Do you think Telltale can 'reanimate' the Walking Dead series?
Throughout the forums I hear a mixture of good and bad things about A New Frontier, what do you guys think about it honestly?
I feel like Telltale needs to bring back that Season 1 feel back if they want to 'reanimate' this game. I hope so, ANF has a lot of potential and so does Season 3 (remember that is NOT A New Frontier)
Melissa Hutchison, the voice actor for Clementine also expressed her concerns for this game saying some of the lines were cut, rewritten or redone entirely. I want to see Season 3 and A New Frontier succeed, because these game are amazing and I hope they get back on track from what we've seen in ANF.
I want to know if you, the readers think they can bring this series back to life and how they could do that to accomplish that goal. Will there ever be a moments like Season 1 again or has the Telltale studio grown too far out of it's comfort to come back to it?
Please let me know what you think below.
'You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretzky
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More Clementine playtime would be a start.
I will never shut up about this.
Its not "dead" yet.
They can. The real question is if they WANT.
Throw a salt lick on it anyway
They're walking down a sad road that I honestly don't know if they'll ever stray from now. They're telling customers that we WANT shorter episodes, and we WANT more streamlined storytelling over puzzles and character interaction, all so they can cut another corner and save themselves more time and $$$. At least the Life is Strange devs exist
They should take account of the fan's criticisms of the game, then implement them into the game's plot, gameplay, etc. This doesn't feel like a season 3 as it barely even involves Clementine's story, it would pass as a miniseries though (replace Clementine with some other character and it works). I think they just need to make Clem the main protagonist, have a lot more hubs where actual character development starts, put in some flag pole characters that we can always reflect back to that don't die every other episode/season (for us it's Clementine, the rest already died), put more puzzle gameplay into the equation but not excessively, remove boring/annoying characters (e.g Gabe), stop catering to "new players" when they barely make up any sales/fan base, and much more. I'm just listing some ideas here & there, it's just this season is nowhere near as good as seasons 1 & 2 were.
Definitely not if they continue the current road. They should go back to the roots. Less varied franchise-licenses and more focus on the established series. Better storytelling with chapters that don't feel rushed. MUCH more love and care for their own characters would be an essential aspect as well.
And we need much more love for detail, such as the main menu, the episode-recaps/outlooks. And I'd also really appreciate if we had hubs to walk around in and solving puzzles like we had in S1. In my opinion, Season One had the perfect ratio of hub-gameplay and interactive cutscenes. In S3, like 90% of the game are interactive cutscenes so far.
And PLEASE, don't do rewrite and/or cut out tons of stuff in the development process. The one recent interview with Clementine's VA revealed horrible things. Be 100% certain about the season's story and all the involved characters until you start actual development, instead of scrapping and changing everything on a daily basis. This behavior can only damage the game.
Season 2 except potentially worse?
Honestly, I don't even know. Things seemed a lot different during S1 and 2. I guess the best way to describe it was it felt more like when you go to see a movie that's under the radar, and its a very close and personal experience, whereas this movie seems like the bloated over budgeted result of the success of the first two, but its trying to hard and way too sure of itself. It's completely lost touch with everything that made the originals special. It's basically everything I felt when I saw The Phantom Menace.
Clem main protagonist. done.
I know what you mean. That's sort of the way I felt for Toy Story 1 and 2, though I know a lot of people will disagree with me. (Toy Story 2 ends in a silly everyone dances/sings ending for crying out loud)
Exactly! It feels like Telltale has become too cocky and doesn't put the same effort and love into the series as they did in Season One.
But isn't this what everyone complained about with season two?
Make up your minds people
Exactly, telltale has shown that they can make games that have a lot of the elements that season 1 had, like choices that mattered and a lot hubs and dialogue options in those hubs. (TWAU.TFTBL). Its like telltale sometimes just doesn't "feel like" putting in the extra effort even when these are the titles that are praised the most. I really dont get them sometimes...
Oh how I wish they started from a fresh start, have a remaster series;
Establish the main plot that will last for 4 seasons; like what do you want for Clementine; to grow up normal as and have a happy childhood or teach her how to be a badass or manipulative etc.
Interesting characters that will last 'till the end of the series (not all but most of them, I want to care about these virtual fictional characters that survived for so long); Hell even use them as protagonists; when they redeem themselves or shown to have good moral/motive.
Harder choices! I mean look at them now most of them are going over 70%, that's not good, most of them should be at the very least </>50%.
Hire good writers that can actually write about an 11 year old girl that has some sort of a personality for S2...
Also two protagonists; one doing the hard work; hard choices that involves deaths, and the other (Clem) doing the manipulation/talking.
Maybe they could change the style of the graphics too, like 2.5D to avoid model spazzing, maybe a bit... illustrator-y (that's just me I guess); or use another modern game engine.
If this doesn't happen we might as well try and make it oursleves...
How are you proposing to do that? A fanfiction series?
