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BOAT SHOWBOAT
Oct 11, 2007

who do you carry the torch for, my young man?

mycot posted:

Almost none. Sure there's the idea that you might want to look at alternate dialogue options for kicks, but most of it stays the same so people lose interest. It's like trying to replay Phoenix Wright, you'd only really get joy out of it if several years passed and you forgot most of the plot.

I also find in trying to replay them there's a reason I picked the choices I did in the first place and I'm just tempted to pick what I already did again, defeating the purpose of replaying it to see the differences.

crabrock posted:

For somebody who has never played a game like this (but has played other video games) what is the gameplay like?

is it mostly narrative that my wife and I could watch together or is it hacking and slashing?

I don't play video games anymore, but we like the game of thrones world, so I thought maybe this would be fun to do together. But that's only if it's more story and less video gamey.
This is exactly what you're looking for. You and your wife are probably going to get a real kick out of this experience and picking dialogue choices together.

Kurtofan posted:

Is it good even if you don't care about the franchise?
Yes, in the Borderlands game the dialogue is laugh-out-loud funny and the way dialogue choices impact characterisation is surprisingly subtle at times, the Telltale team are getting really good at the type of game they've chosen to make. I recommend it way more than The Wolf Among Us after only one ep.

BOAT SHOWBOAT fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Dec 2, 2014

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boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich
I'm assuming that Tyrion is in the game for all of three minutes to tell you the player that your choices will cause various family to die, is this accurate?

emanresu tnuocca
Sep 2, 2011

by Athanatos
I haven't finished the chapter yet, honestly I got a little bit bored and didn't feel like forcing myself to finish it one session, something which has never been a problem with any of the TWD episodes, it's not bad by any means but it's certainly not up to par with Season 1 of TWD and for me it also felt weaker than season 2.

My main observation is that this game relies much more on being a franchise tie-in than TWD, where TWD felt like it would be interesting and exciting to anyone who appreciates these sort of games GOT feels like it wouldn't grasp anyone who wasn't already immersed in the franchise. Also, pressing 'A' to dodge a zombie is somehow much less jarring than doing the same against people with swords. I generally just felt like it wasn't really executed well enough, whoever said that the presence of the celebrity actors from the show might impact negatively the rest of the voice acting have got it at least partially right, some of the performances seem rather weak, particularly in comparison to TWD where the acting basically brought the game to a different level.

Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


Aaaaand done. Pretty good. Definitely takes a lot of cues from Telltale's The Walking Dead, and I don't just mean the usual gameplay formula. A return to "hard, everything only gets worse" decisions and stacking bodies like cordwood. The Forresters have as bad luck as the Starks, it seems, with Roderick getting Rob'd at the Twins and Gregor Ned-ed in short order. Then Ethan gets offed, which kind of robs anything he did of significance besides who's the HandSentinel.

If Asher wasn't the Lord of House Forrester due to his exile, he might as well be now that the House is completely decimated. The little boy made a Whitehill ward is pretty muck Rickon, and is out of the story, so that only leaves the daughter and mother. The daughter in King's Landing looks like she's being recruited for Varys's spy network, so her longevity isn't exactly assured.

The cameos were a bit awkward. The original characters look fine in the art style, since they're slightly exaggerated, but the characters based off of real people look too much like... well, real people. They've got some uncanny valley going on for sure. Their presence in the story at least felt a little less forced than I feared.


All in all a pretty decent starting episode, but the plot's in a real hurry to get going. These guys got Stark'd in the worst way.

Edit: I'm going to add that I don't think this was as strong as Tales From The Borderlands, an outcome that surprises me, and yeah it definitely feels more dependent on the tie-in aspect than other Telltale works.

Dolash fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Dec 2, 2014

In It For The Tank
Feb 17, 2011

But I've yet to figure out a better way to spend my time.

emanresu tnuocca posted:

By the way, given the different release dates and the such I assume same spoiler policy as TWD games? (that is, all black bars all the time?)

