The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series – The Final Season

This review tries to be a spoiler free review, I hope I am not failing on this one:-)
The game started with a summary about the previous games. Within a few seconds I was already crying, and wasn't the last time. The whole game is an emotional rollercoaster and it finishes the Saga of Clementine. If I could recommend only one story rich game to someone else and I could recommend all 4 Telltale TWD as one game, then it would be this series.
If you have not played any previous one, then go ahead and start with the first one. Clementine is not always the protagonist of the series, only in the 2nd and this one, but both the first and third game are very important chapters to get to know her. During the first game we played as Lee, who protected the 8 years old Clementine. I believe this role, protecting her during the early Zombie apocalypse was very special and an important milestone, what made the whole series successful. I needed to protect her, save her from everything and during that Clementine earned a special place in my heart. Later, during the 2nd and 3rd game when she cried, I was also crying, when she felt rage and wanted revenge I was angry too.
Life is rough in a zombie infested world. Just like in previous chapters friends are dying, we always find new threats and enemies. In the Final Season Clementine is now in the role of Lee. She needs to protect AJ, a young boy. Is it possible to save and mentor someone without sacrificing yourself? Is it possible to find a safe haven that could be called home? It is up to you to find answers for these in Telltale's The Walking Dead, which might be the best story oriented video game series of the century.
Conclusion
The Saga of Clementine, all 4 games are a MUST TO PLAY if you are looking for an extremely touching and emotional story. Prepare some handkerchiefs, you will need it.
Story: 10/10 I can’t give a separate score for this game, the whole 4 games clearly a 10/10. About a lightyear better than the TV show.
Voice Acting: 10/10 Telltale always cared about quality voice acting.
Replay value: 4/10 Story rich games usually don’t have huge replay value but this might be the only game I'm going to replay, together with the previous 3 games…. once.
Atmosphere: 10/10
Visuals: 10/10 Upgraded graphic compared to previous Telltale games and the art has some comic book feeling. I loved it.
Music/Sound effects: 10/10. Quite nice soundtracks and environmental sound effects.
Game difficulty: 2/10 Quick Time events are quite easy. You will die a few times but finishing the game is far from being challenging.
Hey, I am an achievement hunter!
Perfection time: ~14-15h. There are exclusive achievements based on your decisions. Sometimes you can just quit fast to the main menu then continue the game and go for the other decision but for some you need to replay episodes and this is where the game gets my only complaint. You can’t replay subchapters, just the whole episode.
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I wanted to replay it again to explore other options, but my heart could only take it once.

