Episode 5 Disappointment (vent here) **SPOILERS**

[Matt7895]

Awesome ending, awesome series. Really looking forward to the next one - please, Telltale, don't take too long. Getting season 2, episode 1 in April would be fantastic.

[Gerudan]

Bah, the ending was nonsense. At least have the decency to give the player SOME kind of closure. Let him know, that Clem is in good hands or has a future. Now she is like 10 miles out of Savannah "somehow", hasn't eaten our drunk anything for a day or so and is all alone. I give her like 12 hours and she is dead, too. Great ending, I might as well let her stay at the tree house, then she at least wouldn't have to see all the shit and she wouldn't have to shoot people.

Yeah I know, that there will be a second season coming, but it sucks if that ruins the first season, just to have a cliffhanger ending.

[BlankCanvasDJ]

Originally Posted by Gerudan

Bah, the ending was nonsense. At least have the decency to give the player SOME kind of closure. Let him know, that Clem is in good hands or has a future. Now she is like 10 miles out of Savannah "somehow", hasn't eaten our drunk anything for a day or so and is all alone. I give her like 12 hours and she is dead, too. Great ending, I might as well let her stay at the tree house, then she at least wouldn't have to see all the shit and she wouldn't have to shoot people.

Um...zombie apocalypse much?

[Gerudan]

Originally Posted by BlankCanvasDJ

Um...zombie apocalypse much?

You still have to give the player the feeling of some kind of accomplishment. Now Lee has completely failed, he might as well shot himself in the head with the shotgun from the beginning, what difference would it make? Clem is all alone, hungry, thirsty and will probably die from exhaustion in the next couple of hours. We don't even know who the two silhouettes at the end were. There really is no excuse for such a stupid cliffhanger ending.

Oh look, we will make a second season, so you don't need an ending for the first one, because that is, how good writing works.

[BlankCanvasDJ]

Originally Posted by Gerudan

You still have to give the player the feeling of some kind of accomplishment.

No, you really don't. Zombie apocalypse.

[Xebioz]

Originally Posted by BlankCanvasDJ

No, you really don't. Zombie apocalypse.

ZA is not the answer to everything. Are you saying you would be content if you died the first three minutes of the game and The End comes up? Of course you want to accomplish something in the game. If not, then why play?

[Dave of Canada]

You did accomplish something, you raised Clementine and saved her from Radiohead and the ending implies Christa and Omid made their way to her. The game's journey and destination was about Lee, his death was inevitable and we all knew this. What else would've you wanted?

[thebigbad]

Originally Posted by Gerudan

You still have to give the player the feeling of some kind of accomplishment. Now Lee has completely failed, he might as well shot himself in the head with the shotgun from the beginning, what difference would it make? Clem is all alone, hungry, thirsty and will probably die from exhaustion in the next couple of hours. We don't even know who the two silhouettes at the end were. There really is no excuse for such a stupid cliffhanger ending.

Oh look, we will make a second season, so you don't need an ending for the first one, because that is, how good writing works.

Say what? Lee hasn't failed at all, quite the contrary. Throughout the game he has helped to shape Clem into the person she is at the end of season one. And for episode 5 specifically Lee's goal is to save Clementine from her kidnapper, which he does. Even as he is dying he is helping make sure that she escapes and lives on. Clem is pretty capable of taking care of herself at the end of season one and that is because of Lee.

Also, they really don't have to wrap everything up in season one when they know there's going to be a season two. Just saying.

[Gerudan]

Originally Posted by BlankCanvasDJ

No, you really don't. Zombie apocalypse.

Sure you have! You have in EVERY game! That is one of the core fundamentals of every game design, if you can't "win" the game, you don't need to play it.

[Gerudan]

Originally Posted by thebigbad

Say what? Lee hasn't failed at all, quite the contrary. Throughout the game he has helped to shape Clem into the person she is at the end of season one. And for episode 5 specifically Lee's goal is to save Clementine from her kidnapper, which he does. Even as he is dying he is helping make sure that she escapes and lives on. Clem is pretty capable of taking care of herself at the end of season one and that is because of Lee.

