-
This game is pretty poor in doing what it says it is going to do. The reality of it is that your choices affect absolutely smurf all.
Huge spoilers duhTake Mira. You're going to get accused of murder no matter what. Did you choose not to kill the guy in question? Doesn't matter. Did you throw the knife into the bushes instead of keeping it? Doesn't matter. Are you in the good graces of both Margaery and Cersei or even just one of them? Doesn't smurfing matter. You're getting thrown in jail.
And how smurfing ridiculous is it that a lady of a noble house gets executed on the say so of a smurfing random lumber merchant with zero proof for the murder of a random bumsmurf lowborn guard? Without even a god damn trial? Even Tyrion got a trial for murdering the trout out of Joffrey. It would've been an improvement if they'd had a trial and you had various people like Margaery, Cersei, Sera, coal boy etc. come as witnesses for you and then how you've treated everyone affects the testimony they give. But nope.
Ironrath is ridiculous too. There is no choice to be made because no matter what you do, whether Rodrik is Lord, Asher is Lord or whether you want to sue for peace and surrender to the Whitehills there is still going to be a smurfing bloodbath. If you surrender, Lady Forrester stabs Ludd anyway and the Whitehills attack Ironrath. If you are Rodrik, you attack the camp and can kill either Ludd or Gryff and then the Whitehills attack Ironrath. If you're Asher, you can either kill Ludd (poison) or Gryff (ambush) and then yes they attack Ironrath. Do you choose to guard the smallfolk or the gate? Doesn't matter, gate is still getting bashed in.
I also am let down because they kept saying "Oh yes we need Garred, Asher and Mira's help to survive!" Garred has had absolutely smurf all impact on Ironrath whatsoever. Mira was a potentially interesting one, where you could forge the letter and get Elaena to marry you and you have a tricky choice, do you make one character vulnerable to strengthen the position of another? ...except if you don't forge the letter she'll want to smurfing marry you anyway. Not that it makes any difference to the defence of Ironrath because the Glenmores are all dead before then. Why is she smurfing about with all these random lumber merchants or getting Margaery onside when none of them help? Same for Asher. Oh yes, we need to hire all these sellswords you can't fail our house in this... except you can't not hire them and they all die anyway.
I appreciate there's always going to be limitations on these things but when this is the whole defining point of your game you expect more. And I mean how hard would it have been to set it so that if Mira was successful in brokering an Ironwood deal you get extra Ironwood defences in the battle which stops (random character X) dying. Or Asher can fail or succeed in hiring the sellswords and if he doesn't you can't kill that bearded prick (you know who I mean) Whitehill guy as idk the sellswords are needed to surround him. Or maybe you can choose to hire either a Dothraki Horde or a Ghiscari Legion and choosing the former gives you the opportunity to do a LotR stye glorious charge out the gates while the latter sees you turtling up. Let us have some meaningful impact on this battle given that's what the last five episodes have been building up to.
The worst thing about it is that there is just a never ending torrent of loss and humiliation. Yes, yes, it's Game of Thrones. Except, and I've made this point in the TV show thread, there's still triumphs and victories for all characters too. Jon becomes commander, Arya gets revenge on the people on her list, Robb becomes King in the North etc. Yes, they get a trout sandwich each and I'm not saying that's a problem, but what victories, even little ones, have the Forresters had? We punched Gryff once, I guess? I suppose we killed Ludd while sacrificing our mother to do so?
I can understand why they'd want to do multiple seasons of GoT given what a huge franchise it is right now, but surely the best way to do it would just be to start over with new characters so that choices have meaning? Keep Garred and one or two others, then introduce a new house. The Forresters get a good or bad ending depending on what you do. Not a bad ending with specified characters surviving and dying no matter what.
-
-
I kept forgetting Mira was a noble because how many nobles become handmaidens for other Houses?
-
just play tales from the borderlands - 100% better than this noise
ugh what was even the point of any of this
-
To capitalize on a popular selling franchise to make money.
But this seem to be a pattern, I notice. During the development of The Wolf Among Us, they were also working on TWD Season 2. The former saw great success, and the latter fell under a lot more criticism.
This time around they were working on Tales from the Borderland and Game of Thrones, and the former saw great success while the latter received far more criticism.
I'm starting to think Telltale should just focus on one game at a time.
-
I was meaning more what was the point of anything we did over the course of the Season rather than what was the point of the game. I understand why it exists.
Anyway. Disagree - if they were focusing on one game at a time then they would focus on the flagship titles, so Wolf and Blands wouldn't even exist. :3
-
I totally agree that it'd be great if your decisions had larger scale consequences, but honestly, for me that's a rather minor problem. The consequences of your actions in this game weren't much smaller than most other Telltale games I've played and probably larger than Wolf Among Us - though admittedly, you come to expect quite a butterfly effect in the world of GoT simply by association with the books and show.
Maybe it's just my disproportionate fondness for the Telltale formula, which I thought worked exceedingly well with GoT's multi-character type story. I thoroughly enjoyed affecting each character's personality in different directions (even though my complaint from episode 1 still stands, that the personality choices mostly seems to be passionate & reckless vs. cunning & sycophantic).
-
I still feel that I accomplished more in The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, then I have playing a single second of Game of Thrones.