Ah, thanks for reminding me. I've added a spoiler policy to the OP. I'll post it here for posterity as well:

quote:

Spoiler Policy

Due to the staggered releases dates of the episodes and series as a whole, please use spoiler tags when discussing the events of the most recent episode. For example, tag spoilers from the first episode until the second episode comes out, and then tag spoilers from the second episode until the third comes out, etc.

Spoilers from the television show up to the end of Season 4 can be unmarked. Season 5 of the show will likely begin before the first season of the game ends, so please tag spoilers from Season 5 where applicable. Book discussion is not allowed.

Meliv
Nov 1, 2008
That was pretty loving good. Shame it draws so many parallels to the series though. It is just retelling the events of the book/show but with different names and faces. But, it is only the first episode. Looking forward to the next one.

I've never played an episodic series before. Are these monthly?

BillBear
Mar 13, 2013

Ask me about running my country straight into the ground every time I play EU4 multiplayer.

Dolash posted:

Playing right now. About 2/3 of the way through I think, and it's good, but blurgh please don't make me play as Not-Sansa. Those bits were tough enough to watch in the show.

Sansa becomes vastly more interesting after she leaves KL and I think the same will happen here.

As for the EP, really enjoyed it even if it started out a bit slow. I hope we see some interesting places in Essos though, Slaver's Bay is loving boring.

BillBear fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Dec 2, 2014

In It For The Tank
Feb 17, 2011

But I've yet to figure out a better way to spend my time.

Meliv posted:

I've never played an episodic series before. Are these monthly?

Generally, they try to release an episode every other month but sometimes it is a little longer.

SatansBestBuddy
Sep 26, 2010

by FactsAreUseless
Just finished it. Yeah, that's about how long I think I would last in the GoT universe. 'bout the same way I'd expect to go, too.

Also, holy crap that intro looked cheap as hell. Flat, untextured polygons raising out of black nothing to create something that kinda looks like a low ploy version of what the show does is what I'd expect from an early camera test, not the final release. It's looks really bad, if they were able to get the voice actors then I'd hoped Telltale would be able to get hold of the CGI department and ask if they could get the real deal, it wouldn't even look out of place with the aesthetic they have now.

Actually most of my complaints this episode are on the technical and artistic aspects. I'm really tired of seeing characters that need to snap back to their default pose to start the next animation cycle, and the facial expressions feel like they're all taken wholesale from Walking Dead 1, which was good at the time but they haven't improved or expanded the facial animations in a meaningful way yet, it all feels like they're using stock assets that they only tweak when they break. And the matte paintings for some backgrounds are also really jarring to see for some reason, like they needed a wide shot but didn't have enough time to complete a render of any given city so they went with a cleaned up artists rendering.

Otherwise the writing feels like GoT, maybe a little shallower since it's all about House Forrester and there's way more focus on politics then the book or show has, which are both more about characters with politics informing their choices, but it feels like GoT so it'll scratch that itch for the next season, but I imagine it will only confuse people who aren't into the series already.

Generation Internet
Jan 18, 2009

Where angels and generals fear to tread.
Just finished the episode, and I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to the rest of the episodes even though this entire universe is based around the best laid plans going horribly, horribly wrong and everyone dying.

Regarding Ethan, is there an outcome where he lives? I chose to let Ramsay in and was being as diplomatic as one can with an actual psychopath, only to (naturally) get shanked. It feels like the kind of thing that's universal no matter your choice, since the whole exiled second son thing is being so built up. I'm just glad the fucker didn't get Ethan's sister. Your death was not in vain, buddy, :smith:

I will say that having the actual show intro was a little jarring, they really seem to want this to be an extension of the HBO series.