Unity or Unreal engine , watch 20 or more tutorial parts how to make a game; rip the game models; modify them a little and have like a Zelda style dialogue (no voices just subs) there are some smart people here that can pull of these kinds of things... (like models or missing dialogue) I mean hey we would be making an interactive cutscene not an actual game
I am only spit-balling from the things I've heard all over the internet about makin' games.
They could reanimate the series, but all of its characters would be walkers, as the series would be zombified as a result of the process. I couldn't resist making this stupid joke. Sorry everyone.
Honestly the only way I see Telltale repairing this is apologising for the mess they made people pay for and start anew.
Fat chance of that happening though, I don't think any game company ever has rebooted a series just from fans' demand.
The fact is that almost everyone wants to play Clementine's story over Javier's, the episodes should be longer and the choices that players made should not be brushed under the carpet like the season 2 endning was. Telltale will continue to defy these concerns because of the direction they chose to go with season 3, so the only solution would be to scrap it altogether and try again. They can do nothing to satisfy the criticism's in the next three episodes. Not even if they were the longest in telltale history and half the playing time was as Clementine.
TNF is a 3rd continuation of Telltale's Walking Dead series. If I remember correctly, it's the first game where they decided to continue the story after 2 seasons. It's a risky thing to do, because they can easily ruin whole franchise. So far they managed to do that. Only way to think that franchise is not ruined is to choose canon ending of S2 for yourself and live in denial when it comes to the other endings.
In order to "reanimate" the series they should do what they promised us from the start, 2 protagonists. Clementine has to appear as a playable character.
Also, rewriting flashbacks or just deleting them would be a right thing to do. Either writers should make some effort to do them or let fans speculate and make theories about what hapenned in those times.
Well if they'd make this season as for something to make Clem age, so if she is protagonist it isn't that unrealistic that we make choices while playing as her, I'm good w ANF. Still EP length, and clichés are most of my concerns.
And lack of character development.
When in EP2 you need to pull the car out of the way I hoped that we can talk to Clem, or get to know Tripp a little better through dialogues.
Else what happened? They've said 2 lines, and that was it.
Remember when in S1 you could go around and ask Kenny about his family/job? Or when you could talk to Lilly/Carley/Doug, hell almost anyone, to get to know them better, and that gave actual depth to their character.
I still hope that we can get these dialogues back.
Oh and also the handling of determinant characters are terrible.
Why can't they just do it like BioWare?
Why should they apologize? Not everyone thinks this season, or barely half season, is terrible.
Well, if you can pull it off, Id like to see it.
Long story short I wish I could go back to my precious sleep and wake up without any memory about S1 and play it all over again with the same old and good feeling.
Thanks for your non-sarcastic response.
man I'm seeing there's negativity on both sides now too.
They're completely capable of turning the season around and proving everybody wrong, but at this point they seem more interested in staying the course towards destruction and bullshitting us in order to cover their asses.
I feel like the majority of the problems go back to one thing.
The episodes are TOO short.
A way they can fix this is by adding more quality updates as well.
Longer flashbacks
More downtime at hubs with branching dialogue
Downtime in between action
Even more screen time of Clementine (put her in every damn frame!)
Basically add all this to the game, and you got a near masterpiece.
I don't even know anymore. The forums are confusing and frustrating the hell out of me. I adore ANF, I think it's fantastic, but spending as much time as I do on the forums makes me feel like half of the forums played a different game.
It doesn't need to be "reanimated" in my eyes, but as you can see many people are pissed about... something. So I don't know what to tell you.
For making super short episodes and not altering the prize? For splitting up the first episode when it was unecessary for the reason they gave, when it's clearly a lie. For making such cheap work of the choices that they claim the story is tailored after?
They lied to their audience, there is no denying that regardless of how masterfully you think their writing itself is.
Try listing what you liked about it. I often see these comments claiming how fantastic ANF was but very rarely people back the claim up with any actual points, whereas those of us who won't shut it with the critique always lists the same faults that no one actually denies or tries to contradict.
The only way to make the forum see your way is to explain how you actually see it. Just stating "it's great" or "it's shit" doesn't really change any minds.
I'm not looking to change minds, but fine I'll try to explain why I like the game.
My main love for ANF is because of the characters, I like almost all of them, even a certain member of the New Frontier. I'll start with Jarvier Garcia. I really like him, he's a breath of fresh air, he's likeable and gave this series something refreshing and new. Most characters in TWDG now are ready serious, dark, damaged, depressed, etc... But Javi brings a bit of light to the story. This is mostly based on how I play him, but he seems happy, he still knows how to enjoy life and makes me smile rather than the constant doom & gloom feeling that most of season 2 had. Don't get me wrong I loved season 2, but it was lacking in light hearted moments (excluding episode 2) and you never really got a chance to really get attached to characters like Carlos & Sarita. Anyway back to Javi, he can still be serious when the story needs him to be and I really feel for him. Seeing him deal with Mari's death and dealing with the possibility that Kate may not make it and the struggling relationship he has with Gabe to set him on the right path.
