My thoughts on A New Frontier (Spoilers)
Hello everyone.
So last week I finally got around to playing through TWD A New Frontier, and for the first time ever, it was after the entire Season had been released. Normally I play Telltale seasons either at the very beginning of release or a couple of Episodes in if I've been too busy to get around to them, I like the waiting game you see... I admit playing straight through all 5 episodes is great, but I missed the waiting side of things.
Anyway, here's a (long) summary of what I thought of this Season.
Now going in to this I did have an idea of how the Season would go down; all over the place I saw comments about Clementine only being playable in flashbacks etc. nothing that would spoil the game per se, but enough to make me have my doubts so I was actually not too excited going into Episode 1. Boy was in for a surprise.
I REALLY liked this Season! In my opinion, it's better than Season 2 by far and possibly beats out Season 1 as well. The characters, the story, the action, the emotions, the choices... Everything worked for me.
The overall plot was pretty good, even if it did all start from one misunderstanding that bot blown way out of proportion; and having to think to myself "Do I really want to help New Richmond or do I just leave and not make it my problem seeing as they've caused me so much grief?" was a nice touch to the story.
The characters were much better this time around, far fewer Asshole characters than Season 2. Javier is an easily likable character, a lot like Lee imo, and I enjoyed discovering his past and shaping how he acted in the present. Kate was a character I didn't like at first (smoking weed at that time? Seriously?) but after we see her again I started to like her more and more to the point that while I originally didn't have Javi seek a romance with her (that "Kiss" option felt awkward to me, plus I was hoping Javi and Eleanor could have a romance) I really wanted to see the 2 of them survive and try for a relationship.
David is a fucking asshole and throughout the whole Season I rarely gave him any benefit of the doubt. I attacked him whenever I could, I disagreed with him 99% of the time and I wanted him to die as quickly as possible. How am I supposed to like this main character if he acts like a dick the whole time? Gabe is a character that is either "hate him or tolerate him" but honestly, I thought he was an ok character. He's young! He's going to make mistakes and act like a stroppy shithead at times. The only time I really didn't like Gabe was when he told Tripp that I shot Conrad, that made me dislike him for a while, but in the end his apology made me forgive him (somewhat)
Now Clementine. To be honest, it was strange to see her act like a lone-wolf-Daryl-Dixon-type character, but it quickly grew on me. In some ways I liked having Clem be a NPC this time around, because interacting with her from the outside still meant I could still shape her character in some ways. If any of you were wondering, My Clem was A Liberated Warrior who went after Gabe while I stayed with Kate to help Richmond. My choices were refusing Ava's offer, injecting AJ and obeying the rules. Also my S2 flashback was the "Clem and AJ alone" one, when it should have been "Clem and AJ at Wellington"
Actually this is a good way to wrap this up, things I didn't like about the Season:
For a start, even though I imported me S2 save file, I still got the wrong ending flashback. I didn't realise it until after I finished the Season and did some reading; BUT, at least I still got what could be considered the "best ending" with Kate and Gabe still alive, and David dead.
The game didn't lag too much, but it did crash on me in the middle of Season 3 (most likely my PS4 Pro was overheating by that point)
At first I didn't like that Telltale put in another forced romance (I really wanted Javi and Eleanor to be a thing); but over time I grew to like Kate and agreed that she and Javi being together for 4 years must've sparked something in this apocalyptic world.
Jesus. Yep, I felt that Jesus' inclusion in the Season was unnecessary. Don't get me wrong, Jesus is an awesome character and I really like that he was around when he was, but his inclusion felt too much like fanservice as opposed to being there for a much better reason. Plus, why is he "representing" the Kingdom? He's from the Hilltop...
Lastly... the final ending. What the fuck man? You get my hopes up about finding AJ and then you leave with a "Clementine's story will continue" message? Fucking hell... That pissed me off. But S4 is coming out next year so I suppose I can't be too mad.
All in all, great Season, and I look forward to playing through it again.