Dispatch Discussion Thread - Episodes 3 & 4 Out Now!
First two episodes of Dispatch are out and since no one else has done it yet, here's a thread to discuss all things about the first couple episodes!
Really enjoyed the premiere of Dispatch! It's funny, there's lots of downtime with characters in order to get to know them, great voice acting, animation, and it's a good looking game. The game's a lot cruder than I imagined, almost like something out of James Gunn's The Suicide Squad or Peacemaker. I'm really liking the characters, especially Invisigal and Chase. Took me an hour and 40 minutes to finish both episodes so it looks like the episodes will definitely be on the shorter side, but if they do a good job with making the choices matter in the long run it won't be an issue. I actually like the dispatching gameplay, though I definitely see this not being everyone's cup of tea.
Looking forward to next week. Thank goodness for the double episode drops!
Comments
Also meeting Toxic like
Just finished Episode 1 and 2 of Dispatch!
I’ve got to say, the first episode really hooked me. The opening was excellent, and I instantly fell in love with the game’s sense of humor.
Visually, the game looks clean and beautiful. The animation is light and impressive. I really liked the main character, Robert, they made me excited and curious to learn more about his story. I also enjoyed the dynamic between Robert and Blazer, which was the whole second half of the first episode.
As for Episode 2, I actually liked it even more. The comedy was better, the story and characters were explored more, and the gameplay system was expanded. The gameplay itself felt simple but enjoyable overall. I’m still not sure how the gameplay mechanics will serve the story in the long run, but maybe the upcoming episodes will prove me wrong. I also really enjoyed the dynamic between Robert and Chase, and I’m looking forward to seeing how their relationship develops, especially based on what I’ve seen in the trailers. It also made me feel more connected to the characters.
My only real complaint is the episode length — my playthrough of both episodes took about an hour and a half, which feels short. Still, I’d rather have tight, story-packed episodes than ones dragged out with filler.
Overall, Dispatch has completely won me over, and I’m really excited for the next episodes
EDIT: I hope that my choices actually matter, rather than being the usual Telltale-style decisions, since that’s the point of this type of game. Well, maybe we’ll find out once the full game is released.
10 years
We are already seeing shipping wars starting again with the option that is obviously the one the game is pushing but the very vocal fans of the other one lmao.
Tales from the Border-bros. We are so back.
Dispatch is really gooood. I think at least for the premiere they should have just settled on four 100 min episodes instead of eight 50 min ones (but its supposed to mimic an episode of TV so i get it).
I thought I was gonna miss the lack of interactions and while I do like to chill out and explore an environment I get the decision to cut hubs entirely.
Let me just say oh my gaaaaaaawd I missed telltale SO much. You can tell its Telltale cause there's dialog choices like every min and not like 5 (cough The expanse) an entire episode. (I love just interacting with characters in my own unique way that choice games fail to match).
Also MAN does this game look fucking GOOD. Super pretty and well animated. Can't wait for the next batch of episodes. ATM choices don't feel CRAZY interesting but there's still plenty of time to shift stuff around. Welcome back Teltal-ADHOC
I did an alternate playthrough since the episodes are so short and easy to breeze through. So here's a list of some of the details and differences I caught.
Some details from the art book and comics that have released so far.
I played through the first two episodes of Dispatch. It's very Tales from the Borderlands with hacking that reminded me of Beneath a Steel Sky and Superhero managing very much like Middle Manager of Justice on autopilot mode. The story is early days yet, but I'm feeling strong Invincible vibes already.
Here's my complete review of Episode 1: Pivot
I'll get my second episode review done in a bit.
A trailer for episodes 3 and 4 was released!
Looks like one of the big choices will be deciding who in the Phoenix Program will be getting booted out.
I enjoyed Episodes 1 and 2. It's been a while since I've played a new point-and-click (though no pointing-and-clicking) and I liked the dialogue and Robert. I kind of liked the dialogue choices they gave for him, only wish I could have made him less confrontational in the bar.
