This review contains spoilers
Don't you kind of miss when Telltale actually attempted to make point-n-click adventure games? Seriously, both Season Two and A New Frontier have so few puzzles and explorable hub worlds compared to Season One, and it especially feels like A New Frontier has almost dropped the concept entirely. Whenever puzzles are presented, they're usually the only thing the player can do in that sequence, and while The Walking Dead never had Sierra-level puzzle complexity (or unfairness) Season One still required some degree of exploration and thought to solve. The game consists primarily of cutscenes even moreso than before, and while this isn't strictly a bad approach, I miss how they used to be more interaction-heavy. This isn't an A New Frontier exclusive problem, mind you, Season Two suffers from it as well, but it feels more excessive here.
Regardless, the story is what everyone plays these for, right? A New Frontier unfortunately feels very unfocused, with a lot of elements that threaten to be interesting individually but as a whole never entirely come together. The story works overall, it's not filled with holes nor is it offensively bad, but it feels like it stretches itself thin with too many character relationships that either aren't fleshed out enough or get more attention over others. For example, I found the brother love/hate dynamic between Javier and David to be surprisingly realistic and I'm genuinely happy that Telltale restrained themselves from making David out to be a total monster despite his flaws, showing him in a fairly empathetic light and allowing the player to respond in kind. However, although Javi is a fairly fleshed-out character with a detailed backstory and a decent amount of depth, I can't say the same for David. It feels like his character amounts to being angry, yelling, and wishing he could return to the battlefield, and while he's performed and written convincingly enough it feels like his relationship with Javi and his personal demons take a backseat to a fairly standard love triangle scenario which I can't say I find nearly as interesting. Javi and Kate do have good chemistry, and I won't deny I was hoping they'd get together, but I sincerely think less of a focus on this would have made both the narrative and themes stronger. The rest of the supporting characters I feel very lukewarm on. I can't say I outright hate any of them, but they just feel so bland. Characters such as Tripp or Jesus might be personable, but their development is minor at best and while they had their enjoyable moments I wouldn't be able to tell you anything about them that wasn't surface-level. Joan is a weakly executed antagonist because while her backstory and character do make sense within the world setting, you only get one scene where you see a side of her that isn't "I'm a big evil villain but I think I'm doing what's right" and it's so unbelievably rushed and on the nose that I didn't hesitate to just shoot her and get it all over with when given the chance. Finally, perhaps the biggest writing problem with A New Frontier is the pervasive feeling of "Haven't I done this before?" A lot of what these characters embody and go through can be mirrored in the previous games and I never got the feeling that I was playing something truly original. Joan is a "nicer" Carver, Tripp is a less belligerent and family-driven Kenny, and so on. There's not strictly a whole lot that is wrong with this story as much as it is kind of bland. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to appreciate here. Javi is a rock-solid protagonist, and even if it doesn't get enough of a spotlight, his relationship and dynamic with David are investing and realistic. This is still an alright story, one that has major flaws, but one that has enjoyable elements nonetheless.
Visually speaking I always found that Telltale games, despite their lower production values, succeeded in having stylish, comic-influenced art direction that made up for a lot of the graphical flaws they may have had. A New Frontier was produced around the time Telltale was heavily upgrading their aging Telltale Tool engine to feature more advanced technology, but certain artistic decisions made during development caused it to feel like both a step forward and a step back. On one hand, environments boast greater detail than ever before, and the areas Javi and his crew traverse will be more richly and densely detailed than in prior games. Textures now feature normal and specular maps, which give them greater depth and realism than the rather flat texture work of prior games. Sometimes the specular seems to edge towards clashing with the art direction, but it's never egregious enough to break immersion. The big step back for me, however, is the characters' faces. Although they feature much greater fidelity than prior games, oddly enough they're a lot stiffer and less expressive too. The actual facial construction is fairly strange as well, and characters such as Tripp and Eleanor look like they're made out of a sack of potatoes. Questionable modeling aside, they're not nearly stylized to fit with the art direction, and almost look like they're from a different series. I much preferred the more stylized character designs of previous games and I hope later entries hit a better balance between fidelity and stylization. Something that has remained fairly dependable however is Jared Emerson-Johnson's original score, which while not drastically different from prior games still suitably carries the mood and tone effectively. The power of certain scenes was certainly carried by the score, and if I'm not mistaken, I felt there were more electronic elements here too which were not unwelcome.
