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Well, to Telltale's credit they do still know how to end strong. Just picked up Season 2 recently on the steam sale and played the episodes back to back. One of the things I liked about the ending I got was it gave me a good reason for a major shift in character from the Clem I was playing. Throughout the season she did her best to follow the values my Lee taught her in season 1. She was diplomatic and kind, but at the same time brave enough to stand up for herself and take the heat to spare her friends. Though it was a struggle at times she more or less stayed true to those ideals throughout, including killing Kenny because she couldn't just sit idly by and let him murder Jane without knowing what actually happened to the baby. Once she found out what Jane did, though, that was it for Diplomatic Clem. It would not have been humanly possible to click [Leave Jane] faster because after all the poo poo they went through, all the betrayals that happened throughout the season, Jane forcing Clem's hand and causing her to kill Kenny over petty bullshit was the last straw. Congrats Jane, you got what you wanted and helped Clem embrace the loner way of life because she sure as poo poo wasn't going anywhere with you. The visual of Clem walking alone with AJ through the herd was legitimately powerful in that regard. If Clem is the protagonist in Season 3 she's going to be a lot harder, and I hope to Christ that Bonnie and Mike show up because my Clem will poo poo on them at every opportunity. All that said, I don't think the ending made up for all the missteps and poor writing in this season. The game felt on the rails from beginning to end, with a lot of deaths that had little narrative meaning and few compelling relationships outside of the ones between Clem and Kenny (which felt like a writing crutch to be honest, piggybacking off the stellar writing from S1), Carver, and to a lesser extent Luke and Sarah. The changes in the writing staff for this season were readily apparent. The plot seemed to meander from one contrived situation after another, and the final episode made it especially obvious that Telltale decided they wanted Clem to be responsible for someone's death and were working backwards from there. Hopefully that's something they can fix for S3, but this one doesn't give me a lot of confidence. I also think they missed a major opportunity with the branching endings. The loudest complaints across both seasons have been that in the end the player's choices have very little affect on the story's outcome, though it made sense that there was little Telltale could do in that regard because they were always writing towards a single strong conclusion and thus couldn't afford to allow much variation. But in S2 they made the choice to give you FIVE different endings, but limited them to being the result of a couple choices that happened immediately beforehand. It seems like if they were planning to have multiple endings from the beginning, they could have gone a lot further with it and make various endings only accessible based on some of the major choices you make across the five episodes. It would have been really cool to see, for example, the decision on whether to save Sarah, or whether to trust Luke's pleas when he was trapped on the ice vs. Bonnie's, or how you chose to interact with Carver ultimately having an impact on which ending choices you could receive. That would have gone a long way to giving the death's of various characters more meaning. All in all I'm sure I'll buy S3, but not until it's done and I can buy the entire season on sale again. Season 1 was worth the $25.00 and the long wait between episodes, but I'm glad I waited and picked up Season 2 for eight bucks.
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Dec 23, 2014 17:29
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A big flaming stink posted:more I think about it the more Sarah's deck death just seems like an absolute waste. Episode 3 and 4 displayed a really great contrast of Clementine's outlook, with 3 being a descent into the That's why I feel they missed a major opportunity with having multiple endings. Whether or not Sarah's death was still railroaded, I would have loved to see your potential endings impacted by major choices your character has to make like whether or not it's worth it to risk your life for someone like Sarah. Doing something like that would have gone a long way towards making her death more meaningful. A. Beaverhausen posted:I just never gave a poo poo about the baby. It was a really poor shoehorned attempt at feels. I agree, I felt like AJ was introduced way too late in the story to really give a chance at building emotional investment, especially since they really didn't make much of an effort in having the player build a strong relationship with her mother. I wonder how things would have gone if Christa had a stronger presence in the early part of the season and Rebecca's character was left out altogether. I feel like most season 1 players would have more of an attachment to her baby, since it's an idea that's been floating around in our minds for a couple years now. Just change AJ to OJ and we'd be good to go!
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Jan 6, 2015 14:26
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aspects of being a hardened survivor to 4's caring about others even if they are a burden. Frankly Sarah is a ridiculous liability in her state that totally could get someone killed but dumping her due to that is full Crawford. I was actually curious if they were trying to set up the dynamic from season 1 where the player feels responsible for someone else and tailors their decisions around whats best for them. Kind of like Clem taking up the spirit of Lee.
character reactions it just leaves a real sour aftertaste.