Things did get a bit too bizarre and convoluted at certain points in this episode, it was a little hard to take seriously at times. But it was still all really well done and very enjoyable. The ending may have been completely crazy but I loved it, I really think that was the perfect spot to end it.
A lot of people seem to be assuming there will definitely be a sequel, but I think it works just fine as it is, and as much as I enjoyed playing through it, I'm not sure how well another BttF game would work.
If we do eventually get another one though, I'd like to see a little more difficulty. I understand what they were going for, but it didn't need to be totally challenge free. That's really my biggest complaint. The only point where I got stuck was when I ran into the glass house bug in this episode.
Other minor complaints were that the Delorean didn't recieve any kind of make over like it did through-out the three movies and that we never got to see the train!
Really came together in the end. Great job TTG. The bug had me through the roof, but I'm going through personal issues to be fair. It's not fair to slate this game for one little bug. It was a great conclusion to the story and it was very good and well to see M J Fox voice roles throughout the episode. It was very well done and I enjoyed it.
Over all the game was great. It wasn't the hardest game ever made but that did not stop me from enjoying it. This is the first time I have ever seen a true bug in a TTG game , but you guys are very busy and insane for taking on as much as you have. Over all you've held your own. I was worried at first, I thought I was in for a bug infested nightmare. But, I got pass the infamous glass house and it was totally worth it.
Thank you for the hard work you've put into this game. I hope for a future patch release to fix the bug, but as it turns out the bug is no big deal. I would probably play this game again just for the story.
Some games I replay again and again , just for the story. Those games are usually a bit harder but this was a terrific experience for the fans and the voice acting top notch, and it was really cool to see all the original cast back into action for one last time, trying to tell the story from a different, more interactive approach.
I think my glass house glitched, however I did not have to restart a thing. I had pulled open two of the doors and fell through the floor [albeit glitched] When i feel through I had no clicking options. But I actually just walked toward the wood wall in the first area, and it automatically placed me back in the house of the future.
I dunno if anyone one else tried this, but it got me through just fine
On another note, This was a fun experience. A lot of stuff I predicted happened but I didn't anticipate it to end the way it had! Either way, now that there is a BTTF:TG2 on the way I only have one thing to say to Tell Tale: TAKE YOUR TIME! I have no qualms on how the story line will go or what not. But to avoid glitches and to put more into gameplay please don't rush the second game. Loved this one and would've been happier if something were more clear. Either way I await BTTF2 now!!
dunno where to put this but on the cactus and edna section, the hat was already on the cactus so i put the 'wig' on under the hat then the hat disapeared and was then by edna
Exactly, that must have happened between BTTF3 and BTTF-E1.
Which means that Doc never went to 1931 in the first place...negating the whole videogame series...but then why did have the gift for Marty in the end of the episode?!
Messy!
The events of the game still happened. Back to the Future isn't like, say, 12 Monkeys or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, where any time traveling that will happen has already happened, meaning that Doc still had to be trapped in the past looking for info about Trixie, so the duplicate DeLorean would be auto-sent to Doc's house/garage for Marty to go and get him.
The only real messy part is how Doc wound up with ANOTHER DeLorean. It can't be the duplicate, as Edna had it and pretty much destroyed it when she was stuck in the 1800's. So that leaves Doc creating a second DeLorean aside from already having the duplicate, while he was in 1986 (which is reasonable), or some strange explanation for Doc having found another duplicate in time.
I'm still in shock from the end of the episode. That, was one hell of a cliffhanger at the end. And the things revealed. This is the best out of all 5 episodes. Here are some of the things revealed.
1. Edna is indeed the real speakeasy arsonist. At the end, she is arrested by Officer Parker after Marty records evidence, and ends up in jail with Kid Tannen.
2. It turns out Trixie Trotter is actually Sylvia. And her maiden name is Miffin. Arthur and Sylvia get married 5 years earlier in 1931, but it doesn't affect their descendants.
3. Michael J Fox first voices the 1931 version of William Mcfly, Marty's great-grandfather. The same one who peed on Marty in 1885 in Part III. The second role he plays is Future Marty at the end. Specifically, 3 Future Martys. I will get in to the cliffhanger.
4. As the description on Telltale's page says for this episode, there is a chase through time. Edna steals the Delorean and accidentally travels to 1876. At first, she loves the old Hill Valley because it's an "ideal place" for her, but then, a Tannen comes along and opens a saloon. I forget his first name, but it's the same Tannen you see on the slides on Mental Alignment Meter test. So, she burns down the saloon, and ends up accidentally burning down the entire town of Hill Valley. So, Doc and Marty suddenly end up in the middle of a barren wasteland, where William Mcfly drives up to them. He tells them that the only person living in the area is a crazy old lady named Mary Pickford. She is actually Edna. And she's at her craziest. They manage to bring back her memories of what she did, and they travel to 1876 to stop her. Then, you chase her driving the Delorean from 1931 with Doc's Delorean, putting these things on hers' to stop the car. Then, she ends up traveling back to 1931, and crashes into the jail, where she is then arrested.
Now for the cliffhanger.
Doc and Marty travel back to 1986, and everything seems normal at first. However, there are some differences. First, because you make Emmet and his father respect each other, Doc didn't completely leave his home in 1986 like he originally did. He has to manage his father's estate. So he and Clara have part-time residence. Instead of an estate sale, Doc is selling his possessions in a garage sale. Then all of a sudden, Edna comes up to them with Einstein, and now she likes dogs. She says she is doing her daily routine of walking Einstein. Then, all of the sudden, Kid Tannen drives up to them in a sports jacket. It turns out Edna fell in love with Kid Tannen in prison, and they married, so now she is Biff's step-mother. Then, as Doc and Marty are walking back into the lab, a Delorean time machine comes up to them, and a future version of Marty comes out saying that they've got to go back to the future to save Marty's great-great grandkids. Then, another future Marty drives up, who apparently is the other Future Marty's evil twin. They're both trying to convince Doc and present Marty to help one of them, trying to say which of their timelines is right. Then, another future Marty comes up, and says that Doc and him have got to go back and save Marty and Jennifer's 12 children. Then all the future Martys keep saying to each other "Quit screwing up our timelines." Then, Doc and present Marty get into the Delorean, and travel to the future. The End.
The ending is crazy, right? I'm still in WTF mode and it's been 20 minutes since I played it.
Also, at the end of the episode, it said "To Be Continued", which means we're getting a second season! I am having multiple fangasms.
So did anyone else stick around after the credits? Does this truly mean what I think it means? If so, I am happy.
Also,
If Edna is Biff's stepmom, then that makes Principal Strickland his step-uncle. They didn't say how long Kid and Edna had been married, but this kind of puts Biff's and Prinipal Strick's relationship in the second movie under a different light, doesn't it? (Assuming Kid and Edna were married by 1955)
Kid and Edna were probably in prison for a long time. Kid probably got out a little early for good behavior. Arson isn't as serious a crime as tax evasion, which is what Kid was charged with, so Edna probably got out way earlier.
It's unlikely. I think he couldn't do it this time because his illness wouldn't allow him to sit in the booth for however long to record the various lines of dialogue (keep in mind, being an adventure game, Marty has to have various lines of dialog for examining objects, saying why things won't work, variations of lines for the dialog trees). And that he'd have to do it for about 5 different episodes. I personally have no idea how Telltale's process is, but I can assume that unless they take long amounts of time with each episode to allow MJF to be able to record lines at a pace accessible to him, then we're probably stuck with only cameos.
But hey, cameos are better than nothing, and A.J. Locascio did a pretty good job.
Great episode, still buzzed after playing it. I think I'll wait a while until i review it properly, but there were moments in the game that really were touching and drove home the essence of the story -the friendship of Marty and Doc. The final moment of FCB was genuinely sad and the scene leading on with Young Emmett Was funny and just well executed.
Edna's character throughout, I knew she was (bat$#!+ ) crazy, but bravo Telltale for making me sympathize with her in spite of her being the main antagonist.
I was fortunate not to have encountered the game-stopping bugs that others did. I did have a weird one with the cactus and the hat, but luckily it fixed after a few clicks.
It was a joy to hear Michael J Fox's voice acting again, especially in the closing scene. It'd be cool if there is to be a second series both AJ and MJ get to work together doing Marty's voice.
My disappointments I guess are that we didn't get to see normal 1986 Jennifer at the end. And It would have been cool to see Clara and the Kids. Also my mind had been overthinking so much in the story I kind of thought there'd be an enormous final twist behind stuff that really had already been explained (The Shoe, Visiting Marty and Jennifer and such).
As far as the animation, I personally didn't find too many problems with it. The lip-syncing, while its never been perfect by any means throughout the series, I find its worse depending on your graphics settings. And I thought the facial animations and expressions of Doc and Edna in particular were very well done.
As a game it definitely has its flaws (all have which have been exhaustively brought up on the forums), but overall it's been one of the very few game's that has tried to capture the essence of a franchise so many of us love and miss. The voice work, character development and story alone makes it a cut above most of the soulless movie-based-games out there.
