Things i didn't Like about S2E1/How to improve the game
First of all, i did enjoy playing episode 1. I'm gonna critizise some stuff that I (and probably some of you aswell) didn't like about it. It just has to be said (probably has been already, but i didn't find many discussions about it)
I just want to get this off my heart because i like the game so much and i don't want season 2 to be any less enjoyable than season 1
There is this thing about the gameplay time.
It took me barely 1 and a half hour to finish playing it. That might be the most disappointing thing about the episode. For example, S1E2 was almost 1 hour longer than this one.
And it was wayyy too easy. Other than in the QTE's (which i think are awesome btw) you literally can't fail. The puzzles were just so easy. Every 10year old could figure them out. The whole sneaking part just cannot go wrong. You can get the rags from Alvin, so that makes maybe 1 different way, but for example you can listen as long as you like to the group at the house meeting. They just wont spot you. When you get the needle in the bathroom and you simply fail to hide (i don't know how you can fail at that) Rebecca will just be talked off and will not enter the bathroom anyway. So it is pretty pointless. But you will probably only realize this when you play it the second time, because at the first time I tried to play as good as I can. But when I replayed it, huge disappointment. They could've spotted you, kept you in the house then, asking you questions, why you broke in or just another different path from there, but no. Again it doesn't matter because you can't fail.
And the last thing that bothered me, but not much can be done about that, were the weird plot decisions by telltale. Killing off Omid in the first scene was, of course a hell of an intro and a very well acted scene. But I'm always asking me.. Was it worth it ? Wouldn't it have been cooler if you went along with Omid and Christa and faced all the shit together ? Dealing with the baby and learn even more about the 2 characters of Season 1 that we dont know that much about.
It felt like they did all this to make a time skip possible, so we see how clem got older and tougher.
Until now there are no Charecters of S1 with us in the game. Well i know that could change, despite the things we've seen in episode 2's preview. But It would be cool to have characters survive thoughout multiple seasons so that the bond to them gets even stronger. It will make up for really deep and detailed well written characters which we would fear to lose all the time. I hope they will make something like this.
On the other side there are these very well made scenes with the dog and stitching clems arm and so on.
These were really intense and you could just feel a bit how clementine felt in these situations. The talk with Luke that night was...heartbreaking for me. I almost cried when clem mentioned Lee, loosing both Parents and her best friend. I feel really sorry for what clem has been though.
That was indeed very well made but considering the other facts that i've mentioned..well not one of the better episodes. I'd give it a 7/10 and not all these exaggerated ratings like 9s or 10s. We have to be honest here. If we just ignore all that stuff in blind love for the game, it isn't gonna improve.
So please don't hate me for my opinion, this is just a big fan that is worried about his favorite franchise. That it is not going to be as good as it used to.
Comments
yeah most of this is really disapointing but maybe they gonna make the next one better i hope so
I think the main thing I realized in retrospect was that these telltale games don't have real choice. All of the choices are illusions, the story is going to end the same way whether you save person x or y. But this has always been the case. For example, Hershel would get mad and kick you out whether you tried to save his son or not.
But from a game developer's perspective, this makes sense. It would be way too much work to make all the different story branches interesting and complicated. That's why all the branches always grow back towards the main roots.
Nevertheless I enjoy the game immensely.
That was what bothered me the most in season1, but it was still a great game. I thought they would make the decisions at least a LITTLE more meaningful. But the Carley/Doug thing was good though. More of that Telltale ! That would be awesome.
I'm really sick of people thinking this is a "Choose your own story" game; it's not, and they make that clear at the beginning: "The game adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play". It's not about how the story ends up, its how the story is played through and how the other survivors treat you throughout that story, NOT about changing the story itself.
Remember this is only episode 1 of 5 so any decisions we make in e1 could be meaningful later on in the game as we don't know the significance of choosing Nick over Pete yet, hopefully they do make other episodes longer than this one and add a little more branching to the story.
I agree with your first point, Chapter 1 Season 2 did seem a little shorter than chapters from Season 1. Granted I take that assessment with grain of salts because I would always like to see this games chapters last another hour or two.