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier feels like the weak link in the series, at least compared to the first two games. While I don't think it's even close to being as awful as other people make it out to be, it struggles with balancing character threads, flat side characters, a lack of originality, a lack of puzzles, and questionable artistic changes. Despite this, however, the game still has the engagingly complicated relationship between two brothers, a fleshed-out and likable protagonist, densely detailed environments, and a dependable and effective score. It's difficult to recommend this overall with all of its flaws, but fans of The Walking Dead shouldn't skip it, even if they may find it occasionally frustrating as I did.
Regardless, the story is what everyone plays these for, right? A New Frontier unfortunately feels very unfocused, with a lot of elements that threaten to be interesting individually but as a whole never entirely come together. The story works overall, it's not filled with holes nor is it offensively bad, but it feels like it stretches itself thin with too many character relationships that either aren't fleshed out enough or get more attention over others. For example, I found the brother love/hate dynamic between Javier and David to be surprisingly realistic and I'm genuinely happy that Telltale restrained themselves from making David out to be a total monster despite his flaws, showing him in a fairly empathetic light and allowing the player to respond in kind. However, although Javi is a fairly fleshed-out character with a detailed backstory and a decent amount of depth, I can't say the same for David. It feels like his character amounts to being angry, yelling, and wishing he could return to the battlefield, and while he's performed and written convincingly enough it feels like his relationship with Javi and his personal demons take a backseat to a fairly standard love triangle scenario which I can't say I find nearly as interesting. Javi and Kate do have good chemistry, and I won't deny I was hoping they'd get together, but I sincerely think less of a focus on this would have made both the narrative and themes stronger. The rest of the supporting characters I feel very lukewarm on. I can't say I outright hate any of them, but they just feel so bland. Characters such as Tripp or Jesus might be personable, but their development is minor at best and while they had their enjoyable moments I wouldn't be able to tell you anything about them that wasn't surface-level. Joan is a weakly executed antagonist because while her backstory and character do make sense within the world setting, you only get one scene where you see a side of her that isn't "I'm a big evil villain but I think I'm doing what's right" and it's so unbelievably rushed and on the nose that I didn't hesitate to just shoot her and get it all over with when given the chance. Finally, perhaps the biggest writing problem with A New Frontier is the pervasive feeling of "Haven't I done this before?" A lot of what these characters embody and go through can be mirrored in the previous games and I never got the feeling that I was playing something truly original. Joan is a "nicer" Carver, Tripp is a less belligerent and family-driven Kenny, and so on. There's not strictly a whole lot that is wrong with this story as much as it is kind of bland. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to appreciate here. Javi is a rock-solid protagonist, and even if it doesn't get enough of a spotlight, his relationship and dynamic with David are investing and realistic. This is still an alright story, one that has major flaws, but one that has enjoyable elements nonetheless.
Visually speaking I always found that Telltale games, despite their lower production values, succeeded in having stylish, comic-influenced art direction that made up for a lot of the graphical flaws they may have had. A New Frontier was produced around the time Telltale was heavily upgrading their aging Telltale Tool engine to feature more advanced technology, but certain artistic decisions made during development caused it to feel like both a step forward and a step back. On one hand, environments boast greater detail than ever before, and the areas Javi and his crew traverse will be more richly and densely detailed than in prior games. Textures now feature normal and specular maps, which give them greater depth and realism than the rather flat texture work of prior games. Sometimes the specular seems to edge towards clashing with the art direction, but it's never egregious enough to break immersion. The big step back for me, however, is the characters' faces. Although they feature much greater fidelity than prior games, oddly enough they're a lot stiffer and less expressive too. The actual facial construction is fairly strange as well, and characters such as Tripp and Eleanor look like they're made out of a sack of potatoes. Questionable modeling aside, they're not nearly stylized to fit with the art direction, and almost look like they're from a different series. I much preferred the more stylized character designs of previous games and I hope later entries hit a better balance between fidelity and stylization. Something that has remained fairly dependable however is Jared Emerson-Johnson's original score, which while not drastically different from prior games still suitably carries the mood and tone effectively. The power of certain scenes was certainly carried by the score, and if I'm not mistaken, I felt there were more electronic elements here too which were not unwelcome.
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier feels like the weak link in the series, at least compared to the first two games. While I don't think it's even close to being as awful as other people make it out to be, it struggles with balancing character threads, flat side characters, a lack of originality, a lack of puzzles, and questionable artistic changes. Despite this, however, the game still has the engagingly complicated relationship between two brothers, a fleshed-out and likable protagonist, densely detailed environments, and a dependable and effective score. It's difficult to recommend this overall with all of its flaws, but fans of The Walking Dead shouldn't skip it, even if they may find it occasionally frustrating as I did.