The Walking Dead: Season 2 Review
Played on Xbox One (base)
Developed by Telltale Games
Released 17th December 2013
Prior to the first season, Telltale signed a contract for a "multi-year, multi-platform, multi-title" license of The Walking Dead IP, and with how successful their 2012 game was, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that a sequel would be produced. Toying around with various concepts and ideas of who the protagonist should be for the second season, the team eventually decided to continue Clementine's story, shifting the focus from trying to help her as Lee, to deciding who you can trust to help you as Clementine herself. The theology they had when writing this season was that "Clementine is eleven years old and the world doesn't care". As a result, they created a stellar follow-up and once again revitalised the adventure genre, just like they did in 2012.
Story
The story is incredible. Each of the 5 episodes has a strong narrative and flow between events. The game this time around follows Clementine and her story after being practically abandoned by the cast of the first game as she meets new faces that either serve as a predicament to her survival or as a clear threat. In the first game, each episode would follow a major plot point, independent from the rest of the narrative, with the beginnings and ends of these episodes loosely tied up together. In Season 2, each episode is fluently flowed together acting as the generic 5-part story structure of Freytag's Pyramid. An introduction, rising action, climax, aftermath and finally resolution. While the sequel has the superior story format and pacing, Season 1 is so well-orchestrated with its story and events that this game can't beat it, despite it being incredibly close to doing so. The game does have many memorable scenes, and dark events and even manages to have your choices affect your ending; it's amazing how Telltale kept up with the quality of a masterpiece all while delivering something new to cry to and get invested in.
Gameplay
The gameplay is once again brilliant, gifting me with the ability to interact with mundane objects that somehow add much more depth to the world just like in the original. The big choices of the game don't make any impact (at least not until the end), but they do continue on with what the original game did - emotional weight. Each choice, whether it's a dialogue option or a story choice, continues this issue of morality and guilt, making it more intense as you make choices that your eleven-year-old protagonist should never make. The game also manages to sneak in more of the relationship growth that can occur with your decisions, however, the change is more minimal than in the first game which is a bit of a disappointment. However, for the lack of change in relationships, the game offers four different endings, and while they can only change with the final set of options in the final episode, this is still a very welcome inclusion. The user interface is much cleaner and sharper than in the previous game and the quick-time events that it offers are either as, if not more, stressful than the first game, resulting in many more great moments.
Characters
The characters are fantastic but after how memorable the first game's roster was, this sequel struggled to reach the same impact for me. In the first game, each character had a complex side to them that differed depending on what you did to them and around them. In this game, every character is written great but has one side to them that doesn't change as much as I wanted. For example, Luke is a young guy who has leadership skills but lacks risk. In my first playthrough, I manipulated him as an innocent girl and tried warming his heart, the other time I acted as a more experienced survivor that Clementine grew up into and both sides didn't differ much except for the expected change in dialogue but their relationship strength stayed the same. Some characters' one-sided writing came across as plain, which felt like a big drop in quality, especially how even the plain characters in the first season showed some intriguing depth. This, however, doesn't affect all characters as some show such incredible writing and innovative building that it dragged me into the world.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere is fantastic once again, with the amazing returning comic book-like art style, lighting and soundtrack that mesmerised me with the notes showing the broken world that the player and Clementine have grown up in. The sound effects are great again, and every section that I was playing had its own beautiful flair that I adored. It still contains the same technical hiccups as the first game with the character's eyes rolling and mid-scene freezes.
Story - 9.5/10
Gameplay - 8/10
Characters - 8/10
Atmosphere - 9.5/10
Great
The first game did set the bar quite high, however, Telltale was able to just about scrape by it and deliver yet another brilliant apocalyptic experience.
