(SPOILERS)
If Season 2 was a step forward in the right direction after the first game, this game is a GIGANTIC LEAP BACKWARDS. I honestly have no idea what Telltale was thinking when they decided to go in the direction they did for this game.
Immediately out of the gate you are put off by the game, simply from the fact that we, for some strange reason, are NOT playing as Clementine. It's not like this is a completely separate story from the first two seasons, though, Clementine is in this game, you just don't play as her. Instead, you play as the most boring, nothing character on the planet. Javi is just a good dude who wants to protect his family. Which is fine, but its not interesting in the slightest, and the game has nothing to say about Javi in specific, so there's no reason we should be playing as him.
But, as much criticism I have for Javi, the other characters are somehow worse. Would you believe me if I told you that the main conflict in this game is "my thought-to-be-dead brother's wife wants to have an affair with me". And even worse, the game FORCES you to partake in this, you don't have a choice. Which makes no fucking sense, because Javi's only character trait is that he loves his family, so the fact that the game establishes that, before you even make any choices for Javi, he was ALREADY PURSUING HAVING AN AFFAIR is just mind-boggling. Kate, Javi's brothers partner, is awful. Her son, Gabe, is awful. The brother is the "villain", and he's honestly kind of justified with his reactions to everything that is going on, but the whole premise is just absurd that it doesn't even matter.
This game also does Clementine an incredible injustice by having the player essentially fill in the holes for what happened between Season 2 and now, which, first of all, why wasn't the game just that? It would have been much more interesting to see Clementine's struggle with the group that takes AJ captive, but no. Second of all, the choices you can make for her are shitty, and don't feel like choices that you would want to make, or that Clementine would reasonably make, either. It's total character assassination.
Finally, at the end of all of this, you get PUNISHED for taking the good route and NOT having an affair, and then close to the end of the game, you resume control of Clementine and rescue AJ, and the fourth season NEVER MENTIONS ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THIS SEASON AGAIN. It was literally all for nothing. I honestly just can't fathom why this game exists in this form, why did we need to play as Javi, why tell this story about his family, if it's not even going to affect Clementine or the rest of the overarching story as a whole in the end.
Pair the absolutely shitty characters with the most predictable and uninteresting story Telltale has put out to date, and you have a recipe for disaster. I will admit that, since the game is already making me mad that I'm not playing the game as Clementine, I was looking at it more critically. But, man, this game's story is so by-the-books and predictable that I just didn't care what choices I made anymore. The previous season does a good job at masking the illusion of choice from the player. This game does not. It is blatantly obvious that your choices don't matter, and I was guessing the outcomes of everything before they even happened.
This season of Telltale's The Walking Dead is just a dumpster fire. It has the worst story and characters BY FAR, and actively tries to alienate itself from the player the entire time. Thank god the final season corrects all of this game's mistakes.
If Season 2 was a step forward in the right direction after the first game, this game is a GIGANTIC LEAP BACKWARDS. I honestly have no idea what Telltale was thinking when they decided to go in the direction they did for this game.
Immediately out of the gate you are put off by the game, simply from the fact that we, for some strange reason, are NOT playing as Clementine. It's not like this is a completely separate story from the first two seasons, though, Clementine is in this game, you just don't play as her. Instead, you play as the most boring, nothing character on the planet. Javi is just a good dude who wants to protect his family. Which is fine, but its not interesting in the slightest, and the game has nothing to say about Javi in specific, so there's no reason we should be playing as him.
But, as much criticism I have for Javi, the other characters are somehow worse. Would you believe me if I told you that the main conflict in this game is "my thought-to-be-dead brother's wife wants to have an affair with me". And even worse, the game FORCES you to partake in this, you don't have a choice. Which makes no fucking sense, because Javi's only character trait is that he loves his family, so the fact that the game establishes that, before you even make any choices for Javi, he was ALREADY PURSUING HAVING AN AFFAIR is just mind-boggling. Kate, Javi's brothers partner, is awful. Her son, Gabe, is awful. The brother is the "villain", and he's honestly kind of justified with his reactions to everything that is going on, but the whole premise is just absurd that it doesn't even matter.
This game also does Clementine an incredible injustice by having the player essentially fill in the holes for what happened between Season 2 and now, which, first of all, why wasn't the game just that? It would have been much more interesting to see Clementine's struggle with the group that takes AJ captive, but no. Second of all, the choices you can make for her are shitty, and don't feel like choices that you would want to make, or that Clementine would reasonably make, either. It's total character assassination.
Finally, at the end of all of this, you get PUNISHED for taking the good route and NOT having an affair, and then close to the end of the game, you resume control of Clementine and rescue AJ, and the fourth season NEVER MENTIONS ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THIS SEASON AGAIN. It was literally all for nothing. I honestly just can't fathom why this game exists in this form, why did we need to play as Javi, why tell this story about his family, if it's not even going to affect Clementine or the rest of the overarching story as a whole in the end.
Pair the absolutely shitty characters with the most predictable and uninteresting story Telltale has put out to date, and you have a recipe for disaster. I will admit that, since the game is already making me mad that I'm not playing the game as Clementine, I was looking at it more critically. But, man, this game's story is so by-the-books and predictable that I just didn't care what choices I made anymore. The previous season does a good job at masking the illusion of choice from the player. This game does not. It is blatantly obvious that your choices don't matter, and I was guessing the outcomes of everything before they even happened.
This season of Telltale's The Walking Dead is just a dumpster fire. It has the worst story and characters BY FAR, and actively tries to alienate itself from the player the entire time. Thank god the final season corrects all of this game's mistakes.