Karpaw
Oct 29, 2011

by Cyrano4747
Why does Tyrion say that Mira making the deal with him will be dangerous for the Forresters? I understand it's going behind Cersei's back but the result is what she herself wanted and isn't the whole point that the house will come under the Crown's protection by providing that service?

emanresu tnuocca
Sep 2, 2011

by Athanatos

Karpaw posted:

Why does Tyrion say that Mira making the deal with him will be dangerous for the Forresters? I understand it's going behind Cersei's back but the result is what she herself wanted and isn't the whole point that the house will come under the Crown's protection by providing that service?

Well, clearly having the crown's protection is a good thing, but the support is also volatile, a deal brokered by Tyrion is as likely to anger Cersei who would then have a grudge against the Forresters as well as the power to revoke the deal and pronounce them traitors to the crown. A deal brokered by Joff/Marge is obviously a much safer option.

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord
Yeah, that was actually pretty solid, it had a lot more meat to it than the later episodes of both TWD Season 2 and TWAU did and its getting back to that feeling that TWD Season 1 had where while the plot is inevitable you still can shape the tone and relationships with the characters. You definitely need to have knowledge of the source material though, unlike those two. Good thing I binged on YouTube clips and Wiki articles after I got gifted the game. Hopefully Telltale keeps this up, because I feel they have been slipping lately but with this and what of I've heard Borderlands it seems it might have been just a rough patch.

Maarak
May 23, 2007

"Go for it!"
Super minor nitpicking: the throne room still has the columns from season 1 when Robert ruled. Joff switched back to the previous dynasty's aesthetic of big spiky things flanked by flaming braziers.

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord
One question though, can Ethan's title be different depending on how you deal with being lord? Because I made Duncan Sentinel and was smart around Ramsay and didn't antagonize the man who tortures for fun and profit and in death people call Ethan "The Wise". Does this change if you hosed it up?

Vandar
Sep 14, 2007

Isn't That Right, Chairman?



Accordion Man posted:

One question though, can Ethan's title be different depending on how you deal with being lord? Because I made Duncan Sentinel and was smart around Ramsay and didn't antagonize the man who tortures for fun and profit and in death people call Ethan "The Wise". Does this change if you hosed it up?

Yeah, it can be different. I ended up with "Ethan the Brave" in my playthrough.

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord
See that's what I liked about Walking Dead Season 1 and what I thought was really missing in Season 2 and Wolf Among Us. I really hope they keep that up.

BlueBayou
Jan 16, 2008
Before she mends must sicken worse
Holy gently caress.

I assume your choices make very little impact on the outcome (this is my first TT game). But like... damnnnnnnn


I will bet a decent amount of money that Rodrick isn't dead and is actually in a Frey dungeon, ready to be a POV character in a later chapter

Did anybody run when Garred ran into Ramsay in the woods? Does it make a difference?

Also... Ethan, don't call him Lord Snow. Everybody knows not to call him Snow. Cmon, kid.

Roman Reigns
Aug 23, 2007

Finished this on PC. Complaints: Needed more polish, especially in the beginning. A lot of graphical glitches such as clipping, janky animation, and some weirdly misplaced objects. Also some framerate inconsistency. I wouldn't make a big deal about this except that Tales of Borderlands didn't have any of these issues with me. Fortunately, these issues smoothed out as the game went on.

Overall, I had a blast and hoping Telltales hurries up with the next episode because :drat:. The voice acting from the TV cast was pretty spot on (Dinklage didn't phone it in!). Although I think the guy playing Ramsay stole the show.

Also gently caress Lord Whitehill.

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

I liked it a lot. Even though I know by now that the story changing based on your choices is an illusion, this game having multiple POVs offers a fun opportunity to roleplay as each of them. For instance with Ethan I went out of my way to make the worst, most impetuous decisions since I figured he was a boy lord, eager to prove himself but not capable of leading. I sneered at Whitehill, I cut off the dude's fingers, I picked Royland and tried to show Ramsay my strength. So when he got shanked I was quite satisfied because it's exactly the kind of thing that seemed like it should happen following my actions. Of course the illusion is that the same result happens either way, but it's still fun in the moment.

