Episode 5 Disappointment (vent here) **SPOILERS**
Telltale,
Firstly i would like to say great game and a fantastic concept. However the ending i would say is not so great. While it is very well made and certainly tugs at your heart strings, I didn't play the game and wait for the ending only to find out i die anyway... Now i know people may argue that you didn't see lee actually turn so maybe he will be ok, but the fact you left it this way is really a let down to the series. I was really looking forward to the last episode but in all honesty it just brought me down and i kinda wish i stopped playing at episode 4.
There should be an alternative ending where you can at least live... Just my opinion.
Firstly i would like to say great game and a fantastic concept. However the ending i would say is not so great. While it is very well made and certainly tugs at your heart strings, I didn't play the game and wait for the ending only to find out i die anyway... Now i know people may argue that you didn't see lee actually turn so maybe he will be ok, but the fact you left it this way is really a let down to the series. I was really looking forward to the last episode but in all honesty it just brought me down and i kinda wish i stopped playing at episode 4.
There should be an alternative ending where you can at least live... Just my opinion. Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
Although I'd like there to be a secret ending where he does live... One possible outcome, by choosing the /exact/ right choices at EVERY part and it's the only way. So literally EVERY decision counts :P That would be awesome to try and figure out, and really add some replay value. For me, at least. I wanted him to live so badly
No, I thought the ending was actually perfect. My only disappointment was the lack of seeing Molly at any point. Not even zombie Molly or something, which is REALLY annoying considering you do see zombie Andrea at one point.
You call it disappointing that you couldn't live but you're supposed to want to feel like you have an option of surviving, it's why I cut Lee's hand off and desperately acted in denial throughout the entire episode.
If you thought Lee was going to walk into the sunset with Clementine at the end of the episode, you're (un)dead wrong. This isn't Disney's The Walking Dead.
I let my Lee back for dying, so Clem didn't have to waste ammo :P
Does Kenny also die if there is no Ben in the group?
Do Omid and Krista survive all the time?
Was in your end Clementine also alone on a field?
Also, this is the Walking Dead...chances of happy endings are never going to be great.
Yes i'm not debating the fact we saw it coming (lee dying) i'm saying it's shit that you play a whole game only to end up dying no matter what you do. And what "option"? He dies whether you cut it off or not... WTF is the point. All that for stupid clem...
I'm also kind of upset with the fact he got handcuffed at the end (which I know was to protect Clem) but it makes me feel that he ended his life how we all saw him begin his journey: a handcuffed prisoner. I felt after all his struggle & sacrifice he still ended up where he was going before it all started, I think he deserved better than that.
From the very beginning I felt like the game's "true" focus was Clementine. Lee did have his own story, and playing as Lee, every player is going to explore his backstory and generally relate to him more.
But Lee was Clem's protector, from episode 3 onward it was made clear you could never be 100% sure that everything was going to be okay and that Lee was basically preparing Clementine for how difficult surviving was to be.
Maybe I'm just a little biased because I expected a sad ending from having gotten used to The Walking Dead comics, but that's just how The Walking Dead stories go. It's the apocalypse, things are tragic, and unfair, and if every dramatic, messed up, terrifying moment in the game series existed only to lead to a one in a million chance that Lee lives and they both walk away, it would defeat the whole point.
Tl;dr version: It's a zombie apocalypse, Clementine survived. That's a happy enough ending for me.
Actually, the only thing I don't like about the ending is the lack of impact of 'your story' on it. Ben dies no matter what just like Carley/Doug before, same with Kenny, Omid and Christa live no matter what (atleast what I've seen anyway) and the boat gets taken no matter what. And now I'll finally be able to say to all of those "The game isn't done yet, choice will come in episode 5" people, that no it didn't. And that is my main problem with it.
After episode one and two this was one of my favorite if not my favorite story adventure game, but now it's Heavy Rain again just because atleast there you feel like you make a noticable impact on the story.
The way Lee died in that room, handcuffed to the radiator was very good. Just thinking about him lying there as the story continues if very 'The Walking Dead'.
I didn't like a few things, but the Stranger was the biggest disappointment. When he was telling Lee his sob story, I thought Lee was going to get up and slap him with his good hand then walk out with Clementine. He just didn't seem legit to me.
There was a lot of potential with that character. Maybe he could've been charged by her parents to save Clem, maybe he could've been part of some other group. He might have had a kid in Savannah he was looking after and genuinely thought he was more capable, or maybe he was just a murderous psychopath?
Instead he was the moron that abandoned his car. Right, ok.
Great game though, gutted we have to wait for Season 2. I feel like I'm always waiting for such small doses!
Sure it did. The story stayed the same but the reasons things happened, the circumstances, the nuances of the scenes, those changed. That's a lot more natural than "Click this for Branch A and this for Branch B".
And for those complaining about Lee dying at the end...Clementine lived! In The Walking Dead, that's considered a happy ending.
I guess that you'd only really notice the lack of impact if you reloaded after every decision, or replayed each chapter to get different results. But for a first playthrough...well, it worked.
Yeah, but the point of having a "Your choices matter" game, is for replayability. For Heavy Rain I have no clue how long I've spent on that game. Everytime I play it something is different than last time I played it. And before haters attack me I know that this has a fraction of the money that Heavy Rain had behind it, but then don't sell it as a "Your choices matter" game.
Again, as an adventure game it's great. As an interactive story it isn't.
Ehm... Again it's not about Lee dying (some of my favorite Heavy Rain endings are where it partly goes to shit). And it isn't about 'click this get branch A' either. If you've played heavy rain you would know that for instance a scene is about you disposing of fingerprints you've left behind in a store. Either you manage it on time, or you are called in by the police changing the next segment of the game for this one character. It's not about having a concrete choice about where the game is going, but that your choices end up CHANGING the story (even if the completely opposite of what you think is going to happen does).
