Captain Spirit Discussion

The game is out for North America and I want to talk about it. The game appears to be a single episode. It's closer to a Life is Strange 2 demo than full game which is not surprising considering it's free. On the playstation store, it's even listed as a demo.

I only played it for a couple minutes so far but I like what I see. Of the 5 minutes I played, the game looks rather charming with some dark story elements. I'm looking forward to finishing so I can see where this goes and how it ties to Life is Strange 2.

I just started downloading it. Definitely feels like we are paying for the free episode with the $40 price tag for season 2. It's double the price of the first game, from a team who seems spread thin while working on three additional products.

Here's hoping it goes well.

I really enjoyed this little Life Is Strange experience. I thought the character work was actually pretty great. I'm very curious how this'll lead into Life Is Strange 2. It's hard for me to imagine playing as a young kid for the full sequel. I saw a theory that Chris doesn't actually have powers, that it was the older neighbor (Stephen's brother/son? I'm not sure if Stephen is the young neighbor boy or his dad.) at the end who saves Chris, and that he's the main character of the full game. Makes a lot of sense to me.

I hope the connections to the first game are limited in the sequel. The number of direct ties in Captain Spirit were a bit concerning to me, and some people dug through game files and found text strings talking about transferring your LiS1 save to LiS2, with decisions from the first game impacting the sequel. That's kinda worrying to me. I'd rather them let the first game stand on its own and tell a totally fresh story without any baggage. I wouldn't mind cameos or references but I'm worried it will be much more. Either way, I'm very excited for LiS2 now.

While I had a good time with this, I thought it was maybe a bit too whimsical, for my tastes. Seeing all the kid's fantasies is cute but they didn't really have much meaning, aside from the obvious one big moment. There just wasn't enough there to really hook me, no narrative threads or interesting setup for the new game. I will say I'm really digging the design of the new UI elements: everything looks a lot sharper and flows more nicely. A small change but a welcome one. Also, that dad is a shitbag.

Not really sure how I feel about the implication of Chris being the new character in Life is Strange 2. I'm all for a character change, but I was kinda hoping for another female character. It may be a silly reason to be less interested, but I just have a harder time caring about another male protagonist, especially one with as generic a backstory as this one. As such, my current excitement for the new game is pretty tepid. Having the power be (seemingly) telekinesis, the most generic of powers, doesn't really help either. I need to see more details about what the setup of the LiS 2 is before I'm onboard, even as a HUGE fan of the original.

Jefferson artwork!

If I could go back in time...

Another planet

Edit: Interesting view point from steam forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/532210/discussions/0/1727575977543778652/

I liked it but I'm not yet sold on LiS 2. I played this in 4k but no matter what I did, the image was still kinda blurry? It didn't have the sharpness that 4k usually brings to the table. Must be some locked post-processing doing it (tried AA off and turning down post-processing, still a soft image).

I haven't played Before the Storm yet but I just bought it in the Steam sale, so I'm looking forward to that.

It's definitely intriguing. LiS left me with a ton of questions, mostly about the origins of Max's power, if she's the only one, etc. I can say that Dontnod is still good at painting a picture worth a thousand words - I kind of went back and forth with Chris' dad for a bit until it became abundantly clear what kind of person he is.

My initial reaction is, "That's the most OP power you can have," but in retrospect, time manipulation is pretty OP too. I guess it'll depend on how it's portrayed. I wonder if he'll meet Max, or if LiS3 will be a supergroup.

I've seen arguments that LiS was basically a dream Max had in the bathroom, going through a whole life-flashing-before-eyes thing. That's definitely up for debate and interpretation, but I think that same sort of thing could be applied: either this is real, or this is some dissociative episode Chris has, and will continue to have. I predict fairly overt and obvious allusions to PTSD.

Apparently the mom went to "Eugene High School", but there's no such thing. (We have a North Eugene and South Eugene, but no plain Eugene HS.) Immersion broken. 1/10

It kinda reminded me of the Andy playing with his toys sections of Toy Story, which is kinda fun, but maybe not enough to carry a whole series. I do wonder what they will end up doing for the full game. When they first revealed this I kinda thought this would be more separate from the actual game. Like maybe showing the main character as a kid before jumping to him as a teenager for the full game. But maybe it will just be a direct continuation of this after all.

I thought it was pretty good. The dad's a lot less nuts than the Life is Strange villains, who'd be cartoonishly evil for 90% of the time and then have a sad backstory or heroic turn to try and balance it out at the last minute. The dad is a bit more human, you can both tell that he's a piece of shit currently but also why his kid and family still care about him. I don't have any personal history with abuse, but in my eyes that's a lot more beliveable than the Batman villains and stereotypical bullies of LiS 1.

Besides that, I appreciated the relatability of the kid. It brought me back to when I was really young, similar to how different characters in Life in Strange brought me back to how I was in high school. I like Chris a lot more than I liked Max, I'll say that much.

I dunno if Chris will be the MC of Life is Strange 2, either. This kinda prequel, I feel is usually more of a villain origin story? There were some lines in there that made me think Chris might turn out bad because of his dad, in the same ways. I hope not, though. As I said, I like Chris. I'd be fine having him be the main character. My worry with LiS 2 isn't him - it's that they'll do something dumb again like with Max. Remember how the power to rewind time somehow causes storms, strands whales and creates two moons? What I'm saying is that if Chris using telekinesis slowly drags a meteor closer to the Earth I fucking called it.

Finally, the adventure game stuff is as boring as ever. You just go essentially pixel hunting for all the little clues, and after a while I didn't bother and just looked up where the garage key was as well as the pin code and lock combination.

I just got around to finishing this and really liked it. I think Chris is a really well done character.

The only thing that frustrated me was trying to unlock the dad's phone to play a bad endless runner. I had to look it up but maybe I missed the clue for it. If not it seems obscure for no good reason.

Looking forward to LiS2 to see more of this world.

That was the one thing I had to look up too. I'm not sure how you're meant to figure that out unless there's a very obscure clue that I missed. It's extra frustrating because there are a lot of important calendar dates that you'd assume would be the pin code.

Can't imagine he enjoys typing that in every time he unlocks his phone lol. I also had to look it up.

I really enjoyed it, and now I'm super hyped for LiS2. Chris is just so damn adorable.