Fans who lost faith in the series after ANF: What must TFS do to redeem the franchise?
To those who regard The Final Season with low expectations after A New Frontier, what can Telltale do in Clementine's final season to make up for your distaste towards ANF?
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Well for one: listening to the fans and their feedback. You can’t make a game and not listen to the fans and expect them to not give you shit about it. There’s a lot of things the fans want in the Final Season, and there’s a guarantee not everything we want will be in the game, but the most important ones should be (like longer episodes, hubs, better character development, and more impactful choices.).
Another thing is; not killing off Clementine. Yes it’s the Final Season and it’s the end of her story, but that’s a poor excuse to kill her off. Let’s not forget she’s still so young and there’s a lot her character can do when she grows up. Not to mention there isn’t an explanation as to why they should kill her off. She’s the company mascot and a fan favorite in all of The Walking Dead franchise. There’s not even a good way to kill her off. Have AJ kill her? Nope, because he’s only 3 and I’m sure he can barely even lift a gun. Besides, they pulled that off in S1. Have Clem die protecting him? Nope, already pulled that in S1. Basically, if Clem dies, it’ll just be a recycle version of S1’s ending.
After the main conflict is resolved in the final episode, I'd love to see an epilogue set a few years down the line where a 21-year-old Clementine revisits her childhood home and treehouse, which (by this point) are badly dilapidated.
Have what we have been asking for since Season 2 like:
I think the ending should be determinant. Like a good ending, a neutral ending, or a bad ending depending on your choices throughout the season.
Honestly dont see why so many people want different endings. S1 had a phenomenal ending and no one complained about it being the same for everyone.
Id like one same ending for the final season that is a phenomenal ending. It seems when they try to make different endings it completely backfires for them.
It didn't necessarily backfire for ANF per se. There's plenty of reasons people hated ANF, but the determinant endings weren't one of them. The Season Two endings were controversial because of how they were handled in the following season and not because of the endings themselves.
The reason I feel as though TFS should have multiple endings is because Telltale doesn't have to worry about branching any of them into a continuing story since its supposed to be the final installment. The good, neutral, and bad endings could also satisfy both the group of people who think Clementine should die or the group of people who don't want Clementine to die. So there's a little something for everyone.
Kill Clementine?
I'm not exactly the hard to please type like just about everyone else, but I honestly don't think that way of thinking matters at this point. It's the Final Season for a reason--because they didn't wanna do anymore.
Well, yes, but some of us would like the story to end on a slightly more hopeful note than usual.
For it to earn my respect, it must be done right. Like, Season One/Life is Strange/Tales from the Borderlands right.
For it to earn my money, it must bring back characters I care about and not crap my laptop up.
Alternatively for either/both, it must be gaaay. (Having openly LGBT+ characters and killing them all off or having them be villainous does not count.)
Honestly, I wouldnt even mind if it didnt end hopeful at all, but still not have Clem die, in fact, I'd probably prefer it, I think it would be nice to have an ending where Clem does survive, but the emotional ending (in a positive or negative way) is what she had to do to get there, I want to explore the darkness of the world this season, I want times where you cant get away with being the good guy, where you have to steal, or youll starve, (or have it be a choice, steal, or starve and have an event later down the line be much harder or hurt you in some way because you dont have the stamina to successfully do something).
For a game thats about an apocalypse world where everything is gone to shit, I'd like Telltale not to punish us for doing "bad" things, A New Frontier had this to some degree, where you get punished for doing bad things (shoot Conrad), but not punished for doing good things (letting Conrad go, since apparently Clem just doesnt care), I want to see the game be so morally gray, I want both "evil" and "good" actions have consequences, and be able to get a satisfying end even if Im doing some bad shit (lets be honest here, being a goody two shoes all the time in this world gets you killed)
Season 4 is the last season for Clementine but considering ttg keeps teasing that theyre not done with The Walking Dead, that could mean that despite them not continuing clems story, season 4 might still affect future Walking Dead games.
Let's say if they continue Javier's story (I hope not lol no one will buy that) but not Clem's, S4 might still affect Javier's future story. So, the multiple s4 endings negatively affect the future TWD installments.
This is only one scenarios of course. It's too early for us to find out now so I guess we wait.
Dont forget the s2 endings, even at this point. Let Clementine talk to someone about how she misses Kenny. About her peaceful time at Wellington. About Jane's failings. About how hard it was being alone. Just... dont make s2 be in vain. Let us honor our endings memories.
cough @Alyssa_TTG cough
That question is speaking to me on many levels.
I...I just don't know where to begin.
Just...make sure they haven't forgotten seasons before the atrocity that is ANF. The fans have asked many questions and it would be honorable to give them some thought and incorporate them into this upcoming season.
ESPECIALLY regarding determinant characters! Bring them back into the story, make them have some changes done by the repercussions of player choices; simply put, make it so the choices we and others have made have definitely made ramifications based on the actions.
I saw on a post somewhere Christa is in the talks for a return. And I'm all for it. Her fans (and I) want her to return. Give her some changes that have happened since we last saw her, but let Clementine try to make amends and make peace for what has happened to her unborn child and Omid.
