Why Episode 2 Was So Disappointing
I watched the delay drama unfold and remained silent, but after playing episode 2 I just want to lay out all the things that were disappointing.
1) The Delay. Not only was it irritating itself, but having to wait so long created anticipation that probably could never be met. Plus people forgot what happened in the first episode. Also, when people were bitching about telltale not saying anything I'm surprised no one chimed in that Telltale thinks "Silence is a valid option".
2) Too short. If the content had been better this would be less of an issue. Mediocre and short don't work. Telltale, listen to all those people bitching on the internet... lots of people notice and don't appreciate the shorter episodes of TWAU and TWD.
3) No real choices. Tear up the bar or not, let snow come with you or not, hit beast or not, make a run on sentence or not. These choices were boring and I like things not boring. Someone died last episode and you had to choose someone to arrest.
4) Kinda boring. The first episode was brilliant. It was far better than TWD. What happened this time? Instead of the story blasting along in a hover Ferrari it just kinda fell out. Pointless action is boring, but so is nothing really happening.
5) Whats with all the changes? No throwing crane over the wishing well? No alley fight with beast? No alley chat with Georgie? No chairs being violently knocked over? Seriously, what happened to that chair? This episode doesn't explain what happened to the chair at all. No telling Holly about a serial killer while she's outside. No magic mirror. No wolf in beast form. Go and look at the old episode 2 preview- EVERY SCENE IS NOT IN THE FINAL PRODUCT. Now you can say that some of these are going to be in later episodes, but why would they show nothing from the next episode at all? The drama behind why and what was changed is more interesting than this episode and I hope it will come out one day.
6) Voice Acting. Georgie's new voice is horrid. The preview voice was much better. This new one is distracting. I know Telltale likes to use the same cadre of VAs, but Lee and clementine are distracting as Bluebeard and TJ. They're not bad, just recognizable from TWD and that breaks immersion.
7) You can't figure out who the killer is. This is the problem with taking feedback and incorporating it into the game- it means there is no cohesive story. There is no mystery to solve with clues peppered in. I like mysteries and solving problems, but only if problems are solvable. Maybe it was Ginger Boy before that video came out? Who knows? The point is this isn't a mystery novel with a way to logically figure out who did it and should not be billed as such.
8) Fewer Dialog trees. Doing another playthrough as bad/silent/good in episode one added a lot to the story. In this episode it didn't. This entire thing felt like a hurried re-write.
9) Lack of exploring. Not really anything to explore except hearing people mating in a hotel room and seeing a clock radio. Exciting.
Comments
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I don't know how but you just read my mind, buddy. Episode 1 was brilliant with exciting combat and tense situation. In my opinion episode 2 is such a disappointment comparing to it's first episode.
Your experience was certainly not my experience as I thoroughly enjoyed the episode. The delay didnt bother me, I barely noticed it, and I think of this episode as one part of a bigger whole that its slowly building. We just got more pieces of the puzzle. The real payoff will be when we find out who the killer is, which I still consider to be an interesting mystery.
Sorry, double post.
I feel very differently than you about this episode. I really enjoyed it. I'd probably say that episode 1 was a solid 9 for me and this was an 8 or 8.5. I do wish there had been more exploration, but I always want more of that because it's just my play style. I'm happy that we still don't know who the killer is. I'd be pretty disappointed if we did. I did wish for maybe at least one good binary choice and possibly a longer fight scene with Beast.
But, I really liked the writing in general. They obviously changed a lot of things, but that didn't bother me or affect my enjoyment.
I have to say that I sincerely disagree with you on the voice acting. I loved Georgie's voice! I thought it was perfect for his character and the actor pulled off the accent pretty well. As far as Lee and Clem as Bluebeard and Beauty, that didn't bother me either. I think that in both cases the actors have voices that are good matches for the characters. Yeah, so, they're recognizable if you've played TWD. Well, that's ok. It actually kind of makes it fun. It's like recognizing your favorite actor on screen. Just as I wouldn't give a movie bad marks for using an actor that I recognize, I can't dock a game points for having a voice actor that I recognize either.
I agree with pretty much all these points, including the VA one. All the other voice actors managed to sound very different to previous titles making them impossible to recognize, but I found a few too obvious. I'm not saying they are bad voice actors, they are fantastic, but I wish they had donea different voice as Lee and Clementine are very obvious and pull me out of the experience. @Violet_Zephyr, I also think recognizing an Actor in a film is bad as well, pulls you out of the experience.