How to make a grown man cry simulator :'(

Raising a psychopath
The final season is here and it ends the long journey. How long has it been since the first game? Eight years? The series had its ups and downs but in my opinion first and the last seasons were the best. New frontier being the weakest one.
So Clem is basically grown up now. It was so good to see her growing up through all the games, you start feeling connection with her and caring for her, that's how main characters should be done.
Clem acts as a mother now by taking care of AJ and teaching him stuff. You can decide how to raise him. I decided to make a psychopath out of him and I am so proud. “Stealing is ok”, “If anyone steals from you, kill him”. I'd be a good father I guess.
Clem is a real badass and AJ is too. The whole game evolves around them for the most part. AJ is a kid who doesn't remember how the world was before walkers appeared and everything is new to him, even the simplest things so you're the only one whom he trusts.
Choices still are not as good as in some other games, you can't kill everyone or save everyone but i'd say the choices are decent. You can have quite different results depending on your choices. Well it was easier to do when developers knew it will be the last game. It would be extremely difficult to have different outcomes in previous games because you'd basically need to write a completely different story for each outcome in the next game.
Clem is a teenager and teenagers fall in love right? I'm so glad to see romance options in this game, it's very well done and should please everyone.
There are new characters, you'll probably like majority of them and hate some. I guess it's up to your personal worldview which is a nice thing because everyone could find someone to connect with.
This season has less episodes but I think they're longer so no loss here. Developers also decided to add some missable achievements so you'll you need to replay some episodes even if you follow a guide.
Graphically it looks ok. The engine is really not up to today's standards, but I guess developers squeezed everything out of it. The game still looks quite good overall, lip syncing is bad. But due to facial expressions you can feel the emotions of the characters.
Areas look good but there's lack of proper anti-liasing.
It doesn't support ultrawide out of the box and I will never understand why these cinematic games don't support it. But there's a fix and ultrawide works great.
Performance is great but one technical issue left me confused. When I launched the game for the first time it didn't launch. I browsed the forums then and learned that the game doesn't work in windows 10 and you need to run it windows 8 compatibility mode. Seriously?
Voice acting is good for the most part. Some characters are better than others but overall it's good and keep immersed in the game.
A really good ending to the series. You can cry, you can laugh, you can feel anger, it has everything. A must have for the fans of narrative games.
Pros
Great story
Great characters
Good pacing
Emotional
Cons
Graphical engine should be burried deep already
There could be even more meaningful choices considering it's the last season
Some technical issues and no UW support
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What's a Telltale game?
This is the paragraph I usually start my Telltale game reviews with, however, it would be more accurate to say "What was a Telltale game?" as the company went bankrupt 2 years ago. I'm glad that Skybound stepped in and finished the last two episodes of this game so that we get to see the closure of Clementine's story.
Telltale games are characterised by immersive storytelling - we select from dialogue options (not picking anything is also an option) and our decisions affect the relationship between our protagonist and the others. During action / fighting sequences we complete QTE events. The inventory is minimalistic or non-existent - puzzle-solving is easy; you do not really get stuck in these adventures and achieving 100% completion is relatively easy.
Clem
This is the story of Clementine and Alvin Junior, the child she has been taking care of for a while. New episode means new community. This time it's a group of kids who took over a boarding school which had been created specifically for the problematic adolescents. Following the prologue Clem meets Marlon and his group and our initial goal is to help and ensure both Clem and A.J. can remain permanent residents at the school. Naturally, things will not go as they seemed at first. There are some nice surprises here and there - references to previous episodes and, in case you still follow the TV show that has seen better days, you'll appreciate the appearance of something that first debuted in season 9 there.
Gameplay
At this point you are already familiar with this IP so there isn't anything new the 4th episode can show us. I did notice that during important conversation choices the upper-left corner indicates that our relationship changed with the other participant(s). These (relatively frequent) hints are easy to remember and are helpful when doing a 2nd walkthrough to see what other potential outcomes are available.
This is somewhat spoiled once we fully complete the game. For instance, a key event is shown with 3 potential outcomes - the highlighted one in the middle explains it was our decision and two more remain. This is a screen we get in a comic book style format. Too bad the statistical data is not available anymore (due to server closure, I gather); I always love to check what percentage of the community picked a similar option and I tend to smile when I see I belong to a minority.
As for QTEs: if you are getting back to WD after finishing Batman remember that here you cannot miss any such event as they result in an instant bite on the walkers' part which we know can only mean certain death. As a novelty not all achievements are obtained with story completion. Some are dialogue-specific and this time there are even collectibles! I had no issues with getting the missing ones by jumping into Clem's journey once more after 10 or so hours.
Goodbye!
Honestly, I had mixed feelings initially. A.J. requires some getting used to and, as usual, some decisions are not as key in determining an outcome as Telltale / Skybound likes to show us. Regardless, the Clem / AJ duo is a great paralel to the Lee / Clem one in the first season. I appreciated the environment mainly populated by children who rely on each other to confront the undead as well as the adult menace ready to jump from around the corner. For me the first or second episode remains the strongest, still, it's amazing to see what Skybound did following the bankcruptcy of Telltale. Scenes may or may not have been changed - this is still a satisfying end to Clementine's story. Highly recommend to WD as well as Telltale fans!

”Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let a walker bite. And if they try? BANG!”
Oh boy, this is going to be a tough one. Let me start by saying that I love this game so much. Hands down the best game I’ve played this year and definitely one my favorites. This is the final season of this incredible series and a worthy conclusion to Clementine’s story. I smiled, I laughed and I cried (a lot).
Short Version
Pros:
Phenomenal story.
Remarkable characters.
Your choices matter more than ever.
Visually impressive, more focus on the comic artstyle.
Camera movement added, more freedom in exploration.
Hidden collectables and more achievements.
Replayable.
Great soundtrack.
A satisfying ending to the series.
Cons:
Minor issues in the story and gameplay.
Final verdict: 10/10
Be sure to check out my reviews of the rest of Telltale's TWD games.
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Long Version
Story
You play as Clementine, almost four years after the events of TWD: A New Frontier, and you are now wondering around this apocalyptic world trying to find food and shelter with AJ, the newborn child that is with her since TWD:S2, and both of them are now all grown up. One day, you are saved from walkers by a group of kids from a nearby school, which becomes your home soon after. During your stay, you found out that you and your friends are in danger, so you will do whatever it takes to protect your new home, while teaching AJ the life lessons that you learned from previous seasons.
At the start of the first episode, a video summary is played that features the important events and choices that you made in the previous seasons (which you can change if you want). In addition, I like what they did with the “previously on TWD” intros when you start an episode; instead of reintroducing you clips of the important moments/choices that you made in previous episode(s), they are now presented as a comic book narrated by Clem. All episodes start with a beautiful opening credits aswell.
All the characters in the game are outstanding, even the main villains. You will meet new characters, such as the kids and teens from the school, and you will see a few familiar faces along the way (and from the TWD: 400 Days DLC, if you pay close attention). All of the characters have different personalities and traits, and they are very fleshed out due to the excellent voice-acting and well-written dialogue.
Your choices are more difficult now and have visible consequences in the game’s narrative. At the end of each episode, it shows you your choices, relationship and/or mental state of AJ and other important side characters. I am happy that some of the choices from the previous games (even from season one) have an impact and they will be mentioned multiple times throughout the story.
Your actions and choices that you make in the game can also influence and affect AJ’s character and personality, as he looks up to you, and when it happens a pop up appears that says ““AJ is shaped by what you teach him”. There are even choices that will cause Clem to be killed, but you will get a “Game Over” screen and restart from the last checkpoint instead of moving the story forward.
There are a few minor issues that I had in the game. For instance, I thought some of the dialogue during particular scenes would lead to me deciding on an answer/choice, but apparently not and that’s fine. There are some moments in the story that also didn’t make sense. For example, Minerva should have been killed by the walkers the first moment she fires her gun inside that horde, since they follow the noise. They could have removed that part and scene would still work out
There are now 4 episodes instead of the usual 5, but each episode can take up to 3 hours if you take your time and find all collectables. The game features 10 endings, and they depend on your decisions and actions in all of the episodes. Because of how excellent the story is and how your decisions shape the narrative, it is one reason that makes the game replayable, and I'll definitely do so in the future.
It's hard to talk more about the story without mentioning spoilers, so all I can say that it is definitely the best story in TWD series. I was at the edge of my seat from start to finish and the ending is the best thing that we could have asked for. An ending that this series deserves.
Gameplay
Gameplay mechanics are the same as in the previous ones, but now you have more control over Clementine; a new over-the-shoulder camera system is added instead of fixed camera, and it provides more freedom of exploration of the detailed environments, and you can aim your gun more freely now.
You will be dealing with a lot of walkers in this game. Another new feature is that you can stun a walker for a short period of time by kicking it in the leg, kill it right away, or stun then kill it. You can even stun a walker and kill another one if you feel overwhelmed. However, walkers just standby during the kill animation then immediately jump on you when you are out of it, so watch out for that.
I like that you can use your new bow to eliminate (or incapacitate) enemies in some parts of the game. I wish it had more depth to it, such as holding the fire button until the arrow is loaded, or have limited ammo instead of endless arrows in your pocket. It’s a minor issue though and I’m fine it (it is not a TPS game after all).
In the previous installments, you earn steam achievements when completing chapters and episodes, and you always get a 100% every time you finish a season. In this game however, they added more achievements and even collectables that can introduce more dialogue between Clem and AJ. You can find them in every episode and use them to decorate your personal room in the school. Another reason why it is replayable is that some of the achievements are based on the choices that you make, so you have to replay the story in order to get the rest of the achievements (and collectables if you missed any).
Graphics
I love the new visual look (much better than the last game) with its black art style that is similar to the comics. Clementine (who looks like her age now with no glossy textures), characters, facial expressions, walkers, environment and pretty much everything are much more detailed and look absolutely fantastic with this new style, which makes it the most graphically demanding TWD game.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack is composed by none other than Jared Emerson-Johnson himself. You will notice some songs are from past seasons. The new songs are topnotch and well made as always, as they give you this dark and depressing post-apocalyptic atmosphere of the game and they fit well with this new comic art style.
Final Thoughts
Wow, what a game, just wow. I can’t tell you how much this series means to me. The last time I was so emotionally invested in a game was when I first played TWD:S1. Alas, this is the final one, and Clem got the ending that she deserved, I am so happy and sad at the same time.
TWD:S1 is what really got me really into gaming in the first place back in 2012, It’s like a chapter of my life has finally come to a close. Clementine will always be one of the most badass characters that I will never forget.
I will never forget this game.

Don't be sad that it's over. Be glad it happened.
:)