183 réponses à ce sujet

[o Ventus]

- Predictable, lameass railroading of the Handsome Jack choice. Even ignoring the railroading, the way they handled his subplot was just ****

 

Fair enough, I'll grant you this. I agree it was kind of a waste.

 

- The questionable use of bringing Handsome Jack back only to kill him again before he does anything

 

They weren't exactly going to make him a central villain again, not after Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel. They would be running him so far into the ground he'd come out the other side and launch into orbit.

 

- Characters feeling like exaggerated versions of themselves at times, Sasha at her "death scene" being the biggest offender

 

Are you familiar with Borderlands? Like, outside the Telltale game? They were positively tame by the standards of the main series.

 

- Having what feels like the last third of the episode spend fighting a giant monster, completely missing what makes TFTBL great

 

This was done on purpose, because again I have to ask, are you familiar with Borderlands? For 3 games (not including Tales) you're confronted by a sudden Vault monster out of nowhere, it's basically a meme and an expectation by this point to series fans. If anything, Tales actually nearly broke the tradition because of how prominent the Traveler is in the backstory.

 

- Reducing the two protagonists to tagalongs in Loaderbot's quest to bring back Gortys

 

Which only takes up half of one episode. Fiona and Rhys are still undeniably the main characters.

[o Ventus]

I'm curious myself. Now that it's complete I was going to start playing it, but I see nothing but positive reviews for it.

 

Personally, my biggest issue is one particular subplot that is developed but ultimately abandoned. The Handsome Jack AI tries to convince Rhys (one of the 2 main characters you play as) to take over the Hyperion corporation, but this ultimately goes nowhere.

 

Admittedly, the Jack AI as a whole felt like he wasn't much more than a glorified fanservice cameo because Handsome Jack is hands-down the most popular character from the series thus far. Up until episode 4 and 5 anyway. For the duration of episode 1 he doesn't even appear until the very, very end and throughout episodes 2 and 3 he only features for about 15 minutes of screentime, combined.

 

But aside from this, it is the quintessential essence of almost everything that makes Borderlands fun and unique (the only missing elements are the loot grind and shooting, since this is a Telltale game). It has the humor and style of the characters and setting down to a T, and it gave me my new favorite Borderlands character, Fiona. If you're unaware of the overarching plot to Borderlands, there really isn't one. You don't have to have played any of the other games to get what's going on in this, though of course some references are thrown in for the returning fans, and the basic plot structure is similar to the other games (derp derp adventure, run into bandits, derp derp adventure, run into evil corporation who go really far out of their way to kill you, derp derp adventure, fight a Gainax Vault monster that otherwise had nothing to do with the plot). This being a point-and-click adventure game, it goes without saying that it's the most plot-heavy of the games so far. Tales From the Borderlands by itself probably has more dialogue than the previous 3 games combined. I look forward to seeing Season 2, or to see if anything in Season 1 ties into the inevitable Borderlands 3. I would rate it 8/10 if I had to give it a score.

 

Also, the final action sequence between the player's party and the Vault monster is one of the best things I've seen in recent memory. That one scene alone makes the entire series for me, and I already thoroughly enjoy all of the games thus far.

[Iakus]

Also Rhys>Kai Leng

[o Ventus]

Also Rhys>Kai Leng

 

 

Literally anybody > Kai Leng.

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

 

They weren't exactly going to make him a central villain again, not after Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel. They would be running him so far into the ground he'd come out the other side and launch into orbit.

 

Then why even bring him back? Jack's death at the end of BL2 was damn near perfect, why bring him back if you aren't gonna do anything with it? 

 

Are you familiar with Borderlands? Like, outside the Telltale game? They were positively tame by the standards of the main series.

Yes, your avarage Borderlands character is wacky and zany, so? That doesn't invalidate Fiona and Rhys acting like Flanderized versions of themselves in the last episode at times.

 

 

 

This was done on purpose, because again I have to ask, are you familiar with Borderlands? For 3 games (not including Tales) you're confronted by a sudden Vault monster out of nowhere, it's basically a meme and an expectation by this point to series fans. If anything, Tales actually nearly broke the tradition because of how prominent the Traveler is in the backstory.

 

 

 

And why did Tales have to follow the formula of the main games?