Took me a while to get used to the QTEs, I failed some because I guess I had to click for longer than I did.
Also, a rarity for me, I did not attempt to romance or flirt with an Erin Yvette character. Heck I could barely realize that was her until later in. Probably good that I was like "Robert is too depressed and then too committed to being professional to flirt with women" judging by the episode.
Some good jokes too (Sonar eating mice in the break room was stupidly amusing). Looking forward to the rest of the episodes!
I turned off the QTEs for my first playthrough and turned them on for my second. I think I'm going to keep them off for the rest of the season. QTEs annoy me and I'm not missing anything other than the fighting statistic at the end being listed as 0% at the end of an episode
Adhoc released a cast interview video with Greg Miller as the host.
Damn, they stole Telltale's boy and poked fun of them in the first 40 seconds
Some behind-the-scenes info
Yay, Dispatch thread! Forgot to leave a comment after asking about it, whoopsie. Better get on it now before the next batch of episodes releases (later today, woo).
First 2 episodes of Dispatch were indeed pretty good. Despite being initially worried that the episodes were going to be too short, I actually enjoyed the TV episodic feel. It was like watching a good TV show interrupted with an occasional dispatching gameplay. While I did enjoy figuring out who to send out for missions and the dialogue during them, I hope whether you've done well or not will be more relevant in the future. So far it doesn't matter.
As for the choices in general, I wasn't expecting any miracles, so the fact that they are barely relevant so far is pretty much on par (with Telltale games). Plus it's easier to give Adhoc some leeway, because they didn't market it as a choice driven adventure as heavily as Telltale games usually did (game doesn't even have the classic "This game adapts to your choices" spiel). Seems like one of the major choices they're setting up is the romance stuff, which I'm not particularly interested in, so personally, I hope it won't have as much of a focus in the end.
Overall though, really fun game with some funny dialogue, excellent voice acting and great animation. Man, how I missed Telltale-like games. Looking forward to the rest of the episodes.
Btw, Shroud is definitely someone we/Robert knows. They wouldn't bother hiding his face if it was indeed just some random guy, right?
Fun fact: Robert's employee ID number is "BOOBIES" on a calculator.
Didn't we already see his face? They show a mugshot of him when the news report talks about Robert's dad getting murdered. He was a former member of the Brave Brigade alongside his dad. Though now that you mention it, the fact that his face is hidden definitely makes me think there'll be some twist with it.
Ep 3 & 4 are dropping in a bit 🔥🔥🔥
Played through episodes 3 and 4 and really enjoyed them! Lots of great character moments, some tension between the cast in more ways than one, some pretty tough choices and the writing continues to be sharp, crudely funny, and full of heart. It's also wildly more graphic than I was expecting lmao. The opener for episode 4 is WILD. No wonder there's a censored mode in the settings. The episodes were also a little longer this time around, around five more minutes each I think.
However I will say, if you're not a fan of the actual dispatching itself you might be a bit disappointed cause there's double the amount of dispatching in both episodes. I've gotten into a groove so I'm still having fun with it and I actually feel the Z-Team improving. I think my only problem so far is that we still don't really get to know much about the Z-Team beyond Invisigal, but with four episodes left I'd say there's still time. That and the hacking takes a sudden spike in difficulty which had my palms sweaty.
Overall, these episodes were a lot of fun. Will definitely replay them soon to see some of the alternate choices.
Spoilers
There's a superhero called Big Chungus and another named Durian lmao.
Played the new episodes, sadly have to say I did not like them as much and I think there is some cracks starting to show.
First issue is it felt like the majority of both episodes was the dispatching gameplay stuff, which I feel is by far the weakest part of the game and I really feel it overstayed its welcome. I also don't really feel like it let's us really learn more about the characters when this is the main way we interact with them, if anything episode 3 was starting to make me not like a lot of them.
Secondly this is the halfway point and there still isn't much of a plot at large.