Does anything come from the final section with Mira where you can take the key or the seal? I didn't pick either but then the scene was so short so maybe the payoff for that is in future episodes. I'm looking forward to seeing more of the coal boy and Mira getting involved with the little birds.

Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


BlueBayou posted:


I will bet a decent amount of money that Rodrick isn't dead and is actually in a Frey dungeon, ready to be a POV character in a later chapter


That's... actually a pretty good idea. Admittedly he'd probably be crippled after what happened to him, but we're running really low on Forresters and it's only been one episode. Might help set up some tension, especially if he can't fight anymore and returns home to find Asher's back, and he's been fighting for the family in Roderick's absence.

Really the oddest thing about the episode to me is how quickly they thin out the family, as bad as the Starks got or worse. Mira's safe since she's the only character in King's Landing, Ryon's probably just their Rickon and won't be seen much, and I guess Asher has some plot armor for a bit since if he drowns while crossing the Narrow Sea then going after him was a waste of the story's time, but otherwise it's just Elissa and Talia in Ironrath and that's it.

Losing Ethan the way they did should generate a lot of chatter next episode. Your new warden's son waltzing in and murdering a boy-lord for no discernible reason in front of everyone should shake the people of Ironrath even more than losing Gregor and Roderick did. I mean, can they tell anyone? Send a letter to the Glovers, at least, or tell the crown about it. Marg's going to feel a little awkward when Mirra has to tell her Ramsay went ahead and murdered her brother anyway.

BOAT SHOWBOAT
Oct 11, 2007

who do you carry the torch for, my young man?
So Telltale has confirmed that throughout the series there will be five playable characters. In this episode we had Gared, Mira and Ethan leaving at least two more slots. It's almost guaranteed that one will be Asher (unless this too is a misdirect and we'll be controlling Malcolm). It's most likely the last playable character will then be either Elissa, Ryon or Talia.

Something about the show that I hope this can pull off is, of course, what everyone always says about GoT, which is that no one is entirely good or bad (or at least, anyone completely honorable doesn't last very long). In this first episode each of the Forresters/playables seemed fairly unequivocally "good". I understand Asher is being set up as a dark horse and they foreshadowed in some of the character's storylines how they could be corrupted/change due to the necessity of the time. I just think it would be cool to play an outright schemer though, someone along the lines of a Varys or Littlefinger equivalent. This is only the first episode so it's hard to say whether they'll pull it off at this point.

Like in the series where the Starks started off as the protagonists but who you were rooting for changed over time (honestly, my favourite characters in the series are currently the three Lannister siblings, and I didn't start off liking Cersei or especially Jaime). It would be an awesome feat for the series to pull off my allegiances changing, but obviously the form of a video game where you actually have to control certain characters makes that more difficult (perhaps impossible) to pull off.

TraderStav
May 19, 2006

It feels like I was standing my entire life and I just sat down

Red Red Blue posted:

I just finished the episode, I really enjoyed it and and super excited for the agonizing months of wait to see what happens next

Typical GRRM product then.

SoldadoDeTone
Apr 20, 2006

Hold on tight!
I loved the whole thing, but then again I've liked everything that Telltale has done, so my opinion may not matter.

There was one thing that did bother me though with regard to the ending. I specifically closed the portcullis after letting Ramsey and Lord Whitehill into the walls. They had no guards with them. And then at the end the room was flooded with Whitehill guards. How the hell did they get inside? Ramsey's play to stab Ethan in the neck would not have gone nearly so well without the soldiers there.

Dvlos
Aug 26, 2003

"I came here to argue with you about a freaking television show!"
Playing through this now, I just wanted to chime in on some thoughts. TellTale hasnt innovated a whole lot, but what I want from them is content more than anything. As such, I can forgive a game that's essentially $30 but delivers on the story side.

