(spoilers) Twd Anf: Everything good and bad
I personally think TT did a great job with this season 3 of Twd. There were some disappointing moments but overall I think its fantastic. All I see here are people bitching about this game like
- We don't play as Clem or,
- Kenny/Jane died or,
- Season 2 choices didn't matter.
But, look at how much they have improved.
- Choices Our choices in season 3 affects the game so much . You get different playable scenes for so many different choices (season2 ending flashbacks, back up Clem or not, Take either Tripp or Eleanor to the junkyard, fight beside Clem or Leave with family, surrender or open fire on new frontier, tie up Jesus or trust him, Shoot Conrad or Use Clem as bargain) and it also manages to convince me that some other minor choices are important, even if they aren't (Like in the junkyard you can stay the night or leave in the van). The only choice which disappointed me was when in episode 2 as Clem we can accept or reject Ava's (bald girl in the second flashback) offer, even if we reject Clem still joins The New Frontier
- Characters I think all the characters are amazing and well written. Lets start with beloved Clem. Clementine-A young teen girl surviving in the apocalypse. Her behavior is just as I expected to be. She is a moody teen, a little arrogant/cautious but still a good girl who has her own secrets with a mysterious and sad past (referring to both S1, s2 and when she was with new frontier). A character with whom you can be attached to (as a s1/2 player) or experiment with to learn about her(as a new player). Javier- So I was one of the people who actually hated Javier since after the Teaser but now I completely understand him and his personality. I like him as a Playable Character. He is brave, protective, charismatic and reasonable. He is definitely worthy to step into the shoes of great Lee and Clem as Twd Playable Characters. Tripp Eleanor and Mari(RIP)- actually likeable and realistic characters who are both important to the plot and are generally very interesting. Kate Great Character. She is capable to add an interesting dynamic of a short love story in twd (kinda like Lee and Carley). David- His character has a very good potential as a villain (but I don't want a Carver no. 2). Gabe- He seems like a Ben no. 3 (after Ben and Nick aka Ben no. 2). His character if not killed off can still be really interesting (What I hate is him trying to act as Clem's boyfriend. She doesn't need him and she can do so much better). Jesus- Brilliant and exciting. I wish he sticks around. Conrad Well he's okay and realistic but not very likeable.
- Story and Gameplay- This Far the story looks very promising. Clem is a member of The New Frontier and Javier is seeking help from his very enemies. There is proper development of plot and it's all very fitting. The friendship of Clem and Javier is very understandable as they don't completely trust each other but still look out for each other. This is quite new and a little similar to the relationship of Rhys and Fiona. The variety of choices in advancing the story increases replay value which makes up for shorter episodes. The game gives ample screen time to Clem even if she's not a primary character. As for Gameplay- there is proper balance between dialogues, cut scenes and action (moving, fighting, doing stuff). I really liked the action sequences in the game, the freedom to explore in some larger areas, the impact of dialogues and choices. So its really very interesting to play this game.
- Flashbacks- Lets face it. We all knew Kenny/Jane were going to die. When the teasor first came out all I heard/read was that Kenny/Jane will be written off by a line of dialogue, but I'm satisfied they showed us some actual playable content to write off the characters. Kenny/Jane weren't the best flashbacks and were cheaply killed but Wellington/Alone ending were quite decent. Besides Clem gets a different injury for every ending. That is something too.
What I didn't like very much
- The fact that Kenny/Jane just died. It would've been a lot better if they were captured by The New Frontier when they captured Clem and Aj (which I presume they did and we will learn that later on).
- When in flashback no.2 Clem meets Ava (bald girl seeking help), the flashback should've ended when Ava invited Clem to join them leaving us to think what happened after that point, but TT just had to give us a choice there. I was a tad disappointed when I rejected Ava's offer but Clem still had that brand on her.
- Lack of detail in the story generator bugs me. TT should have just asked us some questions in a list like killed Larry/stole medicine/killed Ben etc etc. By this they could've also added details like- did Clem drink/smoke? or How she handled Aj when he was crying? Which would've been cool to see take an effect in season 3.