I really like #7 as well. In these sort of mystery games, being able to work out who the killer is purely from the clues and not a direct picture or the main character telling you is quite important, so far this game fails at being a mystery game, at least you definently wouldn't play it for the murder. I think people play this more for the characters though, so it isn't too important, but as soon as the dialog choices mean nothing(Like in this episode), it doesn't have the mystery to fall back on
Hey buddy relax. I have to disagree with you OP. This episode was excellent and worth the wait. I made a review about this episode a minutes ago. No to answer your questions. There are real choices sir. The Alley scene with the pimp will probably be in episode 3 if not they had to take it out because ISO's and others were complaining about the lady naked in the trailer so they had it in doors. The nude scene was mainly the reason why they had to chance that scene. Now the beast and bigby fight in the Alley will probably be in episode 3 when beast tries to calm bigby down because bigby is on a rampage for knowing what Crane did. He won't say where beauty is hiding thought. OP it probably depends on what you did on episode 1 to get the beast and bigby fight in alley. If you lie to him and ignore him in elevator he will call you a MF and go looking for you. If you didn't lie you will get the hotel scene. If not then the hotel was the best place for the fight. The wishing well scene with bigby and crane will be in episode 3 as well as the scenes when crane says it's one of us. The mirror is dead so he will not come back unless he's a healing fable too lol. It would be too long to put all the scenes in one episode. They agreed two hr episodes on their contract not 4 lol. The other scenes will be in episode 3. Remember Bigby goes back to the pimp when their outside and says I found out where she lives so that will be episode 3. Possibly none of the scenes got removed they just got pushed back for episode 3. To say this episode is disappointing is wrong lol. I personally don't care if they did or did not get removed it still was worth the wait. All because scenes that were in the trailer wasn't in the episode does not mean they will not reappear in the next episode. TTG's were having issues with ISO's and other companies who forbidded nude in the game
The VA thing isn't a deal breaker, but I wanted to mention it since it added to the disappointment. It's fine to use the same VAs, but they need to use different voices. Bigby/Woodsman being the same VA is fine because its not noticeable. The problem with the changes is everything seems to have taken a turn for the boring. The Ep 2 preview looks much more interesting than what the final product was. Even in your reply you say there is a decline in quality.
It's just too bad that something happened that created the delay/decline of the game. Hopefully this is just a hiccup.
Well, I definitely agree with you on hoping that the delay was a hiccup. It'll kill me if I have to wait 4 months for another episode!
Did I say something that implied I wasn't calm? The alley scene dialog already happened in the club with Georgie it won't be in the next episode. Georgie already said something about Bigby wanting to hit someone. I'm not sure why breasticles outside of the bar would be any worse than breasticles inside the bar for Apple. The fight scene in the alley with beast was changed to inside. You can tell by the dialog. The scene where Crane said "it's one of us" is in the first episode.
Basically, all the scenes in the trailer were redone in a less interesting way. I highly doubt any of them will be in further episodes besides the werewolf one and possibly crane over the well. Why were none of the scenes in the episode 2 preview not in episode 2? Whatever the reason there was a major re-write and it. did. not. work.
No buddy trust me the scenes may be the same but with different dialogs. You know how companies are these day. They may keep all the scenes that wasn't in the episode and use them on the next chapter with different dialogs
. They would not just throw away scenes like that. Do you know how much money and effort it takes to make those scenes? Throwing them away would be wasting money. I know TTG's will find a way to re use those scenes. They just couldn't fit them all in this chapter so they had to push back the scenes to make them shorter. Now that episode 2 is done they can put the scenes they didn't use in episode 3. These are called reusable scenes. It took two months to make those scenes they will not throw it away. Just trust me and you will come back to this post and say damn you were right Jill 
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I'm really not having a lot of problem with the story,it's the glitch that irritates me,like the cash that stuck in bigby's hand,crane dialogue that seem's to be cut off half sentence at the autopsy room,and the appearance of bigby behind crane's back when he's obviously is chocking bluebeard at the side wall,also bigby doesn't look at snow direction at that pont
The random "Mister Toad" at the start of the episode and the stutters every once in a while are annoying too. There are a few other minor problems I didn't mention because I don't think they're what caused the episode to break. Telltale makes story games. The reason this episode doesn't really work is because of the story. The technical problems aren't so bad as to break the game like in Sim City.
