One last time.... Did our choices actually matter?
Given the exclusion of actual multiple endings to the main plot, I'll say no.
TT had the chance but even with impending bankruptcy looming over them (they had to have sensed something during development), they still stuck to the same old tried formula.
Can't teach an old dog new tricks.
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No; they are an illusion.
S1 Clem/Kenny/Lilly/Omid/Christa/Molly live no matter what. Everyone else dies no matter what. No determinates - so for S1 - no, they don't l
S2
Clem/AJ/Bonnie/Mike/Arvo live no matter what. Everyone else dies no matter what. Kenny/Jane live or die based on your choices and determine where Clem and AJ end up - so for S2 - yes, they do.
S3
Clem/AJ/Javi/Eleanor live no matter what. Tripp/Ava/Badger die no matter what. Kate/Gabe/David/Joan/Clint/Max/ Lonnie/Conrad and live or die based on your choices - so for S3 - yes, they do.
S4
Clem/AJ/Aasim/Omar/Ruby/Willy live no matter what. Marlon/Brody/Mitch/Minerva/Abel die no matter what. Violet/Louis/Tenn/Lilly/James live or die based on you choices - so for S4 - yes they do.
So for every season after 1 - your choices matter and effect the ending.
Your choices matter
I think people just want to see a kind of Detroit become human style of choices mattering, though they actually had the money to pull of what they did. I wanted dozens of endings too, I wanted different episodes depending on previous episode choices instead of the exact same narrative, but realistically speaking it was just impossible for telltale to do with their budget
If they Detroit's budget - I'm certain Telltale would've done something similar with TWD
I only wish these things weren’t so damn expensive ?
I'll admit, Detroit has set the benchmark very very high in the department of having narrative choices and determinant branching.
By very high I mean actually the best video gaming has ever seen so far.
Bonnie can die though...
Some did some not but more on the latter, my only complaint is how u shape AJ and him behaving differently depending on how u build him up, still saves the day and still is the same AJ at the end of ep4, such a disappointment.
I'd say your choices do affect AJ's nuance. AJ continues to mention the little things you taught him from the 3 previous episodes. But yeah, disappointedly AJ saves the day regardless of how you tried to mold him and is still relatively the same person.
It would've been harsh and a truly dark walking dead moment if clem teaches every wrong for AJ only for him to leave her dead and if u taught him everything right he would save her but nope.
Nope and they had the chance to go all out on the endings and branch more this season so that's even worse,after Batman S2 they had 0 excuses
There were barely any variations, the way determinant characters were handled was pretty lazy. No "point" system instead every choices you made with AJ didn't really matter they just had some small impacts but the only one that really mattered was the one in the cave in EP4.
Anyone telling you that choices mattered this season have no idea what they're talking about.
And before some people go all warriors on my ass cause i could see that happening around here,no i'm not doing this just to complain but S1 did it better. It wasn't some Detroit's levels of choices mattering/stories branching but choices still "mattered" a hell of a lot more in Season 1.
S1 was just better at the illusion of choices,we had better interesting choices overall,more variations,if you kept a determinant character alive you had extra different scenes for them,Doug had some gadgets,Carley had the whole "you gotta tell your past to the others",Ben could give that rant to Kenny and step the fuck up.
The meat locker choice changed your relationship with Kenny or Lilly,Kenny would remember later what you did for him and his family during the game that's the "point" system,Clem could also decide for herself based on all the choices you made in the game whether she should kill Lee or leave him.
That's why Season 1 was praised,for a game made in 2012 from a small company this was fucking insane but after that they had the budget to branch more they had no excuses Batman S2 showed us they could do it if they wanted to,but they got lazy in the other seasons and also this one,they made "low budget" choices on purpose.
Fuck they couldn't even give us determinant endings like S2 had smh.
So yeah shit dog,when you don't innovate and just keep the same old shit formula people stop buying your games.
Bonnie is determinate actually.
Nope. As usual
I heard she can fall through the ice, but she climbs out the hole
Maybe batman season 2 is a bulk of the reason they ended up fucking themselves. Hmm?
Don't even know why they made the first one - no one asked for it did they?
Not at all.
Dude, come on, they had peanuts and buttons and their budget to begin with, it made 0 profit whatsoever, meaning that it lost money, and they still thought it was a good idea to make episode 5 split into 2 separate episodes, then following this, literally just 5 months after the final episode, and just a month after the final season, telltale just so happened to shut down. Come on, man, you’d be nuts to say that the batman game wasn’t a major playing factor in telltale’s shutdown. The amount of detail that went into it, on top of the fact that it made no money whatsoever?
It sold like shit because the other games they made fucking sucked ass.
