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

[Xebioz]

Originally Posted by docspock

She's not dead. That's about as safe anyone can be in a zombie apocalypse.

Haha... nope.

But that aside, the ending in itself is just fine. The shitty 'your decisions matter' and 'the story changes based on your actions' stuff is nonsense and is what pisses me off.

[docspock]

Originally Posted by ElderBoss

I had two main gripes with the final episode:

1. The implausibility of Vernon taking the boat. It just doesn't make sense. Vernon's group was secure, stocked with food and medicine and no longer under the threat of Crawford. He understood Lee's plight, having lost his own daughter. WHY would Vernon dismiss all of this to risk Lee and Clem's lives, while at the same time leaving his safe haven for the risks presented by the boat? Far-fetched.

2. Even if you do not agree with taking the food from the car at the end of episode two, the stranger STILL centres you out for revenge. Why would he do that? Why not Kenny, who was so eager to take the food from the car? Great that they tied this choice in with the bigger picture, but awful that it was an unavoidable tragedy.

1. Because he saw the herd of walkers coming from the railroad?

[phimseto]

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.

"Gatsby" didn't end with Jay Gatsby falling in the pool dead. Romeo and Juliet didn't end with the knife plunge. Yes, it's a journey but what Episode 5 lacked in comparison to your examples and others is a destination. Episode 5 just slumps over and stops, as surely as Lee Everett.

As I wrote before, what struck me so sourly about it is that this seemed less an artistic choice and more one in service of the franchise. But even as a purely artistic choice, it is one they got wrong. For the game to be complete, Clementine's narrative had to tie back into the one you had laid out with Lee - whether with Christa and Omid (as I did) or any of the other possibilities. It didn't. It concluded too soon and then that post-credits sequence might as well have been from another game.

[phimseto]

Originally Posted by Xebioz

I still agree with him though that it's not well implemented. If you hadn't stolen stuff from him you should be able to reason with him or something. See, again a great point where they could have made your choices matter. Instead they just say "Meh, people will probably be just as happy with that guy sort of mentioning what we've done so far". Small things like this could change the plot and make you think that in atleast a small way, your decisions matter. But of course not.

Citing what I wrote earlier, this is one place that I expect improvement on moving forward. I get that when they budgeted/wrote/executed this first series, the game was an uncertain risk. Now that it's a huge success, I expect them to deliver more fully on the possibilities that they laid out. I agree with you that choices like that ought to have mattered more and made a significant impact, but they didn't because the game was designed to streamline into certain endings. Next series and all moving forward should be more ambitious than this. They've got the money and the audience now to do that.

[JabbaDaHuttX7]

Originally Posted by 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?

His death to have not been unavoidable (this season, at least)/the ending not so predictable? I know people like Clementine, but that fact may blind the developers/writers at Telltale that she's just a very good supporting character and shouldn't hold the story on her own (I don't want to spend Season 2 looking out for Clementine again.) -- and that Lee was arguably a more compelling character to begin with?

Lee would've been a very good entry point into the series for an on-going story. Playing as a new character might be a disadvantage.

Also I can't believe Rick (comics) survived longer than Lee. Lee would've totally kicked his ass.

[BlankCanvasDJ]

Originally Posted by JabbaDaHuttX7

Also I can't believe Rick (comics) survived longer than Lee. Lee would've totally kicked his ass.

The problem is, Rick (at least later Rick) would have been just as likely to shoot Lee on sight.

[stevean2]

The Ironic thing is, if Lee killed everything he can by choice, He killed ALOT more people than both tv series Rick and Comic Rick

[JabbaDaHuttX7]

Originally Posted by ElderBoss

I had two main gripes with the final episode:

1. The implausibility of Vernon taking the boat. It just doesn't make sense. Vernon's group was secure, stocked with food and medicine and no longer under the threat of Crawford. He understood Lee's plight, having lost his own daughter. WHY would Vernon dismiss all of this to risk Lee and Clem's lives, while at the same time leaving his safe haven for the risks presented by the boat? Far-fetched.

2. Even if you do not agree with taking the food from the car at the end of episode two, the stranger STILL centres you out for revenge. Why would he do that? Why not Kenny, who was so eager to take the food from the car? Great that they tied this choice in with the bigger picture, but awful that it was an unavoidable tragedy.

Some parts do feel contrived, but that was always somewhat necessary to move the plot for The Walking Dead.

