episode 5 Archives | Broken Joysticks

The Walking Dead: A New Frontier has finally concluded and closed out Season three of the Telltale Walking Dead series. The fifth episode, From The Gallows, closes the story of Javier and his time with Clementine. While the Walking Dead episodes have been mostly good so far, how will the end hold up? With this season end with a whimper, or a bang? And what could this ending mean for future seasons?

This episode does answer some questions for us regarding Javier’s past. We learn how his father got sick and with what. We learn that Javier had promised his father, Salvador to stick with his brother and that the family would take care of eachother no matter what after the Salvador was gone, or not depending on your choices. I chose to respect Salvador’s wishes as the fight that happened between Javier and David seemed to quite upset him.

After the game is done in the past, we return back to a chaotic Richmond that is being overtaken by the dead. There is a lot of guilt between the group over what happened, and a lot of anger in Richmond, which Javier is mostly blamed for. Depending on past choices, some characters may show up again and others may not be able to escape from death. Javier’s trust will be tested as well as your morals. Will the group understand and stand by you? Or will anger and resentment rise? Who will stay and who will leave? That remains ultimately up to the player.

There are no significant changes to the gameplay in this episode. There are some exciting areas, such as rooftops of building and an instance where you need to climb across helicopter blades to get across a gap in a bridge and having to get across a group of walkers undetected. The main appeal of this episode is really the choices you have to make and concluding the story with the outcome you feel is best. I think this episode had some of the most impactful moments that showed you the results of earlier choices and had you make significant new choices. Because I was quite attached to these characters, who ended up with me by the end and some of the choices I had to make regarding certain characters made me feel a bit emotional, which meant Telltale was certainly doing a good job. I feel while the story almost went in a ridiculous, convoluted direction for a bit, that this episode took it back a bit and let us be with just a select few characters and give us some strong family moments. I was satisfied with the endings, especially the one I got my first play through that involved staying with Kate to save Richmond. I felt it was the best ending, that gave the most hopeful ending for future seasons in which Clem might be the controllable, lead character again, but your milage may vary depending on how you played the game and how attached you became to the group.

Overall, I feel this was a very strong end to a good season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead. I would recommend this to anyone who hasn’t played it in full yet, especially since it is available on disc now as well as for download at a reasonable price. I feel this series has not overstayed its welcome yet and out of all of Telltale’s series, this is probably my favorite next to Sam and Max. I can’t wait to see what Telltale has in store for the Walking Dead next, especially for Clem and her journey to reunite with her only family.

So, here it is, the finale to Telltales adaptation of Batman. This first attempt by Telltale at telling Batman’s story has come to an end and the question now becomes “did it end with a bang or was it a dud?”. While this may not have been Telltale’s strongest project, there was a lot of enjoyable moments that Telltale brought and interesting ideas that gave a unique look at the characters we all know and love. The final episode, while it may have its flaws, does tie up many loose ends and leaves great anticipation for a second season.

This episode starts with you having to either fight Harvey Dent or Cobblepot’s drones depending on the choices you made in the previous episode. I find it interesting, that based on your choices from previous episodes, Harvey will remain unscathed physically and not have the literal two face we have all become accustomed to or he will indeed, be the two face we all think of when we think of the character. I enjoy the fact that they focus on Harvey’s mental health and treat him as more of a three dimensional, almost tragic character than a simple “bad guy” who simply went over the edge from being disfigured by a mob boss. Harvey is sick and has been for a while, resisting treatment and has been hurt by someone he thought was a friend and his mental health is affecting his ability to deal with his hurt. Telltale took an interesting turn with Dent that I am glad was constant through the episodes..

Lady Arkham was also a drastically different character than we thought she would turn out to be and turned out to be much tougher than previously assumed. She also continues to be more fleshed out in City of Light as we learn a lot more of how she grew into the revenge seeking, tough woman leading the Children of Arkham and her motives for attacking the Wayne empire. The writers certainly were creative with their decisions for this character”. Her and Harvey certainly have their reasons for their behavior and are handled wonderfully throughout the series, although Cobblepot and The Joker seem much more insignificant.

The problem with City of Light from a story perspective is the sheer amount of characters shoved into the story. While Harvey and Lady Arkham get fleshed out and even sympathetic at times, Cobblepot and “John Doe”/The Joker seem in comparison. Yes, we learn about Cobblepot’s motivations, but not much else but some simple exposition. I felt no connection to him and he seemed to be more of a nuisance than a character. The Joker also seemed very rushed into the story as his purpose to was to possibly help Bruce in one section of episode 4 and then make another appearance in City of Light that just seemed unnecessary. I feel Telltale could have held off introducing his character until a theoretical season two so he didn’t seem so obligatory. I feel if Telltale only included the two villains, it could have led to a stronger ending. The result feels muddy and at times rushed, and yet, still entertaining.

For what flaws this final episode brings, how they concluded Lady Arkham and Harvey/s stories left me satisfied with the episode and wanting more from their rendition of Batman. They were overall creative with Bruce’s story and how he fought for his family’s name and honor and the story ended a lot of arcs in a satisfying way. If you have played the other episodes, there is no reason not to finish the story and if you have not played Batman at all yet, it is definitely worth a look.

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Walking Dead: The Tell Tale Series- A New Frontier episode 5: From the Gallows review

Batman: The Telltale Series – Episode 5: City of Light | Review