 

Worse, what made Tales so interesting is that it showed us the Borderlands universe from another perspective. It showed us the world from the viewpoint of two non-actiony characters. Where as before we played essentially comic book heroes who were one man armies by themselves, we were now playing as a company man and a con artist who both were out of their depth and had to survive more through wit and guile instead of force. By having us spend the last third of the game punching a big vault monster this aspect of Tales is completely gone. 

 

Tales being about non vault hunters is also the reason Fiona's "I wanna be a VH" subplot in episode 3 was so awful, like with the vault monster fight it completely undermines what made the game interesting to start with.

 

 

 

Which only takes up half of one episode. Fiona and Rhys are still undeniably the main characters.

 

Are they? Rhys' personal story was essentially done after the confrontation with Jack which left him with nothing to really do as his conflict had been resolved. And since Fiona winded up being a weak protagonist (though this failure belongs to the season as a whole) as she had no real central conflict that could help drive the emotional core of the rest of the episode. That's what I mean by them being reduced as tagalongs, the whole last battle is initiated by Loaderbot's desire to save Gortys, Fiona and Rhys had even given up on the whole vault thing until Loaderbot revealed himself again.

 

Imagine if Return Of The Jedi had the Death Star blow up, Luke redeeming Vader and the emporer being defeated all happen in the first half of the movie. With Luke, Han and Leia spending the rest of the movie following Admiral Ackbar or whoever around cleaning up imperial remnants on Endor. Because that's what more or less what happens in this episode.

[Iakus]

Literally anybody > Kai Leng.

Yes but in this case both are cyborgs being instructed by the hologram of  a guy named Jack and are voiced by Troy Baker 

[Vapaa]

How to make an ending that is, if not perfect, actually thematically linked with the elements introduced at the beginning of the story.

[Seraphim24]

The stealth sequences and puzzles were pretty entertaining.

 

Honestly, when a visual novel game featuring a teenage art student from fantasy Oregon does stealth more engagingly than military Sci-FI FPS featuring infiltrators from a high class military grade outfit, well, that's uh, backwards lol.

 

Although it looks like people found ways to time travel cheap past em anyway so bummer.

[von uber]

How to make and ending that is, if not perfect, actually thematically linked with the elements introduced at the beginning of the story.

Oh god, I can hear angol fear coming from a thousand miles away.

[o Ventus]

Then why even bring him back? Jack's death at the end of BL2 was damn near perfect, why bring him back if you aren't gonna do anything with it?

 

Because people clamored for more Handsome Jack?

 

 

Yes, your avarage Borderlands character is wacky and zany, so? That doesn't invalidate Fiona and Rhys acting like Flanderized versions of themselves in the last episode at times.

 

So it fits the rest of the series like a glove. Literally the only character who doesn't get Flanderized so far in the entire series is Roland, and that's because he has all the personality of a brick.

 

And why did Tales have to follow the formula of the main games?

 

Because that's the entire point of having it be a BORDERLANDS game?

 

Worse, what made Tales so interesting is that it showed us the Borderlands universe from another perspective. It showed us the world from the viewpoint of two non-actiony characters. Where as before we played essentially comic book heroes who were one man armies by themselves, we were now playing as a company man and a con artist who both were out of their depth and had to survive more through wit and guile instead of force. By having us spend the last third of the game punching a big vault monster this aspect of Tales is completely gone.

 

There were Hollywood-esque action scenes as early as episode 1. Did you only play episode 5 and come to the conclusion that "fighting = not thematically appropriate"? Also I guess you forgot the fact that Rhys and Fiona by no means could have even stood up to the Traveler, they had to recruit a team of other Vault Hunters to help them.

 

Tales being about non vault hunters is also the reason Fiona's "I wanna be a VH" subplot in episode 3 was so awful, like with the vault monster fight it completely undermines what made the game interesting to start with.

 

Or, or, and hear me out, it's Fiona having some time in the spotlight and some development as a character. If she stayed a non-vault-hunting conwoman the entire time and didn't change at all, it would be terribly boring. It's the same reason Rhys goes from being a Jack fanboy who loves Hyperion (but hates his boss) to wanting to get away from the company and realizing that Jack is an insane monster.