- Wtf happened to next time on The Walking Dead?
- Instead of Clem losing a finger in alone ending, She should've lost it if she said no to Ava (bald girl). This would give a lot of weight to that choice and would've stuck as a surprise. In the moment we know that New Frontier are bad and we instantly chose to say no to them, but only those people who say yes playing as a rational Clem would get to keep the finger. Because when Clem reveals this secret to Javier she says something about The New Frontier being "persuasive". Which could mean they cut off her finger if she decided against going with them and they branded her anyway. But losing a finger with one S2 ending is kind of weird.
What TT should do now
- I know no one from TT staff is ever going to read this but I hope in episode 3/4/5 we should get another flashback with our season 2 ending. It should be before Kenny died/Jane died/ Wellington fell/ Clem lost finger (basically before the flashback in episode 1). They should try to give us some more playable time to interact with people and with surroundings. We as Clem should learn something in the flashback which we can see (as Javier) Clem do in the present time while not controlling her. I'll try to make a discussion with an example sometime later.
- Make Jesus Stick around and have more Comic characters.
- More flashbacks with Aj where we can see Clem and Aj bond.(it was really good in episode 2 flashback but it should be a little longer).
- Longer episodes (at least 1hr20min). First one was like 1hr15min and second 1hr05min.
- Try to cut down on useless choices ( join Ava or not) but keep choices which feel like they matter (stay the night at junkyard or leave in van).
- Please give the Rewind button back.
- Don't make David in Carver no.2 or Gabe into Clem's boyfriend or a Ben no.3
- Please give "Next time on The Walking Dead" for further episodes.
That' all I can think of till now.
I really enjoyed the game till this point but there is a scope of further improvement. But still these are one of the best TT episodes I've played yet and I really think people don't give the game and the writers enough credit. (even tho Kenny/Jane death was not cool but the rest of the game was great). Let me hear your opinion 
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Comments
I really like the season too. IMO it's better than season 2 which I also like.
I think the problem with choices has always seemed to be less about the immediate change and more about the story always playing out the same regardless. There was a lot complaining about episode 1s big choice and how episode 3 played out in season 1. I'm still iffy on the season, episode 1 was decent, some of the new characters are alright. Episode 2 felt like it deserved to be the final act of episode 1, did not care for it at all. Not sure how the seasons going to play out, but personally, I'd really like to see a certain scenario play out.
Theorycraft/comic spoilers incoming
NF has taken over Richmond, which we know Jesus has had prior contact with. Clems said they weren't always what they are, and it seems like they're building towards a more hostile relationship between Javier and David. I think it'd be a nice send off to see Javier and Clem trying to rid the community of the more extreme elements, with Javier taking a leadership role and Clem returning to the community, ultimately joining the trade network set up in the comics through Jesus. It'd be nice to end on an upbeat note in line with one of the last major arcs in the comic.
Literally none of the choices you used as an exemple mattered in the slightest.
All I want is for Clementine is to be playable in the present.
Except not one bit of this matters and everything turns out exactly the same. I mean that one guy still goes nuts and holds the nephew hostage even if jai doesnt start shooting at prescott. They all end up in the same place regardless. And this is also forgetting the fact not one of the previous choices in the last season mattered whatsoever. This new game makes no effort to improve on the previous title's attempt at choices, or even acknowledge the other two seasons at all, they somehow went and advertised everything with clementine but wanted a new story. Clementine is literally just there to get cash in.
I struggle to care about any of these new characters as its very likely most if not all will die anyway in pointless ways just as they start to get developed, I struggled last season however this season im finding it nigh on impossible, why should I care about these people? Characters need to start lasting longer over multiple seasons
Clementine is okay, and I dont mind how they implemented her here. She could very easily have been a molly clone making dumb badass remarks. However seriously shes a pretty different person. She acts like shes an angry loner no matter what choices you made with her , all this myclementine shit was pointless.
