Well, I was supportive of S3 until Ep4
Honestly the worst episode by far, every episode Ive played ive been waiting in anticipation for the next until this one. Even S2 which I disliked overall at least had me on the hook for it improving and storylines paying off. This is the one I have been most excited for since S2Ep1
In short, the episode was a massive shitshow, mainly the end was just ludicrous that had me eyerolling so much i was getting dizzy.
Up until the main square event, there was nothing wrong with the episode except when its "revealed" that Javi shot Conrad (if you did). However, I remember specifically telling Tripp the option which said that Conrad "lost it", not that walkers got him. Annoying, but fine, Tripp fills in the blanks as he will.
Eyeroll time, Javi walks up to the platform, theres almost NO dialogue options and Joan just makes a huge game of things for what? Just to provoke things? She has complete control of everything and decides to make this pointless game to try and lose a grip on things? For what? Does she feel bad for us and thinks she needs to cast doubt on her own leadership? It made absolutely no sense.
Choose between Ava and Tripp. Yes, lets make this fair public execution where I try to mask murder with justice and instead overtly create a ridiculous game for all to witness. Facepalming levels are through the roof. I would be fine with this if there were MORE THAN 3 DIALOGUE OPTIONS through the whole thing. My god, your only option is to choose, she has guns pointed to the heads of 2 YOUNG TEENS. When making actions to try and save people, its believable that theres only so much you can do, but when youre supposed to talk your way out of something and are effectively given no options to SAY anything it just feels like there was never any choice at all. Tell her to shoot the teens in the head, tell her to show everyone how mad with power she is (which she was already demonstrating like a cartoon villain) to push her over the edge... Give us a chance to say SOMETHING.
The riot at the end, so... these are all trained people with guns, surrounding us, with the utmost security... why wasnt the entire group shot immediately? There was nobody backing them up, nobody to create confusion in their ranks. Just no excuse for everyone to not be dead immediately. Hell, why is kicking the stool the first reaction of one of them? "Oh, someone shot my boss in the head, I better hang this unarmed man with his hands and neck tied rather than shoot him back." We may as well have just walked in, in force with just the 6 group members and we would have rolled over them with how inept they were.
"What its too loud, I cant hear you! Im coming now" Oh how plot convenient of you there. Hmm... Theres smoke everywhere and I dont know these streets whatsoever, I think Ill barrel down the street with the pedal to the medal and not hit the breaks when my windshield is on fire. Oh my, Kate has found herself in mortal danger, oh how am i supposed to react to this now? What a coincidence! We just had a "if we dont make it out of this" talk only moments ago! Wow!
Seriously, what happened to this series? What happened to scenes where we have to decide on how to deal with our dying friends son? What happened to a man struggling to fight another man in a one on one fight? What happened to being able to lose a fight and continuing the story? When did the player character become invincible and be able to take on impossible situations?
Theyre just making spectacles for the sake of making spectacles now. Ive bought Ep5 already, so Im going to "play" it, but theres nothing they can do now to fix the trainwreck that Ep4 is.
Comments
Interesting, most hated this season until either this episode or episode 3.
Hmm. That is something I've been pondering over recently. Of why TWD Season 1 was so good. The grounded scenes, the group always on the move, with new locations and characters to meet, even in Episode 4. The fact that the threat is more Walkers and not actual Evil People. I feel that's what Telltale should go back to one day. Make us play as a group who is struggling to survive, but no run into large community, leader is evil, overthrow community, escape.I like this new season, it gives a fresh angle on characters we know and it gives us a completely new cast of characters to interact with along with some nice locations, themes, and cinematic quality, but yes, I do feel that Telltale has lost some of the charm that made it's original Walking Dead season so good.
I'd like to see more of that someday.
Its not so much about going back to the way it was necessarily, its about the character being surrounded by guns and inexplicably taking the first shot and easily escaping. Lee needed help to fight both Danny and Andy St. John, despite having the initial advantage against Andy. He can get beaten up by both Kenny and Molly. Meanwhile, Javi gets stabbed in the shoulder and overpowers and strangles a man with one hand.