Cutting a member of the team is a good choice for a game like this but again this kind of brings me to question what the point of the dispatching segments are because for me Coupe was my most sent hero in both episodes and was overall successful, but is apparently at the bottom. Like I get it, they can't actually dynamically have each member possibly get cut, but that's why I am really not digging the dispatching stuff. Doesn't really feel like it accurately reflects anything to the story. If nothing matters here, why not just let it all time out? It's like can I get back to the really good story game instead of being subjected to the strategy game without any actual strategy please?
I also feel like both the romance options are a bit underdeveloped. They feel a little rushed, we don't really interact with Blazer much these episodes and the Visi romance also kind of feels rushed too. Feels like that episode 4 intro was added to do some heavy lifting to make sure players keep her in mind. It is the only time we don't see something from Robert's perspective.
I know that was all kind of negative but to be clear, I still really like this and think this is leagues better then a lot of recent games like this but I do feel like it was a pretty noticeable dip from the first 2 episodes which I was really into.
Just here to post this:
Telltale seeing Dispatch peaking at nearly 70k players
Yeah, they did. However, I don't think they'd have given him a mask if there wasn't some kind of a twist involved. I believe it's someone who took over his identity. (Haven't played ep 3 or 4 yet, so if they already answered that question then ignore this comment
)
👀
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Hell yeah. Friendship ended with Telltale, now Old Telltale is my new friend.
Also OOH forgot to post my thoughts on this so far!
I forgot these episodes were releasing WEEKLY. I had it in my mind that it was every Two Weeks (but probably cause that's what "Telltale" did for the Expanse.)
Well for the first 2 episodes, yeah, I really enjoyed them.
The style of humour is a lot more vulgar and crude than I was expecting. Agree with Lupin it feels very James-Gunn-ish.
I LOVE the animation, really cool. They basically made their own animated series.
Though apparently, on PC there's zero graphics settings, so all the game content is pre-rendered video. Definitely noticed something about the presentation all feels kinda "flat" compared to an in-engine rendered game. Nothing bad, just oddly different.
Yeah the Dispatching gameplay is kinda ehh but I like the puzzle and time-crunch of it. It's got some.neat strategy (plus a lot of trophies/achievements for feats like "fail a dispatch with over 70% chance" or "succeed with under 15%". Definitely will add replayability, especially THEY HAVE SCENE SELECTION!! YEAH
I also really like all the dialogue choices. God, it feels SO GOOD to tailor your character and their lines, even if almost none of it has much weight on the game.
The voice acting is top-notch too. Really like Aaron Paul's burnt-out, hanging-on Robert, and it's awesome to see Telltale Veterans return to use their talents.
Overall Ep1 took me about an hour, and Ep2 took me just under that. So overall, about 2 hours. If each episode is about that, then that should be a worthwhile 8-hour package. Plus with little scene changes and stuff that feels unique.
Strange hearing Sean Maclaughlin (JackSepticEye) in this game. I like watching the guy. Funny/weird to see him play a tiny strong Irishman. (Stereotype much??? 😳) LOL he's fine with it, he took the job.
I didn't have a problem with it after the opening, but did anyone think the Episode 1 fight scene at the start just had... WEIRD sound-mixing? The music was just kinda there, didn't really match up with what was going on-screen. The dialogue and sound effects (especially the goons shooting) felt really weak and more in the background than they should.
Apart from that everything in Episode 2 felt fine, but yeah, it was an underwhelming feeling from the opening IMO.
Old Telltale having music loops, and every QTE being in-game and stuff meant they could really tailor scenes based on the moment/action.
In Dispatch I'm not sure the QTEs do much other than try to replicate the same gameplay of the past, kinda tacked on.
Debating if I should just turn off the QTEs for the rest of the episodes.
I'm liking it though, the series has great promise so far!
Dispatch is doing incredibly well, hitting an all time peak of 65,999 players and that's just on Steam. It's doing way better than I think anyone expected, hot damn. Shipping really is a powerful thing.
