I have such a confusing relationship with the “Life is Strange” series. I loved so much of what the original game did, but absolutely hated the final episode. It spoiled an otherwise delightful experience, and so I end up liking most of the other games more in comparison.

I will grant that this is not the majority opinion.

However, the failings of the original did set us up for a much more interesting prequel from an entirely different team. It cannot fix “LiS 1,” but it does provide a salve to those burned by it.

Warning: Spoilers for “Life is Strange” and “Before the Storm” follow.

Rachel Amber, maybe the coolest person of all time in this continuity, doesn’t get any screen time in the original game, but she is the driving force of much of the plot. She’s missing, Chloe is freaking out about it, and that mystery fuels the story’s engine even more than Max’s new weird powers.

Unfortunately, we learn at the end of the game that she’s been dead this whole time. And then the most unearned twist of all time happens: The pretentious photography teacher turns out to be a serial killer. It sucks.

Somehow, it only gets worse. Max is then cosmically punished for using her powers, and she is forced to either let Chloe (her implied crush) die or almost entirely level her home town. BAE vs. Bay. It sucks.

All of the annoying vagueness that has happened in the series sense then revolves around the ambiguity of the ending of the first game, and nobody will ever be happy about the clever narrative tricks the developers use to allow for both endings to be true.

But let’s rewind time, shall we? Before Max returned to fuck shit up, Chloe was a punkass teen in Arcadia Bay who befriends the absolute coolest kid in school. “Before the Storm” actually lets Rachel Amber be a real person with wants and desires. It lets queerness become text instead of subtext. It allows the super powers to serve the characters more than as a gimmick.

This is melodrama, no doubt, but the characters behave more believably in “BtS.” The writing feels less cringey — more sincere. There’s still cringe, but in a good way. In a more authentic teenage way.

“Before the Storm” is much better than the original game, and I’d wager to say it’s worth playing even if you never intend on playing “LiS 1.”

Of course, neither are as good as “Life is Strange 2,” but that’s a story for another day.

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Image credit: “Life is Strange: Before the Storm Remastered”