If there is to be a second series, there needs to be much more involved gameplay overall, as an adventure game bttf works because you become part of the character interaction and see the effects play out in the story.
The problem lies with creating meaningful puzzles that fit well within the bttf world, since its entirely different to the world Sam and Max - where things are that bonkers you can solve a puzzle by using parafine based slush puppie to heat glen millers kettle to inspire him for his latest hit and not have it tarnish the story.
On topic, enjoyed everything...except the bunch of Martys at the ending. That was just too bizarre.
...and me posting here makes it 45% cooler
Yes people,even The Doc says this was a good game...I wasn't a big fan of Double Visions which is why I had a feeling that the final episode would be bad...but I was totally wrong.The ending really wraps it up for me.After spending around 5 episodes in the 1930's it felt awesome to finally come back 1986...I'm glad TellTale made such an awesome plot!Everything now makes sense to me....
Well I'm not going to spoil it for anybody...but its *INSERT WORD THAT IS COMBINATION OF COOL,RAD,AWESOME,GREAT,ETC*....yeah I don't know a word that can describe!
4 out of 5 stars!Thanks TellTale for an awesome Game/Sequel...Im looking forward to
Pretty good finale. Lots of emotional moments, and the ending was hilarious. The puzzles were OK. Not as good as Episode 4's, but still better than the hand-holding the first three episodes were. (What was the point to the algae cakes' return, by the way? Giving them to people didn't seem to get a response, although I didn't try everybody. And also the blacksmith sign.) Jogging Edna's memory and the whole saloon puzzle were pretty clever. The environments were great. Loved the Expo, wished there was more of it. (I'm a sucker for all that "future that never was" stuff.)
My only real complaint is that it didn't really feel like a finale. Telltale always sets up the last episode to be something epic. All three Sam and Max finales, Rise of the Pirate God...hell, even 8-Bit Is Enough did it to some extent. While Telltale was definitely going for that this time...I don't know, I just didn't feel it for some reason.
And now for my thoughts on the series as a whole. Brace yourself for text.
WHAT I LIKED: It Feels Like Back to the Future: If I had to name Telltale's greatest strength as a developer, I'd probably say that, for a company that deals almost exclusively in licensed games, they always make an effort to treat those licenses with respect. There was a time when "Back to the Future video game" meant running around throwing bowling balls and avoiding hula hoop girls. Telltale had a difficult task, following up on the closure-providing ending of the third movie, but they came up with a plot that would be worthy of a fourth BttF film. (Having Bob Gale on board definitely helped.)
At the same time, though, there is such a thing as being too faithful. Many times an adaptation/continuation of a franchise is so afraid of deviating from the source that they just throw as much fanservice as they can. This is better than ignoring your source completely, but not by much. I was afraid Telltale would go this route, but fortunately they managed to make things different while still keeping them the same. Marty causes a lot of trouble just by trying to do the right thing. There's actual tension between Doc and Marty, when previously they got along so well it seemed like they were two halves of a single character. And the villain wasn't a Tannen! These are all very different elements from what BttF is known for, and yet it still made sense as part of the series. So I applaud Telltale for that. The whole thing was well-written all around.
The Voice Acting: AJ Locascio as Marty was incredible, plain and simple. (Also, I know he lurks these forums, so on the off-chance you're reading this, AJ, I want to say best of luck with the rest of your voice acting career.) Christopher Lloyd as Doc goes without saying. It's good to know he's still as animated as ever (but of course Judge Doom is animated ) after all these years. James Arnold Taylor as Young Emmett also deserves some credit for somehow managing a voice that sounds like a teenager yet still being recognizably Doc. And it was great having Claudia Wells as Jennifer, as well as Michael J. Fox's short but sweet cameo. George and Kid Biffyond were a little...eh, but I think they grew into the roles as the episodes progressed. All in all, the voice actors did a good job filling the void the movie's cast (mostly) left behind.
The Music: Jared Emerson-Johnson is a genius. Plain and simple. I'd even go as far as saying Telltale's Sam and Max episodes have some of the best soundtracks in modern gaming. It's amazing how many of the game's songs feel like score from the movies when they're really original pieces. (I particularly liked the main BttF theme redone as a soft, melancholy song.) The Marquis DeSinge did good.
The Hint System: Wait, wait, hear me out. Sure, with how easy the game was the hint system was mostly unnecessary, but it was still well done. Think about Telltale's previous hint system (although maybe I shouldn't say "previous" since BttF used it along with the new system). If you were stuck on a puzzle, you had to wait around and do nothing for who-knows-how-long until one of the characters decides to drop a piece of extremely vague dialogue that may not even be useful for you. Sure, you could turn the hint level to high so you can hear it sooner, but then the characters just won't shut up. But a menu with a series of InvisiClues-style hints (so the solution isn't spoiled right away, unless you want it to be) that you can bring up anytime? That's much better. Hopefully Telltale scraps the dialogue-based hint system entirely for the new one.
Edna: Well, no, I didn't like Edna. I guess what I mean is that she made for a good villain. On one hand, she's a sadistic pyromaniac with dreams of becoming a dictator, yet at the same time she's so convinced she's doing the right thing. Good villains need depth, and while Biff Tannen will always be one of my favorite movie villains, he definitely didn't have the depth Telltale needed for the story they wanted. So all in all, I thought Edna made for a good antagonist.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: So Very, Very Easy: All right, people have been complaining about this since December. I'm sure everyone (me included, to an extent) is sick of hearing this, especially the guys at Telltale, but the fact that it's brought up so much just proves how serious a flaw this is. I get that the BttF license was going to bring in new players, people who have never heard of a point-and-click adventure before, much less played one. I knew from the start it would be necessary to tone things down, but I didn't think it would be to this extent. I could bitch about the lack of difficulty itself, but instead I'll just say how Back to the Future makes me a little concerned for Telltale's...well, future.
Telltale's growing as a company, and wants to grow further. That's only fair. As a struggling writer myself, I know that just about any creative person wants their work exposed to as many people as possible. I can't fault them for that. However, there comes a point where in order to make your work popular, you have to creatively compromise it to the point that it isn't truly your work.
The adventure genre was practically dead before Telltale came around, and even now they're the only reason it's not dead. I love adventure games to death, but there's a reason they went away. The gaming industry is constantly changing, and they just stopped being profitable. The best adventure game ever wouldn't sell a quarter as much as a mediocre first-person shooter. As Telltale grows further, they may have to make some difficult choices, and it's possible they already made it. Jurassic Park is a Heavy Rain clone. We don't know what The Walking Dead is, but it's not a point-and-click. I could be wrong (and I hope I am), but Telltale's days of making adventure games might be numbered.
Lack of Exploration: Despite all the complaints about it, the easiness of BttF's puzzles was not the biggest problem. I'd have easily overlooked it if it weren't for this flaw. Where does the appeal of adventure games come from? Is it the writing and humor? The intellectual challenge you get out of puzzles? Those are big factors, but not the biggest. There are plenty of non-adventure games you can get those from (Portal, for example). No, the appeal of adventure games is in exploration. Trial and error. Examining every item, using everything in your inventory on whatever you can find. Seeing what works and what doesn't. Doing something you know won't work just for the response. During the 80s and 90s, adventure games gave us an interactive world no other genre could hope to provide. It's a different story today, of course, but even now no other game does exploration with quite the same charm adventure games do.
Remember the office in the first two Sam and Max seasons? It was cluttered with so much crap, each of it with a funny response attached. Most of the stuff in the room was pointless (in fact, in quite a few episodes the whole room was pointless), but it was fun. Or all the memorabilia on Stinky's wall in Season 2? I wasted so much time playing 201 just listening to every one of Stinky's bullshit stories. This stuff adds to the atmosphere, makes the setting feel deeper, and gives the game some length so you're not just beating it as soon as possible.
There's very little exploration you can do in BttF, and what little there is seems to just be there to justify a trophy in the PS3 version. Most areas have very few clickable items. Using an inventory item when you're not supposed to will almost always get you a generic error response, even when it wouldn't make sense. (For example, using the newspaper on anything in Episode 3 will make Marty say "If I'm going to do anything with this, I'm going to recycle it!"...even if you use it on the recycling bins. And Mr. Philpott didn't care when I showed him the algae cake I stole from him in the finale.) Worst of all, the lack of exploration actually makes the easy puzzles easier, because you know that if Telltale made the effort to make an item clickable, there's an 80-100% chance it's part of a puzzle, depending on the size of the area. If Telltale threw in a few red herrings, some stuff that you think would be helpful but isn't, that alone would improve the game by a huge amount.
Uneventful Night at the Inventory: Marty's inventory was almost completely superfluous. Most puzzles don't even involve your inventory, and the few that do are pretty...basic, I guess is the word. You use something, then lose it, having quickly fulfilled its purpose. Just about everything in your inventory is a one-use item. Or a zero-use item, as the case may be. I still don't understand the purpose of the picture of George McFly. I thought it'd be like the wedding ring in Tales of Monkey Island, where it sits in your inventory being useless for most of the series then comes into play at the very end. But no. It spends Episode 1 being useless, is used for a puzzle in Episode 2, then goes back to being useless for the rest of the series. Why did we still need to hold onto it after the one time we actually needed it? Anyway, more inventory puzzles would've been nice.
