Disappointed in the ending...
So, I'd like to start by saying that overall? The episode wasn't bad. P.S., SPOILER ALERT!
I can't really complain too much as to the episode itself, as it was definitely on par with some of the other episodes... but for an ending, I feel this fell WAY short. Now before you say "there will be other seasons," I know. There probably will be. Then there's also a chance that there wont be.
However...
for a season finale, this episode was EXTREMELY disappointing. First of all, the old builders seemed... boring and one dimensional. Typical "crazy wacky" villains that lack any sort of depth. The characters were... well... boring. And predictable. The plot was boring, and predictable. I knew from the start that this would be the same old "fight to get out, while saving the dimension at the same time" type episode. Yet, in a season finale, one grows to expect there to be some sort of plot twists or surprises. Nope, just a typical episode where you save yet another dimension from some villains who are not so special. No tragedy, no real drama, no real character development (for the new characters), a whole lot of nothing.
Next, I feel as though there wasn't much payoff at all. Not that you'd expect from a season finale, anyway. The closest thing I can think of to getting any sort of "payoff" in the entire episode is the fact that you are reunited with Axel and Olivia, and you get a "new member" of your party. Speaking of that new member... am I the only one that didn't even really want her? In the end, I let her join to see where it goes... but trust me, I was hugely reluctant. I mean, I don't even LIKE that character. The fact that she looks like an even more butch Rosie O'Donnell was the first major setback. Call me an ass, if you want, but I can't get over that fact. Especially not after Jessie noted the "smell" i.e., Em's body odor. Second, after going so many episodes without Axel and Olivia, I expected there to be SOME sort of dramatic reunion. Nope, somehow they're just randomly captured by the "oh so scary" villain and that's that. You're back together again. Which, to me seemed almost completely unnecessary considering you were literally about to return to your realm anyway.
Anyway, before I ramble too much, I'm just going to make a quick checklist of why I thought this was a poor ending to a GREAT series(season).
- Little to no payoff.
- No Jesse/Petra romance.
- No dramatic reunion with Axel and Olivia.
- Poorly developed "new villains" that were very one dimensional, and not in any way "intimidating" or interesting at all.
- No tragedy. No real drama. No exciting plot twists.
- No truly interesting new characters.
- A new member of your party that you (likely) hardly even actually wanted in your party. I would've preferred the blonde girl tbh.
- A very, very anti-climactic ending.
- No impactful choices or tough decisions.
Feel free to comment below and let me know what you thought of the episode and if you agree/disagree.
Comments
I forgot to include this in my original post(idk why we can't edit original posts, so, apologies for the double post), but, overall I'd rate the episode a 3.5/5.0 at best. There were episodes that were WAY stronger, and considering this was the season finale, that's quite surprising and disappointing to say the least. This just felt... completely rushed.
I agree with a good bit of what you said. I'm really surprised the choices barely affected anything in the adventure pass, seeing as they were all mostly self contained. They could have done something like Episode 5 where completely different scenes and events happen depending on what you choose, that should be what a choice based game is all about. Seriously, this is choice based and there's barely any choices that affect anything after Episode 5. The whole thing just felt rushed, which is really disappointing. As Miyamoto once said:
The adventure pass just went way down in terms of quality because of this, and I'd like to mention that my favorite episode which had all these choices and very little glitches like FPS drops, characters having poker faces and talk without opening their mouths was Episode 5, which took the longest to come out. But it was the most well thought out episode. Aiden didn't feel like a cliché, he felt like a villain I had never seen before. It just annoys me that there was so much potential but in the end it felt rushed and cliché. And it pains me to say that, I don't want to dislike the adventure pass, but I'm just being honest.
Also the soundtrack and intro weren't terribly memorable / good. Even though they were just riding horses in Episode 4's intro I still found it more entertaining, with the catchy tune and the dialogue:
Sure, the adventure pass has it's moments, but it's just over shadowed by the mediocrity of the other things.
Going through your list:
...and that's a bad thing (and/or necessary for the episode) how? This new trend of people wanting all Telltale games to have romance just because Tales did is becoming kind of annoying in my opinion. If it's natural to the story and actually set up, that is fine, but I dislike the trend that people want to all of a sudden pair up different characters just because why not. I don't want Telltale to turn all of their games into romance simulators just to appeal to a small niche of players (although its fine if it actually has a point in the story, the characters actually do have chemistry, and they would have inserted the romance anyways even if they ignored fan service).
Thank god there wasn't a Jesse/Petra romance.
That's the real crime here, how dare Telltale not give us any sort of Ivor x Lava scenes. Ever since Episode 5, this ship has been continuously and unfairly ignored, despite the fact that those two showed obvious chemistry together. Iva (or Lavor) is the greatest ship of all time, and the fact that there was nothing makes this episode an automatic 0/10.
Aw come on - If you have Ivor in the lava race with you I feel like you get a GREAT Lavor moment.
100% agree with all of this!
Him saying he enjoys lava is simply just not enough to satisfy my shipping needs. How come we never got a scene where Ivor could put a flower in lava's hair huh? Answer me that.
Great work on the episode and the series by the way, you and the whole team did a great job.
How do we know that the flower didn't just melt in the lava sometime off-camera?
Why do people want Jetra? KIDS PLAY THIS GAME
And Lukesse needs to happen, then there's the whole Soren thing, then The Blaze rods didn't return either, it is their home too but I guess I understand if they chose 'Sky City' to be their home, I still wanted to see them again and have their character develop a bit more.
Oh my god.
Iva is Ivor and lava's daughter. This explains so much.
ADVENTURE
I actually found a legit review that complained there was no Jetra/Lukesse. What the fuck...
