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Bought this and Tales From The Borderlands over the Steam sale and I have to say, I'm really enjoying it so far. I started as a slow burn, but the end had a nice crescendo. I'll admit it wasn't as strong as other Telltale games, I'm still pretty excited for the next episode, especially Asher and the yet unrevealed character you'll play as All in all this first episode was alright, it just felt more like an extended prologue meant to immerse you in the world of Westeros and give you a sense of what this series is about. Normally this would annoy me, but since it looks like this series will be six game episodes instead of five, I'm okay with it.
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Jan 5, 2015 04:15
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Hot drat, that was a good episode! I know episode 1 could be a bit of a slow burn, but this episode made up for it a thousand times over! I'm really digging all the characters, especially Asher, playing an amoral fun loving sellsword just seems like a blat, but again, gotta give it Mira's parts, they're easily my favorite. Seven hells, its going to be a long couple months for the next episode.
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Feb 4, 2015 04:03
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All in all a decent episodes, I had a good time. Helped my uncle when it came to the dragon fight, Beska was bad-rear end enough and uncle Malcolm just tool a sword to the leg, I knew who needed help right then and then, though I wish Asher could just say "hey my uncle took a sword, he needed help when Beska is all sad you didn't help. Man sucking up to Gryff well...sucks, but I knew that no matter what happened, we weren't in a position to do anything at that moment. When the Whitehills mocked Ethan's death, I showed restraint, when I was kicked down, I showed restraint. Their time will come, when one day our means of vengeance will be delivered to us and then they will know our Iron From Ice! I didn't tell Finn anything at the Wall, he's a good guy, I don't want him caught up or implicated in anything, so he knows nothing about the North Grove apart from what Cotter dropped and he sure a hell doesn't know Cotter is a wildling. I gave Britt a clean death...it was more than he ever gave my family... I kept the letter, along with the knife. Way I figure it, if things go south, I'll huck them out my window into the Blackwater, boom, no more evidence. Best case, the knife ends up saving me from some mad assassin/rapist/Kings Landing ne'er-do-well and the letter depending on how its written can help. The trader dude seems alright, but if this paper carries royal weight then it can help in his proposed Ironwood monopoly, or at least give me leverage. Plus even if I am caught with them, I'm assuming Cersi might swing something, a Lannister knife and a decree signed by the Kings Killer....well if she wants me to make up some kind of tale at Tyrion's trial, I'm all for that then!
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Mar 25, 2015 17:40
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BillBear posted:I hope they stay faithful to GRRM/D&D in the way that when the time for the Whitehills bite it comes you question whether or not they truly deserve it. GRRM isn't someone who lets people get away with doing horrible poo poo, even Ned gets what some people may call justice when he gets beheaded by the sword he used to kill that poor deserter, Which is why for next episode With the "you're invited to come to the Whitehill castle", seems like the perfect chance to see the rest of the Whitehill family and show that maybe they aren't all assholes like Ludd and Gryff. Both seem to have massive chips on their shoulders,, but it'd be funny to see if they're the only ones like that in the family, the rest being more like Gwen, who are pretty chill about the whole rivalry thing. It'd certainly make you question if killing their entire family is worth it for the "crimes" of just a couple assholes.
