The Walking Dead: The Final Season

So Telltale, or what remained of it, seemingly went through hell and back to put out the last season of its Walking Dead series. It was the series that brough them to the spotlight in 2012, but through mismanagement and tackling too many projects at once the company was in very dire straits. Well they effectively managed to put this one out and end the tale of Clementine, but the series definitly didnt end on a high note.

First I will say that these visuals by 2018 are very , very outdated. Cell shaded visuals can be done well, but its colours are really ugly to look at , and the characters facial expressions are comical. Its hard to take seriously a zombie apocalypse drama when characters look like they are having strokes when talking to each other.

The gameplay also feels outdated, even if on this one they went ahead and added a bit more complexity to its QTE. The game still feels too easy on the action segments, which no danger evolved. Interactions with NPCs is also very limited, most of the time with no dialogue to choose from.

But you play this series for the story. And the story in this one really feels like it was made for Clementine to have her closure, and to pass the torch to AJ, which is obvious since from the start it reenforced the notion that AJ will "learn" what Clementine teaches him in the key moments of the game. At time this results in too clear moments of illusion of choice, while in others it really feels like the game reacts to your choices. Its effective at showing that in some situations are just lose -lose. Its just a shame that its choices are so evident to its consequences, and nothing is hidden beneath the surface. The narrative itself is well told, even if a bit predictable.

The game is better than season 3, but miles below season 1 and 2. Clementine got finally a decent goodbye.

They might have played it a bit too safe this time, but at least we got a satisfying ending from Clementine's story. It really depends on how you play it, but her character definitely got softer and more ambiguous than in "A New Frontier". While her relationships with the support characters are well-developed and keep taking unexpected turns, the villains could have used more complexity.

Even though I liked the way they mirrored many situations from the first season just to make us cry again, the twist that came after the ending was way too predictable. I am not complaining about the ending itself, as that's pretty much what we all wanted, but it went far beyond suspension of disbelief. Honestly, I was hoping for multiple endings depending on our actions, or at least more variables.

Technically, no doubt the best in the series so far. Even though they tried to add more interactive gameplay and action sequences, losing time aiming at enemies and getting game over screens in a graphic adventure gets kind of frustrating. I would prefer to just chill and focus on the plot.

The Walking Dead is based on Robert Kirkman's award-winning zombie apocalypse comic series (which also has a TV show). Developer Telltale Games specialise in episodic adventure games. This is the fourth and final season in the Clementine story.

Due to the emphasis on story, those looking for a challenging game should avoid it because they won't find it here. Although, this time they have increased the challenge in the combat sections. You need to view the software as an interactive story, rather than a game to fully enjoy it. The good news is that the emphasis on story really pays off, because it's really well done. Obviously, it becomes hard to review since you can't delve into the story too much, since that would be spoiling the experience.

The game is using an updated engine, featuring better graphics and often uses a style that matches the look of the comic books. I was really impressed by the art direction in the game. The downside is, it’s a much larger install size and requires longer loading times.

The game’s introduction gives you a recap of some story but appears a bit random to what it tells you. Really, it’s just explaining upcoming references, so that particular character from season 1 actually makes an appearance.

The game opens with Clementine driving in a car with AJ. How she reclaimed AJ is left to a flashback at the end of the game, but you don’t get much context of what is actually happening. Clementine is now around 16 years old, and has taught AJ well, who seems mature for his age. AJ wasn’t able to speak in the previous season, but now he is very fluent. He can use a gun effectively and is a dependable side-kick.

They have run out of food, and Clementine has the idea of searching a nearby train station. Things don’t quite go to plan, and they meet one of the game’s antagonists, and soon come into contact with a group of children and teenagers that reside in a nearby boarding school. Although they have survived for years, their food sources are dwindling and they are pressured into venturing beyond the “safe zone”. I was a bit unsure if it makes sense with some of their ages. The young kids don’t look any older than 12, and I believe 8 years have passed since the start of the outbreak. So unless they went to boarding school at 4, maybe it doesn’t make sense.

The youths have a great dynamic between them and the events that follow means their opinion on Clementine and AJ is divided. Clementine seemed to enjoy being a bit of a “lone wolf” in the previous season, but it makes sense for her to find a consistent home for AJ, especially when she has the chance of living with people in their age group.

The choices you have are often just an illusion of choice. If the choices did make a massive impact on the game, the entire story would be different which isn't really feasible for developers to achieve. It's mainly “you're damned if you do, damned if you don't” sort of choices. For example, you may be presented with a scenario where two characters are in danger. It's your choice who to attempt to save, but someone has to be harmed. At the games’ completion, you are shown your choices and are shown simple images representing the other choices. It makes you aware of how the story can branch without giving too many spoilers.

