Unlike quite a lot of people, I wasn’t too fond of the first season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead game. Even only could finish the game on my second playthrough as I simply got bored of it somewhere in the middle of the second episode or so. But it had it’s moments and I did like the second season quite a bit more, despite a lot of its shortcomings. Because of that, however, I was never really looking forward to playing further games in the series until “eventually” and that eventuality finally happened.
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier is the third season of the “main” storyline in Telltale Games’ TWD story, continuing on from the first two seasons (and one little are rather insignificant DLC for the first game). Though, this time, focusing more on a new set of characters that just occasionally (but quite often) have run-ins with Clementine, who tends to the be the main focus of the other seasons. And despite liking her as a character, I liked that. In fact, I felt like having her as a secondary character made her a more interesting character as a result, since here you could see how experiences from previous games shaped her, while also sometimes being able to look at the world through her eyes, like in season 2. Also, as a result, it allowed the developers to tell truly new stories with new characters who could have completely different chemistry between them without all the baggage of the previous games.
They could have. They don’t often do, however and the problems that annoyed me back in the first game, and were somewhat lessened in the second, became apparent in this game again – game often cannot handle your choices normally and some scenes barely make any sense. While some characters do indeed have mood swings, even those who don’t might do something completely out of character just to force the scene, some situations and dialogue just comes out of nowhere and doesn’t make sense in the context of the story and the animations, at times, just break. I do like what the game tries to tell, but at times it felt as if the title was simply rushed, a sentiment that seems to be often shared about the game.
Michonne, on the other hand, is a self-contained and rather short story set in the TWD universe (and apparently the titular character is really important in the comics and the TV show, both of which I’m not experienced with nor have any interest in). And where A New Frontier suffers from being seemingly rushed rather evidently, Michonne has a benefit of being so quick, you don’t have time to notice issues. And that is what I liked about this standalone game most – it’s quick, it tells the story that it wants to tell really well and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. And if things get broken at times, they’re over so quickly you might not even notice it. It’s not a particularly exciting or new tale, but it’s a solid “zombie apocalypse story in a nutshell” that is well told and well directed. And while it might feel too short or too disconnected from the other TWD Telltale games for some, if you just want a good story-driven, choice-driven adventure about survival in the zombie apocalypse, the game’s got you covered.
As such, while I can see if people can get disappointed in both A New Frontier and Michonne, all for slightly different reasons, and they’re far from the best that Telltale could do (as evidenced in likes of Tales from Borderlands), I enjoyed both games and I didn’t get bored, like I did with a lot of Season 1. Not something I’d specifically recommend getting, but if you’re interested in the setting, definitely grab them on a discount.