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Mar 29, 2015 05:20
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I get what people have been saying, Telltale GOT feels a bit weaker than some of their other entire (which is painfully obvious when playing Tales from the Borderlands), but I've been having a decent go at it, I'm really hoping the last two episodes are able to bring it home, because I felt like we've gotten a taste of the good stuff this episode, but I want more. Smacked Gryff until the mom made me stop, gotta say after taking that beating last episode it was satisfying as all hell to whip him with my cane. I'm sure that won't come back to bite me in the rear end at some point.  I'm loving the Garred, Cotter, Finn's amazing snow road adventure going North.to find the Grove of Wonder. gently caress Frostfinger and the watch, you want to throw away a healthy boy when you have a giant gently caress off army coming down, don't mind me not giving a crap about what happens to you. Though I'm hoping Finn and Cotter can hash things out, so far they're some of my favorite characters. Also Sylvie and her fish  Loved the Mira portion as well, getting the Whitehill guy to turn red like a tomato was great. I kept Serra's secret, I'm sure I'm being woefully naive trusting her, but I have her secret in the pocket in case I need to burn a contact. Plus so far she's been fairly even in trades for favors so I'll keep being nice and be her wingwoman. Asher's sequences continue to be the high point of the series though. I'd honestly love a prequel series of just Asher and Beshka trucking around in the Free Cities in their earlier mercenary days. I felt bad volunteering Beshka for the mission, though I killed her master myself. Really Beshka, I know you deserve vengeance, but couldn't it have waited until after the damned mission? I killed him myself, no point in letting him go and alert the guards, but we didn't have time to make him suffer. Also I didn't touch the dragon because its a goddamn dragon, not a puppy. Called Ludd's bluff and brought Gleenmore soldiers to Highpoint along with Duncan. I'm still not sure who the traitor is, though I've heard some compelling theories about the master being the Whitehill brother who went to the Citadel, since Gryff probably didn't know him that well, he might not have recognized him as he was beating the stuffing out of him. Glad to see Rodrick standing up for the house and putting Ludd in his place... That being said, I'm going to be the biggest kiss-rear end to Ramsey and I'll throw any Whitehill under the bus if I can. Sorry Gwen, but your family sucks. Random notes: *Glad Finn still won't let Cotter live down the potato loving comment. *Seems like Telltale was able to really capture Emilia Clarke's eyebrow game. *Gwyn keeps tying to make us like her family and feel sympathy, I'm sorry, but they're all assholes Gwyn, you're just going to have to accept that at a certain point. *I still think its funny that the two best parts of the game are set pretty much has far away from the North as you can get. Seriously Telltale, if you want more money, make an Asher prequel about fighting, drinking and snarking across the Free Cities. It would basically be the Westrosi Tales from the Borderlands. Also release episode three of Tales from the Borderlands! 
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May 27, 2015 19:31
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I've mentioned it several times, but I'll likely echo my self and others here having 5 interlaced POV's just don't really work for this context, part of what makes ASOIF work a bit better is that while somewhat interlaced, quite a few of the POVS are independent of one another and in one way or another can stand on their own as stories (Deneys POV from book one actually got released as a standalone novella and it works well on its own). Think about it, the 2 POVS people like in this series have been Mira's and Ashers, they were the two most removed from the central story of whats happening at Ironwrath, Gared suffered from "being at the Wall" narrative syndrome. Ideally, for the story, cutting out Rodrick's whole player control might have been better. Ethan's POV was fine, it didn't out stay its welcome and it does a good job setting the scene for the higher goings on at Ironwrath. Once his business is done, just focusing on Gared, Mira and Asher would have been a better bet. Gerald's story would have needed revision, the whole North Grove thing is getting a bit silly. Instead, to make it work better with what everyone else has been doing, imagine instead the Foresters have some secret dealings with the Wildlings, and Gared's mission North is instead to figure out a way to cash in on some favors the family has to get some Wildling muscle. True its kind of functionally similar to what Asher's goal is, but in the context of everything else it could have worked better. Heck Gared could have wandered more around the North trying to pave the way for wildlings, go back and forth between Ironwrath and the Wall and allowed us to see an incomplete picture of what was going back in the homestead. I don't know maybe I'm reaching but I feel like the narrative of this game would have benefited from some serious trimming.
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Jul 23, 2015 00:56
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Alright finally sat down and played the episode... Holy crap, that scene in the cell with Mira needed an extra conversation option, that was the worst railroading I've seen in this game. Lie to Tyrion and he sees right through you, or tell him the truth, either way you get hosed. I was seriously expecting after telling the truth and having grumpy guard burst in having an extra lying option about why I was there (Cersi wanted to know any escape attempts, contacts, etc), some kind of half truth about WHY I got sent since no matter what Tyrion knows who sent you and you get scolded. I was expecting that extra lie option and grumpy guard catching on and letting me do my thing while looking mad, but no instead the game just has you fess up and get nothing.  That being said though I can't be too mad at that last scene, I had Rodrick go out in a blaze of glory, it seemed fitting for his arc, spending the whole game kissing Ramsey's rear end, building the families strength and getting hitched with a nice woman. All those tees getting lined up and it be almost criminally not GOT-like to have him avoid dying in the penultimate act.
