Serving as a prequel to Life is Strange 2, Captain Spirit introduces us to a 10-year-old named Chris, who's active imagination helps him deal with his rather troublesome home life. His mother recently died in a hit and run accident. His father, Charles, is unemployed, an alcoholic and is shown to be abusive towards Chris when he's drinking. We do see another side of Charles that shows he does care deeply for his son so he's not shown as a total bad guy, Just a man at the end of his rope and taking out his frustrations out on his son.
And throughout the game, which takes about 1-2 hours to finish, Chris, as his alter ego Captain Spirit, cleans up around the house and plays with his toys as a way to pass the day before looking for a Christmas tree with his father. We see here not just how deep and vivid his imagination is but also how isolated he is from the outside world.
His father uses his imagination against him. Their house is their castle, their land and no one should take Chris from his land. Chris, being an easy to manipulate kid because he's so isolated, accepts this because he doesn't see the deeper meaning. He just thinks his father is playing along with him. When really Charles is afraid to lose Chris because people are beginning to suspect that he is abusing his son (Chris is shown at the beginning of the episode with bruises on his arm and his father asking him if he kept up the story they made up so no one grew suspicious) on top of being an unemployed alcoholic, which seems to be rather well known in the neighborhood. And after losing his wife, That is the last thing that Charles wants to happen.
And mind you, All of this happens in a prequel/demo. That's a lot deeper than most games I put a good 20-40 hours into and goes to show just how great the storytelling is for this series. And we haven't even reached the end yet lol.
The ending sent me through a loop. After a small interaction with a neighbour next door, Charles drunkenly lashes out at Chris for possibly drawing suspicion on him and ultimately ends the conversation by blaming Chris for his mother's death. This sends Chris racing outside to his treehouse, which is his secret superhero headquarters and a kind of safe haven for him. And as he climbs the steps, The steps break and sends him falling to the ground but he doesn't crash. Instead, Chris is shown to levitate, safely floating just a few inches off the ground before landing on his feet. His powers, which were originally shown to be just a figment of his imagination, are real and that is where the demo ends. A total mind f*** and a great way to set up Life is Strange 2.
Overall: 10/10
There is so much more going on than what there appears to be with this game. There's so much rich story here and what's so shocking is that it's only a short demo to step up the next game. If a demo has this much going on, I can't wait to see how the next game is gonna be. Seriously, Go check this out.
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