Bring back the surviving members of the Fairbanks family.
Bring back the 400 Days characters.
Bring back Molly.
And especially, for me...
Please bring back Lilly. Knowing this is the last season, I just want her to somehow be a part of it. Be it surviving on her own, a shell of her former self, or part of a group, who only does and doesn't lead in anyway shape or form, due to fear of a repeat murder she committed way back in Season 1, and somehow the guilt be in the form of the one Lilly had killed.
And let Clementine be the one to help the most.
And for pities sake, give the ending some heart. Something not cliche, but well thought out and the good majority of characters survive and find and maintain a stable community.
Please, to any and all of Telltale Games, hear my message and at least take it into consideration.
I'm going to be getting slightly off topic for this tangent.
People acting like as though ANF's issues aren't somehow part of a larger systematic series of issues with creating an active franchise out of subject matter that literally proclaims that everyone already carries the virus that dooms the inhabitants of it's world is a bit odd to me.
I tend to overanalyze stories that want to be analyzed but I can't act as if this material would have been much more strongly woven social commentary if done as a tightly self-contained fictional story rather than this hugely cynical franchise. I do understand that the narratives throughout the TV show and comics are a bit different from the game's canon. But Season 2 and beyond were sequels to an, at the time, well received seminal game that would've worked far better as a stand-alone title.
ANF is shit, but it's almost the exact same shit S2 was minus the abysmal pacing and lacking empathy the game had for anything. So what is the end goal? to just keep suffering until you eventually meet the same fate everyone has prior? That could work as a way to lace interesting moral parameters and craft some thought-provoking character interactions, but it is used to lambaste the player at every turn, no matter what choice you make, someone is right around the corner to berate a choice you've made... without fail, every time.
Plus, it's worse in a VG format because games are inherently about overcoming an obstacle, completing a task, working toward an end goal, doing something that is both challenging and fulfilling. TWDG's issue is that it isn't a challenge, it's a berating series of linear skid marks disguising themselves as "narrative structure."
I understand completely that some people enjoy it because it is a new venue for VG's to build off of, but restriction in game doesn't work the same way it works in any other form of entertainment. And TWD's subject matter is already weary and bleak to begin with, to rob that agency and act as though holding a controller, only occasionally clicking left or right is, and has been flimsy since even back in S1.
That is out of character for Telltale themselves.
And 100% playable clementine
Actually, that wasn't one of my problems with the game....until Episode 5.
If this season does well. There would probably be another one. If they want to do well just go fanservice but good fanservice like say bringing back Christa or Lilly. Have a good plot, don't waste characters and maybe we can get behind it for a last time(unless it gets more milked with another sequel)
And what makes you say that?
Someone said Telltale is very protective to Clementine's character. I don't even think they have death plans for her.
Maybe I'm missing something here I don't see how that's a problem? The virus doesn't decrease the time you've spent living. If you're gonna die, you're gonna die. The infection doesn't seem to have any noticable effect until after your death. It's not like a sickness in the gradual sense where your body detoriates over time (unless we're counting bites but then you have to count almost every piece of zombie media ever made and those seem to work well enough in storytelling).
I'd imagine the end goal is how it is in the comics. Settling down, returning to normal civilization and reforming society. Which before the game came out is something that they talked about tackling though evidently nothing came of it.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. People are going to die regardless of the infection or not. Just as people will live with the infection for the rest of their lives. Evidently there's still quite a lot of people alive and well in TWD universe.
That's just a problem this game has had with it's writing for a long time and it's gotten fairly exhausting , I agree. It seems to me like the writers feel if they don't put the player in a position where they're always in a catch-22 then it wouldn't feel like TWD. TTG pride themselves on giving players 'tough choices' but they never handle the events of these choices very well.
[Mod edit: Keep criticisms focused on the content and not the writers]
Like, fuck, forget money and regain the honor, telltale! Write a deep, philosophical and artistic story about the struggles of humanity in a world gone to hell, talk about innocence and morality, mental illness (mostly ptsd and depression), the cost of living, inner demons, trust, love (FRIENDSHIP LOVE FOR FUCK'S SAKE IF CLEMENTINE HAS A BOYFRIEND I'M GONA PUNCH SOMEONE), etc. Make us take the dark choices, make us truly define our true self by defining Clementine in her darkest moments.
Oh yeah, I should've figured that's what you were referring to. I simply meant they must realize what a cement shoe Clementine had become for them--the kill Clementine thing was just a random thought on my part.
Also, not to be that guy, but you of all people shouldn't be talking about what Telltale supposedly thinks.
I don't have any good expectations though, not after what they did with ANF.
That's a big part of what I'm referring to, nothing coming of the subject matter.
Yes, but the whole point is that the virus is a self-sufficient thing that will always be there looming over someone. It's an in-escapable disease.
The 'tough choices' are anything but once you catch on to the formulaic structuring of nearly every choice.