 

Are they? Rhys' personal story was essentially done after the confrontation with Jack which left him with nothing to really do as his conflict had been resolved. And since Fiona winded up being a weak protagonist (though this failure belongs to the season as a whole) as she had no real central conflict that could help drive the emotional core of the rest of the episode. That's what I mean by them being reduced as tagalongs, the whole last battle is initiated by Loaderbot's desire to save Gortys, Fiona and Rhys had even given up on the whole vault thing until Loaderbot revealed himself again.

 

Yes, they gave up, because what were they going to do. They each thought the other was dead, they had no idea Loader Bot was alive, they both knew that Gortys was dead (at the time), and the only associates left remaining in action by the end of the series are Vaughn (who was MIA after the events of episode 4 as far as anybody knows until he comes back) and Sasha (who is with Fiona). Only when Loader Bot needs his team of vault hunters does everybody come back.

 

Imagine if Return Of The Jedi had the Death Star blow up, Luke redeeming Vader and the emporer being defeated all happen in the first half of the movie. With Luke, Han and Leia spending the rest of the movie following Admiral Ackbar or whoever around cleaning up imperial remnants on Endor. Because that's what more or less what happens in this episode.

 

I guess if you ignore literally everything else that happens, sure.

[Iakus]

How to make and ending that is, if not perfect, actually thematically linked with the elements introduced at the beginning of the story.

Heh, I didn't care for Life is Strange's ending.  but I admit it was far more consistent with itself than another game I could mention...

 

If nothing else, I didn't automatically uninstall Life is Strange 

[Dabrikishaw]

The stealth sequences and puzzles were pretty entertaining.

The puzzles sure but the stealth sections can go die in a fire. Literally all of them irritated me.

 

Not saying they were too hard for me or anything like that, but they weren't enjoyable for me to do.

[9TailsFox]

How to make and ending that is, if not perfect, actually thematically linked with the elements introduced at the beginning of the story.

I can't believe I complaining for this, but I expected more from LiS. I mean I expected ending will be like this but I hoped more, I was disappointed to be right and ending was as I think it will be. Of course it's much better not be surprised with good and logical ending foreshadowed all game from beginning, when having ME3 plot hole filed nonsense.

[karushna5]

I felt like LiS was a terrible ending due to they made the easiest and most predictable choice even when it didn't make sense. As I said her dream starting out sorta makes the ending have less sense. They also made the game be, essentially the plot is best when you dont play.

 

I felt it was highly unrewarding and even worse cliche wth plotholes. Add in that in one advertisement the villains mention the storm, I felt they made a last change due to financial reasons. It was the worst ending they could do, because it boils down to, all a dream, OR punishing you for not making the "right" choice. 

 

ME3 only real mistake was Starkid, and no epilogues. If destroy/control/synthesis was made just a feature rather than the silly syntheticsVSOrganics, it really would have been fine.

[Vapaa]

ME3 only real mistake was Starkid, and no epilogues. If destroy/control/synthesis was made just a feature rather than the silly syntheticsVSOrganics, it really would have been fine.

No, ME3's mistake was that the themes of the ending was either absent or contradictory from the rest of the game.

You can well argue that LiS had a predictable easy ending, but the core choice is the same throughout the game: Chloe or everything else. In this regard the ending of LiS tells us pretty much the same thing the rest of the game tells, you can make a case about it being cliché, pretdictable, lazy, etc...thematically it's consistent.

That can't be said about ME3, the synthetic/organic conflict is mostly shown in the games as being directly caused byt he reapers, or having the organics winning, witch entirely defeat the "systhetics will always win" argument. The themes of the ending and the themes of the rest of the games are different and that create a dissonance, a dissonance that's only aggravated by you total lack of agency during the Catalyst confrontation.

And that's just the whole syth/organics deal, but the same thing happens with the idea of controlling the reapers, which have ALWAYS led to disaster...but the ending presents it as a completely viable choice, even if history is shock full or contradictory events.

And I'm not even going to talk about the biggest asspull of them all, the idiotic synthesis nonsense.

Yes you can tear the ending of LiS's to pieces, but it actually does a better job at being an ending to the established story (and its established elements and themes) than the ending of ME3.

[fhs33721]

Internet logic:

If the ending to a game isn't me, the player, winning unconditionally against every circumstance = Terrible ending! Worst ending they could do! They didn't even put any effort into it.

