Introduction This is in my opinion the best Telltale game and probably the best game in its genre. It is one of those few games that really hits that emotional spot and where the character design is mastered so well that you believe in their authenticity. This whole series is in my top 25 games I have played. I completed it multiple times and the story hits the same way every time. Season 1 The first season is to many the best and I also rate it very high. Being the first season, it naturally introduces the most important characters in the entire series. We get to meet Lee, Clementine and Kenny and we get to know what the world looks like at the very beginning of it all. The writing is on spot this first season. Every episode has its own theme where not just the plot is unique, but also the visuals in terms of lighting and color are different between episodes. This is something I really like about both Season 1 and 2. This unfortunately did not stick around in the later seasons. Season 2 Season 2 is to me the best season in the entire series. It is a really good sequel and continuation of the story. Clementine is now on her own and has to survive using the skills taught to her by Lee. The story in season 2 is in my opinion phenomenal. The way it starts and the direction it takes throughout the episodes is just so good, it never gets boring. Like in season 1, every episode has its own theme in both the plot, color and lighting, but season 2 just takes it so much further when it comes to action, surprises, character interactions and the different areas you get to see while moving your way up north. This season is also a lot more brutal and you can easily feel that years have passed and the world has changed since season 1. Clementine is also a lot older and they do such a good job at reminding us that she is not a little girl anymore, she is maturing and her character is in the middle of a development phase that is shaping her into what she will become in the later seasons. Season 3 (A New Frontier) A New Frontier is by far the worst of the 4 seasons. You don’t play as Clem, but as Javier, and while that isn’t a problem per se, the first two seasons are built up around Clementine’s story and I know a lot of the fanbase, including myself, were playing this game because of Clementine. Clem does play a role in this story though, but we don’t actually spend that much time with her, most of the time is spent on getting to know this new family. Let’s get to my first issue with this game. There are a lot of flashbacks, and while some of them are good, the flashbacks centering around Javier and Kate’s relationship add nothing to the story unless you decide to follow along with the story the developers intended, that Javier and Kate are together and the whole two brothers in love with the same girl thing. I really hate this, since it leaves any control we might have had over the story out of the question. This becomes even more obvious in the last episode. The flashbacks also just seem too long and are out of order, which means you are gonna take choices along the way that you might not have done if you knew their story from the beginning. This leads me to the next issue. It is hard to guess responses on some dialogue text. Sometimes when you choose answers, it seems like one kind of response, but then they mean it sarcastically or they add some spin to it that you could have never guessed. It is really annoying actually and I loaded back a few times because what he said was the opposite of what I meant. On the other hand but equally bad, is that some of the quick time events are very predictable. Like they won’t give you any for a while and then suddenly throw one at you at a random place, making it really obvious that a walker is there or shit is gonna happen. Some of the quick time events also feel weird, they are delayed and aiming outside of the circle doesn’t always seem to really matter. This was mostly an issue in the first episodes though. I also don’t like the different characters you meet as much as I liked the ones you met in season 1 and 2. I am actually struggling to pick any character beside Clementine that I think they designed really well. I just don’t like this season at all. It could be that Season 2 was so good that any season coming after would feel like a let down, though I don’t think that is the reason. A New Frontier has multiple issues that the other seasons dont and sometimes feels like it was made by an entirely different team. Season 4 (The Final Season) I really like this final season, it is much better than A New Frontier and they really did a good job with Clementine in this one, making her character show her maturity and growth from all the shit that has happened to her since Lee saved her from the old house in the first season. Contrary to A New Frontier, the character design is really good in this final season. There are a bunch of interesting and well made characters. The whole youth school for troubled kids was a good idea and made for some unique and fun personalities. I just really like the cast. The story is also interesting and well written with a lot of twists and turns that keep you engaged. It doesn’t even matter that it all takes place in the same area, the writing is good enough to keep it interesting. Though I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I wanted to be involved in that huge war up north, that they all talked about. The brutality and surprise deaths are definitely also on point, more so than in any of the first games I think. I remember the first time I played through this, pretty much every death surprised me, but in a good way. Now, a thing I like but also dislike is the quick time events. They are probably the best in all four seasons in terms of how you interact with them but probably also the worst in terms of timing and trigger activation. This is especially annoying in combination with bad checkpoints on critical choices, leaving you to rewatch a minute or more of dialogue if you die. This season, much like A New Frontier, also has this brown greyish color theme that continues throughout the entire season. Compared to season 1 and 2, where every episode kinda had its own color palette, it just makes it less exciting when you advance through the story in these two last seasons, with everything looking the same. This season is excused though, since it does take place in the same area in its entirety. Definitive edition I like the definitive edition, because it bundles everything into a single game, making it easier for new players to enjoy it. The execution of it is bad though and it feels lazy. My biggest issue with it is the menu, which could have been done way better. It is confusing having a definitive edition menu and separate menus for every single season and having to navigate through them just to continue where we left off. We should have been able to just press a “continue story” button in the definitive edition menu and continue from our last save, instead of how it is like now, where we have to manually find the season where we left off, to then load into a new menu and find which episode we got to. There are also some other changes that they could and maybe even should have done to the game to really justify reselling these games. Like fixing bad quick time events which are especially bad in the later seasons. But I still recommend this, even with its issues. The series as a whole is so good and everyone who likes these kind of games should have played this by now and the definitive edition might help the last few who have not played it yet actually play it, so I definitely recommend it. _________________________________ [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45534557/]Help me out by following my Curator, I’d really appreciate it!!
Expand the review