I really like Javi's family as well and his relationship with them. His relationship with Kate is hard to define, if you're not looking for a romance with her it's difficult to say what their connection is, but I really like her. She has that good playful nature that Javi has, but she's also struggling as a guardian to Mari and Gabe and it seems that depression really easily sinks in with her, so I feel for her and hope that she makes it through the story.
Next is Mari, I'm sure that most like her for, but I'll go into it anyway. Her relationship with Javi is really cute and I love their dialogue. She's really lovable and while I wouldn't call her playful, Javi's playful nature works really well with her. She's sweet and is still human. By that I mean that the horrors of the outbreak hasn't gotten to her yet. She holds onto the past and believes it's important to stay human and remember. Mari is simply lovable, so when she did die, it hurt. I was in Javi's shoes and felt like something precious was wrongfully taken away from me.
Now Gabe, unlike most people I really like Gabe, he's one of my favorite characters. He feels complex and I love that. Javi's relationship with him is great as well. Gabe just seems lost and Javi tries to be there for him, but doesn't know how. Gabe's at a crossroads and could go either way. He could become a hardened survivor like David (presumably) or more soft hearted and compassionate. That's how I see him anyway. And instead of relying on his uncle's protection, Gabe tries to help and do the right thing.
About the Presscott group, I like most of them, but the only one I'm really attached to is Tripp. He's got quite a bit of humorous dialogue, but that's not all there is to him. He's a genuinely good guy. When you first meet him he comes across as a hardass authority figure, but he's really a big teddy bear. He clearly shows concern for you and your family (you really see this if you bring him to the junkyard.) even Clementine who he appears to be developing a rivalry with.
Another thing I love about ANF is that there's already more downtime than almost the whole of season 2. Little moments where you talk to characters and they grow on you. It doesn't have the hubs like in S1, but that's not what I mean. Firstly there's that conversation with Kate in the van. The two of you just kickback and talk. This helped me get a sense of what Kate is like and she quickly grew on me. Then you have that playful exchange with Mari when she talks about her headphones. Then you can stop and chat with everyone in the junkyard. This one was a bit more tense, but I think it counts. I'm talking about the walk and talk to Presscott that you have with Clementine. It was nice to see Javi and Clem talk. Clem was being evasive while Javi was trying to get a read on her. It was good to see how these two are gonna be like together.
Now let's talk about the main story. It's hard to say where it's going so I'll just talk about what's happened and what I think of TNF. Your first encounter with them is Max's introduction. They really just seems like normal people trying to get by and their conflict with Javi's group is just shit luck. Some of them are certainly bad, like Badger for example, but in the end they just seem like people and I can't wait to see more of them and David. I also like that Clem was previously with them. It's a good twist and it makes her feel relevant to the story. We don't know the whole story about Clem & TNF, but I'm sure there's more to tell.
I'll only briefly talk about the flashbacks as I can understand some of the criticisms regarding them. I really enjoy Javi's, they help me get a good idea about Javi and David's relationship and what Javi was like before the outbreak. I also like Clementine's, short but sweet. I love playing as Clementine and it helps bridge the gap between S2 and ANF. About the S2 endings, I can understand some people's frustrations with them, though I disagree. It was sad to see Jane and Kenny go, but I did enjoy the flashbacks with them. Before their end you get a good talk with them that I really enjoyed.
That's all I've got, so hopefully that thoroughly explains why I enjoy the game.
Why not? Forums are about sharing and changing minds, what's the point of talking about things if not those?
Thanks for your time, I'll read it all when I can.
I don't think anything except that I feel like people are overreacting. Demanding that they apologize before we even get halfway through the game. Did the game need to be split into two? Maybe not but I hesitate to outright accuse them of lying.
They could, but they don't want to. Their games are "not about choices" but "about what happends in our minds and hearts". FUCK THIS SHIT i'm out.
I'm not demanding anything, this is a online forum for discussion and I suggested what I see as the only way telltale can "reanimate the Walking Dead series." I beleive they lied, I never stated this as a fact. Their reasoning for splitting the episode was that it was too long when almost all the episodes in season 1 were closer to the combined length than the halved, some being even longer.
And as a sidenote, we are almost halfway through. 2 out of 5 episodes is 40% completion.
At the risk of drawing bad feelings out the woodwork, I think the people who say that either don't buy into the hype/memes, are trying to cover for Kenny, or are simply brusque about certain limitiations expected in playing this type of game as her.
I'm pretty sure people complained because they didn't want to be a girl learning to find her strength in the world, they just wanted to easily smash zombies like Lee, but I preferred it. Now that season 3 is here, those people wouldn't be as mad as Clem can shoot very accurately and is more physically adept for surviving, Lee would be proud.