Notes

When i started to use the review system, most of my reviews were jokes. Hell, you might even say my serious reviews are just plain bullshit. But, one thing is for sure: i loved the first season of "The Walking Dead" game. Loved it so much that, as soon the Season 2 poped up on Steam, i bought it without waiting for any more details. Was it worth it? Was i entertained? Well, let's see... (this review is spoiler free)

Story: Mostly, i talk about other things first because the story aspect of a game is always complicated for me, because it's hard to separate what is a bad plot or a good plot. I don't say that because i don't know how to identify one, but because there's all kind of stories out there. TWD S2 story focuses on Clementine, our "seed" and how it will "grow". With the company of only of the familiar faces that remained after the trainweck that was the first season. The first thing that made me question the quality of the whole season after the first episode was the time skip. I know it was somewhat necessary because of the story after that, but the way they sold it made us think that we would see the whole growth of Clementine, as a child and as the main character of the future episodes. The "#iamclementine" marketing proves that. So, we have a time skip and some things happen to us. We end up alone in a forest, get bit by a dog and then everything went down as always does. After that, we meet our main group of the season, with a whole new set of characters. I do have do admit, they have a lot of personality, specially Luke and Nick. But i think my first complain is that, after episode 1 and (somewhat) 2, they stop having their own story and instead we have no time to "breathe". We just to keep playing focused on the main plot that can summed as "we go from a place to another without finding a safe spot until we find our 'Shangri-la'". This is kinda sad because i feel Telltale had a lot of potential for these characters. But since they changed the duration of a normal episode from 2 hours to 1 hour and 30 minutes (40, at max), it's quite obvious why they needed to rush things up.
I still think it was a bad decision, but i can understand why they did that. You see, there was these previous games made by them (Back to the future, Sam and Max, etc) that were able to give a solid 3 ~5 hours gameplay PER EPISODE. Each game they launched after those, they seemed to lower the duration of the episodes. Thus, we get to The Walking Dead Season 1, with 2 hours of gameplay per episode. When they won GOTY, a lot of gamers din't understood why a "damn point and click game" could be considered the game of the year, and only a few people wanted to play at least 1 hour to see if it was any good. And not everyone got past the "world hub" sessions because they thought it was boring. Thus, we get to Season 2, where A LOT of people who DIN'T FINISHED THE FIRST SEASON finally gave a new chance to the game. Why? Because the episodes were shorter. See why they did that? To attract, not the ones that played the first season and liked it, but also the ones that din't even know the existence of this game in the first place. Because of that, from episode 3 and so on we got not only a more rushed story and conclusion, but also a weaker experience than the first season. For the new players, it wasn't weak for them. And for the normal players, they thought it was "okay, 6/10", you know? Don't be surprised if Season 3 gets even shorter per episode. The other reason they did that was to get to the "feels part" faster, because that's all BOTH THESE PLAYERS cared about. And why is that? Because that was what everyone else cared about. Mainly YouTubers. You see, it's quite easier to sell something based on the hype and on the "you will get feels" than doing something actually EPIC. And that's what Telltale did. Why bother making a game with a lot of extra information and gameplay time when you can just low the budget to focus on the main story and, thus, gain more money than before? ...yeah. From all the game companies out there, i never thought Telltale would fall for that. And i hope by all the critics out there that they learned the-, oh, wait, that's right. Critics for this game called him exceptional, as expected. And not only media critics, normal users did that too. So, when i got past Episode 3 and further, finishing the game as soon as Episode 5 came out, i din't knew if i was crazy or the only sane person left in the world. Maybe both of them. The point is: for me, the story falls apart after Episode 3. And Episode 3 is not as good as people say it is. Yes, it has a lot of emotional and epic moments. Yes, it can be considered the "darkest episode of the series" up until now. But is in that episode that the problems start to show up. Lack of motivation, lack of character personality and the lack of continuation on the 400 Episode (which, without spoiling too much, probably we will only see the consequence of our actions on Season 3 - which reminds me: did they promised anywhere that we would see the results in this season? If anyone can find anything like that, that'd be great). All of that were pretty much exposed to me, mostly because of the "main villain" character construction. His build-up is so great and his behavior is terrifying, but there's no exact explanation of why he is like that, why does anybody still teams up with him and why he "lost his mind" in the first place. It feels empty and you get the sensation that his story arc wasn't fully explored. And after that, the last two episodes tries to rush a new story arc to get along with another one that was being build up since episode one. It just feels RUSHED. It feels CONFUSED. And the ending, well, it depends on you. Depending of which ending you choose, you will either cry of sadness or rage. There's a total of 6 possible ends, from what I've countered. Each of them is up to the player, and that is nice. BUT, the only choices that matters to get them are made in the end. So, there goes the Illusion of Choice once again. That was a thing present on Season 1 as well, but AT LEAST there were a few changes in between episodes, especially in the way the characters threat you or the pathway you will take (and the consequences of that). And even more than that, i felt an overall lack of MEANINGFUL CHOICES. Maybe because of the lack of a character like "The Stranger" to judge you, i pretty much felt like the game gave only two options: be a sociopath or a hero. And that's the problem: by creating a villain like Carver and the later group that appears, you let the sensation of "there are no heroes on a zombie apocalypse" disappear, especially if you are the kind of player that prefer the most reasonable choices. This group in specific doesn't even get developed. They just appear, cause some trouble, and then a serious of events that pretty much leads to nowhere but those 6 ends that pretty much say "now you are with the heroes and it's up to you to fight all evil aside". It doesn't matter what you think of the characters that follow you to the end, they pretty much created endings that will pretty much force them to like Clemetine and Clementine to like them. That's sums it up. Doesn't matter if you pissed any of them off in earlier episodes nor if you din't even said a word (yeah, try making the "neutral path" in this game, it's quite hilarious - and no, no "zombie in the train"-like moments in this one, those who saw the YouTube video of that hidden scene will understand what i am saying). It won't change how they treat you. The ending share a similar problem that the recent game that i played, "Life is Strange", had. It pretty much says "fuck you" to all your choices just to give you some cheap feels. But at least this game that i'm talking about had a lot of other qualities and even CHANGED THINGS AND HOW CHARACTERS TREATED YOU in episodes 1-4 (and somewhat on 5 too), even if it's just some little things. But i'm not here to talk about that game (yet), i'm here to talk about what i think about the story in this game. It has it's moments, some good characters, but, overall, falls apart after episode 3. And the ending is something that i can't wrap my head around. On one hand, it's great to have a lot of possibilities for Season 3. On the other, we all know that Telltale probably won't live up for the expectations and probably will give us a beginning similar to Season 2. So, yeah, overall, story gets a 5.5/10.
Compared to Season 1, it's way weaker and it feels rushed. But it has it moments and promises a whole change in the plot for Season 3.

