The more I read about The Walking Dead as a franchise, the more I wonder if its basic premise is simply not suitable for or sustainable across a long-running series. I\'ve seen more or less the same complaints about the comic, the show, and the game.
\"By the end of the game, every person you tried to save is dead, your friends have abandoned you and got you shot and the only two people left are trying to kill each other right in front of you – a young girl.\"
Is it quietly emotional like Episode 5 of Season One? No. But I like that it isn\'t. Clementine has to watch two people she cares about (both of whom have the best and worst of intentions) tear each other apart, and decide what to do during and after. It\'s brutal and pointless, but that just makes it all the more powerful and frightening. It puts the player in Clementine\'s shoes.
\"The Walking Dead Season 2 doesn’t care about people.\"
Maybe to a point, but I\'d argue that\'s partially a consequence of being bigger in scope than Season 1 and having the player control a character with considerably less agency.
\"It introduces them so that it can kill them off for shock value.\" All I can say is, I don\'t really see it. Some saves turned out to be pointless, and that\'s a flaw, but I still feel that most of the deaths were given serious weight.
It doesn’t matter how much characterisation it has to undo or how many of your decisions it has to ignore, it just wants you to keep playing it and it never gives you a reason why.\"
The characterization stays consistent, as far as I can see, and I actually think it takes some decisions into account better than Season One, since you can choose from several very different endings.
The more I read about The Walking Dead as a franchise, the more I wonder if its basic premise is simply not suitable for or sustainable across a long-running series. I\'ve seen more or less the same complaints about the comic, the show, and the game.
I\'ve heard that as well. Don\'t know if I can call it a critique or just plan pointing out the flaw of telling a \"never ending\" zombie story. Personally I think you can keep telling different stories in The Walking Dead\'s world, but trying to follow the comic and tv show\'s repeating formula will wear people down.
Is it quietly emotional like Episode 5 of Season One? No. But I like that it isn\'t. Clementine has to watch two people she cares about (both of whom have the best and worst of intentions) tear each other apart, and decide what to do during and after. It\'s brutal and pointless, but that just makes it all the more powerful and frightening. It puts the player in Clementine\'s shoes.
I disagree that this is a good thing, and it ties right back into Tomwithnonumbers chief complaint of the characters being rewritten to suit the plot. Personally though, I\'m glad the option to kill Kenny was there.
Maybe to a point, but I\'d argue that\'s partially a consequence of being bigger in scope than Season 1 and having the player control a character with considerably less agency.
It\'s also a long standing issues with releasing the games in \"Episode\" format over a period of months. I\'d also like to point at the \"400 Days\"\" DLC for more proof that the episodic format cause the developers more problems with their characters than they have the ability to do justice.
All I can say is, I don\'t really see it. Some saves turned out to be pointless, and that\'s a flaw, but I still feel that most of the deaths were given serious weight.
I think Nick and Sarita\'s deaths were the only ones that didn\'t have weight to them. They both just \"die\" when you start Episode 4 and that\'s it.
The characterization stays consistent, as far as I can see, and I actually think it takes some decisions into account better than Season One, since you can choose from several very different endings.
I agree with the characters being consistent at least.
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Season 2 - Soulless, Vacant and Ugly; Duck Won't Remember This
I only watched the final scenes of The Walking Dead Season 2 because I was genuinely hoping there’d be an option to commit suicide.
There wasn’t, because screw you for trying to make choices in TWD 2.
The theme of the entire game is Clementine fighting against/trying to cope with the idea that every person might be a ticking time bomb only looking out for themselves who’ll only hurt you in the long run. The game looks at characters and says “Should you help them?”
By the end of the game, every person you tried to save is dead, your friends have abandoned you and got you shot and the only two people left are trying to kill each other right in front of you – a young girl.
The Walking Dead Season 2 doesn’t care about people. It introduces them so that it can kill them off for shock value. It doesn’t matter how much characterisation it has to undo or how many of your decisions it has to ignore, it just wants you to keep playing it and it never gives you a reason why.
It’s funny, before the last episode I would have told you it’s a bad game mechanically with very little intelligence, but with good enough writing that you don’t notice or even mind. The power of changing from a passive mediums “Does this character trust them?” to a games “Do ‘’you’’ trust them?” was almost enough to make you not realise how bad or lazy the game is, but the ending even spites you with that.
There are no real lasting choices you can make and it doesn’t even ‘’feel’’ like your decisions are going to make a difference. There’s not a single moment of mechanical ingenuity. There’s no scene where you have to divide rations amongst your group or where you can punch a man again and again until you realise you should’ve stopped. No-one treats you differently depending on what you say to them, no-one ‘remembers this’. TWD 2’s version is a conversation which goes “Do you remember when you [hit me/said you liked my hair]? You’re a great person”.
It even fails at being The Walking Simulator (Dead). The camera angles are awful, you can’t tell where the invisible walls are and the WASD is janky.