I Love Misleading Dialogue Options!: I hate misleading dialogue options. There was this thing in Tales where you'd get your choice of multiple dialogue options, then no matter what you picked Guybrush would say something completely different. Marty does the same thing here. I'm not sure why Telltale does this. Is it supposed to be funny? Is it supposed to give an element of gameplay in what would otherwise be a lengthy conversation? Is it supposed to remind us the player character is their own person and not just a pawn for our actions? Whatever it is, it's more annoying than anything else. Just a minor nitpick.
OVERALL:
Back to the Future is a very...polarizing game. The lack of interactivity is a huge, huge flaw, yet the writing, the atmosphere, the acting was all just so well done that I'm somehow able to forgive it. I'm not going to call it one of Telltale's best, and it definitely has me afraid about Telltale's other projects, but at the end, I can say it was an enjoyable experience.
The only real messy part is how Doc wound up with ANOTHER DeLorean. It can't be the duplicate, as Edna had it and pretty much destroyed it when she was stuck in the 1800's. So that leaves Doc creating a second DeLorean aside from already having the duplicate, while he was in 1986 (which is reasonable), or some strange explanation for Doc having found another duplicate in time.
Couldn't he just build another one? It's not like there's anything getting in his way, not even plutonium. (He still has a time train, so Mr. Fusion shouldn't be hard to come by)
I'm still playing through these episodes and trying to figure out how best to convey how this game essentially veered into every single thing it could have possibly done wrong, with gusto.
So, the Doc that came back to 1931 in Episode 5 is technically not the Doc that we got to interact with in the first two episodes? It's really messy.
Because Episode-1/2-Doc went to 1931 to search for information about Sylvia and Episode-5-Doc went there to chase Edna with Marty and got the information about Sylvia coincidentally more or less.
The only explanation I got is that the time stream caught up at some point during Episode 5 in 1931 making the Episode-1/2-Doc irrelevant but NOT subsequently destroying him.
About the caption after end credits, it was communicated in E3 how TelltaleGame had enjoyed this franchise and thatthey would be happy to give us more BTTF . So, yes, definitely they are open to a continuation.
Actually, that ending seemed like something they'd do in a parody of "Back of the Future," but if you guys could actually make a sensible story out of what I just saw in the last two minutes before credits, I'd be behind you 100%.
The rest of the game was really fun and very well done. The closing chase, especially.
My chief complaint is that these last three episodes all feel mismanaged in terms of pacing. Where episode 4 begins is where episode 3 should have ended, and where episode 5 begins is where episode 4 should have ended. I sometimes like cliffhangers, but I much more enjoy the feeling of a complete plot per episode. "Citizen Brown" should have been all 1986, "Double Visions" should have been all 1931 Expo, and "OUTATIME" should have been all chase (and include a trip into the future as the synopsis had been promising for months.)
My other complaint is difficulty blah blah blah linearity blah blah blah - just go back to the old formula already. Opening puzzle, three puzzles, mid-game puzzle, three puzzles, ending puzzle. It was formulaic but it felt so much more rewarding. Want it back now.
Third complaint: do serious beta-testing next time. The fact that doing the "Dirt on Edna" puzzle first can break the game in the glass house was ridiculous. Especially since Edna's puzzle can be easily solved first.
End of complaints:
You people did an amazing job of recapturing the magic of "Back to the Future." All the twists, turns, and awkward reveals are there, and you even eventually escaped the fan-service long enough to bring some new elements into the franchise.
The music was exceptionally good this time around. Something about it felt familiar, yet new. Maybe it was new music, or maybe it was just put into a new context. Either way, I felt something listening to it.
The voice acting was fantastic as usual. Michael J Fox was an awesome addition to the episode. Somehow after waiting two months, I found myself particularly attached to these characters. Within the first couple minutes, I was already excited to see what Artie was up to this time (he was sitting behind a table. Good for him!)
Beautiful work on the cinematics. The composition, the placement, the direction - I can see where all the real work went into.
If I could request anything for a later "Back to the Future" game that I was really hoping for from Telltale, it's this: I want to use time travel to solve puzzles. Just like in "Day of the Tentacle" or "ChronoTrigger," give me multiple time periods that I can jump back and forth to so I can play with the space-time continuum. Hopefully this will become more feasible in the second season.
At some point, I expected Einstein to be sent to the time of episode 1 to set the chain of events in motion to start the whole story, along with Edna's shoe. Would this not cause a paradox if they didn't complete the loop and send Einstein to this time?
When Young Emmitt was successful with his project at the expo and the real doc appeared...where did the other time machine come from that doc showed up in? From when he disappeared at the end of episode 3? That can't be correct as Marty was driving and on course for 1986.
Some of this wasn't explained very well. Either that or my head hasn't stopped spinning from the cliffhanger ending.
Come to think of it, there are a couple of little details nagging me. During the chase with Edna, Doc says that those thingamabobs his alternate self placed on Edna's Delorean has given him an idea. But how does he know about his alternate self? We'd been with him every step of the way since he re-appeared in 1931, and never once did Marty even begin to recount what had happened. (Wait, I guess they did drive the Delorean to "Mary's" house. I guess Marty could have told Doc during that time, but we're never told that)
Speaking of Doc's re-appearance, he asks Marty what he was doing in 1931 to begin with, yet at the end when he gives Marty that book, Marty says "So THIS is why you were in 1931" to which Doc says "Yep." So...does Doc remember Episodes 1 and 2 or not?
Speaking of Doc's re-appearance, he asks Marty what he was doing in 1931 to begin with, yet at the end when he gives Marty that book, Marty says "So THIS is why you were in 1931" to which Doc says "Yep." So...does Doc remember Episodes 1 and 2 or not?
Maybe he remembers something but he cannot actually have lived it since he disappeared at the beginning of episode 3.
Still I do not like that explanation.
Maybe he remembers something but he cannot actually have lived it since he disappeared at the beginning of episode 3.
Still I do not like that explanation.
Or more likely while he was examining the wrecked Delorean at Edna's shack in alternate 1931 he could see evidence of them being there. That wraps it up pretty nicely.
Or he could have just spotted them from overhead while in the flying Delorean and instantly knew what they would most likely be because he thinks in the same way as Citizen Brown and can look at things from a 4th dimensional perspective.
I'm still annoyed about the synopsis saying "Climatic chase through Hill Valley's past, present and future"
And I'm sure I wasn't the only one expecting some kind of "Back to the Future: The Ride" style chase once you'd attached those things to Edna's DeLorean. Instead the game just ends and we get a big cutscene to finish up with.
Umm am the only person who cant click any thing in the glass house )_)
I have this same issue.. there is not even a hotspot to click on. Only way is to reload and it keeps happening. Cant pass it or look down as the hints even suggest.. there are just NO hotspots in the glass house.. this episode was really rushed it seems, playtesters.... commoooonnn catch these last things!!
i would have!
who was lead for this episode anyway.. will there be a fix for the many issues esp this one that prevents ANY progression once in the "glass house"?
I'm still annoyed about the synopsis saying "Climatic chase through Hill Valley's past, present and future"
And I'm sure I wasn't the only one expecting some kind of "Back to the Future: The Ride" style chase once you'd attached those things to Edna's DeLorean. Instead the game just ends and we get a big cutscene to finish up with.
Hopefully, if there is a Season 2, we get to see the future.
Kaldire you have to restart your game and make sure you don't enter the glass house before you talk to the Diver about where Emmet and Cit. Brown is. Actually, do the glass house thing before you even phone Edna. It kind of sucks, but restarting the game when you know exactly what to do won't take very long.
Overall I liked the episode, but
Where the heck was the travelling to the future part?! It said in the description that this was a grand adventure to Hill Valley's past, present and future! I was really hoping we'd get to travel to 2011 or something.
Oh well. Still had a lot of fun playing through these episodes.
THE REASON WHY BTTF IS SO EASY IS BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO APPEAL TO ALL AUDIENCES, EVEN THOSE WHO ARE NOT ADVENTURE GAMERS.
Thank you.
Any way the entire series was great. I'm not a giant adventure gamer, and this was my first Telltale game. I could care less about the puzzles. I love the story, the voices, and the overal BTTF-ness. It needed to be like watching Part 4, and that's exactly what it was. Also, the ending is JUST LIKE the end of the first movie, like Bob Gale said. It was a JOKE. The flying DeLorean was originally a joke until the sequel came around.
With what exactly is the timestream catching up. What happened that would negate this DeLorean out of existence?
I was paying close attention to all of the details and was thinking 4th dimensionally, so I don't see any plot holes.
At the start of the game before Episode 1 starts, Doc used it to travel back to 1931, was framed into being arrested for the speakeasy arson as Carl Sagan and is killed. Meanwhile, the Delorean is still in 1931. Einstein hops into it with Edna's shoe and it automatically activates the emergency protocol that takes it to Marty and episode 1 begins.
Doc explains that it's a temporal duplicate created during the lightning strike in Back to the Future 2 and that he found while doing his time travelling adventures that you don't see on screen.