Gameplay: it remains the same with some additions and changes. Now, we also have moments where we combine mouse actions with objects to interact with them (like moving the mouse to use a cigarette lighter to burn a piece of paper). The choice system is pretty much the same, but the consequences of your choices are overall lacking. You can be a jerk ass to everybody and that won't affect your gameplay overall. The characters interaction with Clementine changes almost nothing and won't affect the possible endings of the game. Even in the first game you couldn't escape the two final decisions, BUT, at least you could make your own story, your own pathway until then. Here, no big changes occur at all. And another flaw that should've been rethought is the "determinant system". THIS is bullshit. Knowing somebody will die in next episodes because there is a choice that may our may not kill them in a previous episode is BULLSHIT! And i will tell you why: this breaks the illusion of choice and also make it feels that, no matter what you do, nothing will change. And i guess that's the problem with this game. Playing this game blind should be possible thanks to that. Also, no "first person" moments and no world hubs through the game. The first world hub that appears is only at Episode 4 and even then it results in no additional information if you choose to talk with your people before going to complete the main objective of the episode. I thought they would use the situation in Episode 3 to give us an overall sight of the people we barely met in Episode 2, but nah, it's much better to introduce even more characters and kill the others just so you could justify the focus on only a few characters. But, i have to admit, the one what works, really works. And i guess that's where the feels come from and creates some good situations in the end. But, even so, considering the overall gameplay system, they're just a few. Overall a 8/10 for the gameplay. It reponds well and does it job. The only flaw is the choice system.

Sound: the high point of this game. The music is incredible and the voice acting is once again on point. The amount of effort they put on the audio is amazing. Every OST is used well and it immerses you in the moment when it starts to play. I got no complains except for some mistakes in the Russian accent. I'm not Russian, but i can feel that sometimes they try to "force" it. Overall, sound gets a 9/10. It's the part which i enjoyed the most.

Graphics: this isn't a game about graphics, but Season 2 feels a lot more "brighter" and "cleaner" than Season 1, which is very welcome since we are transitioning from urban ground to forests and mountains. The lip-sync is fine and the characters expressions seems to have gotten an upgrade from S1. The only problem are some graphical glitches here and there, and some misused textures that were fixed after the initial release of some episodes. Because of that, graphics get a 9/10 too. It does it job.

