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Life is Strange: True Colors seems to be colloquially considered Life is Strange 3, but it might be more accurate to call it Life is Strange 6. As well as the first two games, there’s also Before the Storm, although it launched before 2 so any reasonable numbering for that one seems to have gone out of the window. Then there’s Tell Me Why and Twin Mirror - both DontNod games made with the same formula and ethos of the Life is Strange brand, particularly Tell Me Why. Even taking all of these games into account though, newcomer Alex Chen emerges as the best protagonist These Sorts Of Games have ever had.
Note: This article contains no spoilers for Life is Strange: True Colors
Some context: the first Life is Strange is in my top five games of all time. I would give Life is Strange 2 a five-star rating, and did award five stars to Tell Me Why last year - although that was mostly down to Tyler and his position as the first trans protagonist to feel authentically trans, as well as the game's unproblematic yet raw and real depiction of what it means to be trans. Bar Twin Mirror, which I still enjoyed more than most people, I've played every game in this Not Quite A Series at least twice. I did the Leo meme pointing thing when Hawt Dawg Man made a cameo in True Colors. I've owned and grown out of two different Life is Strange t-shirts. I've read the comics and, for a while, "hella" was an unironic part of my vocabulary. I haven't just fallen off the turnip truck, been wowed by the mxmtoon vocals or the motion capture, and decided this game is the best because the graphics are gooder than the others. Believe me, a notorious Life is Stranger Knower, when I say Alex Chen is the best of the best.
I've mentioned mxmtoon a lot, both here and in other articles on True Colors, and that's because a) mxmtoon is great and b) there's a musical moment in True Colors that is probably my favourite moment in gaming this year and I 100 percent will end up gushing about it more some time soon. But mxmtoon only provides Alex's singing voice - Erika Mori gives the majority of the performance, and also did the mocap for the character. Her brilliant work (plus the added tech) is crucial in making Alex feel so real.
Here's a fun fact about time - people are born, and then they get older. I'm 28, which makes me seven years older than Alex Chen. Aside from Twin Mirror, whose protagonist could be anywhere from my age to 40, seven years is the biggest age gap between myself during my first playthrough and any of these protagonists. Yet somehow Alex feels by far the most relatable. There has often been a little bit of a "fellow kids, shaka brah" feel to the leads in these games, like Jason Earles cosplaying as a teeanger in Hannah Montana. These characters were trying to be young instead of simply being young. Nothing with Alex Chen feels forced.
She's such a vibrant, loving character. Even in a game so clearly marred by pain, and with a lead unafraid to embrace those feelings, True Colors feels like a joyous game because Alex Chen is such a joy to be around. Max is likeable but a bit of a drip, Chloe is cool but would probably be a bit much, and Sean feels much more intense than he probably is, owing to the fact he is forced to flee with and care for his younger brother at such a young age through no fault of his own. Sam never quite feels complete, which is probably a symptom of the episodic version of Twin Mirror being truncated into a single experience.
Tyler, for obvious reasons, hit pretty hard, but his experiences are specifically tied to being a trans man, as well as being raised in the sticks of Alaska and being a twin - none of which I can relate to. Alyson, also technically the lead although overshadowed in every way by Tyler, also falls way short of Alex's magic.
The mocap certainly helps. We see much finer details in Alex's face, and in the faces of those around her, meaning True Colors feels like the most emotionally resonant game yet even when it's just you chatting over a beer. Deck Nine's delivery is crucial too - it plays around with smash cuts at times, perfectly understanding the ways the choice-based mechanic can be used for comedy.
Alex Chen is easily the best new character gaming has introduced this year, and a breath of fresh air for a series that risked diminishing returns if it kept mining the same character tropes. Funny, brave, and chaotically bisexual, Alex is in every way True Colors' star, making These Sorts Of Games feel new and exciting right when they needed to be modernised.