As for being too easy I honestly didn't think it was any more or less challenging than the previous installments. The puzzles always take a back seat to player decisions, dialog, and atmosphere anyway. In fairness though I don't usually try to die/fail to see the effect so I may be speaking with ignorance.
Your final point I largely disagree with. I thought killing off Omar was a great (if horrible/tragic) way to kick off Season Two. When we see Christa fall over Omid's lifeless corpse and the title pulls up I swear I could almost hear the Telltale staff shouting "Welcome Back! Life is still horrible!" and that's why I think they had it go down that way. They wanted to knock us down before we even got out of the gate. We see Clementine with her newer foster parents and it looks like things are starting to settle into a new 'normal'. Yet not five minutes later Omid is murdered by a scared teenage punk who doesn't even know what the f*ck she is doing. That is essence of TWD, senseless death and the pain and fear that accompanies that loss. Obviously it is a tightrope act, if they kill off too many characters we care about too quickly they risk losing our interest/investment, but I believe at the end of the day TWD is a story that should produce more tears than smiles from its audience.
Thats what they tell you all the time, i do have realized that afterwards. I dont have that much of a problem with it anymore as long as the story is good. And i have to say choices in S1 did have an impact, Kenny/Lilly, Doug/Carley. I still think something like "Oh you didnt steal the food ? Well too bad i hate you anyway" is really disappointing. They could have made the stranger feel sorry for you or something and not making him resist in the way he did. But enough of that.
Yeah i was referring to Season 1
The one complaint I have with this episode is the ending which is why I think many people are unhappy with it.
For one it ends really abruptly out of no where with no real conclusion, but also that entie scene the logic seems to vanish. Pete who preachs gun safety only has two bullets and despite him being the one to say watch out for the dead, he gets bit. Pete then just stands there despite being on the wrong side of the river and out of ammo instead of hopping back to clem and Nick.
The rest of the episode I felt was really good, for one I felt they fixed the problem in season 1 where it felt weird to be the bad guy, here clem can choose to be nastyish and it dosnt feel out of place.
To be fair people say this about every episode since S1 ep2, people always say the previous work was better. S1 ep 3 was too dark, ep 4 too action packed etc. Not to say I dont think there should be criticism there should be however aside from the length and what I said about the ending I didnt feel it was poor.
I can't stand apologists, they are the reason why games turn to shit! They're blind fans that'll buy and praise the game even if it where a pile of soggy dog shit. We need to stay on the devs, make sure they don't sacrifice quality.
I'm glad that someone is more critical. I want this game to be great, but the first episode was a bit of a disappointment. There really should be more threads like this.
About the Rebecca thing... if she get's talked off, doesn't that mean that Clem doesn't learn about her secret?
wut ? ep3 was my favorite one
It can't be too dark in TWD. And episode 2 was clearly better than episode 1
I hope they make the next one better. I think it shoulda've been possible to be caught in the house, so that the little fear that I felt while sneaing in would be more realistic.
One thing that may improve the game's length is more "hubs". In The Walking Dead Season 1, the drug store was considered a hub. I would have liked to see the house becoming a hub area right after Clementine was done eating, so she can explore a bit and discover things before moving on to the river scene rather than just going straight to it. That would add fifteen maybe twenty minutes to the clock, maybe more.
I'm not saying it was 100% hated it, Just that every episode there are several who dont like it and always prefer the earlier material it happens in most things. Often it is justified but here I'm not sure, its only been one episode.
For example after episode 4 loads of people disliked and said it was nothing compared to episode 3 but after episode 3 was released many people said they despised the episode (mainly due to a certain characters death). However now both of these episodes are loved, time is a great healer (or people who complain dont stick around maybe)
Yep, you can't ask her about the baby afterwards. Which is an example of the better stuff in this episode. Some people here might not know that it might not be Alvins baby
This
I bet if Rebecca HAD found her, she'd shoot and ask questions later.
Lets see if i will get to love episode 1 of season 2 as much as the other ones ^^ That would be great although my opinion is pretty settled on this one
I think its mostly down to personal preference, When you see a thread asking what you favorite episode was in order there is usually a wide verity of answers depending on that that person liked or hated about a episode.
is awesome, I know. :b
I agree i thought this episode lacked the choice of dialogue options, Even down at the river you are given the option to talk to Pete and Nick but all they do is tell you to look around, That would have been the perfect opportunity to be able to learn a little more about the characters to help you choose between Nick and Pete as one could prove to be more useful than the other in the long run (depending if Pete would survive the amputation).
