BTTF Ep. 5 OUTATIME Discussion & BTTF Game Review

[MrCyberFreak99]

I finished the game and it had a great and somewhat strange ending.

[WinterSnowblind]

Things did get a bit too bizarre and convoluted at certain points in this episode, it was a little hard to take seriously at times. But it was still all really well done and very enjoyable. The ending may have been completely crazy but I loved it, I really think that was the perfect spot to end it.

A lot of people seem to be assuming there will definitely be a sequel, but I think it works just fine as it is, and as much as I enjoyed playing through it, I'm not sure how well another BttF game would work.

If we do eventually get another one though, I'd like to see a little more difficulty. I understand what they were going for, but it didn't need to be totally challenge free. That's really my biggest complaint. The only point where I got stuck was when I ran into the glass house bug in this episode.

Other minor complaints were that the Delorean didn't recieve any kind of make over like it did through-out the three movies and that we never got to see the train!

[doodo!]

Really came together in the end. Great job TTG. The bug had me through the roof, but I'm going through personal issues to be fair. It's not fair to slate this game for one little bug. It was a great conclusion to the story and it was very good and well to see M J Fox voice roles throughout the episode. It was very well done and I enjoyed it.

Over all the game was great. It wasn't the hardest game ever made but that did not stop me from enjoying it. This is the first time I have ever seen a true bug in a TTG game , but you guys are very busy and insane for taking on as much as you have. Over all you've held your own. I was worried at first, I thought I was in for a bug infested nightmare. But, I got pass the infamous glass house and it was totally worth it.

Thank you for the hard work you've put into this game. I hope for a future patch release to fix the bug, but as it turns out the bug is no big deal. I would probably play this game again just for the story.

Some games I replay again and again , just for the story. Those games are usually a bit harder but this was a terrific experience for the fans and the voice acting top notch, and it was really cool to see all the original cast back into action for one last time, trying to tell the story from a different, more interactive approach.

Thank you.

[anashastar]

I think my glass house glitched, however I did not have to restart a thing. I had pulled open two of the doors and fell through the floor [albeit glitched] When i feel through I had no clicking options. But I actually just walked toward the wood wall in the first area, and it automatically placed me back in the house of the future.

I dunno if anyone one else tried this, but it got me through just fine

On another note, This was a fun experience. A lot of stuff I predicted happened but I didn't anticipate it to end the way it had! Either way, now that there is a BTTF:TG2 on the way I only have one thing to say to Tell Tale: TAKE YOUR TIME! I have no qualms on how the story line will go or what not. But to avoid glitches and to put more into gameplay please don't rush the second game. Loved this one and would've been happier if something were more clear. Either way I await BTTF2 now!!

[Milosuperspesh]

dunno where to put this but on the cactus and edna section, the hat was already on the cactus so i put the 'wig' on under the hat then the hat disapeared and was then by edna

wierd....

[PhunkyPhazon]

Originally Posted by Mino_Dan

The finale was a convoluted mess storywise.

That was the point. Even if they plan on making this coherent in THE FUTURE(!!!), it's completely impossible to figure out at the moment.

Originally Posted by anashastar

Either way I await BTTF2 now!!

Here you go!

[doodo!]

Does this mean BTTF 5 will have all MJ Fox again?

[dmcman]

Originally Posted by Mino_Dan

Exactly, that must have happened between BTTF3 and BTTF-E1.

Which means that Doc never went to 1931 in the first place...negating the whole videogame series...but then why did have the gift for Marty in the end of the episode?!

Messy!

The events of the game still happened. Back to the Future isn't like, say, 12 Monkeys or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, where any time traveling that will happen has already happened, meaning that Doc still had to be trapped in the past looking for info about Trixie, so the duplicate DeLorean would be auto-sent to Doc's house/garage for Marty to go and get him.

The only real messy part is how Doc wound up with ANOTHER DeLorean. It can't be the duplicate, as Edna had it and pretty much destroyed it when she was stuck in the 1800's. So that leaves Doc creating a second DeLorean aside from already having the duplicate, while he was in 1986 (which is reasonable), or some strange explanation for Doc having found another duplicate in time.

