Note: spoilers ahead!
Introduction
A little over a year after playing the first game, I returned to Arcadia Bay for its prequel, Before the Storm. Taking place about 2 years before the first game, in this one you play as Max’s friend Chloe. Max has recently left Arcadia Bay for Seattle, and Chloe is feeling alone and abandoned. Unlike the original game which was developed by Dontnod Entertainment, Before the Storm was developed by Deck Nine. While my review of Life is Strange was fairly short, in this one I’d like to go into a little more detail regarding the characters.
Plot
Chloe is a student at Blackwell Academy. Still reeling from the death of her father, she lashes out at seemingly everyone and trying to find her own way in life, everyone else be damned. One night while trying to sneak into a concert of her favorite local band, Chloe gets into a heated argument with two men; it is about to erupt when she is saved by Rachel Amber, a fellow Blackwell Academy student that she knows only by reputation.
Meeting back at school the next day, the two of them decide to ditch school, riding a train and ending up at a lookout point. Looking through a viewfinder, they happen to see a couple kissing; Chloe makes a joke, but Amber becomes very upset. It turns out the man is Amber’s father, but it’s not his wife he’s kissing. In a fit Amber kicks over a trash bin after burning a family photo, starting what becomes a sizeable wildfire.
At their hideout in the junkyard, Chloe discovers an abandoned pickup truck, which she’s able to fix up. Talking with Amber, they decide to leave everything behind and go away together. Unfortunately complications arise when the woman Amber’s dad was supposedly cheating with is actually Amber’s biological mother, Sera, a drug addict who has problems with both Damon and Frank.
Confronting Frank and Damon at the junkyard, Rachel is stabbed by Damon. Thankfully she survives and recovers at the hospital, while Chloe searches for clues in James’ home office. Using his phone she convinces Damon to meet her, agreeing to pay a ransom for Sera’s life. When she meets Damon she learns James had paid him to kill Sera. Frank arrives and fights Damon. Sera begs Chloe to never tell Rachel about what James did. Visiting Rachel at the hospital again, Chloe is left with the choice whether to tell her everything.
Characters
While not quite as rebellious or outright bitchy as in Life is Strange, in Before the Storm Chloe is still carrying a sizable chip on her shoulder, and it only grows once she meets and starts hanging out with Rachel. While she does reference the more-recent occurrence of Max leaving, she doesn’t really show how much she’s affected and hurt from that.
It’s not long into the game before Rachel Amber makes her appearance. Just like Chloe we are taken aback by her brash behavior and apparent bravery dealing with criminals and other notorious characters. We see her interact with her parents, and it’s evident there’s tension there, although for a teen it’s not that surprising at face value.
In the first game it was very briefly hinted at that Frank had feelings for, let alone a relationship with Rachel. In this game we see Frank as an “understudy” to Damon. Unlike Damon we’re shown that Frank is not all bad, and that perhaps his attitude in the first game is almost justified. We don’t actually see Frank interact with Rachel, and we don’t know if they even know each other yet.
In this game Damon Merrick is the classic bad guy and asshole. Frank is his “apprentice” and keeps him in check; Damon certainly doesn’t seem to care about anyone else besides himself and getting paid. He’s unfortunately a bit one-dimensional. It’s fine to be bad and threatening, but by itself it’s cliche and not very realistic. I would’ve liked to seen just a sliver of humanity, a crack in the armor that showed there is or used to be something in his life that’s not ruined by his way of life.
It hasn’t been as long since William has died, but Joyce has been dating David for awhile and has already seemed to fully accept him into her life and soon home. This is perhaps the biggest surprise in character origin and development compared to what we saw and knew from the first game. In this game David is dating Joyce and later on they announce to Chloe that he will be moving in. Obviously Chloe doesn’t like that, but Joyce basically ignores her. In his defense David seems to try to make an effort to connect with Chloe, as night and day they are in their behavior, opinions, etc. We see more about David, and it certainly puts him in a different light than what’s merely hinted at or perhaps the different way the original developers intended for him to turn out. This is absolutely one of the highlights for the game, and I commend Deck Nine for fleshing out this character.
Rachel’s parents, James and step-mother Rose, certainly come off initially as normal loving parents. At dinner with Chloe they make small talk and help each other in the kitchen. They try to act their best around Rachel, but as I mentioned before there’s something clearly lurking beneath the surface. That comes up later with the reveal of James meeting with Sera, Rachel’s birth mother.
Music
Let’s face it; the soundtrack and original music for the first game set a monstrously high standard, and I was going to be very damned pleased if the music for this game came even close to it. Well, it has gotten close, and while there aren’t any standout tracks or wholly emotional songs to go along with the extremely pivotal moments in the game like there was in the first one, overall I must commend Daughter for their work on this game, building layer upon layer and always knowing when to ease off and when to bring the guitars and other sounds swelling into the foreground. Yes, in contrast to the first game that featured a multitude of indie rock and folk musicians, for this game one band took on the task!
Writing an entire album for this game, Music From Before the Storm (Amazon | Apple | Spotify) is the third album from Daughter, and I really can’t believe I haven’t heard of them until now! It took me quite a few listens to really get into the album and really appreciate it, and stop comparing it to the previous game’s music. Like the game it’s definitely a “slow burner”; it’s something you really should put on a pair of headphones, lay back on the sofa and close your eyes, and just let it seep into you.
Conclusion
Learning the news of a prequel coming so soon after the first game, and from a different studio, my expectations weren’t too high. The original game and soundtrack had a monstrous impact on me, and I was really hoping for more of the same, as hard or even impossible as that would be. Before the Storm somewhat succeeds. Yes it follows the general visual and play style of the first game, but there’s no doubt that Deck Nine have put their unique stamp while still giving us a dramatic and emotional story. I think my only real letdown was the ending, which seemed to come up sooner than I expected, as well as not tying into the first game besides a small end cutscene alluding to Rachel’s disappearance. Why didn’t this game deal with Rachel’s disappearance and how Chloe handled that? Or even Frank?