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Jul 23, 2015 05:01
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Also what happens if you spare the kung-fu dude in the pit? Does he join your merry party of gladiators travelling to Westeros, or does another gladiator finish him off and the rest of them call you a wuss for not ending him or something like that?
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Jul 23, 2015 17:25
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RBA Starblade posted:He joins you and is pissy you didn't let him have an honorable death. The gladiators cheered when I spared him then kicked him in the face for good measure. Aw man Now my gladiator army is down an extra dude, though I half expect him to die in a random scene in the next episode, maybe taking an extra soldier with him or something like that. Also yes, RIP Beast, you're the closest we will get to Strong Belwas
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Jul 23, 2015 17:30
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BillBear posted:
I second that, I could have been a fun Tales from the Borderlands like adventure of him and Beshka bro-ing around the Free Cities, kicking rear end, taking names and trying to make a little gold here or there whenever they could.
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Jul 24, 2015 00:22
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While I'll hold my opinion until the last episode, as I think more about this game an how it could have been improved, I keep coming back to several ideas, mostly to people's story lines, I'll probably make a long post at the end of all this about what would have worked better IMHO. Also as to the traitor: I just had a though, you know what would have been a interesting choice for the traitor? Talia! Think about it, she had to watch her twin die in front of her because according to Ramsey and the Whitehill "he got uppity" or something like that. Once Rodrick comes to, one way or another, he's planning on taking the Whitehills down a peg or two either by lashing out or playing the waiting game, but either way, the Foresters are preparing to rise up, but he baby brother is being held hostage and could likely die if they rise. Talia, still being a child and maybe lacking some of the nuanced understandings about the political game, might have been recruited by Gryff or someone else to be their eyes "be a good girl and we'll not harm Ryon or Rodrick, we'll stop and violence before it really gets going". That would cast every time Gryff threatened her in a new light, suddenly, its not him being a random dick, but calculatingly threatening Talia so that Rodrick and the others instinctively pull her closer. Think of how many times she hears valuable plans and such too. Then once the identity is revealed, the choice Rodrick has to face is harder since its his baby sister who basically screwed their family without really knowing it, which is also something that tends to happen in GOT and ASOIF a lot too. I don't know, I'm likely rambling, but seriously, I'm still salty about that traitor reveal, it was just so...blegh.
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Jul 30, 2015 02:39
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I've been saving rants about this game (the constructive kind not the venting kind), but these threads of thought...Kainser posted:Really wish they hadn't tied the story so hard to big story characters. I remember that a lot of people speculated that they were just doing it in the first episode to get people interested back when they first started releasing trailers and stuff but nope, you get Tyrion and his merry friends all the time. It's just so awkward to have them show up all the time in this story about a really irrelevant family and I feel like they limit their story options. Snuffman posted:B..B..but all those big name GoT actors! They'd go to WASTE! Karnegal posted:poo poo, just sticking with the adventures of Asher and Breska would have been a great time. Dapper_Swindler posted:I think if they had made a game like set farther back in westorosi history. like the hedge knight stories in A knight of the seven kingdoms. It could have been great. Really summarize the main problem with this game, Telltale had a whole freaking world full of oft mentioned historical events which would have been awesome to see. Hell before the main parts of GoT, you had 300 years history of interesting poo poo happening in Westeros and before that, thousands of years of stuff in the world. I say this because almost everyone agrees that the best parts of the game are Asher and Beshka schlepping around the Free Citites and bro-ing out as mercenaries, the main second (and despite having little impact on the story thus far) has been Mira in Kings Landing. What do these two have in common? They're far away from The North and the Forester lands. The whole plight of the family lands could have been more interesting if it was set in a non-War of the Five Kings time. You want inter-house drama, set it during the Dance or the Blackfyre rebellion. Plenty of ambiguity there and no worries about throwing off the stations of canon. Hell if you still want to meet interesting "high" characters, setting in that time would be awesome, we know very little about people like Rhaenyra, Daemon(he's called the Rogue Prince, that'd be a cool guy to see come to life in a game), or any other canon people we'v not really seen come to life. Tales from the Borderland and the Walking Dead Season 1 showed how to do a good episodic in an established universe, you need to make a focused story on a small group of people. If you bring in canon characters, they should only really be there for cameos (like Glen in Season 1) or as allies Athena in Tales, if you make a canon character the enemy, you run into the Cthulhu problem of villains, the canon character being the villain makes the conflict about beating or defeating them, even if its not. By having Ramsey be there like a demonic Mickey Mouse, even if you know you can't beat him the conflict narrative becomes about him. Unless you're like Tales and are making new canon/ given massive creative liberties, this just does not work, as we've seen in the Game of Thrones game. Still I'm waiting to see what comes about in Episode 6 who knows, maybe something will happen to turn things around.
