Please note: I have kept this review as spoiler free as possible. Screenshots are not from this episode. The trailer above however does contain spoilers.

Life is Strange has been one of the most beautiful surprises in gaming this year. Its flaws have been obvious, with some awful lip-syncing and a few dodgy frame rate issues, but it has been fun. Its voice cast has delivered, for the most part, an emotional rollercoaster that has left me waiting eagerly for each new episode.

Five episodes in to the game and it is increasingly more difficult to write something about it that doesn’t contain any spoilers. By now you’ve experienced a range of moments that should’ve left you shocked, upset and happy. The great thing is that going in to the games fifth episode, Polorized, it’s hard to guess what is actually going to happen. You may get a few things right, but there are some superb leftfield moments that occur during the episode.

This is partly down to the unpredictable nature of not just the time travelling mechanic that Max has in the game, but the story itself. Every time it has seemed to make sense the game has dealt another card from its hand that wasn’t expected. It has gradually grown darker in tone and embraced its more eccentric influences, and this has helped each episode feel fresh.

Polarized is definitely the darkest of all five episodes. With the game going to more serious places it has meant that the reasonably generic teen movie cast have had to amp up their acting game. Some succeed superbly at heightening the drama whereas others just can’t get there, leaving key moments inadvertently amusing.

The poor performances are mainly limited to the supporting cast. The main cast deliver some truly heart punching moments, especially during the final third of the episode. It’s the stuttering in the first two thirds that make it hard to know what to really make of Polarized.

As a standalone piece it’s one of the weaker episodes of Life is Strange. As the ending of a five part series though it’s kind of everything you could want. Your choices throughout the game get brought up in various ways, there are some moments that are genuinely superb and there’s a satisfying conclusion.

Despite the positives it delivers to the overall package of Life is Strange it also carries with it a lot of the issues the series has had throughout. The lip-syncing in the game is still terrible, and considering the serious moments Polarized has it can be quite distracting. It also has some moments where the frame rate judders which can be frustrating, but could also be fixed with a patch at some point.

Luckily, when it comes to the puzzles in the episode, it feels fresh and new. This is in part due to steering away from the collection puzzles that popped up a few times in previous episodes. Some rely on you to use your rewind powers to their fullest, whereas others just rely on you to use your mind.

The puzzles are something that help Life is Strange stand out from the sea of choose your own adventure games. It seems to be a growing trend in the genre to focus the gameplay on saying the right thing. The puzzles mean you can’t progress through Life is Strange passively, which is refreshing. Some moments in Polarized made me ponder for quite some time.

The replay value of the episode is perhaps a bit less than the previous four, which is a shame. There are however plenty of photo opportunities to hunt down, and some interesting Easter eggs to witness. The new locations introduced also have quite a bit to explore. I was disappointed though that in the new areas the non-playable characters that occupied it seemed more limited with their dialogue than they have been in previous episodes.

Polarized is not the perfect ending that some might’ve hoped for but it’s a very strong finale. It carries a lot of the problems the other episodes did but they are issues that feel small in the grand scheme of things. The issues addressed narratively are situations that not many games have been brave enough to explore. That’s something that can be said for the game as a whole. For that alone Life is Strange deserves to be applauded.

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