Just a friendly public heads up for everyone posting (not only in this thread but in all threads) - criticizing the game is fine, but don't personally criticize the writers.
Keep criticisms on the content and not the creators. Timeouts may be given for posts that fixate on the writers/creators instead of the game/writing itself. Thanks.
TWDG should've ended after season one. It's dead now; Telltale can try to resurrect it all they want but it's too late. That being said, I'm still going to play the last season. I'm expecting to be disappointed but my curiosity doesn't seem to mind.
But you say that like mortality isn't a thing, as if the virus is holding us back. There is no escaping death. We're all going to die no matter what, regardless of the virus. It's not like cancer where it slowly kills your body over time and prevents certain bodily functions from working. It doesn't have any impact on how you live like another sickness would so I'm not really seeing how it's a problem. It's just another part of your body at that point that functions on its own.
What I'm saying is that the novel is based around the function of mortality not being the end, that after a person dies, they are then resurrected into the horrific creatures they've avoided from the jump. There can be no hope in the long-run other than to be wearily tossed and kicked around from conflict to conflict, more people dying, and rinse and repeat.
There's nothing gradual to be understood or learned. Within the games, we have learned no big update regarding the way the virus works since Episode 2 of Season 1... They introduced it, and nothing of great certainty has been learned since because it's only really there as a means to amplify the tension only when it's convenient and nothing else.
So it's a set-up, and the payoff is almost always that people die, and die, and die, and the characters loose more and more of their humanity, over and over... It's numbing to sit through.
Stop recycling the same old situations because it starts to get predictable. For example, it's the season finale and the writers need to find a way to cut down the group, so they'll create a precarious obstacle that the characters need to pass like a rickety balcony, a frozen lake or a huge gap in the road. The last person to cross is always going to be the one to die.
As soon as I saw that helicopter in the S3 finale, I immediately knew someone was going to die and that it was most likely going to be Tripp because he was determinant and irrelevant to the Garcia family drama. When it actually happened, I just groaned and spent the rest of the episode annoyed that Telltale chose to repeat the same old crap instead of doing something new and interesting.
Season 1 had an amazing story line without good vs evil.
For me, it's gone beyond a lack of faith in the series but with Telltale as a whole. There are wholesale changes they need to make across the board as these problems are seeping into all the games they are making, not just TWD.
I just hope that they put as much love, thought and care into this final season as they did with the first season to give it the send off it so richly deserves. Though with their schedule and recent releases, it's a very, very slim hope that I have.
Would be interesting if her home town was turned into a community by a group who cleared the area of the walkers
What everyone said + GIVE IT A PLOT!
I skipped EP3, EP4 and the entirety of EP5 beside the ending and I could easily follow what the fuck was going on what is the point of writing of Writing those episodes if I can just skip them and understand the ending, I can't just skip Episodes in S1 or S2 (Well I could just skip like most things in EP3 and 4 in S2) but atleast you kind of need to know in S2 what happens at the ending ANF nope.
I think they should return to the stripped-down feel of S1, with a greater emphasis on atmospherics and character instead of action. Also: No "villains" other than the zombies themselves. Carver was awesome (mostly because of Michael Madsen's performance), but Joan was a waste of everyone's time, and it was painfully annoying how hard the writers seemed to be trying to sell David as a morally ambiguous figure. Keep the focus squarely on Clementine and the people close to her. Don't write any of them out on a whim either; give them time to evolve over the episodes, so if/when they ARE killed, their demise actually has impact.
This is a good embodiment of what I think Telltale's Walking Dead should feel like. Any "villains" should be relegated to either pure survival needs (like the St. Johns in Episode 102, or Crawford in Episode 104) or truly compelling and emotionally motivated villains like the Stranger from Episode 105. Villains such as Carver, Randal/Norma, or Joan/New Frontier don't seem to fit very well in the more grounded universe set up by the first Season and I personally feel that those storylines are not always as compelling as the more realistic and grounded/down to earth stories. Later games after Season 1 treat the series as more of an action series and focus on less grounded/realistic stakes.
I think that Telltale underestimates how much good stories can also come from inner-group tensions, general survival needs, or other conflicts besides the generic Carver/Randall/New Frontier style storyline of the protagonist getting caught up in a conflict between a settlement and another smaller group of survivors. After Season 2, Michonne, and A New Frontier all used that same storyline, I really crave something new and more unique from Telltale, especially as how just one episode in Season 1 (Episode 104) had the hindsight to break a cliche that Season 2, Michonne, and New Frontier dedicated the entirety of their plots to.
For me? Well.....
I don't really even want a last season for clem anf was enough bro. Telltale can't continue a series after the original season they won't pull a resident evil 7 on us let's be honest here.
Bring back Kenny and Jane. Retcon the shit our of ANF flashbacks. Just remove the whole flashback number one from the game, replace it with the alone Clem for everyone, remake it, I don't care. Just get rid of it, bring Kenny and Jane back for the last Season as important characters.
Start over from Season 2's ending?
please?
Lol too late now. I hope Telltale regret what they did and i hope they received enough shiT from the fans for it