Javier is a player vessel, seriously thats it. For the other parts of his character he doesnt seem like someone who has lost his way of liife and lived rough for several years, he acts like hes on a road trip with his sister in law.
Uhhh, what? There two complete randoms who join up with javier because....um? I mean if their traitors they make sense but even so there behavior is odd.If they are not traitors there is something very wrong with them, javier basically resulted in their community being destroyed and all their friends dying and they barely have anything to say. The little kid was fine but nothing special.
her backstory has potential but otherwise she has some of the worst dialogue ever. Shes makes me cringe half the time and is completely ridiculous, all that horror of 4 years and shes making jokes and smoking weed what the hell? Not feeling any interest or chemistry between her and javi at all.
Well so far hes violent and thats about it, not looking good so far. However if im optomistic the fact they did this makes me hope this new frontier is more layered than carver, clementine being among them suggests it also
The character has potential but like you said its been done before, they just might take him in a different direction
As a sidenote what is people obsession with this? They talk for five seconds and javi teases him about it, why are people obsessed with clems love life.
CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE, Ninga moves, weird dialogue. They nailed the character though because hes like that in the comics too. Still fingers crossed he dies in the next few issues and in the game hopefully he has a few non canon death scenes
Nail on the head, probably one of the few realistic characters in the game so far. Especially to his entire community falling.
None of this is exactly groundbreaking, am i slightly interested in what this new frontier is and how it works sure. But nothing about the story is all that interesting. the bits I have found interesting or suprising have been overshadowed by the heavy foreshadowing or obvious twists
What the .... NOOOOOOOOOO no it does not. Plus what on earth is the variety of choices?
in my opininon its rushed, really rushed, even more so than season 2. In that season there was at least time to pause and catch your breath, this game is constant. There is no let up and no chance to reflect on anything.
They lagged for me
Wait WHAT? You walk from one point to the next, interacting with the one specific thing you can before moving on, there is no freedom to explore or interact in any of the areas.
What?, choice barely if at all mattered
The flashbacks were absolute shit, seriously it could not have been any worse
About the choice to leave Clementine and go with Javier's family at the end of ep. 1. I know many people didn't pick it, but I decided to see the concequence of this choice in an alternate play through. We get a different intro helping Kate, but the thing I found pretty odd was Clementine shows up driving a car up to the front gate as your talking to Gabe. She just gets out of the car, says hey, and that's it. The story goes on as if the whole choice didn't even happen. Plus Clementine has a vehicle, wasn't that what she wanted? The only reason I can think of as to why she stopped by was the New Frontier have been following her, but clearly they didn't give a damn about her later. I'm thinking we may have a similar thing happen in ep. 3.
How does it play out differently? I heard going with Clementine basically keeps the same events as going with the family just with a extra bit with Clem.
I chose to go with my family. Mariana had just been shot in the head and Kate was shot... I think if this was real life everyone would choose to stay with their family. Especially given what had just happened. The main issue I had with S3 is it was too short. Especially episode 2. I also wish we had gotten a chance to know the characters we were with, instead of being rushed to the next scene. The conversations at the roadblock where we met Jesus was just one sided. I feel the chance to get to know the characters and connect with them was missed. The whole death scene with Conrad would have been more engaging if we had gotten a dialog option with him shortly beforehand. Hopefully the episodes get back to normal length and we are able to have deeper conversations with the people we are with in the upcoming episodes.
You start out at Prescott helping Eleanor perform surgery on Kate. Kate still has a bullet in her and Javier do some QTE action to help the surgery go as gory and cringy as possible lol. Gabe helps if you want him to or not, but then fucks up and leaves. After the surgery, Kate needs time to rest and Tripp and Eleanor give you praise for staying with the family. After that every thing is the same. You walk around Prescott and find Gabe, talk to him about being a man, and then out of nowhere Clementine drives up.
So the same thing happens as when you stay with the family like I did then?
Boring. And they even compliment you for staying with them when you didn't? And how does Clementine drive up then? I thought you chose to stay with her O_o
Considering choices barely matter in TT, here they atleast give you some variety of different playable scenes. That's all I meant.