TWD: Michonne chapters are ridiculously short!
Just bought and played the first episode of Michonne, 'In Too Deep', and seriously? That's the length of the chapters in this? I got through one of them in less than 3 minutes!
I thought £12 for a 3 episode mini-series was pushing it as it was, and that was assuming the chapters would be the same length as the regular TWD series episodes. But this? I breezed through this in less than 45 minutes! The entire thing should have been ONE chapter, maybe two, max.
Well god damn, you can see where John Riccitiello's 'EA' influence has affected Telltale products, can't you...
Really shoddy, guys. Expected more from you.
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
Can you share the speedrun strats you used to get that blazing time? Or share the watch you used? I'm really interested in this.
I'm not defending Telltale - I'm just explaining their reasoning - but they think that people like shorter episodes they can play in one sitting so that the pacing of the story feels similar to a TV show or movie. This is a trend that was started after Telltale felt that the success of Season 1 validated that people want games that play like interactive TV shows or movies.
I agree the episode was short, but let's wait for future episodes before judging the length of the series as a whole.
if that is the case then why was tftb and got 2 hours long then? i was able to finish a season 1 episode in one sitting so telltale's reasoning seems werid to me.
For Wolf and Season 2, they deliberately stuck to 90 minute episodes, but after fan feedback, they loosened their restrictions some so that episodes can vary in time from two and a half hours to one hour and 45 minutes (with a few episodes being around 60 or 90 minutes). Most people also beat Season 1 episodes in one sitting so I agree the reasoning is weird, but that's just how Telltale interpreted it I guess. As I said above, I'm gonna wait for the other two episodes before judging the series length as a whole.
It was supposed to be an add on to Season 2 remember? Maybe the reason the episodes are shorter is because of that, to have once had them more or less match up with Season 2's episode length prevously.
I don't think that would matter too much; episode length is just something Telltale decides when they want to work on the pacing of the story. They could just as easily add things like puzzles or hub areas to pad out episode length, but they usually decide to focus on story/choices first and foremost since that is why people play their games first and foremost.
Contrary to what most people think, hubs/puzzles take less time to add than cut scenes, so the removal of hubs/puzzles is not a consequence of Telltale working on lots of projects after Season 1 - it's a deliberate choice by Telltale to make their games after Season 1 feel more cinematic. It takes more time to animate a scene, add voicing and cinematography, etc than it does to add a hub area or puzzle.
£12 for three episodes is £4 an episode, thats cheaper than normal really (for the main game) or the equivalent if you buy the season pass. I didnt mind the length as it had a decent flow and ending
o.o that isn't what I meant though. I mean it would've been out of place to have additional DLC episodes that had longer episode lengths than those of the episodes in the game they're attached to. Since Michonne has become it's own game now rather than DLC, Telltale might not have changed anything to make Michonne's episodes longer to fit like those of their more recent games, solely because of how the Michonne's story is structured. Adding more sections like hubs or more scenes that aren't needed might only just add unnecessary padding to the game and slow things down.
I know that wasn't what you meant, that was just my own tangent I went off on because other people like to scapegoat the removal of hubs/puzzles on Telltale working on more games at once, but I should have mentioned that upfront.
Yeah, I get the point you were getting at, but I don't think that would really matter. Irregardless if it was DLC, Telltale has since moved on from 90 minute episodes.
Its funny how people's playtimes keep getting shorter and shorter. Next it will be a half hour.
i can't wait to play minecraft myself to see how much of an exaggeration ep 2s length is.
I'm glad they've been making the episodes longer again, although nothing will be as short of the episodes in the first RE Revelations game Capcom did. Every 10 or 15 or so minutes it'd end an episode, and then you would have to put up with it recapping to you the previous segment you just played through along with the cutscenes you watched, for up to a minute, with the same music, every single time ;_; it was human torture.
Telltale should really put an effort into making all of their episodes longer. Their average episode length in recent games is an hour and a half. That doesn't really give a lot of time to develop characters, the plot and make choices seem present. I wouldn't mind the very short time limit of they added more episodes
Who knows, Telltale may end up following the 'X in 5 seconds' series:
enter link description here
I hope for longer episodes in the future.
No, you didn't. You took at least 80 minutes. That's a fact. People should stop exaggerating about this. And it was still the same length as a Season 2 Episode.
Tales and Thrones had two hour episodes, though. I think Minecraft's first episode was also two hours.
I think you're kind of over exaggerating on the whole 45 minutes part -but if you do have a screenshot to prove it, that would be appreciated. If, of course you're using Steam- For me and a lot of people it took 80 minutes to finish the game, which took the same amount of time to finish season 2. Although I will admit, some of that time was used to get the settings right.
Also Telltale have made games have longer episodes; take Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones as an example.
Episode 4 of Story Mode was also very close to 2 hours.
Let's wait for the other episodes. Thank god they won't wait forever.
That's rubbish though because movies can and have been over two hours long. It can't be the only reason.
Tell that to Telltale, I'm just the messenger boy explaining their reasoning. I'm not defending or criticizing it in this context, although I do like longer episodes just as you guys do.
I know it sounds like PR Euphemisms for cutting corners, but I've been following Telltale for years and I've read lots of interviews/articles/etc about them. That genuinely does sound right up their alley, and in some ways, they are right as typical movies are like 90 minutes. The problem lies moreso in that Telltale games are not movies (one sitting story in 90 minutes) or TV shows (20-45 minute stories aired at predictable intervals in a very short timeframe), and that Telltale needs to assess how their games are unique compared to TV Shows and Movies in things such as cadence, since they have 5-6 monthly episodes instead of one 90 minute movie or however many 30 minute TV episodes to tell a story. Because Telltale has fewer episodes in a longer cadence, I agree that episodes need to be more beefy and self contained.
Likewise, the removal of puzzles/hubs genuinely are to help story pacing. Puzzles and hubs involve a little amount of work to add in - it's the addition of cutscenes, cinematography, voice acting, etc that results in more work for Telltale, and it's the first reason why people play their games. I also agree more puzzles and hubs are good if added to the story organically, but I can see why Telltale would think otherwise.
Yeah I know I was just adding on :P
Funny because I finished most Thrones episodes in an hour and 40. Actually the only episodes that were over two hours in Tales were the first and final episode I think
I bunny hopped through the entire episode in 10 minutes and 15 seconds
Can't be worse the minecraft ep2, finished that in 39m
Weird episodes 1,3,4,and 6 of Thrones were all just about 2 hours long with only episodes 2 hitting just over 90 minutes, and 5 at around 80.