I do find the prospect of getting the blame for inviting my group out to dinner on a cannibal family's farm (and then subsequently being also blamed for killing said cannibals after they try to eat my group, if I had done that), or for not being able to dictate what the starving group I have with me should take, a bit silly. Getting attacked by a bunch of cancer patients is also odd. Vernon didn't have the guts to kill one guy (Lee) in the first place, let alone attack an entire group of people and take their stuff.

Uh, not to sound overly critical, because I really enjoyed the game and am generally looking forward to Season 2. It may not have been the best ending, but it wasn't a terrible one either.

[fusedmass]

I'm kinda upset even if you hack off you're arm or leave it alone you still have same fate. Regardless.

[mkane24]

Originally Posted by JabbaDaHuttX7

Also I can't believe Rick (comics) survived longer than Lee. Lee would've totally kicked his ass.

I highly doubt that...

[dezo]

My biggest disappointment was that they showed Clems parents as Walkers, or showed them in general to be more clear.

[Chuck's Guitar]

I have to say, after hearing that the tentative release time for ep. 5 would be in December, I was worried that it might feel rushed with a November date. My fears were right, obviously. If you thought Lee had any chance of surviving, you're delusional at best. What kills me is that the ending felt so terribly rushed. There was no real epilogue - and a dialogue-less scene with two unidentified characters doesn't count, either.

What's the point of saving Ben in episode 4 if he inevitably dies in 5? I was waiting for him to redeem himself ("I just want to help") and I had such strong confidence invested in him only for him to be snuffed out like a nobody. Towards the end I expected Kenny and Ben (or at least Kenny) to show up, Kenny having had pulled a Daryl and using his last round to make a walker "blanket" to spare his and Ben's life.

Why include the option to amputate Lee's arm if it ultimately changes nothing? I went through with the arm chop, though disturbing, I felt it necessary to do so to see my final mission through. I'm surprised that Lilly and a few other characters didn't make a final appearance, as well.

Campman was a pretty big disappointment as well. While his introduction teaches an extremely valuable lesson about "even the small things can come back around", he just didn't have a convincing leg to stand on in terms of being a believable antagonist. I honestly wasn't expecting a character of such irrelevance to be the "man behind the mask". All in all, great series, but it's very obvious the final episode had less of a cooking time than the other four. The synergy and emotional connections of the previous episodes were more or less nonexistent. Very disappointing.

RIP Lee Everett.

[JabbaDaHuttX7]

Originally Posted by mkane24

I highly doubt that...

Ha! We never see Rick climbing rooftops or attacking armed psychopats single-handedly (that is... with one arm.)

[dezo]

Originally Posted by Chuck's Guitar

What's the point of saving Ben in episode 4 if he inevitably dies in 5? I was waiting for him to redeem himself ("I just want to help") and I had such strong confidence invested in him only for him to be snuffed out like a nobody.

If(!) you're a fan of the Comics you gotta know thats just how The Walking Dead is, anything can happen to anyone at any given time. No matter how ridiculous it seems to some

[fusedmass]

I don't know why but I expected a bit more. Like when you tell everyone what to do in the place. The door opens no matter what. And the fact it doesn't matter whom you bring with you. And the whole Lee situation. There should been an option save him. We should least know who they plan bring for staring role in season 2.

[Dead Watcher]

Originally Posted by Destmond

I can see why a few people are disappointed by the way things went in episode 5. But all it really seems like to me is "This didn't end how I wanted it to and that annoys me". :3

From the very beginning I felt like the game's "true" focus was Clementine. Lee did have his own story, and playing as Lee, every player is going to explore his backstory and generally relate to him more.
But Lee was Clem's protector, from episode 3 onward it was made clear you could never be 100% sure that everything was going to be okay and that Lee was basically preparing Clementine for how difficult surviving was to be.

Maybe I'm just a little biased because I expected a sad ending from having gotten used to The Walking Dead comics, but that's just how The Walking Dead stories go. It's the apocalypse, things are tragic, and unfair, and if every dramatic, messed up, terrifying moment in the game series existed only to lead to a one in a million chance that Lee lives and they both walk away, it would defeat the whole point.



Tl;dr version: It's a zombie apocalypse, Clementine survived. That's a happy enough ending for me.

I don't get how this was Lee's redemption. It didn't feel like Lee's redemption. It was more a survival story than a redemption.

