Clem? Is that really you?
I had to ask this question as Clem in the New Frontier has nearly nothing in common with Clem I remember. Playing 1st and 2nd season I had tried to make everything right and I did it for her. We haven’t stolen anything from “the bad guy” in first season, I haven’t stolen anything from Arvo (even when you, TTG, made Arvo acting like I did...) and, mostly important, I did everything to avoid a situation when Clem would have to kill someone (human) and she didn’t have to (as Lee I killed the kidnaper, as Clem I did not kill Kenny or Jane). After 2nd season ending and its final song (“alive inside”), I thought that TWD series from you is all about being alive in the dead world (there are my thoughts about it - being a human)
After that all, the first thing Clem do in a New Frontier is a try of robbing Javi, and few hours later she kills a man in cold blood and lie about what happened. Bravo - it’s destroying my experience form 1st and 2nd season...
Instead of retrospections as the connection to 2nd season (which are weird as we play Javi... and we get inside Clem head...), I would love to see Clem as my Clem (different Clem for each player in situation like I’ve mentioned above). Aren’t games about that - making experience, and through that you would make an amazing, narrative experience for each player, especially when players’ choices in 1st and 2nd seasons weren’t about the outcome (changing the story, changing the endings...), but about the expression (by decisions I was able to create my Clem - in my mind)? Presenting Clem in such different way is dangerous to expression experience form 1st and 2nd seasons (I have had an image of Clem in my head - created by my choices, but now you are sending me massage, that my choices were not important at all). Not to mention how “great” those retrospections are... (Kenny’s death... really, you haven’t better ideas?).
From the Clem part we can easily step into “Difficult” choices part
How can I decide if I should kill Conrad or “betray” Clem. It is not decision at all. In 1st and 2nd season we do everything to protect Clem, and for all players it works as internalized mechanism - even when it would be reasonable to “betray”, we still, subconsciously, protect her. She is still much more important to us than Gabriel. Just look at stats - more than 90% players killed Conrad. As the walking dead series used to be about difficult choices... now it is not.
It all shows the discrepancy of A New Frontier. We play as Javi, but he and his family are not the ones we care about. That person is Clem, but, again, she is different - not made from our choices from 1st and 2nd season.
Not to mention other problems:
- some really bad dialogs;
- some logical issues:
- some matrix stufffff... Jesus Christ and really bad scene.
That wall above... it is something I have written after two episodes.
Now - after playing entire “A New Frontier” - nothing changes. That shows how important part of every experience is the subject. The game (object of the experience) can be experienced in different ways by each player (subject of the experience), but in “A new frontier” there are only two ways. If you have played the 1st & 2nd seasons, and Clem is important to you - experiencing A new Frontier will be very hard for you. If you haven’t played 1st and 2nd seasons or, somehow, there is no bond between you and Clem (or your Clem is the Clem the creators of A New Frontier meant to be), you probably enjoy A new Frontier.
Now I'm asking myself if I would like to play next season...
Comments
You Have Right! **In Season 1&2 She Was Good Little Girl, If You Remember When In Season 1 In Ep.1 On Hersel's Farm She Say It Smells Like... You Can Say S___ And She Say That Is Swear, But In Season 3 She Once Say F___ New Frontier **
God forbid she actually grows up and doesnt stay a mini Lee forever
No matter what your choices were, what happened to Clem was too hard for her (Kenny and Jane death and other people she loved) and she got colder, nothing to do! This is Clementine!
Well she's a teenager. Teenagers swear. A lot. All the time.
Yeah, but making Clementine's personality actually different would be way too costly. Although, they didn't even do her 1 personality right. So criticise Telltale all you want.
It was funny in the first episode seeing everybody siding with Clementine, making the morally wrong choice just to side with Clementine. Even though Clementine is an important character to me I decided not to side with them as it makes no sense for Javier to make some of those decisions.
Funny or not, still bad design - there weren't such one sided choices in the series till A new Freontier. Even when it makes no sense for Javier, it makes sense for 90% of players...
Making Clem right wouldn’t be that costly as she isn’t so much in that story and it could be achieved by some small things (and by avoiding mistakes - closing her in the only right personality). But here we are at the question mark - should Clem have been in that story or maybe she deserved to continue her story? For me A new Frontier is not a 3rd season - it is Javier story. Real 3rd season would be about Clem, Kenny, Jane, and that 90% shows why it should be that way.