I pay more for games that are graphical wonders if I want too. That said Walking Dead season 1 and 2 I loved. Some were mentioning here that 2 wasn't as good and I disagree in that it was in any way a disappointment. The lead character you play in 2 is just much harder to relate to than the adult you play in 1. However I did enjoy think the villain was well done, and the final ending while completely anticlimactic in an Empire Strikes Back sort of way- I still think it completely fits TWD series and style of story telling. And left me eager for more.

I'm enjoying this game so far I think the combat mechanics are a little clunky. I'm playing on PC this time not iPad so I'm fumbling between mouse and keyboard presses. This game hits the ground running and is completely unforgiving to people who don't follow Game of Thrones. So I sort of expect this game to not do as well as TWD who brought people to the comic/TV series who never had seen it before it was that good.

It's hard to say if this game is going to be as good or is as good as TWD season 1 without taking it to the conclusion. Especially if they are leading and building to a dramatic finish (and hearin also could lie the lack of higher reviews for post TwD season 1 games, you know the dramatic finish is coming and almost have painted it for yourself before it happens, expecting it).

I would rather they complicate the story paths and choices you make and its impact way more than any graphical or animation improvements. That has always been the genius of these games. But they truly need to have 3-4 distinct paths and endings to do so. Yeah it would be like writing 2-3 games at once. So be it. That's probably the best leap they need to make.

BlueBayou
Jan 16, 2008
Before she mends must sicken worse

Dolash posted:


Losing Ethan the way they did should generate a lot of chatter next episode. Your new warden's son waltzing in and murdering a boy-lord for no discernible reason in front of everyone should shake the people of Ironrath even more than losing Gregor and Roderick did. I mean, can they tell anyone? Send a letter to the Glovers, at least, or tell the crown about it. Marg's going to feel a little awkward when Mirra has to tell her Ramsay went ahead and murdered her brother anyway.

Have you read the books?


Because Roose will not stand for that poo poo. He has this whole thing with Ramsay where Ramsay is all "lets just loving kill people" and Roose smacks him up and says that the reason the Starks were loved for centuries is because they weren't colossal dickbags. And how its one thing to be brutal in war times, but now that there is peace, you can't have everyone continuing to hate you because you shanked some kid in cold blood

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord
I do also have to say that so far at least none of the deaths feel cheap like in Walking Dead Season 2. In that one it just felt like that they had no idea what to do with the characters so they just offed them in contrived situations. Not the case with this game so far.

The Chad Jihad
Feb 24, 2007


"You always have a choice" was amusing coming from a Telltale game. Anyway, good episode, the inability to effect the "real" book plot adds an interesting tension to certain events

Roman Reigns
Aug 23, 2007

Another minor complaint: As far as I can tell theres no skip dialog button or anything. Makes replaying this again a bit more daunting.

Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


BlueBayou posted:

Because Roose will not stand for that poo poo. He has this whole thing with Ramsay where Ramsay is all "lets just loving kill people" and Roose smacks him up and says that the reason the Starks were loved for centuries is because they weren't colossal dickbags. And how its one thing to be brutal in war times, but now that there is peace, you can't have everyone continuing to hate you because you shanked some kid in cold blood

What's funny is at first he seemed really rather crafty. (some indirect book-talk)Giving half the Ironwood to the Whitehills was a smart way to make sure the two Houses would focus their antagonism on each other and work hard to impress their Bolton masters, in hopes of getting the whole forest. But now, having murdered Ethan, he's just guaranteed that the family will do everything they can to sabotage the Boltons - like support Stannis, perhaps.


I don't think we have the time to have that kind of drift. Games involve you more in the action than books, so the Forresters are probably our guys through and through even if some of them will turn out more morally grey and some antagonists like the Whitehills become more well-rounded. There also isn't really time to introduce a schemer character, since they usually depend on slow-burn plotlines and large casts, although we might get tied up in schemes what with Mirra probably getting recruited by Varys and having to do underhanded things to help her family.