Also, things don't always have to be tragic in every waking moment. Yes it's the apocalypse, but, that doesn't mean that all is lost.

[Dead Watcher]

Originally Posted by Destmond

I can see why a few people are disappointed by the way things went in episode 5. But all it really seems like to me is "This didn't end how I wanted it to and that annoys me". :3

From the very beginning I felt like the game's "true" focus was Clementine. Lee did have his own story, and playing as Lee, every player is going to explore his backstory and generally relate to him more.
But Lee was Clem's protector, from episode 3 onward it was made clear you could never be 100% sure that everything was going to be okay and that Lee was basically preparing Clementine for how difficult surviving was to be.

Maybe I'm just a little biased because I expected a sad ending from having gotten used to The Walking Dead comics, but that's just how The Walking Dead stories go. It's the apocalypse, things are tragic, and unfair, and if every dramatic, messed up, terrifying moment in the game series existed only to lead to a one in a million chance that Lee lives and they both walk away, it would defeat the whole point.



Tl;dr version: It's a zombie apocalypse, Clementine survived. That's a happy enough ending for me.

This didn't feel like Lee's redemption story. It was more of a survival story.

Also, just because it's an apocalypse doesn't mean that it's tragic all the time.

[Evinshir]

What disappointed me was that all the decisions made throughout the game and even in episode 5 really amounted to nothing. It was all smoke and mirrors.

I'm cool with Lee dying, it felt an appropriate close to the story after all. But I didn't like finding out that the same characters die at the same point in episode 5 regardless of who went with you or what decisions you made.

That just made the emotional impact of their deaths feel cheap. What's the point getting upset about Ben's death if there was no way that he could have survived? It would have been better if it turned out that not bringing Kenny or Omid along for the final part of the game meant that Ben survived the fall. Or if Ben died, Kenny manages to escape...

I had hoped that the conversation on the hospital roof had been more relevant with Lee being able to pick in the end who Clem would end up escaping with.

Ultimately, I don't think having the same ending and epilogue regardless of your choices was a good idea. It negated the whole point and showed a failure to understand what it was about The Walking Dead that made it such an appealing game to a lot of people. Yes, the story was a good one. But this is a game too and as such the medium means stories can be told in ways that you can't do with film or television.

Good storytelling isn't just about the journey. If a story has a weak ending, that is what the audience takes away with them. The feelings that the ending left them with. I loved so much of the game, but learning that my choices didn't have any real impact on the epilogue... That there was no way to save Kenny or Ben by making different choices... That changed this from Game of the Year to just another good game for me.

It also makes it less appealing to bother playing through the game again to see how things change because I know it all turns out the same in the end.

Bioware made the same mistake on a much larger scale with Mass Effect (with the added insult of a terribly written ending, at least TWD had a good ending that fitted the story.)

So yeah. I was keen to rewind my episode to see what I could do differently, but seeing that it doesn't have any meaningful impact on events has meant I'm really not bothered with playing it again. Doesn't seem worth it right now. And I don't think that is how I should be feeling after a game that claimed to tailor the story around my choices.

[UndeadDollface]

Originally Posted by ElderBoss

I had two main gripes with the final episode:

1. The implausibility of Vernon taking the boat. It just doesn't make sense. Vernon's group was secure, stocked with food and medicine and no longer under the threat of Crawford. He understood Lee's plight, having lost his own daughter. WHY would Vernon dismiss all of this to risk Lee and Clem's lives, while at the same time leaving his safe haven for the risks presented by the boat? Far-fetched.

Agreed. Especially considering Vernon explicitly said hopping on a boat without a clear destination was a stupid idea. The only thing I can figure is he was a much better liar than anyone gave him credit for.

[RoboSheriff]

Originally Posted by Destmond

I can see why a few people are disappointed by the way things went in episode 5. But all it really seems like to me is "This didn't end how I wanted it to and that annoys me". :3

I can't speak for everyone but im p sure most people complaining about the ending were dissapointed because no matter what your choices were most of em did not have an impact on the story and if they had it would have a very similar if not same outcome, specially when it came to killing off characters.

Not because we didn't got an ending where lee was immune to the infection and he got super powers from it to kill every walker with his hands while spouting overused internet memes and homophobic slurs.

Killing the main character is fine but it needs to be done correctly (wich i think telltale did).

overall the story was great and the ending was breathtaking.

Waiting for season 2