You use this Delorean all throughout the game episodes but when Doc is erased at the end of episode 2, that Delorean becomes an anachronism and its days are numbered - the timestream starts to erase it because Doc never invented it. But this is really slow because that car has travelled all over time and it will take a while before the temporal degradation catches up to it.
But that allows you to go through episodes 3 and 4 while alternate Doc (Citizen Brown) fixes it up with Doc's notebook (which gets erased afterwards by the timestream catching up).
Then when you restore Doc's timeline, a new 1986 is created with a new Doc, that is virtually the same as the original Doc and has had the same experiences of Back to the Future 1, 2 and 3 but slightly different except that he lives there part time with Clara and the kids and has had his relationship with his father repaired.
This Doc possibly hasn't done the trip back to 1931 and got arrested and killed as Carl Sagan. He instead gets the key to the city on the same day that Marty leaves May 1986 because that's where the newspaper came from - alternate May 1986 and changes when the timeline changes. He goes back to save Marty in his Delorean, which is now an alternate timeline version of the same temporal duplicate from the start of the game...
Which is why the old one disappears - the old one is erased because it is from a timeline that ceases to exist. The "new" one is the same one from a timeline that takes its place - one where Doc hasn't gone back to 1931 and got killed.
And at the end of episode 5 now that the Sylvia mystery is cleared up (and he was there to see it and learn about it) he gives Marty the finished book.
Where the heck was the travelling to the future part?! It said in the description that this was a grand adventure to Hill Valley's past, present and future! I was really hoping we'd get to travel to 2011 or something.
do we need to post spoiler tags in this topic? There's one in the title so anyone who clicks the topic has no right to complain about spoilers.
I assumed that the delorean doc arrives in is a past version of the one Edna steals. Yes I'm well aware that time travel is not written into the timeline so you cant rely on a future self to save you hence why ednas must be the future one (especially since in one version of the timeline, it gets stuck for 60 years. We dont see where her delorean gets sent due to the automatic retreival system.
I'm not sure how i feel about this episode. There are a few flaws and things which may be constrewed as plot holes. Especially all the marty's showing up. Also the chase through hill valley's past, present and FUTURE didnt happen. I don't consider the ending sufficient to satisfy that timeline.
Also what doc it is presents an interesting question; the ending is essentially another alternate timeline but this doc remembers the one at the start of the game.
The puzzles were OK. Not as good as Episode 4's, but still better than the hand-holding the first three episodes were. (What was the point to the algae cakes' return, by the way? Giving them to people didn't seem to get a response, although I didn't try everybody. And also the blacksmith sign.) Jogging Edna's memory and the whole saloon puzzle were pretty clever. The environments were great. Loved the Expo, wished there was more of it. (I'm a sucker for all that "future that never was" stuff.)
Indeed, I didn't get the algae cake jokes myself, I personally found the whole thing rather unfunny. I thought a lot of the environments were good in principle, but certain scenes like the expo and the town scene in episode 3 were more like still life displays. Too little movement and dynamics, and the music didn't do a good enough job of bringing those environments to life.
The town scene in the first episode did a better job of that to give an example.
At the same time, though, there is such a thing as being too faithful. Many times an adaptation/continuation of a franchise is so afraid of deviating from the source that they just throw as much fanservice as they can. This is better than ignoring your source completely, but not by much. I was afraid Telltale would go this route, but fortunately they managed to make things different while still keeping them the same. Marty causes a lot of trouble just by trying to do the right thing. There's actual tension between Doc and Marty, when previously they got along so well it seemed like they were two halves of a single character. And the villain wasn't a Tannen! These are all very different elements from what BttF is known for, and yet it still made sense as part of the series. So I applaud Telltale for that. The whole thing was well-written all around.
I think the story had potential, but I didn't like the FCB alternate reality one bit. And Double Vision just felt so wasted, they could have worked a much better story in there. It turned out to be a back and forth, back and forth thing between 1931 and 1986, with some past event altering the future not one, but three times.
So in my opinion there was too much repetition and the story ideas were very lackluster. I still believe time-travel should be a more central theme.
The Marty-Doc relationship got old really fast, a game like this should be action-driven, not dialogue-driven.
The Hint System: Wait, wait, hear me out. Sure, with how easy the game was the hint system was mostly unnecessary, but it was still well done. Think about Telltale's previous hint system (although maybe I shouldn't say "previous" since BttF used it along with the new system). If you were stuck on a puzzle, you had to wait around and do nothing for who-knows-how-long until one of the characters decides to drop a piece of extremely vague dialogue that may not even be useful for you.
I think the subtle type is pointless, and this type (giving the solution outright in the game) just takes away the need to logically work through anything.
There has never really been a need for a hint system in any of Telltale's games anyway though. There is a hint forum for all the games, and you can just ask a question here if you get stuck and you will get the answer.
So why rob yourself of the satisfaction of solving a problem yourself by including a whole walkthrough incorporated in the actual hint system?
Think about the old adventure games from the 80s. Did Space Quest have a hint system? Did Monkey Island have a hint system? No!
The adventure genre was practically dead before Telltale came around, and even now they're the only reason it's not dead. I love adventure games to death, but there's a reason they went away. The gaming industry is constantly changing, and they just stopped being profitable. The best adventure game ever wouldn't sell a quarter as much as a mediocre first-person shooter. As Telltale grows further, they may have to make some difficult choices, and it's possible they already made it. Jurassic Park is a Heavy Rain clone. We don't know what The Walking Dead is, but it's not a point-and-click. I could be wrong (and I hope I am), but Telltale's days of making adventure games might be numbered.
I certainly hope not, many people got into TTG only because of the adventure games. To completely deviate from that now would alienate a huge portion of their fan base!
I don't know about you, but I think a Heavy Rain-like game will be refreshing, they don't need to only make adventure games.
But they had damn better make their adventure games properly, like they've done with TOMI and S&M if they intend to continue making money.
Remember the office in the first two Sam and Max seasons? It was cluttered with so much crap, each of it with a funny response attached. Most of the stuff in the room was pointless (in fact, in quite a few episodes the whole room was pointless), but it was fun. Or all the memorabilia on Stinky's wall in Season 2? I wasted so much time playing 201 just listening to every one of Stinky's bullshit stories. This stuff adds to the atmosphere, makes the setting feel deeper, and gives the game some length so you're not just beating it as soon as possible.
So true, having the ability to explore a world of optional stuff makes the game world much more alive and provides so much entertainment.
King's Quest 6 for example, has the narrator giving a different response for pretty much every interacting you can do (look, touch, taste/talk and most inventory interactions) with practically every world object in the world. Even rocks in normal scenery. That shows that alot of effort has been made in making that game.
BTTF has generic responses for almost anything and it doesn't let you do much beyond the main storyline. So there has not been a lot of effort there at all. It's lazy and we all know it.
Uneventful Night at the Inventory: Marty's inventory was almost completely superfluous. Most puzzles don't even involve your inventory, and the few that do are pretty...basic, I guess is the word. You use something, then lose it, having quickly fulfilled its purpose. Just about everything in your inventory is a one-use item. Or a zero-use item, as the case may be. I still don't understand the purpose of the picture of George McFly. I thought it'd be like the wedding ring in Tales of Monkey Island, where it sits in your inventory being useless for most of the series then comes into play at the very end. But no. It spends Episode 1 being useless, is used for a puzzle in Episode 2, then goes back to being useless for the rest of the series. Why did we still need to hold onto it after the one time we actually needed it? Anyway, more inventory puzzles would've been nice.
That is also very much true, not only is the inventory system clunky but the lack of inventory combination takes away alot of the challenge. When you do need to use inventory items it is just so blatantly obvious what you have to do, I don't even know why they bother with inventory at all anymore.
Back to the Future is a very...polarizing game. The lack of interactivity is a huge, huge flaw, yet the writing, the atmosphere, the acting was all just so well done that I'm somehow able to forgive it. I'm not going to call it one of Telltale's best, and it definitely has me afraid about Telltale's other projects, but at the end, I can say it was an enjoyable experience.
You wrote a very good review, I did read all of it and I got some more insights myself. I try to look at things objectively and it's always good to see other points of view.
You list what you think are positive attributes and you explain why, I definitely respect that. There are many good arguments for both liking and disliking the game though the arguments against the game are the most obvious, because they're the easiest ones to identify.
Not many people give proper arguments for why they liked BTTF though, I think it's mostly nostalgia towards the films and a generally low treshold for the quality of the game.
I do agree though that many of the good points, the writing, ambience, music and to a degree some of the voice acting were good at moments. But all those were very on and off; they could be great in some places and terrible in other places, and I don't think forgiveness is appropriate in these cases.
I'm still annoyed about the synopsis saying "Climatic chase through Hill Valley's past, present and future"
And I'm sure I wasn't the only one expecting some kind of "Back to the Future: The Ride" style chase once you'd attached those things to Edna's DeLorean. Instead the game just ends and we get a big cutscene to finish up with.
I'm with you there. I get the fact that the words 'present' and 'future' are somewhat interchangable in the sense that while in the past they refer to 1985/86 as 'the future' but the tagline clearly implied both. I'm sure the cop out will be that future marty satisfied this.
