The Telltale Games Main Menu PSA
WARNING. A LONG THREAD AWAITS BELOW.
Hello there. You might be wondering why I am mad or saddened by a main menu when it seems like such an inconsequential thing. I say: "Sit back, get your reading glasses, and listen (or read) closely.." I'll tell you why Telltale's new change of interface removes the style and substance that differences each IP from each other, the moment you boot up the game.
THE NEW MAIN MENU STYLE:
The main menu is the first thing you see when you turn on your game. It is meant to organise various tasks that can play, save/load, modify or quit the game. It is meant to be representative of the product and be accessible, as well as good-looking.
Menu for Back to the Future: The Game
Telltale's menus have usually been their own thing. They are all different-looking and represent each franchise accordingly. Some of them move in a certain way when navigating through tabs, and they usually offer extra style points this way.
The problem I have with this new menu style is that while it looks good, and it is simple, while keeping TTG's newer franchises uniform in its look of menu, it completely removes the feel that other franchises had. It is now clear that this is the same template that Telltale will use for every series from now on, further removing the chance that a sequel season gets the same menu treatment its predecessor had. We've seen this with Walking Dead already. Season 2's menu was amazing. Different Coloured backgrounds based on what episode you have completed, a paint-brush style look for transitions between tabs. It was cool. Season 3/A New Frontier rolled around and completely shattered the design trend S2 had. It was just a carbon copy of the Batman menu (except it had Walking Dead backgrounds now). Do you know what this means for future series?! They will all navigate in the same way, have the same look, use the same interface... This means:
There's none of THIS in TWAU Season 2:
There's none of THIS in TFTB Season 2:
We'll just get the same template with a few different pictures in the background. So what we used to get with the cool animation, and look, is now toned down a lot.
!! Extra bit: Yes I know about the Guardians menu. I have seen it. I have heard it. I think it makes the best use so far of the new menu look. BUT it doesn't remove the fact that it is still using the same template as Batman, instead of its own thing.
BONUS: The choices screen.
Currently, the choices screen is now much more simplified. It shows big bars for the percentages and the choice you made. Except... I recently checked out my choices screen for Episode 1 of TWD: ANF. Due to it showing only the choices -- and it is pretty vague about it -- I don't understand what I was deciding when I decided it. I forget what I chose 4 months ago. The old menu style gave a clear explanation of "what you were deciding, and what you chose".
NEW
OLD
Basically, I just want to explain why Telltale's shift towards this "Netflix-style" menu look isn't good for the asthetic of their games. It loses what made it look good in the first place.
Agree? Disagree? I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Comments
Guardians has funky music in its menu with nice cinematography, so I don't really care. its clean and works.
The main menu can be pretty insulting to veteran Telltale fans like me. After I had finished the third episode of ANF a pop-up screen had appeared and said: "Buy Season 1 of The Walking Dead." I have already played the first and second season. Even though Telltale's direction is to appeal to new players it's pretty petty to add a pop-up screen that will ask the player to buy more of their products. That's the same kind of level that E.A would do.
I agree the new menus are not the best but they did an amazing job with the GOTG menu it looks amazing and I love the song I've found myself just sitting there listening.
I don't really care, if I'm honest I actually prefer the new, more organized menu style. But one thing I just can't forgive is the removal of the rewind feature, because "nobody uses it".
It's not like lots of people already hated the fact that it was gone in Batman and spoke out for them to bring it back in future games so they didn't have to replay the entire fucking episode. Then Telltale did the same thing for ANF and GOTG. Just fucking why!?
I wish Telltale went back to each game having its own Menu style. Its not like GAME BREAKING but it feels kinda lazy and makes things feel uninspired.
Batman it worked really well. It felt right for the theme.
Walking Dead with this set up however feels completely wrong.
GOTG isnt that bad with the menu, but Id still prefer if it still tried to be doing its own thing.
For the choices thing, if you click the arrow on the left, you can go back through the choices individually, and get the full context to the choice. Obviously it takes a bit longer, but it's not completely gone... UNLIKE REWIND HINT HINT TELLTALE
Oh wow. I never noticed that even with the past few games. I always assumed that option of the full context choices was only visible during the credits of each episode.
Yeah, they didn't really make it all that obvious. I guess they thought a random white arrow with no context was enough to get the point across... which is fair enough, I suppose.
There are still chapter based achievements right? Doesn't make much sense to have chapters if we can't select from them after we've completed them.
Why is Telltale trying so hard to be like Netflix? It's not like Netflix releases one episode of their tv series every couple of months.
Where's the love?
It died December 20th.
it would be nice if each game had their own unique style when you start up, plus i'd rather them focus on the actual game than this superficial stuff
.. not to mention that other than its cool to look at, you're rarely to non spend more than a couple of minute on the main menu anyway, you win some and you lose some
Telltale should stop doing the same menu style over and over because it's fucking digusting and cancerous. Somehow, I'm expected to enjoy something that's been used over and over with minor (useless) alterations to somehow make it different? What? Slap some music in it and make it feel like it's a whole new menu ???????
Menus should always fit the theme of the game and, this requires common sense, don't stuff it up with useless and unnecessary text that a lot of people don't care about.
And this is coming from a guy who had posters as graphic assignments.
I hadn't really given this much thought before but now that I have, well I have to agree. It was a welcome change for Batman and it worked but I don't really care for what they did with ANF and GOTG. Using the same font seems especially lazy and the tile/ad at the bottom is just plain annoying.
An even more inconsequential thing is the achievements (now seems like a good time to rant about them quickly), well the steam achievements at least. I would rather they had more variety than just colours and numbers, like they used to.
All in all it isn't a huge deal no, but it is definitely disappointing.