LIFE IS STRANGE: TRUE COLORS WAVELENGTHS Review
Life is Strange: True Colors Wavelengths is a bonus episode DLC for Life is Strange: True Colors. I was recently able to play through it and although I didn’t like it as well as True Colors, Wavelengths still has something to offer fans of the series.
The first thing I’ll say is that if you haven’t played the first Life is Strange game then either play it or read what happens before playing this through. There are a lot of references to the first game that caught me off guard. It will definitely make this game more meaningful if you have more familiarity with the previous game Steph appears in. You’ll still be able to piece it together, but you’ll have more fun if you know her past a little more.
Like True Colors, this game is beautiful to look at. The graphics are really good, but I am sad that the entirety of this DLC takes place in the record store/D.J. booth. They do add some fun doodads to play with like a glitter lamp and bobble heads, but it starts to get a little stale after a while.
The format is more or less to read radio ads, do chores for the store, and answer the phone for the radio program. It is pretty fun doing the calls as Steph puts on a fake psychic act by rolling a d20 to predict if someone gets a good or bad answer to their question. There are a handful of puzzles which are a nice change of pace and you can work on an original song, try to get your cat to like you more, and play through a Dungeons & Dragons type game, though I didn’t explore these options as I was impatient to progress through the story. The thing that I did appreciate, since this game takes place in the course of year, the record store does change as Steph has more influence over it. At the beginning it’s obviously been neglected, the backroom is just boxes of stuff, the music is really outdated, and the radio station doesn’t even play indie rock as advertised. But as the game progresses, you see the backroom get slowly cleared out until it’s an actual office at the end, the music gets updated, and your background music gets substantially better, unless of course you prefer country music.
The other main aspect of this game is essentially a dating sim. Steph has more recently gone through a bad break up and wants to get back out there. So you use a tinder like app, swiping through matches and talking with people you get matched up with. Dating sims aren’t really my kind of thing in games so I didn’t get too in depth in this one, but I did talk to a few people through it which was interesting. I think for me it was strange because I had Alex and Steph end up together at the end of True Colors, so it felt pointless to get Steph into a different relationship since I knew where her love life was going to go, which made for a sweet moment when you get to see Steph and Alex meet each other for the first time again. I know that’s not how everyone sees things like this, so I’m interested to know if anyone really pursued any of the matches, and who knows maybe I’ll play through again and try to match with everyone I can just to see what happens.
As far as replay value goes, I think this one has potential to be played through at least twice. There aren’t any super important decisions to be made like in True Colors, but there’s lots of different dialogue options to try out. Also the dating app could be played through again to see what happens with other matches.
Overall, I enjoyed Wavelengths, but not as much as True Colors, I give it an 8/10.