[MetroidSocrates]

I'm still in shock from the end of the episode. That, was one hell of a cliffhanger at the end. And the things revealed. This is the best out of all 5 episodes. Here are some of the things revealed.

1. Edna is indeed the real speakeasy arsonist. At the end, she is arrested by Officer Parker after Marty records evidence, and ends up in jail with Kid Tannen.

2. It turns out Trixie Trotter is actually Sylvia. And her maiden name is Miffin. Arthur and Sylvia get married 5 years earlier in 1931, but it doesn't affect their descendants.

3. Michael J Fox first voices the 1931 version of William Mcfly, Marty's great-grandfather. The same one who peed on Marty in 1885 in Part III. The second role he plays is Future Marty at the end. Specifically, 3 Future Martys. I will get in to the cliffhanger.

4. As the description on Telltale's page says for this episode, there is a chase through time. Edna steals the Delorean and accidentally travels to 1876. At first, she loves the old Hill Valley because it's an "ideal place" for her, but then, a Tannen comes along and opens a saloon. I forget his first name, but it's the same Tannen you see on the slides on Mental Alignment Meter test. So, she burns down the saloon, and ends up accidentally burning down the entire town of Hill Valley. So, Doc and Marty suddenly end up in the middle of a barren wasteland, where William Mcfly drives up to them. He tells them that the only person living in the area is a crazy old lady named Mary Pickford. She is actually Edna. And she's at her craziest. They manage to bring back her memories of what she did, and they travel to 1876 to stop her. Then, you chase her driving the Delorean from 1931 with Doc's Delorean, putting these things on hers' to stop the car. Then, she ends up traveling back to 1931, and crashes into the jail, where she is then arrested.

Now for the cliffhanger.



Doc and Marty travel back to 1986, and everything seems normal at first. However, there are some differences. First, because you make Emmet and his father respect each other, Doc didn't completely leave his home in 1986 like he originally did. He has to manage his father's estate. So he and Clara have part-time residence. Instead of an estate sale, Doc is selling his possessions in a garage sale. Then all of a sudden, Edna comes up to them with Einstein, and now she likes dogs. She says she is doing her daily routine of walking Einstein. Then, all of the sudden, Kid Tannen drives up to them in a sports jacket. It turns out Edna fell in love with Kid Tannen in prison, and they married, so now she is Biff's step-mother. Then, as Doc and Marty are walking back into the lab, a Delorean time machine comes up to them, and a future version of Marty comes out saying that they've got to go back to the future to save Marty's great-great grandkids. Then, another future Marty drives up, who apparently is the other Future Marty's evil twin. They're both trying to convince Doc and present Marty to help one of them, trying to say which of their timelines is right. Then, another future Marty comes up, and says that Doc and him have got to go back and save Marty and Jennifer's 12 children. Then all the future Martys keep saying to each other "Quit screwing up our timelines." Then, Doc and present Marty get into the Delorean, and travel to the future. The End.

The ending is crazy, right? I'm still in WTF mode and it's been 20 minutes since I played it.

Also, at the end of the episode, it said "To Be Continued", which means we're getting a second season! I am having multiple fangasms.

[Ductos]

Am I the only who really liked Edna's look in the Old West?

Was kind of sexy actually. Reminded me of Lee Remick from The Hallelujah Trail.

That and their shared hatred for booze.

[MetroidSocrates]

Originally Posted by PhunkyPhazon

So did anyone else stick around after the credits? Does this truly mean what I think it means? If so, I am happy.

Also, If Edna is Biff's stepmom, then that makes Principal Strickland his step-uncle. They didn't say how long Kid and Edna had been married, but this kind of puts Biff's and Prinipal Strick's relationship in the second movie under a different light, doesn't it? (Assuming Kid and Edna were married by 1955)

Kid and Edna were probably in prison for a long time. Kid probably got out a little early for good behavior. Arson isn't as serious a crime as tax evasion, which is what Kid was charged with, so Edna probably got out way earlier.

[dmcman]

Originally Posted by doodo!