Also what doc it is presents an interesting question; the ending is essentially another alternate timeline but this doc remembers the one at the start of the game.
I don't think so. I can't remember any part where he says that.
He gets the key to the city, arrives back in 1931 to save Marty, but I don't think he remembers being arrested and being either Carl Sagan or Citizen Brown. He knows that something must have happened with alternate versions of himself to have got Marty trapped in the past, but I don't think he says anything else.
He has the new memories of being Edna's boyfriend up until the October 13 1931 expo, but then after that he seems to have had exactly the same experiences as we know from BTTF 1, 2 and 3 except for the minor changes with his estate not being sold and having a good relationship with is father (edit: and really awful 80s dress sense).
1.Which Delorean did Doc arrive in? If it was a past one, this would cause a paradox surely.
2. Why did Doc get the key to the city? Improved relationship with his father? and why couldn't Emmett read the newspaper clipping until that event occured?
3. When did the new Doc arrive from? Considering he has no knowledge why Marty is in 1931, it must have been before episode 1, between the time that Doc got arrested and when he as researching Sylvia?
4. Why did Doc erase? Is it because he was the "first citizen" one and he never existed because he doesn't marry Edna anymore, and the alternate timeline is no more?
5. Why do you think there are 3 future Marty's tracking down Doc? What a cliffhanger.
Oh my god, that episode totally rules. So many things I love about it, but particularly the cutscene sequence at the end. This is the 4th film for me. Absolutely fantastic.
Just beat it (just over 2 hours if not shorter). The usual problems: too short and too easy. The story was good. I was kind of hoping this episode would have been longer since it took a little longer to come out than the others.
The bad:
Like I already said, too short too easy, but that's a given now. I was a little confused by the ending and how Doc and Marty weren't that worried about the future and the fact that 3 universes were merging. Just abandoning them to their fates and taking off on some other adventure to potentially muck up the timeline seemed overly irresponsible, especially considering what they'd come to accept and understand about time travel by the end of the trilogy.
The one thing I was majorly disappointed and ticked off about is the absence of anything to do with the introduction sequence of the first episode. It seemed like they were foreshadowing that the result of all their escapades through time in the trilogy and this season were going to bring about one of those major paradoxes that destroys the universe.....but no. It was all just a stupid dream to get you all excited about the story.....that has absolutely zip to do with it. I was very let down by that. The potential for the ramifications of that introduction sequence astounded me and sucked me in. But they chose to ignore it. I feared they would halfway through the season, but hoped for the better. Alas, my fears came true by the end of this episode. It would have made it all even better.
I also expected this episode to actually subscribe to its description in that it would be a race through time through Hill Valley's past, present, and future. No such luck. You settle things in 1931 with young Emmett, Hill Valley gets erased, you figure out when it happened, and you go back and stop it. That's it. I thought we'd be going through a bunch of timelines chasing Edna around the time spectrum. More false advertising, or at the very least misdirection. We didn't go to Hill Valley's future AT ALL in this episode until the obvious ending.
The good:
Despite my misgivings above about the ending, I thought what it turned out to be, although a bit of a letdown, was great and funny. Wonderfully over the top in the tradition of the two endings of the original trilogy. The story overall was good, but....just not enough to it. But it was still good and I enjoyed it.
All in all this game was made to be enjoyed for the story and absolutely nothing else (big surprise). If I ever buy the second season (if it ever gets made) it'll be for that reason alone. There's no innovating gameplay to be found here and no great comeback for the adventure genre. Nowhere in sight. Just rehashes of what came before dragged from the dumpster and prettied up for a new audience under a different label. They're decent mechanics but they've all been done before and they're starting to show their age. And there's not enough of them. Even if they'd simply recycled five times as many old mechanics as they did I would enjoy it more. At least it'd be longer.
1.Which Delorean did Doc arrive in? If it was a past one, this would cause a paradox surely.
2. Why did Doc get the key to the city? Improved relationship with his father? and why couldn't Emmett read the newspaper clipping until that event occured?
3. When did the new Doc arrive from? Considering he has no knowledge why Marty is in 1931, it must have been before episode 1, between the time that Doc got arrested and when he as researching Sylvia?
4. Why did Doc erase? Is it because he was the "first citizen" one and he never existed because he doesn't marry Edna anymore, and the alternate timeline is no more?
5. Why do you think there are 3 future Marty's tracking down Doc? What a cliffhanger.
1. I'm assuming it has to be a past one; it cant be a future one especially since in one timeline, edna lets it rot for 60 years. It wouldnt cause a paradox if doc eventually puts it back or replaces it with ednas delorean (we dont know where the one she uses to get back to 1931 goes back to)
2. In the movies timeline, doc is somewhat of a lone hermit, i guess he's more respected. Especially since he eventurally returns to live in his normal time in the new timeline while he and clara were obviously in a different timeline. He couldn't read the newspaper because he is not supposed to know too much about his future.
3. that is a mystery but i think he realizes that he was in 1931 researching the mcflys (he tells marty this) and assumes marty had to get him out of trouble.
4. well the old doc was erased at the end of episode 2 due to not living to that age hence allowing FCB to exist so this is essentially a reversal of that
5. I'm hoping telltale has a plan because it makes no sense to me.
Comments
A lot of people seem to be assuming there will definitely be a sequel, but I think it works just fine as it is, and as much as I enjoyed playing through it, I'm not sure how well another BttF game would work.
If we do eventually get another one though, I'd like to see a little more difficulty. I understand what they were going for, but it didn't need to be totally challenge free. That's really my biggest complaint. The only point where I got stuck was when I ran into the glass house bug in this episode.
Other minor complaints were that the Delorean didn't recieve any kind of make over like it did through-out the three movies and that we never got to see the train!
Over all the game was great. It wasn't the hardest game ever made but that did not stop me from enjoying it. This is the first time I have ever seen a true bug in a TTG game , but you guys are very busy and insane for taking on as much as you have. Over all you've held your own. I was worried at first, I thought I was in for a bug infested nightmare. But, I got pass the infamous glass house and it was totally worth it.
Thank you for the hard work you've put into this game. I hope for a future patch release to fix the bug, but as it turns out the bug is no big deal. I would probably play this game again just for the story.
Some games I replay again and again , just for the story. Those games are usually a bit harder but this was a terrific experience for the fans and the voice acting top notch, and it was really cool to see all the original cast back into action for one last time, trying to tell the story from a different, more interactive approach.
Thank you.
I dunno if anyone one else tried this, but it got me through just fine
On another note, This was a fun experience. A lot of stuff I predicted happened but I didn't anticipate it to end the way it had! Either way, now that there is a BTTF:TG2 on the way I only have one thing to say to Tell Tale: TAKE YOUR TIME! I have no qualms on how the story line will go or what not. But to avoid glitches and to put more into gameplay please don't rush the second game. Loved this one and would've been happier if something were more clear. Either way I await BTTF2 now!!
wierd....
That was the point. Even if they plan on making this coherent in THE FUTURE(!!!), it's completely impossible to figure out at the moment.
Here you go!
The events of the game still happened. Back to the Future isn't like, say, 12 Monkeys or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, where any time traveling that will happen has already happened, meaning that Doc still had to be trapped in the past looking for info about Trixie, so the duplicate DeLorean would be auto-sent to Doc's house/garage for Marty to go and get him.
The only real messy part is how Doc wound up with ANOTHER DeLorean. It can't be the duplicate, as Edna had it and pretty much destroyed it when she was stuck in the 1800's. So that leaves Doc creating a second DeLorean aside from already having the duplicate, while he was in 1986 (which is reasonable), or some strange explanation for Doc having found another duplicate in time.
2. It turns out Trixie Trotter is actually Sylvia. And her maiden name is Miffin. Arthur and Sylvia get married 5 years earlier in 1931, but it doesn't affect their descendants.
3. Michael J Fox first voices the 1931 version of William Mcfly, Marty's great-grandfather. The same one who peed on Marty in 1885 in Part III. The second role he plays is Future Marty at the end. Specifically, 3 Future Martys. I will get in to the cliffhanger.
4. As the description on Telltale's page says for this episode, there is a chase through time. Edna steals the Delorean and accidentally travels to 1876. At first, she loves the old Hill Valley because it's an "ideal place" for her, but then, a Tannen comes along and opens a saloon. I forget his first name, but it's the same Tannen you see on the slides on Mental Alignment Meter test. So, she burns down the saloon, and ends up accidentally burning down the entire town of Hill Valley. So, Doc and Marty suddenly end up in the middle of a barren wasteland, where William Mcfly drives up to them. He tells them that the only person living in the area is a crazy old lady named Mary Pickford. She is actually Edna. And she's at her craziest. They manage to bring back her memories of what she did, and they travel to 1876 to stop her. Then, you chase her driving the Delorean from 1931 with Doc's Delorean, putting these things on hers' to stop the car. Then, she ends up traveling back to 1931, and crashes into the jail, where she is then arrested.
Now for the cliffhanger.
