PC Critic Reviews

‘Broken Toys’ does a great job of setting up what will hopefully be a thoroughly gripping finale. There are plenty of callbacks that diehard fans of the series will relish, but the emotional beats keep everything grounded. Minor visual quirks can sometimes take you out of the experience, but they’re not enough to derail your overall enjoyment of the episode.

The Walking Dead was worth saving. The usual Telltale caveats about polish and quick time action scenes apply, but this is exciting, powerhouse storytelling, packed with fantastic character work and edge-of-your-seat cinematic moments. The Walking Dead: The Final Season Episode 3 lines up the sights for a bloody good finale – let’s hope Skybound nails the headshot.

Outside of those small technical issues, the third episode of The Walking Dead: The Final Season still manages to reaches many of the highpoints of the series’ earlier seasons with a great blend of tense action and poignant character moments. While some might have expected a bit of a snag with the behind-the-scenes troubles that occurred midway through its season, The Walking Dead hasn’t lost a beat in the second half of its final season, and in just a few months from now we’ll finally get to see the conclusion of Clementine’s story. Based on how “Broken Toys” plays out, I’m looking forward to the end of Clem’s tale as much as I am anticipating it to be a heartbreaking finale.

Episode 3, Broken Toys, has me suitably excited to see The Walking Dead: The Final Season out to its conclusion. The various moving narrative parts are coming together for what will undoubtedly do the series proud – and bring to proper close the journey of Clementine, the one consistent thread uniting all the series’ seasons. Like hungry Walkers, fans are slowly shuffling towards March 26th, when we get to sink our teeth into Episode 4.

Episode 3: Broken Toys continues to improve and is paving the way for one hell of a finale. In spite of its annoying technical issues, players should look past that and see the fantastic piece of work that’s been put together there. Broken Toys isn’t perfect, but its dialogue is superb, its pacing is fluid and its gameplay is fun and engaging.

Featuring a sweeping narrative experience and barring a few caveats, the penultimate episode Broken Toys might be the best yet for The Walking Dead: The Final Season.

Even though it’s never going much higher, this third episode is treating with care all the topics it deals with. Its conclusion gives us high hopes for the big final ending coming soon.

The climax is one of the better actions scenes that The Walking Dead has put forward, and it delivers for the most part. I was a bit upset at the end, as there is at least one senseless death that seemed thrown in just to remind you that any choice you make has consequences, but there were also some really great moments, including one that calls back to Lily’s father Larry, and his incredible death during the first season. For the first time that I can recall as well, you are given the option to knock out the Raiders instead of simply ending their life, and I wonder how that will play into the overall narrative as this train comes to the end of its track.

Clementine’s story deserves to be finished, and this third episode does justice to the legacy of Telltale Games.

Episode 3 has left me wondering what's going to happen, but passively so. I couldn't imagine feeling this way when I began the season, but obvious setbacks for the team have likely hindered inspiration and execution. I want to laud their efforts and sing their praises, especially considering everything that has happened, but the facts are that Episode 3 has only given the series buoyancy, which is hard to accept at this point in the season. While it is a positive experience, I can't help but feel lukewarm about poor Clementine's fate in this harsh world.