So I think you're misunderstanding what I'm looking for here. Because what I'm looking for is what was advertised as their major selling point.
I was crying SO much when he said that he never saw his family and..
Yeah I know, that there will be a second season coming, but it sucks if that ruins the first season, just to have a cliffhanger ending.
Um...zombie apocalypse much?
You still have to give the player the feeling of some kind of accomplishment. Now Lee has completely failed, he might as well shot himself in the head with the shotgun from the beginning, what difference would it make? Clem is all alone, hungry, thirsty and will probably die from exhaustion in the next couple of hours. We don't even know who the two silhouettes at the end were. There really is no excuse for such a stupid cliffhanger ending.
Oh look, we will make a second season, so you don't need an ending for the first one, because that is, how good writing works.
No, you really don't. Zombie apocalypse.
ZA is not the answer to everything. Are you saying you would be content if you died the first three minutes of the game and The End comes up? Of course you want to accomplish something in the game. If not, then why play?
Say what? Lee hasn't failed at all, quite the contrary. Throughout the game he has helped to shape Clem into the person she is at the end of season one. And for episode 5 specifically Lee's goal is to save Clementine from her kidnapper, which he does. Even as he is dying he is helping make sure that she escapes and lives on. Clem is pretty capable of taking care of herself at the end of season one and that is because of Lee.
Also, they really don't have to wrap everything up in season one when they know there's going to be a season two. Just saying.
Sure you have! You have in EVERY game! That is one of the core fundamentals of every game design, if you can't "win" the game, you don't need to play it.
She is all alone in some kind of waist land and the to figures could as well be two walkers.
And what is Clem to do? She probably has only a few bullets left, has nothing to drink or eat and is in the middle of a huge nothingness?
If those two would have been Omid and Christa, they could as well just show them.
For the journey, not the ending. Some of the greatest stories ever told have tragic, hopeless endings. Should Romeo and Juliet have lived happily ever after? Should Gatsby have won the love of his life? This was a hopeless story from the very beginning (if you didn't think so, you've never read or watched The Walking Dead) and the fact that Lee managed to find any redemption by the end is an accomplishment.
It's not a game you win.
Which is why I don't believe it is Omid and Christa, but that's another discussion entirely.
The thing is, we know season two is happening and with that final scene chances seem pretty good that they will continue Clem's story is some way, meaning that most--if not all--of your questions will be answered in time.
- the abrupt cut to credits w/o resolution.
- the vague post-credits sequence that found Clementine alone and wandering.
These felt less like artistic choices and more like servicing the franchise - cliffhangers and ambiguity where resolution and clarity were strongly needed. It's fine that there's going to be another season, but *this* storyline needed to be finished more conclusively than it was. That post-credits sequence felt like a "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine" ad for a Season Two pass.
Look, I loved the game and I will be playing the next season. However, Telltale made some flubs here. This first season was a risky proposition so I understand how and why it was constructed - a lot of shortcuts to generate similar/same results. I expect more from the next series, particularly as far as dovetailing choices and narrative branches go. And I certainly expect the story to be more fully self-contained. I didn't make the choices I did just to have a random ending of Clementine looking at two figures in the distance while she traipsed about the Grey Fields of Frotzen.
No, it's not. Gaming is a medium, not everything has to fit the same core set of rules. Not all movies, books and plays follow the same rules--why should games? To pander to the audience, serve an entitled desire for self-gratification?
Accomplishment does not necessarily mean 'WIN' accomplishment can mean everything from dying while defeating a villain, saving someone by sacrificing yourself, or just finishing the story (however it goes). YOU are the one that says that there doesn't need to be any accomplishment in the game because it's in a ZA, but that is total bullshit. You even acknowledge the fact that you accomplish something in the game, so your point is moot. Yes, you don't need a happy ending, but if you don't accomplish anything in the game, it's not really much of an interactive story-based game is it?
I would have prefered it so much more if there were several different "endings" to explore in this one and if Season 2 would then have started from scratch with different survivors. The way it is now, like someone already said, it doesn't even matter who went with you at the end of E04 since after 10 minutes you are back together with everyone else anyway.
It's perfectly fine that Lee dies, I thought so since E01 as well. But the ways to that ending could have been so different. I hear if I had cut off Lee's arm he still would have climbed ladders, made jumps to the next rooftops and fought zombie hordes.
So unfortunately, it's been like it always was: These decision points are meant to put your under the "stress" to make some decision with the illusion that it'll be important what you do, thus making this decision potentially difficult. That works fine if you play the game once. But if you take the "choices matter" statement seriously and go back to see what could have happened if you made another decision, you'll probably get disappointed soon.
Again, it depends on what you mean by win. If you mean attaining a happy ending then yes I agree with you. If it means finishing a game, or accomplishing things in the game to move the story forward, then yes it is necessary. Without it it's no longer a game.
Me too. I didn't want Clem to see Lee as a walker. It also taught her to be strong because there is no telling who else she could get close too and have no other option in killing.
I have a feeling she will be ok. I just hope she finds Christa and Omid. If not them two I do hope they are alright as well. Along with Molly.
However Vernon and those damn cancer patients I hope they drown and die a miserable agonizing death. I may have not agreed with the boat idea. But they didn't have to steal the boat and beat up Kenny.
...you defeated the villain, you saved someone by sacrificing yourself, you finished your story. By YOUR own criteria, you've accomplished a lot.
I DON'T think you need to accomplish something by the end of a game for it to be a good game, but I disagree that you haven't accomplished anything by the end of this one.