Life is Uncommon: True Colors review: An emotional triumph
MSRP $59.99
“Heartfelt and poignant, the one issue Life is Uncommon: True Colors journeys over is its private phrases.”
Execs
- A relatable story
- Heartfelt moments
- Joyful characters
Cons
- Haphazard pacing
- Cringeworthy dialogue
- Unimpressive visuals
Must you’re in quest of a story about psychological effectively being, discovering one is so simple as logging onto Twitter and scrolling for a bit. Media, regardless of its format, now has some strategy of representing the massive swath of psychological effectively being factors. The issue of widespread melancholy or anxiousness has turn into accepted, and is now represented by the use of the characters inside the video video games we play and divulges we watch. In some unspecified time sooner or later, quite a lot of us realized that, internally, one factor isn’t correct, one factor’s not good.
Life is Uncommon: True Colors services spherical that notion — that we’re all, in our private distinctive methodology, broken or fallacious. Nonetheless, the story it tells isn’t merely about coping with every day life. That’s not a healthful strategy to remain anyway. It’s about embracing these imperfections, tackling them head-on, and in some cases stopping to confirm life is what it must be.
That message includes life by the use of the game’s implausible cast of characters, each with their very personal experiences and trauma. It’s almost inconceivable to complete Life is Uncommon: True Colors with out concerning each Alex or one in every of her associates. Even with staggered story pacing and usually off-putting dialogue, the game managed to hook up with me in a technique not many have sooner than.
In one other individual’s sneakers
Life is Uncommon: True Colors locations avid gamers inside the sneakers of Alex Chen, a woman who’s seemingly been by the use of all of it. An enormous part of her life was spent inside the foster care system, which I don’t study first-hand, nonetheless am all too familiar with attributable to an in depth pal’s experiences. By her phone, avid gamers can see that even the few social relationships she’s managed to develop all through her time inside the system didn’t pan out. One ends with Alex ghosting a boy who begins to depend on intercourse from her after only a few hookups, one different ends on account of Alex seemingly “freaked out.”
That freak-out was attributable to Alex’s latent vitality, which isn’t one thing as spectacular as flying or taking photos laser beams. Instead, she’s a wierd mix between a telepath and an empath (a telempath, when you’ll). She is going to be capable to see how people actually really feel, visualized by the use of vibrant auras that appear spherical their our our bodies. When someone feels one factor, she is going to faucet into it and understand the reasoning behind their emotions. Whole, it’s a powerful software program, one which lets her, along with avid gamers, get to the core of any character’s motivation. If someone is showing out of concern or rage, Alex can inform and dredge that deep-seated emotion to the ground.
Nonetheless, when she’s truly reaching into someone’s emotions, Alex’s powers can take her elsewhere. Instead of merely seeing how someone feels — albeit at a deeper diploma than most — she is going to see the world by the use of their eyes, filtered by their emotions. At events, this experience is whimsical, bringing Alex proper right into a Dungeons & Dragons-esque world imagined by a child. Completely different experiences aren’t as good, nonetheless nonetheless poignant. One among these sections has Alex making an attempt by the use of the terrified eyes of a woman slowly dropping her memory to a “scenario,” by the use of the lens of her concern of finally not remembering staple objects, similar to the face of her private granddaughter. These moments ended up hitting close to home for me as terrifyingly good representations of the priority, rage, and anxiousness I’ve felt by the use of my very personal life.
At events, this experience is whimsical, bringing Alex proper right into a Dungeons & Dragons-esque world imagined by a child. Completely different experiences aren’t as good, nonetheless nonetheless poignant.
The damaging emotions avid gamers experience all by way of Life is Uncommon: True Colors are equally balanced by moments of tenderness and actual pleasure. The game begins with Alex arriving inside the metropolis of Haven Springs, Colorado, to maneuver in collectively along with her brother, Gabe. The first day they’re collectively is one healthful second after one different, with the quiet, reserved shell that Alex has constructed up over years slowly chipping away as she’s reintroduced to her brother and the tightknit found family he’s constructed inside the small metropolis.
Found family
That glorious day ends with Gabe’s lack of life, an event that locations the rest of the game’s plot into motion. Alex and her two best associates, Steph (who makes a return from Life is Uncommon: Sooner than The Storm) and Ryan, begin investigating a mining agency that’s been inside the metropolis and set off a blast that induced Gabe’s lack of life. Nonetheless, this story of firm espionage and intrigue largely falls into the background all through 4 of the game’s 5 chapters. There are moments when you’ll focus straight on this plot, nonetheless for lots of the sport, the spotlight is on Alex and her sluggish nonetheless sure acclimation to a spot that’s safe to call home.