Terrible.
[removed]
HEY HOSE THE FUNNY IDIOT WHO DELETED MY COMMENT
I DARE YOU FOR THAT AGAIN
A mod most likely...And you really shouldn't talk back to them
you think they scare me
If they gonna banned me FINE if they gonna even if they fired me Than fucking FINE i don't care not the ending of the world for me if i get fired but its only make me feel sure they are really Enjoy angering me
The mods aren't here to intimidate people, they're here to enforce the rules. Have you ever seen a (responsible) mod act all tough like that?
Not necessarily the end of the world. I mean I, like you, do not expect to have a romance in every single story. But I definitely see some chemistry there. Also, my statement that we didn't get a Jesse/Petra romance had nothing to do with Tales from the Borderlands. I didn't even know there WAS a trend of people suddenly wanting romance "because of this." We had romance in TWAU if I'm not mistaken(it's been a really long time since I've played that), and a bit of romance in TWD S1(again, could be wrong). Romance is just something that's always been apart of movies/television/video games. It adds depth to the story, and adds an essence of drama as well. When you're romantically involved with someone, there's more at stake, as you have more feelings for that person than you otherwise would. That's why romance is so commonly used in story telling.
Anyway, while this would not have made or broken the episode, it just adds to my overall point which was there wasn't much "excitement," "payoff," or "surprise" in this episode. It just felt very basic and one dimensional. It was almost as if I was playing the same exact episode over again, just in a different setting with slightly different characters. The villains felt about as one tracked as the White Pumpkin, with about as little motivation to do what they do.
My main complaint, which hopefully I implied/emphasized enough in my original post, was that the overall plot wasn't that great. It was still a good episode, it just wasn't THAT good. I guess I was just expecting Telltale to have something up their sleeves for this one. Something to TRULY thicken the plot/accelerate the story and raise the stakes a bit. Instead, I got another episode of Jesse enters a new realm and saves them from the big bad villains. The end.
Take the first few episodes of the season for instance. We had the Order of the Stone to uncover, each one with TRULY interesting motives and characteristics separate from one another. Basically, they were all UNIQUE, INTERESTING characters. Each and every one of them. To top that off. We had a Wither Storm which threatened to devour the entire planet. We uncovered dozens of different monsters, villains, secrets, plot twists, and mysteries. We had to solve puzzles, build friendships, alliances, etc. We gained friends, and lost friends (Reuben ;[).
Now look at the last 4 episodes in comparison. In each episode, you uncover a different dimension. You uncover a couple of interesting characters(PAMA was interesting and something different. The Founder was a really cool character too. She was in no way a one dimensional character), and learn more about existing ones(The Ocelots). This is a bonus, and it's a small part of why I still consider MCSM to be one of the best Telltale games made so far(I have argued this point many times on this very forum).
But, the plot? It stayed the same. Through 4 entire episodes.
That plot being, you go to a dimension, you save it's people, and then you leave. I guess I just expected something more. Something fresh/new. That's not what we got. Instead, we got the exact same plot from the last 3 episodes, but with LESS interesting villains(come on, you can't really say that there was any real depth to the Old Builders). They were pure evil(except the third guy), through and through, and frankly, we know nothing else about them other than they want to enslave people in a "Hunger Games" style fashion. They weren't even that smart. They certainly weren't intimidating.
And, throughout the entire episode, all you really had to do was talk to people and complete action sequences. There were no puzzles, no "truly" difficult choices(as I stated before). Not enough character development, to make you feel like there was really even much at stake, to be honest.
The episode was good, but it wasn't great. Simple. This is obviously just an opinion that not everyone will agree with. My statement about there being no Jesse/Petra romance was just to put more emphasis on the fact that we didn't get a whole lot of anything from this, and, the fact that it felt very rushed.
Still, I have high hopes for the next season. Also, I'm looking forward to the next Batman.
And Lukesse doesn't need to happen. And romance doesn't need to happen. It could BE a HINT on who's with who, but nothing more.
I wouldn't mind a hint or smth about Blaze Rods? Did they pay for the damage or they still owe Isa?
Ehh, what can I say? I'm a very hardcore shipper.
I really hoped that when we were killed, we'd get a glimpse of Reuben and get to say 'Hello' (not literally) before we respawn or whatever.
You can't expect a romance to be in the game. So far I've only seen Harvor romance (Ivor X Harper).
The mods sacrifice themselves with spoilers for us, to not get spoiled.
Yeah like it gave you a flashback to when you were in the treehouse and then it does that warp thing toward the 'respawn zone"
One question please answer
What would be a game rated like E10 or M17 if there is romance in it??
I doubt it makes a difference. Romance by itself is nothing inappropriate. There are other things that can come with romance in a story that could push the game towards a more mature rating, but romance by itself isn't anything bad.
The answer is simple. Telltale does not want to take any risks. They cannot risk any episodes getting rated higher than E10+.
That makes no sense. They deliberately ignored Jetra/Lukesse because that was never their original idea. This is my problem with shippers. They expect it to be canon and get mad when it isn't.
Yeah I'm not asking for like... a Game of Thrones style sex scene. That'd be God awful. Just something between Jesse and Petra would have at least sauced this otherwise bland episode up a bit.
It's not so much an expectation as it is just me putting emphasis on the fact that we didn't get, well... much of anything in an almost entirely dull episode.
I don't really think having a Jesse/Petra romance is a risk. I'm not asking for block-porn. There's romance in almost every G rated Disney movie out there.
And romance doesn't affect ratings guys.
IT IS WHAT IT IS
You do realise it will never be taken to the next level and once again the forums will complain.