

A collection that rises and falls

Reviewed by Trey Griffeth playing a PS4 on September 26, 2019
The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series is also accessible for Xbox 1



With The Walking Dead Telltale series officially wrapped up, publisher Skybound Entertainment just released the Definitive Series which includes all four seasons so let me to inform you all about it in this detailed assessment.
Introduction
The story behind The Walking Dead Telltale series is a bit of a bizarre 1. It initially began out as a proposed Left four Dead spin-off prior to becoming converted into a Walking Dead story thanks to a rights deal that Telltale secured in 2011. Given that the initial season debuted back in 2012, the series has been a roller coaster in terms of top quality. It began off with Season 1 winning quite a few game of the year awards and it influenced the whole business in approaches that we are nonetheless seeing now. Then, Season Two and A New Frontier sadly failed to outrun their predecessor’s shadow prior to the conversation about The Final Season became much more about game developer rights rather than the series ending thanks to the a great deal publicized shutdown of Telltale Games. Nevertheless, whether or not or not The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series is worth selecting up will rely totally on if you feel any of these seasons have been worth the work.
From a technical standpoint, The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series has a lot of the identical complications as the original versions of its games. The production top quality tends to be a bit lackluster with glitches and clipping concerns coming up consistently and usually, the music and sound effects will fully drown out the dialog, generating the procedure of interacting with other characters extremely annoying. At other instances, the music will not pop up at all and you are left with supposedly dramatic scenes that lack any ambience to add to the mood. In addition, occasionally scenes will play out and components of the backgrounds and environments will fail to load or just seem as blank spaces onscreen for split-seconds. It really is sort of a sloppy collection in this regard and 1 has to wonder why Skybound Entertainment did not place just a tiny much more work into polishing it up. Fortunately, what tends to make the series excellent is nonetheless right here and much more than worth revisiting.
Season 1
The initial season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead is every single bit as excellent as I keep in mind it. It mainly functions as an interactive drama supplying much more of the illusion of option than actual option but what it lacks in gameplay, it tends to make up for with extremely powerful writing. The plot on paper is a standard zombie story as the zombie apocalypse begins when no 1 appears to know why and points go negative speedily. The story in this case follows a convicted murderer named Lee who finds himself taking care of an eight year old named Clementine.
All through the season, we’re introduced to a revolving door of good characters that run the gambit of lovable to insane when providing us a healthful barrage of original scenarios to play by means of with lots of difficult-hitting moments. At the heart of it all, of course, is the connection involving Clementine and Lee as you attempt and raise her in this new planet and preserve her protected at the identical time and it ends on what is possibly the most heartbreaking note in video game history. If you are attempting to relive memories of this season then this collection could possibly be worth selecting up but you will inevitably deal with what comes subsequent.
Season Two
The second season is by no suggests negative. In reality, it really is basically rather excellent and was developed when Telltale was nonetheless a promising business but it suffers from the very simple reality that it really is not as excellent as its predecessor. When once again, it really is about people today attempting to survive a zombie apocalypse and all the mishaps that come about as a outcome but this time, it really is told by means of the eyes of Clementine. Sadly, the characters and the obstacles to overcome just are not as fascinating this time about, specifically in the initial two episodes as it mainly just amounts to the cast getting to deal with a tyrannical leader in 1 location prior to the characters and their alliances all start to break apart.
What tends to make the season function is the difficult connection involving Clementine and Kenny who was introduced in Season 1 and was 1 of its much more fascinating supporting characters. In Season Two, he sort of requires more than Lee’s position as a surrogate father and his introduction is by far 1 of the most heartwarming moments in the whole series. The problem is that Kenny is a volatile loud-mouth redneck who can not assist but make negative circumstances even worse just like in the initial season. However at the identical time, he clearly loves children and genuinely desires what is most effective for these about him in spite of becoming an apparent danger to these extremely identical people today. It really is this connection that elevates the season and tends to make it a compelling story with a exceptional angle when nonetheless not becoming rather on par with Season 1. Sadly, the series under no circumstances once again reaches this level of writing top quality.
A New Frontier
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier is not an objectively negative season but it really is by far the laziest and most uninspired entry in the series. Taking spot four years immediately after the commence of the zombie apocalypse, the story major follows a Hispanic loved ones as they attempt and survive and integrate into a new society primarily based in Richmond, Virginia. Sadly, it has nothing at all new to supply to the Telltale formula. By the time it was released, the zombie fad was ultimately dying out and the Telltale formula was becoming a bit stale. Involving The Walking Dead: Season Two and A New Frontier, Telltale had released four whole games that looked and played virtually precisely like The Walking Dead and this most up-to-date entry was rather frankly much more of the identical. Even on its personal merits, it does not supply something that we have not noticed prior to.
Each conceivable plot point and situation that comes up in A New Frontier is anything we’ve noticed pop up in a dozen other zombie stories. Some even play out in the official comic series, the AMC series, and even prior seasons of this series. We have the adoptive parent angle that we saw in Season Two, it characteristics a adore triangle as a crucial plot point which is ripped straight from the AMC series, a giant horde of zombies is threatening to obliterate every thing, corrupt and ruthless leaders are top raiding parties, and internal fighting in the new societies threaten to trigger it all to collapse. It really is not ineffectively told by any suggests but it lacks any new take on these plot points and feels much more like anything that the developers cobbled collectively in a rush prior to moving on to their subsequent project. All round, it really is a waste of time that highlights Telltale at its least inspired. Fortunately, some of that magic was recaptured in The Final Season.
The Final Season
Ultimately, this season will be forever linked to the shutting down of Telltale Games which ignited a much more severe discussion for workers’ rights in the game business that nonetheless hasn’t gone away. It was only completed thanks to The Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman and Telltale publisher Skybound Entertainment who completed the final two episodes of the season. The finish outcome of all this was a season that was far better than its instant predecessor however not practically as fascinating as all of the behind-the-scenes drama that preceded it.
The Final Season picks up a handful of years immediately after the events of A New Frontier with Clementine and her adopted son A.J. on the road immediately after points apparently went horribly incorrect at Richmond. The two ultimately come across their way to an old college for troubled youths which is complete of surviving children. Quickly sufficient, the children come across themselves below attack from an old acquaintance of Clementine and they have to determine how far they will go to save the college immediately after she becomes their de facto leader.
The word that eventually describes The Final Season is sufficient. Like A New Frontier, there is not all that a great deal to suggest but it at least does a far better job of telling a story. It wisely abandons the grand scale of A New Frontier in favour of a much more intimate story that the Telltale format has normally been far better with and we basically come to care about the characters. Its story is told from a exceptional point of view, the antagonist is quite excellent all points deemed, and it really is good to see a zombie story that ends on a genuinely optimistic note. The downside is that the season is poorly paced with the final episode dragging on for what feels like forever. On the plus side, it supplies a decent sufficient ending even if it can not escape the shadow of its behind-the-scenes drama.
Eventually, The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series is a mixed bag. If you have not however played by means of these seasons and are interested in taking the plunge, this delivers a excellent way to do so as lengthy as you are conscious that the series ultimately runs out of steam.
- + The initial season remains as potent as ever and it really is the highlight of the package
- + Kenny’s MVP turn is memorable
- + The third season ends satisfyingly

- – Audio concerns and minor graphical glitches plague the whole collection
- – A New Frontier is disappointing


7.out of 10