And I don't know if I actually like having book/show characters show up. It's kind of interesting incorporating your meta-knowledge (Don't call Ramsay "Snow") and having to plan around how characters fare later in the season/book (Taking Tyrion's deal is risky, knowing what happens to him), but it definitely breaks immersion - and that's before factoring in how weird they look in this engine and having a recognizable person's voice coming out of the character.

I wonder, if this game is a success will they do another season? With Telltale's development schedule it could become a regular between-seasons thing for the show.

Dolash fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Dec 3, 2014

Roman Reigns
Aug 23, 2007

Dolash posted:

I wonder, if this game is a success will they do another season? With Telltale's development schedule it could become a regular between-seasons thing for the show.

I read that Telltale has a "multi-year, multi-title" partnership with HBO so we're probably getting at least another season in the works and a spin off or two.

Karnegal
Dec 24, 2005

Is it... safe?
Just finished this, having wrapped Dragon Age yesterday, and Ep,1 of Borderlands last week, it's been pretty busy gaming wise but I have some thoughts.

1.) People are right, the aping of the show intro looked like poo poo.
2.) The uncanny valley thing is definitely real and it's a bit off putting at times.
3.) Ethan getting shanked at the end really surprised me, even though I know Ramsy is a poo poo and probably should have expected the episode to end in a death
4.) As some people have noted, being based on a known property really makes some of the story less suspenseful or engaging, for instance We know that Tyrion is not long for the court, so working with him seems even more questionable. Also, no matter how much you want to murder the poo poo out of Ramsy, you know you'll never get the satisfaction because he's still alive in the books
5.) The action mechanics felt clunky in this setting. The sword fighting looked really wooden and the quick time bits felt weaker than they did in other post-TWD Telltale titles.
6.) We all know that the Telltale formula, much like BioWare's, operates on a bit of illusion of choice in that you can't have wildly divergent outcomes from an episode, and the game is more about roleplaying and inter-character relationships. With that in mind, I think a lot of the decisions in this game feel meaty in the actual moment, but if you take a step back an use your book knowledge, they tend to diminish pretty quickly. I would recommend plowing through the chapter in one sitting as opposed to spacing it out so you don't spend too much time thinking about your decisions in the context of the books/show until you've already committed to them.
7.) The Stark analogies are a little too on the nose. I feel like they wanted to give you the Starks, but they couldn't so you got Stark clones. I'm sure Asher is going to interact with Dany, since that's our only connection to the world outside of Westeros, and I'm already worried that that sequence will fell like out of place pandering. This game is really tricky because they clearly want to throw you up against known characters for their fan appeal, but the closer they push you to the central SoIaF story, the less freedom they have to do anything novel.
8.) So in conclusion, it's not a bad game, but I'm more excited about the next episode of Borderlands at this point.

Trash Boat
Dec 28, 2012

VROOM VROOM

Without spoiling anything, would this game (based on the first episode at least) require me to be fully caught up with the show to get the most out of, or would I be able to get by with more or less a general understanding of the characters and their motivations. I watched the first season a little over a year ago and was enjoying it just fine, but put it down due to time constraints and never got around to picking it back up again. I probably won't be getting it until most or all of the season is released anyway like I do with most Telltale games, but I'd like to know ahead of time for when I do play it.

Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


If you're concerned about us spoiling things, then yes, you will need to be caught up to at least season 3 of the show before playing this game. It opens with critical finale spoilers about the end of season 3 and the plot is at least somewhat intertwined with the events of season 4.

I have to say that this is the first of Telltale's tie-in games where I'd have trouble recommending it to people who aren't familiar with the source material. I'd never read or seen the Walking Dead, Fables or Borderlands and that didn't impede my enjoyment of those games but this one assumes a lot of familiarity with Game of Thrones. Probably because it's the largest base audience they've had for a tie-in title yet.