Does this mean BTTF 5 will have all MJ Fox again?

It's unlikely. I think he couldn't do it this time because his illness wouldn't allow him to sit in the booth for however long to record the various lines of dialogue (keep in mind, being an adventure game, Marty has to have various lines of dialog for examining objects, saying why things won't work, variations of lines for the dialog trees). And that he'd have to do it for about 5 different episodes. I personally have no idea how Telltale's process is, but I can assume that unless they take long amounts of time with each episode to allow MJF to be able to record lines at a pace accessible to him, then we're probably stuck with only cameos.

But hey, cameos are better than nothing, and A.J. Locascio did a pretty good job.

[daeva0123]

Great episode, still buzzed after playing it. I think I'll wait a while until i review it properly, but there were moments in the game that really were touching and drove home the essence of the story -the friendship of Marty and Doc. The final moment of FCB was genuinely sad and the scene leading on with Young Emmett Was funny and just well executed.

Edna's character throughout, I knew she was (bat$#!+ ) crazy, but bravo Telltale for making me sympathize with her in spite of her being the main antagonist.

I was fortunate not to have encountered the game-stopping bugs that others did. I did have a weird one with the cactus and the hat, but luckily it fixed after a few clicks.

It was a joy to hear Michael J Fox's voice acting again, especially in the closing scene. It'd be cool if there is to be a second series both AJ and MJ get to work together doing Marty's voice.

My disappointments I guess are that we didn't get to see normal 1986 Jennifer at the end. And It would have been cool to see Clara and the Kids. Also my mind had been overthinking so much in the story I kind of thought there'd be an enormous final twist behind stuff that really had already been explained (The Shoe, Visiting Marty and Jennifer and such).

As far as the animation, I personally didn't find too many problems with it. The lip-syncing, while its never been perfect by any means throughout the series, I find its worse depending on your graphics settings. And I thought the facial animations and expressions of Doc and Edna in particular were very well done.

As a game it definitely has its flaws (all have which have been exhaustively brought up on the forums), but overall it's been one of the very few game's that has tried to capture the essence of a franchise so many of us love and miss. The voice work, character development and story alone makes it a cut above most of the soulless movie-based-games out there.

If there is to be a second series, there needs to be much more involved gameplay overall, as an adventure game bttf works because you become part of the character interaction and see the effects play out in the story.
The problem lies with creating meaningful puzzles that fit well within the bttf world, since its entirely different to the world Sam and Max - where things are that bonkers you can solve a puzzle by using parafine based slush puppie to heat glen millers kettle to inspire him for his latest hit and not have it tarnish the story.

[The Doc]

Originally Posted by forummouse

You just made this thread 20% cooler.

On topic, enjoyed everything...except the bunch of Martys at the ending. That was just too bizarre.

...and me posting here makes it 45% cooler

Yes people,even The Doc says this was a good game...I wasn't a big fan of Double Visions which is why I had a feeling that the final episode would be bad...but I was totally wrong.The ending really wraps it up for me.After spending around 5 episodes in the 1930's it felt awesome to finally come back 1986...I'm glad TellTale made such an awesome plot!Everything now makes sense to me....

Well I'm not going to spoil it for anybody...but its *INSERT WORD THAT IS COMBINATION OF COOL,RAD,AWESOME,GREAT,ETC*....yeah I don't know a word that can describe!

4 out of 5 stars!Thanks TellTale for an awesome Game/Sequel...Im looking forward to SEASON 2 B*TCHES

[RAnthonyMahan]

Pretty good finale. Lots of emotional moments, and the ending was hilarious. The puzzles were OK. Not as good as Episode 4's, but still better than the hand-holding the first three episodes were. (What was the point to the algae cakes' return, by the way? Giving them to people didn't seem to get a response, although I didn't try everybody. And also the blacksmith sign.) Jogging Edna's memory and the whole saloon puzzle were pretty clever. The environments were great. Loved the Expo, wished there was more of it. (I'm a sucker for all that "future that never was" stuff.)

