Season 1
I previously gave up on these games, about halfway through S1E2. I guessed the twist immediately, but apart from that I can't remember exactly what it was that turned me off. I remember being frustrated at my choices not reflecting the subsequent character action (that video game classic), and maybe also what would become the Telltale standard of 'visual novel interspersed with perfunctory adventure game puzzles', but I'll give it another go.
Hooray, the settings defaults are all correct, so no need to go in and change them at the start of every single episode because Telltale apparently couldn't get them to persist through the season, like with S&M and TOMI!
Got started. So yeah, looks nice, the presentation is slicker and more cinematic, good acting, generally good writing. The comic-style engine works nicely. There's some minor jank but at a level to be expected from an AA indie. But those design issues are definitely still there. The game opens with a big title card telling you how your choices matter and the game will change due to them, and it's constantly giving you "[character] will remember that" notifications, so Sean Vanaman saying that actually the fact that it let you choose something even if it has no effect is the important thing doesn't wash. But regardless of the game's messaging, I don't agree - this game leans a lot more towards visual novel than point and click adventure, and in those games branching is key otherwise you're just clicking through a book. Having a line of dialogue change slightly depending on a choice you made here and there doesn't really cut it - and even then it gets stuff wrong a fair amount. It has that theme park ride feel, where you're funnelled along, you get told which characters to talk to and when, and occasionally something scary pops out at you. Plus yeah the choice/result discrepancies, the QTEs, and the way that there's urgency in every single conversation you have but when you're in a danger situation suddenly the game comes to a halt and refuses to continue until you get through some mundane, pared down linear puzzle.
And to top it all off, it ends with a 'Next Episode On' which I'm not sure if I'm safe to quit out of without losing game data so I just have to mute and look away from!
Again, it's a shame, because I appreciate what they were going for, and there are some improvements on past Telltale stuff, but there are some fundamental design choices that I just am not a fan of.
Anyway, Steam still has my savegame from ten years ago on there, and yes I did give up in episode 2! I'll try to accept what kind of game it is and get further along this time...
Finished episode 3. I can see why people like this game, there's lots of cool ideas and moments, and I genuinely like Clem and Lee and have opinions on the other characters (even if some of them are cartoons whom I'm happy to kill as soon as I get the chance). It's just, there always feels like this big disconnect between what I want to do and what I can do or what happens. Plus a lot of the puzzle stuff is really fiddly and out of place old-school adventure game stuff (like - get this train carriage uncoupled, there are three tools a minute's walk and ten mouse clicks away and you can only carry one, so the solution is... just walk back and forth trying each one until you get it). I'll be interested to look into how much branching there actually is, whether I could have a completely different group of characters with me by this point, whether any actual events would change.
Finished it, and I was definitely enjoying it more by the end. I don't know if they were doing less of the annoying stuff or I was just getting used to it or better at navigating it as quickly as possible, but it distracted me less from the storytelling. I was really involved by the end, every death and decision was gut-wrenching. At the same time, though, the reveal of the radio stranger served as a reminder that the game surely couldn't have been branching that much, plus I set Clem to meet up with the young couple at the train and apparently that just... didn't happen. I do have season 2, though (assuming it would read my S1 savegame data) I have no idea how much stuff that will carry over anyway and how much they'll just wipe the slate clean - the cliffhanger made it seem like 100%, which is a shame.
Season 2
Played the first episode, and very much the same issues as S1, especially the QTEs which are just such a shit execution of the idea I cannot believe they haven't done anything about it. Same with the way they constantly ask you to walk a character down a path but then have the path askew to the camera so you have to keep tapping the character to the side every few steps. How did someone not immediately say "this is shit, just make it so the camera always lines up so all they have to do is hold down W"? I guess now they're all in on the late-Telltale formula and just constantly laying the track directly in front of them, no time to stop and polish or change things up.
It made a big deal of keeping my S1 savegame and then wiped the slate clean as quickly as possible, which I thought was pretty funny. Otherwise, the same 'theme park ride' feel and disconnect between what I want to do and what happens. But it did take me a few episodes to get into it last season, and it is nicely presented and at least just lets you flow through it for an hour or so then ends. I think I will play other games in between, though, so I don't get Telltale fatigue - I've also got Borderlands and Batman on the list, assuming I can still get into the Prime account that has the former on it, and that my vague memories of having played the latter are either false or just of a demo or a freeware episode 1 or something.
Okay, I actually ended up playing the next two episodes as well, I have to admit it's pretty addictive. If they could just fix the QTEs and stop constantly pretending that my choices are doing much, it'd be amazing. I like that they're flexing a little now, too, with a different commissioned song over the credits of each episode, and relatively big name VAs like Michael Madsen and Kumail Nanjiani. I'm thinking about why I've enjoyed TWD more than TWAU, and I think it's really down to the basic zombie apocalypse setting being perfectly suited to this structure. Or rather, they developed this structure for this setting, and applying it to different IPs and story types without changing it just doesn't work. The regular life or death decisions and simple moral or pragmatic choices of a zombiepocalypse are at just the right pitch for these games.
I actually googled to see if there's a debug key or something to skip QTEs. All I got was a thread on the old TT forums where someone asks if there could be an option for them to auto-succeed and gets two pages of 'git gud' bullshit in response, including from the mods. Doesn't make me feel any more sympathetic towards old Telltale tbh.
Back to the grim world of Walking Dead! I decided to let Clem go a little dark at the end of the previous episode - she said they should shoot the Sadistic Asshole Community Leader character and then stayed to watch him get his face caved in with a crowbar - so I'm looking forward to getting a load of nervous side-eye from all my friends now!
Phew, finished! As with season 1, I got less irritated and more involved with this as it went on. By episode 3 I was engrossed. Also, I swear they make the QTEs less annoying as the season goes on, but maybe that's because I'm more willing to put up with them. And I do wish they'd just not bother selling the whole "your choices" thing, but I just blank that out too after a while. Hopefully I can find an illustration of just how much branching was possible somewhere, like I did with season 1.
I've never cried playing these games (I guess I might have done in S1 if I hadn't known exactly what was going to happen), but I did well up at one line of dialogue in this season. Just a totally inconspicuous, basic line, something like "You don't have anything to apologise for, I know you didn't mean it", but the great acting and all the character investment from the surrounding scene and episode and season(s), suddenly made this older-than-her-years kid comforting a broken man so powerful. There really is some very good writing and acting in these games, and the direction and animation and stuff can often overcome the technical and budgetary limitations to do some really nice stuff.
I've put season 3 on my wishlist. It's £17 and I've got a lot of other games to play still, so I won't get it now, but I'd definitely be up for playing it at some point. I was thinking while playing this season, it'd be great to follow Clem through her whole life as she becomes different zombpocalypse archetypes - the kickass loner who helps out some folks against a threat and then disappears off into the wilderness (will she be a benevolent Mad Max type or more of a Shane?); the barricaded community leader (will she be a peaceful democratic type who inevitably loses to chaos, or a benevolent dictator who turns into a Sadistic Asshole Community Leader?); maybe she tries to find a cure at one point, maybe she does her own Lone Wolf And Cub thing except now she's the Lee/Logan/Mando/Theo Faron type (will she live or die?). They'd have to change things up a bit each time, I don't think I'd want 4 more seasons of the exact same thing, but it would have been incredibly cool if they pulled it off.
Rating: choices don't matter, there's some jank, and the QTEs are infuriating, but otherwise well-written, affecting and addictive.
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