Also, they really don't have to wrap everything up in season one when they know there's going to be a season two. Just saying.

She is all alone in some kind of waist land and the to figures could as well be two walkers.

And what is Clem to do? She probably has only a few bullets left, has nothing to drink or eat and is in the middle of a huge nothingness?

If those two would have been Omid and Christa, they could as well just show them.

[Drox]

episode 5 is horrible

[BlankCanvasDJ]

Originally Posted by Xebioz

ZA is not the answer to everything. Are you saying you would be content if you died the first three minutes of the game and The End comes up? Of course you want to accomplish something in the game. If not, then why play?

For the journey, not the ending. Some of the greatest stories ever told have tragic, hopeless endings. Should Romeo and Juliet have lived happily ever after? Should Gatsby have won the love of his life? This was a hopeless story from the very beginning (if you didn't think so, you've never read or watched The Walking Dead) and the fact that Lee managed to find any redemption by the end is an accomplishment.

It's not a game you win.

[thebigbad]

Originally Posted by Gerudan

She is all alone in some kind of waist land and the to figures could as well be two walkers.

And what is Clem to do? She probably has only a few bullets left, has nothing to drink or eat and is in the middle of a huge nothingness?

If those two would have been Omid and Christa, they could as well just show them.

Which is why I don't believe it is Omid and Christa, but that's another discussion entirely.

The thing is, we know season two is happening and with that final scene chances seem pretty good that they will continue Clem's story is some way, meaning that most--if not all--of your questions will be answered in time.

[phimseto]

Count me in the disappointed column. I generally enjoyed the episode, but the very ending of it left me flat, specificially...

- the abrupt cut to credits w/o resolution.
- the vague post-credits sequence that found Clementine alone and wandering.

These felt less like artistic choices and more like servicing the franchise - cliffhangers and ambiguity where resolution and clarity were strongly needed. It's fine that there's going to be another season, but *this* storyline needed to be finished more conclusively than it was. That post-credits sequence felt like a "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine" ad for a Season Two pass.

Look, I loved the game and I will be playing the next season. However, Telltale made some flubs here. This first season was a risky proposition so I understand how and why it was constructed - a lot of shortcuts to generate similar/same results. I expect more from the next series, particularly as far as dovetailing choices and narrative branches go. And I certainly expect the story to be more fully self-contained. I didn't make the choices I did just to have a random ending of Clementine looking at two figures in the distance while she traipsed about the Grey Fields of Frotzen.

[Dave of Canada]

Originally Posted by Gerudan

Sure you have! You have in EVERY game! That is one of the core fundamentals of every game design, if you can't "win" the game, you don't need to play it.

No, it's not. Gaming is a medium, not everything has to fit the same core set of rules. Not all movies, books and plays follow the same rules--why should games? To pander to the audience, serve an entitled desire for self-gratification?

[Xebioz]

Originally Posted by BlankCanvasDJ

For the journey, not the ending. Some of the greatest stories ever told have tragic, hopeless endings. Should Romeo and Juliet have lived happily ever after? Should Gatsby have won the love of his life? This was a hopeless story from the very beginning (if you didn't think so, you've never read or watched The Walking Dead) and the fact that Lee managed to find any redemption by the end is an accomplishment.

It's not a game you win.

Accomplishment does not necessarily mean 'WIN' accomplishment can mean everything from dying while defeating a villain, saving someone by sacrificing yourself, or just finishing the story (however it goes). YOU are the one that says that there doesn't need to be any accomplishment in the game because it's in a ZA, but that is total bullshit. You even acknowledge the fact that you accomplish something in the game, so your point is moot. Yes, you don't need a happy ending, but if you don't accomplish anything in the game, it's not really much of an interactive story-based game is it?

[zivi7]

I'll copypaste what I wrote in the review-thread already:

Originally Posted by zivi7

Like with previous episodes it have been small things that killed the immersion for me in the final one.