My only real complaint is that it didn't really feel like a finale. Telltale always sets up the last episode to be something epic. All three Sam and Max finales, Rise of the Pirate God...hell, even 8-Bit Is Enough did it to some extent. While Telltale was definitely going for that this time...I don't know, I just didn't feel it for some reason.

And now for my thoughts on the series as a whole. Brace yourself for text.

WHAT I LIKED:
It Feels Like Back to the Future: If I had to name Telltale's greatest strength as a developer, I'd probably say that, for a company that deals almost exclusively in licensed games, they always make an effort to treat those licenses with respect. There was a time when "Back to the Future video game" meant running around throwing bowling balls and avoiding hula hoop girls. Telltale had a difficult task, following up on the closure-providing ending of the third movie, but they came up with a plot that would be worthy of a fourth BttF film. (Having Bob Gale on board definitely helped.)

At the same time, though, there is such a thing as being too faithful. Many times an adaptation/continuation of a franchise is so afraid of deviating from the source that they just throw as much fanservice as they can. This is better than ignoring your source completely, but not by much. I was afraid Telltale would go this route, but fortunately they managed to make things different while still keeping them the same. Marty causes a lot of trouble just by trying to do the right thing. There's actual tension between Doc and Marty, when previously they got along so well it seemed like they were two halves of a single character. And the villain wasn't a Tannen! These are all very different elements from what BttF is known for, and yet it still made sense as part of the series. So I applaud Telltale for that. The whole thing was well-written all around.

The Voice Acting: AJ Locascio as Marty was incredible, plain and simple. (Also, I know he lurks these forums, so on the off-chance you're reading this, AJ, I want to say best of luck with the rest of your voice acting career.) Christopher Lloyd as Doc goes without saying. It's good to know he's still as animated as ever (but of course Judge Doom is animated ) after all these years. James Arnold Taylor as Young Emmett also deserves some credit for somehow managing a voice that sounds like a teenager yet still being recognizably Doc. And it was great having Claudia Wells as Jennifer, as well as Michael J. Fox's short but sweet cameo. George and Kid Biffyond were a little...eh, but I think they grew into the roles as the episodes progressed. All in all, the voice actors did a good job filling the void the movie's cast (mostly) left behind.

The Music: Jared Emerson-Johnson is a genius. Plain and simple. I'd even go as far as saying Telltale's Sam and Max episodes have some of the best soundtracks in modern gaming. It's amazing how many of the game's songs feel like score from the movies when they're really original pieces. (I particularly liked the main BttF theme redone as a soft, melancholy song.) The Marquis DeSinge did good.

The Hint System: Wait, wait, hear me out. Sure, with how easy the game was the hint system was mostly unnecessary, but it was still well done. Think about Telltale's previous hint system (although maybe I shouldn't say "previous" since BttF used it along with the new system). If you were stuck on a puzzle, you had to wait around and do nothing for who-knows-how-long until one of the characters decides to drop a piece of extremely vague dialogue that may not even be useful for you. Sure, you could turn the hint level to high so you can hear it sooner, but then the characters just won't shut up. But a menu with a series of InvisiClues-style hints (so the solution isn't spoiled right away, unless you want it to be) that you can bring up anytime? That's much better. Hopefully Telltale scraps the dialogue-based hint system entirely for the new one.

Edna: Well, no, I didn't like Edna. I guess what I mean is that she made for a good villain. On one hand, she's a sadistic pyromaniac with dreams of becoming a dictator, yet at the same time she's so convinced she's doing the right thing. Good villains need depth, and while Biff Tannen will always be one of my favorite movie villains, he definitely didn't have the depth Telltale needed for the story they wanted. So all in all, I thought Edna made for a good antagonist.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
So Very, Very Easy: All right, people have been complaining about this since December. I'm sure everyone (me included, to an extent) is sick of hearing this, especially the guys at Telltale, but the fact that it's brought up so much just proves how serious a flaw this is. I get that the BttF license was going to bring in new players, people who have never heard of a point-and-click adventure before, much less played one. I knew from the start it would be necessary to tone things down, but I didn't think it would be to this extent. I could bitch about the lack of difficulty itself, but instead I'll just say how Back to the Future makes me a little concerned for Telltale's...well, future.