Doc and Marty travel back to 1986, and everything seems normal at first. However, there are some differences. First, because you make Emmet and his father respect each other, Doc didn't completely leave his home in 1986 like he originally did. He has to manage his father's estate. So he and Clara have part-time residence. Instead of an estate sale, Doc is selling his possessions in a garage sale. Then all of a sudden, Edna comes up to them with Einstein, and now she likes dogs. She says she is doing her daily routine of walking Einstein. Then, all of the sudden, Kid Tannen drives up to them in a sports jacket. It turns out Edna fell in love with Kid Tannen in prison, and they married, so now she is Biff's step-mother. Then, as Doc and Marty are walking back into the lab, a Delorean time machine comes up to them, and a future version of Marty comes out saying that they've got to go back to the future to save Marty's great-great grandkids. Then, another future Marty drives up, who apparently is the other Future Marty's evil twin. They're both trying to convince Doc and present Marty to help one of them, trying to say which of their timelines is right. Then, another future Marty comes up, and says that Doc and him have got to go back and save Marty and Jennifer's 12 children. Then all the future Martys keep saying to each other "Quit screwing up our timelines." Then, Doc and present Marty get into the Delorean, and travel to the future. The End.
The ending is crazy, right? I'm still in WTF mode and it's been 20 minutes since I played it.
Also, at the end of the episode, it said "To Be Continued", which means we're getting a second season! I am having multiple fangasms.
Was kind of sexy actually. Reminded me of Lee Remick from The Hallelujah Trail.
That and their shared hatred for booze.
Kid and Edna were probably in prison for a long time. Kid probably got out a little early for good behavior. Arson isn't as serious a crime as tax evasion, which is what Kid was charged with, so Edna probably got out way earlier.
It's unlikely. I think he couldn't do it this time because his illness wouldn't allow him to sit in the booth for however long to record the various lines of dialogue (keep in mind, being an adventure game, Marty has to have various lines of dialog for examining objects, saying why things won't work, variations of lines for the dialog trees). And that he'd have to do it for about 5 different episodes. I personally have no idea how Telltale's process is, but I can assume that unless they take long amounts of time with each episode to allow MJF to be able to record lines at a pace accessible to him, then we're probably stuck with only cameos.
But hey, cameos are better than nothing, and A.J. Locascio did a pretty good job.
Edna's character throughout, I knew she was (bat$#!+
I was fortunate not to have encountered the game-stopping bugs that others did. I did have a weird one with the cactus and the hat, but luckily it fixed after a few clicks.
It was a joy to hear Michael J Fox's voice acting again, especially in the closing scene. It'd be cool if there is to be a second series both AJ and MJ get to work together doing Marty's voice.
My disappointments I guess are that we didn't get to see normal 1986 Jennifer at the end. And It would have been cool to see Clara and the Kids. Also my mind had been overthinking so much in the story I kind of thought there'd be an enormous final twist behind stuff that really had already been explained (The Shoe, Visiting Marty and Jennifer and such).
As far as the animation, I personally didn't find too many problems with it. The lip-syncing, while its never been perfect by any means throughout the series, I find its worse depending on your graphics settings. And I thought the facial animations and expressions of Doc and Edna in particular were very well done.
As a game it definitely has its flaws (all have which have been exhaustively brought up on the forums), but overall it's been one of the very few game's that has tried to capture the essence of a franchise so many of us love and miss. The voice work, character development and story alone makes it a cut above most of the soulless movie-based-games out there.
If there is to be a second series, there needs to be much more involved gameplay overall, as an adventure game bttf works because you become part of the character interaction and see the effects play out in the story.
The problem lies with creating meaningful puzzles that fit well within the bttf world, since its entirely different to the world Sam and Max - where things are that bonkers you can solve a puzzle by using parafine based slush puppie to heat glen millers kettle to inspire him for his latest hit and not have it tarnish the story.
...and me posting here makes it 45% cooler
Yes people,even The Doc says this was a good game...I wasn't a big fan of Double Visions which is why I had a feeling that the final episode would be bad...but I was totally wrong.The ending really wraps it up for me.After spending around 5 episodes in the 1930's it felt awesome to finally come back 1986...I'm glad TellTale made such an awesome plot!Everything now makes sense to me....
Well I'm not going to spoil it for anybody...but its *INSERT WORD THAT IS COMBINATION OF COOL,RAD,AWESOME,GREAT,ETC*....yeah I don't know a word that can describe!
4 out of 5 stars!Thanks TellTale for an awesome Game/Sequel...Im looking forward to
My only real complaint is that it didn't really feel like a finale. Telltale always sets up the last episode to be something epic. All three Sam and Max finales, Rise of the Pirate God...hell, even 8-Bit Is Enough did it to some extent. While Telltale was definitely going for that this time...I don't know, I just didn't feel it for some reason.
And now for my thoughts on the series as a whole. Brace yourself for text.
WHAT I LIKED:
It Feels Like Back to the Future: If I had to name Telltale's greatest strength as a developer, I'd probably say that, for a company that deals almost exclusively in licensed games, they always make an effort to treat those licenses with respect. There was a time when "Back to the Future video game" meant running around throwing bowling balls and avoiding hula hoop girls. Telltale had a difficult task, following up on the closure-providing ending of the third movie, but they came up with a plot that would be worthy of a fourth BttF film. (Having Bob Gale on board definitely helped.)
At the same time, though, there is such a thing as being too faithful. Many times an adaptation/continuation of a franchise is so afraid of deviating from the source that they just throw as much fanservice as they can. This is better than ignoring your source completely, but not by much. I was afraid Telltale would go this route, but fortunately they managed to make things different while still keeping them the same. Marty causes a lot of trouble just by trying to do the right thing. There's actual tension between Doc and Marty, when previously they got along so well it seemed like they were two halves of a single character. And the villain wasn't a Tannen! These are all very different elements from what BttF is known for, and yet it still made sense as part of the series. So I applaud Telltale for that. The whole thing was well-written all around.
The Voice Acting: AJ Locascio as Marty was incredible, plain and simple. (Also, I know he lurks these forums, so on the off-chance you're reading this, AJ, I want to say best of luck with the rest of your voice acting career.) Christopher Lloyd as Doc goes without saying. It's good to know he's still as animated as ever (but of course Judge Doom is animated
The Music: Jared Emerson-Johnson is a genius. Plain and simple. I'd even go as far as saying Telltale's Sam and Max episodes have some of the best soundtracks in modern gaming. It's amazing how many of the game's songs feel like score from the movies when they're really original pieces. (I particularly liked the main BttF theme redone as a soft, melancholy song.) The Marquis DeSinge did good.
The Hint System: Wait, wait, hear me out. Sure, with how easy the game was the hint system was mostly unnecessary, but it was still well done. Think about Telltale's previous hint system (although maybe I shouldn't say "previous" since BttF used it along with the new system). If you were stuck on a puzzle, you had to wait around and do nothing for who-knows-how-long until one of the characters decides to drop a piece of extremely vague dialogue that may not even be useful for you. Sure, you could turn the hint level to high so you can hear it sooner, but then the characters just won't shut up. But a menu with a series of InvisiClues-style hints (so the solution isn't spoiled right away, unless you want it to be) that you can bring up anytime? That's much better. Hopefully Telltale scraps the dialogue-based hint system entirely for the new one.
Edna: Well, no, I didn't like Edna. I guess what I mean is that she made for a good villain. On one hand, she's a sadistic pyromaniac with dreams of becoming a dictator, yet at the same time she's so convinced she's doing the right thing. Good villains need depth, and while Biff Tannen will always be one of my favorite movie villains, he definitely didn't have the depth Telltale needed for the story they wanted. So all in all, I thought Edna made for a good antagonist.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
So Very, Very Easy: All right, people have been complaining about this since December. I'm sure everyone (me included, to an extent) is sick of hearing this, especially the guys at Telltale, but the fact that it's brought up so much just proves how serious a flaw this is. I get that the BttF license was going to bring in new players, people who have never heard of a point-and-click adventure before, much less played one. I knew from the start it would be necessary to tone things down, but I didn't think it would be to this extent. I could bitch about the lack of difficulty itself, but instead I'll just say how Back to the Future makes me a little concerned for Telltale's...well, future.
Telltale's growing as a company, and wants to grow further. That's only fair. As a struggling writer myself, I know that just about any creative person wants their work exposed to as many people as possible. I can't fault them for that. However, there comes a point where in order to make your work popular, you have to creatively compromise it to the point that it isn't truly your work.
The adventure genre was practically dead before Telltale came around, and even now they're the only reason it's not dead. I love adventure games to death, but there's a reason they went away. The gaming industry is constantly changing, and they just stopped being profitable. The best adventure game ever wouldn't sell a quarter as much as a mediocre first-person shooter. As Telltale grows further, they may have to make some difficult choices, and it's possible they already made it. Jurassic Park is a Heavy Rain clone. We don't know what The Walking Dead is, but it's not a point-and-click. I could be wrong (and I hope I am), but Telltale's days of making adventure games might be numbered.