You are told that your decisions have an impact on what AJ learns. Most of these come from your direct interactions with AJ. There’s a few scenarios where you see evidence of your decisions, but I wasn’t convinced it makes much of an effect overall.

Regardless of if it has an effect, or if it is just an illusion; this is where the narrative really shines. The game is constantly trying to guilt trip you for your actions and really hammers home the consequences, really tugging on your heartstrings. It's all testament to how well written the game is; that it can really play with your emotions. The series overall has got me thinking about the characters when I’ve stopped playing, and not many games have had a lasting impression on me.

The conversations usually have limited time to respond, which partially helps the conversation to have a more realistic flow, but also forces you to make a quick decision under pressure. Saying nothing at all can also be an option.

Along the course of the game, there are places where you must find an item or learn something about your surroundings in order for the game to progress. Although your movement is still a little slow, you have control over the camera. There are some collectibles to find in the game which you can decorate your bedroom with.

You can control Clementine using the WASD keys, and mouse click to make your selection. You can also use the F key now (or mouse click) to interact with objects.

Quick-time action sequences are used to deal with attacks which can be quite violent. Here you will hammer the Q key, and sometimes press E to finalise the scene. Often the game will throw in a Shift+E which always caught me off guard. I may be wrong, but I think there were some of these events you could miss which I think was a feature in the first Season. If you die, you are brought back to the last check-point which are saved at regular, logical intervals.

There’s more interactive moments, and these are a bit more complex which is something that I wanted the developer to address. So some zombie fights involve you walking around and making a decision whether to stun them, or kill them. Stunning knocks them to the ground for a few seconds, and you can then finish them off if you wish. It’s more for crowd control because if there are multiple zombies and another one is in grabbing range, then they will kill you. I think sometimes you can end up in impossible situations if you stun a zombie, and the other zombie walks into the back of them; because now they are bunched up and you won’t be able to stun them without the other one killing you.

The game is split over 4 episodes which sounds shorter, but the episodes are longer so it’s about the same length as the previous season. After each one, your choices are summarised and you are shown your relationship with each character.

There’s a few weird dream sequences, I thought they were going to go down a weird story route with these but they seemed inconsequential.

One thing that was disappointing is how you are told Richmond is under attack but there’s no reference to Javi. It seems weird that Javi and the family was the main focus of the previous game but they got ignored completely for this. It does make you wonder if they made up the story as they went along like we saw with the recent Star Wars film trilogy. As it goes, this worked out fine because the overall story is just about survival so there is no real overall narrative to conclude. I did wonder if it would end with curing the outbreak to have a proper conclusion, but it doesn’t. They could easily make more seasons if they really wanted to.

If you are looking for a great story/experience, Telltale's The Walking Dead is highly recommended as long as you can tolerate the themes within. It's not for those that want a traditional game, since the action is more visual, rather than involving; but it's a shame if you overlook it and miss out on the experience. My opinion on the previous season was a bit mixed, and I feared the troubled development caused by Telltale’s closure would negatively impact the game, but Skybound have done a brilliant job of finalising the project.

Walking Dead is a series that really brings me back, I remember my Junior year of college playing through season one with my friends and then season 2 released near the end of my Senior year and I played each episode of that when it came out, and finished it on my own back in late 2014. Then when season 3 came out, I didn't really care because I heard it was nothing like the other 2 seasons and had completely different characters, but did end up playing it a number of years later. Then this season dropped, but Telltale suddenly went under, and nobody knew what to expect or if this would even be finished. Then unexpectedly, Skybound came in to save the day and finish up the work on the final 2 episodes and Telltale ended up being rescued by LCG Entertainment and now is supposedly working on Wolf Among Us 2, although we haven't heard anything from that in almost 2 years.

Either way, I didn't end up playing this until recently, mainly because I was focused on other games and let down by the whole Telltale situation, and also because I just had a sour taste in my mouth from Season 3 that I had doubts about this, even if it had Clementine back as the main character. Well I can safely say this is easily better than Season 3, but also fails to have the same impact or strong storytelling as the first 2 seasons. This is mostly about the aftermath of seasons 2 and 3, and Clementine trying to raise AJ and survive. With a new Season comes another group of survivors, more drama related to that group, and of course plenty of deaths, betrayals, and emotional turns. Really, the formula is the same old cliche Telltale where there are really no choices that matter and all choices lead to the same ending, only difference is there are maybe 2 side characters you can save from being killed off, but its more about playing along to an interactive, predetermined story, which is what is expected at this point from Telltale, but I do sometimes wish the decisions you make do have more longterm consequences than I expect from this developer.