Not really spoilers for 3 and 4 but if you didn't play just don't read! I think it is pretty likely Shroud is going to be Robert's dad. It might end up being his dad killed the real Shroud and took his place and used Shroud's body to pretend it was his own or something. So I'm leaning on his dad is Shroud. It also leans into why Shroud didn't kill him.
I think it could also answer why something has been kind of annoying me about episode 1, is Robert brings a bad guy to his apartment and just leaves him there lmao. I don't want to nitpick it too harshly but he did bring a bad guy to his house and left him there who then escapes and beats Robert to the location, so his identity should be like 100% known. Plus for whatever reason the bad guy didn't just use his powers and escape. So I kind of wonder if that was because the writers kind of already know Shroud doesn't want to go after Robert because he's his dad. Which doesn't really fix Robert being kind of stupid there, but whatever lol.
I think the only other possibly twist bad guy would be Chase is Shroud but I doubt it.
Clearly it's Waterboy. He's just playing up the incompetent act. The Shroud suit is to contain all the water he perspires. He figures out Robert is Mechaman via Toxic and joined the SDN to gather information and make his life slightly more miserable such as by dropping a loud wet deuce while he's in the bathroom with Invisigal and getting in the way of dispatching missions.
Finished episodes 3 and 4. I still enjoy the game, but I don't really dig the direction it's going.
The main plot is basically a dating simulator at the moment. I feel like the only choices that will end up being relevant long term are the romance ones and so far the only non-romance choices that seemed important enough only had effect on the dispatching mini game, which you could fail with no consequences. I wish that at least the dispatching missions, where you need to choose between 2 options, would get referenced in a dialogue later, but so far no luck. It creates this weird disconnect between the cinematic and the mini game sections. Obviously I may be speaking out of turn, since we still have 4 episodes ahead of us, but considering we're already halfway through, I don't think Adhoc has that many surprises in store for us. Unfortunately the main narrative seems way more simpler than I initially expected.
With that said, I still enjoy the strategic element of dispatching the right heroes for the jobs (even though it doesn't matter, but hey, I'm still trying my best) and the writing continues to be amusing - especially the scenes with Phenomaman. He's probably my new favourite character. What a lovable buffoon.
Side note: I hope the trend of throwing shit at Flambae continues.
Yeah, I initially thought that Chase would be evil, because he wants the core to fix his aging problems or whatever, but I think there's a reason why the showed us a picture of Robert's dad in the newest episodes - so that we wouldn't forget about him. I'm fully on board with that theory. However, if that's indeed the case, I feel like the reveal will end up being cheesy no matter what lol.
The Toxic situation kind of bothered me as well, but eh, for me it's just a minor nitpick and doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the game.
Yeah I agree. I think it kind of focuses too much on the romance stuff while also having the romance feel kind of not fully developed. Like with Blazer, I really feel like there should have been like at least one more scene before they get together.
I do think the dispatching part of this game actually weakens a lot of the narrative. We can't interact with the heroes much and there is honestly just too much going on that it is pretty easy to miss certain things they are talking about or if one of those missions actually is more "important" than other ones. Then it doesn't really feel like it matters when you reach the gameplay parts. I'm still kind of annoyed about the Coupe thing because it just feels kind of stupid for her to be my most reliable hero and the game acts like she isn't.
I also think people who waited for the whole thing to release to play will probably have a better experience. So far I don't think either endings really have that old Telltale ending feeling. Like how TWAU ends with Snow being "dead" Or in Tales, we are held hostage and execute an escape plan. Pretty much every Telltale episode ended a lot more dramatically with high stakes or some kind of twist. Like sure it is more of a cliff hanger but it still pushed stuff forward and made it exciting thinking about what was going to happen next. With Dispatch I don't think ending with Blazer has a boyfriend or who should Robert get with is matching that feeling of wanting to know what's next.