 

I mean seriously, the Life is strange ending was well done (if quite chliche). Is it a happy ending? Hell no! Would I have wished for other outcomes? You, bet! Does that mean it's badly made? Absolutely not. It's still very well done.

That said, now that you all just had to remind me of Life is strange again, excuse me, I'll go cry in the corner again.

[goishen]

I felt it was highly unrewarding and even worse cliche wth plotholes. Add in that in one advertisement the villains mention the storm, I felt they made a last change due to financial reasons. It was the worst ending they could do, because it boils down to, all a dream, OR punishing you for not making the "right" choice. 

 

 

What right choice?  It's an ethical/moral question.  Let's hear what you chose, I'll take the opposite position and we'll have a discussion and we'll end up right back here.  With it's an ethical/moral question.  There is no right answer. 

 

Let me give you another scenario.  A man works downtown.  Downtown is a very high crime area.  One night, he gets off the train simply to discover his wallet missing.  It's getting dark out.  The man decides to hop back on the train to work, to grab his wallet.  He gets severely beaten.  Do you think he was correct?

 

There's no right answer there.

[o Ventus]

Internet logic:

If the ending to a game isn't me, the player, winning unconditionally against every circumstance = Terrible ending! Worst ending they could do! They didn't even put any effort into it.

 

 

How did you manage to post this directly after another post directly explaining why ME3's ending was so bad?

[Iakus]

Internet logic:

If the ending to a game isn't me, the player, winning unconditionally against every circumstance = Terrible ending! Worst ending they could do! They didn't even put any effort into it.

 

Probably why Telltale's Walking Dead games are considered so terrible

 

Oh, wait. 

[von uber]

It was the worst ending they could do, because it boils down to, all a dream, OR punishing you for not making the "right" choice. 

 

 

No. It boils down to a realisation that your choices have consequences, and that you either sacrifice Chloe to save the town as her being laive has caused all of this, or accept the impact you have made and keep Chloe alive.

Sounds to me you wanted an ending where Chloe and Max go skipping off down the road to have breakfast at the two whales with Joyce and William.

[Iakus]

No. It boils down to a realisation that your choices have consequences, and that you either sacrifice Chloe to save the town as her being laive has caused all of this, or accept the impact you have made and keep Chloe alive.

Sounds to me you wanted an ending where Chloe and Max go skipping off down the road to have breakfast at the two whales with Joyce and William.

I'm more concerned about the lack of implications.

 

Specifically:

 

Spoiler

if Chloe lives, who's to say there won't be more and more violent natural phenomena going on as a result? Will the next town Max and Chloe settle down in be destroyed as well? Is Chloe doomed to leave chaos and death in her wake for the rest of her unnaturally extended life? (wow, that sounded grim)

[karushna5]

What right choice?  It's an ethical/moral question.  Let's hear what you chose, I'll take the opposite position and we'll have a discussion and we'll end up right back here.  With it's an ethical/moral question.  There is no right answer. 

 

Let me give you another scenario.  A man works downtown.  Downtown is a very high crime area.  One night, he gets off the train simply to discover his wallet missing.  It's getting dark out.  The man decides to hop back on the train to work, to grab his wallet.  He gets severely beaten.  Do you think he was correct?

 

There's no right answer there.

 

No, I meant that the developers put a high slant toward one or the other. One choice was much shorter, and kinda goes against logic (as Chloe herself has a preference) one has a more tied up conclusion while the other does not. I am not the first person who found the two endings having very different content. Morally it is a choice, but it is obvious the studio felt there was a correct answer.

 

As far as it not being a happy ending, I expected one or both to die, and in fact was not attached to either character so much as the narrative. I was dissapointed with the conclusion not due to lack of happy. (I routinely saccrifice my warden, and felt a tinge of disapointment that the Inquisitor could stay alive) But I felt like the reason I came was the very thing I hoped they would not do before starting the game. In fact when someone suggested the game to me, I asked does it go back in time and just erase everything with the moral being messing up time is bad?

 

They said, no this game recognised choice too much to do that. I saved Chloe because i didn't want that to be the story. I would prefer them to both die but have an epilogue that showed the effects of the game, than have 2 endings that discounts it.

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

Sorry for the late response. RL got in the way.

 

 

Because people clamored for more Handsome Jack?

 

Which is a terrible reason.

