TWD:TFS Ep3 - AChicken's Impressions
Coming in with a last-minute save... it's A Chicken!!
Finished Episode 3. Oh boy oh boy do I not want this series to end. This season has been pretty great quality all around, having a good mix of Season 1 and Season 2 levels of pacing. This episode is a great penultimate episode. (Though I have to say I'm both disappointed and relieved that IGN didn't review this one. I'd have loved to see how low they rate this tense episode.)
Anyways, on to my thoughts of the episode:
- We start off with a great opening of characters mourning and lashing out -- as people normally do. Then a transition to an interrogation that harkens back to the good old days of TWAU. Ooooh this was a fun scene.
- Not only is this scene more grey and subdued in terms of how the interrogation is performed, there's a nice sympathetic angle to Abel they throw in as well. They humanised him in a great way -- giving him a fear of death and not brushing it off like any other crazy psycho we've seen in TWD.
- I honestly forgot about the whole "AJ Learns From You" mechanic when playing this episode, so I'm glad I didn't choose the obvious 'burn Abel and torture him for the information' angle. Man, it feels good to have the [illusion of the] ability to teach AJ things. I really don't want him to be a crazy killing survivor. This is John Doe all over again...
- The scene in which you have to distract the walkers long enough for James to get his mask was an interesting challenge. Don't harm the walkers. The one thing you've been thought to always kill and never simply avoid. I unfortunately couldn't do it. I had to kill a few.
- A Salt Lick appears! It used nostalgia! It's super effective!
- James' Farm gives off a lot of ANF Slaughterhouse vibes. Oh, what could have been... sighhh
- Ooh boy a 'Walker Lee' question popped up. Hooray for Season 1 choices tailoring some stuff in the Final Season!
- The whole walking through the Barn scene was both pretty creepy and then surprisingly beautiful. Great music, and just standing there having a silent moment of contemplation with the walkers... that was nice.
- Later, at the school, you're tasked with getting this pretty big coffee heater for Ruby. It's like the size of two fists. And what does Clem do? She stuff it in her MAGIC POCKETS. Man do I love those. Lee taught her well.
- The following scene with AJ talking about what to do if Clem becomes a zombie... NO. NOPE. NO SIR. I ABSTAIN FROM TALKING ABOUT THIS.
- Customizing the party was a cool detail. The added party game of guessing someone's psych file was nice.
- Louis' story about how he got in... wow. Not so nice. That's a pretty great way of subverting expectations on the guy. And they have him regret it though so it's fine now. He plays a nice somber piano moment. Cool, I guess.
- Then... HOLY CRAP LEE!! Didn't expect a flashback scene at this point in the season. Man, was this one cool. [Might I say, Lee looks real fine in the updated engine. He's quite the looker, more so than before, for sure.
- The flashback was a testament to how great Melissa Hutchison is as a voice actor and at playing Clementine. Just -- boom -- she switches into a younger, higher-pitched version of Clem and it's a real blast from the past. Wow.
- When getting to the boat, James now has an ominous talk about not letting AJ draw more blood. Man, this episode is really foreshadowing a lot of possible bad scenarios for the near future. Zombie Clem? Nope. Bloodthirsty AJ? Also nope.
- The texture of the zombie guts is gore-geous. Also horrifying to watch. Ew, so grotesque, yet so good-looking.
- If I were to summarise the raid scene in one word. Magnificent. The cinematography for it was really-well done. The ambiance of a small settlement torn apart in the background, very nice.
- And.. in the end... there's a REALLY tense scene with Crazy Lily in the Brig. Man, I was worried someone was going to die or get severely tortured. The latter partially occurred, but not at the extent I've heard It can get.
- And... we get an unsatisfying cliffhanger, IMO. Yeah bad stuff happened and I was yelling at the screen, but to cut the episode there after the explosion... ehhhh.
This was a great episode. I think I finished it in about 2 hours, maybe a bit more. So, Telltale's done a good job in keeping consistent quality and length. There were tense moments, great TWD grey moments, some nice gameplay challenges, some great callbacks, Thank You Skybound, and a penultimate episode that I think sets up a conclusion that will either go all out and be fantastic, or keep things a bit slow and at least be somewhat satisfying.
If I were any good at rating things I'd give this episode a 9.0. out of 10.
Can't wait to play Episode 4 tomorrow!
I don't want to finish TWD tomorrow!
Since I can't find the EP3 choices thread, I'll spoiler tag 'em here.
As for the collectibles, I only found one of them. The Beet-Nick. Where in the world are the other ones?! How do you get the windchimes? I scoured every available hub I was in, I'm sure. (maybe many of them are in the boat at the end. there seemed to be some branching paths, but I locked myself down one of them.)