Level Design: puzzles are pretty much straight forward and offers no challenge at all. Compared to Season 1, this game feels more like an interactive movie because of that. It's no longer a "Point and Click" game. If you want to have a comparison, just try to remember how it was like to solve the first puzzle from Season 1 Episode 1. Or even more, try playing other Telltale Games for comparison. It lacks the charm present in Season 1, especially in Episode 3, that made us want to explore the scenery and interact with characters. The areas which we can explore are always closed areas. No open grounds like the train station/rooftop in Season 1. And no memorable place like Crawford. Not even the villain's main place is detailed as it seemed to be for us. And that's a shame. Overall, level design gets a 4/10. The lack of puzzles and places to explore like in a classic adventure/point and click game that worked well with the first season really bothers me.

Final thoughts: Season 2 is all over the place for me. While i can safely give Season 1 a high score and say it quickly became one of my favorite games of all time, i can't do the same for Season 2. It simply din't lived up for the expectations that we had. And even more, it tried to do so much new things, but failed and, thus, resulted in the repetition of things that we already have seen in the first season. The new characters are forgettable and are quickly compared to the old ones or to the villain, which clearly was the focus of them besides few ones like Nick or Luke. Hell, even Rebecca becomes more likable later on. But the lack of overall interaction with them, especially with characters like Sarah and Carlos, kills a lot of possibilities and make us feels that their destiny is already settled. The other characters are not even worth mentioning, because they appear way too fast and are not well developed at all. The old ones are only okay because we know them from Season 1. Again, the lack of interaction to cover the gap between Season 1 and 2 is really frustrating. The story is overall weak and doesn't seem to know where to go. It doesn't know if it wants to show Clementine's grow up, if it wants to show us how groups tear apart because of the Apocalypse and what is really needed for survival, or if wants us to believe that there's a destination in the middle of the Apocalypse that will be salvation of the only character the seems to know what it's doing: Clementine. She IS an amazing character. But i believe she needed to prove that before the adults just throw her (without her consent, of course) at dangerous situations.
The remain of the previous choice system would be good if the character interaction changed depending on our choices, like in Season 1. But since they don't, we can pretty much remove the choice system, since they don't change anything major in the story. As i said before, try to play this game without saying a word. It's pretty funny indeed. Overall, i was disappointed, but it wasn't SO bad. It has it low points and a lot of problems, but Season 2 made me hooked up after every end of every episode, always counting the days for the next one, especially when the ending was approaching. The conclusion is okay, i guess. The good thing is that we can choose our ending and we can make what's best for Clementine, independent from what we think of the characters that follow us to the end. At least, that's cool. But i hope Telltale doesn't let that falls flat and give us a nice continuation in Season 3 that remembers our final choice. Here, believe me, it's more important that what we decide at the end of Season 1. THIS will define the future of Clementine. And i hope that it's a good one. But for that to happen, Telltale REALLY needs to rethink the Choice System, get rid of the "Determinant" status and, for the love of god, PLEASE HIRE NEW WRITERS. And work with just a few of them. Multiple people writing the same story always ends up bad. And if you hated the events of the last episode before the conclusion, i will tell you why: FOUR. WRITERS.

With all that said, i hope they give a greater focus on the story, characters interaction and our choices. And, please, bring the world hub and puzzles back. Don't let this game turn just into an interactive movie too. We want to fell one with the story. And the soundtrack, characters and situations are very important for that to happen. I hope they learn that. And if you want that too, don't pre-purchase Season 3 before it comes out. I feel bad for doing that in Season 2 because i feel the reason they thought it would be okay to clearly low the production value was the income that THEY KNEW they would get because of the hype of the ending of Season 1. And it's shown by the investment they made in the marketing campaign.

Would i recommend Season 2? Personally, yes. It has it flaws, but it continues the story which we loved in Season 1. And it should be a good journey now that all the episodes are out. And, hey, maybe you should play by yourself. You may have a different opinion than me. But, for me, Season 2 it a 6.5/10 at its best. And, since there's no "average" button, i'm putting this review as a negative one. It hurts me do so with a game that i have so much love for, but it has to be done.

PS: this review took longer than i intended for and it was longer than i thought it would be. For that reason that i'm using Shrib to keep it, since i easily surpassed Steam's word limit.