Trash Boat
Dec 28, 2012

VROOM VROOM

Alright, thanks the advice. I figured that might be the case, considering Game of Thrones has a more established and concrete setting than probably anything else they've done before, but I just wanted to know for certain before jumping in. Guess I'll have to find some time to catch up in the coming months before the full season is released.

SatansBestBuddy
Sep 26, 2010

by FactsAreUseless

Dolash posted:

I have to say that this is the first of Telltale's tie-in games where I'd have trouble recommending it to people who aren't familiar with the source material. I'd never read or seen the Walking Dead, Fables or Borderlands and that didn't impede my enjoyment of those games but this one assumes a lot of familiarity with Game of Thrones. Probably because it's the largest base audience they've had for a tie-in title yet.

I'd guess rather that it's because Game of Thrones is the most dense story they've adapted, where the actions of the series characters can have consequences for the entire world. It's a stretch but you can conceive of the Walking Dead games taking place in the same universe as the comics and TV series, if only because they're independent stories that are set in the same universe but don't cross over with each other at any point and consequences play out with small groups of survivors.

With Game of Thrones, it felt like every book somebody does something that shakes up the status quo for the entire continent, so it's much harder to write a story concurrent with the events of the show because now you've got a really strict schedule of story beats to follow through with, can't just write your own thing within the setting because your characters need to be at the Red Wedding so we can see the Boltons kill a bunch of Northeners because that's more than a huge deal, that defines the entire state of the world for the course of your series run. We'd be dealing with a very different game if it was just one book earlier. This isn't even counting on us knowing future events now, too, so we know that Mira is gonna be at Joffery's Wedding and is gonna watch him choke on his pie and die because again, you can't leave that out of the story, it's just too huge a deal that completely changes the status quo for the world they're in.

And the worst part is that the series never really lets up at all. Like, with Borderlands they can pick a point between two games to have their story happen and it fits in fine. Can't really do that in Game of Thrones, there isn't really a space in the narrative where things stay relatively stable for a long stretch of time, or at least not within a hundred miles of any given main character from the show.

Maybe if they did a prequel series, set before the first book, they'd have more freedom to tell a fresh story. Because including too many characters from the show will ultimately make the main cast of this series sidekicks in their own story.

Hakkesshu
Nov 4, 2009


SatansBestBuddy posted:

Maybe if they did a prequel series, set before the first book, they'd have more freedom to tell a fresh story. Because including too many characters from the show will ultimately make the main cast of this series sidekicks in their own story.

I disagree in this case. I thought the show characters were exceedingly well handled. They took a small role, but a very crucial one that made them important to the game characters and the plot without making the episode feel like a companion piece. The focus is not on them, but they are at the center of the turmoil in the realm, so it makes sense they're agents in whatever is going on with house Forrester. And I personally think it's a pretty interesting dynamic to go in knowing more about what's going on than the the game cast does.

The only one I'm maybe a bit iffy on is Ramsay, since they're setting him up as an antagonist, but it's clear you'll never be able to retaliate. It's really just a foil for having to deal with the rival lord, though, so I'd be very surprised if he's going to pop up again.

I mean ultimately it is probably a marketing move, but they handled it about as well as anyone could have, I think, aside from them looking really weird. The Cersei scene was probably my favourite in the whole episode.

Zythrst
May 31, 2011

Time to join a revolution son, its going to be yooge!
I don't know Margaery was the only one who looked off to me all the others seemed pretty good.

Hakkesshu
Nov 4, 2009


It looks like they tried to capture Cersei's constant scowl but I thought her mouth just made her look like a weird muppet. Much like the rest of the animation, it looks really good when it's not moving.

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Wafflecopper
Nov 27, 2004

I am a mouth, and I must scream

Accordion Man posted:

I do also have to say that so far at least none of the deaths feel cheap like in Walking Dead Season 2. In that one it just felt like that they had no idea what to do with the characters so they just offed them in contrived situations.

To be fair it is based on the TV series The Walking Dead where when they have no idea what to do with the characters they just off them in contrived situations.

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