They lost their entire reputation with ANF and GOTG and another shitty Minecraft season,but Batman S2 was actually good,it felt like Telltale was moving forward and going in the right path,they improved on everything the first game did.
if anything it's ANF who played a major factor in Telltale shutting down,it completely destroyed them,despite Batman S2 being good it was already too late.
If you think their games suck ass, then y are you on their forums? ? this is honestly getting to me now, you’re just here there has to be a reason despite the obvious fact that you hate the company. If I remember correctly, people though the Star Wars prequels “sucked ass” but episode 3 still sold better than the previous 2
Stop twisting my words around that's not what i'm saying,I'm talking about the other games they made at the time,all the mediocre games like ANF,Guardians of the Galaxy,Minecraft Story mode S2,they made too many games at the time,burned their entire market,and people got sick of Telltale of the same old formula and just stopped buying their games.
That's not the only reason for why they died though,there's Kevin Bruner,the shitty management the shitty marketing for their games blablabla,point is people should not blame Batman S2 for what happened to Telltale.
And i don't hate them,Batman S2's actually the game that gave me a lot of hope for the company,when i thought they were finally getting their shit together and improving,sadly i was wrong and after The Final Season ended and we also learned that Wolf S2 was going to be a dumpster fire it became clear to me that Telltale was never gonna change,and they were never going to make it.
Only if Clementine shoots the walkers.
Preach. They hated Jesus because he told them the truth.
Huh, I didn't know that
Tbh multiple endings wouldn't have worked well for the final episode, everyone would just get pissed and change their ending to the best one.
But yeah, a lot of the choices this season were either really easy to make or they didn't really have a huge effect. And like all Telltale games, you're most rewarded for making the savage choice. Compare sparing Lilly to killing Lilly in episode 4 and you'll know what I mean.
Now you do.
That's why they should've made the ending based on an accumulation of choices from all the episodes other games have done this,they could've done it here too.
You'd have to replay the other episodes to have a different ending it wouldn't be that easy.
Replay 'A New Frontier' or Michonne if you would like multiple endings, haha!
I'd rather die in a fire
Not funny.
Nope, just make the final choices all high stakes. That nullifies a "best ending".
The problem with that is players not understanding why their choices got them that ending or feeling misled by their choices
Sure, they'll all be high stakes but nobody is going to choose an ending where Clem dies over an ending where AJ dies. This happened with the finale with huge numbers of players restarting to they could save Louis/Violet and let Tenn die instead.
If we had to say what game killed Telltale that would be GOTG and Minecraft 2. Batman 2 sold pretty ass, but it did sell better than those 2 games. GOTG sales were so bad that its honestly kinda depressing that they made 4 more episodes. Minecraft 2 sold pretty similar. Batman 2 atleast sold better than those two.
That being said, Batman was far from helping telltale either, but just because they did that 2 episode episode 5 thing, that isnt why Telltale died. Telltale would have just died like a month later than when they did in reality.
Personally I think ANF is what killed Telltale. Telltale games were steadily selling less and less, but right after ANF all their games fucking plummeted in sales to the point where they didnt even barely break even, they were just losing money at a fast rate. ANF seemed to turn a lot of people off to Telltale as it was the last nail in the coffin of "none of this matters" and if its so obvious none of it matters, and story quality in general going way down, no one is going to buy their games anymore.
Wouldnt a good narrative be a narrative that isnt so obvious whats going to happen next? Point is you make the choice, see what the reaction is. You dont know where your choices are leading you in the end game.
And even after all thats said, thats why you make the ending based on something like what you taught AJ, you know, the point of the game and how it keeps going "AJ FUCKING LEARNS FROM YOU DUDE" but then clearly doesnt? Cant really feel "misled" in your ending if its based on what you taught AJ.
Would players choose an ending where Clem lives but literally every other Ericson character dies and she's all by herself with a stumpy leg?
I didn’t say that’s why they died, I said it played a part. And it did. It lost them money, and the 2 pieces of episode 5 thing that they did didn’t help with matters. Sure, it was cool, but was it really the right call? Pretty much every telltale game aside was twd season 1 and I think borderlands was it? (Correct me if I’m wrong) pretty much played a role in their downfall. It showed people that they were reusing the same forumula to the point where people began to get bored. There’s no doubt that Kevin Bruner was the biggest issue, but with or without him they games still wouldn’t sell all too well.
Agreed. It's pretty obvious what the "trust AJ" decision is telegraphing to you. If you can't figure that out and later on feel "wronged" you're sort of missing the point of playing a narrative-choice game where your decisions have consequences.
Most likely yes tbh
Still wouldn't be the "best ending" and no one who isn't a 12 year old would claim it as such just because Clem survives in it.