Issues with Season 2, post Episode 3
I am a usual critic on this board and I'll continue to be one. I enjoyed the new episode, and I TellTale does the series justice, but there are lingering trends and issues in the development of the game that I think need to be addressed.
1. The writers are foregoing character choice and story branching in favor of a far more linear model which ignores player choice and seems rushed. This is a double-edged sword; it allows them to complete a story and polish it further rather than spend lots of time coming up with sufficient branching for story, characters, and decisions. Overall, Season 2 feels more polished. However, it takes choice and freedom away from the players and creates a more streamlined experience that feels more like we're watching things and occasionally inserting commentary rather than actually controlling the character and maneuvering through an interactive and dynamic world. In short, it feels like I'm playing a visual novel. Furthermore, lots of things are brought up and never explored again, forcing us to complete the story when we could and should have the chance to inquire further. This is not true in every case - I was very happy that the practice of smearing is being used by TellTale. However, there are a lot more plot holes and inconsistencies that in Season 2 and the problem hasn't gotten any better. It feels like we get very tasty morsels, but not a full meal.
2. Character development is totally stagnant because we get absolutely no time with other characters. The many time skips make it worse. Jumping 6 months, then 16 months in S2E1 was a real slap in the face. All you can do is infer that Clem was stuck with Christa, who is a complete sad sack without Omid. You learn next to nothing about the 2 years they spent together, which basically feels like "we're not going to show you how this character developed for two years because reasons." Then we get a 5 day timeskip in S2E2, when we had the perfect chance to develop the new Season 2 characters - a chance that the writers decided to forego. I understand if the writers want to show more than do, but it is hard for me to feel bad about Pete, Walter, Alvin, Nick, or Carlos getting killed when they are so underdeveloped. Pete is the mentor type, Walter is a super nice guy, Alvin is indecisive, Nick is basically a teenager in an adult's body, and Carlos just wants to keep his daughter safe and sheltered. People like me still have questions. Who is are these people, really? What about Carver? How did the community go to wrong? What happened to the 400 Days characters? What is the relationship between Carver and Luke? Other than that, there is nothing behind them. We don't even get to learn about Carver at all, leaving him as a cookie-cutter antagonist with brutish tendencies. A good antagonist is one which can be understood beyond their antagonistic behavior. These are just a few things that bother me. We are not given any downtime in the story to pursue these things, and it is very deliberate.
3. There is almost no gameplay anymore. The "puzzles" on Season 2 are painfully bad; when turning off the wind turbine was "take key, put it in the slot, and press the button," I felt like TellTale was handing me blocks to fit through a slot like I was a toddler. We could have sequences where we have to forage, to actually do the things a person is required to do in order to survive the depicted situations, but it seems that the team is deciding to focus everything on the storyline they have already prepared. Would everyone find it interesting to have mini-games involving hunting, preparing items, building fortifications, or just daily chores? No, probably not, and that would probably not be good if it became prominent, but it certainly helps portray the setting. Even the puzzles and content other than dialogue in Season 1 was pretty light and become bare bones in the later episodes, but it helped develop the setting and allow us to piece together a clearer picture. And, for curious people like me, we are interested in immersing ourselves in the setting as well as going through the story. The video game medium is all about interactivity and Season 2 has been falling very short of that.
1. The writers are foregoing character choice and story branching in favor of a far more linear model which ignores player choice and seems rushed. This is a double-edged sword; it allows them to complete a story and polish it further rather than spend lots of time coming up with sufficient branching for story, characters, and decisions. Overall, Season 2 feels more polished. However, it takes choice and freedom away from the players and creates a more streamlined experience that feels more like we're watching things and occasionally inserting commentary rather than actually controlling the character and maneuvering through an interactive and dynamic world. In short, it feels like I'm playing a visual novel. Furthermore, lots of things are brought up and never explored again, forcing us to complete the story when we could and should have the chance to inquire further. This is not true in every case - I was very happy that the practice of smearing is being used by TellTale. However, there are a lot more plot holes and inconsistencies that in Season 2 and the problem hasn't gotten any better. It feels like we get very tasty morsels, but not a full meal.
2. Character development is totally stagnant because we get absolutely no time with other characters. The many time skips make it worse. Jumping 6 months, then 16 months in S2E1 was a real slap in the face. All you can do is infer that Clem was stuck with Christa, who is a complete sad sack without Omid. You learn next to nothing about the 2 years they spent together, which basically feels like "we're not going to show you how this character developed for two years because reasons." Then we get a 5 day timeskip in S2E2, when we had the perfect chance to develop the new Season 2 characters - a chance that the writers decided to forego. I understand if the writers want to show more than do, but it is hard for me to feel bad about Pete, Walter, Alvin, Nick, or Carlos getting killed when they are so underdeveloped. Pete is the mentor type, Walter is a super nice guy, Alvin is indecisive, Nick is basically a teenager in an adult's body, and Carlos just wants to keep his daughter safe and sheltered. People like me still have questions. Who is are these people, really? What about Carver? How did the community go to wrong? What happened to the 400 Days characters? What is the relationship between Carver and Luke? Other than that, there is nothing behind them. We don't even get to learn about Carver at all, leaving him as a cookie-cutter antagonist with brutish tendencies. A good antagonist is one which can be understood beyond their antagonistic behavior. These are just a few things that bother me. We are not given any downtime in the story to pursue these things, and it is very deliberate.
3. There is almost no gameplay anymore. The "puzzles" on Season 2 are painfully bad; when turning off the wind turbine was "take key, put it in the slot, and press the button," I felt like TellTale was handing me blocks to fit through a slot like I was a toddler. We could have sequences where we have to forage, to actually do the things a person is required to do in order to survive the depicted situations, but it seems that the team is deciding to focus everything on the storyline they have already prepared. Would everyone find it interesting to have mini-games involving hunting, preparing items, building fortifications, or just daily chores? No, probably not, and that would probably not be good if it became prominent, but it certainly helps portray the setting. Even the puzzles and content other than dialogue in Season 1 was pretty light and become bare bones in the later episodes, but it helped develop the setting and allow us to piece together a clearer picture. And, for curious people like me, we are interested in immersing ourselves in the setting as well as going through the story. The video game medium is all about interactivity and Season 2 has been falling very short of that.
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Comments
luke's arrival and explanation felt like a repeat of kenny's "i got lucky and my mustache kept me safe through savannah."
then we got items that i expected to get some use out of. the cd from episode 2, bein used over the PA, the watch, the water bottle, the picture/drawing. near as i could tell, all those were taken or lost and not retrieved.
the incident where u go lookin for luke to find him gone was another part that bugged me. you can try to leave, and get caught by troy, or u can stay inside and get caught immediately when he enters, even if he can't actually see you. bein able to hide the locker thing in the back would have been nice, and then try sneakin back to bonnie, and have sum1 come for clem to bring her back for carver's walkie talkie hunt. there's a few potential branches they could have gone down to give u atleast some illusion of choice and control. they're really missing these opportunities, tho.