This ends up making for a wierd imbalance in a story that I often beloved and ended up connecting with. Alex’s wrestle in the direction of the mining agency, Typhon, feels desire it must take coronary heart stage all the time. Nonetheless, it in its place affords an ominous backdrop for Alex’s private story of personal betterment, and the way in which she includes phrases collectively along with her new perform in Haven Springs as a person who acknowledges themselves as broken nonetheless feels the need to restore others.
For a majority of the game, avid gamers stroll throughout the small, idyllic metropolis, interacting with its locals and serving to them with their very personal factors. It’s by the use of these small interactions that Alex builds up her private found family, slowly altering the one which’s each died off or abandoned her.
Whereas a majority of these moments are touching, they’re moreover the place Life is Uncommon: True Colors‘ writing is at its worst. At events, all of the items the game’s characters are saying is very efficient and relatable, nonetheless at others, the phrases ring gap (and are usually downright inappropriate). Alex, a 21-year-old, doesn’t should spout off internet-age memes when random objects inside the environment. It makes her come off as a lot much less of a relatable occasion of people my age (which generally is a stretch, since I’m the ripe outdated age of 25) and additional of a caricature.
Life is Uncommon: True Colors‘ story, although sluggish for its majority, is gratifying. It’s not plodding, nonetheless further of a pleasant stroll, one factor to get pleasure from at a leisurely tempo. That feeling changes utterly by way of the game’s closing act, though, when points take an particularly sharp flip. The story pivots utterly from Alex’s acclimation to her new environment straight to her battle in the direction of Typhon. It’s a dramatic flip of events, one which’s genuinely gripping. Whereas I would stop participating in at any time by way of the game’s early chapters, I wanted to finish after hitting the fifth.
Whereas a majority of these moments are touching, they’re moreover the place Life is Uncommon: True Colors‘ writing is at its worst.
It’s moreover all through this final chapter that avid gamers will get one among many sport’s six endings. Presently, I’ve solely labored my methodology by the use of the game as quickly as, nonetheless, I’ll seemingly give it one different run to experience all the points I had missed, which the game generously reveals on the end of each chapter. I don’t assume it’s doable to get a extremely “unhealthy” ending, nonetheless there are some which may be worse than others, as a minimum to me. I tried to get Alex to complete up with one among many sport’s two love pursuits, and succeeded in that regard. There are one other important picks avid gamers might make about Alex’s future as successfully, nonetheless I acquired’t get into these spoilers.
Our take
There isn’t a easy strategy to advocate Life is Uncommon: True Colors. It, like the rest of the Life is Uncommon franchise, isn’t a typical sport. It’s further akin to a visual novel or point-and-click journey. The game is a sluggish, gratifying experience, glorious for if you want to wind down for the night or rise up inside the morning.
Better than that, though, it’s an emotional triumph. Experiencing Alex’s journey and seeing the world by the use of her excellently crafted perspective is a pleasure that hit me extra sturdy than I anticipated it to. I’ve often written off the Life is Uncommon franchise as unrelatable, under no circumstances giving it the likelihood it deserved. Nonetheless, Alex’s story, and the trials of those around her, ended up ringing true to me. Their fears, anxieties, and totally different emotions are all personal and can be found from a spot that I take into consideration widespread ground. Fear of outdated age, anger at corporations and their unending greed, and disappointment and rage after the dearth of a preferred one aren’t distinctive to this sport’s characters — they’re frequent feelings. Life is Uncommon: True Colors, even with its imbalanced story and usually cringeworthy dialogue, wields its emotional heft masterfully.
Is there a larger totally different?
Telltale’s The Strolling Lifeless nonetheless reigns supreme on this model. It’s a super emotional story for these trying to find a further mature sport.
How prolonged will it closing?
My playthrough of Life is Uncommon: True Colors took spherical 10 hours, nonetheless that was just one run. Players can bear the game a variety of events for his or her supreme ending.
Do it’s important to buy it?
Positive. Life is Uncommon: True Colors is relatable on almost every diploma, offering a powerful experience for people who like slower, further relaxed video video games.
Editors’ Ideas
