I just played through all of Life is Strange for the very first time and I am not doing OK. Absolutely cried at the end, feel like an emotional wreck.
It's surprising I never played it earlier because I absolutely love visual novels and interactive narrative games. I picked up the Remastered collection last month when it was on sale and decided to take the plunge and finally play it.
I thought it was going to be an interactive CW drama, but LiS is actually a surprisingly dark mash-up of Twin Peaks, Donnie Darko, and Veronica Mars where I was often staring off into the middle distance at the end of an episode. I think I might have let some of the earlier reactions to the game and its dialogue prejudice me against checking it out and I honestly regret it. The ambient cultural conversation around Life Is Strange is of course focused on Max and Chloe, the music, the setting, whether or not the dialogue is cheesy, but you never hear about what they actually go through in the course of the game. It's messed up! But I also have to praise Dontnod for being willing to explore some difficult territory.
Now I am feeling down because it's over. Think I am going to play Before the Storm to ease the pain a bit. On a positive note, this has resurrected my love of interactive adventure games in a huge way. I am curious about the other entries in this series, like LiS 2 and True Colours.