Javi and the group need to be AFRAID of a group as big as Richmond. The 6 of them should be AFRAID of an armed group of 10 people, let alone, what? 20+? It just creates an unbelievably impossible situation which faces us against insurmountable obstacles that inexplicably fall to a slight breeze.
Theres a way to present people fighting other people, this isnt it.
Right. That makes sense. Hopefully Telltale does that mix in the future.
You're right on that one. I would want to be afraid of these guys. I'd like to feel afraid that doing something wrong can jeopardise my team. These days it's mostly "How do I stop their reign of terror" and not "How do I survive their reign of terror?"
Kind of like how the Saviours in the show are all big and menacing, and the main struggle is "how do our main group survive this, to then defeat them later on." That would be an interesting theme for the game. Fear. Fear of a larger group, a greater power that not you nor anyone else can defy.
I like this food for thought you're planting in my head. Mmmm....
There's no excuse for any of this. This is beyond pathetic. This is well below RPG Maker fanfic tier. The characters' motivations make no sense. Everything they do makes no sense. Their actions make no sense. Their ideas make no sense. Even the very basest of physical things they do- take strolls right down the middle of the street, until they see somebody who can clearly see them, then duck out of sight- make no sense. Their plan- their actual plan- is to wait until everyone's awake instead of springing David in a night raid. Javier knows everyone's after him, so he walks right up into the middle of a crowd of people. There's no pretending this is good. It's not good. It's horrible. It's garbage, and everyone involved in its creation should feel deep and abiding shame at ever having been part of making it. You knew this was ridiculous at every point during the creative process. You had to.
When the time came to choose between Eva and Tripp, I sat there, staring at the pure stupidity, until the timer ran out and a thug shot Javier in the head. I was honestly tempted just to leave the game like that; to declare that the end of the story for me. TPK, rocks fall, everybody dies, mom's saying it's time to go to bed so put away your dice, bid your friends goodbye, and wash your Cheeto-stained hands.
But no, I started the game up again, and Tripp got shot in the neck, I don't even remember what happened to Ava, and then I shot Joan in the head because I could and because I want everyone in this game to die. I want to see Richmond reduced to a burning cinder. I am now officially rooting for the zombies.
She follows David to go after Clint/Joan.
You're being incredibly pedantic.
Kate hears trouble = Kate comes to save the people she cares for, with protection in the form of a truck, yeah how stupid!
Joan, a clear power hungry and controlling woman, who offers up a public hanging for her settlement, and you expect her to not make more of a show of things if the opportunity arises? Yes, stupid, but completely inkeeping with someone who has that mindset.
Hmmm, two options to force you to save or kill someone, with no way out of it? WOW, it's almost like the writers of a game can't just give you absolute full control and let you get out of the situation with everything going your way! How maddening. Not stupid, that's just how a game works. Joan was never going to allow you out of that choice, again, because she's a maniac.
Here's my list of the issues with Thicker than Water.
-Dialogue was awful ("Follow your Heart...").
-Character's have bi-polar personality disorder.
-The pacing is still really bad. Possibly the worse so far considering we're meant to save David, yet keep stopping to give others relationship advice and find tampons.
-Clem's period scene was fucking stupid.
-The entire David thing hasn't stuck yet, and never will. They need to stop giving him lines in fact, he keeps digging himself deeper.
-The game is literally stopping to push romantic shit at every turn.
-The climatic opposition was one of the worst things I've ever seen.
-The "lol, ur choiz iz aktully da oddur one" was such a cheap way to get us to hate someone we don't even know or have only seen like 6 minutes of screentime.
-Gabe.
-Ava all of sudden being nice and an ally, with no opposition from Tripp or anyone else who still thinks of her as an ally to the community.
-The community.
-The truck scene.
-Javier.
-Clem.
-The dumbass doctor exposition dump was extra dumpy than even I was expecting.
-Just about everything else...
...The way Clem always appears out of nowhere like one of those people in movies who isn't really there.
The complaining took too long to happen but it finally happened.