Lack of Exploration: Despite all the complaints about it, the easiness of BttF's puzzles was not the biggest problem. I'd have easily overlooked it if it weren't for this flaw. Where does the appeal of adventure games come from? Is it the writing and humor? The intellectual challenge you get out of puzzles? Those are big factors, but not the biggest. There are plenty of non-adventure games you can get those from (Portal, for example). No, the appeal of adventure games is in exploration. Trial and error. Examining every item, using everything in your inventory on whatever you can find. Seeing what works and what doesn't. Doing something you know won't work just for the response. During the 80s and 90s, adventure games gave us an interactive world no other genre could hope to provide. It's a different story today, of course, but even now no other game does exploration with quite the same charm adventure games do.
Remember the office in the first two Sam and Max seasons? It was cluttered with so much crap, each of it with a funny response attached. Most of the stuff in the room was pointless (in fact, in quite a few episodes the whole room was pointless), but it was fun. Or all the memorabilia on Stinky's wall in Season 2? I wasted so much time playing 201 just listening to every one of Stinky's bullshit stories. This stuff adds to the atmosphere, makes the setting feel deeper, and gives the game some length so you're not just beating it as soon as possible.
There's very little exploration you can do in BttF, and what little there is seems to just be there to justify a trophy in the PS3 version. Most areas have very few clickable items. Using an inventory item when you're not supposed to will almost always get you a generic error response, even when it wouldn't make sense. (For example, using the newspaper on anything in Episode 3 will make Marty say "If I'm going to do anything with this, I'm going to recycle it!"...even if you use it on the recycling bins. And Mr. Philpott didn't care when I showed him the algae cake I stole from him in the finale.) Worst of all, the lack of exploration actually makes the easy puzzles easier, because you know that if Telltale made the effort to make an item clickable, there's an 80-100% chance it's part of a puzzle, depending on the size of the area. If Telltale threw in a few red herrings, some stuff that you think would be helpful but isn't, that alone would improve the game by a huge amount.
Uneventful Night at the Inventory: Marty's inventory was almost completely superfluous. Most puzzles don't even involve your inventory, and the few that do are pretty...basic, I guess is the word. You use something, then lose it, having quickly fulfilled its purpose. Just about everything in your inventory is a one-use item. Or a zero-use item, as the case may be. I still don't understand the purpose of the picture of George McFly. I thought it'd be like the wedding ring in Tales of Monkey Island, where it sits in your inventory being useless for most of the series then comes into play at the very end. But no. It spends Episode 1 being useless, is used for a puzzle in Episode 2, then goes back to being useless for the rest of the series. Why did we still need to hold onto it after the one time we actually needed it? Anyway, more inventory puzzles would've been nice.
I Love Misleading Dialogue Options!: I hate misleading dialogue options. There was this thing in Tales where you'd get your choice of multiple dialogue options, then no matter what you picked Guybrush would say something completely different. Marty does the same thing here. I'm not sure why Telltale does this. Is it supposed to be funny? Is it supposed to give an element of gameplay in what would otherwise be a lengthy conversation? Is it supposed to remind us the player character is their own person and not just a pawn for our actions? Whatever it is, it's more annoying than anything else. Just a minor nitpick.
OVERALL:
Back to the Future is a very...polarizing game. The lack of interactivity is a huge, huge flaw, yet the writing, the atmosphere, the acting was all just so well done that I'm somehow able to forgive it. I'm not going to call it one of Telltale's best, and it definitely has me afraid about Telltale's other projects, but at the end, I can say it was an enjoyable experience.
Couldn't he just build another one? It's not like there's anything getting in his way, not even plutonium. (He still has a time train, so Mr. Fusion shouldn't be hard to come by)
Because Episode-1/2-Doc went to 1931 to search for information about Sylvia and Episode-5-Doc went there to chase Edna with Marty and got the information about Sylvia coincidentally more or less.
The only explanation I got is that the time stream caught up at some point during Episode 5 in 1931 making the Episode-1/2-Doc irrelevant but NOT subsequently destroying him.
http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/117/1174566p1.html
That doesn't mean we will have it for sure or inmediately, though.
Actually, that ending seemed like something they'd do in a parody of "Back of the Future," but if you guys could actually make a sensible story out of what I just saw in the last two minutes before credits, I'd be behind you 100%.
The rest of the game was really fun and very well done. The closing chase, especially.
My chief complaint is that these last three episodes all feel mismanaged in terms of pacing. Where episode 4 begins is where episode 3 should have ended, and where episode 5 begins is where episode 4 should have ended. I sometimes like cliffhangers, but I much more enjoy the feeling of a complete plot per episode. "Citizen Brown" should have been all 1986, "Double Visions" should have been all 1931 Expo, and "OUTATIME" should have been all chase (and include a trip into the future as the synopsis had been promising for months.)
My other complaint is difficulty blah blah blah linearity blah blah blah - just go back to the old formula already. Opening puzzle, three puzzles, mid-game puzzle, three puzzles, ending puzzle. It was formulaic but it felt so much more rewarding. Want it back now.
Third complaint: do serious beta-testing next time. The fact that doing the "Dirt on Edna" puzzle first can break the game in the glass house was ridiculous. Especially since Edna's puzzle can be easily solved first.
End of complaints:
You people did an amazing job of recapturing the magic of "Back to the Future." All the twists, turns, and awkward reveals are there, and you even eventually escaped the fan-service long enough to bring some new elements into the franchise.
The music was exceptionally good this time around. Something about it felt familiar, yet new. Maybe it was new music, or maybe it was just put into a new context. Either way, I felt something listening to it.
The voice acting was fantastic as usual. Michael J Fox was an awesome addition to the episode. Somehow after waiting two months, I found myself particularly attached to these characters. Within the first couple minutes, I was already excited to see what Artie was up to this time (he was sitting behind a table. Good for him!)
Beautiful work on the cinematics. The composition, the placement, the direction - I can see where all the real work went into.
If I could request anything for a later "Back to the Future" game that I was really hoping for from Telltale, it's this: I want to use time travel to solve puzzles. Just like in "Day of the Tentacle" or "ChronoTrigger," give me multiple time periods that I can jump back and forth to so I can play with the space-time continuum. Hopefully this will become more feasible in the second season.
At some point, I expected Einstein to be sent to the time of episode 1 to set the chain of events in motion to start the whole story, along with Edna's shoe. Would this not cause a paradox if they didn't complete the loop and send Einstein to this time?
When Young Emmitt was successful with his project at the expo and the real doc appeared...where did the other time machine come from that doc showed up in? From when he disappeared at the end of episode 3? That can't be correct as Marty was driving and on course for 1986.
Some of this wasn't explained very well. Either that or my head hasn't stopped spinning from the cliffhanger ending.
Speaking of Doc's re-appearance, he asks Marty what he was doing in 1931 to begin with, yet at the end when he gives Marty that book, Marty says "So THIS is why you were in 1931" to which Doc says "Yep." So...does Doc remember Episodes 1 and 2 or not?
Maybe he remembers something but he cannot actually have lived it since he disappeared at the beginning of episode 3.
Still I do not like that explanation.
Or more likely while he was examining the wrecked Delorean at Edna's shack in alternate 1931 he could see evidence of them being there. That wraps it up pretty nicely.
Or he could have just spotted them from overhead while in the flying Delorean and instantly knew what they would most likely be because he thinks in the same way as Citizen Brown and can look at things from a 4th dimensional perspective.
And I'm sure I wasn't the only one expecting some kind of "Back to the Future: The Ride" style chase once you'd attached those things to Edna's DeLorean. Instead the game just ends and we get a big cutscene to finish up with.
I have this same issue.. there is not even a hotspot to click on. Only way is to reload and it keeps happening. Cant pass it or look down as the hints even suggest.. there are just NO hotspots in the glass house.. this episode was really rushed it seems, playtesters.... commoooonnn catch these last things!!
i would have!
who was lead for this episode anyway.. will there be a fix for the many issues esp this one that prevents ANY progression once in the "glass house"?
ELP
Hopefully, if there is a Season 2, we get to see the future.
Overall I liked the episode, but
THE REASON WHY BTTF IS SO EASY IS BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO APPEAL TO ALL AUDIENCES, EVEN THOSE WHO ARE NOT ADVENTURE GAMERS.
Thank you.
Any way the entire series was great. I'm not a giant adventure gamer, and this was my first Telltale game. I could care less about the puzzles. I love the story, the voices, and the overal BTTF-ness. It needed to be like watching Part 4, and that's exactly what it was. Also, the ending is JUST LIKE the end of the first movie, like Bob Gale said. It was a JOKE. The flying DeLorean was originally a joke until the sequel came around.
That's what a massively intrusive hint system is for.
I was paying close attention to all of the details and was thinking 4th dimensionally, so I don't see any plot holes.
Doc explains that it's a temporal duplicate created during the lightning strike in Back to the Future 2 and that he found while doing his time travelling adventures that you don't see on screen.
You use this Delorean all throughout the game episodes but when Doc is erased at the end of episode 2, that Delorean becomes an anachronism and its days are numbered - the timestream starts to erase it because Doc never invented it. But this is really slow because that car has travelled all over time and it will take a while before the temporal degradation catches up to it.