I was unaware that Season 1 was hard or that these games are supposed to be difficult.
Well, a good challenge always makes you willing to accomplish something. The puzzles in Season 1 were challenging enough to keep me engaged, but always with a possibility of failure, but not mind-numbingly difficult.
1+ on difficulty, the game should be dark souls hard.
Regardless, I'm satisfied on where the series is heading.
Agree completely with OP,and they could learn a few things from player's reactions to the episode so far.
Unfortunately TT doesn't even read this forum let alone take feedback from the fans.
A dark souls difficulty QTE? I think not.
I can't remember anything I'd call a "puzzle" in season 1 other than the mind bogglingly stupid hotel sequence in episode 1. Everything else was just as straightforward as S2.
Distracting walkers in ep1, distracting andy ep2, swing in ep2, the chalk trail ep3, train in ep3. I know those were not that hard, but they are more than "find fuel to add to the fire" finds log 2feet nexto the fire
Oh yeah, that's a good point actually. Episode 1 had the drug store, episode 2 had the dairy through several points of the game and episode 4 had the crawford school, and these did extend the length because more dialogue options popped out as you went along, and you had some side stuff to do like giving the energy bars, or fixing the swing, or accessing that secret locker, these hubs definitely added to the game. They should do something like that with the house.
Ep 4 also had the mansion
lee in the sewers with the handles and the water thingies
I don't believe that. I think TT takes interest in what their players have to say.
I thought the episode went along great. No complaints with the story line at all. Although I certainly understand where you are coming from I do dis-agree with some.
You say "its too easy" but I strongly think its very difficult if near impossible to make a "point-and-click" game difficult. The more difficult it becomes the more frustrating it is. . . not necessarily challenging. For example I remember in Episode 3 last year when you were finding out who stole the supplies, I didn't know you could leave the camp to go look in the sewer/wall for a long time which left me just walking around. Wasn't that fun and I know others can relate.
I think it was necessary to kill of Omid and ditch Christa because you are starting a whole new season with a whole new storyline. I don't think keeping them around would have benefitted the storyline. And i love the way they killed Omid, even though he was my favorite character, it just jumped right back into the tragedy after the time off.
^ lol no.
The Larry situation is direct evidence of that.
Edit: "That" being they do listen.
I'm usually one to voice my disagreement with most people's complaints about the game, but in this case, I actually agree with a lot of what you said. The puzzles were too simplified and the fact that failing a bunch of the button prompts didn't result in anything was disappointing.
I'm also not a fan of the "you can select the choice, sure, but don't expect us to go through with it" thing that they've been implementing. [Give Hat], [Burn Photo], [...] when telling Luke about Lee. Sure, you can select all of these, but then the game doesn't follow through with it. If it's not an action that the character would follow through on, it shouldn't be an option in the game!
To end on a positive note, though, my favorite gameplay moment so far was the "Who will you appeal to?" sequence. I thought the execution here was ingenious because there were "good" and "bad" outcomes (Pete and Alvin will change their mind to offer stronger support for you, Nick and Rebecca still oppose you no matter what, Luke was already on your side, and Carlos doesn't show any change at all), there was no clear "right" choice and any choice you made could be justified. More of these kind of sequences would be greatly appreciated.
I totally agree with your last statement, and didn't even realize it until you brought it up! Everyone choice felt like it had meaning and they all felt poignant after you chose. Or I guess they all felt poignant, since I have only done that part 3 times. (Carlos, Luke, and Rebecca)
Technically, using the log there might actually be considered "failing" since it doesn't really get the fire going. It only shows the fire growing if you burn the drawing of Kenny's family. But it still doesn't make much sense as a puzzle since any sane person would go "well, I'll try the log first and if that doesn't work, I'll use the drawing (and if that doesn't work, I guess I'm not eating tonight because I'm sure as fuck not burning that photo of Lee)"