Telltale's growing as a company, and wants to grow further. That's only fair. As a struggling writer myself, I know that just about any creative person wants their work exposed to as many people as possible. I can't fault them for that. However, there comes a point where in order to make your work popular, you have to creatively compromise it to the point that it isn't truly your work.

The adventure genre was practically dead before Telltale came around, and even now they're the only reason it's not dead. I love adventure games to death, but there's a reason they went away. The gaming industry is constantly changing, and they just stopped being profitable. The best adventure game ever wouldn't sell a quarter as much as a mediocre first-person shooter. As Telltale grows further, they may have to make some difficult choices, and it's possible they already made it. Jurassic Park is a Heavy Rain clone. We don't know what The Walking Dead is, but it's not a point-and-click. I could be wrong (and I hope I am), but Telltale's days of making adventure games might be numbered.

Lack of Exploration: Despite all the complaints about it, the easiness of BttF's puzzles was not the biggest problem. I'd have easily overlooked it if it weren't for this flaw. Where does the appeal of adventure games come from? Is it the writing and humor? The intellectual challenge you get out of puzzles? Those are big factors, but not the biggest. There are plenty of non-adventure games you can get those from (Portal, for example). No, the appeal of adventure games is in exploration. Trial and error. Examining every item, using everything in your inventory on whatever you can find. Seeing what works and what doesn't. Doing something you know won't work just for the response. During the 80s and 90s, adventure games gave us an interactive world no other genre could hope to provide. It's a different story today, of course, but even now no other game does exploration with quite the same charm adventure games do.

Remember the office in the first two Sam and Max seasons? It was cluttered with so much crap, each of it with a funny response attached. Most of the stuff in the room was pointless (in fact, in quite a few episodes the whole room was pointless), but it was fun. Or all the memorabilia on Stinky's wall in Season 2? I wasted so much time playing 201 just listening to every one of Stinky's bullshit stories. This stuff adds to the atmosphere, makes the setting feel deeper, and gives the game some length so you're not just beating it as soon as possible.

There's very little exploration you can do in BttF, and what little there is seems to just be there to justify a trophy in the PS3 version. Most areas have very few clickable items. Using an inventory item when you're not supposed to will almost always get you a generic error response, even when it wouldn't make sense. (For example, using the newspaper on anything in Episode 3 will make Marty say "If I'm going to do anything with this, I'm going to recycle it!"...even if you use it on the recycling bins. And Mr. Philpott didn't care when I showed him the algae cake I stole from him in the finale.) Worst of all, the lack of exploration actually makes the easy puzzles easier, because you know that if Telltale made the effort to make an item clickable, there's an 80-100% chance it's part of a puzzle, depending on the size of the area. If Telltale threw in a few red herrings, some stuff that you think would be helpful but isn't, that alone would improve the game by a huge amount.

Uneventful Night at the Inventory: Marty's inventory was almost completely superfluous. Most puzzles don't even involve your inventory, and the few that do are pretty...basic, I guess is the word. You use something, then lose it, having quickly fulfilled its purpose. Just about everything in your inventory is a one-use item. Or a zero-use item, as the case may be. I still don't understand the purpose of the picture of George McFly. I thought it'd be like the wedding ring in Tales of Monkey Island, where it sits in your inventory being useless for most of the series then comes into play at the very end. But no. It spends Episode 1 being useless, is used for a puzzle in Episode 2, then goes back to being useless for the rest of the series. Why did we still need to hold onto it after the one time we actually needed it? Anyway, more inventory puzzles would've been nice.

I Love Misleading Dialogue Options!: I hate misleading dialogue options. There was this thing in Tales where you'd get your choice of multiple dialogue options, then no matter what you picked Guybrush would say something completely different. Marty does the same thing here. I'm not sure why Telltale does this. Is it supposed to be funny? Is it supposed to give an element of gameplay in what would otherwise be a lengthy conversation? Is it supposed to remind us the player character is their own person and not just a pawn for our actions? Whatever it is, it's more annoying than anything else. Just a minor nitpick.

