The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series - A New Frontier Episode 2: Ties That Bind Part Two

There's enough built into these early episodes of A New Frontier to keep you coming back for more, and hopefully we won't have to wait too long to see how things pan out for Javier and crew.

Perhaps the greatest shortcoming is the game’s stubbornness to shove Javi’s family as the player’s raison d’etre, when it’s clear that Clementine is a much more relatable and less frustrating character. The classic Telltale trap of unavoidable events is still there, but by now you should know what you’re getting into. If judged by what it attempts to do, rather than by what some sceptic players want it to be, A New Frontier’s harrowing first episodes smoothen most rough edges found in other games in the series in terms of storytelling. It just about manages to shake off the notion of being a rehashed concept, and become a beast that can stand on its own two feet, built upon the foundations laid by Lee and Clementine. Hopefully the rest of the season manages to sustain this level of quality.

The Ties That Bind shines with polish and quality but ultimately feels like a retread of familiar territory. Perhaps seven years of television and four years of interactive fiction have been enough for the Walking Dead. A quality work through and through but long-time fans will feel like they are in too familiar territory.

While both Episode 1 and 2 are rather brief – it took me less than two hours to complete each one, and I probably could have done it more quickly if I hadn’t been enjoying a slow, savoring pace – they are high-quality chapters.

As a re-introduction into Telltale's Walking Dead world, A New Frontier does just about everything right. The new characters offer some much needed change in perspective, and the narrative is a tight story that lays the groundwork for an exciting and different season.

The biggest compliment I can pay the episodes is that during both finales I sat there, mouth agape, throwing my hands in the air yelling expletives at the descent into despair the characters found themselves, and frantically grabbed my phone to search for the release date of episode three.

A plot slower than a walker. [Issue#183, p.81]

It's about the experience, about the story. Yes the interactions are pretty minimal, but if this is why you're buying this game, well, that's your mistake. I really like the new characters and the Javi/Clem duo works quite well. I didn't see the time pass and when the second episode ended, I was definitely longing for more.

Immediately picking off from the surprisingly short previous episode, Ties That Bind Part Two is yet another brief episode from the third season. While the story may be a bit thrilling especially in the ending, this season so far feels way too rushed, as what episode two shows, letting players stumble upon rather ridiculous choices and non-immersive flow of story.

This is more of a review of the combined episodes 1 and 2 of the New Frontier. They launched with 2 episodes this season. I was hoping to see my dear Clementine again after all that time but they made me control this new Javier character, who is kinda a clone of Luke from the previous season. Even after about 4 hours, my emotional care level for this Javier guy was only on par with maybe 1 of the 5 main characters from the 400 Days side stories (in 400 Days, you only play for about 30mins or so with each of the 5 characters). I think I understand the Telltale's decision in making the player to take control of a new character so that I can see how the harsh years have changed Clementine. Players are unable to control her actions directly. But occasionally, the game allows the player to take control of Clementine again in her flashbacks... During my game, the narration and controls got confusing for me. There was a Clementine flashback immediately followed by a conversation between Clementine and Javier, I was not sure who I was controlling at that time. In multiple moments, the actions/dialogues which I wanted to choose were not available. There was a lot less exploration and the story felt very linear. The quick time events felt a bit tagged on this time around. Hard to explain some of the characters' actions too. I also got a bunch of unexpected reactions from some of the characters with my decisions... Maybe because I was dealing with rebellious teenagers or maybe caused by multiple rewrites? It was cool to see some known face showing up but then I realized that it was probably a poor choice... I already knew that character, so he was immediately put on my trusty ally list, which was so not Walking Dead and it was tampering with my decision making! Overall disappointed by the 2-episode launch of the season. Without the big twist at the end of episode 2, I would have given this game a lower score.

TL;DR - Offensive to S1 and S2 players. Rest in bloody peace: a series which once used to be great. Short 60 minute episodes (and the awful story makes it even worse), Clementine is playable for 5 minutes per ep, false advertisting pre-release, this is Javier's story for whatever **** reason even though we never asked for this and just wanted a GOOD continuation of Clementine's story (but this is an ABYSMAL continuation - this shouldn't even be called S3), The story is awful, and Clem is just a side character shoe-horned in when she was pretty much the main character for the previous two seasons. This isn't Clem's story, this is Javier's story - so this shouldn't even have Clem in it if Telltale wants to tell Javier's story so badly because she's just shoe-horned in and a side character. All the false advertising pre-release doesn't help either. Her being in every bloody advertisement also doesn't help. We played as Clementine in Season 2 and shaped our Clementine, and now Clementine is a supporting character again plus her personality doesn't change at all depending on your choices last season. Easy choices and deaths don't affect you because there is not enough character development and the game just pushes you forwards without any chance to talk to characters like in Season 1 (and even S2). This review would be too long if I talked about every issue, but SOME of the main issues are up there. SOME of the main issues. S2 choices don't **** matter for ****

Clementine isn't playable and only gets 10% of the entire screen time. Javier is bland and has a boring story. Episodes are 60 minutes long, down from 90 minutes in season 2 and 120-150 minutes in season 1. The writing is atrocious. If you have any respect for Clementine or Lee, don't buy this game. It destroys everything from the past 2 seasons. This is an insult and a betrayal to all fans.