Only a few things in the preview didn't make it into the episode. The major things were Bigby threatening Crane and Toad seeing Bigby go 2/3rds wolf. Threatening Crane will very likely take place in Episode 3 and the Toad scene will probably take place in Episode 5 (they're just slowly revealing more and more of the scene to build suspense). Everything else was just small bits of dialogue and such, which are bound to change.
The majority of what was shown did make it into the episode, just not exactly how it was shown in the preview. Since the episodes are made on the go, the previews are only informed by story beats that they set out. The beats are general things like "Bigby interrogates the suspect he captured," "Holly receives shocking/bad news," "Bigby goes to the Puddin' & Pie and has a chat with Georgie," "Beast confronts Bigby and Beauty about Beauty's secret and they have a fight," etc, all of which did happen in the episode. But things like location and exact dialogue aren't set in stone at that point. I mean, just look at the episode previews TWDS1. How many of those scenes played out exactly how they were shown in the trailer?
They only take in feedback to make minor changes to the characters and experience. All of the major plot points of the story are laid out before hand. Now, some of those might end up being switched around a little, which seems like it might be the case here, but they certainly don't change to the extent that it affects who the killer ends up being.
And as for the mystery novel thing, keep in mind that this is only part 2 of 5. No mystery novel worth its salt lets you figure out the mystery after reading 2/5ths of the book. And the fun of a mystery novel is putting clues together and formulating different theories of what you think happened, not being able to logically figure out who the killer is less than half-way through the book. That would just make things boring.
One simple question: What scenes from the episode 2 trailer made it into the final episode? (Answer: None) Have you ever seen a movie trailer where none of the scenes were in the movie? No. Sometimes they show a scene or two that doesn't make it in, but I've never seen a trailer where NOTHING is in the final product before. Whatever the reason why, there was a major re-write and it shows.
I'm fine with this not being a mystery novel. I just don't like that it is viewed as one when it clearly is not. Someone mentioned above that the dialog and characterization made this a good story and he's right. Problem is that is seriously lacking in the second episode.
Unchanged? Well, the interrogation scene for one. And as I said, what actually happened in most of the preview scenes did make it into the episode. The locations were just different. Movie trailers are generally made after the movie's already been shot. That's not the case here. Hell, some of the places might not have even been modeled at that point.
I was saying that this was a mystery novel. The only problem is that you seem to expect this particular mystery novel to reveal its primary secret to you halfway through. That's silly. What mystery novels have you read where you were able to tell who did it halfway through?
I have to agree with OP on everything but Voice actors.i thought it was cool hearing those same voices, but I m just used to hearing the same voice actors doing multiple roles In different works and thought it was cool because I got to see more of their old character.
But I don't think this episode is really worth 4 months' wait. What with the announcement of more works as well as the fact the group is working on two works simultaneously (even if they simply worked in 2 different groups) and considering the few difficulties while making the season one of TWD is a huge step and may be simple confidence which should be withheld until a more appropriate time.
I want to see good work, I was in love with Ep. 1 or TWAU but I don't see as much of the stuff I loved being shared into Ep. 2. I expected there to be power in our choices and actions but they didn't feel very important. The main point of this Ep. Was to talk, go here, look around, talk, do something, and repeat. It made a few of the things in Ep. 1 that mattered at the time, and what looked like the future, either irrelevant completely or toned down.
The fight with Beast was less than like 7 or so minutes and ended pretty plainly. I wanted more of the Wolf side, but about the entire episode is Bigby talking down different idiots who don't want to tell us what we want to know– even when what they are hiding wouldn't at all be worth hiding. Woody won't tell us what happened, but guess what? The truth had no reasons whatsoever to be hidden by him. It was like they are hiding stuff that are not even worth hiding.
The episode is where your learn a lot of stuff but you really don't do much to interact with the story as usual.
In Ep. 1 I loved the fear I caused among other Fables, I loved working to get some info out of a guy that seems important and like I accomplished something totally worth it. There is fear and info, but both are given less reason, I see less reason for Bigby to be feared even as a bad route, and the info isn't worth hiding unless you know what's going on, which would conflict with a few of their roles apparent importance.
I agree about Georgie's voice. I find his accent very entertaining, especially when he calls Bigby corny lol.