Do you think that Telltale games have too much dialogue?
Do you think that Telltale games have too much dialogues? And that would be good to reduce the amount of dialogue and give more "game" instead?
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The Sam & Max games did the dialogue portion really well, I never thought that S&M had too much dialogue in it at any point. But BTTF I felt had too much dialogue in places, each episode had at least one guy with a ton of useless dialogue that was boring to listen through.
But a game can have a lot of dialogue and still be good. Take The Silver Lining for example. That game is very much dominated by dialogue but it's done amazingly well because it's interesting and relevant, and the music + moving camera angles adds a lot to livening up the game world and gives it an incredible atmosphere.
I think this happens when there are a lot of dialogues and to keep the player awake they give you this bad gameplay choice. Like if they press "Pause" and you've to click "Play".
However, I tend to compare things like Tales of Monkey Island (where there were several good dialogue-based puzzles, not just "click everything in sequence" scenarios) with BTTF, where at times you literally have a cutscene pause while it waits for you to click a single available dialogue option before continuing.
The Tales model, to me, is fun and engaging. The BTTF model is more of an annoyance. If there's only one option, or if you have to select all options to get to the next cutscene without your choices having any actual impact on the game, then why can't the game/cutscene just go ahead by itself? It makes me feel like a child who sits up the top of a double-decker bus and pretends they're driving it with their paper plate steering wheel.
In BTTF, the problem was too much exposition. In episode 3, you had to cope with a completely new situation, and a tediously long line of characters wanted you to monotonously play back their lines to unravel the details of the situation. So you had to talk to Parker, Biff, Lorraine, Jennifer, Needles and finally George before you could even DO anything in the game. They gave George so many lines that I almost fell asleep. That really beat the purpose of the game.
I add to puzzlebox' descriptions the "three choices - same answer" problem in BTTF. This was so incredibly annoying in episodes one to four that I eventually actually thought they were bothering us on purpose. And finally, puzzlebox... I have never seen the problem described so piercingly accurate on these forums. And you well know that many have tried.
Back to the Future does have a lack-of-game problem, but the dialog is not at fault.
The Sam and Max games and Monkey Island both have a pretty good balance overall.
Pick one:
-Sensible reply
-Awkward reply
-Hilarious awkward reply
Result:
"....uh...."
"GENERIC INTERRUPTION! I, AS A CHARACTER, CARE NOT WHAT YOU SAY AND THUS CHOOSING SUBCONSCIOUSLY TO SAY SOMETHING MAKES NO PRACTICAL DIFFERENCE!"
I second this. I thought they finally stopped doing it after TOMI, but I think BTTF started it all over again.
Well... adventure games do tend to be text heavy and that's way people like them.
No, actually I take it back. I recalled some moments in BTTF, and I remember this actually doesn't happen anymore. I remember conversations can change directions depending on your choices (though it always ends the same, of course. But, at least your choices can cause impact towards the conversation.)
'Back to the Future', however...
I'll have to remember that for upcoming episodes of my abridged series!
Telltale Text Adventure? Should it be done? Signs point to yes! (Just as a small project for us poor forum folk?)