 

 

So it fits the rest of the series like a glove. Literally the only character who doesn't get Flanderized so far in the entire series is Roland, and that's because he has all the personality of a brick.

 

Just because most other characters in the Borderland franchise are crazy does not excuse a character that has been portrayed as sane and normal to suddenly behave outlandishly.

 

Because that's the entire point of having it be a BORDERLANDS game?

 

 

 

But it wasn't a Borderlands game, was it? It was Tales From The Borderlands, a spin-off of the main Borderland games. It didn't need to follow the exact same pattern as they did. And I would say that there can be more to the Borderlands franchise than having the ending always culminate in fighting a big creature. 

 

There were Hollywood-esque action scenes as early as episode 1. Did you only play episode 5 and come to the conclusion that "fighting = not thematically appropriate"? Also I guess you forgot the fact that Rhys and Fiona by no means could have even stood up to the Traveler, they had to recruit a team of other Vault Hunters to help them.

 

 

It's not that there can't be any action or fight scenes at all. But Tales was a story about a company man and a con-artist and it was a story about greed and ambition, a mecha vs. monster fight is a far cry as possible from this. If the episode did need to have a big fight at the end they had a perfectly reasonanable villain in the form of the crime lord Vallory who not only had a connection to our band of heroes, she also represented themes of the story better.

 

 

Or, or, and hear me out, it's Fiona having some time in the spotlight and some development as a character. If she stayed a non-vault-hunting conwoman the entire time and didn't change at all, it would be terribly boring. It's the same reason Rhys goes from being a Jack fanboy who loves Hyperion (but hates his boss) to wanting to get away from the company and realizing that Jack is an insane monster.

 

 

Fiona could still have gotten character development without needing to become a vault hunter.

 

Yes, they gave up, because what were they going to do. They each thought the other was dead, they had no idea Loader Bot was alive, they both knew that Gortys was dead (at the time), and the only associates left remaining in action by the end of the series are Vaughn (who was MIA after the events of episode 4 as far as anybody knows until he comes back) and Sasha (who is with Fiona). Only when Loader Bot needs his team of vault hunters does everybody come back.

 

 

Yes, exactly. Rhys and Fiona had given up, doesn't matter what the reason were. They gave up and the only reason there is a final battle at all is because Loaderbot desires to bring back Gortys, a goal that overshadows finding the vault and turns it into a secondary priority.

[RoboticWater]

No, I meant that the developers put a high slant toward one or the other. One choice was much shorter, and kinda goes against logic (as Chloe herself has a preference) one has a more tied up conclusion while the other does not. I am not the first person who found the two endings having very different content. Morally it is a choice, but it is obvious the studio felt there was a correct answer.

This correct answer, in my mind, underlined the point of the narrative. I believe that Life is Strange is an analog for grief (among other things) and that the ending concludes that metaphor quite nicely: you can either accept reality and move on or lock yourself inside a fantasy. It's possible that Dotnod ran out of time and had to cut one ending short, but I think that ending rang hollow because it was intended to. There's nothing wrong with a developer offering a choice that has only one correct answer, especially if it's the final choice. Essentially it's the developer asking "do you understand what we're trying to tell you?"

 

Agency is neither the soul purpose nor the ultimate goal of games: it is a tool that should be applied only to further the purpose of the message the developer is trying to tell (if they have one).

 

They said, no this game recognised choice too much to do that. I saved Chloe because i didn't want that to be the story. I would prefer them to both die but have an epilogue that showed the effects of the game, than have 2 endings that discounts it.

Again, I think you misunderstand the purpose behind Life is Strange. This is a story about a girl and her friend; it was never attempting to tell an epic tale with grand, sweeping conclusions and it certainly didn't need to have a "where are they now," slideshow.

 

You can dislike the message, but I think the presentation and the mechanics of the ending worked quite well.

[karushna5]

I can appreciate that many people liked it, and felt it was fitting. I persnally felt very hollow, more than ME3. I felt they changed the meaning and there are many signs leading up that kinda showed they were going to do something else. I wanted that story, and while they sold it fine, and you can't blame dontnod because they were in huge debt, but I am glad they were able to save it. Personally for me it felt very weak, and established I don't like episodic content.

 

To you it read into the themes, for me, it went with a cliche for ease of use and ruined the game instead of going with their original idea.