Sorry for the wait, but many of us had to gather our thoughts and really soak in the shittiness of the episode.
And there was certainly a lot of shittiness to process.
Seriously she does it every episode this season, she just appears when the plot needs her
I think I officially hate every character and want everyone to die next episode
Getting players to despise everyone in a game centered around trust and character investment is how you START creating an engaging experience...
...
Well, are you engaged yet?
Well I am looking forward to them possibly dying next episode? Is that hype? Am I hyped for this game now? Maybe episode four was a success after all.
you've just reminded me of the whole tripp/ava encounter that I'd completely forgotten under the amount of other things that ruined my enjoyment
Tripp: "She's got a hell of a punch........................ nice to see you"
really?
Believable exchange between two people who last left each other with literal hands being thrown...
I wasn't disappointed I thought this episode was decent not good but decent.
This is one of my biggest problems with this season honestly, it doesnt seem like a fight for survival, it doesnt seem as grounded anymore, the last 2 episodes have just been political bullshit and people doing stupid shit just for the hell of it, in the first seasons, there would almost always be logic behind what people did, Kenny killing Larry, it made sense in its own twisted way, this entire season has pretty much just been all out war between 2 factions, and it doesnt really work well within the setting, shit is going down all the time, thats not what normally happens in The Walking Dead, there is huge breaks often, where nothing happens, Walkers dont even feel threatening this season, because we have barely seen them, its called The Walking Dead, but we have only had like, 2 encounters with Walkers, and they were over in no time flat, meanwhile, we spend hours talking about political bullshit in Richmond, in my opinion, The Walking Dead is all about moving from place to place, maybe hunkering down for a few months, never knowing when your next meal is coming, being in constant danger of being attacked by walkers, that tension is completely missing this episode, dealing with characters like the Saint Johns in season 1 was nice, because it was a rarity, when you had to deal with people, it became exciting, stressful, but this season we have done nothing but deal with people, and alot of the scenarios are so unrealistic and crazy, that I have a hard time feeling threatened when anything happened at all, I remember in season 2, when Clementine was locked in the shed, and that walker attacked her, I feared for her life, but this season, when 5 people are shooting at Javi, I dont even feel threatened at all, because I no that there is no danger, the only remotely dangerous thing that has happened to Javi so far is that he has been stabbed twice
YES YES YES!!! We have never spoke but you totally get it and i completely agree with everything you said. The game is a shambles. Just look at the way this game is compared to Season 1?:
Why don't we get 2 hour+ eps anymore? Why do we hardly get any gameplay or larger areas to explore? Why hardly any hubs? Why no puzzles or optional side quests anymore? Why no to little character interaction anymore? Why no to little background info to these new characters? What happened to optional minor dialogue choices that we say would carry over to later episodes and not just the main choices if that makes sense?
I could go on and on. They have failed to make us care about any of these characters like we did for those in Season 1. The flashbacks didn't save this series either. They only brought Kenny and Jane back for fan service and because they realised how terribly shit and fucked up they made the first one at the start of this awful season.
Rant over
Had to clear through all the shell topics first I guess, honestly cant see how anyone could find the final scene even remotely engaging.
I did the same thing with not choosing between them and honestly, this is the first time you can actually choose to sacrifice to save other people. Which is actually a choice that makes sense to me, moreso than giving into Joan's Dr. Evil style demand.
Honestly, this is the first time where after I played an episode I wasnt thinking of what could come next, I was thinking, how could this have actually played out believably.
Pedantic? Do you know what that means? Hmm, well I suppose calling the major decisions made by all the deciding characters in the final scene ludicrous is only a minor issue, right.
Theres a difference between Kate coming anyway and giving the "its too loud, I cant hear anyway" excuse. Theres also a difference between driving and driving through blinding smoke down a street that youve never driven down, but the only thing you know about it is that there are barricades and abandoned cars in its path just so she can crash spectacularly.