From the top of my head:

Lee has this discussion with Christa and Omid on the rooftops that he should do the risky things from now on since he has been bitten anyway. They reach that provisional wooden bridge and Christa says omething like: "Careful here." Still she and Omid go first and not Lee. Seconds later, where they want to cross the street by climbing the sign, they basically have the same argument again. Do they even listen to each other at all?

After the stranger is dealt with, the player can't pick up the hatchet but only click on the exit door. Minutes earlier, that weapon helped me to fight through the horde and now I want to leave unarmed?

When Clem asks me what she should pick first from the Security Officer walker, of course I tell her to grab the gun - so she can shoot the walker if it somehow breaks out of its trap (which didn't look very tight anyway). But Lee says: "The gun, always the gun!" Errrm, no?! I didn't mean to give her a lifelong lesson, potentially important for a future series. I was just telling her what to do in that situation. It's just one example for many dialogue lines throughout the game that look like they have one connotation when you can pick them but then turn out to have a totally different meaning because Lee adds sentences that I didn't see on screen before.

I'm handcuffed to the radiator and my last suggestion for Clem should be that she should always have her hair cut short?! I found it annoying enough when Chuck advised me to do it out of nowhere on the train and now this. Even if she was bald, zombies can still grab her by her clothes or limbs.

Finally, according to the "Which choices change things drastically?"-thread not even in the final episode does anything really matter.

I would have prefered it so much more if there were several different "endings" to explore in this one and if Season 2 would then have started from scratch with different survivors. The way it is now, like someone already said, it doesn't even matter who went with you at the end of E04 since after 10 minutes you are back together with everyone else anyway.

It's perfectly fine that Lee dies, I thought so since E01 as well. But the ways to that ending could have been so different. I hear if I had cut off Lee's arm he still would have climbed ladders, made jumps to the next rooftops and fought zombie hordes.

So unfortunately, it's been like it always was: These decision points are meant to put your under the "stress" to make some decision with the illusion that it'll be important what you do, thus making this decision potentially difficult. That works fine if you play the game once. But if you take the "choices matter" statement seriously and go back to see what could have happened if you made another decision, you'll probably get disappointed soon.

[Xebioz]

Originally Posted by Dave of Canada

No, it's not. Gaming is a medium, not everything has to fit the same core set of rules. Not all movies, books and plays follow the same rules--why should games? To pander to the audience, serve an entitled desire for self-gratification?

Again, it depends on what you mean by win. If you mean attaining a happy ending then yes I agree with you. If it means finishing a game, or accomplishing things in the game to move the story forward, then yes it is necessary. Without it it's no longer a game.

[lilTomTom]

Originally Posted by Saoralba131

I made Clementine shoot him...it had to be done.

Me too. I didn't want Clem to see Lee as a walker. It also taught her to be strong because there is no telling who else she could get close too and have no other option in killing.

I have a feeling she will be ok. I just hope she finds Christa and Omid. If not them two I do hope they are alright as well. Along with Molly.

However Vernon and those damn cancer patients I hope they drown and die a miserable agonizing death. I may have not agreed with the boat idea. But they didn't have to steal the boat and beat up Kenny.

[BlankCanvasDJ]

Originally Posted by Xebioz

Accomplishment does not necessarily mean 'WIN' accomplishment can mean everything from dying while defeating a villain, saving someone by sacrificing yourself, or just finishing the story (however it goes). YOU are the one that says that there doesn't need to be any accomplishment in the game because it's in a ZA, but that is total bullshit. You even acknowledge the fact that you accomplish something in the game, so your point is moot. Yes, you don't need a happy ending, but if you don't accomplish anything in the game, it's not really much of an interactive story-based game is it?

...you defeated the villain, you saved someone by sacrificing yourself, you finished your story. By YOUR own criteria, you've accomplished a lot.

I DON'T think you need to accomplish something by the end of a game for it to be a good game, but I disagree that you haven't accomplished anything by the end of this one.