But that allows you to go through episodes 3 and 4 while alternate Doc (Citizen Brown) fixes it up with Doc's notebook (which gets erased afterwards by the timestream catching up).
Then when you restore Doc's timeline, a new 1986 is created with a new Doc, that is virtually the same as the original Doc and has had the same experiences of Back to the Future 1, 2 and 3 but slightly different except that he lives there part time with Clara and the kids and has had his relationship with his father repaired.
This Doc possibly hasn't done the trip back to 1931 and got arrested and killed as Carl Sagan. He instead gets the key to the city on the same day that Marty leaves May 1986 because that's where the newspaper came from - alternate May 1986 and changes when the timeline changes. He goes back to save Marty in his Delorean, which is now an alternate timeline version of the same temporal duplicate from the start of the game...
Which is why the old one disappears - the old one is erased because it is from a timeline that ceases to exist. The "new" one is the same one from a timeline that takes its place - one where Doc hasn't gone back to 1931 and got killed.
And at the end of episode 5 now that the Sylvia mystery is cleared up (and he was there to see it and learn about it) he gives Marty the finished book.
I assumed that the delorean doc arrives in is a past version of the one Edna steals. Yes I'm well aware that time travel is not written into the timeline so you cant rely on a future self to save you hence why ednas must be the future one (especially since in one version of the timeline, it gets stuck for 60 years. We dont see where her delorean gets sent due to the automatic retreival system.
I'm not sure how i feel about this episode. There are a few flaws and things which may be constrewed as plot holes. Especially all the marty's showing up. Also the chase through hill valley's past, present and FUTURE didnt happen. I don't consider the ending sufficient to satisfy that timeline.
Also what doc it is presents an interesting question; the ending is essentially another alternate timeline but this doc remembers the one at the start of the game.
Indeed, I didn't get the algae cake jokes myself, I personally found the whole thing rather unfunny. I thought a lot of the environments were good in principle, but certain scenes like the expo and the town scene in episode 3 were more like still life displays. Too little movement and dynamics, and the music didn't do a good enough job of bringing those environments to life.
The town scene in the first episode did a better job of that to give an example.
I think the story had potential, but I didn't like the FCB alternate reality one bit. And Double Vision just felt so wasted, they could have worked a much better story in there. It turned out to be a back and forth, back and forth thing between 1931 and 1986, with some past event altering the future not one, but three times.
So in my opinion there was too much repetition and the story ideas were very lackluster. I still believe time-travel should be a more central theme.
The Marty-Doc relationship got old really fast, a game like this should be action-driven, not dialogue-driven.
I think the subtle type is pointless, and this type (giving the solution outright in the game) just takes away the need to logically work through anything.
There has never really been a need for a hint system in any of Telltale's games anyway though. There is a hint forum for all the games, and you can just ask a question here if you get stuck and you will get the answer.
So why rob yourself of the satisfaction of solving a problem yourself by including a whole walkthrough incorporated in the actual hint system?
Think about the old adventure games from the 80s. Did Space Quest have a hint system? Did Monkey Island have a hint system? No!
I certainly hope not, many people got into TTG only because of the adventure games. To completely deviate from that now would alienate a huge portion of their fan base!
I don't know about you, but I think a Heavy Rain-like game will be refreshing, they don't need to only make adventure games.
But they had damn better make their adventure games properly, like they've done with TOMI and S&M if they intend to continue making money.
So true, having the ability to explore a world of optional stuff makes the game world much more alive and provides so much entertainment.
King's Quest 6 for example, has the narrator giving a different response for pretty much every interacting you can do (look, touch, taste/talk and most inventory interactions) with practically every world object in the world. Even rocks in normal scenery. That shows that alot of effort has been made in making that game.
BTTF has generic responses for almost anything and it doesn't let you do much beyond the main storyline. So there has not been a lot of effort there at all. It's lazy and we all know it.
That is also very much true, not only is the inventory system clunky but the lack of inventory combination takes away alot of the challenge. When you do need to use inventory items it is just so blatantly obvious what you have to do, I don't even know why they bother with inventory at all anymore.
You wrote a very good review, I did read all of it and I got some more insights myself. I try to look at things objectively and it's always good to see other points of view.
You list what you think are positive attributes and you explain why, I definitely respect that. There are many good arguments for both liking and disliking the game though the arguments against the game are the most obvious, because they're the easiest ones to identify.
Not many people give proper arguments for why they liked BTTF though, I think it's mostly nostalgia towards the films and a generally low treshold for the quality of the game.
I do agree though that many of the good points, the writing, ambience, music and to a degree some of the voice acting were good at moments. But all those were very on and off; they could be great in some places and terrible in other places, and I don't think forgiveness is appropriate in these cases.
I'm with you there. I get the fact that the words 'present' and 'future' are somewhat interchangable in the sense that while in the past they refer to 1985/86 as 'the future' but the tagline clearly implied both. I'm sure the cop out will be that future marty satisfied this.
I don't think so. I can't remember any part where he says that.
He gets the key to the city, arrives back in 1931 to save Marty, but I don't think he remembers being arrested and being either Carl Sagan or Citizen Brown. He knows that something must have happened with alternate versions of himself to have got Marty trapped in the past, but I don't think he says anything else.
He has the new memories of being Edna's boyfriend up until the October 13 1931 expo, but then after that he seems to have had exactly the same experiences as we know from BTTF 1, 2 and 3 except for the minor changes with his estate not being sold and having a good relationship with is father (edit: and really awful 80s dress sense).
2. Why did Doc get the key to the city? Improved relationship with his father? and why couldn't Emmett read the newspaper clipping until that event occured?
3. When did the new Doc arrive from? Considering he has no knowledge why Marty is in 1931, it must have been before episode 1, between the time that Doc got arrested and when he as researching Sylvia?
4. Why did Doc erase? Is it because he was the "first citizen" one and he never existed because he doesn't marry Edna anymore, and the alternate timeline is no more?
5. Why do you think there are 3 future Marty's tracking down Doc? What a cliffhanger.
Just beat it (just over 2 hours if not shorter). The usual problems: too short and too easy. The story was good. I was kind of hoping this episode would have been longer since it took a little longer to come out than the others.
The bad:
Like I already said, too short too easy, but that's a given now. I was a little confused by the ending and how Doc and Marty weren't that worried about the future and the fact that 3 universes were merging. Just abandoning them to their fates and taking off on some other adventure to potentially muck up the timeline seemed overly irresponsible, especially considering what they'd come to accept and understand about time travel by the end of the trilogy.
The one thing I was majorly disappointed and ticked off about is the absence of anything to do with the introduction sequence of the first episode. It seemed like they were foreshadowing that the result of all their escapades through time in the trilogy and this season were going to bring about one of those major paradoxes that destroys the universe.....but no. It was all just a stupid dream to get you all excited about the story.....that has absolutely zip to do with it. I was very let down by that. The potential for the ramifications of that introduction sequence astounded me and sucked me in. But they chose to ignore it. I feared they would halfway through the season, but hoped for the better. Alas, my fears came true by the end of this episode. It would have made it all even better.
I also expected this episode to actually subscribe to its description in that it would be a race through time through Hill Valley's past, present, and future. No such luck. You settle things in 1931 with young Emmett, Hill Valley gets erased, you figure out when it happened, and you go back and stop it. That's it. I thought we'd be going through a bunch of timelines chasing Edna around the time spectrum. More false advertising, or at the very least misdirection. We didn't go to Hill Valley's future AT ALL in this episode until the obvious ending.
The good:
Despite my misgivings above about the ending, I thought what it turned out to be, although a bit of a letdown, was great and funny. Wonderfully over the top in the tradition of the two endings of the original trilogy. The story overall was good, but....just not enough to it. But it was still good and I enjoyed it.
All in all this game was made to be enjoyed for the story and absolutely nothing else (big surprise). If I ever buy the second season (if it ever gets made) it'll be for that reason alone. There's no innovating gameplay to be found here and no great comeback for the adventure genre. Nowhere in sight. Just rehashes of what came before dragged from the dumpster and prettied up for a new audience under a different label. They're decent mechanics but they've all been done before and they're starting to show their age. And there's not enough of them. Even if they'd simply recycled five times as many old mechanics as they did I would enjoy it more. At least it'd be longer.
1. I'm assuming it has to be a past one; it cant be a future one especially since in one timeline, edna lets it rot for 60 years. It wouldnt cause a paradox if doc eventually puts it back or replaces it with ednas delorean (we dont know where the one she uses to get back to 1931 goes back to)
2. In the movies timeline, doc is somewhat of a lone hermit, i guess he's more respected. Especially since he eventurally returns to live in his normal time in the new timeline while he and clara were obviously in a different timeline. He couldn't read the newspaper because he is not supposed to know too much about his future.
3. that is a mystery but i think he realizes that he was in 1931 researching the mcflys (he tells marty this) and assumes marty had to get him out of trouble.
4. well the old doc was erased at the end of episode 2 due to not living to that age hence allowing FCB to exist so this is essentially a reversal of that
5. I'm hoping telltale has a plan because it makes no sense to me.