There are some really annoying things about this season that I really dislike too. The main one is the game tries to be more hands on with the combat and throw more gameplay, probably as an excuse to say its a game and not just a walking simulator, and of all the Walking Deads this has the most combat and gameplay and there are segments where you have to kill zombies by stunning them or shooting them with a bow, and the controls for this are a bit awkward and often you'll find yourself getting killed because of this and because the combat really feels awkward and out of place. If it was one or two times it'd be fine, but I feel there are almost 10 segments like this and that's just way too many.

Of course the other annoying thing is in this you actually have dialogue options that can get you killed. I mean again, its the illusion of choice and its really dumb, why even give you the option if it leads to a game over, none of the other Telltale games had a dumb instant death dialog option mechanic. Now outside these 2 things, the game is pretty similar to previous Telltale games, and of course in terms of story and characters its a mixed bag. Instead of the group consisting of adults, now its a group of about 10 kids and like all Walking Deads you have the flat out annoying and frustrating characters, the characters who you hardly notice that are mostly in the background, and the characters that you like and want to do your hardest to protect and hope survive to the final episode. I feel in this most of the characters fall into the hardly notice, there are probably only 3 characters in the group I enjoyed, and around 2 or so really annoying ones who make stupid decisions that hurt the group.

But really none of the characters in this come close to the greatness of most of the season 1 cast or even season 2 cast, hell I found Jane and Luke from season 2 way more compelling than any of these kids in this season and I didn't even care for Jane and Luke that much compared to the other cast in season 2. But the characters really don't matter because they mostly just serve as devices to help AJ and Clementine develop their relationship. The best aspect of this game is really Clementine and AJ's relationship, and her using what she learned from Lee to help mold AJ into a tough survivor. AJ is actually one of the best characters in the series, because he's not just an annoying kid, he actually is a deep character and his decisions actually are pretty logical and smart, although at times he does tend to just do what Clementine tells him, but this is mostly to just give you the illusion that you have choice.

The villains in this are kind of lame and they bring back a character from one of the previous seasons and make her into the main villain in this, and it really doesn't work as well because it feels somewhat out of character, like they just make her so over the top evil in this that it almost makes Carver look like a nice guy. Like it was cool that they decided to wrap up a mystery from a previous season, but God did they mess her character up a little bit in this, but to be honest, that doesn't matter because again, the villains in this really just serve as an inconvenience and really are your typical Telltale villains who seem tough but then somehow your group can demolish them and take them out with hardly any weapons or resources. Really this season starts off strong, gets a little weak in the middle, then finishes strong. The last 30 minutes of this are really good and actually make the experience worth it and is a good conclusion to the series. Plus I really enjoyed the twist at the end, it could have ended a certain way and I'm glad it didn't end that way because it would have been cliched if it had ended that way. Its just a shame Walking Dead is over after all those years, it brings back memories of college and the first game is one of the greatest walking simulators and has one of the greatest zombie stories and still holds up well, and the second season is also still enjoyable, despite some of its flaws and weak characters, but I feel Telltale had to end this because it was starting to lose its touch and all the characters we cared for were either killed or disappeared in the first 2 seasons, I mean hell I think the only survivor from season 1 was Christa and Lilly, so I'm glad they're ending this before the writing just gets too stale and they start running out of ideas like the TV series, which is currently a giant shitshow and currently on its 11th season, that show just has been unwatchable for so long and needs to be put out of its misery, the show itself literally has been Walking Dead for at least the past 5 or 6 seasons. Hopefully now that this is done Telltale can focus on Wolf Among Us and Tales from Borderlands because its a shame those only got 1 season while Batman got 2 seasons and Walking Dead got 4 plus Michonne.

It had to go through a lot of bullshit to get to this point, but it's a satisfying ending to Clementine's saga. Her having to walk the same road as Lee leads to a lot of parallels, some ham-fisted and obvious but most well done. Your bad choices are highlighted much more obviously both in the game world and in the morals reflected in AJ's character by the end, even if the script isn't quite sharp enough to have him act kid-like all the time he needs to be.

The zombie plot surrounding the thematic core is also, like New Frontier, a bit weak and played out, and while most attempts to step up the production values succeed, you can tell this was made in the middle of a creative fuckstorm. The final episode is basically an extended epilogue, incredibly short and with no real outstanding plot threads. The subdued cel-shading works well up until it has to contrast sharply with the environment, especially next to otherwise pretty and cinematic camera shots, and the animation work is pretty close to awful. But you've always had to take the good with the bad with Telltale, and the Final Season marks a fitting end to the saga in just about every way expected. And after all the drama with employees being screwed over and there being no original talent left, I am certain this will be their last brush with relevance.