Joan was an antagonist who hid the town's crimes of attacking other communities for months from the public, who demonstrated to the public that they were doing the right thing. One who offered fucking cake to newcomers. Now someone who offers justice through arbitrarily executing one prisoner over another without providing any explanation to people other than effectively just saying "theyre bad" and showing an unidentifiable corpse. The entire idea behind the public trial was that there were complex politics to Richmond and they needed to follow the system. This clearly wasnt the case. She went from someone being in complete control, to being off her rocker batshit crazy for no reason.
I would have picked both of them to die over actually choosing between them. Theres a huge difference between being engaged in a scene where your character is forced to act but can only do so much and a situation where you COULD say something, but are forced to just go along with things for no good reason. Theres no getting out of the situation, but you shouldnt have to pick a name.
The second worst thing about this episode, in retrospect? The absolute worst was Joan suddenly acting like a complete cartoon villain in front of everybody in Richmond, but after that?
No option for "Crush it, but don't act like a complete asshole about it". Javier acted like a complete asshole at that ballpark (except to the fan, if you don't want him to), and there was no reason for it. He couldn't have said "David, I made my living playing this game, of course I'm going to hit everything this thing throws at me." Yeah, David, a professional ballplayer, who's practiced hitting that ball over and over again, is going to be better than you at swinging that bat around. How could you go to such a place with such a person and not expect this?
My head is not up my own ass to realize that the writing has taken a rather massive nosedive in quality.
Now, this series is not so much about telling a story as much as it's just a bunch of stupid fan service with shallow characters and a bland plot with zero stakes.
People might think I like feeling bitter about this and I seriously don't, I'm just so sick and tired of this series being robbed of all of the potential it has in favor of shitty streamlining and stupid shallow mellow drama.
Every season after S1 has been a complete and utter failure in both story and character and I think it's time for this train wreck to finally stop crashing.
Agree with your points, since all those things happen to me in my playthrough. I could not believe how ridiculous the game was getting. TT made it so that Tripp hates you no matter what for killing Conrad, despite having very good reasons and what you told him after leaving the tunnels. I was like mmmky I guess this was bound to happen, kinda stupid but whatever. Also, what the hell is wrong with these characters not taking the time to just fully explain their side of the story? This goes for Tripp and the execution. Everyone, main characters to the idiots of Richmond feel so damn stupid. Let's all just stand around and mumble to ourselves as people point guns at kids and have the most fucked up execution and blame it all on one of our leaders who can't get a chance to defend himself. I just can't turn my brain off for this kind of stuff anymore.
It's beyond ridiculous at this point and shows how telltale has no direction or purpose for her other than fan appeal. It was obvious in previous episodes, but this episode really stood out. What happened to clementine finding AJ and getting a car? Instead she helps save David who she was trying to kill last episode.....that's nice.
Complaining and constructive criticism of the many flaws and errors of the episode.
Unfortunately, the promised awesome train ride crashed a long time ago, the conductors didn't listen to any of the passengers when they said they're going towards a brick wall.
Fourth "badass" character in this game that they're changing in every episode, because they have no idea what to do with, oh goodie.
Was anything ever promised, though? For all intents and purposes, this series wasn't really meant to continue after S1.
But alas, I guess that's how the world works. Every ship you board will eventually sink, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. We're all just chasing fool's gold in the end, hoping we find something that lasts.
That enough defeatist attitude for everybody?
To be fair, that was probably meant to further establish that Javier used to be a bit of an asshole.
Geez, Delt.
I can just imagine how suicidal hotline calls would go down.
As much as theyve obviously stripped down the gameplay and optional dialogue, the selling point of this game is the story. Honestly, Ep1-3 I thought were good, even if they were short. There was political intrigue going on, Joan was in real control of things, but her main brutes had been killed at the warehouse. She would have been left with soldiers that werent indoctrinated with her true methods and thus, could have their opinions swayed. Even David didnt know about the raids, so she wouldnt have many troops completely loyal to her, while David, while captured, still held significant influence. She also couldnt even kill David without a fair trial at the end of Ep3.
Instead we have Ep.4 with Joan ruling with an iron fist, does whatever she wants and it seems like everybody in the town knows that Joan is the absolute authority except for David, who was supposedly one of the most powerful people in the organization.