off the bat, no doubt helped by the presence of her charming and supportive brother Gabe who had contacted her with a place for her to stay in the first place. His social sphere quickly becomes Alex’s and despite there being moments of intense negative emotion and loss down the narrative path the game takes, Haven’s citizens are a fairly friendly and warm bunch. A comforting counterbalance to those heightened empathetic moments, Alex finds people quick to accept her and make her feel at home, that making the ongoing investigation into Typhon’s activities and those moments where the relationship hinges on how she helps someone overcome their emotional problems have some real stakes. There will be a few tough choices along the ride, but for the most part the game almost feels like it’s trying to give this girl a nice stable life to settle into with some periods even fairly free of conflict as you just get to know the other inhabitants of the small mountain town.
While the game could do with some more tough choices or radically shifting paths based on the way the adventure swings, there is still a good amount of room to customize the path you take through this well-written story. Alex has two romance options and both of them are well-realized characters, a bit idealistic in their presentation and quick to fall for Alex but there are moments to speak with them where you get to know them well enough that either one feels like an enticing choice. Alex’s personality is a bit in your hands, able to be friendly or a bit sarcastic and standoffish at times but still having a clear core that you don’t radically shift from. She’s an understandably nervous young adult entering a new situation but by observing objects around you while exploring you can see the early kernels of her more humorous side that starts to show as she gets to know people better. Similarly, that troubled past isn’t completely buried and can burble up if you allow it to do so, but the path of sympathy and understanding certainly feels like the intended route and one that works well if you’re simply coming to Life is Strange: True Colors for a well-written emotional narrative.
The supporting cast is lightly populated but the tight focus gives you time to know the principle players well. Alex’s power gives you that special look into their unguarded personal sides and can help flesh out people who aren’t always forthcoming with their thoughts. Mack, a character introduced by way of beating up your all-around swell older brother Gabe, is a more complex character but not the kind to come out and say it, the game able to balance believable behavior from him with some important personal revelations by way of his emotional aura. Unsurprisingly the two romance options, Steph and Ryan, are given a lot of attention, the two becoming Alex’s clear closest friends and helping her with the mining company investigation the most. Both have personal lives and loyalties outside of Alex so they’re not just there to fall in love with and the two can bring a good amount of humor to moments like a live-action role-playing session hosted to try and entertain a young boy named Ethan. By the point this event occurs you’ve had time to grow attached to each of the principle players in this fantasy performance and seeing how they slip into their roles makes for a great surge of levity at that junction of the story, although it’s not without its moments to further those all-important personal connections so it isn’t just a deviation from the plot’s usual focuses.
A good amount of music is used to punctuate moments of self-reflection in Life is Strange: True Colors, the player often finding spots where they can come to a stop and drink in the lovely environmental design of the small town while Alex gives her thoughts on recent events or where she believes she’s heading next. There is a light smattering of extra activities across the course of the story, the player able to play a few arcade machines they find, engage in optional conversations with key characters, or get into a little mischief with their emotional powers like helping a guy cheat at a “guess the amount of jellybeans in the jar” contest. It is possible to outright miss a few interactions if you don’t poke around when you have the chance and some can flesh out some members of the cast who would get less focus otherwise. An eccentric and well-spoken old man named Duckie won’t take center stage during the main journey, but the moments with some room for exploration let you dig a little deeper into who he is as a person rather than a quirky side character, there even being a fairly heartfelt moment to find if you know when to look around. The game thankfully doesn’t shove you into important moments so you have time to look around and uncover things like objects that have lingering emotions attached to them to read, Haven being a little more robust and cozy because you get to drink in and engage with the little sliver you find yourself operating in during the plot’s events.
THE VERDICT: Life is Strange: True Colors is a well-performed and emotional narrative with an endearing set of characters to get to know and grow attached to, so while it can sometimes be a little to nice and gentle in making sure Alex finds an accommodating community to settle into, it at least makes them appealing enough you won’t be overly bothered by your small part in guiding the broader course of events. A good amount of focus on smaller choices helps to personalize the tale and the truly important moments in the story where emotions run high are realized well both in intensity and surreal visuals. Some tougher decisions could have really brought out the full potential of the core mystery and the quest for belonging, but Life is Strange: True Colors can still balance its cozy and welcoming side with enough conflict to come out as a riveting narrative adventure.
And so, I give Life is Strange: True Colors for Xbox Series X…
A GREAT rating. Life is Strange: True Colors finds itself in a funny situation where you might want some more drastic and impactful results for making certain decisions but at the same time it endears you so strongly to Alex and her growing friend group that it’s hard to want things to go awry. At moments it can almost feel like the focus is just on her finally catching a break and enjoying her time in the supportive small town of Haven and it is easy to get swept up in that sweet and friendly atmosphere, but those moments where her future are on the line definitely feel important to establishing some meaningful conflict and ensuring this isn’t just a cozy life simulator. It can be heartbreaking to see things go awry, especially with characters who you not only know well but who you had a part in trying to help them with your window into their emotions, but it can feel like the game could use a few more moments where you’re walking a tight rope between an emotional gut punch or the satisfaction of pulling things back from the brink. It’s not always a matter of impactful choices so much as the story feeling it could use a few more moments where things hang in the balance, but it’s also hard to complain about the extra time to get to know Steph, Ryan, Ethan, and everyone else. Despite your empathic powers putting this purely in the realm of fiction, there is a good amount of realism in the way characters behave and the vocal performers do a superb job fleshing out their roles. Duckie wouldn’t be nearly as fascinating a side character without his thespian mannerisms while Ethan acts his age quite well, having reasonable irrational moments but nothing that feels artificial. He even leads to one of the more clever moments of navigation, the game having you use his homebrew comic for clues that ensure there is a bit more to the adventure than merely picking what Alex has to say. Emotional investigation is the primary focus and a great way to peer into the souls of people around you though and definitely an effective way to introduce some localized conflict as you help someone work through their emotions, and the game even makes sure Alex gets some strong deconstruction of her issues so she’s not merely a vessel for commenting on the town or for players to pick how they want the plot to unfold.
A little more tension and substance to the emotional stakes on show would bolster Life is Strange: True Color’s already excellent narrative, but for a game where you’ll be experiencing the emotions of others, it does do an incredible job at getting you to feel things as well. Part of that is because it does so much work constructing this new situation for Alex and giving you many ways to look at how her lot in life is improving, and while it feels a little rude to request a little more strife along the way, it would hold a good deal of weight because of all the work putting into fleshing out the people of this plot. Haven is a wonderful little world to live in with an emotional tale tied to it worth experiencing, so perhaps we should take a note from Alex and sit back and appreciate what we have: a well-written narrative adventure that’s a joy to play through.