Review: The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit – Life is Strange was an excellent episodic game and Dontnod is expanding the franchise together with Square Enix. They have been working on a successor for quite some time and to keep players sweet, in the autumn of 2017 the prologue Before the Storm appeared, in which we met a young Chloe. Life is Strange 2 will be released later this year and in the run up there Square Enix today releases The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, a free ‘game’ or episode that has to give a bit of a start on the new Life is Strange.
Adventures of Captain Spirit- The illusion of a superhero
In The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit we take the role of Chris. A boy of about ten who has an incredibly great imagination. His mother was very talented in drawing and he has a penchant for superheroes. According to his mother, he is also a real superhero himself, and that along with a wild fantasy naturally creates the biggest dreams. The game starts with Chris in his room, who is drawing his own superhero, in this you immediately get all the choices in how you want to dress up this superhero and that is not without reason.
A little later you play with Chris and his toys to be called afterwards by his dad. The breakfast is ready and you also meet his father, a somewhat separate man who both has a lot of love for his son and at the same time is very egoistic and that at times gives some tension. How that develops we leave in the middle, but the relationship between the two is very interesting. Partly because of what happened in the past and that all comes together in a beautiful climax, which results in a nice cliffhanger.
More freedom
Where you followed in the previous games in the franchise a relatively linear path, The Awesome Adventures or Captain Spirit is slightly different. You get the freedom to do what you want in and around the house between the fixed story moments. These story moments, however, you can more or less self trigger and that gives you significantly more freedom. That is not without reason, because Dontnod wants to give players with this game a lot of freedom to discover and do everything. This also influences the outcome of certain situations and they should have a direct impact on Life is Strange 2. You can play the game several times to achieve a somewhat satisfactory result, so that you can continue on that point. [19659007] The fixed story moments give a bit of an idea of what life at Chris is doing at home and what has happened. Yet at times it is somewhat vague, so for answers we will have to wait for Life is Strange 2. Nevertheless, it is a nice start and because of the high replay value you can work with it for two hours or more. Not crazy for a game that is offered for free. The game gives some hints about what Life is Strange 2 might be about, but very honest: it’s all a bit too vague for us. The cliffhanger at the end in a way lays a link, but how that will develop is of course still the question.
All kinds of jobs
The aforementioned replay value is in two things. First of all, you can conduct dialogues in different ways, which can affect Life is Strange 2. On the other hand there are all sorts of side missions that you can do and they are quite fun. In the beginning, Chris designs his own superhero, which is in fact a pack for himself. While playing, one of the tasks is to collect the parts of the suit so that you can dress to your drawn image. You also have to practice with aiming and so you throw snowballs on cans of beer. Furthermore, there is hidden a treasure somewhere and you have to search with two found treasure maps and there are some more side missions.
All those side missions are optional, but if you want to complete them you will get to see more of the game. If you follow the preconceived plan of the game, you can also be ready in less than an hour, so it is just as if you feel like it. For those side missions, however, some things are very difficult to find or that you have to do certain things before a follow-up action is triggered. We caught ourselves that at one point we were just clicking on everything in the hope that we would find something, which would make the gameplay a bit of a decline in trial & error. This is due to the lack of control and that a basically logical follow-up does not always lead to results.
Furthermore, we must also note that the end of the game is introduced with a certain dialogue, but however you run it, it almost runs always the same. That is in line with one conversation and beating, in the other conversation the reactions are not right and that makes you feel that it makes little difference to the conclusion and that is a shame. Especially because we get the idea that you are sent to a certain conclusion anyway, because that is necessary for Life is Strange 2.