OVERALL:

Back to the Future is a very...polarizing game. The lack of interactivity is a huge, huge flaw, yet the writing, the atmosphere, the acting was all just so well done that I'm somehow able to forgive it. I'm not going to call it one of Telltale's best, and it definitely has me afraid about Telltale's other projects, but at the end, I can say it was an enjoyable experience.

[PhunkyPhazon]

Originally Posted by dmcman

The only real messy part is how Doc wound up with ANOTHER DeLorean. It can't be the duplicate, as Edna had it and pretty much destroyed it when she was stuck in the 1800's. So that leaves Doc creating a second DeLorean aside from already having the duplicate, while he was in 1986 (which is reasonable), or some strange explanation for Doc having found another duplicate in time.

Couldn't he just build another one? It's not like there's anything getting in his way, not even plutonium. (He still has a time train, so Mr. Fusion shouldn't be hard to come by)

[Rather Dashing]

I'm still playing through these episodes and trying to figure out how best to convey how this game essentially veered into every single thing it could have possibly done wrong, with gusto.

[CasuallyD]

So, the Doc that came back to 1931 in Episode 5 is technically not the Doc that we got to interact with in the first two episodes? It's really messy.

Because Episode-1/2-Doc went to 1931 to search for information about Sylvia and Episode-5-Doc went there to chase Edna with Marty and got the information about Sylvia coincidentally more or less.

The only explanation I got is that the time stream caught up at some point during Episode 5 in 1931 making the Episode-1/2-Doc irrelevant but NOT subsequently destroying him.

[maarnas]

About the caption after end credits, it was communicated in E3 how TelltaleGame had enjoyed this franchise and thatthey would be happy to give us more BTTF . So, yes, definitely they are open to a continuation.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/117/1174566p1.html

That doesn't mean we will have it for sure or inmediately, though.

[Datadog]

LOVED that ending.

Actually, that ending seemed like something they'd do in a parody of "Back of the Future," but if you guys could actually make a sensible story out of what I just saw in the last two minutes before credits, I'd be behind you 100%.

The rest of the game was really fun and very well done. The closing chase, especially.

My chief complaint is that these last three episodes all feel mismanaged in terms of pacing. Where episode 4 begins is where episode 3 should have ended, and where episode 5 begins is where episode 4 should have ended. I sometimes like cliffhangers, but I much more enjoy the feeling of a complete plot per episode. "Citizen Brown" should have been all 1986, "Double Visions" should have been all 1931 Expo, and "OUTATIME" should have been all chase (and include a trip into the future as the synopsis had been promising for months.)

My other complaint is difficulty blah blah blah linearity blah blah blah - just go back to the old formula already. Opening puzzle, three puzzles, mid-game puzzle, three puzzles, ending puzzle. It was formulaic but it felt so much more rewarding. Want it back now.

Third complaint: do serious beta-testing next time. The fact that doing the "Dirt on Edna" puzzle first can break the game in the glass house was ridiculous. Especially since Edna's puzzle can be easily solved first.

End of complaints:

You people did an amazing job of recapturing the magic of "Back to the Future." All the twists, turns, and awkward reveals are there, and you even eventually escaped the fan-service long enough to bring some new elements into the franchise.

The music was exceptionally good this time around. Something about it felt familiar, yet new. Maybe it was new music, or maybe it was just put into a new context. Either way, I felt something listening to it.

The voice acting was fantastic as usual. Michael J Fox was an awesome addition to the episode. Somehow after waiting two months, I found myself particularly attached to these characters. Within the first couple minutes, I was already excited to see what Artie was up to this time (he was sitting behind a table. Good for him!)

Beautiful work on the cinematics. The composition, the placement, the direction - I can see where all the real work went into.

If I could request anything for a later "Back to the Future" game that I was really hoping for from Telltale, it's this: I want to use time travel to solve puzzles. Just like in "Day of the Tentacle" or "ChronoTrigger," give me multiple time periods that I can jump back and forth to so I can play with the space-time continuum. Hopefully this will become more feasible in the second season.