The Nintendo Switch has been around for almost six years, but one thing hasn't changed. It is the go-to system for ports of any kind. From the "impossible" Doom ports that creatively cut corners to run on the system to natural fits like Cuphead, there are plenty of good examples on the hybrid console. Sure, there are a few bad apples, but those are easy to ignore when the average quality is often decent. When Square Enix announced Life Is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection, I believed it would join the former category rather than the latter. Having a portable remaster of the original Life is Strange and Before the Storm sounded like a good idea. When the title was pushed from February to September, I thought that was an indication of polish rather than trouble. The final product is a mixed bag that is difficult to recommend at its steep release price.

We've always had remasters for games that didn't strictly need a remaster. While The Last of Us Part I recently reignited that remaster/remake discussion, that game clearly had a substantial touch-up. Life is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection is essentially the Switch version of the Life is Strange Remastered Collection, which didn't need a remaster to begin with. It's also an interesting premise to remaster a game, only to "de-master" it to run on much weaker hardware.

One wonders whether it would've been better to port the original release instead. Life Is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection clearly struggles with that. It certainly contains some improvements, such as slightly better character models, but many other aspects of the game look worse than the original release. The first Life is Strange ran on mobile phones years ago, so there's no excuse for the rough outcome of this collection. Despite the rough edges, there's an entertaining game that runs and looks its best when experienced on a smaller handheld screen. On the other hand, if you are looking to play the collection on the big screen, literally any version on any platform will look and perform better by a good margin.

I've always enjoyed Life is Strange and its prequel. I relished supporting protagonists Max Caulfield and Chloe Price as they unraveled a mysterious disappearance in their rural hometown. Max's adventure, including her supernatural powers of time manipulation, gave the title an interesting twist. Being able to see the outcomes of most decisions made them feel more impactful than they turned out to be. It's not the most replayable narrative for that reason, but it's very pleasant to revisit the story and the way it's told. High school life, friendship, intrigue, a mysterious storm: There are many elements that make the story interesting and engaging. That said, the story can drag on needlessly at points, watering down the experience and detracting from its stronger narrative moments.

Before the Storm, on the other hand, does not include any supernatural elements, but the shorter length and context that it provides for the first game make it worth experiencing. These games are several years old now, and even back then, they were hardly technical marvels, but they were fresh narrative titles with choices. All of that is still the case in the Arcadia Bay Collection, but that's it. You are still getting the same experience, except a few models and animations have been altered in slight ways. I can't even say whether I like the new look; it looks a bit off at times, but I put my finger on what it is. Maybe it's the facial animations, which are stuck in limbo between accurate and stiff.

Some players may find that Arcadia Bay Collection is worth checking out. If you've never played either of these games and you are predominantly playing handheld, your experience may be decent. The compromises made to get it running on the handheld console are not nearly as glaring in handheld mode as they are on bigger screens. Muddy textures, pop-ins, and frame drops are less noticeable, but they are still present if you look close enough. Even then, loading times are atrocious and frequent. Whenever you enter or leave an area, which can happen multiple times in quick succession, the loading screens seem to go on forever. It even takes a few seconds for the loading screen animation to properly load. There are times when I stared longer at the black loading screens than the actual game, which cannot be the idea, especially on a handheld where the principle should be to get in and out of a game quickly.

As soon as you play the game docked, things look worse. Apart from low-resolution textures and pop-ins that are hard to ignore on a bigger screen, the game also exhibits a ghosting effect that smudges moving objects and characters, especially when they are further away. Any character in the foreground looks reasonably sharp, but any character further away from the camera drops in quality — including major characters in essential cut scenes. There is an aggressive drop-off in detail to anything that's further away, and it disrupts the experience in a major way. It's all I could see in some cut scenes, and that undermined story moments. What's weird is that the game isn't even small considering the lower-quality assets, using a combined 29 GB when installed (digital version). In contrast to other porting efforts, this seems like a lazy or ill-fitting effort to bring these games to the Switch. The same great games are buried beneath a potpourri of technical issues and sub-par aesthetics. There's some great voice acting and music to draw you in — if it didn't pull you out of it almost immediately with rough textures and excessive loading screens.

Even if you only play Life Is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection in handheld mode and you've never played either game elsewhere, this offering isn't great. At $40 for a slightly worse version of two older titles, I can't recommend the Arcadia Bay Collection in its current state. It may be worth a pickup at a steep sale, but even then, if you can play it on another platform, do yourself a favor and do that. Both games are still enjoyable narrative adventures with some cool moments, but the Switch iteration simply doesn't do justice to the original releases.

Score: 5.6/10