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Nov 7, 2015 06:24
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Just finished the last episode... Pretty much what I expected, nothing spectacular, a lot of things that were somewhat mediocre though. The good: -Mira's arc is over for me, she got beheaded (spit on the rear end in a top hat before getting the act, screw being stoic, I kneel but get some small revenge dammit! I like that at least one more of the main characters gets some finality to their arc based on your choice (I kind of count Asher/Rodrick since that's a Schrodinger Forrester choice on who lives or dies there, but I'm convinced the survivors roles for Season 2 will be a "fight on" speech before they die from the wounds suffered. -The mercenaries were awesome, that chick with the spear gets top marks. - I tried playing nice and conciliatory this whole season as Rodrick and get spat on for my trubles before dying for Asher. I wanted to MURDERINATE poo poo and poo poo got MURDERNIATED! The  -The North Grove has something kind of interesting, and seeing the mind controlled army of twenty marching was kind of cool and if Game of Thrones has taught me anything, twenty good men is all you need to do anything! - The epilogue of people talking about your house was kind of nifty. The Bad: -Despite the mediocre coolness of it, I still give no craps about the North Grove, the Forester bastards make no goddamn sense to me and I feel like the time spent with Gerald could have been better spent elsewhere in the series. - I ONLY GET TO KILL ONE WHITEHILL?!? WHAT THE CRAP TELLTALE, IF I WANT TO BURN THIS MOFO TO THE GROUND AT LEAST LET ME TAKE EVERYONE WITH ME! -Mira's story is over... -The railroad was really bad this season. Now time to work on my lengthy rant/post morten of what happened here this season and how things might be improved for the future, based only on my neckbeardy observational prowess 
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Nov 23, 2015 07:40
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Postmortem Time. Alright, what did this series do good? IMHO: -Atmosphere. I did feel like I was in Westeros and in the Game of Thrones setting, if nothing else Telltale did nail the atmosphere of the setting, even if it was in a compartmentalized and small setting all things considered. -Strong Opening. YMMV, but I felt like at least the opening episode started off strong (I loop in the start of episode 2 with this since we got to meet Asher and Rodrick there), it gave an efficient introductions and a nice primer on what was going on in the setting (both for people familiar with Game of Thrones and total newbies). The set pieces were cool, there was a definite air of tension with the Boltons and Whitehills and the twist at the end of the first episode was nicely executed. In addition, for the most part each charterers first episode gave you as a player a good sense of how you wanted to define and play that character. For me when I started out, after I got a taste of what each persons sections would likely be, I immediately formed in my mind a sense of how I pictured this character responding to a situation and reacted accordingly. While this fell apart later on (as more and more choices failed to matter), at least stating out, I got a strong sense of role playing in the game. -Quick Time Events: Most were pretty well made and I did feel tension in playing them (though later on the tension was "oh god, I don't want to repeat the past few cut scenes again, I want the story to be done), Telltale has at least refined their QTEs in this game and Tales so they offer more variety and a small sense of challenge. Considering this the one of the key parts of a Telltale game it was nice they did this competently. The -Art: Compared to other Telltale games (and especially when you see Tales from the Borderlands which was running concurrent to this game), the art was really lacking in this game. I get that it might have been a stylistic choice to go for the water color like effects (which on occasion looked cool), but everything in this offering seemed bland by comparison. Especially the opening credit sequence showing off locations, that looked meh. -Side characters: Compared to other Telltales games, this had a problem of not getting me invested in most of the side characters, and for Telltale games that's really bad since interacting with the side characters is a key element for engaging you in the game. The Walking Dead Season 1 had a good group of side characters who engaged you and could really change how you saw the world and how the world responded to you. This game was more Season 2, there was a large group I didn't really feel invested in apart from one or two people. There were a lot of interesting moment that if played out more would have been interesting, but instead we only get little snippets that left me wanting more from the characters and never getting it. Some characters just kind of dropped off from the story and I'm left wondering why they were there (The Maester, Uncle Malcolm, Cersi, 99% of Castle Black, etc). I just feel that instead of really developing a good core of supporting people Telltale scattershot a ton of people in, but made the experience more shallow. I still liked some (Serra, Coal Boy, Beshka, even Tali), but I really didn't have that connection to them like other Telltale characters (except Beshka, I've got your back Big Sis). -Canon Characters: Bad Telltale, no, that is not how you incorporate canon characters into a game like this. Bad! Ahem: Anyways, Telltale has already demonstrated in the past that they can bring canon characters into their games in a nice balanced way. In Walking Dead Season 1 Glenn and Hershel show up as your tutorial guys, stay for a sec and then leave. They provide a nice window dressing for people familiar with canon, while not overshadowing the player. In Tales from the Borderlands, you have some canon characters who do just that and its totally fine, and then the others are actually integral to the plot and your actions can affect them in real ways that can impact the game. Game of Thrones shares the problem Wolf Among Us had with its characters, you're in a setting where you already know to some extent whose going to live and whose going to die, whose important and what they do. In GOT's case, this was really glaring since it just kept bringing the canon characters into stuff. You have Ramsey, Cersi, Tyrion, Margaery, Jon Snow, and Daney all showing up, and you can do jack all with them. Since this wasn't going to be like Tales where stuff happens to canon characters in the game, having them there was mostly dead weight, any interaction with them was going to have less weight since by convention you can't do anything extremely effective with them since they have other stuff to do. And they weren't just showing up for one shots either like in Walking Dead, they stuck around, which sucked out oxygen from the story since you actions were being slammed into the brick wall of canon. Which brings me to... The Bad... This game is full of fluff. You spend too much time not doing stuff to move the story. We have to remember this series got an extra episode, and honestly, I don't think that did anything meaningful to help the game's story. The first episode felt strong because it felt like there was a good cause and effect chain going on, but a the game went on we were going around and doing stuff that felt like it didn't matter. The canon characters were a big symptom of this I felt like, they took up so much time and demanded so much for relatively so little gain on our part. They should have had one scene at most and been gone. Hell all you needed from Ramsey was for him to do what he did episode 1 and then his later proclamation of "every house for themselves" and you'd be golden. That would have made the story more efficient and would have helped us flesh out the Forester/Whitehill conflict more rather than making it the Ramsey Snow Power Hour. Daney wasn't really necessary either, since in the end, Asher just needed some cash, so really any Essosi rich dude would have done and they could have better developed the Essos chapters there. Cersi and Tyrion added so little to the Andros v.s Mira conflict that if we lost those interactions, and focuses more on original characters and the core conflict there we'd have been better off. Same with Margaery, I feel like if we'd just gone with some random OC lady, we'd have been narrative better off compared to what we had. The Wall/North Grove is also pretty symptomatic of this as well. So much time spent in Castle Black and making a big deal of your Night Watch oath....Um game,we were basically sent there just to bail on the Watch, I don't know why we'd get so invested in the guys we're planning on ditching the first chance we get, especially since we bring our buddies along anyways. Really, I feel like this is at the core of the problem with this game, too much that doesn't do much. We as players understand that Telltale puts us on a railroad, "our choices matter" is more "we change a few interactions and scenes out the windows but you go the same place." Here it felt like they didn't do that, they just put on a movie an wanted us to watch. it. If Telltales really wants to make a good Season 2, then they'll really need to look at the narrative and hone in on what they want to say and figure out how to get us there while still giving us some sense of agency in the world. Trim back any canon charater and focus on the OCs, seriously Westeros is big enough to have plenty going on that wasn't seen in the books and show, we don't need to see all the big names just to be reminded of where we are.
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Dec 7, 2015 02:28
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dmboogie posted:Playable Beshka might be the only thing that could bring me back to season two. Agreed, playing as Beshka would be pretty awesome, plus having little Ryon around to be a sounding board would make for a fun gender fliped Walking Dead style adventure where you play the hardscrabbled mercenary trying to keep the little kid safe in a dangerous world.
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Dec 8, 2015 05:19
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